HBP Logic

So last week Joba Chamberlain hits Kevin Youkilis. The score was 1-0 Yanks and the announcers go out of their way to tell us that no way would Joba throw at Youkilis in such a tight game. Oh and they have a history.

Flash forward to Tuesday night. O's pitcher Daniel Cabrera plunks Alex Rodriguez after A-Rod had homered off of him a few innings earlier and gets tossed. The O's are leading 6-1 at the time and the announcers tell us since this game is a rout, there is no way that was intentional.

Let me get this straight. A pitcher doesn't throw at a hitter when it's a close game because the game is tight. But a pitcher also doesn't throw at a hitter if he has a comfortable lead because, well, he has a comfortable lead.

This makes no sense. Odds are Joba did throw at Youkilis. For whatever reason he doesn't like him. And Cabrera definately threw at A-Rod just as he has thrown at other hitters.

Be nice if the announcers had a clue.

Gold In That Glitter After All

After being initially dismissive of Jesse Malin's latest effort, I've come around. While it can't touch The Fine Art of Self Destruction (what could?) and I can't stand the title, it's actually pretty good.

Does this mean I have to try to listen to The Heat again? Jeez, what is with this guy and album titles that would work better for Journey or REO Speedwagon?

Taking A Stand (Or, Not So Nice Rack After All)

Actress Kiera Knightly is saying no to fake breasts. She apparently has vetoed poster art for her new movie that enhances her bosom.

ABC News wasted a good five minutes on Good Morning America using this story as a hook to go out and interview young women about breasts. The reporter actually asked a woman why she thinks Hollywood does this.

Let me field that one. Men like big boobs.

And why did ABC do this story? Because they're run by boobs.

Don't get me wrong. Good for Ms. Knightly. But since ABC didn't have an interview with her or anyone in her camp or even a statement from her as far as I can tell, they used this story as to titillate rather than educate.

Relief

Don't need much to get by these days
Just wake me up and put me to bed
Won't try to get lost in the haze
Won't try to live in my head

Don't want anymore
The money won't get me what I need
It's enough to feel useful instead of feeling sore
That brings the relief

Even when it's cloudy, the sun is out
Even when the storm is here, I don't have to run
Even if I'm losing, it's not a rout
Even if I'm alone, doesn't mean I'm shunned

So just get me through the now
And I won't worry about the later
If you can show me how
Maybe down the road I'll return the favor

In The 313

I was born and lived my early years in Detroit. Not the suburbs. Not Royal Oak. Not Southfield. Certainly not Grosse Pointe. No I was a real Detroiter and spent the first years of my life between Seven Mile Road and Eight Mile Road on a street called Fairfield on the block between Curtis and Thatcher.

I remember all this because back then it was important to remember that stuff. I was only allowed to walk to the end of the block when I was a little kid. But when it was time for me to go to school, it wasn't long until I was walking to Hampton Elementary School on my own. At least that's how I recall it. My brother was supposed to walk me home and did for awhile, but one day he forgot about me. It was a real windy fall day and I stayed at that school along holding tightly to the fence waiting for someone to come. I can't remember if my mom came and got me or I figured out how to get home on my own. In my mind I think it was the latter, but in reality it was probably the former. Regardless, it wasn't long after that I figured the best way to get myself to and from school was to get myself to and from school.

Being a Detroit public school, it was majority black. My parents were the last of the great white liberals at that time, or they were lazy. Either way, we stayed in the city a lot longer than most whites. Our particular neighborhood was relatively safe, but the number of break-ins was growing and my mom recently reminded me of the big spotlight we had in the backyard that was kept on all night long.

I had a good time in elementary school. I had long hair for a little kid. The black girls used to love to play with my hair in class. My best friends were black. In fact, pretty much my only friends were black. The teachers were black, the principal, etc. There were not any racial problems. I got into fights, but they were fights alongside the black kids against other black kids. At that age, we're too young to notice things like skin color.

This was a few years after much of Detroit burned in the riots. My Dad covered the riots then. My brother recalls a picture of him interviewing a group of young, angry black men down on 12th while police were holding back other crowds. I was only two when the riots happened, so I don't have any memory of it at all. In 1968, when King was killed, there were riots in lots of cities, but Detroit kept its cool. I have a memory that is probably false of being in a car with my father when news of the assassination came over the radio and him then racing home to drop me off and go back out to report.

I have another distinct memory that I don't believe is false. Down the street from us was this one house that was occupied by a group of black men with the big afros, the whole works. There was always a Mustang 302 parked in front. That house scared the shit out of me. Those were some serious looking mother fuckers (shut your mouth). They would hang on their front porch smoking and looking angry. One day when I was walking home from school and they were hanging there one of them pointed his hand at me like a gun. I took off for the front door. I'm sure it gave them a good laugh.

We moved out of Detroit in 1973. I was only in second grade. My older brothers have much richer memories of our life there. They remember my Dad taking them to the 1968 series. They remember Lions games at Tiger Stadium. I remember trips to my grandmother's apartment in a much tougher neighborhood than ours. Grandma would not leave the neighborhood even though all the other Jews and whites had long cleared out. One time she was walking home with groceries and some kids grabbed them from her. But a couple of older kids in the neighborhood made the punks give the groceries back. She stayed on Dexter Avenue until the early 1980s when she was finally persuaded to go into assisted living.

I was happy in Detroit, at least living there. Our family was fucked up, but it would've been fucked up anywhere. If we hadn't moved to Jersey, sooner or later we would've moved to the suburbs of Detroit and I'm glad that didn't happen. When we moved to Montclair, I immediately became friends with all the black kids. When my mom went to a parent-teacher conference, the teacher told her, "all the black kids love your son, he talks just like they do."

A little time in Montclair took care of that and ironically when my parents split up a few years later and I found myself living in that town's black neighborhood (yes Montclair had a black neighborhood), I really was an outsider.

Run

Thought I was done
That I didn't want it anymore
Thought I was too tired for another run
That I wouldn't walk back in that door

But you pulled me back in
With your promises and dreams
Took me back to my sins
Made me forget my screams

Now I can't go back
I've already forgotten the way it was
Now I'm stuck on your rack
Pulled apart and lost

Can't walk down the same streets anymore
I'm stuck hiding in my room
I'm beaten and I'm sore
Oh to get back to the womb

Another Day

Another day coming to its end
And I sit here on the sidelines watching

Another day that I let go by
And I will never get it back again

Another day to say why
And I wonder where you went

Another day to be feeling
And I wish I could escape it

Another day I didn't face my fears
And I wish I had

Another day that passed me by
And I sat there stuck in traffic

Another day of missed chances
And I replay them all in my head

Another day you slipped through me
And I don't know how many more I have

No I don't want these days anymore
I don't want keep living in the dark
No I don't want these days no more

Another day...

That Was A Save?

An old rant I know, but why the fuck should Mariano Rivera get a save for coming in and facing one batter after the other relief pitcher spoils Moose's shutout? This brings me to my second point. Why the fuck did Moose get pulled after pitching eight shutout innings?

What has happened to this game?

Disappear Here

Headed out of town for a couple of days. A chance to cease to exist in my world.
Dangerous.


Always a brief thrill to be in a strange land with no history or histrionics.

Drowning

Once in high school me and some guys broke into the swimming pool. We started messing around, throwing the coach's furniture into the pool, that sort of thing. Then we all jumped in the pool and the horseplay continued.

Except me. I almost drowned. I never learned how to swim so I had no business being in a pool in the first place. While everyone else was fucking around and having fun I somehow ended up in the deep end of the pool and literally started to go under. The panic set in. I begun to fight the urge to actually drown, which of course made it more likely that I would drown. No one else noticed. It was the longest thirty seconds of my life. I somehow got to the edge and pulled myself out. Good thing too because if I had drowned, odds are my friends would've left my body there to cover their own asses. Maybe that's not fair, maybe they would've pulled me out and tried to save me, but most kids in that situation would've panicked and taken off.

Several years later I again found myself in the deep end of a pool, this time with a girlfriend who did pull me out. She probably has no recollection of this but I do. Like any good drowning victim, I fought off her attempts to drag me out of the pool. It's like being in a skid. You're supposed to turn into the skid and not slam the breaks but that is not the natural the impulse.

I really should learn how to swim, but to do that would mean giving up a resentment about it I've carried pretty much my whole life. While my three older brothers all got swimming lessons, I never did. They all learned at the Detroit Jewish Community Center. By the time I was born, my mom and dad had given up on the illusion that they were parents. And as the years went on, it just became this embarrassing thing for me. In high school, we had to take swimming. But I went to a D.C. public school and needless to say it didn't take much to fake my way through that class. Hell, maybe I blew a great lawsuit for my mom. She could've sued them after I drowned for negligence. Never mind that I broke into the pool in the first place.

I have always had this idea that if I could just learn to swim, my pain would lift, my misery would fade. It's crap, I know that. But at the same time, I'm also afraid to learn to swim because then what will I do with that rage I've carried all these years at my parents for the crappy job they did?

Now I know that anger needs to go and this may be one silly way to do it. There are classes. I would need an individual class. Hell, I can afford it. And while I don't expect this to be that breakthrough moment, it couldn't hurt. I've dragged these bags around long enough and my back isn't as strong as it used to be and the bags are only hurting me anyway.

Without You

Without you
I'm just trying to get through a day

Without you
I'm just trying to get on the train

Without you
I'm just trying to walk down the street

Without you
I'm just trying to stay out of the heat

Got you stuck in replay
Your lips on mine
Our legs entwined
I'm just caught in your sway

What do I have to do
To get you out of my head
What do I have to do
To keep you out of my bed

Without you
I'm just trying to get home

Without you
I'm just trying to make my way

Without you
I'm just trying to be alone

Without you
I'm just trying to pray

Got you stuck inside me
Digging your nails into my veins
Spilling out on the sidewalk like rain
I'm going fast can't you see

Where will I go
That you can't follow
Where will I go
And not be swallowed

Without you
I'm just trying to breathe

Without you

Life Lessons

Part of Rambler's job is booking people to speak or be interviewed. Having landed a fairly prominent executive, I wanted to get someone good to conduct the interview, someone who is very familiar with the executive and his company rather than just have the interview conducted by our in-house leader who sometimes doesn't exactly ask probing or challenging questions that our audience would like to hear.

I orchestrated a decent approach to try to put my subversive plan for good content into play, suggesting to our leader that the executive had proposed having this outsider do the interview. I knew the odds were long, our leader likes to be out front and said executive is prominent in the business to which we cater. Still I thought I'd had a pretty good shot.

Rejected!

My leader said she would like to conduct the interview because her doing it is important from a (not making this up) content branding perspective.

Huh?

I'm just trying to put together a compelling, or at least not totally boring, event. One way to do that is to have good interviewers. That, to me, is how one builds a brand.

But, as a colleague pointed out, this is a reminder that "the point isn't what's best for the organization...the point is what's best for the people who run it."

I'll Take The Blame

All that anger
wasted on me

Call me what you want
Don't think those names really fit though
But if it makes you feel better
I'll take the blame

You can pile it all on me
Been building my strength just for this moment
Won't change how I feel and I can't change what I did

Make out to be a monster
Compare me to psychos and users
Both know it's more complicated than that
Or am I the one making excuses?

This Bud's For Who?

First they came for our auto manufacturers
And I didn't speak up

Then they came for our real estate
And I didn't speak up

Then they came for our studios
And I didn't speak up

Then they came for our strippers
And I didn't speak up

Then they came for our beer
And I'd stopped drinking so who cares?

OK, tried to have a little fun there. Seriously, it does bug me that Anheuser-Busch is now owned by InBev. It just doesn't seem right. I know, Bud is piss. But it's our piss. Far be it from me to stand in the way of free trade and the folks at Bud and their shareholders can do whatever they want. And lord knows Warren Buffet needs a couple more billion too. So much for August Busch IV's line of bull in April that A-B wouldn't be sold on his watch.

I haven't been this sad since Monty Burns sold the power plant to the Germans.

What's With?

It's an old question that has bugged me for sometime and it came up today at the softball game. Why do some youthful urbanites keep the size stickers on the bill of their baseball caps?

Who started this trend? How long will it go on? Why does it bother me? It's the last question that is most significant.

Bobby Murcer 1946-2008

A class act who never really got his due, Murcer had the misfortune of replacing a legend and playing for a storied franchise during one of its darkest periods. Nonetheless, he played with abandon and pride. He put on one of the single greatest performances by a Yankee in the Bombers return to the field after the funeral of Thurman Munson, driving in all five runs in a come from behind victory against the Orioles. As an announcer, he was a homer but not afraid to criticize when it was needed. As much anger and rage Billy Martin brought to the number number one, Murcer brought respect and dignity to number one.

Brushback Pitch

Vornado Realty Trust, one of the companies intent on destroying our skyline and neighborhoods with grandiose development and corprification, is cutting back on its plans to block out the sky on 125th Street. Apparently, it's having trouble renting out space for its planned 21-story monstrosity that will also house the Major League Baseball cable channel. Now it will only be a 14-story blight.

As City Assemblyman Keith Wright said, "What the political forces couldn't do, economic reality has forced upon them." Most residents of Harlem were against this building. Of course, that didn't stop Mayor Moses, I mean Bloomberg, from steamrolling through that and offering tax breaks and incentives to Vornado and MLB to build this over-the-top hi-rise.

But apparently they are having trouble renting space. Not surprisingly, one of the early tenants of the building is supposed to be Inner City Broadcasting, the small radio operator founded by Percy Sutton, one of the out for himself while he acts like he's out for you political bosses of Harlem. Don't know how many rent controlled apartments he has, but for now at least they haven't signed a lease.

I'm not against all development. Neighborhoods change. But does every new development have to be some John Holmes motherfucker letting everyone know how big his dick is?

Worth The Walk

Saw you in my dreams again
You always get the best part
Woke me out of my coma today
Won't you let me be more than your friend

I'll take whatever you give me
A little water is better than none at all
I'll keep showing up, I'll keep waiting
Until that day comes when you finally believe

That I'm the one worth a shot
That I'm the one who won't flee
I know what those others did
They were what I'm not

I'll show up for you
If you show up for me
But I'm not going to chase
That'll only get me black and blue

Whatever the doubts
That keep you at bay
Put away those fears
Or at least live them out loud.

I'm not about stalk
Really, too lazy for that
I'm just the guy
Worth that walk

I want to get lost in your eyes
Rest your head on my chest
Lock your hand in mine
And lets go on this ride

Vintage When?

Catching up on my Swingtown. The two male teens go to a record store called "Vintage Vinyl." Uh, it's 1976 on this show, I don't think anything was "vintage" then. But what do I know? I was too busy sneaking rum from the booze cabinet and listening to my brother's copy of "Rock & Roll Animal" to know what was going on.

Fallen Angels

Violated
And you don't even know it

Torn apart
And you can't even feel it

Used
And you think it's all part of the game

Been battered for so long
You never knew how to feel
Managed to fool yourself
In the name of being cool

Detached from reality
Disengaged from your body
Convinced this is the way


Blade Digs
Deep into your skin

Draw blood
Only way you feel

Take the pill
Numb it all away

Let him in
Doesn't matter if you don't want it
You can't say no
Because you think you're on top

Victim as victor
That's what you sold yourself
And you keep spreading that message
Just as you keep spreading yourself

Tough Acting
Only fooling the fools

Tossed aside
Doesn't really matter

Give it rough
But their scars will heal

And what will you have then
When you see your powerful is powerless
You realize that you gave it away
And they gave nothing back

One day you'll see
When the bed is empty
And the pills are gone
the pain lives on

New Rules

Yes, it's a sad day when Rambler is stealing from Bill Maher, but what the fuck, Maher once hit on my girlfriend when I was living in LA so this is payback.

Anyway, new rules.

1) If you didn't live in NYC in the 70's or 80's, stop writing about it like you did. Don't go on about the demise of the meatpacking district and how sad that is when in fact it's your generation that has led to its demise. Don't bemoan the days of trannies and burnt out buildings when you weren't there to see them in the first place.

2) Don't tell me how dirty Tompkins Square Park is today. Puhleeze. I'd eat Chinese food off the cement in Tompkins today vs. even ten years ago. If that is your idea of dirty, head back to Massachusetts, Vermont or Wisconsin or wherever you came from.

3) If you are going to live here, learn how to use the subway. The other day this girl was telling me it takes her 45 minutes to get from the village to the upper east side. Why? Because she takes the 1 train to 79th and then takes a bus crosstown. How about taking an express to Times Square, grab the 7 or shuttle to Grand Central and take the 4,5,6 and be up there in thirty minutes? More trains doesn't mean more time.

4) Stop changing the names of neighborhoods so white people feel better about gentrifying them. SoHa? NoHa? Anything to avoid the dreaded "H" word. I'm waiting for Morningside Heights to become MoHe.

I welcome your additions.

Next Time Set Yourself On Fire

So Rambler got a little haircut. Actually, let me rephrase. Rambler got a lot of hair cut. Basically I got the "Lauer." My stylist (yes, Rambler has a stylist) tried to dissuade me from going so short, but I said lets just take a little more off (and then I kept on saying that). I'm at that point in my life where the less hair I have, the more hair it looks like I have.

Of course, in this case less is less but so what, it'll take two weeks or so to get back to my normal short length.

Anyway, the other day I'm seeing Hancock (yes, you can skip it) with a girl I like and her friend. The friend is there, no doubt, to remind me of my place in the friendzone with said girl. That's fine, I accept it. Rambler (I know, lots of third person on this one Xmastime!)has been told he needs to develop better skills relating to women, being friends with them, interacting, etc. I'm willing to play ball.

Nonetheless, I was a little taken aback that neither girl commented on this rather extreme haircut. Now, does it look so bad that it fell into the "if you can't say something nice" category or am I just so off the radar that it didn't even register that I looked like I was auditioning to be an extra in Prison Break?

I guess I could have brought it up. I can see that now.

Me: Hey, that Will Smith had a nice hair cut didn't he?
Them: (looking up from their conversation) Uh, yeah.
Me: Speaking of haircuts...
Them: (back to their own conversation) So what are you doing later?
Me: (Staring off into space, wondering if I can catch Zohan somewhere)

Did I mention $10 for popcorn and a bottle of water (or she stiffed me on some change)?

And yes, I realize this is all about my ego. So what. Sometimes that needs stroking too!

Falling Down

I'm running along Riverside Drive going over the bridge above 125th Street and (as usual) I look at the top of the fence, think about how easy it would be to climb up there and then jump. I picture myself floating for about half-a-second and then hitting the ground with a resounding thud.

I keep running and a few minutes later I trip and fall in slow motion. I first stick my hands out to brace myself, them remembering how I tore up the palms of my hands the last time I tripped while running and worried about breaking my wrists, I quickly turn my hands and try to land on my side. I'm somewhat successful. I only slightly scratch my palms and I get a scrape on the side of my hand. My face tastes some asphalt but fortunately no marks are left. Same for the knees.

Obviously it's a little weird to picture myself jumping off a bridge and then actually falling down just a few seconds later. I decided midway through the fall that I don't want to actually go that way. Too much time for regret.

The part I left out was that the reason I fell (I think) is that instead of paying attention to the sidewalk I was busy checking myself out in the reflections of the car windows while I was running.

Needless to say, the whole experience brought me crashing back to earth, in a good way.

Really, It's Research

Happy July 4.

Viacom has gotten a judge to give it access user data for everyone who has ever looked at video on YouTube as part of its $1 billion copyright suit against Google.

In other words, in between seeing what Daily Show or Beavis & Butt-Head clips I've looked at over the years, my friends at Viacom will also see how many times I typed in "girls kissing" into the search function. No, they won't have names, but they'll have IP addresses, which is just as good.

Of course, the legal debate over privacy is going to explode over this one. I'm not a privacy lawyer (yet, but I am thinking about it) and I'm not sure how I feel about this. I am enjoying that Google, which has in the past resisted concerns about privacy tried unsuccessfully to make a privacy argument against Viacom's motion.

Viacom, for what it is worth, says they aren't interested in hunting down the folks who looked at their content, but rather need the data to see overall what people look at on YouTube to determine how much copyrighted material played into the popularity of the site. That's code for YouTube is fucked. Without all the copyrighted material that YouTube has allowed users to post over years, the site would have never reached the heights it has. Yes, now original content can flourish there, but it took the use (illegal) of copyrighted content to put it on the map. It's no different then how every cable network gets going. First they buy reruns of popular shows and then when they start making money off of it, they create original programming. YouTube did the same thing. They just forgot the part about paying for the content.

YouTube and Google have always argued that when they are alerted to any copyright violations they immediately act. But see I don't think that argument washes. YouTube gets porn off there pretty quick and I'm guessing they do it without a legal letter from the general counsel of Evil Empire or Vivid. The YouTube defense is akin to me saying it is OK if I let people come over and put stolen goods on my lawn for anybody to take because technically I didn't steal it myself and I didn't know (wink) it was stolen. But if you come over and tell me that's your couch on my lawn, I'll gladly give it back to you. In other words, I'm with the old media giant vs. the new media giant in this one.

But this is all for another day. Right now I just want the folks at Viacom to know I was merely doing research on the levels of scintillating content on YouTube, that's all. Really. I'm serious.

Who's Best?

Anyone who knows me or has read this thing knows I'm a big Who fan. Yes, it is weird to say I'm a big fan of a group that last produced something relevant thirty years ago and has only two of its original four members left.

The world (or white men between the ages of 25-54) can usually be divided into four categories--Beatles fans, Stones fans, Who fans, and Zep fans. I was a Who fan first, then the Stones. I honestly was never much of a Beatle fan or a Zep fan. The stoners listened to Zep. The boozers listened to The Who and I was a boozer. There are, of course, subsets as well. There are Tommy fans, Quad fans, Who's Next fans, etc. and that too reveals much about a person. I was a Quad fan, although now I probably veer more towards Who's Next. Xmastime is a Face Dances fan, from what I hear. The same is true for Bruce fans. Some swear by Darkness, others think it is over produced and lacks a soul and live for Born to Run. Then you have the purists who think it all went down hill after The Wild and the Innocent.

I'm not a Who nut. I do not think everything they did was brilliant. Not everything was...wait for it...a masterpiece. But their best was usually pretty good. I've lately become engaged in a spirited debate over Pete Townshend's role in rock & roll. Yes, write the phrase `hope I die before I get old,' and you might get stuck with the voice of your generation label. Did Townshend relish this role? Yeah, he did. Like athletes, a lot of so-called rock gods aren't exactly the most articulate or intelligent folks in the world. You wouldn't likely discuss politics, our changing culture or the latest literary sensation with Lawrence Taylor or Angus Young. But there are some athletes and musicians that actually can string together some intelligent thoughts and Townshend is one of them. So he was given a platform. Townshend also can't help himself. He is a sure thing as an interview. He will always say something that will either make you think `brilliant,' or have you rolling your eyes.

Is he full of himself. Yes. Without a doubt. Do I care? Not really. Trust the art, not the artist. The guy has made a lot of music, some of it great, some it not so, but that's more than most of us will ever do in this world so if he wants to sound like a pompous twit on occasion, so be it.

Fans take these debates to a much higher level than the musicians themselves. I don't think John Lennon or Townshend spent a lot of time worrying who the voice of their generation was. I doubt Page and Clapton argued over who was the better guitar player.

That said, Moon could kick Bonham's ass.

The Wrong Jezebel

Remembering a July 3rd a longtime ago.

Most of the time, paying for one's pleasure was a crap shoot. Yeah, they say their sending over a nice slinky brunette, but instead you end up with a puffy blonde. Hey, you call someone at 2 a.m. and see if you get their best. It's the way of the world.

There were some exceptions. One was Jezebel. She kind of looked like Daphne from Frasier. So drawn to her was I that I became a steady customer despite her tendency to take things from my apartment upon leaving. Nothing of value mind you. A fare card here and there and once and a hairbrush (you learn early to leave nothing of real value out in the open). I almost convinced myself that she was setting me up for some crime since she now had hair and fingerprints.

My former shrink suggested that I should delicately confront her on this. He suggested saying, "I know you feel a compulsion to take something when you leave, so why don't we decide now what to take." I replied that I didn't think it was a good idea to suggest to someone working in this particular service industry that they were a thief and that while it is not a requirement, sometimes the folks in said industry are slightly off-balance and I wouldn't want to end up with a knife in my chest because I was worried about losing a paperweight.

It was a small price to pay. She never wanted a beverage and didn't partake in other substances either. Very professional girl.

Anyway, one July 3rd I'm doing my usual thing, getting incredibly loaded by myself There might have been a friend with me at the start of the night, I don't really remember. If there was, he was just someone to make me feel like I wasn't really alone when truth of the matter is that for the most part I loved getting fucked up myself. That is another one of those lines we cross when we go from getting wasted with friends to preferring to get wasted by ourselves.

When I rolled back home around 1 a.m. or so I called my place and asked for Jezebel. Sure, they said, she'd be right over. And about thirty minutes later the buzzer rang (is this a great country or what?). I opened the door and it wasn't my Jezebel. I wasn't naive enough to think that was her real name anyway, btw, I get the whole stage name thing. She might as well have called herself Johnny Bravo (`hey man, he fit the suit.')

Still, to me there was only one Jezebel and she wasn't it although she was quite fetching in her own right. She said that was the name they gave her for the evening when I explained I had been anticipating someone else.

Unlike the original, this one did enjoy a beer and other goodies and while it ended up being a thousand-dollar night that is still clear in my memories, at least nothing went missing from the apartment when she departed. And while I was to see the original Jezebel many more times after that night, Jezebel II never reappeared despite my efforts to find her again.

I don't tell this story because I miss all that shit. I don't tell it because of some gutter bravado or something. It's just something I was thinking about today.

Says It Better Than I Can

One thing though. What was it about mid-1980s videos being set in swimming pools. Did the same guy who directed this do "Cuts Like a Knife?"

Starbucks and Madonna II

They do have something in common. Once it was sort of cool to go there. Then both got big, started expanding their menu to please the masses and started spreading themselves to fit everyone. Now it/she has lost the cache.

Starbucks, A-Rod and Madonna, Oh My!

Starbucks to close 600 stores in U.S.
A-Rod linked to Madonna!

Are these related events? No. But figured I'd ramble on them at once rather than post two different items.

First Starbucks. It's the classic case of growing too fast and believing your own hype. Pikes Place stinks. They built too many stores and saturated neighborhoods (at least in big cities), which only served to alienate their core customers who no doubt got a little tired of feeling overwhelmed by the one chain they could stomach supporting. They also expanded to fast internally too with food items that no one needed--egg sandwiches, etc. The atmosphere changed and before you knew it the backlash started. Of the 600 stores, 300 are between 72nd and 100th Street on the Upper Westside.

Of course, part of this is driven by Wall Street. It's not enough to run a hugely successful franchise. It most grow by leaps and bounds or else the Street and The Wall Street Journal will start to find the clouds in that silver lining. So then you grow too fast and try to do too much and lo and behold your expenses rise, your revenues fall and suddenly your in trouble.

Now on to A-Rod and Madonna. If true, at least A-Rod's no ageist. Now I don't know Mrs. A-Rod but I do know she looks pretty damn hot and any chick who shows up at the stadium in the `Fuck You' shirt gets my vote. Madonna, come on A-Rod that would be interesting if it was 1998, maybe.

Quiet Time

Gotta watch everything I say
Never know what will send someone off
I really try to behave
But sooner or later I toss...

One little crack just to cut into you
One little line just to smack you
One little dig at your soul
One little look to send you back to your hole

You try to call me on it
And spit back at me
And I feel like shit
And wonder why I'm lonely

Come to a point in the road
Go this way and stay out of trouble
Go that way and sink like a stone
We know which way I'll go, head for the rumble

They say restraint of pen and tongue
They say it's no business what others think you see
But sometimes that doesn't sound like much fun
Shouldn't it work the other way too for me

Not To Say

Fade me
Back into submission
Take me down that hallway again
Lost my innocence long ago
Actually you took it from me
Remember that?
Said not to say anything
And now it's stuck in me
Eating away until there's nothing left
That was your gift
I forgot to say thank you
But I won't pass it on
You won't live in me like that
You had me, but you won't take others down too
And I'll be there at your end
With that crooked smile
And a laugh and maybe even a tear