Holiday punch

The holidays bring people together, sometimes in ways you don't expect. People enjoy exchanging presents, wishing each other good cheer, ringing in the new year, and punching each other's lights out. At least in my world.

For Type A personalities, New York is Eden. Even New York's nickname, The Big Apple, must give thrill-seeking go-getters a chubby. It's bigger, faster, better here, so bring it on. If New York City is the apple, the financial industry is its sometimes rotten core. Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange are straight out of Central Casting: self-made men from outer-borough blue-collar stock, manly men who get drunk from the rush of the trade, strutting around with their Rolexes and Mercedes to attract girls and show who's top dog. Traders are high on adrenaline--and, often, other controlled substances--and they don't care who they piss off.

For them, Trinity Boxing Club has a proposition called Grudge Match. If you have a beef to settle with someone, settle it like gentlemen in the ring. For three weeks, Martin runs one or both guys through a rigorous boxing program. He teaches the basics, gets you into the best shape he can, and gives you pointers on how to win. On fight night, you wear 16-ounce gloves and headgear and box three 2-minute rounds.

There must be lots to fight about, because Trinity has four grudge matches scheduled in the next 2 weeks.

Last night two traders, Rob and Jim, duked it out in front of their co-workers. Neither man is a regular at Trinity. Jim looked to be in his mid- to late 40s. He's stocky, balding, quiet, and in a suit looks like the last person you'd expect to be engaging in fisticuffs. (Then again, most people feel that way about me.) His opponent, Rob, was smaller, maybe 10 to 15 years Jim's junior. Neither man was in what I'd call fighting shape.

About 30 to 40 people, mostly Jim and Rob's friends and co-workers, were there to watch the fight. About 15 Trinity regulars, including me, worked out in the background. Outside the ring before the bout, Martin brought the two guys together and told them to not get crazy, to remember everything they'd learned, to keep it sportsmanlike. The guys didn't seem to hate each other, but they didn't seem all that friendly, either. Most of these fights originate over an insult, a name calling, or some other form of juvenile harassment. The talk I hear in the locker room by traders is like something out of Degrassi Junior High. For instance: "Yeah, then I fucked her all night long after I'd been drinking." To quote Dave Barry, I am not making this up.

To alleviate concerns about liability, injury, et cetera, et cetera, Trinity requires all fighters to sign a waiver holding Trinity harmless in the event something happens.

The last time I watched a grudge match, the two fighters were best friends, both in good shape, and both decent boxers. But throw in a crowd of action-hungry, beer-drinking, testosterone-poisoned boxing illiterates, and the fighters turn into red-seeing bulls. By the third round of that fight, both fighters had bloody noses and their base instincts were in full overdrive. I don't know if they were childhood friends, but if they were they dredged up any old slights or wounds they could think of and channeled them through their fists. In the end, no one really got hurt, but you could hardly call it boxing.

So, I watched Rob vs. Jim with the same trepidation as watching Fear Factor or Project Runway. In amateur boxing you learn to control your emotions, to plan a strategy, to outthink your opponent. This kind of fight is all about power, pride, and prowess.

The two men touched gloves and the bell rang starting Round 1. The crowd went wild. "C'mon, Rob, kick his ass!" "Jim, don't let this guy push you around!" "Hit him!!" No punches had yet been thrown. The vicarious thrills of the voyeuristic, bloodlusting crowd are what I like least about boxing. None of these people could probably even hold up their hands for one minute, much less six.

Jim scored well, landing shots to Rob's head whenever Rob countered. Because of the size difference Jim was wearing larger gloves than Rob. They looked to be 18 ounces, which comparatively are like pillows. Rob covered up a lot, but lunged for Jim when he had the chance. So far, it looked like a boxing match.

Round 2 looked nothing like Round 1. Rob, who had been tentative in the first round, suddenly charged at Jim. Jim kept Rob at bay but landed some good shots to his face. Considering that Jim was carrying a bit of a paunch, Rob could have been more effective by going to the body, but Rocky movies would have us believe otherwise. Jim rocked Rob with a few rights that snapped his head back, and this, I think, is where the psychology of the fight took hold.

Never let your opponent see that you're hurt, no matter how hurt you are. Keep a poker face. Never show all your cards at once, and never show your weaknesses.

About 45 seconds before the end of the 2-minute round, Rob appeared to be running out of steam. He stood against the ropes while Jim unleashed big shots, despite wearing bigger gloves. Martin called time and Rob went to his corner, where he appeared to be spitting out something. It was hard to tell whether he was bleeding or spitting. Martin let the round lapse, trying to see whether Rob could go on.

In Round 3, Rob had his hands up to his face, clearly out of gas. But it didn't stop him from trying to put all he had into his punches. With a minute left to go, Jim again effectively disarmed Rob, and Rob made one last-ditch effort before turning away toward the ropes.

At that moment he projectile-vomited all over the ring and all over two guys who were sitting close to the ring.

"Oh, man," Angel said. "I could see before the fight he had serious butterflies in his stomach."

"Yup," I said. "They all flew out."

The fight was stopped. The two men shook hands. Jim had won. Martin brought the two guys to the center of the ring.

"You guys friends?" he said, in his inimitable Brooklyn accent. They both nodded and hugged. The crowd applauded.

All the Trinity regulars, who'd taken a break from our workouts, looked at one another, shrugged, and returned to what we were doing. None of us liked the circus atmosphere; we were there because we wanted to work out.

What made me cringe most wasn't the two guys' need to settle their differences in the ring, or even colleagues and friends watching Rob get his ass kicked. It's that Rob's dignity will always be besmirched by projectile vomiting.

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Home for the holidays

Waking up on Christmas morning alone sucks. This is the first Christmas in 7 years that Luis and I have spent apart, and I hope we never have to do it again. His mom is recovering from skin cancer surgery, and his stepfather is scheduled to have triple bypass surgery next week, so he left for his mom's in Maryland last Sunday. My mom said she was going to be alone this year, since my brothers were spending Christmas with their wives' families. Even though I have my own non-nuclear family, as I get older I find myself wanting to spend time with blood relatives, especially as they get older. I already see glimpses of my future as an older person, and I wonder what it will be like for me then at the holidays.

For the past 3 years Luis and I have spent Christmas with his family. Although I didn't like the idea of our being apart, this year I decided it was time to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my family. Luis's family took this somewhat badly. "Maybe he just doesn't want to deal with us," his mother said.

"Maybe he just has his own family and wants to spend Christmas with them," Luis said.

"Hmmm. Possibly," his mother said.

Aunt Eileen, mom's sister, and Uncle Gus have hosted their own Festa dei Sette Pesci, or Feast of the Seven Fishes, on Christmas Eve since the early 1980s. My aunt and uncle are in a mixed marriage: she's Irish and he's Italian. In the 1950s this was virtually considered miscegenation.

Aunt Eileen learned her mother-in-law's recipes well enough to pass as a member of the family. Personally I think she makes the best spaghetti sauce. About 25 years ago she began inviting family and friends over for the seven fishes dinner, a Southern Italian tradition. Every year I lived in Virginia I came up for it. The average number of guests is 25. In the beginning they were all adults; now at least a third are children under 10.

I was glad I'd decided to stay, even though I missed Luis. He sounded like he was not having such a great time. At Christmas Eve dinner he exploded at the dinner table when the discussion turned to politics. His mother and stepfather, neither of whom are U.S. citizens and therefore cannot vote, are Bush supporters. Luis told them that he doesn't come to see them much because they support a party that would rather see him dead. They said they didn't see it that way. One thing I can count on with my family is no discussion of religion or politics. However, I didn't enjoy the repetitive recounting, in painful detail, of having to sell our place and move.

After a wonderful Christmas Eve of seeing my family and pigging out on Atkins-filled medley of calamari, mussels, clams, scungilli, sole, scallops, and shrimp (plus cannoli, cheesecake, rice pudding, cookies, struffuli, and birthday cake for Alexa), lunch at Jean-Georges on Christmas Day was almost a snack in comparison.

Nestled in a corner of Trump International Hotel and Tower at Columbus Circle, Jean-Georges is rather plain and looks like a hotel restaurant. Tall, light-filled windows overlook a Unisphere knockoff that seems out of place opposite the spectacular, new Time Warner Center. The clean walls and spartan decor at Jean-Georges, however, do not detract from the star attraction, the food.

Mom had never been to a four-star restaurant before. We're both happy with a hamburger or chicken parmigiana, but unlike her, I've expanded my palatal horizons. She won't go anywhere near sushi or Thai food, even though she's never had either.

"I love French food," she said when I told her where we were going. I wanted to tell her there'd be no French fries or French dressing at the restaurant but thought better of it. The last time we went to a French restaurant together, in Bay Ridge, the menu was anything but French. Chicken cacciatore and shrimp cocktail are not exactly the haute cuisine of Paris.

Eric and Sheri had lunch at Jean-Georges last Christmas Day. They enjoyed it so much they wanted to make it a tradition. They asked me if I wanted to go. I said I didn't want mom Mom to be alone. "Bring her!" they said.

We had the last lunch reservation, 2:30 p.m. Eric drove, and good thing, because the temperatures were in the low 20s. Even though the city was empty, we had to park in a garage.

Eric had requested a reservation at the main restaurant, Jean-Georges. The maitre'd tried to seat us at Nougatine, a smaller cafe in the anteroom, but Eric insisted we be seated in the main restaurant. It didn't matter to us, because the Nougatine menu was served in both places. Probably better for us, because the Jean-Georges menu, I'm sure, would have been considerably more expensive.

Jean-Georges Vongerichten's dishes are exquisite in their simplicity, and his Asian-infused cuisine earns him a well-deserved place among the hottest chefs in New York. His warm, soft chocolate cake was purportedly a mistake (how can anything chocolate be a mistake?), but not one that other New York chefs saw fit to correct; they copied it.

We must have spent about half an hour deciding on a wine from the exhaustive wine list, which seemed to have been published in installments. No sommelier was on duty, which I thought odd, so we had to rely on our own judgment. After much deliberation, we ordered a Napa wine, a 1992 Duckhorn cabernet franc-merlot blend. The time and money spent were well worth it. The wine was chewy, fruity, and full-bodied. I'm not much of a wine connoisseur, but I drink wine often enough to know a special one when I drink it, and it perfectly complemented our food.



To start, the waiter brought us an amuse-bouche: a spoonful of lump crab and a cup of parsnip soup that had a finish of ginger, cardamom, and balsamic vinegar. A five-course tasting menu was available for $65, but everyone at the table would have had to order it so that the courses could be properly timed. Instead, we ordered a la carte. I had my eye on a beet salad with fruit, nuts, and bleu cheese. Mom played it safe with a Boston lettuce salad and licorice-lemon dressing. Eric had peekytoe crab cakes with papaya, and Sheri had the richest and most delicious appetizer of all--vanilla-infused foie gras. This is what makes Jean-Georges so brilliant--who would have ever put duck liver and vanilla together?

Our entrees were less adventurous but no less amazing. Sheri's skate dish was tender and flavorful. Eric, Mom, and I had crispy lobster, which had a light tempura-like coating, with spaghetti squash and baby basil. Many people complain about the teeny portions served in high-end restaurants, but neither Mom nor I could actually finish our lobster. It wasn't the quantity so much as the richness. I'm not a proponent of the "more is better" school of eating. Since switching to sampler sized eating, I enjoy every bite a whole lot more. If I'm hungry afterwards, I can always eat later.

To cap off the meal we shared four desserts: Meyer lemon tart, red wine tart with pears and prune armagnac ice cream, Apple chestnut tart with Granny Smith ice cream, and Jean-Georges's signature warm, soft chocolate cake.

"I've waited 67 years for a meal like this," Mom said as we left the restaurant. Mom is pretty particular about what she eats, so I was gratified to hear her effuse over lunch at a four-star restaurant like Jean-Georges.

I didn't get any Christmas gifts this year. I got what I needed.

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Oh...what...wow! I’m the greatest dancer

I

I guess there have always been signs that I’ve aspired to be famous. It hasn’t happened, and it probably won’t--and that’s OK. My casting in life as a Virgo, oldest son, and child of an alcoholic conspired to make me an overachiever--at least in grammar school. In 5th grade I won a citywide medal for best essay on fire safety in the home; in 6th grade I was a Diocesan Math Bee finalist. In 7th grade I made it to the New York Regional Spelling Bee (losing on the word charlatan, and in 8th grade I received Brooklyn District Attorney Eugene Gold’s Citation of Honor. After that, my ascent to fame came to a screeching halt, like Wile E. Coyote after realizing there’s no earth below the precipice.

Upon graduation from grammar school, my classmates voted me Best Boy Dancer, a declaration that prompted Vincent Cohan to quip, "Yeah, only boy dancer." The only thing the dancing queen honor portended was my homosexuality many years later--and that has earned me no notoriety, good or bad. My delusions of celebrity started around the same time, when I began keeping a journal and writing short stories and poems. One of my poems was entered into the World Poets’ Resource Center poetry festival by my classmate Maria DiBella’s mother Anna and won a special award. The poem was titled “Peace in Poetry”:

New life blossoming,
Flowers budding,
Change of seasons,
The coldness of winter turns to quietness.
Birds sing happy tunes once more,
Joy of living,
Nature opening its doors again,
Colorful scenes,
And the wonder of life.

My big fat giant Irish head was bursting with pride over this honor, but as the saying goes, “that and 50 cents’ll get you on the bus.” (This saying was from some time ago.) I did not become the next Sylvia Plath, which may have fortuitously saved me a 400-degree head trip.

Maria DiBella’s brother Louis was a year older than us. Quiet and assuming, Louis graduated top of his class from our grammar school and went to Regis, a prestigious boys’ private high school in Manhattan. I almost made it into Regis, a scholarship-only school, because my dad was an alumnus, but my Best Boy Dancer credential did not carry much clout. Today, I am a pretty decent technical writer and Lou DiBella is one of the largest boxing promoters on the planet. I don’t float like a butterfly or sting like a bee, but I have a pretty good jab.

II

My senior year of high school was fraught with identity crises, high drama, and lack of direction. I was not yet aware of God’s plan for me to embrace and promote the homosexual lifestyle, but I knew something was up. The last girl I dated was mistaken for my grandmother. One of the highlights of senior year was a religion class called “Death,” which dealt mainly with the work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross but was not quite as engaging as Woody Allen’s play of the same name. I was socially very active--forensic team, drama club, school newspaper, yearbook, Spanish club. But something was missing.

My religion teacher, Mrs. Melillo, suggested I go on a Christian Awakening, a retreat involving sleep deprivation and incessant talking. At the time I thought it was a great idea to spend 3 days with 30 other guys also looking for The Answer and a way to deal with raging hormones. The CA was supposed to help me learn to love myself and love God. For months afterward I wore a button that said “God Don’t Make Junk. I’m Lovable.” The CA transformed me. Six months later, I came out.

My CA team leader, Dermot, and I became best buddies. Dermot took me for my first beer at McSorley’s Ale House in the Village shortly before I graduated high school. Dermot, who was going to Queens College, always brought along another CA graduate, Larry Andries. Shy, funny, and bright, Larry lived in Queens and went to NYU film school. I got a vibe that we might be struggling with the same identity issue, but I was not self-aware enough to breach the subject. I was just thrilled to be hanging out with two college guys.

Dermot wasn’t so thrilled when I came out to him a few months later. The news shattered his image of me as a model Christian, and his reaction shattered my image of him as a friend. We lost touch a few months after that, and last I heard he was an assistant district attorney in Manhattan.

A few months ago I was watching an episode of Six Feet Under, which in my opinion is the best written, best acted show on the air. The opening sequence is artful and imaginative, and I always watch it, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. I’d watched maybe 12 or so episodes and was just about to turn away when one name in the credits jumped out at me. I'd never noticed it before, but it looked so familiar. I rewound the DVD and paused on “Supervising Producer: Laurence Andries.”

There couldn’t be another Laurence Andries, I thought, so I quickly scrambled to the Web. Turns out it is the same person. Also turns out we did have a lot to talk about.

While I most likely will never be able to approach Larry Andries’s stature, I’ve learned more about death from him than Woody Allen or my high-school religion teacher.

III

Kelli Marie Arena was on the Bishop Kearney High School Forensic Team. I was on the forensic team of Kearney's brother school, Xaverian. At competitions Kelli performed dramatic pieces and often placed among the final eight contestants. I had that honor once, and only because not enough people showed up for the tournament. Kelli was beautiful, personable, and intelligent, and everyone liked her. Perhaps her one glaring shortcoming was her heavy Brooklyn accent. She spoke so quickly that people elided her three names into one: Kellimariearena. No one said this to her face, of course. Watch Heathers some time.

Like me and all of our friends, many of whom were also on our high schools' forensic teams, Kelli went to NYU and majored in journalism. My poetry and journal writing, as well as my experience as newspaper editor and yearbook editor, had inspired me to pursue a career as a journalist. My friends and I all took the same introductory classes, including Reporting I. After discovering I didn’t have the leg-biting instinct of a reporter, I dropped out of the journalism program and became a Spanish major. Kelli persevered.

In the days right after 9/11, I stayed glued to CNN for news. The coverage beat the fiction and hysteria of Fox News. The reporter I looked to for guidance was CNN’s Justice Department correspondent, Kelli Arena. Kelli was part of the news team that won an Emmy for its coverage of the attacks. She no longer has a Brooklyn accent.

IV

I don't know if Lou, Larry, or Kelli would remember me, but I remember them. They may have the awards, the prestige, the money, and the talent, but I still have a distinction all my own.

I’m still Best Boy Dancer.

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Tartological evidence

Hamilton Beach is afraid that Michael Wald will expose the shortcomings of its toaster when Frosted Pop Tarts are inserted into it. Wald, an electrical engineer, claims that he has toasted Pop Tarts and other pastries 15 to 20 times and seen frosting collect on components of the toaster. He says he has also put melted frosted sugar on the toaster's switch and caused fires three times.

Wald's Pop Tart expertise was questioned by Hamilton Beach because his pastry testing was not conducted according to accepted scientific methods. A federal judge in Albany, NY, decided to allow Wald to testify in a case involving a couple whose house was severely damaged by fire in 1998 after the husband left Pop Tarts heating in the toaster.

Regardless of whether Wald used scientific methods, he can draw on a sizable body of existing tartological research. In 1994, in response to a Dave Barry column called "The Great Strawberry Pop-Part Fire," Patrick Michaud set out to scientifically prove that a toaster and Strawberry Pop Tarts do indeed create cheap incendiary devices. Roger Hunt and other tartologists performed their own tart-blazing experiments.

The question remains, however, whether the proof is in the frosting.

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Local pride

Sometimes I take being a native New Yorker too seriously. If I don't know where I'm going, I will walk blocks out of my way in order to avoid admitting I'm going the wrong way and turning around to go back. I will never look at a map in public. I will never ask for directions. I will confidently give people the wrong directions (though, really, I know New York so well I rarely give wrong directions).

I will do anything to not look like a tourist. Case in point: tonight I waited at Grand Central around 10:00 p.m. for an express train. After 8:00 p.m. the Number 5 goes to Bowling Green, and the Number 4 continues on to Brooklyn. A Number 5 sat and sat at the station until a team of specialists was called in to declare the train unfit for service because a door didn't work. Everyone piled off to wait for the next express.

A Number 4 comes in immediately, half full. All the passengers from the disabled Number 5 pile on, including me. I stand at the doors. Next stop: Union Square.

At Union Square the doors open on the exit side. I step off the train to let others off, but I somehow get pushed farther onto the platform than I want, and the train is still pretty full. So I pretend (to whom? I ask myself) I'm waiting for the local across the platform. The next two express trains are Number 5s. A Number 4 comes within 10 minutes. I get on, sit down, and shake my head at my own insecurity. Why can't I just let go?

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Hurts so good

Tonight I put my new, improved shoulder to use and sparred three rounds with Angel. It felt great to be back in the ring, but I'm not quite in my groove. The road back from a 10-month layoff is long. My stamina is not the issue; I can go three rounds without being winded. My speed and timing, however, suck. I'm simply not as fast as I used to be. I can hit the speed bag all day long and whack the heavy bags around, but they don't hit me back. As a southpaw, I have an advantage over a rightie, but Angel outwits me every time. He switches to southpaw and back again before I even notice. So I've learned to beat him at his own game, by switching to orthodox.

Last year while sparring with Angel I landed a right hook to his ear. He was wearing headgear, but whatever way I hit him it did something to his eardrum and he couldn't box for months. I knew when I got back in the ring with him that I'd pay. He's finally getting his retribution.

Two weeks ago I got soft contact lenses, after wearing rigid gas permeables for 25 years. The new lenses are so much better in the ring. I used to box with the RGPs, and almost invariably one or both would either get knocked out of my eye or yanked out with the other guy's glove. It's much better being able to see a punch coming at me than guessing.

In the first round I was tentative, and although I was moving well, by round's end Angel was peppering me with shots. I always give away the first round. In the second round I had my jab working well and landed more combinations, but he was still beating me to the punch. I landed one perfect left cross that pushed him back momentarily, but he came right back with a jab to the body and to the head. And another.

We spent most of the third round working on the inside. I didn't step in my with jab enough, so I missed the long-range punches. Angel told me I was pushing my right too much instead of snapping it. He caught me with some nice counters that I was too slow to respond to. I effectively protected my body, up until the last 30 seconds. I lifted my arm for a split second and Angel landed a solid left hook to my ribs. My breath returned after the round was over.

In boxing you never let your opponent know that you're hurt. You suck it up and go on. Fighters interviewed afterwards on televised fights always say, "He didn't hurt me." They're lying. You may not feel the pain then, but you'll feel it later.

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Diamonds are forever

I was recently struck by how the dialogue on a rerun of Dynasty still manages to portray the lifestyle of the average fancy-hat-wearing New York woman:



Dominique Devereaux : It’s burned.

Alexis Carrington Colby: I beg your pardon?

Dominique: This champagne…it’s burned.

Alexis (frostily): Well, Miss Devereaux, if the champagne is burned I suggest you not drink it. The caviar, I trust, is not burned.

Dominique: I wouldn’t know. This is ossetrova, and I prefer Petrossian beluga.

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Is Rose there? Sorry, wrong Bush.

When Bush was re-elected I was sure that Pierre Boulle's world in Planet of the Apes had become a reality. General Urko in command. Those damned dirty apes. I felt the same way when Reagan was in office, though I seem to be in the minority. People I talk to about Reagan seem to selectively remember Ronnie's paternalistic demeanor and reassuring voice, honed through years of appearing on camera. The real puppetmasters were his cabinet members. Everything I remember about Reagan--his abysmal handling of the AIDS crisis; aiding Saddam Hussein; promoting the Star Wars missile system; supporting conflicts in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Grenada in the name of freedom--was sinister, hegemonious, and dangerous. I was convinced we were going to see nuclear war during his administration, and I almost moved to Europe to avoid having to endure his presidency.

Yes, Bush is just as dangerous and insidious, maybe more so than Reagan, but I'll bet years from now people who threatened defection because of Dubya will fondly recall his goofiness and malapropisms. People remember only what they want to remember, and as George Santayana said, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

My cynicism was recently tempered by a Web site called Sorry Everybody. The purpose of the site is to allow Americans to apologize for not doing more to prevent Dubya's re-election and for the rest of the world to say it's OK. It's a cathartic way to vent frustration and put a human face on politics.

Here are some images from the site.




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Hook and loop

Creativity, say marketing gurus, occurs when one idea and another idea merge to form a third idea. One story goes that while walking through the woods in 1948, Swiss engineer George de Mestral found dozens of cockleburs stuck to his cloth jacket. When he loosened them and examined one under his microscope, he found that a cocklebur consists of hooks that interweave with loops in fabric. Voila! de Mestral’s discovery led to the invention of Velcro, a combination of the French words for velvet (velour) and hook (crochet).

Thursday and Friday I attended a conference on creative marketing at the Marriott Marquis. The training department I work in is trying to figure out the best way to market our services to our customers. Until recently marketing was referred to as “The M Word.” We’re essentially a utility, a not-for-profit company that collects fees from and then rebates our customers, who own us. They are somewhat of a captive audience.

In addition to my head of many hats at work, I have been conscripted to be on the marketing team. I most probably know the most about marketing, since I’m the only team member who’s worked for a profit-making firm in the last 10 years. This doesn’t mean I’m good at it, only that I’ve done it.

Times Square is a good example of bad marketing: too many things competing for your attention, and none of them effective. I don’t know how more people don’t collapse into epileptic fits looking at the obscenely large and frenetically blinking neon billboards. I’m a native New Yorker and I’m bothered by them; I can’t imagine what Peorians think. The only one who’s got the proper scale is Naked Cowboy, who, even on a 20-degree day gets out there in the middle of Broadway, clad only in a hat, boots, skivvies and a guitar, and gives the fans what they want. NC’s spiritual guru? Anthony Robbins, motivational speaker and infomercial king. Marketing works.

The first speaker was the interminably loquacious Brian Norris, whose motivational motto is “I'm positively passionate all the time. I need no coffee, or drugs nor wine. I'm positively passionate all the time. It's not a flavor of the month, It's a frame of mind.” Didn’t I hear this on a PTL broadcast? Brian was groomed as a minister but found marketing more to his taste; the skills, he says, are similar. He speaks so quickly, even New Yorkers had difficulty keeping with him. It’s as though his brain is constantly on fast forward or the caffeine he says he doesn’t need.

Some of his ideas were useful (think about your relationship with a person, not a company), some were not so useful (barter products and services for free ad space), and some made me want to shower (write your next marketing letter as if it were a love letter). When I get letters like that, I can’t wait to pitch them.

The afternoon session, led by Greg Kirsch, dealt with knowing your audience. The audience, in this session, was 12 women…and me. Greg, who reminds me of a blond Robert Culp, is also happy and peppy and bursting with love, but he’s less severe than Brian. At times I thought Brian was going to start speaking in tongues.

Greg asked us to analyze print ads to determine what hot buttons they push in viewers. One ad, showing a Mercedes alongside a speeding locomotive, was meant to conveyed power. Another ad, for Talbots, showed an attractive 30ish woman wearing a lime green dress and pearls, sitting with her legs together to one side and acting all googly at lunch with a man. The caption said, "Fall in love with your husband all over again."

"This to me conveys romance," Greg said happily. "Fall in love with your husband all over again."

"Great," said one woman, rolling her eyes.

"Do I have to?" said another, as other women in the room laughed and nodded their heads. Clearly, Greg must have thought, New York women are bitches.

"I can tell you that in Toledo, people go, 'awwww' when they see that ad," he said.

"Who sits like that?" a woman proferred.

I leaned over to the woman and said, "She's planning an exit strategy."

A third ad, advertising Neutrogena Visibly Firm Eye Cream, showed a closeup of a woman’s face with her eye circled. The headline read, "In just one week, you can take three years off your life."

"Now," Greg said, "what do we think of this?"

"I don’t buy the message," a woman said. "It’s just an eye cream."

"But," said another, "it probably doesn’t cost that much, so it wouldn’t be a terribly big risk."

"It’s interesting," said a third woman, "how ads geared toward men show big, powerful things and women’s ads are soft and lighter."

I turned to the woman and said, "You see, I’m somewhere in the middle." The women in the room looked at me askance. "Well, because I’ve tried this eye cream."

"And?" said a woman at another table.

"I’m 65 years old," I said. "You be the judge."

Greg asked us to evaluate our personality “styles,” using an overly simplistic chart called SELF. The letters don’t stand for anything, but each type stands in a quadrant indicating need for people and need for recognition. S types, for instance, are attention-seekers, like actors and astronauts, who have a high need in both areas. Es and Ls are more people driven. And an F is the opposite of an S, with a low need for people and recognition. An F is factual, meticulous, and calm; avoid risk; and have high standards. On the other hand, they can be perfectionist, sullen, slow, and passive. They value consistency, information, autonomy, and perfection.

"Who is an F?" Greg asked.

My hand shot up. My colleagues, including the director of the department, nodded and said, "That’s him." I wanted to be an E or and L, which are more caring and compassionate, but I know myself pretty well, and I am most definitely an F.

"So, Kieran," Greg asked. "What do you do?"

"I’m an editor."

"Wow! That fits right in." Then, as an afterthought he winked and said, "You must have a messy desk."

I knew he meant the comment facetiously, but the truth is that my desk is a pigsty. I let paper and other objects pile and pile on my desk without arranging them. I do actually know where everything is, but people try not to look directly at my desk.

There was a second of silence before my colleagues burst out laughing, uncontrollably. "Oh my God," Clarice said. "I can’t breathe."

Greg was confused by this outburst. My messy desk was not in keeping with that of a true F. "I meant it to be funny," he said, to make sure we understood.

"I know," I said. "And it is."

It just goes to show that marketers don’t always know their audience as well as they think they do.

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Fête accomplie

"We’re hosting a birthday party for Jenn," Luis announced a few weeks ago. "About 20 people." A few weeks ago newly betrothed Jenn and Steve, who have been together about 5 or 6 years, moved into a cute garden apartment together in Cobble Hill. It’s their first home together.

We don’t need much of an excuse to host a party. We have the loft for another few months. We’re homosexuals. And, as anyone who’s watched Queer Eye For The Straight Guy can attest, homosexuals are all about being fabulous.

"It’s just a Casual Cheese Party," Jenn said, as if that was supposed to mean something to us. "Yeah, uh huh, OK," Luis said, ignoring her. Casual Cheese Parties happen in places like Montpelier or Madison. Simply put, if you want a Casual Cheese Party, don’t put homosexuals in charge of it.

Last Sunday morning Luis and I took deep breaths and a Valium and braved Costco. We thought if we got there at 10 when it opened we’d be first in the door and first in line. Wrong-o, Mary Lou! Hundreds of other people had the same untelepathic thought. All we really needed was shrimp. Just shrimp and Charmin. That's all we needed. Just shrimp, Charmin, and bread products. Only those things. Costco is a great place to buy shrimp platters, and shrimp platters make great party food. Jenn's idea of great party food is pigs in blankets.

Things were under control until I spotted a deluxe Cuisinart and put it in the cart. Much cheaper than buying it at Bed Bath & Beyond or elsewhere. This is the real danger of Costco. You could easily end up with four new tires, a paper shredder, a 31-inch TV, and a year’s supply of Rice-a-Roni if you don’t exercise some willpower.

Several hundred dollars later, we got on line. I was already tired. "Geez, it’s like being in a game show," I said. Getting to and out of the parking lot is a feat as well, like being in a game of Frogger. Since Costco provides no bags, you have to grab box lids and boxes and put your items in them to get them into your car. This can be frustrating if you underestimate what will fit.

Fortunately we’d spent only an hour in Costco. Next was shopping for human-sized items, like a dozen eggs instead of a hen farm full. Luis went to Key Food while I went to Bierkraft--an excellent place to find microbrews and small-farm cheeses. The staff are knowledgeable and passionate about their fromage and let me sample them all before buying.

By mid-afternoon we were done with shopping. We ambitiously went down the block to get our Christmas tree from the Canucks who sell them there every year. We ended up with a 10-foot-tall Fraser fir that's quite beautiful. This may be the last year for a while that we have such a tall tree.

Our ornaments are not terribly interesting, mostly satin glass balls, some miscellaneous Hallmark ones, such as Batman and Neil Armstrong, and several residents of the Island of Misfit Toys. We had no real tree topper, so Luis pressed a Barbie ornament into service. And Luis made an interesting tree skirt out of three pairs of red and three pairs of green boxing gloves.



We set up the tea lights all around the mezzanine and furniture, casually threw on some tablecloths on, and artfully arranged the food. Again, the gays don’t understand the concept of the Casual Cheese Party.

For the rest of the afternoon I put together the music--1980s pop and R&B, with some 1970s disco and funk thrown in. I set up my iTunes on my iBook hooked up to speakers on the mezzanine so the music would float above the crowd. It's a challenge to balance the volume of the music with conversation.

The first guests arrived at about 6:15, fifteen minutes earlier than scheduled. "This is New York," I whispered to Luis. "Don't these people know about being fashionably late?" By about 7:00, everyone had arrived, including Jenn. As expected, the shrimp was a big hit, as were the cheeses. I labeled all the cheeses because, well, I'm just that way, and because when I go to a party I like to know the names of the cheese I eat so I can find them again. I had labeled the Brie "Casual" so that Jenn would feel that she really was at a Casual Cheese Party. Some outstanding hummus from Maha’s and spinach dip rounded out the hors d’oeuvres.


Ken and Jeff

Steve, Peter, and Elena

Billy and Val

Ryan, Karen, and Peaches

Luis ordered six pizzas from Franny’s on Flatbush, which in my opinion, is now officially the best pizza in New York (don't tell Grimaldi's or Lombardi's). It was as though we'd thrown the pies into a tank of piranhas; all of it was gone within seconds. True, we probably didn't buy enough. Luckily we'd had the foresight to buy pigs in blankets, so we put them in the oven. We had been using the stovetop as a bar, and in turning on the oven to 400 degrees we'd forgotten to move the wine and liquor, so it all got cooked.

Jenn opened her gifts. A lovely scarf and cap. A book of 1980s Number One Hits. A scrapbook of Jenn's life created by Andy.



Number One Steve scrutinized the cards, looking for new performance material.



Jeff made delicious homemade German chocolate birthday cake and cupcakes. Jenn nixed singing "Happy Birthday" but, as with her declaration of a Casual Cheese Party, was promptly ignored.




The mix of guests was groovy and fun. Family, old friends, new friends, gay friends, metrosexuals, theater friends, work friends--everyone mingled. We were happy to host. It was better than any old Casual Cheese Party. This time the cheese most definitely did not stand alone.

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I love a man in a uniform

Oh, Bernard Kerik. Why is it news that the former NYC police commissioner had affairs with two women while married to his current wife? Wasn't he reunited on Oprah with a daughter he sired with a Korean woman during his military duty? Why is his failure to pay taxes or the immigration status of his former nanny news? Or his ties to a Mafia-controlled construction company? Or his acceptance of cash and gifts without disclosure? The bottom line is that Kerik hasn't done anything lots of other public officials haven't done--he just got caught.

It's good this information came out now, so Kerik could avoid congressional slaughterfests dredging up the ugly truth about his past. The swamp on which Washington is built has thousands of tiny piranha fish that would lick his bones clean and then make soup from them. Anyone remember Anita Hill?

According to his autobiograpy, Lost Son, Kerik grew up a troubled youth in Paterson, NJ. His mother abandoned him, and he spent years trying to find her before learning that she may have been a prostitute, killed by her pimp. In his teens he turned his life around by taking up martial arts. He served in the military and then worked for Saudi royalty before becaming an NYPD cop. He heroically saved a fellow officer and worked undercover as a narcotics detective, seizing tons of cocaine from the Cali cartel. Without his contributions, New York would not be the civilized city it is today.

As a man of integrity, Kerik is a mixed bag. In the trenches he was irreproachable. Put him in a bureaucracy, however, and he, like many others, shows that he succumbs to temptation. I wouldn't want him to be secretary of homeland security. Sure, he might obliterate would-be terrorists, but in the end he'd become just another Capitol Hill flunky. And that would diminish his sex appeal.

Oops. Did I say that?

Perhaps we should be ashamed, but Andrea and I both think Kerik is hot. (Yes, we know he's Republican.) He's a real guy, a self-made man. He oozes masculinity. He's tough, strong, and commanding. His stocky build looks solid. His job history is the stuff of many gay male (and straight female) fantasies: military policeman, jail warden, New York City cop, bodyguard. He likes to fight (a big plus for me). Like many gay men, he's overcome many obstacles, risen above them, and continually reinvented himself--though perhaps not as brilliantly as Madonna.

After 9/11, the city looked to him to lead us forward. We felt safe watching him take charge, coordinating rescue efforts and dealing with the families of those lost.

Add up all the scores and he gets high marks in schwingitude.

Many years ago I had a hot fling with a high-ranking law enforcement official in a southern state. He was (and probably still is) a racist, gun-toting, all-around conservative asshole. In the end, the more I got to know him the less I liked him. But we had great sex while it lasted.

If I really knew or cared about the political leanings and beliefs of anyone I found attractive, I'd have no fantasy life to speak of. So before any tongues wag, stop and think about where your own tongues have been--or would like to be.

Oh, Bernard Kerik!

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News from the nether regions

Item 1: Men keep same pants for 10 years

Men in the Midlands keep their pants for ten years before buying a new pair, a survey has uncovered.

And nationally one in ten only bother to change their pants every two days.

Four per cent wait four days before wearing clean ones reports The Sun.

Boxer shorts are the most popular choice. But Y-fronts are a firm favourite with one in ten men aged 18 to 40. A third of men have "best pants", but 87 per cent claim they do not need their lucky pair when on the pull.

And three quarters of men do not take any notice of a woman's undies in the heat of passion.

A spokesman for Fruit of the Loom, which carried out the poll, said: "We couldn't believe the Midlanders hung on to their pants for so long - there must be some threadbare chaps walking around."

Item 2: Footie team told to wear red underpants

Bottom of the league Norwich City have been urged to wear red underpants to help them win a game.

The Canaries have not won in 13 Premiership matches this season reports The Sun.

But top psychic Samanda Chambers insists crimson drawers will help the club, who earned promotion last season thanks to stars like Darren Huckerby.

Norwich fan Samanda said: "Red is the colour of positivity. The groin is where emotions are held. Wearing red here increases feelings of inner worth."

Samanda and her pals will attend Saturday's game against Southampton at Carrow Road wearing red knickers.

Five teams have beaten the Norfolk club this season - and four of them wear a red strip. Norwich play in yellow and green.

Ex-goalie Bryan Gunn, who still works at the club, said many players are superstitious, but added:

"I'm not sure they'll be convinced to change their pants."

Defender Craig Fleming added: "On Saturday, I'll have James Beattie breathing down my neck - I don't see how red pants will help."

Item 3: Woman's lap pillow in demand

A pillow designed in the shape of a woman's lap has become one of the best selling Christmas gifts in Japan.



The novelty item is made from foam and comes complete with a mini-skirt reports Sky News.

Makers the Trane Corporation insist the pillow provides healing and not excitement for customers.

Priced at around £45, the life-sized gift is also proving popular as an addition at office parties during the season.

It was aimed at younger males but has also received significant interest from older men.

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Inferior structure

One idea that has made our buyout palatable is finding an industrial building that we can convert into a fabulous living space. A light industrial building, an old garage, a warehouse--all would be excellent possibilties. Our group originally consisted of seven, and then one couple dropped out because they had a baby and their priorities changed. That left me and Luis, Eric and Sheri, and Jay.

Last week Eric found a building in the Italian part of Williamsburg that looked promising. It had 6,000 square feet, and the asking price was $1.4 million. I walked around the neighborhood last week to get a feel for it. The building looked promising from the outside--a four-story brick structure on a corner, with exposures on two sides. The windows were busted out, and the building looked like it needed repointing at the very least. It was dificult to tell in the dark whether it was worth pursuing, but we are open to anything. Eric set up an appointment for us to see it Saturday at 11:30 a.m.

When we arrived we noticed a group of five people approaching the building--four men and a woman. They examined it from all sides, and it turned out that the agent had made appointments for both groups to see it at the same time. Luis, who is a real estate agent, thought it was lazy and wrong of her to do that. But we went ahead with the viewing.

As we got a closer look, we noticed that the other group consisted of a gay couple, a white guy and his Asian girlfriend, and a single guy. They were an exact homologue of our group--only younger, better dressed, and better looking. And whereas we were demoralized after seeing the rotted, moldy first floor inside, the other group continued their tour of the building and quite possibly had made an offer. So they were richer, too.

Depressing: we're competing not just with others but with improved versions of ourselves!

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Stroke of luck

The plan was simple. My mother and I would meet in the center of the platform at the 57th Street station at 6:00 p.m. We'd eat in Hell's Kitchen (or Clinton West, or whatever the hell it's called these days) and then make our way to Rose Hall at the Time Warner Center to see my friend Chris perform with the Metro Mass Choir. It was a cold, wet day, and I didn't want us to walk around much.

About 6 years ago, Mom was diagnosed with Stage 0 breast cancer. Stage 0 points to the possible presence of tumors, which can be either malignant or benign. On the day of Mom's biopsy, she suffered a mini-stroke, which may have resulted from the stress of knowing she might have cancer but was more likely triggered by an 80-percent-blocked carotid artery. The artery was unblocked, one breast was removed, but the stroke caused enough damage that Mom's left hand was slightly paralyzed and her short-term memory was seriously diminished. A beneficial side-effect, however, was that the stroke had blunted her censoring filters, allowing her, like Sofia Petrillo on Golden Girls, to say whatever was on her mind. Mom had been under stress for so long living with my alcoholic, repressed father, this side-effect was a blessing.

Always mindful of her short-term-memory loss, I try to make things simple for Mom so we don't run into problems. I try to figure out where she might misunderstand or take a wrong turn. In this case she would take one train all the way from her house to 57th Street and get off and wait for me. Theoretically, the plan should have worked. Mom is always early, so I knew that no matter what time I told her to meet me, she'd already be there. "You can show up at 4 if you want to," I said. "But just remember, I won't be there yet."

The R train I took sat at 34th Street for 10 minutes, so I didn't get to 57th Street until about 6:10. I got off, looked up and down the platform, walked from one end to the next several times. No Mom. A few people eyed me suspiciously, as though I were looking for accomplices to give the signal to blow up the station or release anthrax through a vent. Still no Mom.

After six trains came and went I decided to go above ground to see if I had voice mail on my cell phone. Three messages. Message 1: "Kieran, it's Mom. It's 20 to 6. I'm on the platform at 57th Street, but the train doesn't stop at Columbus Circle, so I'm going to get back on the train and see if it goes to Columbus Circle. OK. Bye." Columbus Circle? Why was she headed to Columbus Circle? It was now 6:20. I stood under the Hotel Wellington awning at 55th and 7th in the pouring rain, wondering if I'd gone insane. Why had she not stayed on the platform, at the station where we'd agreed to meet? She didn't have a cell phone, so there was no way to get in touch with her.

Message 2, around 6:00: "Kieran, it's Mom. I'm at 57th and Lexington." That meant she was headed toward Queens. My heart leapt into my mouth. Why was she on the East Side? Why had she moved around? Why? Why? Why?

Message 3, around 6:05, was from Luis, telling me that Mom had called his cell phone to tell him where she was. Not knowing the plan she and I had made, he told her to take a cab to the Columbus Circle station, which was about 6 blocks from where I was standing. My camel cashmere blazer was already pretty wet from the rain, even with an umbrella. The steam started rising from my head as I walked over to the Columbus Circle station.

I must have looked angry or crazy, because people moved aside as I stomped my way over to Columbus Circle. When I got there, I realized that I had no idea which entrance Mom might be at. Columbus Circle has at least six or seven entrances. I parked myself at the southernmost one, near the 1/9 train. Luis, who was meeting us to go to the concert, called to tell me he had not heard from Mom again and that he was getting on the subway to come meet me at Columbus Circle.

I'd made spur-of-the-moment dinner plans to meet my friend John at 6:15 at Eatery. I called him around 6:30 to dramatically announce that I'd lost my mother and that I was beyond furious, so I'd meet him at the theater. I wasn't worried that Mom would be abducted or killed. I just didn't want her wandering around Manhattan and ending up in Forest Hills. I muttered under my breath as I circled the Circle, hoping, like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, that I'd be reunited with my family.

After about 10 minutes I realized I was standing at an exit to the station. A cab driver would most likely take a passenger to the main entrance of a station. So, I reasoned, I'd go into the station and find the main entrance and wait in front of it.

I was underground less than 2 minutes when I emerged from the main entrance. No Mom.

Beep. A voice message on my cell phone. How on earth did that happen?

"Kieran. It's Mom. I'm at 59th Street. I thought your phone would be working and you'd pick up. I'm going outside and I'll call you in a few minutes again. OK. Bye."

Noooooooooo!! I yelled at the phone, as a tourist family quizzically looked at me. Wow, New York really is scary, they must have thought.

At 7:00 I went back to my original perch at the south entrance--and then it hit me. Mom wouldn't have been on 59th Street because the street sign says Central Park South, not 59th Street I ran back to what I thought was the main entrance and then spotted the real main entrance right across the street.

I stood on the corner, suddenly feeling very helpless and not at all like a native New Yorker ("you grew up riding the subways, up in Harlem, down on Broadway"). How could my mother, who is also a native New Yorker, ignore her street smarts, which she had always instilled in me?

I turned around, and just then, I saw the embers of a cigarette under a black umbrella. It was unmistakably her. Narrowing my eyes and marching deliberately over to her, I approached her and said, "I am so mad at you right now."

She stood there, like a little girl, as I proceeded to chastise her. "I've been looking for you all over the place. Why didn't you stay on the 57th Street platform?" I asked.

"I wrote down 57th Street, Columbus Circle," she said.

"But I said 57th Street because that's the train you take and it was easiest for you," trying to make her see reason.

"I thought there was a Columbus Circle station," she repeated. She showed me the piece of paper she'd written information on. It said, "57th Street-Columbus Circle." I understood then that wben I mentioned 57th Street I had also said the theater was at Columbus Circle, so she wrote down both.

"But, Mom," I said, practically jumping up and down like a little kid. Passersby looked at me disdainfully as I scolded my mother in the middle of the street. "I told you I was taking the R from Whitehall to 57th, and you could take the N from your house to 57th, and we would meet right there in the middle. I told you the theater was near Columbus Circle, not the station!"

She looked at me helplessly, knowing that I was probably right but not knowing what to do about it. I knew, as I always do, that she truly did not remember. I should have come up with a better plan; I shouldn't have mentioned any of the other places we were going--not the restaurant, not the concert, not anywhere other than the train station. I should have treated her like a character in The DaVinci Code, giving out only one clue at a time.

"I guess I wrote it down wrong," she said. And then, in textbook parent-child role reversal: "You just shouldn't invite me out anywhere. I'm just no good at this." Becoming a parent to your parent is a very difficult thing. Even as I was scolding her I knew the situation was beyond her control. Before her stroke, Mom would never have done such a foolish thing.

I wasn't going to give into the guilt trip. "You're right, Mom," I said sarcastically. "You shouldn't go anywhere. You should just stay home. At least you wouldn't get lost." She laughed.

But I wasn't quite finished with the lecture. "I was just worried," I said. "If you had been in the woods, you would have been eaten alive by a wild animal. When you're lost, you never move from where you are. Don't you know that?" Oldest children can be tedious. "I'm getting you a cell phone so this doesn't happen again. That's why you need a cell phone, for just these kinds of things." I hated myself as I was saying these things, but I couldn't help it.

"A nice cop helped me," she said, as if to reassure me she was all right by herself in The Big City. "It's been about 35 years since I've been in this part of town. I was so lost when I got to Lexington, I flagged him down, and he tried to call your cell phone."

By this time it was close to 7:15, and we hadn't eaten anything. I suggested we go to Pax for some quick sandwiches. I didn't want to go to an inspirational concert angry at my mother. Like it or not, it was my responsibility now to look after her, and although I felt bad for scolding her, I felt better that I had at least expressed how frustrated I was.

When we met up with Luis and John at the theater, Luis laughed at us. He saw from the look on my face that there'd been some shouting.

"I yelled at her," I said.

"Don't yell at your mother," he said.

"I can't believe how calm he was about it," she said to Luis. "I should have just gone home." It seemed to hit her then that she really had been lost and hadn't known what to do. "You're my guardian angel," she said. "I don't know what I'd do without you. God sent you to me for a reason. I can't believe you found me."

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Left standing

Scientists have wondered for centuries why left-handers, who make up only about 10 percent of the population, have survived in an overwhelmingly orthodox world. Can-openers and scissors, in particular, have always posed a problem for me. Don't get me started on door handles. But I've adapted.

Lefties have always been associated with something wrong. In French, left is gauche, which means "clumsy or awkward." The Italian word, sinistro, derives from the Latin word meaning "evil or dark." In languages ranging from Albanian to Hungarian to Swedish, the word for left invariably has a negative connotation.

New research suggests that maybe we lefties are not so clumsy and awkward after all. French researchers at the University of Montpellier recently discovered that lefties are better suited to hand-to-hand combat than right-handers. Their reasoning is that a lefty are more likely to face a righty in a fight than vice versa. I've found this to be true in boxing. I almost always box righties, who usually have no idea what to do with me. I've only fought two or three southpaws and each of us has had trouble with the other because we're not using to facing opponents of our own handedness.

Unfortunately the researchers also found a correlation between levels of violence and the proportion of the left-handed population--the more violent a culture, the higher the relative proportion of left-handers. The cultures studied are mostly unindustrialized. For some reason the researchers excluded industrialized nations because of lack of data and because apparently firearms trump fists.

The finding is dubious at best, but next time you think about messing with a southpaw, keep in mind who's more likely to win. We might not be able to open a can, but we can kick yours.

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Fear of success

I came across the following speech by Nelson Mandela a few years ago. I love it. It's extraordinarily powerful and relevant. We truly are our own worst enemies. We look to all sorts of reasons why we're not where we want to be: I'm not smart enough, or good-looking enough, or rich enough, or whatever. I fall into this trap more often than I would like. Maybe someone reading this will look at it and say, "a-ha!" so here it is.

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, fabulous, gorgeous, talented? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. You're playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that's within us. It's not just in some of us. It's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we automatically give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others.

--Nelson Mandela

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Trying to move on

It's been almost a year since the day my neighbors and I first learned the news that our building was in the footprint of a proposed basketball arena. At first I wasn't sure what it meant--surely there must have been a mistake. But over the next several days and weeks we came to understand that we might be forced out of our homes under eminent domain if we didn't take action.

I couldn't sleep for weeks, getting a sick feeling every time I thought about my home being taken away "for the good of Brooklyn." Worse, back-room deals had already been made, and every politician up the line, from the borough president to the governor was behind the plan. The only renegade was a local freshman councilwoma, Letitia James, who unwaveringly stood behind her constituents and joined us in protests, rallies, and public forums to make our voices heard. By February I'd gotten so used to reporters interviewing me on television I'd actually flag them down and invite them in to look at what the private developer was calling "blighted."

By April, after long, contentious building meetings, we sobered up after a consultation with a prominent eminent domain lawyer. To stay and dig our heels in would be a larger risk than to sell and go. Even if the developer's plan to build 17-story office buildings and 4500 units of affordable housing were to disappear, and even if our building were spared from condemnation, we'd still have a towering glass and steel arena butting up to our building, blocking out all our air and light and choking off our street from the rest of the neighborhood.

The politicians practically ejaculated over the idea that Brooklyn would vindicate the 1957 loss of its last pro sports team, the Dodgers. Over the course of the year, however, it became clearer that sentimentality was just a ploy to get constituent support, that the real reason was, of course, economics. Just who was going to benefit remained to be seen. The deputy mayor, Doctoroff, who makes Machiavelli seem like Little Mary Sunshine, has become a missionary of Mormon proportions to bring the Olympics to New York in 2012. The arena, along with the proposed West Side Jets stadium, became poster children for making the Olympic dream come true.

During the summer we got offers from the developer, offers that were too good to not consider. Even in a seller's market it would have taken several more years to realize that sort of gain on our properties. If the arena were built we doubted whether we would ever see a gain like that. So, of the 20 building owners, 18 of us decided to strike deals.

Some 6 months later, we realize that we've been priced out of the market for the kind of space we have. Just 5 years ago you couldn't give property away in some parts of Brooklyn. Now, construction in the borough has exploded, and comparable housing that a year ago was affordable no longer is.

New housing in Brooklyn follows the same tired, tedious lines: high-end appliances and finishes, smaller units, cheap construction, doorman, gym, lack of architectural interest. That's all well and good--if that's what you're looking for. No one is building raw loft space like ours--or at least we haven't found any. "Raw" means a box with no rooms and no amenities. Over the weekend a few of my neighbors and I went to about half a dozen open houses. I couldn't tell any of them apart from one another...and they were horribly overpriced...and people were buying them left and right. It was profoundly depressing.

Normally a 1000-sq-ft apartment would be enough for anyone, but Luis and I have gotten used to living in an almost 2000-sq-ft loft apartment with 13-foot ceilings. (Boo hoo and cry great big crocodile tears for us.) We bought the apartment 2 years ago for a very reasonable price and now can't find anything even remotely likable or comparable. Part of easing the pain of deciding to sell was that we would find something better than what we have. But with asking prices of $800,000 or $900,000 for a comparable space in a pioneering neighborhood (forget about established neighborhoods), buying a new place has become a nightmare rather than a dream.

We closed on our apartment a few weeks ago, after all the t's were crossed and the i's were dotted. The negotiations were precarious, contentious, and stressful, particularly for two of our neighbors who handled our end of the deal. We're now officially renters. The moving vans are pulling up more frequently. The building now sounds hollow, and the community that was once so vital is now gone, just in time for winter.

We're moving in February to a rental about 10 blocks from where we live. The space is less than half the size of what we have now, so most of our stuff will go in storage. My commute to work will still be about the same, and we'll be living in an apartment above our friends. We'll have no lease and can stay as little or as long as we like until we find a place to buy. But we won't be living with our friends in the building anymore, which upsets me as much as losing the apartment.

Although intellectually I've accepted that we're giving up our space, emotionally I'm still very much in denial. Moving day should be interesting.

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Innuendo, outuendo

I don't watch much TV anymore. I can't bear to watch extreme makeovers or police chases or Becker. My viewing is limited mainly to HGTV, Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, BBC America, and boxing.

For all intents and purposes, TV was my surrogate parent. Mom and Dad both worked full-time, and my mother's mother looked after me for many of my formative years. Like most kids, TV became my window to the world. Without it, my world view would be profoundly different.

While I'm disgusted with the brainlessness (Manhunt), regurgitation or reinvention of mediocre shows (The Real Gilligan's Island), tacky exhibitionism (The Anna Nicole Smith Show), and lack of imagination (Reba) on the airwaves, I need to remind myself that quality programming is relative. TV shows in the 1960s may have been groundbreaking, but they weren't necessarily good. My Mother The Car, in which a 1928 Porter convertible exercises the vocal muscles it acquired from Ann Sothern, was a truly terrible idea terribly executed. The creators of Pink Lady and Jeff, a short-lived variety show featuring a furry Jewish comedian bookended by a pair of English-challenged Japanese women, should have been shod in cement, shot, and dropped in the East River for their wanton waste of capital and time.


The gold standard of turkey TV:
Pink Lady and Jeff

What I miss most about TV from my childhood is the subversiveness on television. Of course, I didn't know then that shows were subversive, and that, I think, is what makes them great viewing as an adult. I could still relate to them on some level as a kid, but writers and actors knew what they could and couldn't get away with. Often the censors were too clueless to know that something apparently harmless had a delicious obliqueness to it.

Why didn't the characters on Love, American Style, which had sex, Sex, SEX smeared all over it, just rip all their clothes off and do the nasty on the air? It's positively Victorian compared with any offering on MTV.


Anatomically irrelevant Bert Convy,
a regular on Love, American Style

On Hollywood Squares Paul Lynde got away with kinky inferences to pedophilia, cross-dressing, and gay sex that would be impossible on politically correct TV today. Soupy Sales, host of a live children's show in the 1950s and 1960s, asked kids one New Year's Day to send him lots of "green pieces of paper" from their parent's wallets and pocketbooks. HR Puf-N-Stuf--the name alone has "drug trip" written all over it--was a talking orange dragon whose best friend was a talking magic flute named Freddy; everything on Living Island, including candles, really were living. Transgenderism was not a rare occurrence in Bugs Bunny cartoons, when the Wabbit donned dresses and lipstick to play the love interest of a male character.


Elmer's glued to Bugs's feminine charm

As subversive as these shows were, they pale compared with a clip from Zippy's Rainbow--a children's show that aired in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s--that is jaw-droppingly and deliciously subversive in its innuendo (thanks to Kung Fu Kittens for the link). Even without censors I couldn't imagine a piece like that ending up on US television.


Zippy unzipped

Likewise, movies I remember from my childhood seemed to be more implicitly salacious than many of the blatantly amoral films today. The bitchy, self-loathing tenor of Boys in the Band is far more interesting in its innuendo than the flighty, limp-wristed falsetto of Broken Hearts Club. The blisteringly hot nude wrestling scene between buddies Oliver Reed and Alan Bates in Ken Russell's Women in Love is one I treasure over and over and over again. Both of these movies were made in a time of transition for the movie industry.


Master Bates and Master Reed

Before the MPAA rating system was adopted, movies made between 1934 and 1968 adhered to the Hayes Code, which was based on the following principles:

1. No picture shall be produced which will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.

2. Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.

3. Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

Writers and directors in that era did their best to fool the censors, and in some cases they succeeded brilliantly. The film I consider the paragon of hazing Hayes is All About Eve. The film contains neither sex nor violence, but behind its facade is an intricate layer of deceipt, betrayal, and immorality, couched in innuendo and understatement. Miss Caswell, played by Marilyn Monroe, is a floozy who is clearly dancing the horizontal tango with producer Max Fabian to get parts. Margo Channing (Bette Davis), a reigning theater diva, is a strong woman who overshadows the talents of fiancé Bill Sampson. Anne Baxter's deluded Eve is a liar and a fraud. She invents an affair with playwright Lloyd Richards to get her way. Her dismantling by Addison De Witt, a foppish theater critic, in essence indicates that he is perpetrating some sort of S/M head trip on Eve, despite his own allusions to his homosexuality. ("That I should want you at all strikes me as the height of improbability...you're an improbable person, Eve, but so am I.") I would say at least six of the seven deadly sins are woven throughout this movie (sloth being the exception). Oddly, in the end, Eve does not get her comeuppance but rather is rewarded with the Sarah Siddons Award for her bravura performance as a vixen.


Air-kissing cousins All About Eve and Showgirls

Meeting the challenge of adhering to the Hayes Code and the standards of network censors produced some sublime entertainment. It forced viewers to use their own imaginations and draw their own conclusions, even if characters' fates were predetermined according to their moral shortcomings. If the Hayes Code still existed, though, we might never have witnessed the sublime entertainment experience of a spectacularly awful masterpiece like Showgirls, the poor white trash cousin of All About Eve.

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