Monthly Archives: September 2013

I’m starting a twelve-step program for people who can’t stop talking about Breaking Bad

Look, I like Breaking Bad. It’s a good show. But don’t you think that, as a society, we might have crossed some sort of an invisible line? It’s getting out of hand, the daily praise being heaped upon the cast, upon Bryan Cranston. And I’m not trying to take anything away from his performance, from the storytelling or anything like that. But it’s past the point where it’s way too much.

I’m talking about how the phrase Breaking Bad has entered itself into the beginning and end of almost every human interaction. It’s like right after two people meet and say hello, one party is obliged to at least make a reference to Breaking Bad. “How’s it going,” “Good, you?” “Great. Did you see Breaking Bad last night?” “Did I? Oh my God. That was the best hour of television I’ve ever watched in my life.” “Tell me about it! And I thought last week’s episode was as good as it could have possibly gotten.” “Right? I know!”

I went to the doctor the other day for a physical. He sat me down in his chair to look over my preliminary paperwork, and he was like, “So …” and I was filling in the blanks in my head, “So, it looks like you haven’t been to the doctor in a while,” or, “So, I notice that you’re blood pressure is a little up.” But no, he’s looking at my charts, and the first thing he says is, “So, did you watch Breaking Bad this week?”

And what do I say? Like I’ve already made it clear, I like Breaking Bad, OK, it’s a good show. But do I feel it necessary to talk about it with my doctor? “Well,” I told him, “I do watch it, but I’m a few episodes behind.” And he stopped with my papers and looked up at me slowly. “How many episodes would you say you’re behind by?” And I don’t know, my weeks are busy, days and nights have a way of blurring together. “Three? Four? I don’t know,” I told him. And he continued staring at me, clearly concerned, “But … but you do watch it, right? You do like Breaking Bad?”

“Yes,” I assured him, “I do like Breaking Bad.” He looked visibly relieved. “Good, that’s good,” and he went back to my papers. Was he writing that down? Is that pertinent to my medical history? I felt compelled to add something, anything, “I just can’t believe how far they’ve taken Walter White, his character,” and the doctor was like, “I know right? It’s like … wow … they’re taking him all the way.” “Yeah, intense.” “Right?”

And then every Sunday I go on Facebook and Twitter and it’s all Breaking Bad status updates, “Holy crap! I did not see that coming #BreakingBad.” “Just watched Breaking Bad. I do not know how I’m going to make it to next week’s episode!” I swear, I was walking down the street yesterday and there was a guy holding a makeshift cardboard sign that said, “Can you believe what happened last night on Breaking Bad?” and this other guy pulled out his iPad and wrote out a reply, “I know! Right?” and everybody around was just standing there nodding in approval, everyone stuck in awe of how groundbreaking this television series continues to be, and also, that we’re all in on it. You’re in on it. I’m in on it. And you know that I know that we both know that we’re watching it unfold together, the drama of our generation. Well, at least since The Wire wrapped up.

It’s not just social media, it’s all media, new, old. All of the newspapers are constantly running articles, stuff about Breaking Bad heralding a golden age of cable television. The New Yorker did a piece on Bryan Cranston last week and it was almost hagiography, interviews with all sorts of coworkers and Hollywood insiders praising Cranston’s work as the performance of a lifetime.

Again, I’d agree, Cranston is giving the performance of a lifetime. But does it have to leak into every aspect of my life? Can I just watch the show at my own pace without having to compete with everyone I know, trying to prove who likes Breaking Bad the most? Could we just watch an episode and then stay off of the Internet spoiling plot twists immediately after they’ve aired? I like Breaking Bad, but can we, as a species, just cool it, just a little bit?

Tell Frank I say hi

If you see Frank, tell him I said hi. Tell him, “Hey Frank, I just ran into Rob, and he says hi.” And then give me a call and tell me if he says anything back. Like maybe Frank’s going to be like, “Oh, that’s really nice. Tell Rob I say hi also!” And then I’ll text you back, I’ll say something like, “Tell Frank I say thanks for saying hi. Ask him how he’s doing.” Just ask him. Just be like, “Frank, I just got a text back from Rob, he says thanks for saying hi back. He wants know how you’re doing.”

Let me know what he says. I’m assuming it’ll be something like, “I’m doing great. Ask Rob how he’s doing,” to which I’ll have you tell him, “Rob says he’s also doing great,” onto which I’ll change topics slightly, tell him, “Rob wants to know if you’ve seen Riddick.” If I know Frank like I think I know Frank, the answer’s going to be something like, “Rob, Frank says he hasn’t seen Riddick yet, although he liked Pitch Black when he was in high school.” I need you tell him, “Frank, Rob wants me to tell you to do yourself a favor, to go and see Riddick. Rob says he saw it last week and it was awesome. Even though he saw it already, he said that he’s more than happy to go see it again with you next weekend.”

And then I think I know how things are going to play out from there, let me know what he says, because I’ll bet you anything it’s going to be something like, “Well, tell Rob that I’d love to go to the movies with him, but you know, with the wife and kids, it’s really not as easy to get out like it was when we were younger.” Frank’s always saying stuff like that, like, “Another time maybe,” or, “Yeah, we should make plans to do something sometime soon.”

I’ll be like, “How’s next week?” and he’ll be like, “To make plans to do something?” and I’ll say, “No, to do something. This is the making plans.” He’ll give me some nonsense, last time it was something like, “Well, next week I might be able to make plans for something in the future sometime, but I don’t know. You know how it is. Wife. Kids. But hey, let’s think about maybe calling each other up someday, maybe we’ll eventually figure something out.”

So tell him, tell Frank, “Frank, look, Rob wants you to know that he knows where you’re headed with all of this. He says not to worry about it. He hired a sitter. He told his sister that your wife can come over and hang out with her. Also, Rob says that he bought two tickets for Friday night. It’s Riddick. It’s IMAX. Look, I don’t want to get in the middle here, but you should totally go for it. I mean, a free night out? Not having to worry about the wife and kids? IMAX? That sounds too good to be true.”

Come on, just tell him that. Well, if the conversation gets that far, just please, tell him about the tickets, about the sitter, remind him that we were supposed to go see Pearl Jam back in 2009, and that even after I bought the tickets, he texted me a month before the show, “Is it too late to back out? I think it’s my sister-in-law’s birthday that night.” And those were not easy tickets to get, no. Just, you don’t have to mention Pearl Jam, but keep it in your head. I guess use it if you have to.

Exactly, if it gets that far. Start by telling him I said hi. Eventually get to Riddick. It’s a ten-fifteen show, which, I know, it’s kind of late for a dude with kids, but it’s an all-night sitter, I found her on craigslist. We could even go out afterward. Like, we could really go out, bars, clubs, everything. My sister could take his wife out too, if she’s into it.

All right, well, tell him I said hi. Tell him “hey” for me.

Hey Steve! If you see Shaun, tell him I say “What’s up,” and also, tell him, “Shaun, Rob wants me to remind you to tell Frank that he says hi, and something about Riddick and maybe Pearl Jam, he didn’t give me all of the details, but he says you’ll know what I’m talking about. Here, he wrote it down. Do you want me to read it to you? Do you want me to come with you and read it to Frank? Can you just give me Frank’s new phone number to give to Rob? He says he promises no more late night phone calls. Just tell him hey. Tell everyone Rob says hi, it’s been too long, we all really need to get together soon.”

So you know what I did?

The other day I was driving in my car when this guy totally cut me off in an exit ramp on the Grand Central Parkway. Traffic wasn’t even that bad. I was maybe ten, eleven cars back, waiting for my turn to get off. And yes, of course I considered coasting along the left side of all of the other waiting cars, cutting in front right at the last second. There was plenty of room, and cops never pull drivers over on the Grand Central Parkway. But I waited my turn. And right when I was on deck, this guy comes out of nowhere and noses in front of me, very aggressively, looking back at me to make eye contact, like saying, “What are you going to do about it, huh?”

So you know what I did? I gave him a big smile and waved him through, as if to say, “Go for it, friend. Please, help yourself to my spot.” Because, who am I to get angry? Maybe this guy just got fired from his job. Maybe he was a professional driver, but his boss called him in to the office today, he was like, “Listen, you’re a nice guy and everything, but this isn’t working out. You’re too soft on the road. We need someone a little more assertive. Sorry, but you’re fired.” And this guy’s driving home, he’s thinking, I’m not soft behind the wheel, I’m very assertive, aggressive even. And then he cuts me off and he looks at me and, what? What is he expecting?

So that’s me, giving him a thumbs up, I’m telling him through my body language, “Yeah man. You tell ‘em. I can’t believe your boss incorrectly pegged you as the passive type. You. You, my friend, are most certainly one of the stronger drivers I’ve encountered on the road. And that’s saying something, because I’m driving a lot. Let me tell you something, the way you saw that six inch gap open up in front of me, the attitude expressed as you inched your front bumper into a position that I was in no way capable of arguing with, that my amigo, that was some ballsy driving. In a good way.”

And then later in the evening I went to the grocery store to get something for dinner. I had a craving for Mexican food, and I always make this great sauce, you need smoked jalapenos canned in adobo, whatever that means, I found this recipe a while ago that called for smoked jalapenos in adobo. Anyway, this grocery store had just one can left. What luck, right? So I threw it in my cart and headed down the dairy aisle to pick up some eggs and milk and stuff.

But I was looking at expiration dates, making sure everything was fresh, when I noticed this lady kind of shadowing behind me. It was weird enough that I was definitely picking up some strange vibes, but not entirely noticeable that I’d necessarily call her out. Besides, I had no idea of her intentions, if anything, it was my fault that I’d automatically assume something negative going on. But unfortunately, my instincts proved correct, because while I was opening up a carton of eggs to test the strength of each shell, I caught this lady in the corner of my eye reach into my basket and snatch my can of peppers.

By the time my mind registered what was actually happening, she had already shuffled half an aisle down, her head turned back just enough so I could make eye contact with her left eye, and without saying anything, I could read her, she was telling me, “Go ahead and say something. You want to make a scene? Let’s make a scene. I’m crazy enough to steal groceries out of your cart. You think I won’t scream? Or throw stuff? Try me.”

You know what I did? I flashed her a big smile, almost like I was in the middle of a good natured, sincere laugh. I opened my hands and raised them in the air while I shrugged my shoulders, almost like saying, “You got me! Yep, you certainly got me, you devil you,” and then I made a mock-squinty face, wagging my finger at her, like, “Oh you, I see you, but you got me!” because, why am I going to get so upset? Over peppers? She obviously needed those peppers, or at least wanted them more enough than I did, because I’d never steal groceries out of someone else’s basket, not unless I had a really good reason. Maybe she had a really good reason. Maybe her dad grew those peppers. Maybe those peppers were his most prized peppers, out of all of the other peppers he’d ever grown. And maybe when he wasn’t looking, the farm owners came over and harvested everything and put them in cans with adobo sauce, and he came running home to his daughter and was like, “Honey, you saved the big ones, right? My prized peppers? When they came for the harvest, tell me you saved my favorite peppers!” and she didn’t know what to say, she knew how much her dad loved those peppers, and seeing the pain it caused him, watching this once proud man fall to his knees, weeping like a child, she had no other choice than to follow the chain of production, to buy back every single can of peppers that she could get her hand on. Surely if she could present her father with all of those cans, he’d see how sorry she was, that maybe one of those peppers was in one of those cans, somewhere, somehow.

And that’s why I stood there in the aisle, still fake laughing at that lady, like I was telling her, “No need to be so sneaky, I’m not mad at all. Please, help yourself to anything you need. Can I help you with anything else? Maybe I have some old cans tucked away in the back of my pantry. Might those be of any help? Can I help you carry your bags to the car? Do you need me to find other cans of peppers in different groceries? I could ask the manager if they have any stocked away in the back.”

But she still looked really suspicious, still shuffling toward the register, still with that one left eye trained on my general vicinity. I couldn’t possibly know what she was going through, no more than she could know about me, about how while I was doing my best to let her know that I was OK, I lost the grip in my left hand, that carton of eggs, it slipped just a little bit, and I caught it, but the carton jolted slightly, and one egg fell out, it was open after all, I was checking all of the eggs, I don’t know why, it’s something my mother taught me as a little kid that you’re supposed to do when you buy eggs, and so this one egg fell right at my feet, egg everywhere, on both shoes, on my left pant leg, and I was just standing there shrugging and grinning and throwing my other hand in the air, like, “Whoops! What a klutz! Right? I can’t believe I dropped that egg on my shoe. Clean up on aisle six! Please, I’m fine, I can handle this. Give me the mop. I’d like to be the one to take care of this mess. No it’s fine, I insist. If this is the worst thing that happens to me today, then I’ll be A-OK, I’ll be in great shape, just terrific!”

Stuck in a downpour on some street in the city

It rained the other day for maybe twenty minutes, but it was a hard rain, it came out of nowhere. The sky was blue in the morning, it was blue all the way through lunchtime, but at around one or one thirty, all of the sudden it started getting black, really dark. I didn’t know what to do, because I had my bike with me, and so it’s always this dilemma, do I chain it up and make a break for the subway? Should I attempt taking it with me underground? Or might I even feel desperate enough to try and bike through the storm, to tough it out for the four or so miles back to my house?

I didn’t have any time to think either, because once the rain started, it was pouring. There was no gradual build up, like usually you might feel a few drops here and there, something that eventually turns into a steady sprinkling. No, this was like a light switch, off to on in an instant. I was already twenty-five percent soaked, and while I briefly considered chalking it up as a loss, I worried about the cell phone in my pocket, what if the intensity of this downpour was enough to breach the waterproof properties of my backpack?

My decision was to find some coffee shop or deli to duck into for a few minutes, to stay dry while simultaneously thinking through a next step. But where specifically could I go? The coffee shop and deli ideas didn’t really appeal to me. For one thing, I’m sure everybody else on the street was having the same thought, and so I’d be fighting the crowd just to get inside.

And if I made it in, then what? I could just picture the people behind the counter at either of those locations, all of them thinking, “Here we go, lots of customers, time to move here.” But nobody really wants anything to eat or drink, we’d all just be seeking refuge, maybe pretending to look at the menu, “Give me another minute, please,” acting like paying customers, finally some manager or owner making a loud announcement, “Look, this isn’t a shelter, it’s a business. Buy something or leave.”

It came to me, the giant bookstore was only a few blocks down. That would be perfect. I could pretend to read books, or I didn’t even have to pretend, the employees there don’t care if you’re spending money or not. I started to run but there were obstacles everywhere, all of the sudden everyone had an umbrella out.

And this I never understand. How is it that everyone in the world is so prepared for an unexpected downpour except for me? Where are people keeping these umbrellas? Because I never notice them when it’s not raining, like if there’s a stretch of five days in a row without so much as a drop, you’d think I’d see umbrellas sticking out of bags or people holding umbrellas. Have you ever seen city umbrellas? They’re huge. It’s like we’re all so used to everything small, small apartments, small portions, virtually no personal space everywhere, but then it starts to rain and there’s a mass protest, “I don’t care if there’s not enough room for everyone in this city to carry a giant four-foot diameter umbrella, I’m doing it, you get out of my way.”

All of the umbrella spokes are exactly at my eye level, and so I wasn’t only trying to beat the rain, but I was attempting to avoid having anything gouged out. Where do you even buy a giant umbrella anyway? The only ones I ever see are the cheap-o black plastic kind, the ones that, even if you’re using them, you’re still getting wet. Depending on how you hold it, either your back’s dry, or your front, but not both. I always thought, that’s the price we pay for living in a city, right? We can’t all have giant umbrellas. There’s simply not enough space on the streets.

I finally made it to the bookstore and the usually vacant looking security guard standing out front put his hand up, “Sorry boss,” he told me, “You’re soaking wet.”

“Exactly!” I protested, “That’s why I’m trying to get inside.”

“No can do,” he wasn’t even looking at me, he was still blankly staring across the street, keeping his eyes open for potential shoplifters I guess, “You’ll get all of the books wet. It’s not going to happen.”

“What do you care?” I was getting pissed off now, “I could spend all day in this bookstore reading every single book on the shelf for free. Talk about wasting money. But now you’re worried that I might wet a page or two? What kind of a business model is that?”

It was a pointless argument. I was already soaked. I figured that I might as well make the ride home, I couldn’t get any wetter. By the way, I was wrong, I could get wetter, so wet that it felt like my sneakers had become supersaturated, each step a dramatic slosh-slosh sound.

I came back to that same bookstore the next day and made it a point to collect a huge stack of books. Then I went right by the entrance and sat Indian style while I pretended to read every book, licking my finger each time I turned the page. But the guard didn’t even look my way, not even once, even though I kept coughing, a big, fake, “Cough! Cough!” sound. And I was too busy paying attention to the security guard that I didn’t even get to really enjoy any of the reading. I was just pretend reading really. What a waste of a day. What a waste of two days, if you count the first day that I spent just totally getting absolutely soaked to the core.

Fun facts about golf

Did you know that golf balls are filled with acid? That’s why they’re so bouncy. You ever try bouncing a golf ball on your driveway, on a paved surface? You don’t expect it to bounce so high, because it’s hard, it’s like a rock, like try throwing a rock on your driveway, nothing, just a loud smack. But golf balls bounce, because they’re filled with acid.

You ever see a golf ball cut in half? Never. You hit them over and over again with your golf clubs and nothing, no cracks, those things are going to outlast all of us. But say you’re getting curious, say you cut one open with a saw or a sharp blade. Don’t do it, I’m just saying, say you tried it out. All of that acid would come pouring out, it would dissolve the whole golf ball from the outside in. That’s why you never see any broken balls lying around, because they automatically self-destruct.

You don’t ever think to yourself, how do they get the acid inside the golf ball? Like, take a golf ball and take a good, close look. Don’t worry, that acid is safe behind the hard surface. Look even closer. Do you see any seams? Nothing. It’s totally solid, like how did they get that acid inside in the first place?

Sure it’s not a big deal to imagine some sort of modern technology making that happen. I’m just throwing ideas around, but maybe they suspend the acid in some sort of a magnetic field, and then they form the shell in a liquid state outside of it, and then the whole thing is flash frozen – ZAP – presto, golf ball. Fine.

But what about in the early ages of golf? You know that golf was invented over two hundred years ago, right? Talk about crazy, I can’t imagine playing even nine holes right now, with a cart, with an unlimited supply of balls. It’s too hard. Those ancient Scottish golfers, one of them was talking to his friend, he’s like, “Hey man, I’ve got a great idea, we’ll make a really small ball and whack it with some sticks across fields, ultimately trying to get it into a little hole in as few whacks as possible.”

And the other golfer was like, “You know what? That actually sounds kind of fun. Here, let me try.” But I don’t know about you, but my first time holding a golf club, teeing up at the driving range, I’d never swung at a ball before, it was a disaster. The ball went up and to the left and didn’t even make it out of the box I was standing in.

The first time I teed off from an actual course wasn’t any better. Ninety percent of my shots went straight into the woods, which, I’m guessing in ancient Scotland, that golfer would have been like, “Oh well, I seemed to have lost that ball, sorry. Can I try again? Practice makes perfect.”

But how? Try again with what? Another ball? Where did that first golfer get that ball in the first place? Are you telling me that these guys two hundred years ago had access to acid machines or whatever is that they use to make golf balls? Or lawn mowers? How were they keeping the greens short enough to putt on?

What I’m getting at is that none of it makes any sense. Golf is wildly popular now, yes, but the idea that golf ever made it past the drawing board stage seems highly unlikely, impossible even. I mean, sure, there wasn’t any Internet or anything, and so, I don’t know, what were they all doing out there, shepherding? Herding animals? I guess that could have been boring enough to the point where hitting a ball hundreds of yards in the opposite direction might have seemed like a slightly more entertaining activity than standing around doing nothing.

But how did they get access to the acid? And I haven’t even brought up the clubs. Do you know that the heads of the woods are actually hollowed out and filled with nitrogen? It’s something about evening out the hitting surface. I don’t understand it. I don’t claim to understand it. So how did these Scottish guys figure it out hundreds of years ago? It doesn’t make any sense. What am I not getting here?