Mo in Ghana

And Me in the Audience

On Saturday I was sitting in Starbucks below the Laser Tag place waiting for Har. A guy came in, looking slightly deranged, wearing a Wharton t-shirt. He walked through the place like a comedian walking through a suburban nightclub, all finger points and bu-dum-bas. Here was his monolgue:

Hey how ya doin

You’re my best friend.

That’s a good look for you

What kind of computer is that, an apple?

Welcome to beautiful downtown Sherman Oaks, one and all

A hip a hop a hippy to the hippy and you don’t stop.

What?

Yeah, I thought so. Yeee dog. I could tell a stone throw away from here

Don’t get hit by a reindeer.

Yeah, that’s dangerous.

Come on baby.

You need me.

Train of Thought

I’ve never lived in a place where I couldn’t hear a train. Close by, far off in the distance, I’ve sat in my room at night and heard the haunting trumpet sound. Some nights in NY, I felt the rumble, and listened to the metal on metal of brakes. Other times its just the moaning sound of the horn signaling itself. Was there something on the tracks? A cow? A hobo? I’ve ridden trains so much and often as a means of cheaper transportation, that I don’t really enjoy it. Still, it’s an odd part of my history.

I rode the train to school every day beginning in third grade. I was 8. One morning we were late, I somehow managed to run down the hundred stairs to the platform and get on a second before it started to pull out. My brother, age 7, walked in 2 minutes later wearing his enormous backpack, his hands skimming the tops of the seats on either side of him, his eyes wide and horrified. My step Dad had thrown him on the train as it was moving and he had almost tipped back out from the momentum. Another time in fifth grade I was in my classroom at school when Elizabeth Eagleson was escorted in by the principal, who sat her at her desk and then kissed the top of her head, before quietly walking back out. We all turned to look at her and she burst in to tears. She could barely get the words out but she had seen a businessman slide under the train. She said his leg popped like a grape under a hammer.

I rode the train back and forth to NY when I lived there. I took it to visit my grandparents in Rhode Island. I traveled to Florida, South Carolina, Boston, Washington and back to Pennsylvania. The longest rides with the dining cars, snack bars and smoking sections were the worst. From a lack of sleep, I not only swore I’d never step foot on another ghetto, stink-filled, chug along train, I hated anyone else who ever sat along with me, before, during or after. Then I’d see a train scene in a movie or be with a child who thought it would be fun and I would say to myself, it’s not so bad. As soon as an hour passed though I’d be swearing all over again: drunks, moaners, religious crazies, perverts, runaways, families, my own included, I’ve ridden with them all. I remember infestations of crawly bugs on the head-rests, and jheri-curl smears on the windows. I remember singing out loud to myself one time, my head pressed to the window. In a monotonous stupor I sang, certain no one could hear me, and who cares if they did.

I heard a train this morning, probably at Union Station, and thought all this.

Mosque vs Ground Zero

I like that this photo shows Sarah wearing a cross. I don't know that much about Christianity but I'm positive that putting a mosque near ground zero is exactly the kind of thing Jesus would have advocated.

I also thought this guy from the radio put it really beautifully.

Magic

The other night when we got home we heard laughter coming from our neighbor's apartment so we had to knock on the door and see what the hell was going on. Come in, come in, Dallas said. He told us he and Michelle had just bought the fat app and had been taking pictures of themselves for 30 minutes. They both still had tears on their faces. Of course he had to line us up and take a few mood shots (you know, angry, sad, thoughtful) and we spent the next half hour (it felt like a month) collapsing on the floor, hiccuping, screaming and drooling like drunkards (I'm sorry all the pictures are still in Dallas' phone).

I wonder if this is what happened when the cavemen first discovered fire.

The Agent

I could have ignored the sunglasses on top of his head at 10 pm, his fade haircut, the Blackberry in his hand that he had one eye on, and his leg up on the chair, exposing his set like a matador. But the goddam eyebrows stopped me in my tracks. If he was gay, I could have pulled him aside like a sister, honey you've gone too far with the tweezing; I could have even ruffled them up a bit with my thumb. But he wasn't and I couldn't so I didn't.

You know, I don't exactly care for my tone either right now, I'm passing judgement, it's true. He's just a squirrel trying to get a nut. Who am I to knock him down, to criticize and act as though I do no wrong. I don't feel good about myself going after an easy target, but the thing is, not only did he give me and, let's be honest, every person in the room, the once over/up and down, he spent the whole time talking about how pathetic this actor guy was. And laughing about it.

Still, he could have been talking about Shakespeare or love and I wouldn't have heard a word of it. It was like that part in a movie where the car hits the brakes and there is loud screeching and then bang, the worst metal ripping sound you've ever heard in your life, then the hub-cab spirals to the ground and there is silence. And everything moves in slow motion from that point on. All I could think was Vincent Price's voice chanting eyebrows, eyebrows, EYEBROWS.

I saw my sister from the corner of my eye, excused myself and grabbed her arm like a life raft. "Can you tell I'm staring at his eyebrows?" I stage whispered, and then bore a lazer beam above her eyelids.

No, but you look insane, was what she said. I kept staring at her. It was hard to snap out of it. Then she said "Oh Dave?"

YES Dave.

Oh, yeah, well.

It is hard for me to accept this. It is hard for me to accept that I live in a town where it is more common for a guy to groom himself than it is for him to know how to change a tire.

The Best Beach

We went to Point Dume, even though we had to park 1/2 mile away and walk through little streets and lanes, down the bluff on a rickety metal staircase, and over stones and shards of flat rock. It was worth it for the following reasons:

1. Walking with heavy bags over rocks and down the sides of cliffs is fun when one person in your group is wearing giant flippers and the above outfit.

2. Only about 10 other people were there.

3. The sun was hot and the water was icy.

4. At about 3 o'clock, a man wearing an army green hooded wetsuit and carrying a harpoon, emerged from the water with 2 fourteen-inch fish hanging from a silver buckle around his waist.

I wish I had taken a picture, but I was too busy staring at him with my mouth open.