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Anyone who needs to know the real motivation of the teabag party movement doesn’t need to look much further than this? Imagine how a real hero like John Lewis might feel about this. For those of you who don’t know…you were either fooled or you are a fool.
For a brief period of my life, I golfed. I’ve always been a reasonably good athlete without a vertical leap, a bit slow-footed, but I have killer hand-eye coordination.
Golf is tailor-made for someone like that. But it is a sport that you have to learn at a young age to get good. I’ve always hated the scene that surrounds golf. It is a white guy’s playground. Goofy clothes and bad attitudes, beer bellies, an air of superiority – it seemed as if middle-aged white guys found a place to succeed in the sports world that wasn’t occupied by better athletes. I’m sorry – but I would challenge Phil Mickelson on the basketball court any day. In fact, I might challenge him to a race. Speed walking even. When Tiger Woods came along, it changed for me. He was a hero. Breaking the perceived strangle hold that the overly comfortable had with this sport. He made watching golf on TV seem cool for the first time. Heck, even Jack Nicklaus wore yellow polyester outfits in his hey day. Tiger Woods kept me playing the game for years.
While I was going to the practice range on a regular basis, Tiger Wood was starting to chew up the tour. Many of us tuned into his triumphs. He was a phenomenon. I became incensed when his motivations, background, or style were questioned. When Fuzzy Zoeller made racially insensitive remarks at the Masters, it was the old tradition of golf rearing it’s ugly head yet again. The country club can be the breeding ground of intolerance. As I strolled down the fairway of a country club that probably would have excluded my ancestors, I was Tiger Woods. Even though I never quite got the hang of the game to the point of being really proficient, I was fighting against the exclusionary and entitled aspects of the sport because I had a secret. I hated this lifestyle and this intolerant group. Every guy with a cigar on a golf course who acted like a big shit and said something about the rest of the world that I hated was defeated by a made putt or a great drive. Put together the soundtrack of my golf experiences – the conversations on the course – and you have a snapshot of what drives me crazy about this society. Tiger Woods came along and made clear that it didn’t have to be the case.
I’m white. For me to pretend I’m Tiger Woods is a stretch. His life has taken so many twists and turns that I can only imagine what it is like to walk in his spikes. Pioneers endure many things as they rise to the top. My golf experiences were mostly about enduring failure. I reveled in the accomplishments of Tiger because it is rare for me to root for the front-runner. I loved the way that he turned the golf world upside down. His influence could be felt in Asia and Harlem. I believe that Barack Obama doesn’t happen if Tiger Woods didn’t win the Masters. As much as the golf world would pick at him and say that his streak was over, or his behavior was a disgrace – he defied them all. It was never true. He won everything. Tiger was smooth, elegant, and amazing. He took a sport with little drama and made it opera. At one tournament, he waited until the sun went down and made a ridiculous putt that filled the night with the lightening of camera flashes. Tiger Woods had a way of making a simple, lazy Sunday in front of the boob tube seem like magic. He came through in the clutch unlike anyone that we’ve ever seen. Tiger’s elegance, grace under pressure, and sporting style foreshadowed what was to come for our country. He did give hope to many and excited the world because we’ve never seen anything quite like it.
Tiger Wood’s fall from grace is disappointing. This week – one of the porn stars who he humped released some text messages from him about his interest in “golden showers”. The details get more attention than they deserve. However, it is hard to conceive of more tawdry revelations. An image is hard to create and so easy to demolish. When Tiger returns to the Masters, it is no longer about a Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. It will be something else. A salacious story about a guy being awkwardly human is hard to resist.. Or worse, he was as good on the golf course as he was bad at life. Remember, Tiger Woods was turned into a golf star by his overzealous father. It started at three. Andre Agassi was smoking crystal meth with the identical path to greatness. Corey Haim could never get over his rise and fall. Maybe Tiger Woods was really good at being a jerk because we’d pressured him to be good at everything. Being a jerk isn’t as easy as it seems. He became the best. Our society is currently obsessed with promoting the jerk and acting surprised when we are right. Tiger Woods was different. This time, we were wrong.
I stopped playing golf. It had nothing to do with Tiger Woods. In the end, I hated the lifestyle. It was too many hours out of the day mindlessly failing at an activity. And the conversations sucked. Recreational golf is about conversation because you are thrust into someone’s company for long periods. It is hard to spend 5 hours riding around in carts with people and not grow to dislike it. A golf course is a place for the politically incorrect to feel free. Faggots, blacks, liberals, pussies, and women all take on the chin as the fat guy with the cigar pretends that he’s winning the Masters even though he can’t keep his pants above his crack. I remember being invited to play a round of golf with some friends and being partnered with one of those guys. He was a little entitled lawyer from the nice side of the street. He was lauded for his golf game with a personality that made my blood pressure rise. A miserable little character who was the last pick at recess as a child, but found an entitled little world where acting like an asshole had few ramifications. I carried his ass all over the golf course as we partnered during a $2.00 Nassau. This was gambling for the sake of it. He was a lawyer with a high salary. The bile that came from his cigar-smoking mouth made every moment of the round torture for me. Finally, on the last hole – after he putted off the green, it was up to me. At least $2.00 was on the line for this putt. His entire round of mistakes, misses, and horrendous play was forgotten. This was all about me. My Tiger Woods moment. “If I make this putt, it was a big one in his miserable, joker-like face”, I thought. He acted terribly in those moments. He got in my way and started reading the putt for me. I had played so much better than him that it was insulting for him to try. It was $2.00. “Dude, here…take the money…get lost….you are supposed to be on my team”. I was hating this guy so much as I stood over the putt that I could no longer concentrate on it. I hit it without caring, missed badly, and we lost. I didn’t want to be Tiger Woods or anyone else in that place. I wanted to be a good person. The little man acted like I’d let him down. It is easy to feel that way when success is only based on the win and not the experience. He let me down with lousy play all day which I never mentioned, but I cost him $2.00. The temptation to wrap my Ping putter around his puny neck was strong. There is no physical contact in golf, but I wanted to check him into the boards.
Here’s the little secret about golf. It is all about repetition. You can get really good at golf by playing it a lot. And getting lessons. I got good at basketball organically. Sure, I had coaches along the way, but it was mostly self-taught. Golf is one of those games that requires a little bit of access, a lot of time, and money. If you spend it, you will get good. If you spend it young, you will become great. I’d stack up my hand-eye coordination with anyone. At least, Tiger Woods started to get everyone in shape on the Tour. You could be woefully out of shape and win before he came along. But golf’s little secret annoys me. Practice is important and I’m sure that there are natural gifts involved, but what if everyone had access. Most of the guys on Tour wouldn’t be there.
Tiger Woods is a human being for sure. When a guy marries a Swedish doll to improve his image, I doubt that he considered the importance of his place in history. It isn’t fair to make him more than a golfer. That’s the problem with marketing – when image is everything, the standard can be a reach. I can’t think of a reputation drop that equals this one. He has done no more than Kennedy, Clinton, and other tarnished heroes. But his was a reputation built on money, success, and sponsorships. He was handled and pampered. The highest paid athlete of all-time. The thought that he was scouring the bargain bin for a cheap lay is inconceivable to most. But I get it. Being a man-made icon isn’t a happy place unless you are doing what you really love. Golfing. And frankly, he probably would have preferred playing basketball anyway. Like me. If only I had a better vertical.
The TV ratings went down 50% because of Tiger Woods’ ordeal. There are a lot of stakeholders who need him to get his act together. I’m not one of them anymore. I’m not that interested in his return to golf. In fact, I’m not that interested in golf anymore. Elin will have to deal with him now. I’ve moved on. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t admire what he went through. His human quality isn’t refreshing, but it is obvious. We don’t live a Buick commercial. I assume now that his life is a prison even more than it was before. But lots of people will watch this. We love a good comeback. In many ways, we create the decline so that we can root for the rebirth. Tiger and his transgressions are part of the story. But it says a little bit about us too. We make heroes in the wrong places. Silly games become our obsession. We practice and practice because it is the only way to get good. But if the inspiration of the Tiger Woods story gets distilled into the reaction of a fat guy on the golf course with a cigar who says, “See, I told you that he’d be like that.” Then what was the net gain? In the end, the country club won. And I lost. And I didn’t even have to practice.
Any game that has beer and cigars as equipment isn’t really a sport. Don’t fool yourself – especially if you are riding around in carts. I don’t own any ugly golf shirts and goofy saddle shoe spikes anymore. I sold my clubs on craigslist. Watching golf on TV isn’t that entertaining to me. However, I might end up tuning into the Masters. I’m not sure yet. It isn’t to watch one of my heroes this time. I guess – it is just me being human. Or better yet, a jerk.
In these tough economic times, the streets look a bit different than they did a couple of years ago. On the front lines of the Philly Diaspora, you’ll see worn out faces, a bit of despair, and a bit more wrinkled clothing. The town is looking like a Springsteen lyric in some places. In my neighborhood, a mini-Hooverville seems have formed on 8th Street. One thing that is very evident in the little hamlet of Market East is the number of “People Talking To Themselves”. I see it everywhere. People walking down the street muttering to themselves, laughing at things inside of their heads, or screaming at imaginary villains. Like baseball’s ERA or football’s Quarterback rating, I think that we need a proper gauge of this phenomenon and how it might relate to our quality of life. I hope that the Greater Philadelphia Tourism people or maybe even Paul Levy are reading this.
I have devised a system to calibrate this phenomenon called the “PTT quotient”. Basically, this number is based on the number of people that the average walker will see on his travels during the course of one city block who are talking to themselves, miming to themselves, karate-chopping the air, or generally acting insane as if nobody is noticing. Well, except me. I notice. You should too. It can be pretty alarming at times. But it can also give a lot of texture to your average walk up the street. So, when I leave my place and walk from the apartment to the Gallery and see three people talking to themselves or fighting against a dragon or swordfighting against imaginary knights, my PTT will be 3. Of course, as the trip progresses, the number will change. Your official PTT number will then be the average number of people talking to themselves that you might encounter as you pass through a neighborhood. PTT is an ever-changing figure. A very dynamic number.
One day, I walked up Filbert to the train station. Four people were talking to themselves in various stages of dress. These were clearly hard luck PTTers. I have a great deal of compassion for them but stats are stats. Then, before getting to the corner, a well-heeled man in a suit and a crumpled tie was in full bloom as a PTTer as he hurried up the street. I have less compassion for his insanity because he doesn’t need it. So, One block = 5 ptt. Amazing. I walked from there into the train station and imagined that the number actually went up.
Now in Market East, it is a given that our PTT is quite high. On a daily basis, I will encounter at least three or four Don Quixote’s on the way to work. On Market Street, you need only pop your head into a bus stand and you’ll see someone railing against the thoughts in their head. Bus stands are notorious PTT havens. Bus terminals are the motherlode. I saw a guy the other day spreading his found food over the pavement in front of the Grey Hound terminal and having an imaginary picnic with his friends. He was clearly the Mad Hatter. I should have counted him and his imaginary friends as a 4 ptt.
Lately, PTTers aren’t just the homeless, insane, or the lurking-in-the-shadows types. You’ll see the pensive look on a businessman’s face as he walks by and mutters about the fortune lost or the death of his IRA. I see a lot of PTTers on the trolley to work. It is a bouillabaise of PTTers from all walks of life. You’ll see people muttering to themselves as they try to avoid other PTTers. The thing about PTTers is that they have little use for other PTTers. If they did, it might turn into a conversation with a real person. What would be the point of that?
I’m sure Michael Nutter walks down the street sometimes and becomes a PTTer when nobody is looking. Those Anti-Casino people must feel like PTTers as they rail against the evils of filling empty buildings and spaces when nobody seems to be listening. Sometimes, people who trip on imaginary cracks, or turn quickly when the wind crosses their neck, or have to say “NO” to the same beggar every day for the last 4 months on the way out of the El stop can quickly turn into PTT statistics.
I imagine that the PTT quotient goes way up in our city parks. PTT doesn’t necessarily mean bad neighborhood. Washington Square is my favorite city park and yet the PTT numbers are quite high. Rittenhouse Square features our most tony residences and yet I’d venture to say has one of the highest PTT ratings in the city. As you walk down Walnut through the shopping district, the number goes down. I guess window shopping keeps you quiet. However, when the totals get rung up on the register, anyone is susceptible to a bit of PTT magic. Franklin Square is very distracting and has amazing security. It might have a PTT rating of zero on a daily basis. Well, unless you are miniature golfing and missed the putt on the Ben Franklin Bridge hole.
Blue-tooth phones and generally bad behavior with cell phones must be included in the PTT figure. If you are walking down the street and talking out loud on your cell phone, you could be mistaken for a PTT. While we all know that it is rude, this is not true PTTing. Sometimes, I wonder if anyone is on the other end of those conversations. Another new player in the PTT world is the IPHONE phenomenon. These are people who are amazingly silent but smiling to themselves or giggling out loud as they keep their heads pressed towards their IPHONE and lose touch with the real world. In many ways, I respect the average PTTer more than these people. Old school PTTing has more cachet with me than the new forms of acting nuts.
Neighborhood by neighborhood, the PTT number can be very informative. The numbers might be surprising. South Philadelphia has a surprisingly low PTT number. The threat of someone saying…”You talkin’ to me” in a thick Philly accent, keeps that number quite low. Chinatown has a very low PTT or it might just be my lack of knowledge of Chinese. If it is PTTing there, the volume is the highest in the city. West Philadelphia has pockets of low PTT and high PTT. Around Penn, I find a lot of bus stand PTT and just walkin’ around crazy PTTers. Some frantic students enter the mix as well. Fairmount has a very low PTT number but people up there hide in their homes. This could keep the number artificially low. Can you blame them. The place has a lot of mutter potential. Old City has a very low PTT quotient. It might even be zero if you remove the benches around the Old Christ Church. And yet, Penns Landing might have the highest PTT number in the city. And some of those PTTers are bathing in the fountains. If you walk on the parkway, you’ll see a surprising number of PTTers. However, the blocks are long and I’ll need to account for this glitch when calculating its number. The Northeast has a surprising number of PTTers but most of that is due to Glen Beck’s show. The Glen Beck effect must be dealt with in the final calculations. The Main Line has a lot of PTTers but they are seldom seen. I know this. I lived there. One day, I’ll do an expose on …”PTT in the suburbs…talking to yourself about home fix-it”. New Jersey is rife with PTTing. I believe that it is a combination of an inferiority complex and toxic waste. The Jersey Shore has very little PTTing until after last call. Then the number shoots way up. In general, late night PTTing is the bastion of the heavy drinker. This can be some of the more prolific and pathetic PTT noise.
One of the great aspects of the PTT number is the ability to pinpoint some of the epicenters of the phenomenon around town. There are certain locations where this number soars. Around City Hall, for instance. Like whale watching, I hope that one day people go to City Hall just to get a glimpse of PTTing in its most natural habitat. The Free Library has a significant number on the outside and a surprisingly high number on the inside. Typically, libraries frown on such behavior. I think that librarians have gotten soft. The Art Museum has a very low PTT number. The Mutter museum lives up to its name. “Holy ****, what the F is that?” or “No, I’m not disturbed…that is not disturbing” will up your number if it is said to nobody but the soap lady. The woods behind the tennis courts at FDR park will garner some significant PTT numbers and the language is surprisingly eloquent. PTTing happens a lot in a baseball stadium when Brad Lidge is pitching. The corner of 12th and Chestnut has the highest PTT number in the city. Even the passers-by get into the action. In many ways, this is Ground Zero for the PTT set.
I notice that PTTing happens in this town at weird moments as well. For instance, when a tourist walks out of the Marriot and tries to decide which direction to go, they get right into the PTT game. Or a single shopper in Barney’s Co-op can skew the number as they notice the price of a t-shirt. Sometimes, PTTing can be quite nice like the sounds made at the free cheese baskets at DiBruno’s. The line at any local post office will yield an alarming amount of muffled and quite angry PTTing.
So, test these theories as you walk around the city. Pop your head into a bus stand. Notice those around you and see if PTTing is on the rise in your neighborhood. Or just for fun, one day, just sit on the wall near the Clothespin in downtown Philadelphia or the Love statue. It is like bird-watching for a PTT devotee. Apparently, famed outdoor art is a magnet for PTT. Your head will spin as your number goes higher and higher. You’ll wonder about the place where you live and hope that talking to oneself isn’t a sign of desperation but a reflection of our creative ways. Yup, that is how I’m going to view it.
You know…when someone writes something like this, you have to wonder. If I didn’t have this page, I’d probably be a PTT stat waiting to happen. You should see the PTT number in my apartment. I’m the Ted Williams of PTT in my home.
A dog moved in next door. Ok, a couple of girls with a dog moved in next door. If it was an actual family of dogs that moved in, it would have been even more concerning. However, when I signed my lease for this apartment, it was under the condition that there were no dogs allowed. So, if I’m considering moving out, does this make me a bad person? I have a complicated relationship with the concept of pets. Maybe that is why my sanctuary’s borders feel violated.
I had gerbils when I was younger. They are awful little creatures that currently have a stigma attached to them that seems undeserved. The concept of gerbils crawling up a rectum as pleasurable seems more urban myth than fact. Actually, gerbils are quite horrible. Nocturnal creatures that turd every few seconds and make an ungodly amount of noise while humans sleep. I can not recall why I subjected myself to this torture, but I consider it my moment of self-loathing as a youth. A gerbil as a pet is the equivalent of decorating your house in garbage – it is your own damn fault if it depresses you.
By the end of my gerbil period, I had witnessed the carnage of dozens of gerbils involved in cannibalistic activities. It was my fault. When you place the gerbil cages in the bathroom because gerbils apparently don’t believe in family planning, trouble ensues. They hump so often that they quickly turn into a village before you have a chance to relate to one. In an embarrassing display of pet ownership, I had forgotten that I had gerbils while I tried to get some sleep. No more running around on the wheel, no more rattling the water bottle, and no more scratching endlessly in the corner of the urine-soaked, cedar shaving lined aquarium. The reason was unflattering. I had accidentally turned my gerbil nation into a killing field because I needed more REM sleep. It wasn’t purposeful, it was accidental. It made me feel like a bad person. Animals need lots of attention. And you need to give it to them 24 hours a day – even while you should be sleeping.
Cole was a funny little dog. Light on personality, but extremely good looking. For much of his life, he slept on my bed on my size 12 feet. I found that cute at first and then quickly grew tired of the interruption to my sleep patterns. When I started to push Cole off of my futon bed, he would pee on the floor. In fact, Cole would pee and poop on the floor a lot. A skittish dog purchased from a pet store that never really seemed to get over the horrors of that store. A thunderstorm meant instant evacuation. A strong wind might result in a pee. The sound of a truck backing up might result in vomit. Suddenly, my cute little buddy seemed like a walking pot of bodily fluids splashing around with every move. I would wake up to a surprise every morning. Cole was like a grandpa that needed to pee in the middle of night, but somehow couldn’t open the bathroom door with his paws.
When I went golfing, it would be a 6 hour stretch away from home on a Saturday. If I had a beer afterwards, it could turn into 10 hours really quickly. Imagine not going to the bathroom for 10 hours. Ouch. That is a tester for any man – especially after those beers. I would return to my house to the pained expression of a terrorized dog and a pile of poo that would grow every few hours. I would feel like a bad person – especially if I had sliced into the woods on the 15th hole and submarined my round because I was concerned about the prospects of my return home.
There is no better example that we learn about the cycle of life than pet ownership. So many pets breeze through our lives and they become markers of the passage of time. From Anka to Dax to Kai to birdie to kitten to the turtles, gerbils, guinea pigs, tropical fish, and the lizards – I have experienced them all. Each fish stuck in the filter floating upside down with one eye plucked out felt like a personal attack on my sensitivities. Can you imagine seeing a family friend die choking on a potato? I did. That guinea pig didn’t last very long when my Dad decided to feed it leftovers. My poor little friend Cole died of a rectal tumor. During the final weeks, it was a bloody mess that was the equivalent of witnessing a Manson murder. I had a tropical fish in college that ate every fish that I would put into the tank. In fact, I would buy fish that I had to feed this fish. It was hard for me – I don’t love seeing fish ripping apart fish. It is not my idea of a good time. Then again, some people like Monster truck races – so maybe I just can’t relate. After feeding that fish hundreds of fish, it grew to the size of a salmon. Then one day, it jumped out of the tank and died on the floor. It was so big that I couldn’t flush it down the toilet. I couldn’t even find a place in West Philadelphia to properly bury it. It ended up in the trash – much like a spoiled fish that you’d get from Reading Terminal Market. All of that effort for such an ungracious ending.
We had a dog named Kai. An enormous black German shepherd that seems out of step with the rest of the world. Maybe Kai was complicated or maybe Kai was better suited for the job as guard at a concentration camp – either way, it was the scariest figure of my youth. Wake up in the morning, walk down stairs for breakfast, get attacked by family dog, clean wounds, go down back stairs to sneak out of the house, and leave house shaking. I remember seeing Kai chase our little annoying French neighbor across the yard. She could run pretty fast for a 70 year old lady. Kai had an amazing knack for making even the largest and most intimidating person melt with fear. Seeing our post man hiding on top of our car cornered by that dog was funny at the time. It was no way to live.
Kai made me question whether or not animals could really grow to love humans, or whether it was all about the food. If a shark keeps coming around and trying to get some attention from me, I wouldn’t really question his motivation. However, dogs have this manipulative way of appearing sweet and innocent while they are begging for food that we can’t resist. Head on the lap. The eyes of sweet innocence. Give me a Snausage, please. When the gravy train appears to have stopped running, the dog is asleep and farting in the corner without a care in the world. I hope that my houseguests at my next dinner party don’t behave this way after the meal. The dog ends up getting the food. They always do. In the wild, a wolf doesn’t wait for dinnertime to kill the rabbit. It is an all day affair. We think that a wolf is a grumpy dog. But maybe a domesticated dog is just a smoother operator. He doesn’t have to chase the prey through the forest. He licks your face and gets satisfied. The end result is the same. It is an economic arrangement that the wolf never figured out.
When my need to have a pet chameleon was satisfied, the allure lasted a day. A lizard is a cool looking animal. When I went the St. Barth’s and realized that a gecko was something that you wanted to beat with a broom, I looked back at my experience with the chameleons with bewilderment. I would take earthworms with tweezers and feed them to the lazy little creature. This was not the economy of dog ownership. After indulging in the earthworm, the chameleon would disappear under a rock never to be seen again until the next session. It felt a bit like throwing a quarter to a homeless guy so that he could buy another bottle of Wild Turkey and hide in the shadows. I remember less about the chameleon than the earthworms. I spent more time with them – as I pushed them from the plank. If the earthworm had a pink tongue and more visible eyes would I let him sleep on my futon at my feet. It seems so random. While I don’t want to see the guy walking his earthworm around Rittenhouse Square, I’d like to know why waking up every morning to pick up my animal’s poop off of the sidewalk is any more satisfying than briefly saying hello to a wriggling pet on a tweezers about to be eaten by his slothful counterpart.
I walk through the city amazed at the dogs that I see. Imagine a city apartment with a Great Dane? A pit bull? I cross the street when I see them. Tell me that it is the dog, not the owner over and over again. My leg looks like a chicken wing to the dog either way. In the same way that I won’t overanalyze a potential mugger’s early upbringing while I’m trying to escape, the nature vs. nurture argument seems meaningless while I’m trying to pry my leg out of Rover’s mouth. And let’s not forget those little sweaters and hats that people like to put on their pets. No offense, but if humiliation is part of the economic arrangement between dogs and man, I submit that we should just set them free. When I pass the pet store on 13th street and see that array of sweaters, funny collars, etc. I’m reminded that Paris Hilton’s pets are just purses with a pulse. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s had their digestive systems surgically removed because you can’t mess up the Bentley because of a shitting purse. It is amazing how we will judge another human being by the way that they look. How on earth can someone wear white shoes after Labor day? At the same time, your Chihuahua looks so cute dressed up like a leprechaun seems normal. Even Cinco de Mayo isn’t a good excuse to humiliate your pets.
It is amazing how often people talk about their pets. I’m never at a loss for conversation. The potential for conversation seems endless. And yet, I find myself in an endless number of conversations about pets and I don’t have one. It feels like a crutch. It has all of the appeal of asking about the weather when there is an awkward pause in conversation. And the stories seems so amazing or heroic to the owner, but seem so silly to me. If every story about our pets was true, then we have a subculture of superheroes amongst us. Maybe people want to believe in something so badly that they’ll assign amazing feats to their pets that never really happen. “My dog jumped up and alerted us to the incident across the street and saved our lives.” I’m a light sleeper too but I never get away with pooping on the floor. “Fluffy can sense that we are going on vacation, isn’t it amazing how they know?” Yes, when you are busily preparing for your trip and haven’t fed the dog all day, they get a little Kreskin on you. “When grandma died, the only person that understood my pain was my Pekinese.” Crying and screaming at your pet can result in another turd or the feeling like some extra portions are coming with the next meal.
My brother has had a long history of owning parrots. I have had a hate-hate relationship with them. They are loud, dirty, and over-rated as companions. We think that a parrot is a smart animal. “Polly wants a cracker” can be achieved by endlessly torturing your parrot by repeating the same words to it for years. We wouldn’t treat the criminally insane this way. Parrots are given the same respect as Manuel Noriega as we drove him insane with heavy metal music pumped into his compound. How smart can a parrot be when it ends up stuck in a cage only three times its size and sits on a pole all day while crapping on the newspaper. I’ll admit that dogs have created a smarter economic arrangement. But birds are a classic example of our inconsistency when it comes to pets. Pigeons are universally loathed by most people. Rats with wings, they say. You can throw a bottle cap at a pigeon and it will take a few minutes for it to realize that it isn’t food. However, if you put a pigeon in a cage and hand fed it – most owners would say that they have a brilliant pigeon and understand that loving gesture of being given a prison like home environment with a mirror, a cuttle stone, and a water dish filled with poo. On my ride to work when the pigeon that I was about to run over flew up and hit me in the face, I didn’t scream back at the bird and tell him how brilliant he was.
Birds are just birds. A glorious part of the chain. A chain so brilliantly conceived that we revel in its wonders each day. For some reason, I don’t think that ownership of animals was part of the magical layout. While I’m sure that examples exist, my dog never owned a pet squirrel. You won’t see most animals in the wild with pets. They tend to eat them. Even the little fish that swims under the shark seems more nuisance than pet. The shark never even considers dressing that fish up like a leprechaun. It is an arrangement. You eat stuff off of me and I don’t kill you. It is a simple version of the Human-Pet arrangement. Every night on the local news, you’ll hear a story of a guy who stuffs a woman in his basement and never lets her out. When guests used to come to my house as a kid, we put the dog away because it couldn’t be trusted with the new people. My gerbils wanted out. I know that they did. If gerbils could speak, they would have unionized. Or felt like they needed to be freedom fighters. It was no way to sleep. Prisoners are given a gym and a meal. My gerbils were prisoners with an exercise wheel, pellets, a water bowl, and the joy of sleeping in their own feces. I closed my own Guantanemo one day while I was younger and have resisted opening a new one ever since. But I have, it is a pressure in our society. Ghandi said that we are measured by how we treat our animals, they say. But am I a bad person if I want the animals to live as they were intended to be. Maybe mine is the more humane view. After all, I don’t drink out of a water bowl filled with my own poo and I never exercise on a wheel to nowhere.
I love animals. Animal planet is fun to watch. I’ve always been fascinated by seeing a great animal in the wild. On TV of course, because I get rashes easily in the bush. And who the heck has time for all of that hiking. But I’ve never had the need to be squirted on by a killer whale. In fact, I’ve been on a personal crusade to keep people from spitting in Market East, so the thought of going on vacation to have a large sea mammal spit on me is obscene. How many trainers need to die while teaching Shamu to be cute before we understand that it is the same as driving your parrot insane so that you can giggle with friends about him dropping the F-bomb at a dinner party. Essentially, we are dressing Shamu up like a leprechaun and raising him in a pool to slowly go insane like the rest of our pets.
Man has this thing about mastering his domain. We move to the country and try to make it look like the city. We plant flowers and then shoot deer for eating them. We revel in the crazy cuts of meat that we can ingest but complain to the neighbors when their dog pees on our sod. We will hunt down wild game with our rifles and then sue the neighbors when their dog chases our cat into the street. We cut our grass and neuter our pets. Taming the wild is so much fun that we never consider how awful the life of a spitting Killer Whale might be. When Howard Hughes never left his apartment, he was saving urine in bottles and going completely mad. But we never consider that a killer whale subjected to the torture and humiliation of a regular job entertaining us might be cruel beyond imagination. This is one of the kings of the ocean. It has few enemies. It roams freely at will much like a human being on land. How important to science is it that know that a Killer Whale can be humiliated to the point of being a pigeon in the park trying to eat a bottle cap.
I don’t believe that owning a pet is like having a child. I can’t wait to have children. Changing a diaper does not scare me because I know that it will eventually stop. It is a complicated business to raise a child. Every day will unfold with a new worry and a new travail. The satisfaction of bringing a child into this world and watching them do great, not-so-great, and forgettable things is exciting. Putting on a plastic glove each day for the entire life of a dog countless times to pick up their poop reminds me of chasing a tail that you never catch. In an insane asylum. Relationships are more complex than a one-sided arrangement where you get it all. The pet-owner relationship is on tilt. The parrot looks for the open window even if you buy it a new mirror. When you give your dog to the SPCA, it is either killed or finds a new owner. It will love them too. Especially if they feed them the good stuff. It isn’t really unconditional love as much as unconditional hunger. The killer whale kills the trainer because he’s big, trapped, and hungry. You can try to unlock the puzzle, but it doesn’t matter. He’s right and we are wrong. His behavior is as it should be. A crazy person who writes on the walls with crayons with his toes is easily forgiven and not scolded for being insane. They are just insane with the hand that they are dealt. My gerbils ate one another because they were hungry. They didn’t care if I could sleep or not because they were in a cage and behavior like they would in the chain. Nocturnal creatures creates have a tendency to stay up late. It is just one of those things.
I saw a turtle the other day in a store. It was being sold as a pet. Down the street, I saw a basket of turtles sitting near an exhaust pipe on the sidewalk in Chinatown ready to be eaten. Pets aren’t like kids. We don’t eat our kids. That was one lucky turtle that was kept from that fate. What a fine line it is between the joys of petdom and being an appetizer. For some reason, I look at a canary in a pet shop and the image of a Chicken McNugget flashes in my mind. I’m a vegetarian now but I did always love McNuggets. Please don’t think of your kids as McDonalds products. It isn’t healthy. By nature, we are similar to the shark – we are looking for food all day. We consume a lot of things. Pets are part of that need to consume or attain. I want to show off my pet and will endure making it miserable so that I can show him off. In the end, it is never about the pet’s life. Sitting in a basket on the curb and sitting in an aquarium are much the same in the pet world. But what is in it for the turtle?
As I sit in my chair and hear the barking of the dog next door, I can’t help but think of Cole. He sat alone for 10 hours with the threat of being scolded for going to the bathroom on the floor. He shivered and quaked whenever a truck would go down the street. His natural instinct to eat at will was molded to my schedule. I would leave and he was sitting at the door. I would come back and see him sitting in the window waiting for my return. It seemed sweet at the time. But he was really hungry and needed to take a shit, and I was keeping him from it with my ridiculous regime of mind-bending rules and regulations. We aren’t rational with our pets. We are tyrants. Sick of being controlled in our own lives, so that we can squire over something. Anything. Even a turtle. We rail against the man, the government, and foreign influences. But we think nothing of putting a ferret in a cage and wondering why is so jumpy.
The dog across the hall is making my life less sane. We are going down together. I feel great empathy for him. I’m sure that life isn’t easy when you can’t pee at will. But you know-that madness wasn’t part of my lease. I didn’t sign up for this. So it is time to renegotiate. This economic arrangement isn’t working for me. I need a new mirror in my cage.
Tags: cats, dogs, killer whales, petsAs this year comes to a close, I’m reminded by my daily wakeup hug that this has been a monumental year of my life. It felt like suffering for a few months in the spring, but it ended up being a year to remember.
I’ve never felt more confident. More whole. Every morning, I approach the day on a mission. Aiming higher, seeing clearer, reminding myself on a regular basis what was and what can be….and it is all due to the chick. Who knew that the secret to life was the chick. I’ve had a few relationships in my life, but this one makes me better. I feel the difference in my stride, my pride, and the way that I feel about the future. And the main reason…the happiness of the chick.
The best part of being in a successful relationship is the transformation in your outlook. I used to sleep late, now I want to get up early. I want to pick her up from work every day because I can’t wait to hear about her day. I love seeing her come around the corner of my showroom and walk in because she is my home. She’s sexy, smart, empathetic, amazing, and mine. The parade of losers that came before make me wonder where my expectations were. I was settling for Pintos, passing on Ferraris, and losing my license to drive. Now, I’ve got a luxury electric car that handles like a Rolls.
Confidence is a funny thing. It can be so fleeting. You can spend a long time looking at the ground. It can be amazing when you start looking towards the sky. And the enzyme can come from the funniest place. Quite often…it’s all about the chick.
I love you bubs. Thanks for a great year and reminding how to dream big.
I’ve recently become obsessed with watching Youtube versions of songs that I love…done by ordinary folks.
It seems to be a phenomenon of sorts on youtube. “I’ve got a guitar, I want to be a star, I have a dubious level of talent…so….I’m going to post a video of myself singing a song and let the chips fall where they may”. It is an interesting choice made by these folks and I give them credit for bravery.
However, it is a dark and sometimes eerie world that these videos represent. Some of them almost seem desperate. Some are quite good. A few of them are hilariously awful. It is fun to check them out. Pick a song that you love…type it into Youtube and find the most interesting version.
I love this song by Freedie Johnston. There are a range of horrible versions of this on Youtube. However, I thought that this one was interesting. So many questions about this video. For instance, why the shades??? You sir, are no Lou Reed. I liked the fact that the guy didn’t have the energy to hang up his clothing before showing us his laundry on video. He does stray a bit from the basic tune and gives the song a bit of a Christian rock flourish, but he’s not bad. The slow section at the beginning was very dramatic. Lighting is always a problem with these videos and this one is no exception. I imagine that this guy has either a hydroponic lab in his basement or will be going to his job at Best Buy after this performance. Props to him for the effort. And I hope that he soon does some laundry so that he can close his door and do more.
Freedie Johnston “Bad Reputation” as performed by this guy.
I’m tired. Is it over yet?
I was sitting at work looking at a contact list that seemed tired and worn. How many times could I call the same list of people that I’ve already met and try to extract $10,000 from their bad economy ravaged pocket books? My frustration was growing as large as the rubberband ball that I was creating from the daily mail. While I have certainly raised the levels of sales in a previously sleepy Design Center showroom, I need something more than the measly marketing budget that my company provides. We are a start up venture in this country, but I need to spread the word about the greatest bed in the world.
The phone rang. A customer? “How would you like to be on the Tyra Banks Show in a couple of days and present the Elite TV bed?” It isn’t easy to answer a question like that. If the choice was between lying on the couch and relaxing because of the stress that my job has placed on my circulatory system or going into a terrifying pit of potential lameness, the choice might be simple. However, a little known fact about me prevails…I’ve always wanted to be on TV and I have this little itch to grab some of my 15 minutes of fame that I’ve never had before. So, I said – “Yes.”
I called Christina. She was as excited as I was shaken. Her faith in my abilities seems to outstrip my own at times. What is it that she sees in me? Sure, I can tell a joke or two and make a few funny faces, but this is national TV. It is raw. I’m exposed here. Seeing myself in a mirror is a rare occurrence. Maybe I don’t look like Brad Pitt after all. When all the lights are shining on me will everyone know that I’m a fake charmer. Does anyone realize that I flop sweat harder than Albert Brooks in Broadcast News? Will anyone remember that I was the kid that would hold back in high school and hang in the shadows for fear that I had nothing interesting to say? It is only with Christina’s help that I seem to grow the pair that I’ve always claimed to have. Yes, this time. It has so rarely been “Yes”.
I ended my day at work a bit earlier on this day – only one hour longer than the rest of the showrooms in the Design Center. We went to Daffy’s to buy an outfit. Discount shopping for clothing that serves only to make me look like less of a jerk. Most companies would pay for the spokesperson’s clothing, but I know that this wasn’t going to happen. The next day or so would be sleepless, agitated, and full of a looping playback of my appearance on national TV dancing in my head. It hadn’t happened yet. In my head, I could hear the crickets, the silent reactions, and the diva-like meanderings of a supermodel whom I didn’t know much about. The Tyra Banks show was as big of a mystery to me as a $35,000 bed was to them.
In 10th grade, I sat on a panel in front of a class full of English students talking about television. In a random selection of panelists from the room, we had to discuss various topics about TV that other students would bring up through questioning. I dominated that day. Being completely contrarian, aloof, sarcastic, and somewhat caustic, I shook up that little discussion to cover my nervousness in front this crowd of people that never really got to know me. The invisible man was turning opaque. The conversation turned into a Crossfire-like debate about the superficial quality of the entertainment of the day and my desire to be “real”. In the end, it was my first chance to be noticed by an audience that never connected to me. While I had made many appearances in front of a crowd at home talking into my brush in front of the mirror, whenever I had to step up at school, I was choking on my own air.
On the train to New York City my mind raced. I heard that the bed was going to arrive late. I couldn’t stop fixating on my sweating. “If I’m sweating this much on this air-conditioned train, I’m doomed.” “What if she asks me if I have the bed myself? I don’t. I should. Why don’t they make this easier on me?” “Where are they all? This is a pressure cooker that I’m going through alone and my company is nowhere to be found?” So many questions. The answers were always going negative in my mind. I was setting myself up to choke on my air again. I had to fix it and do it quickly. To force yourself to get excited about a rare opportunity isn’t easy when you have no idea what the opportunity is going to be.
I arrived at New York’s Penn Station without fanfare. Expecting the driver to pick me up at the escalator was naïve, I guess. This doesn’t happen to me often. As I walked endlessly around the bustling Madison Square Garden complex looking for my needle in a haystack driver, I wondered why I hadn’t asked where to pick up the car. I wasn’t getting this most basic part of my day right. Getting a cab around this area is impossible unless you stand in the cab stand line. The line was as long as the lineup of kids going to see the Tyra Banks show, I thought. So I started walking around New York City trying to hail a cab in the most desperate way. When I arrived at the studio, I was soaking wet from perspiration. Plagued, I tell you. I was almost as sweaty as my interview for the job nearly two years ago. Israeli companies like their showrooms to be the temperature of the Nagev. However, I would sweat in a wine cellar whenever the pressure is on.
Having a PR person meeting me at the show is crazy. I’ve had to be my own one man PR gang for this job. I run the showroom by myself. I make the signs. I make all the effort. My hustle was my hallmark on the basketball court and the tennis court. I’ve never hustled so much in my life. The PR person was very friendly. She’d been through this before. She was talking a lot. I couldn’t tell if it was making me more nervous or less. The day before the owner of my company called to give me advice about the appearance. I wondered why he wasn’t doing it if he was so clued in. His advice about “not being myself” was more funny than rude. This was on me – so I didn’t expect or need a lot of help. This was a battle between me and the kid that I’ve always been fighting against. Most people would call me a “bon vivant”. Little did they know that it is a façade of shyness and doubt that allows me to say outrageous things or joke with such reckless abandon. His advice has been decent at times. However, on this day, I was going to do the exact opposite of his advice. On the show, I was going to be the me that I’ve always wrestled to the mat. The guy that a lot of people see but many never see. The guy that had me on the “funniest guy” list and the “shiest guy” list in high school at the same time was going to finally be put to rest.
A green room with my name on it. I had always hoped that if this happened, I would be changing the world with my words. I wasn’t here. Selling a luxury bed is pretty unnecessary for the continuation of the species. But this is a nice start. The rooms were filled with a combination of the nicest fresh-faced kids that I’ve ever met and hookers, pimps, pole dancers, and sex experts. I felt like the oldest person in the vicinity. The Tyra Banks show staff was the nicest bunch of people that I’ve ever encountered in this type of environment. I hope to be able to test that theory in the future. While they are all well-meaning, they seem frustrated. Everyone who works there wants to be famous and has found him or herself lying under the leaves of it here. They are the backbone of this organization. They are over-enthusiastic about their craft because they want to pump us up. I needed it. Calming the nerves was the chore here and a 24 year old girl trying to make it in this world by being nice was a decent antidote. I appreciated that.
Heady stuff getting makeup. Since I shaved my head, I don’t look in the mirror that much. I’m not sure why. Having someone putting make-up on my shaved head made me more nervous. The girls in the makeup room were all taking about Oprah. These people are all talk show machines. They churn out one silly segment after the next. I went from one train to another. This train was running and I was only going to be a brief passenger. But every passenger has a story. My seat on this train was headed to a future that finally put the nerves and doubt behind me. It was a challenge to conquer my greatest enemy…doubt. While my trip was going to be short, I’ve waited a long time for this journey.
A wardrobe person came by the green room to approve my outfit. He was wearing a funny looking get up. In fact, it wasn’t very tasteful. As he gave me his verdict, I already knew the answer. Christina was right again. Her choices were spot on. The source of power that you can generate at moments like that is astounding. I wasn’t in this alone. The support was growing through the fence like a great wisteria. Without Christina, I would never have said yes to this opportunity. It wasn’t just for me. I wanted to prove it to her.
The microphone was placed on me. I had to go to the bathroom after that and wondered if they were listening to me pee in the control room. Peeing in a toilet that had been previously occupied by a Cirque de Soleil pole dancer is funny. In fact, the entire backstage are was awash with ridiculousness. What was this show? What the heck am I doing on this show? It didn’t really matter. This was an exercise in exorcizing a demon. Finally. Once and for all. The make-up was holding back the sweat like a finger in a dyke. I was experiencing the sensation of my ventricle pulsing through my cheek. I was nervous. The wait was getting exhausting. It was time to go.
As I walked down the ramp towards the stage, the smiles were everywhere. Were they smiling at me or trying to make me smile…I still don’t know. An audience of screaming unemployed 24-year-old girls is as close to the demographic that I’d put on this audience. For many moments, we haggled about the bed, the angles, and the segment, until someone said. “You’ll be great….ok, lets go.” I was surprised because I had been told that I was going to rehearse this. Who needs to rehearse a pitch that I’ve made every day for two years? The rehearsals were over. It was time for me to be “real”.
Tyra stepped onto the stage and the applause sign started flashing and the crowd went nuts. It was total emotional chaos for everyone but me. And maybe Tyra. This eerie calm came over me. It was a very pleasant serenity. I was saying “Yes” and the climax was a lack of nerves, sweat, and doubt. To wing it, is a great relief. Let the chips fall where they may and live with the consequences. Christina’s beautiful face flashed in my mind’s eye as I remember the excitement that flickered in her eyes. She’s always wanted me to create, act, and do without daring to allow the demon of doubt enter the picture. Like Popeye’s spinach, a great love will grow a bicep or two.
Tyra was exactly as I imagined. She looked like a huge 18-year-old girl and she acted a bit like one. When she came out before the camera went on – she was bitching a bit about the circumstances. When the lights went on – she was a star. A star who seemed to dumb down her own show because she didn’t think that the audience could take it. She acts out the most simple concepts like “up,” “shake,” or “lying down,” as if she’d invented the concepts. However, I did feel locked into her. It felt unbelievably like there was a momentary chemistry. She caught onto a joke or two during the segment. I respect that. Most people don’t get them…she did. For three or four minutes, I was back onstage in a 10th grade class on steroids and growing a set. And it felt amazing. I have no idea how it went or if it was anything worth seeing, but the impact on me was revolutionary. I’ll only sweat from this point forward because I’m hot. When the camera stopped, the train moved on. I was left to decide whether or not I’d achieved anything. I had. I made good on a promise to myself that I’d stop saying “No.” You can teach an old dog new tricks.
It is only my new beginning.