quote 37.

the truth has a ring to it.

-via paula williams, cab driver, jehovah's witness, native and resident of bed-stuy do-or-die

she stopped the meter and we talked about god and the bible and eve & adam (not adam & eve) and spirituality and people and life for what seemed like twenty minutes.

we really didnt agree on any of the specifics of the ways in which god works, but we agreed hes doin something.

btw, this post is a visceral reverberation of this one.

is it worth it to you?

i know we're all being barraged with obama fundraising requests.

i know people are tired of hearing me, and everyone else, talk about him.

i know. i know. i know.

but you know, it's not like this is important or anything.

* * *

this is one of my final pleas.

carrot. honestly. please donate to my obama-biden fundraising page - WHATEVER you can spare.

you can chip in a 20 spot. i know you can.

stick. frankly, shame on you if youre not gonna spare anything.

(obv if youve already donated through another channel, you are exempt from that preemptive dig.)

please donate once in september, then again in october.

thank you so much.

you cant go home again.

in transit from the pitch 'n putt to dinner chez maz, i saw a lot of yankee fans on the 4 train, on their way to the last game - ever - at the current yankee stadium.

seeing them was not unemotional for me.

i had wanted to make it to one game this year to say goodbye (i usually see two at least, anyway), but never got around to it. my bad.

nevertheless, closure doesnt have to happen in such an orchestrated manner. that's something im learning.

so im gonna keep this simple. my two best memories of the house that ruth built:

1. sophomore year, i took a flat F on a genetics midterm at u of m to fly back to nyc to see game 2 of the 98 world series. not only did the bombers win, but bernie baseball, my all-time favorite player, hit a dinger. at the time, i justified my decision to take the zero by telling my mom that seeing the once-in-a-generation record-setting 98 yanks in the world series would be a much better story for my grandkids than some genetics midterm. boy was i right. so glad i did that.

2. i refer to an old post of mine. i cant tell it any better now than i did then, so here it is.

goodnight yankee stadium. thank you for being my sanctuary from the world.

some words keep speaking when you close the book.

this is like a must-write-immediately.

i just met a guy who had a tattoo of an open book on his forearm*.

whenever i meet people who have prominent tattoos, i ask them what theyre all about (the tattoos; i dont nec want to know what those people are all about. that's knowledge i could do without).

so i said, 'what's that tattoo say?'

he showed me.

SOME WORDS KEEP SPEAKING WHEN YOU CLOSE THE BOOK.

i fairly lept out of my don.

jawbreaker.

i couldnt believe it.

i couldnt place the song, but i could sing the lyrics. he reminded me the line is from condition oakland, off 24 hour revenge therapy; a brilliant song whose bridge is actually jack kerouac reading a poem of his.

jawbreaker is easily one of my handful favorite bands. they really mean a lot to me.

having disbanded in 97, and my having never been a part of their scene when it was current - as i was introduced to them by nick, the rest of whose music i loathed - i cant be sure how popular jawbreaker ever was. but i know i never hear about them now.

i basically have conversations about how awesome they are with myself.

so when my new best friend told me that not only does blake schwarzenbach live 'not far' from near me in bk (he wasnt sure precisely where), but that jawbreaker almost had a secret reunion in bk six mos. ago, well.

i nearly lost it.

*i must acknowledge that overlapping metaphor: wearing an open book on, essentially, your sleeve. is it too much, or simply appropriate? acknowledging i dont really know this guy, im guessing the former.

cruel summer.

this morning, as i went to and from the laundromat to wash my jeans and the sheet upon which brady bestowed last night's dinner, i noticed that there is now a legitimate chill in the nyc air.

i for one welcome this change.

i like summer, but it always seems to squeeze every last drop of sanity from my melon. it's time to simmer down now.

im not a big fan of winter, but fall and spring - anytime.

ulysses.

this post is for nc, rsj, the father of rsj, and my cat.



so, tom brady is out for the season.

dont worry, im not gonna do what you all think im gonna do, which is, you know, flip out.

i actually think this is a good thing.

let's go back a bit.

i loved tom brady b.c he was the nerd's qb. he was drafted by the erstwhile montreal expos as a catcher - the cerebral cortex of the players on a baseball team. initially relegated to backup under brian griese at michigan, brady supposedly hired a psychologist to help him cope with his frustration. (that's enough links btw.) and he was a legit ls & a student, not a kinisieology 'student-athlete.'

then, even as our freaking starting qb, brady wasnt the celebrity he should have been. those honors went to the newly-arrived, over-hyped drew henson, whom, interestingly, the yankees had drafted as a third baseman - the biceps, and maybe triceps, of a baseball team. henson was so highly touted by everyone and their mother that brady had to cede some game time to him. what's worse, i think he had to cede some tri-delts to him. no matter; brady started every game for two years, and ended his college career as orange bowl mvp.

nevertheless, he was drafted in the sixth round. he was scrawny. hes built up his arm, but hes never been much of a 'physical specimen.' logically, it was the most cerebral of coaches, belichick, who took a flier on him.

a coupla years later, drew bledsoe went down, brady became the pats' starting qb, the team won three super bowls in two seconds, and somewhere in there, brady became tom.

he went from being the brain to being the face.

dont get me wrong; in the process, brady established himself, in an improbably short amount of time, as one of the greatest football players ever - no small feat.

it's just that something was lost in that process.

but brady's career has been so storied, that you just know he's a favorite son of the football gods.

so they must have taken him down for a reason.

theyre not content to make brady's career great; theyre gonna make it epic.

coming off the most crushing super bowl loss in history - a game which, if he had won, would have propelled him into relative immortality - brady is now gonna have to sit out for a year.

hes gonna have to chew on that bone without a chance at redemption for a whole friggin year.

it's a blessing in disguise.

this is going to be a transformative experience.

brady is now in what joseph campbell called the belly of the whale. (this most often happens to athletes via injury, but it can happen by other means, such as imprisonment.)

this inward journey is going to turn brady into the type of transcendent (yes, i use that word a lot) athlete he never could have become inside the gym.

as campbell puts it:
Appearing to have died by being swallowed or having their flesh scattered, the hero is transformed and becomes ready for the adventure ahead.

in other words, when all is said and done, hes not only gonna come back to reclaim the lombardi trophy. tom is gonna find brady again.

this is the stuff of legend.

pull your weight.

for reals, people.

if youre not already signed up to do some obama volunteer work (nyobama.com/events/nyc), go to his website (barackobama.com) and throw down 25 or 50 bones. preferably, do both (volunteer and donate). i am.

i dont know ANYONE who cant afford that $25 donation. literally EVERYONE i know treats themselves to some extraneous good and/or service that costs at least that amount.

drink red label for a fortnight. dont buy the fancy cat food. dont have fifty birthday dinners. dont fill your tank for a week. buy generic. etc, etc.

leave it all on the field. and if you cant leave it all, for chrissakes leave something.

please. im begging you.

we'll all be better off.