Nothing Weird Ever Happened On Thanksgiving

My happy Thanksgiving post......



Thanksgiving was never exciting.  It was never hostile.  It was usually quiet.  All except for the drive to my aunt's in Pennsylvania requiring a pleasant morning cruise across the George Washington Bridge to the Palisades.

With eight million other families.

Through a land of ash and fire-spitting smokestacks that is New Jersey.

With my family.

If you've never travelled this route with an Italian (who just so happens to be your father), then you've never truly experienced the splendor of such a sensational expedition.  Road space was only a slight issue as my father was quite adept in diminishing the front end of a twelve-food span closest to the forward car to seven inches, give or take six inches depending on whether he was accelerating or slamming on the brakes.  Once he determined the car in front was being operated by an incompetent driver, he'd swerve into the middle lane, close the next gap and weave somewhat more speedily back in front of the former car -with a comfortable two inches to spare.  To say this was exhilarating on the Jersey-bound lanes of the George Washington Bridge, the roadway about 212 feet above the Hudson, is sort like saying the Empire State Building was never really all that special.

In the interest of full disclosure, nobody died.

Were you the offending driver, you'd be assaulted by a most hostile barrage of expletives, a sharp, upward "what-the-f***-are-you-doing" hand wave, and the darkest, angriest furrowed brow ever imaginable.  You would not actually hear the obscenities through the windows and white noise of speeding cars, but you would clearly understand what was being said as my father would deliberately over-annunciate his message to compensate for lack of sound.  This was especially thrilling as embarrassment coupled with fear of high-speed death forced my body deeper and deeper into the seat.  We'd reach Jersey and I'd look wistfully for the Statue in order to displace the panic with oblivion.

Of course, if we had left the house ten minutes later, we'd likely not be moving at such pace.  Rather, we'd be crawling over the bridge amidst the exponentially thicker density of vehicles packing the roadway.  There would still be a lot of cursing.

This adventure, by the way, was by no means exclusive to our family.  Plenty of other fathers racing down the interstate spat out these most lovely compliments while careening towards the slow-pokes disinterested in reaching their holiday destinations.  For those faster and more aggressive than my father, he simply cursed back, "You f***ing a**hole!" for so nearly threatening his family and car.

Unscathed, we'd emerge from our death-skirting speed race upon reaching our destination.  We'd collapse onto the couch, weary and exhausted, pop in the Star Wars Trilogy or The Godfather, wait hungrily for the turkey to be sliced, and anxiously dread the drive home in three days.

Our holiday wasn't so different from anyone else's, at least not in the Tri-state area.

Okay, maybe the meal wasn't so different from anyone else's.  But, Thanksgiving felt like the one holiday when we weren't different.  There exists in this country the notion that some are more American than others.  On Thanksgiving, however, no one asked if I wore a yarmulke.  No one asked if we spoke Italian in our house.  On Thanksgiving, we were an American family.  At the time, I wanted to get the heck out of there, especially with the impending doomful drive home.  It's trite, I know.   It's cliché but, in retrospect, I'm grateful that for one night we could feel ordinary.

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Mustachioed President

President Obama's critics seem to have made an unlikely comparison between Mr. Obama, himself, and the notorious villain we all love to hate, Adolf Hitler. You see, if you look carefully at this picture, President Obama and Mr. Hitler share one defining characteristic: the mustache. 

Really, Mr. President, you should think twice about styling your facial hair in such a dismaying manner. I have to believe that when he posed for this picture, he had failed to familiarize himself with the facial hair fashion of former war criminals responsible for systematically annihilating millions of their citizens on the exclusive basis of ethnicity. This is certainly not what we expect of a president, Mr. Obama. You had better shave off that mustache and fast! Another mistake like this, some other ill-advised beard and your critics will be calling you a Muslim or something crazy like that!

Well done, Obama critics, in keeping our nation's standards high. Good eye, ol' chaps. We do not want our leaders to be mistaken for evil-doers. We have to keep that president of ours on his toes.

A Brief Eulogy for James Gandolfini

                                                                       Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.org

With the passing of James Gandolfini, most will remember him for The Sopranos, a show certainly worthy in television history; but I remember him for a lesser role, one which did not earn any awards and barely, perhaps, a credit. I remember him in True Romance as Virgil, a wise guy, one of Vincenzo Coccotti's (Christopher Walken's) hired thugs feverishly in pursuit of Clarence (Christian Slater) and Alabama (Patricia Arquette), as they flee a murder with a bag full of cocaine. Arquette plays a call girl hired for Clarence's birthday, Slater an employee in a comic book store, Dennis Hopper his father and retired cop, and Val Kilmer the image of Elvis who tells Clarence to kill Alabama's pimp (Gary Oldham). The film, directed by Tony Scott and written by Quentin Tarantino, is ripe with other cameos, including Michael Rappaport, Bronson Pinchot, Tom Sizemore, and Brad Pitt. It is a film in which the male audience members are supposed to fall in love with Alabama, the females, sorry for Clarence, admitting they would also sleep with him on his lonely birthday, and all parties vehemently loathing Virgil for the manner in which he assaults Alabama.

When Virgil finally catches up with the couple in their hotel room, Clarence is out. Virgil begins with pleasantries before unloading his massive strength upon her face, which includes throwing her body from her throat across the room and tossing her through a glass shower door. The fight climaxes as Alabama, with blood streaming through her teeth, stabs Virgil in the foot with a Swiss Army knife, torches him with a flaming aerosol can, and shoots him multiple times in the chest. It is Tarantino violence in a way that only Tarantino can make violence. Of course, the couple escapes in the end -no spoiler alert necessary since the movie is twenty years old and I imagine those who have not seen it yet are not going to see it now- a happy finale and the beginning of the couple's new life together. 

As a teen, I loved this movie and, sadly, never thought much of Mr. Gandolfini's character or acting prowess until now. I always felt he was type casted: it was not a difficult challenge for him to play a gangster. In retrospect, though, I imagine it was nearly impossible to play a role in which he so badly beats a woman likely only a third his size. I am no media critic but I imagine that in many ways, those brief abusive moments in True Romance demanded more from Mr. Gandolfini than the entire six seasons of The Sopranos. I also imagine that will be a fairly unpopular statement, with many readers deeming me a motion picture lightweight. I also do not care: anyone, even me, can pull out their best mafioso I-tal accent and pretend to be a wise guy. It takes a truly inspired actor to play a part that no one could possiby like. Virgil loses from the start and, at 51, Mr. Gandolfini loses too early. 

"I Am A Hitler Teapot..."

Photo courtesy of New York Post

It is a good time to revisit this subject now that we have all had a chance to blow off a little steam.

If ever I were to buy a teapot that looks like Adolf Hitler, surely it would be this teapot. Clearly, its cutesy, abbreviated mustache top and swooping combover handle offer security of liquid containment and optimal pouring comfort when one desires a fresh cup of Nazi java. The teapot is professionally attired in black-tie, raising a gold whistle bell salute to der Fürher, and ready for the cover of a quippy New Yorker cover. 

A magnificent marketing scheme, J.C. Penney. Perhaps, I should not judge this editing mishap. Maybe the time is right for a new line of hip, minimalist teapots designed in the likeness of deceased dictators. A stand mixer wobbling with Stalin's military garb and pot belly? Or, a slow-cooker with receding hairline glasstop resembling Kim Jong-il? Who's with me?

No?

I wonder if the teapot still looks like Hitler when turned spout forward or if it is just pareidolia. 

Oh, Adolfo, how you have managed to stay with us for nearly 70 years! You are the nutty great-grandfather no one wants to invite to family functions but who inevitably manages to arrive, always whining about the Jews and wearing the same sweater from last year's Christmas and the same style of facial hair, just a little thinner. You have left little bits of posthumous memorabilia and, even generations later, we cannot seem to abolish your ghost from our daily lives. If, now, we see you in teapots, tomorrow we may see you in our coffee mugs, our favorite reading chairs, the printed text we read, even our stool. This is societal post-traumatic stress of epic proportions and we just might need a giant dose of talk therapy to help regulate our emotions.

The Nazi Who Was Too Old

I made the mistake of reading the reply tweets to an article about Hans Lipschis, a Nazi guard stationed at Auschwitz, that has recently been taken into custody in Germany on the basis that he committed war crimes. He will be prosecuted. He is 93.

The tweets on his hash tag -yes, he has his own hash tag- include "let him die alone leave the poor man alone [sic]," "his 93 wat u gna do to him end his long life [sic]," and "At 93?" For the time being, ignoring all egregious grammatical errors, I question the morality of these comments on the basis that a) I am not entirely sure that the people responsible for prosecuting Mr. Lipschis are checking up on Twitter's #Lipschis and b) most nonagenarians are not implicit in the systematic and systemic mass murder of a third of an ethnicity's entire population.

"Oh, sure, that geriatric beat his wife and burned his dog more than a half-century ago. But, and I quote, 'wat u gna do to him end his long life [sic]' in the name of justice? Phooey! Let that cute, little old man live!"

What if Hitler managed to stay safe in his bunker until the ripe old age of 93? When people found him, would the populace have said, "Come on! He's old. 'wat u gna do to him end his long life [sic]' 'At 93?'" What if it is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev 70 years from now? Osama bin Laden? Perhaps, for the sake of argument, we need less high profile figures. How about a member of the Taliban who raped women and beat children? A boy soldier of the Interahamwe armed with a machete in the Rwandan genocide murdering a Tutsis child? Or what if one of the men involved with the rape of a five year old girl in India escapes to anonymity and lives until 93 before anyone finds him again? Raise your hand, please, if you would be content to allow anyone linked to the plotting and execution of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon to escape with impunity until old age.

Some argue, "If you were a German citizen, you could not say "No" to the Nazis," or that "many of Germans were simply too young to understand." Like our former pope, Mr. Ratzinger, yes? At the beginning of the movie Downfall, Hitler's real-life secretary discusses that youth and ignorance, in retrospect, were no excuse for revering der Fürher and for allowing the events of the Holocaust. I agree.

I saw a man with a swastika tattooed on his arm today. My wife had just had a procedure done at the hospital and the nurse and I were wheeling her to another office in the building. He was in the waiting room wearing a black tank-top, wearing mostly black, with a girlfriend who was texting on a black iPhone and also wearing mostly black. Between the two of them, they had many black tattoos. None were of an Auschwitz prisoner identification number. The swastika, of course, stood out to me, being one of an extreme minority in the oh-so-diverse state of Maine. I had a thousand reasons to discuss with this fine gentleman the amorality of his tat, the embarrassment he brings to the human race, or simply to tell him the insignia is facing the wrong direction (a funny, albeit unwise, prank). Then, I sobered up. I had my wife to tend to and my children to think about -a father should not be risk a physical altercation, especially with a stranger. Maybe he had a knife. Maybe he would follow me. Maybe he had a gun. I wanted, and still want, him to know that he and all the Lipschises of the world should be prosecuted for the environment of fear they instill in normal people and their children. I wanted to declare in his face, so he could feel the heat of my breath, "I'm not scared of you."

But I was.

He wins.

Lipschis wins.

Hitler wins.

Dear Belieber

                               Photo of Bieber's angelic silver jacket courtesy of Wikipedia.org

When a modern teen icon interfaces with a teen icon whose posthumous "fame" awakens humanity to the injustice of genocide, one must seize upon the opportunity.

Friends, it is not every day that Justin Bieber visits the Anne Frank House nor does he frequently sign Ms. Frank's guest book so eloquently, wishing intimately that Anne would have been a "Belieber." Note that this term is, in fact, forever etched into said guest book, begging commentary in every social media arena. Comedians have found new fodder. Jeff Ross tweets that Anne would likely have not been a Belieber, but rather a Ke$ha girl. Amy Schumer tweets "Dear Kitty, I know I should focus on the certain genocide we are all facing, but Joey from New Kids is too dreamy #belieber." Well played, Ms. Schumer, well played. I wonder: would Ms. Frank have had her own hash tag?

Regardless, after a day of contemplation and soul-searching, I beg to differ with Mr. Ross; I beliebe Anne would have been a Belieber. And perhaps, if we may beliebe in this, we may also beliebe that Justin's allure might have been potent enough, even in war, to penetrate Adolf's ears so that he might have hummed an occasional Bieber hymnal to himself. And, perhaps, even in war, such emotion flowing from Justin's lips might have softened the hardest of white supremacists and appealed to Adolf's better sensibilities, thereby giving him pause before initiating his Final Solution. Friends, indeed, if our celebrity idols could have such impact, if North Korea and the United States may potentially find common ground in Dennis Rodman, might not have Ms. Frank and her kin and the six million Jews of Europe been spared? Could Bieber have deliebered victims of the Holocaust to safety had he been born multiple generations earlier?

Oh, sweet Bieber, I beliebe.

Suits, Weddings, and Funerals

Picture of G. Clooney impressed with his attire courtesy of LifeInItaly.com

As a general rule, most of us prefer to be plussed, rather than nonplussed, the term "plussed" meaning the most opposite of "nonplussed," relevant for purposes discussed here to circumstances in which plussing may yield respect, and established as a word exclusively for the purposes of this article. In other words, Mandy Patinkin's character, Inigo Montoya, put it best in The Princess Bride when he said, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

My father always said that I should have two suits: one for weddings and one for funerals, the former by far more practical as it doubles for interviews, the latter a darker commentary on the nature of "dressing to kill." I managed to pick up a couple suits before my wife and I left New York for Maine. The Men's Warehouse was having a two-for-one sale and, at the time, I remember thinking it would be rather difficult to find a tailor in Maine. I have never had less of a need for suits.

When I was in high school my father came home after buying two suits totaling three-thousand dollars. He was a garmento in the garment distict of the City -for anyone from Boston, "City" does not refer to you. Every night he would come off the Metro-North Railroad and the garage door would go up at exactly 7:42 p.m. One particular night, he walked in two suits richer and three-thousand dollars poorer. My mother was nonplussed.

I did not acquire the fashion sensibility exhibited by my father in this anecdote and instead took to nappy shoulder-length hair, denim overalls, and flannel shirts. It was the nineties and I had no qualm about expressing the real me: a Grateful-Dead-with-all-the-assumed-connotations-listening, My So Called Life-loving, wannabe-hippie, counter-culture, sex-crazed kid. Again, my mother was nonplussed.

I was plussed.

I was so plussed that in all my nonconformity, I did not notice my conformity, the same conformity for which I was so disdainful of my father's suit-wearing conformity.

It was not until college that I began to acquire a more tidy style, though my shorter hair was due more to my thinning hair. These days I keep my sideburns long for that nonconformist edge but I have entered the age of daddy-casual: collared shirt, a v-neck sweater, jeans. Even then, I feel out of place in Maine. I went to a funeral here where most wore black t-shirts. I thought I would be out of place without a blazer. That's Maine for you. My father would disagree and say that it is about respect.

Regardless, this is the real me: daddy-cas'. Smooth. Maybe not three-thousand dollars smooth, but the garmentos might at least like my shoes. I keep my suits covered in the closet and pull them out for weddings or a funeral, the former being far more frequent for now. They are good suits, too, good for plussing people. That might not be the most important thing but it is fun to pluss people. I like to pluss if for no other reason than, when strangers see me with my kids, they might think, "That guy looks like he's got a lot of respect for fatherhood. He doesn't look like a bum. I'm plussed by that dad."