Pithy Moment

After each new blog post, my mother insists that it's her favorite of all time and that she's increasingly proud of the man I've become...I'm thirty-four.

Announcement

I've got a couple publications approaching online.  Be on the lookout at:

Intellectual Refuge
(some Friday within the next few months)

and

Eunoia Review
(mid-April).

Thanks and keep reading...a new post is below.

Melancholy, Brooding, and Tennis

Tennis is a lonely sport.

It's a game of introversion.  Introverts hate it because all you can do is think.  Extroverts hate it because you ultimately curse at the umpire or the crowd or the air when you lose a point.  John McEnroe...well, need I say more?

What does this have to do with Italians or Jews, you ask?  Not much, except that this was my sport.  I could have been good.  Maybe not "Federer" good, but when I was a teen, I broke the top 50 in New England.  I could have been better but Andre Agassi was my hero.  My doubles partner and I took his "Image Is Everything" campaign very seriously, often dressing in our matching denim shorts with hot pink Agassi-style shirts.  Spandex, too.  But, like Agassi, I thought too much, brooded too much, and became melancholy too quickly on the court.  It got lonely out there.

Perhaps the most riveting moment of tennis came in the Round of 16 at the U.S. Open in 1991 when an aging Jimmy Connors -on his 39th birthday- went head-to-head with young Aaron Krickstein.  I was there in the nose-bleeds, cheering Jimmy on, as he stole the crowd from Krick and ultimately won the match.  It wasn't until years letter, when I saw a re-run of the match, that I realized who the loneliest person in the stadium actually was:  Krick's father, Herb.  Even as Krick wins a point, his father's melancholy keeps him tensely tugging at his own neck (watch at minute 3:30).



Krick had his dad.  His dad had no one.  Unfortunately for Herb, Connors won that day.

We Jews are not known for our athletic prowess.  We're not usually the favorite to win at sporting events.  So, it's really f***ing exciting when we do!  That's why we love Sandy Koufax; he was the Muggsy Bogues of baseball, both alone and lonely in their climb to the top, both anomalies on their own turf.

I love the picture below.  Jews and basketball.  There's a sadness in each of their expressions that seems to say, "If you want to win, you have to be okay with loneliness."

I Should've Taken The Cannolis.

Living in Maine, I feel like Henry Hill at the end of Goodfellas. All I want is some good matzoh ball soup but I can't even find Chanukkah candles for our menorah. There's not a single good bagel let alone a decent bagel store in the entire state. Pizzas are made at gas stations with crusty bread and ketchup. Sometimes, they're made with a new-age, soy cheese, hydroponic spice that leaves your palette with more questions than answers. Mainers, lend me your ears: basil does NOT belong in bagels! And while we're at it, hamburger meat on pizza is only a small step away from a dried out, open-faced sloppy Joe.

When we moved up from Queens, my wife and I left the land of the plentiful ethnic food in favor of a quieter lifestyle. We said good-bye to gyros and reubens, to moo shu pork and cannolis, to Korean food, to Jamaican food, to Indian food, good-bye to all in search of a calmer quality of life. We moved "down east" and every local knew where to get the "best" bagels or the "best" pizza. "Deah," they said, "have you tried Abbey's* bagels? Those are A1." First off, bagels should never be described by a steak sauce. Secondly, I'm not buying it! Everyone's told me they know of a good bagel place and every time I walk away unsatisfied and violent. People, rolled dough does not qualify as a bagel!

Now, don't get me wrong: Jewish cuisine is not exactly savory. Gefilte fish tastes like poop. But, an occasional brisket sandwich would be nice. I'd like the option of an Italian restaurant whose chef actually uses real tomatoes for sauce, not the generic canned puree. As it is, the nearest Olive Garden is over an hour away. Were it closer, I might consider that an improvement -mind you, my father emphasized in no uncertain terms that we, as Italians, do not eat at Olive Garden. I used to be able to get a slice a foot across by a foot and a half long for a buck twenty-five. The "pizza" up here is a piddly seven inches long, at best. The vendor should pay the customer to eat it. Pete's Pizza* only sounds good because of alliteration and should be fined for false advertisement.

I saw Goodfellas when I was twelve and promptly found two other kids with Italian names to start my family. Fairfield County had a new godfather. I used to rewind the scene in jail as Henry described Paulie's method of using a razor to slice the garlic. Just to make myself feel more Italian, I began cooking some sort of slop that I called Italian food because I sliced the garlic paper-thin. I felt more Italian but the food tasted Canadian -sorry, Canada. Eventually, I grew older and began taking an interest in my family history and before she died, I asked Grandma to teach me how to make her meatballs. They were definitely not her meatballs. People up here think it's the best Italian food they ever ate because an Italian made it. They even consider my matzohball soup** authentic Jewish cuisine but it's as authentic as the box it came in. People of Maine: zeppoles are not gigantic blimps in the air! Matzoh is not a creepy TV program of mimes from the seventies!

Somebody, please, send me a real bagel! I'm dying up here.

*Names have been changed to protect the identities of these exceptionally overrated food vendors.
**In the interest of full disclosure, I've made matzoh ball soup once in my life, had to look up the spelling for zeppoles on Google, and would consider upgrading the status of gefilte fish's taste to mud if people take offense.

Modern Medicis

Please, a moment to speak of the charm, wit, and overall good character of the cast of Jersey Shore, if I may. Some say it is a house of ill repute, an amoral den of Satan's minions and concubines. I beg to differ. It is the insidious production and editing staff that maligns their portraits.

How dare they!

May we not offer them the respect due of any other human being? Might we not begin with their true identities, rather than the degrading nicknames assigned by Music TeleVision, MTV, the great demonizers of New Jersey's Italian American citizens? Vincent Guadagnino, Samantha "Sweetheart" Giancola, Ronald Ortiz-Magro, Paul "D" DelVecchio, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, Michael "Situation" Sorrentino, Jennifer "JWoww" Farley, Deena Nicole Cortese, Angelina Pivarnick...Please find comfort in who you are. None of you are the whores and gigalos so deemed by the greater international public. Blast such manipulative presentation of "raw footage!" Why, just look at the photograph shown above. What class! Well-fitted suits, bosomy dresses exposing not the least bit of indiscretionary cleavage. Perhaps, the gentlemen left only top hats and monocles at home; the women, their shawls. I argue that these fine lads and lasses are our modern Medici family, renaissance men and women.

And, such charm and sophistication of language! Just listen to Ms. Giancola's mastery of alliteration when she says, "He f***ing said your feets are like f***ing Fred Flinstone. F*** you, you f***ing bastard." Ah, the darling little peach.

Or Vincent's chivalrous commentary, "He's ready to motorboat!" Do you not see the moral awareness of love-making and intimacy? Such articulation is surely that of a future diplomat, a world leader, a baron of America's Italian royalty.

Their acknowledgement of culture and religion, words of profound intelligence. "Vatican, that's the one that Leonardo da Vinci painted with his hand," said young Ronald of his travels in Italy. Few people fully grasp the magnitude of intricacies woven between art and architecture. But, Ronald, he is man of education and worldliness.

My good people, tread not on the lords and nobles of the Jersey Shore for they are the proud canaries in the coal mine...errr... No, no that won't do. They are the glorious royal albatrosses of high society. Oh, no, no, no, no. That's not right, either. They are the horsemen of righteousness and nobility. Alas, perhaps words and proverbs cannot duly characterize the wealth of civilization such fine people bring to our humble global community.

Italians, Ambulances and Washing Machines

Women, beware:  if you marry an Italian and then buy a home with said Italian, you'll likely one day follow him by car as he travels in an ambulance to the hospital after so severely injuring his back from attempting to move a washing machine while installing a wood-laminated floor for fourteen hours in the apartment attached to the house, leaving him supine next to the kitchen table, unable to move, thus subsequently requiring bi-weekly physical therapy and daily mega-doses of Hydrocodone.

Entirely true story...except, I left out the part where this all occurred in front of a prospective renter from South Africa.  He was looking for an apartment while participating in a program aimed at bringing pharmacists to America.  He didn't run and actually rented from us for the entire summer. He was totally desperate.  I decided to build a deck.

We're just f***ing stubborn.

I'm convinced I have hearing loss but refuse to see a doctor.   I have trouble sleeping but balk at sleep medication.   I boycott Smithsonian Magazine because the picture I submitted to their national photography contest was better than those they selected as winners.  I stopped frequenting the Hulls Cove General Store when they insisted Joyce no longer bake her cookies, transferring her to a different gas station entirely.  I've been painting the house for three years because I don't want to pay someone to do what I can obviously do myself.

It's a militant determination that my Yid can't tame.  My Jewish pessimistic realism normally can calm the most grandiose of ideas, just not when my inner Mediterranean bull digs in.  Italian Adam forges ahead, injuring himself; Jewish Adam feels sorry for it.

"Hire somebody!" says Jewish Adam.

"I can re-roof the house by nightfall," says Italian Adam.

*****

My wife just instructed me to recant my portrayal of Jewish Adam.  According to her, Jewish Adam wouldn't say, "Hire somebody!"  Rather, he would say "We don't have the money, right now! We'll have to do it next year," or "We don't have the money, right now! Go ahead, Italian Adam! Do it!" Either way, it apparently doesn't get done because inevitably, Jewish Adam doesn't find the money or Italian Adam injures himself and Jewish Adam can no longer find work to earn the money.

*****

When I was three, I determined the best way to break a stick that clearly needed breaking was to hold it at either end and push on it against a tree whose bark decided my face needed work.   One gashed bottom lip and seven stitches later, I lied to my mother and told her I fell down the slide I wasn't allowed on.  This wasn't simple toddler impulsivity; this was all Italian bull-headedness and I haven't outgrown it.  Do you see how deeply ingrained in the Italian psyche this condition really is?   It starts young.  It's in our DNA.

My grandfather died in his fifties.  That's way too young.  My grandmother lived to eighty-seven but it appears as though the men don't quite have that kind of staying power.  I better calm down.  This is no way to go out.

So, ladies, heed my words: unless you, yourself, are an Italian, the kind that will throw a dish at your spouse's head when he comes home late after eating a globe-sized ball of wasabi on a dare (true story but not me - that guy was Irish), please, stay away from the Guineas.

Do I have cancer?

I found a lump at the base of my thumb.  Holy f***! It's f***ing cancer.

I asked the doctor and he said it was a ganglion cyst.  I don't believe him.  I know it's f***ing cancer!  F***!  I've got children!  What the f***!?

Three months ago, my daughter couldn't turn her neck.  She had a fever.  That night, I knew it was f***ing meningitis!  I just knew it!  F***!  The doctor was an hour away!  She'd never make it.  I'd never make it.

Just before my other daughter was born, my wife vomited multiple times, an unpredictable attack which repeatedly exploded throughout her second pregnancy.  I thought she was in labor, which would have been bad because she a had a C-section the first time.  Because of this, her OB/GYN said that her uterus could rupture, which meant she'd have something like four minutes to get to the hospital so the doctor could operate.  Oh, f***, f***, f***!  She'd never make it.  I'd never make it.

When I was thirteen, I was convinced I had developed a sexually-transmitted disease. I hadn't yet had sex, yet I was certain the discomfort I felt was syphilis. The sensation went away by afternoon and never returned. I'm still convinced it was syphilis. Just the kind that clears up in a day.

I'd like to say all this fret is just an exaggeration...but, it's not.  It's my Yid.

By the way, the pediatrician assured me it was not meningitis but still she was wrong.  My daughter's fever lasted two days and I've determined it has damaged her pre-frontal cortex.  It just sort of cleared up on its own and left her future impaired.  The ganglion cyst on my thumb is still likely a tumor.

Italian Adam says,"Fuhgeddaboudit."  My inner Yid says, "Oy." 

I was a bit high strung this past summer.  My wife's vomiting dilemma returned.  It's f***ing cancer.  Or her gall bladder disintegrated.  Or she's allergic to water.  We drove to the hospital.  It was some sort of rare chronic appendicitis.  I'm not convinced... That vomiting crap will be back.  It's just a matter of "when."  F***.

A week after that, my daughter's fever was back with a vengeance.  105 degrees.  F***!  We were in the emergency room again.  It's a kidney infection.  It's f***ing meningitis.  It's her premeditated method of inducing me into a panic attack. 

"Nope," said the doctor.  "Just some virus." 

I remained unswayed given his Australian-based schooling -nothing against Australians, of course. The fever went away but I knew it would be back.  Just a matter of "when."  F***!

A week later, I had shingles.  F***!  I couldn't touch the babies.  They'd get chicken pox.  My youngest daughter, at the time three months, had a bug bite that looked overwhelmingly like a chicken pox blister.  F***!  F***!  F***!  F***!

Maybe I have some issues...but if you don't ask the questions, how can you ever know?

Okay, you're right.  Calm...Breathe...Fuhgeddaboudit.

Hmmm...that's a new mole.  F***!

I better get some help.  The Yid is taking over.  "Relax, Daddy," they say.  They'll never make it.  I'll never make it.