Lady...it wouldn't kill ya...

So last night I got on the uptown 4 train at Bowling Green and at Wall St. this rather "weighty" (to say it politely) lady sat next to me. She sat down with a bag of McDonalds on her lap and starting eating. At this point I was starving having just played racquetball for almost 2 hours so the smell of fries and burgers was making my stomach grumble. She opens the bag and I peer in. She had like 4 quarter pounders with cheese and an overflowing portion of fries. I tried not to stare as she devoured fries and burgers.

Anyway, at 14th street, a very skinny and sickly looking homeless man came onto the train looking for some change or food. I actually had no bills smaller than $20 lest I would have given him some change. The lady, seeing that the man was approaching, stuffed a hunk of burger in her mouth and rolled up her bag of McDonald's. Not sure if the guy saw her or not but as he politely asked her if she could spare some change or food, she shook her head no as she tried to chew her food slowly. The guy stared at her for a few seconds and then walked away.

I mean really...lady...it wouldn't kill you to spare one of the burgers in your bag. Unless you were bringing it home for your family...which it appeared that you weren't, I think you could've done without an extra cheeseburger. I mean I'm sure the 2,000 calories you already downed with the burgers and fries didn't come close to filling you up. But if you ever even complained about being fat...well...now you know why.

I looked at her in disbelief and disgust. A guy across from me looked at me and shook his head and we smiled. Cause he was thinking the same thing I was. You fucking fat ass...spare a fucking cheeseburger... (at least I think that's what he was thinking - it was what I was thinking). Anyway, its a good thing I had my "inner voice" working lest I would have created a messy situation. And that wouldn't have been good.

Anyway, been stuck in a land of work today so many apologies for the late blog. That and I'm heading to Nashville tomorrow for a work event. Maybe I'll run into my girl Gretchen and she can show me a rootin tootin good time down there! Although I'll need to download some country onto my iPod to get me caught up on the latest country hits. And I may have to have Bridget give me some quick line dancing lessons. I wouldn't want to be the only one not doing the "Boot Scootin' Boogie" at the bar!


"Oh get down, turn around go to town boot scootin' boogie"

Anyway...sorry for the short and sweet post for now...I'll try to give y'all something good before we hit the holiday weekend!

Oh and btw...about American Idol...TOLD YOU SO! America loves a crier!

Crazy Train

So after playing racquetball for a few hours last night down at the NYHRC on Whitehall Street, I headed back uptown on the 5 train. I was able to secure a seat on the train although it was semi-crowded for 10pm. At Fulton Street more passengers came on the train, including a very bizarre interracial couple. The white guy had big bushy blond hair with a pink headband that had a large metallic reflector on it. The black girl had big dreadlocked hair that was pushed back by a white headband (unfortunately no reflectors for her). At first glance I didn’t know if they were people or Fraggle Rock characters.


The couple on the train looked very “Fraggle-esque”

While everyone has different fashion sense, and certain this was one of those couples, the male was holding something unusual on the train - a stuffed Panda Bear. Its not too often you see a grown man with a Panda Bear on a train, but then again this is NYC, you see just about anything here. I would have been more impressed if the panda was real.


I hope the Panda Bear paid his fare too

Anyway, another young male (early 20s) sits across from me. He looked to be exhausted as he slumped over to put his head on his bookbag. There was a guy sandwiched between him and another gentlemen who was getting squashed by the young male who was slumped over in his seat. The guy who was getting sandwiched kept clearing his throat to let the young man know that he was basically two inches away from giving him a lap dance. The guy looked at me and I shrugged my shoulders in an “I feel bad for you dude” sorta way. Anyway, the train pulls out of Grand Central as this young male keeps slumping over. As we make the turn coming out of Grand Central all of the sudden the young male pukes. Yes, he puked. And wouldn’t you know, the vomit splashes across the aisle and some of it splashes onto my duffel bag that was sitting between my legs.

Are you kidding? I look at the youth and he was pale as a ghost. I get up from my seat and stand over by the door. Luckily I had some tissues on me so I could wipe my bag. A few other people, including the guy being squashed left their seats and got away from Mt. Vesuvius. Fortunately he didn’t throw up again, and got off the train at 59th. The same guy who was being squashed earlier looked at me and laughed. Actually a few people were trying not to laugh. After initially being mad, I just shook my head and smiled. Because I too have puked on the subway before (although it was at 3am and I was completely fucking hammered). Plus I know he probably didn’t mean too. It’s just my luck that he happened to puke in front of me.

I guess that’s what I get for taking a picture of the Panda Bear on the train. Apparently the bear didn’t like to be photographed and summoned this youth to puke in front of me.

So Mr. Panda Bear, if you’re reading, I apologize for taking your picture. I know that paparazzi stalk you everywhere you go and now you’re starting to get even. You win. No more pictures.

Sauget DOES NOT equal Heaven.

Figures. On a night where I wanted an easy match I get a tough one. I knew it was gonna be tough because I couldn’t loosen up. No matter how I stretched my shoulder was still tight. It affected my backhand tremendously. That and the guy I played was in his mid 20s and quick as hell. So any passing shot I hit he got. Any ceiling shot I hit to move him backwards he was fast enough to get back for. I really felt my age last night, which was kind of disappointing. I know I haven’t played in a long time so I’m still rusty. But you know that feeling when you know you’re better than someone but you lose anyway? I guess maybe Al Gore knows how I feel. Da-dum-dum. Hey-oh!

Ok. So I have a confession to make. Apparently I was wrong. Sauget, IL does not equal Heaven as I previously stated. In fact it looks like it's the exact opposite based on this description:

"This is Sauget, Illinois. I mean that literally. Aside from a small knot of trailers and small houses just south of here, this is the entire town. East St. Louis's neighbor to the south is nothing more than a refinery that spews pollutants at the city's inhabitants day and night and gives them zero tax revenue in return. "




Ouch, so I guess I should adjust my statement then. I mean Sauget does have its good qualities. Apparently they are all for free enterprise. And they are very pro business. But I’m going to adjust my statement nonetheless.

Heaven = The Gateway Grizzlies.

That's more appropriate given that
a) the team’s owner/marketing department invented the burger not the town
b) Gateway can be identified as the gateway to heaven.

So my apologies to the residents of Sauget, IL. Didn’t mean to anoint you “holy status”! Sainthood has been reserved for the Gateway Grizzlies.

In other news, I went out to take a walk during the 70 degree day we had yesterday and I went to one of my favorite lunch spots (no, not the strip club or the bar) Madison Square Park. Being that I used to work one block away from the park (and now work 8 blocks away) I took the leisurely stroll and grabbed a Roast Beef & Muenster sandwich from my old eating haunt 80 Deli. I went over to the park and as you could imagine the benches were jammed with people. So I sat on the outskirts of the park on 26th between Madison and 5th.

I sat in the middle of this row of 5 benches and the guy at the end was sitting smoking a cigar. I looked more closely to what I thought was a pet sitting next to him. It was a squirrel. Sitting on the bench. No more than one foot away from him. And the man was hand feeding the squirrel. I’ve seen people feed squirrels before but never one that’s sitting next to you on a bench.

The squirrel took his morsel and ran away. Minutes later the squirrel hops back on the bench and checks the man again. He’s out of food so what does the squirrel do but hop on over to me. He sits next to me and looks up at me. I talk to him (because you know squirrels speak too) and say Hey Buddy, you want some food? What happened next was crazy. The squirrel hopped off the bench and sat in front of me. He got on his hind legs and lifted his two front paws in the air begging for food! Insane. I’ve never seen a squirrel actually beg for food before. They must be taking clues off the dogs in the park.

I went to grab my camera phone but that spooked him off. So I took out a piece of Smartfood Popcorn I was eating (the White Cheddar flavor is good stuff) and held it out. He came scurrying over and sat in front of me. I tossed him the piece and he took it and sat against the tree nibbling away.


A friendly, begging squirrel enjoying some Smartfood White Cheddar popcorn I fed him

The bastard pigeons must have saw this and came swooping down around the bench. And you wonder why I want my hunting license! After successfully shooing the pigeons away another squirrel came over. I fed him said popcorn but alas he wasn’t a fan.

Anyway, that was crazy. I can’t believe a squirrel begged for food in front of me. Good for the squirrels, they’ve come a long way. Perhaps I’ll need to get one as a pet!

Return to the other hardwood

Continuing with my ambition to get in better shape before my 30th bday, last night I made my vaunted return to the hardwood of the 4 walled kind. Yep, after a several year layoff, I have returned to the competitive racquetball circuit, having sucked up my long standing boycott of NYHR&C (New York Health & Racquet Club) to join their racquetball ladder. Why the boycott. Well why have Racquet in your name if all of your courts formerly used for racquetball have been turned into spinning classes and yoga studios? Anyway, being I’d have to travel to the armpit of Brooklyn (Canarsie) or up to Jonkers (Yonkers) to play, I decided to bite the bullet and join the evil empire of NYHR&C (I did NOT however sign up for membership, thank you. Paying enough just to play racquetball).

For those who don't know I played collegiate racquetball for three years at Marist College. Yes, we had a team and yes we had a league, competing in the ECRC (Eastern Collegiate Racquetball Conference). Here's an article from the mecca of journalistic integrity "The Circle" to prove we had a team!



Marist has since lost their team, thanks in part to the sports medicine department ripping down the courts to build a new state of the art training and medical facility for the other "student athletes". But back in the day we were very competitive in racquetball, playing the likes of Army, Penn State, Virginia Tech, Kentucky, Providence, RPI and national champion Nichols College, among others. We mostly played on the road since we only had two terrible courts at Marist, so part of the perks of playing were road trips to Happy Valley, Providence College, West Point and Albany. Plus we had no coach, so no one to really breathe down our necks. Not to say competition wasn't intense, but we had a more relaxed attitude during the events since we were flying solo. Think of it as VCU going in as a team without a coach to play Duke w/ coach K.

I played singles and doubles at Marist. Our doubles team (Nick Kost & I) were known as "Air Marist" due to our bodies flying all over the court to get the ball. (See the below articles for more info about "Air Marist"). Most of our matches had blood delays and I can't think of a match where our knees weren't bloodied from diving on the floor. If our dive count wasn't high that meant we probably weren't in the match. Of course that's led to permanent scarring on my knees and legs but at the time it was well worth it!).

"Air Marist" getting some ink

I played some semi-pro after college at a league in Brooklyn but once I moved out of Brooklyn there went that league. So now, 4 years later I decided to make my return to the sport I once loved. NYHR&C has a ladder system where you can move up and down the ranks. Instead of throwing myself to the wolves right away, I inserted myself into the B division for now. The divisions are Open (the top level, next level down from professional), A division (excellent players who don’t necessary want to play Open ball), B division (advanced players), C (intermediate) and D (beginners). Due to my past experience I’m starting the season ranked #20 in both the Whitehall Street location and 56th Street location brackets.

I got to the courts an hour early last night to warm up and hit a little before my match. The pro met me at the court to introduce himself and we watched a match going on between two A level players. He told me my opponent tonight was one of the better players in the league at the B level. Watching these A players I could tell they were definitely great players. But watching them I got a feeling I could hang with them, especially being I used to play against the best players in the country.

After their match was done, I went into the court to warm up. Can you spell rusty? I was as rusty as a pier in the Brooklyn Navy Yards. Every ball I was hitting was waste high coming back (for those who don’t know the game well in racquetball you want to keep the ball low as possible to “kill” the point). After about 5 minutes I finally got my stroke back and was hitting the ball a little better. Suddenly there was a knock on the door and it was one of the A division players I was just watching. He wanted to have a match with me. Mind you, my official match wasn’t starting for another 30 minutes but being that stamina is a big issue having not played in 4 years, I was asking for trouble if I overextended myself. Anyway, being that I can’t back down from a challenge I took the offer for the match. Might as well just jump right in right?

One thing I noticed is I had a lot more power than him. My racquet (E-Force) is a heavy hitters racquet but lacks control (my other racquets are more control and less power). Granted these racquets are 5+ years old so I’m sure they’ve made a lot better advancements in the racquet technology (side note: later on in the evening one guy commented that my racquet was a relic and the “top of its game” during its heyday. Ouch). Anyway, I held my own against this fellow but I was more concerned about getting my court awareness back (positioning, angles, etc). There were a few shots I messed up but that was ok with me because the idea was there. We played a match to 15 and I ended up losing 15-5. I played myself out of a lot of points with bad shots that gave him easy shots. But overall not bad considering I wasn’t playing full tilt yet and that I was basically starting from scratch.

A few minutes later I go back into the court to take a few more shots and the other player from the match I was watching wants a match. Jesus, maybe it was a conspiracy by the guy I was supposed to play to wear me down before our match. Nonetheless this guy was apparently the top player in the entire league so I wanted to see where I stood against him. Again, I hung in there with him scoring a few points on my forehand and backhand much to his surprise. We played to 11 and the score was 11-6. I had a bunch of unforced errors which ultimately did me in. But I was happy that I was playing better. I definitely pushed myself a little more during that match knowing he was the best player in the league and wanted to put on a good showing.

My match finally showed up and I was gassed a little at that point. But I figured that if I could hang with the best player in our league, I could definitely hang with someone in my own division. Much to my dismay though my opponent was a fellow lefty (I’ve made my living playing against righties as a lefty – a definite advantage for me). So now my whole gameplan was shot to shit because I really don’t have a good serve to lefties and all of my passing shots would basically have to go to the other side of the court.

The first few points were hard to come by for both of us as we adjusted to each other’s playing styles. After being down 4-1 I went on a mini-run to make the score 8-4. We traded points but eventually I pulled ahead 13-6. I was killing him with ceiling shots, which basically consist of hitting the ball off the ceiling, having it take a high bounce and backing the opponent up all the way to the back wall. Shots like that are defensive shots that allow you to establish court position. Although if your ceiling shot is off it leaves your opponent with a chance to make a kill shot. Anyway, I don’t think he was ready for those shots and I was putting them on his backhand which made it even harder for him. Final score of set one, 15-9.

We took a quick break and I was definitely out of stream having played hard to put him away in the 1st set. The second set my footwork abandoned me like a red headed stepchild and I began to make unforced errors. I battled for points but he was getting great bounces off the wall on his serve (the ball was basically dying off the wall making the ball unhittable). After giving up 7 straight points I finally smoked a backhand to get back on serve. I went on a mini-run to make the score 7-3. However another error gave him the ball back and a few more unhittable serves coupled with some great shots by him pretty much was the set. I went for more kill shots than ceiling shots which was definitely a bad strategy since my shots were off a bit due to fatigue. Set two went to him 15-5.

In hindsight I should have called a timeout but wasn’t sure how these guys would take to that. So I basically just sucked it up on the court and was completely spent. I guzzled down a bottle of water between the 2nd and 3rd set knowing that I needed to get something back.

The start of the 3rd set was much like the second set for me. I went down early 4-0. Finally I got a second wind and rattled him with a mix up in serves (I started serving to his forehand which threw him off). After battling back to 4-4, he went on a run to make it 8-4. Instead of going for more kill shots I decided to switch back to a defensive game like set 1. Using ceiling shots and passing shots, I was able to hang in and cut the lead to 8-7. Back and forth we went as eventually he took a 13-8 lead. At this point I knew I had to step it up a notch if I wanted to win the match. I started taking to the air much like the days of yore and hit a few beautiful diving shots to win points. I got more aggressive and played up front on the court, forcing him to try to hit the ball past me instead of playing back and letting him put touch shots on the wall. The tactic worked as a cut the score to 13-12. After just missing a kill shot he got his serve back and scored a quick point to go up 14-12. At this point I thought that win or lose I played great and I’ve officially gotten back into the game and only stamina and lazy feet because of being tired were my downfalls. I got the serve back and ripped off a nasty serve for an ace to make it 14-13. The next point went on for a good 2 minutes back and forth but finally I was able to make a diving backhand in the frontcourt that just was out of his reach to tie it up at 14. Laying on the floor I smiled knowing that getting down and dirty was just what I need to pump myself up.

I tried to put him away with a drive serve but the serve was long (hit the back wall first). Next serve left too much of the ball for him to hit and he killed it to get his serve back. Fortunately for me I broke his serve and got my serve back. Back and forth we went for 4 points as we both laughed each time serve was broken. It was truly a spirited match and win or lose it was definitely a good battle. He was on serve and we had a volley going. He hit a ceiling shot to back me up but the ball came down short in front of me. I had two options. Hit a ceiling shot right back or go for a kill. I decided to go for the kill. Bad decision. The ball missed the corner by inches and skipped short. I let out a frustrated yell and then laughed knowing that was my fault. Third set goes to him, 15-14.

We leave the court and he tells me that’s the best match he’s had in 3 years. Since that’s the only match I’ve had in 5 years I tell him the same to some laughter. I packed up my bag and got more water and much to my surprise he went right to the pro to tell him how good the match was. I definitely took that as a compliment knowing that he was one of the better players in my division.
If I could hang with him and almost beat him, I have a decent shot to move up the ranks quickly.

Tonight I have match #2. My knee is a little sore from diving on the floor and my muscles are tight. But you bet your ass I’m gonna go in that court tonight and try to smoke my opponent like a hash pipe. Either that or I’ll need to smoke up afterwards to relieve all of the muscle pain.

P.S. Sorry for the “not funny blog” but who said all of my blog postings had to be funny?? :)