Worth Losing Sleep Over?

I find the weirdest ways to weasel my way onto television.

In fact, I've been on TV a bunch of times before, but nothing is like QVC. I can't say I ever aspired to appear live on a home shopping channel - especially because I don't think it'll help me get cast in something legit - but once I did it, I was pretty pleased with myself.

Live TV ain't easy. Heck, taped TV ain't easy. But I focused on being comfortable instead of nervous. I channeled my energy into being relaxed.

Relaxing was perhaps my greatest challenge. I'd had a harrowing trip down to West Chester, PA from the Hudson Valley, which had been hit by a bad ice storm Thursday night that cancelled or severely delayed all the Amtrak trains coming from the north. On Saturday morning at the Rhinecliff station, still full from Mike's wedding brunch and still a little tired from the reception the night before, I had to jump into a local cab headed for Poughkeepsie so I could instead take the Metro-North to NYC and continue my trip to the Philly area from there.

Fortunately, I've taken that Amtrak to Philly a lot lately (including our Eastern State Penitentiary trip), so the trip didn't seem so long or arduous. In my past excursions to QVC, I've either driven from New York or taken a limo from Philly (with the divos The Irish Tenors), but this time I decided to take the regional rail service all the way out to Exton and let the Sheraton Great Valley shuttle come pick me up and drive me around for the duration of my trip. I needed to focus on QVC and not exhaust myself by dealing with traffic.

I've always liked that Sheraton, but mostly because of the Outback Steakhouse in the parking lot. A business dinner there one night in the late 90s marked my first QVC visit as well as my first Outback experience. I think of it fondly.

With the discovery of the shuttle - which brought me to/from the Exton Amtrak station as well as to/from QVC - and of the Bliss body products in the bathroom, my opinion of this Sheraton improved exponentially, especially after our mediocre experience at the Four Points for James and Nany's wedding last month.

I managed to get to the hotel early enough for a Queensland salad at Outback, an attempt at blowing out my own hair, and getting to bed by 10 p.m. for seven hours' of sleep before getting up at 5 a.m. for my early morning cable TV appearance. Unfortunately, the heater in my room kept turning on and off all night, waking me up every 15 minutes from an already-fitful sleep replete with work-related nightmares.

And I kept worrying about my hair.

In fact, the whole time I wasn't worried at all about my demeanor, composure, or intelligence on live television. I was worried how I was going to look.

But I guess nobody every really likes the way they look on camera so I don't know what I thought could possibly make me happy with my physical appearance.

In the end, all that really matters is that the product I was hawking is a good product, and it sold well, meeting our expectations and probably getting us an invitation back. I can watch the clip over and over again and think what I would have done differently, but the truth is, I did a good job, even if I could have done better.

And it was fun! I'd never been on live TV before; I'd never had makeup airbrushed onto my face; I'd never been wired for an in-ear monitor. All that, and to be able to talk about Little River Band and Air Supply for work.

I wonder if my QVC-addicted mother, who has disappeared for two years, saw me?



The Easy Rock Collection on QVC.com

The New Yorker Part II

I've been on a kick of helping people lately. Recently I was walking down Third Avenue by Rodeo Bar and I saw some women with big shopping bags lamely try to hail a cab, but not really TRY, so I hailed it and pointed to them and said, "That's for you."

New Yorkers get a bad rap. The other morning I saw some tourists with a big unfolded map on the corner of Lafayette and Bleecker, and I asked, "Do you need help?" Turns out they were looking for a breakfast place, and were flabbergasted when I suggested the one they were standing outside of, Noho Star. A week or two before, on that same street but after work, I heard a couple of teens say, "I know there's a train down here somewhere..." When I directed them to the 6 down the street, one of them said, "Thaaank you, you're the nicest New Yorker we've ever met..."

Of course that may be true, but I'm not the nicest New Yorker there is. I can't be!

Don't mistake my kindness for goodness. I'm selfish and greedy. I like feeling good and showing off how much I know and how much better I can navigate the city than you. If, in the process, you learn something and are helped or convenienced, all the better.

Today I had some business-related travel trauma which forced me to return to NYC via Grand Central and take a cab to Penn Station to continue my trip down to Philly. As I waited in the taxi stand line, and nearly attacked a bunch of kids trying to steal a cab without waiting in line, I grabbed a woman also going to Penn, threw her bag in the back with mine, and shoved her into the backseat. After finding out she was a visitor and had experienced the same Amtrak-induced trauma I had, I paid for her cab ride and dumped her off at the LIRR, as she rushed to the ticket machines shocked and impressed.I ran off to find a bathroom and a slice of pizza before my next train.

Maybe a New Yorker is someone who helps you and doesn't wait for a "thank you." Who helps you because that's the way it's supposed to be done and we can't bear to see it done wrong.

In any case, all in a day's work.

Further reading:
The New Yorker (Part I)

Country Carolling

Theatre at Westbury, December 2008

Last year around this time, I asked Anthony at work if he wanted to go see Kenny Rogers with me at Westbury Music Fair. He declined, which surprised me because he had previously established himself as a big fan. I took it personally, and worst of all, I never ended up going.

I regretted it for nearly a year until I remembered that it was an annual concert, and promised myself I'd go alone if I couldn't find a companion again this year. Fortunately I was able to wrangle up Edith, Eric and Dan without much convincing.

Eric and I had similar childhoods growing up Upstate, three hours apart but often experiencing the same things at the same time. Kenny Rogers' voice was as familiar to us as our own mothers'. And as much as I've tried to shed/forget/run away from my childhood, certain visceral experiences draw me back to it - Christmas trees, Heluva Good French Onion dip, and cosmopolitan country music, just to name a few.

Apparently every year, this concert is normally all Christmas repertoire, but we got lucky this year, hearing hit after hit in the first half and then nothing but Christmas songs in the second.

Kenny looked OK. He famously got some bad plastic surgery a few years ago that reduced his eyes to tiny slits, and earlier this year had knee replacement surgery that left him hobbling up and down the steep aisles to and from the in-the-round stage (which rotates!). But a real highlight was getting to see what he looked like back in the late 60s, performing with his first band The First Edition, in a performance video projected on a huge screen that showed a hot and hunky young Kenny Rogers singing very seriously "I Just Dropped In to See What Condition My Condition Was In" with present-day Kenny providing live vocals. Though released before my birth, I know that song well - the only Kenny Rogers one my father ever played. Most other people know it from the dream sequence in The Big Lebowski. (I wonder if Anthony, also a big fan of that movie, ever made that connection?) Sharon Jones does a great cover version of it.

Kenny played plenty of other big hits - "The Gambler," "Coward of the County," "Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town," "Lady," even a solo version of "Islands in the Stream," but I was left wanting more. The Christmas-themed second act was a bit too schlocky and gimmicky for me, featuring red-clad children chiming in on the choruses of songs, and an audience participation version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" which just dragged. Fortunately the rest of Kenny's repartee with the audience was was so entertaining that I'd probably be willing to go back and see him at another show (maybe without the Christmas part) to hear more hits.

If you could get through weird religious talk about how Christmas is a celebration of "Christ the Child," Kenny's renditions of Christmas carols were quite nice, especially when he was joined onstage by a gospel choir draped in red gowns. There's something in me that really loves religious songs, be they carols or just gospel hits. Somehow I can separate the message (which I could really care less about) from the sound. Oh, the sound! And in that little round room, that in-the-round theater, everything sounds great.

Kenny's beard is a lot whiter than it used to be, and it's more of a goatee now, but that voice still brushes against me like a corduroy coat or a wooly blanket - a little rough, but soft and warm, comforting and familiar.

Green for the Holidays

I like to think of myself as pretty eco-conscious. I unplug my chargers. I obsessively turn off lights at home and in the office. In fact, I sit in the dark a lot. I use Seventh Generation paper towels and I don't take shopping bags from retailers unless I need them. I sort and recycle my glass, plastics, papers and cardboards. I rarely prefer a printout to a digital copy of a document.

I even researched the carbon impact of burial vs. cremation so I could decide how I wanted to spend eternity. (Answer: a biodegradable casket is better than having my ashes spread across the desert.)

But once a year, I do something that's questionable for the environment: I buy a real Christmas tree.

Of course, I know that deforestation is rampant. And God knows what tinsel does to the environment. But every year, no matter how much I consider not getting a tree, I end up buying one off the street somewhere in Murray Hill, and dragging it up my narrow staircase, leaving a trail of pine needles behind me and of oozy sap on my winter gloves. I just can't imagine that that's worse than the plastics used in artificial trees, not to mention their transport from China.

This year, I really considered skipping the real tree ritual, especially after I found a light-up ceramic tree like the one I grew up with from The Mud Pit at the Union Square holiday market. After years of refereeing fights between me and my sister over who would get the decoration, our father decided to keep it, and probably will til he dies. I got tired of waiting for it, and after seeing one in an antique store a couple years ago for over $100, I jumped at the chance to get this one for $45.

As I slept with the ceramic tree on every night for the last couple of weeks, my desire for a real pine tree hasn't been satiated, but rather ignited.

The ridiculous part is, I'm actually allergic to Christmas trees. I get itchy, stuffy, and if I touch my eyes with unwashed hands, they swell shut. But with some Claritin, a lot of hand-washing, and an open window to air out the fumes, I can manage.

This year I bought a Fraser fir from North Carolina from the guy across the street in front of the Duane Reade. It's probably the tallest tree I've managed in this studio apartment, and although I was looking for something skinny given my space limitations, it turned out to be pretty healthy once the branches warmed up and settled overnight.

I'm sure this one will dry out and become a horrible fire hazard after three weeks like they all do, but for now, it's fresh, moist, and pliable. It takes up most of my apartment but it's just me here anyway...At least now I've got something to keep me company.

I guess as my bulbs slowly blow out I should consider replacing my old strings of lights with more eco-friendly LED ones. Maybe next year....

Further reading:
Green Christmas - National Geographic
An Eco-Friendlier Christmas - IdealBite.com
Your Top 20 Econundrums - Solved! - Mother Jones

Lovin' It

There are a few things about my job I really enjoy. As of this week, I've been able to visit the trifecta of big fast food chains, which are part of the fabric of American culture and which served as a major dietary source for much of my childhood.

This week I had a meeting with the final of the Big Three, McDonald's. I was somehow most excited about this one, partially because it seemed like our pitch was actually going to be successful. I'd already met with Burger King in Miami, who served us ICEES and cookies and gave us kids' meal toys, as well as Wendy's in Dublin, OH, where the office restrooms looked exactly like the restaurant restrooms, right down to the soap dispensers.

As we approached McDonald's corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, IL, about 15 minutes from the Chicago O'Hare airport, I felt right at home. The concrete tower - probably constructed in the late 60s or early 70s - is situated in the middle of an industrial park, right next to a mall that houses a gigantic McDonald's restaurant in their parking lot. There's nothing outside of the McDonald's tower that indicates what's inside: it's dark and gray, cold, with an iced-over patio that's chained-off for the winter. But when we entered the lobby, we were greeted with the mysterious smells from the McCafe and a sign for the McStylist salon, where I was half-tempted to get a shave-and-a-haircut.

Upstairs, the elevator bank was glowing with a lit-up menu board like the ones you find behind the counter in the restaurants, as well as gigantic reproductions of Happy Meal boxes and other signage and memorabilia.

We were invited to get a McDonald's coffee from the beverage bar, which helped calm my nerves during our actual presentation.

Ronald McDonald didn't stop by our meeting, nor did the Hamburglar, but despite their absence, it went well. I was also hoping for a big basket of fries in the middle of the conference table, but I guess their employees can't just pig out all day while running that huge corporation. And with that in mind, thank God they didn't give us any Apple Dippers.

To be honest, I'd love to work for a company like that, but maybe the novelty would wear off pretty quickly. And since I was the person that craved fries after watching Super Size Me, I don't know if I could handle the constant temptation...

A First Time for Everything

It's nice to know that there's still room in my life for plenty of firsts. With as much crap as I've gone through, as many subjects as I've studied, places I've travelled, I can still find new experiences, new things to see and do.

I think I had my first real non-dysfunctional Thanksgiving this year, without being a "guest." Maria's family has embraced me to the point of making me one of their own, and although I still struggle with calling her parents "Mom" and "Dad," they have absolutely no problem giving me birthday cards addressed to their daughter and telling me to cover up and drive safely.

Of course, like every family, they have their problems. People get sick, disagree, forget things, whatever, but all the while, there is love.

I'm lucky to be receiving some of it.

To officially kick off the holiday season, with Christmas and my next trip home less than a month away, Maria took me to my first drive through Lights on the Lake, a Syracuse holiday tradition in Onondaga Lake Park. I'd driven through something similar in Springfield, MA while spending Thanksgiving with Jon in college, but even after having grown up in Syracuse, somehow I'd missed this annual ritual in my own hometown.


Big costumed characters greeted us at the entryway, including a big penguin. I think Eric would like this.


All the themes were pretty fantastical, and they kept getting more and more elaborate as we drove farther through.


If only that damn car wasn't always so close in front of us. We kept trying to stop to take pictures to give some space ahead but the car behind us kept getting antsy.


Watching all those reindeer and gingerbread men fly over our heads, while we listened to the Christmas radio station, really put me in the holiday spirit.

Or was I already in the spirit once Maria and I put the turkey in the oven and we all sat down around a table stuffing our faces with stuffing and actually talking to each other?

The New Yorker

I travel a lot, so I get to experience all kinds of folks. And sometimes in my job, I end up on the phone with parents from around the country, and I'm astounded and terrified by them.

But thank God I get to experience something outside of my relatively tiny, homogeneous New York circle.

But come on, this is New York, the promised land for people all over the world. Most of us, however, don't encounter much ethnic diversity at all unless we go to Harlem to be hip and celebrate Obama's election, or we take a cab with a driver from Haiti or something.

My New York crew is comprised mostly of non-New Yorkers, graduates from Colgate who I've known since I was a teenager and who come from all over the States. The rest of them are pretty much across the board white, accentless, and either Jewish or Christian or, most commonly, at least agnostic or atheist.

So who is the New Yorker? If you watch Top Chef like I did last night, you think that New Yorkers are poorly dressed, inarticulate, bitter, bitter people with a bad attitude and a thirst for criticism. If you watch most Hollywood films and TV productions like the yet-to-be-aired Showtime series that was being filmed at Baruch College in my neighborhood the other night, you think that New York cabbies are crabby old white men who smell of cigars and pizza sauce.

How can the stereotype of the New Yorker not have changed since the seventies, an era of television which largely informed my knowledge of the city through sitcoms like The Odd Couple? How is it possible that Hollywood is still perpetuating that appalling iconography?

Sure, some of those guys do exist, the Queens College graduates who pronounce "toilet" like "terlet" and the girls in Bensonhurst who don't move out of their parents' house until they absolutely have to, and often they're extremely charming (or is it just me?). But New York has become such a hodgepodge of cultures and accents and beliefs, it's hard to characterize who exactly a "New Yorker" is anymore.

Am I a New Yorker?

After 11 years of living here, I'm realizing more and more that I'm not. I don't want the stress anymore. I don't want a Valentine's Day full of couples, a New Year's that costs me $150 without even a single kiss, and a Thanksgiving with absolutely no one to hang out with. I don't want to be identified with a city that steals your wallet, punches you on the subway, calls you a dog and barks at you, and threatens to stalk you. Worse yet, a city that promises to call and never does. And takes all your love and money and never gives anything back.

The city is changing - it's a lot safer than it was in 1997 when I first moved here - but I'm not sure I can wait for it to change enough until it's the right fit for me. And the more people keep perpetuating the stereotype of this city being filled with people behaving badly, the more people will think it's a license to behave badly.

Sometimes I just want to put myself on a little higher ground.

City of Brotherly Love

I was suspended 54 stories high in the Philadelphia sky today, when the rain came in and the fog settled. A white, billowy blanket draped itself across the skyline, covering the picture window of the Comcast tower like we were flying in an airplane through the cloud line. I couldn't see past myself.

On our way out of the Comcast headquarters, we decided to try to take public transportation to the Amtrak station, but became hopelessly confused by the regional rail, trolley, and subway options that irrationally intertwined before us. I couldn't see past my confusion.

Suddenly, Kevin beckoned me, and we started following a local man - was he Indian? Pakistani? - who took us all the way to the right train, stopping periodically along the way to try to leave, thinking we'd figure out where we're going earlier than we did. But as confused as we were, baffled by a metro system that wasn't run by the MTA, this Philadelphia stranger dropped us off at the information booth and turnstiles just steps away from the right train. And then he turned, waving, and went in the opposite direction, wherever he was headed in the first place.

I can't always see the good in things. I can barely ever see the good in people. But in a low-hanging, white-out fog today, I could see clearly, even for just a moment.

Come On, Get Happy

I didn't do much this weekend, at least nothing as splashy as my last several weekends, full of travel and exploration.

So it gave me a chance to appreciate the small things, to take note that some things do go right in life.

In no particular order, these are the things that made me happy this weekend:

• losing another 1.5 lbs
• fixing my desk drawer with some packing tape and nails
• discovering that my crap camera on my new phone actually takes gorgeous lo-fi grayscale photos
• swimming
• brussel sprouts, at home and at Bar Milano
• free underwear coupons from Victoria's Secret, which just keep coming even though I refuse to sign up for an Angels credit card
• the annual Christmas explosion at Rolf's

The last year has been the slowest year of my life, and now that the days are shorter and sure to get colder, there will be less and less for me to do to entertain myself when alone on weekends except Christmas shopping. So I have to make the most of every small joyful event, otherwise I just won't last the year.

Falling In Queens

Last weekend when we took the train upstate to Beacon for our Bannerman Castle tour, I noted the gorgeous Hudson Valley foliage and bemoaned the lack of it in New York City. Edith had assured me that there were, in fact, turning leaves on the trees in Queens, but I didn't quite believe her til I took a trip myself this weekend.

It's a little past peak this time of year, just after Halloween when wearing flip flops is no longer quite possible, but in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the trees intermingle greens and reds and yellows and of course the requisite brown.

I headed to the park this weekend not for a colorful autumnal stroll, but to snoop around some of the buildings from the 1964 World's Fair that I had seen on a walking tour two years ago. Since I first spotted it, I've become a little obsessed with the New York State Pavilion and its three observation towers, whose blinking red lights are clearly visible from the Grand Central Parkway, the Van Wyck, and the LIE, and therefore a regular sight on my way home from the airport. It's a living relic of a time not too long ago, a ruin that was built to be futuristic and now stands useless, decaying.


With all of the proposals to turn the thing into something fantastic - most recently, a proposed space museum - the towers stand there, waiting, blinking, slowly falling apart, unpreserved, unstabilized. I keep waiting for that red light to go out.

Adjacent to the towers is the "Tent of Tomorrow," which was built basically as a big advertisement for Texaco but also hosted art shows for the likes of Warhol, and even provided the setting for a music video by They Might Be Giants. The red and white paint is peeling and there are huge shifts in the cinder block walls on the outer facade. The interior is overgrown with weeds (pretty much destroying the mosaic tile map that used to form the floor of the place), and looks like it's become a storage facility for the Parks Department. Why are there always barbeque grills sitting in abandoned buildings?



I pressed my face in the gate opening to see inside, to catch a glimpse of the original splendor, despite the rusty, overgrown mess it's become. Curiously, there's still a light on inside the tent, a singular lit bulb, on even during the day.

Some of the structures around the old World's Fair grounds are still standing, and even in use: the restored Unisphere, the Hall of Science, the Queens Museum of Art (formerly the New York City Pavilion), and Terrace on the Park, a former heliport that looks like a big table looming over the park, currently used as a banquet hall / catering space available for rent. It looks like there's an observation deck on the roof where helicopters used to land, but of course when I was skulking on the grounds, everything was locked up. I really want to call and tell them I'm getting married just so I can get a tour of the place and take some pictures.

Although normally open, the Queens Museum was closed on Saturday too because of an elevator accident the day before. Which is just another reason I have to go back, again.

How many more ruins can I really visit? And how do you choose between Bannerman Castle and High Bridge and the smallpox hospital and the High Line and the typhoid hospital and Ellis Island's hospital and Castle Clinton and all the forts and other historic buildings around New York City - around the country - around the world? Can you preserve them all? I suppose some get stabilized as a historic ruin, like Eastern State Penitentiary, and others get fully restored to a usable attraction if enough money is raised. And I suppose some buildings just fall down before they can earn historic status. I don't think you can save them all.

But in the meantime, I'll try to visit as many as I can.

Further Reading:
NY-Architecture.com: New York State Pavilion
NY Daily News: Are Web pics of damage to restored New York State Pavilion map real?