Tommy on a California Corner

The other day I was doing a kind of pre-winter cleanup in my apartment and came across a little storage book stuffed full with all the business cards I have received over the last ten or so years. It was fun to go through the cards, picking out people I had forgotten about or names I don't recognize anymore. One particularly striking trend developed. I'll call it the Tommy Job Business Card Effect. Tommy has had more jobs in the last ten years than anyone I know. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. When one job would stop challenging him he would simply move on to the next job. Since his line of work has always been customer service oriented, and Tommy is has one of the more amenable and discerning personalities around, the switch has always been relatively easy. Still, its funny to come across all those business cards embossed with his name.
Tommy just got a new little shepherd dog, lives under the approach to the San Diego airport and as far as I have recently heard, is currently unemployed (by choice of course.)
I can't wait to get his next business card.

Tommy & Ramon Sitting In A Tree

(or: As we have ever been told, as we have ever followed, consume and save the world. Grit your teeth, set your jaw and consume for revolution, consume for peace.)
Both Tommy and Ramon hate the new James Bond. While Tommy and Ramon are two incredibly, resolutely, routinely different fellows and it is possible, no, probable that they have not yet met, I find if I think hard enough, creatively enough, I can imagine them getting along well. The same sensibilities, the same cut-to-the-chase if-you-will. And they both detest the new James Bond. Tellingly, in their pronouncements of disgust, they both cite the oft maligned Roger Moore as preferable. In fact, these two guys probably genuinely prefer the Roger Moore James Bond to any of the other four or five odd James Bonds available. This is no small statement of preference when heard by a Bond aficionado (a status I feign when it suits my aims, eschew when it does not.) The point is this: Tommy and Ramon don't like the new James Bond and I am not inclined to agree.
I see an illuminating confluence of current events and social dispositions with the ever changing make-up of James Bond actors. In the contemporary iteration we see a perfect addition to the grand Bondian filmic narrative. We consumed the hard-smirking, woman-beating, heavy-drinking 60s Connery and the dippy, fey, unathletic 70s-80s Moore. We consumed the toasted tough guy boredom of late 80s Timothy Dalton and the ridiculous theatrics of 90s Remington Steele.
Equally, fittingly, the Daniel Craig version simply fits these times. The angry, furrowed, humourless man fighting against his own system to save the system. A man who has stretched his credit thin in service to society, defaulting on his super-spy loans through little fault of his own, he must battle back in the face of it all to reset the business on course and return the proper working order for everyone who has done (and will do) him wrong.
And so shall we.
Dislike him at the risk of a future disliking your past self.
I'll not mention George Lazenby here, if only because he was tossed into the rubbish bin far too quickly for my tastes.

Tommy, Carlsbad Village Drive

This weekend Tommy got married. I think it is a good decision. Many of my favorite people were there, reminding me that things begin and end and begin again not necessarily in quick succession or with any predictable order. Here's to you Tommy and Reba.

Jack and Tommy at Jalama

One of the few times I figure I will pull out a polaroid and have to go in search of its mates. These three photos are all connected for me. I was living in San Francisco at the time, Tommy was in L.A. and Jack was in Santa Barbara. We met for a weekend of surfing and cup 'o noodles at Jalama State Park but it was too blown out for any water exploits so we just got drunk. This trip then became notable in my memory mostly for two moments: Tommy open palm slapping me hard, across the face out of the blue, and, as we ate Taco Bell in Lompoc on our way out, Jack's pontification on African Cyclids.

Tommy at the Beach House

Tommy and I have lived together a number of times over the years. Our first year of college. Our third year of college. Just before I got married and (awkwardly) long into my marriage. In Santa Barbara, Summerland, San Francisco and New York.
Tommy's farts sound like drunk ducks.

The Inevitable. . .
This afternoon I walked out into the pouring rain to get some groceries. When I returned my wife hit me with the news that Polaroid, as we have known it, will soon be no more.
This was bound to happen. I mean, I am digitally reproducing Polaroids I've shot right here anyhow. I am not so much shocked, simply bummed out.
I won't be stockpiling. Not that much anyway. At least as far as my wife knows.

I've known Tommy since 1993.  

The history there is so immense and so quintessential to my existence, it is hard to fathom any life I'd have without him. 

More Tommy.
And more here, if you sift through.

Bomba

I am not sure how our butts-up period started. Well, maybe I am more sure than I thought. Jack was living next door to us, actually practically in the same apartment. He had moved in after living with Tommy over in Little Italy. Jack doesn't really believe in owning too many things. In the apartment he had a little elementary school desk and a mattress on the floor and I think he may have had a few spoons and a knife and two pots. This meant there was a lot (relatively) of space over at his half. He would cover the walls with big canvases and would paint these nice pixelated portraits of Mao Tse Dong and Che Guevara and he would work on his computer and telephone all day as a website contractor and consultant for an internet fax company. It was a pretty nice existence for everyone involved. Marina and I would go off to work and Jack would take care of Maggy and when we got home we would have a big dinner or play cards or get real drunk. This time period coincided with the last gasps of the Williamsburg-as-artists-haven period. Cokies was still in business, the Stinger was still pumping out crazy and safe dance parties, and we basically knew everyone we knew. A good time.
Anyhow, all this space over at Jack's meant there was a wall and a few feet of empty floor. One day, while rummaging through our drawers Jack gets all excited and pulls out a little bouncy raquetball. I am thinking, what are you so excited about? my dog doesn't even chase balls. But he looks at me in the eye and says two words: butt's up. So I guess that started that whole thing. (Maybe thats really not it, but this is the only thing I can remember that sounds remotely right.)



So we are playing butts-up pretty regularly by a certain point and we had found a local wall that fit our purposes and we came up with some pretty neat innovations to the game. First of all, every game has to be initiated by slamming one of the ubiquitous energy drinks found at the local bodega. At that time I think there were even more brands of that stuff than there are now. I think inevitably the big soft drink companies swooped in to control that industry, but back then it was the wild west of the energy drink craze and there was really quite a selection. The name of whatever brand we would choose then becomes the name of the game and the letters one "gets" when one fouls up. Another twist is that when someone gets butts-up, the winner has to find pedestrians willing to throw the ball at the loser's butt. I think this came about because we were so loopy on energy drink and usually it was just Jack and I playing, making the whole pelting process a little anti-climactic as neither of us can throw a ball worth a damn.

This series of photos was from the day we picked Bomba as our energy drink. Jack and I are playing Bomba on North 6th and Berry right next to Miyako's and up walks Maile and Joe. Maile lived above Miyako's and used to be a part time waitress there. Joe worked as a catering waiter and for a time used to drive deliveries for Anytime Cafe. Both were, and still remain, professional modern dancers in a couple of the more prestigious modern dance troupes in the country. Of course Joe and Maile are up for a game (they're modern dancers, see) and we quickly discern that Bomba, while good, isn't good enough. So back to the corner store for beer. By the end of the game, it was just Joe, Jack and I jumping around, bashing into each other while Maile sat on the side cracking up and taking the photos. I can't really comment about how the marathon Bomba session ended, but I will say that ever since, no matter what flavor of energy drink we consumed, the game was called Bomba.

Tommy and Casson. The Old Roof, Brooklyn ca. '02

I wrote something else for this blog, but then I decided I ought to write something about 9/11.
My mother was born on 9/11 a number of decades ago. Despite being in Manhattan on that crazy day six years ago, my mother's birthday is way more important. To me anyhow.
Happy birthday, Mom.

Tommy. Magda. Jack and Stacey.

These people look like they are having a grand time.

Holiday Movies & Rentals (My Most Boring Blog Yet.) ((My Opinion, Maybe Not Yours.))

The Wedding Crashers is funny. Really. I can't believe it either. Then it turns cutesy, and then a little funny and finally very cutesy. Totally enjoyable. Really. I can't believe it either.

In My Country is incredibly bad. Samuel L. Jackson and Juliette Binoche do their best to save a bad movie from a bad director and some terrible supporting cast. They fail.

The 40 Year Old Virgin is hilarious for the first half, ho-hum for the second and hilarious again for the last five minutes. Have you seen Le Chateau? Its great.

The Three Burials of Malquiedes Estrada is one of the best films of the year. Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper and everyone else in that movie deserve more than the 8 days it got at the Sunshine Movie Theatre.

King Kong is ingenius, thrilling and way too long. Way.

March of the Penguins was a letdown.


I haven't seen Narnia (surely the topic of a future blog) Harry Potter or Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Super Bike Haskell Wexler

I got a new bike over the Thanksgiving holiday. It was left for me in the basement of our apartment building by an old tenant who told the landlord that he didn't want it any more. It is a powder blue Schwinn with the old-style stick gear shifts near the handle bar stem. I am not sure how many speeds it has, but I think it must have ten or so. It has skinny road wheels and straight across mountain bike handles. My wife named it Haskell Wexler after the famous cinematographer and I started calling it Super Bike soon after since it is so much faster than my old bike. I refer to it now as Super Bike Haskell Wexler.
I still have my old bike. Its a Schwinn too. Jack named it Rock Hudson. Kevin bought it for my wife on her birthday a few years ago. He had it custom built at a bike shop in Fort Green. The bike shop has a pile of old frames and forks and wheels and seats in the back and Kevin picked out the heaviest, midget-looking parts he could find. My wife rode it for maybe a week and pronounced it too heavy. The thing must have at least 60 pounds. I was only too happy to take it on as at that point, my old bike "The Green Dragon," had been stolen from in front of the 'L' stop on Bedford. Frank, the nice crazy guy who later died of liver or kidney failure, told me he saw the bike being stolen and grabbed the cops but the cops told him to mind his own business. My wife has some of the worst bike luck of anyone I know. I can't be too critical since New York is a nightmare for bicycles what with the near epidemic flat tire situation and thieves that will steal bikes just to steal them. But her bikes, as short the shelf life they may have had, have been superstars. Her first bike in New York, Gonda, was purchased in the liquor shop around the corner from my place. A beautiful little Schwinn, it was the shop owner's grandfather's bike. My wife left it unlocked in the foyer of a friend's apartment building for ten minutes and it was gone. The second bike. Francoise Hardy, a gorgeous little white number, was also stolen near the Bedford 'L' stop in broad daylight. Her third, Kevin Curran, lasted the longest but soon became so run down that when I took it into the Brazilian bike doctor he refused to repair it. Then the front tire was stolen. We kept the rusted remains of Kevin Curran in our garden for a couple of years until the construction workers threw it out this week. My wife's current bike, Tommy, is wasting away in front of our place. It is possibly the worst bike I have ever ridden. The three speeds do not work, leaving it permanently in the hardest-to-pedal speed and the seat cannot be tightened up or down and swings freely as one rides it. It has a neat little stick and twine woven basket that our dog likes to sit in so we keep it around.
It is nice to have a fast bike in the winter months. Riding a really slow bike like Rock Hudson through the rain is a bummer. Super Bike Haskell Wexler will do a great job of getting me over the bridge to the office in record time even in the biting cold.