Tag: quote

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personal

Then kunckle up and swing

UWS NYC

Her: (watching the tourists at 30 Rock) It’s funny. People come all the way here to see our town.
Me: Yeah. It’s not notice things when we live here.

Had a date night with the wife; we don’t do it often enough but it’s nice when we get around to it. Went to the same place we went around last year.

Afterward, we took a nice stroll back home. It’s good, being tourists in your own city.

———-

Work’s finally slowed down a bit, for better or for worse. Had some time to work on some other projects of mine.

NYer Lionel Trilling once said, “Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect.” I add that to that old Chateaubriand quote, “You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light.”

Just don’t get why people think negativism equals reasoned intellect. If anything, unsupported criticism just makes you look like a churl. And a douchebag.

There’s this company with the following business model: for a fee – they’ll read your book and write an honest review of it. So I put my money where my mouth is and requested one.

What I got in return was a scathing review, which was disappointing. But then I read the review closely, noticed some odd things. The reviewer:

  1. only mentioned the hero in one sentence
  2. didn’t mention the antagonist – at all
  3. didn’t mention anything that happened after page 30.
  4. didn’t mention any themes (revenge, loyalty, etc) or really anything of substance
  5. instead focused a third of the review on a single minor scene (on page 24) out of 276 pages.

That’s when I realized that this guy just skimmed it, dashed off a review, and took my dough. There’s nuthin honest about that.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, saw that the reviewer, amongst other things:

  • doesn’t understand how to use a colon
  • doesn’t know the difference between “blonde” and “blond,”
  • doesn’t know how to spell “plot lines.”

There’s more, but that’s enough for now. And that’s when I went from being disappointed to feeling ripped-off.

So I actually contacted an editor and told him that I’m not just some disappointed author, I’m someone that reviews books regularly. And I know the difference between a real book review is and a slap-dash quickie dollar.

And I posited this simple question to the editor: “Do you and your company stand by this review?”

  • If he doesn’t, I want my money back.
  • If he does, I’ll print the review here and let you decide if it’s a valid review.

Should note that when I write a book review, my name is on it. I own it, good or bad. In this blog, on FB, at the NYJB, at Lawline. I own what I put out into the world and I stand by it.

Here’s an anonymous review from someone that clearly doesn’t understand basic rules of English, who didn’t read my book, and tells me it’s no good.

If you read me regularly, you know that I can handle lively debate or a fair disagreement. What I can’t stand is horses__t and bullies.

It’s like that time that guy ran out and said he would drop me. Remember thinking, You must not know ’bout me.

Told that guy to knuckle up and swing because I knew something he didn’t: I was qualified for the task at hand.

As he sulked away, he and I both knew he was not similarly situated.

And now, it appears we’ve arrived at a similar junction.

 

Location: yesterday, celebrating Easter
Mood: offended
Music: “Do you believe what you’re sayin’?” Yeah right now, but not that often.
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personal

Hyper-Minimalist (wannabe)

The Pied Piper

Most of the images here are my copyright since it’s just a view of my little world.

But every so often, there’re things that I find so good that I wish it were part of my little world.

Here’re a buncha hyper-minimalistic posters that sum up classic children’s stories in a single frame. You can buy posters of them, and see others, from the original artist here.

Recently had an online “debate” about China versus the US and this fella wrote this long-winded explanation as to why China was so great. Told him that if it was great, why was he choosing to work, study, and live here?

That pretty much ended the convo.

Einstein once said that, If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

Guess that’s why I like these; cause the artist “gets it.”

In some ways, when I write, try to use the least amount of words possible to get my point across. Figure that you’ll catch my drift and fill in the blanks yourself. And whatever you fill in regarding my life is probably more interesting than the real thing.

Here’re more posters. May buy one as they fit into my art beneath the canopy glow.

———-

Had a disappointing day yesterday.

It’s hard, shaking off all of your little miniature disasters.

Hansel & Gretel
Alice in Wonderland

Location: work
Mood: disappointed
Music: is this the ceremony? I don’t know. Well, I don’t mind.
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personal

The Babyklappe and why they don’t put eggs in cake mixes

UWS NYC

Have you ever wondered why most cake mixes require you to add eggs? I mean, they put everything else in a box, why not the egg part?

———-

Been working some pretty insane hours.

During the brief lulls – like when I print up 100 pages of pleadings, or wait while a huge file downloads – do all sortsa motley stuff.

  • Skim about a third of the Economist’s Style Guide. It’s a must read for the hardcore nerd.
  • Spend more time one Facebook than I would like to admit as a 38 year-old professional.
  • Catch up on some cooking shows, namely America’s Test Kitchen where I think about buying a replacement Crock Pot but it’s too soon. Too soon.
  • Watch random videos, like the one below where a German girl speaks pretty good Chinese. Probably only amusing if you understand Chinese/German.

Speakinga reading, the Economist, Chinese, and Germans, evidently there’s this thing called a Babyklappe where people can slip their unwanted babies into a box for pickup. The same thing exists in China and elsewhere.

It’s that parent thing I wrote about last time.

Dunno if I should be horrified something like that exists – that someone would just discard a human being; or comforted – that someone will try to take care of them.

Anyway, back to the egg thingy. This guy named Ernest Dichter postulated that women didn’t like the idea of “just adding water” to make food so to do more involve them, he suggested that they add eggs, a symbol of fertility.

Spend a lotta time wondering about cruelty, kindess, everything in between. And why we’re here at all.

Well, as much time as I have until the printer stops or the download downloads.

Then, snap outta my thoughts and get back to my slice of the world.

Which is evidently reading print so small it’s a wonder I can still read at all.


Location: in the gym yesterday; Brooklyn today
Mood: less sick
Music: This is the fear This is the dread These are the contents of my head
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personal

He wouldn’t hurt a fly

Entrance to Subway on 50th in New York City

[The shooter] was the last person I would’ve expected to do something like this.

Another school shooting.

Remember where I was at the first one; was in my law journal office in law school when a blonde stuck her head in and asked everyone, Did y’hear the news? Some things stay with you.

In any case, the above quote is from a young man interviewed by GMA the day after this Monday’s shooting.

Isn’t that what you *always* hear after a school shooting or some other great tragedy. What does that tell us?

It’s tells us that people have no idea what other people are capable of.

We all have our three lives, yeah? Our public lives, our private lives, and our secret lives. They’re the three faces we all wear and it’s our private and secret faces that people find surprising.

My boss recently read my book and I think – because of all of murder, mayhem, and cursing – that, while he enjoyed it, it took him by surprise.

My writing’s parta my private life, I guess. As for my secrets, we all have them and I’m no different. Suppose that everyone thinks that what we do by our lonely makes us better people.

But y’never can tell until the day comes that you show the world your other faces if that’s actually true.

As for me, always assume that people are capable of anything, both for good and evil.

To live any other way’s a sucker’s bet.

Location: tonight, church
Mood: artistic
Music: life goes on. As I bail through tha empty halls
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We are made in our sleep and by our lonely

Great occasions don’t make heroes or cowards; they reveal them

Buskers in NYC

This fella named Brooke Foss Westcott once said that, Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become.

This is onea my core beliefs, that we create our three lives in our sleep and by our lonely, and they’re often hidden, many times even from ourselves.

We find out, only at some great calamity, if we’re rubies or rubbish.

Don’t watch sports. At all really – think it has something to do with the fact that no one ever invited me to play.

But I’ve been watching a few basketball games to see about Jeremy Lin. It’s truly impressive.

Think he had suspicions of what he was made of all this time but never knew for sure. He only became who he was meant to be when the occasion finally presented itself. Before then, he kept getting passed over and ignored for years. Yet he kept on going.

This reminded me of something my father told me once when he was a lawyer gutting fish for a living. He said that he knew what he was made of even if others didn’t.

He also told me – at the lowest point of my life – that he’d only be disappointed in me if I stopped.

Y’either keep going or stop because of the suspicions you have inside. For me, there’s no stopping anytime.

———-

And here’s a video from my buddy. I miss making videos myself but I’m stretched pretty thin as it is.

Location: running to meet a client in the Village
Mood: ambitious
Music: you’re on a roll, no one gets it, no one gets it
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Life limits you enough, why do it to yourself?

Jack Dempsey Corner sign in NYC

Him: About two hours.
Me: So it takes you two hours every day to get to and from work but you won’t spend 30 minutes to go out and maybe meet someone?
Him: There’s no point. Women are looking for someone with money and education. I got neither. There’s no point.
Me: There’s no point?! Look, I’m old, balding, and short. And I talk a lot with my hands. But I don’t care. I think I’m somebody. The world limits you enough, Paulie. Why do it to yourself?

Ran into guy that works in onea the local shops where I live. He and I’ve always been friendly and we got onto the topic of my getting hitched. Found out that he’s onea those guys that shoots himself down before life gets a chance to do it for him.

There’s this line in the Bhagavad Gita that goes, Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is. He’s already a nobody in his head and he looks for proof that this hypothesis’s true.

That’s the thing about looking for something. You usually end up finding it.

Me, I find that most people are on one end of the extreme or another. Either they think they’re nobody and think the world owes them nuthin, or they think they’re somebody, and the world owes them everything.

Y’get far in life, being the middle.

———-

Him: She was just kinda mean. Like she’d see someone walking down the street and immediately point out all the things wrong
Me: Well, good thing you didn’t sleep with her.
Him: Oh I did that too.

Met up with another friend of mine at my local dive bar. He’s getting married to someone he’s been dating for a while. He’s one of the guys I used to hang out with when I was single. Don’t know much about the girlie he’s marrying but I suppose as long as he knows, that’s the important thing.

Always hope that my friends find their person.

Location: about to have breakfast with the wife
Mood: freezing
Music: The breath that carried me, the sigh that blew me forward
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How putting on a presentation is like learning a language

No stopping sign in NYC

Me: (to chairwoman) Gotta be honest, at about the half-way mark, I mentally checked out and started planning my vacation.
Her: (laughing) No problem, I do that all the time.

As parta my real life, am a member of a number of committees. Mosta them are fine – can usually sit back and enjoy some simple carbohydrates and write in my head while people talk – but one committee I’ve been working with has a big presentation to do.

The thing is, they’re all experts in their field, which’s great, but this doesn’t make them experts at putting together a presentation.

We’ve all sat through a terrible presentation before, yeah? The presentations that ramble on and on without a clear agenda or salient point. My personal feeling’s that putting on a presentation’s like learning a language.

The way language should be taught’s by teaching a grammatical structure first. Once the basic outline of a sentence construct’s done, you can just swap out vocabulary.

English: The more I ______ the more _________I am.
German: Je mehr ich _______ desto mehr ________ich.
Chinese: 我越____我越___.

English: The more I eat, the more fat I am.
German: Je mehr ich esse, desto mehr Fett ich.
Chinese: 我越吃我越胖。

Basically, if you want a good presentation, y’gotta have the clear topic/point first, then a clear structure, then everything else. In this committee everyone started talking about all the big name people they could get to speak without figuring out how it was going to be structured.

This actor named Herbert Beerbohm Tree once said that A committee should consist of three men, two of whom are absent.

So I made myself absent going somewhere else in my head.

————

Him: So I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you have no cavities.
Me: Oh that’s great. I brush my teeth four times a day.
Him: Well, that’s the bad news, you’re brushing way too much. Can’t remember the last time I said that to someone.

My dentist’s trying to get me to wear braces – he says that since I have pretty straight teeth, it would only be for a few months to make them perfect. Don’t know if most people need perfect teeth. Good enough is good enough, I’m thinking.

Well, I suppose it’s something else to put on my list of self-improvement.

Location: in fronta the manuscript
Mood: excited
Music: don’t believe in anything but myself
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For writers, the problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity

Dog tied to tree in NYC

I can’t believe that rat bastard left me tied up here. It’s freezing.

———-

Me: (staring at fallen mirror) I don’t get what happened.
Her: (exasperated) I don’t understand how you can fix really difficult things like legal problems and computers but can’t get simple things like why a mirror fell off a door.

Took three days off. Like completely off. There’s something to be said for not doing anything and letting your batteries recharge. Organized some files, caught up with Good Eats – which I just found out isn’t making any more episodes – and read.

Y’know that manuscript that I’ve been talking about all these years? Been thinking of letting you read it on 2012.01.02. Cause I was spending all of this time trying to make it perfect to publish it on paper via a big publisher when I realized that I don’t read paper if can avoid it.

This fella named Tim O’Reilly said that the enemy of the author is not piracy but obscurity. Think that’s true.

So, in addition to all of the work I’ve got going on, got two projects I’m working on.

  1. The first is a legal matter y’might find interesting and might wanna be a part of.
  2. The second is my manuscript.

Figure I should be launching the first one by the middle of next month and the second one by January 2, 2012. All depends on how much rum I’ve ingested.

Keep me honest and on schedule, ok?

Location: home
Mood: ambitious
Music: ich hab viel zu viel zu tun lass uns später weiter reden
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Thanksgiving 2011 – it’s always darkest before the…?

Man walking in front of a church off Times Square, NYC

You could skip this entry altogether and just click this entry here instead.

———

Danger – slightly religious post below:

Had a really strange day. A owner in my building refused to fix an $11 toilet handle resulting in hundreds of dollars in damage to the rest of the building. She’s a self-professed “good but misunderstood person.”

I submit that if you ever have to say the words, “I’m a good but misunderstood person,” you’re most likely neither.

Speakinga stuff y’say, there’s this saying that it’s always darkest before the dawn. But I think it’s always darkest before the storm. Meaning that no matter how dark it gets, it can always get darker. Still, figure that if you know this, you can outlast it.

Saw my friend Johnny in the middle of the night – this Thanksgiving he didn’t physically punch me the gut. But he still hit me there.

Cause he’s onea the people in the hospital I told you about. In the middle of an empty room save the two chairs we occupy, he says he’s gonna be ok. We’ve known each other 20 years, I say.

Me: You gotta be ok. It’s hard having friends for this long in this life.
Him: I’m ok, man. (pause) Been reading the bible. Trying to understand stuff.
Me: No kidding. (thinking) In all these years, we’ve never talked about God, yeah? Cause I figure that we all meet God on our own terms. But can I tell you what I think?
Him: Sure.
Me: The point of the bible, I think. Is that unlike any other religion I know, the people that live good lives – the best lives – get ____ed. Jesus get nailed to some planks to die in agony, John the Baptist gets decapitated as a party favour, Job loses everything just so God can tell a good story. It goes on. I think it says we’re promised nuthin but misery and if you get any little bit of joy, you should be grateful, because it’s still more than we’re promised.
Him: If that’s the point of the bible, what’s the point of it all? Life?
Me: (thinking) Maybe – and what do I know – we’re no different than the rocks and trees and there isn’t a purpose. Or maybe it’s that we can choose to repay the aether somehow and that both makes us different and gives it and us purpose. Maybe the point is that we do good things to make the world a little less unfair and we do it to give our own lives meaning. Maybe nonea us own anything, we’re just supposed to take carea everything for the next guy. We’re supposed to leave this joint here better than when we arrived. Maybe that’s the point, Johnny.

Say it every Thanksgiving – that it’s about making our lives better by making life better. I think that’s the meaning of it all.

Have a Happy Turkey Day, all.

And if you’re reading this from a place without a Turkey Day, you should still have some turkey.

 

httpv://youtu.be/WbN0nX61rIs

Location: home
Mood: good
Music: am done with my graceless heart so tonight I’m gonna cut it out and then restart
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Thinking about all the Hows and Whys

Watch time

This woman named Alice Neel once said that All experience is great provided you live through it. If it kills you, you’ve gone too far.

Had enough distance now from my old troubles to think about it objectively. Alla these things I thought I’d never make it past I did somehow.

Suppose that’s just human nature, to survive the blows. And the one benefit of the gut-wrenching is that peculiar feeling that, If I could survive XX, I could survive anything.

Alison and I were in the hospital on Thursday.

The hows and whys are for some other time and from some other narrator.

My parta the story’s that I was two hours north of the city when I rushed down to hear the news.

Just lemme tell you that there are times in a man’s life when he just wants to cover up his ears like a child and not hear to those impatient things that need to be heard.

But you listen cause you’re not a child. Not for a while now.

And you nod. There’s always a lotta goddamn nodding.

And after all that listening and nodding, you manage to compress all of that agony and fear into a tight little ball and stuff it into some crack in your soul where y’hide that stuff.

Then y’take a deep breath, and say out loud, It’s gonna be ok. Partly for them, mostly for yourself.

And it is, almost always, somehow ok.

But cause you’re an insomniac, you get up in the middle of the night to sit by your lonesome on an uncomfortable couch and, without fail, retrieve that ball you hid earlier. You unpack it, smooth it out, and examine it from a million different angles, hoping for some understanding that never comes.

Finally – despite your best efforts – y’think about all of those hows and whys. Mostly the whys.

Location: Last week, a waiting room at Columbus Circle
Mood: worried
Music: sun is going down but it will rise again
YASYCTAI: Remember that you made it through all the other times. (time/2 pts)
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