Beatles Haters: They Walk Among Us

I personally know several people who will hate this blog post. I apologize in advance to those people, but sometimes certain things need to be written, even if it means some people may feel affronted. I am sure there were some folks who were very upset when the Manga Carta was written in 1215, but that didn’t stop the Archbishop of Canterbury from writing it, because he knew that it was necessary. Now, 800 years later, this blog post needs to be written, and so I have written it.

About four years ago, I was having a conversation with a coworker about music and she mentioned that she hates the Beatles. At 41 years old, I had gone my whole life to that point without ever coming across someone who said that and I was dumbfounded. Before I could edit what was coming out of my mouth I said, “Do you also hate food and people?” Fortunately she laughed, even though I wasn’t necessarily joking. “I know, I know,” she said. “I get that reaction a lot.” She went on to explain that she grew up during the height of the Beatles popularity (she’s about ten years older than me) and everyone loved the Beatles so much that due to her inherently rebellious nature, her reaction was to despise them, if for no other reason than she was expected to love them. I get that to some extent, as I sometimes have that reaction to enormously popular movies. For example, I felt that way about Avatar, but the difference is that whereas Avatar was mediocre, the Beatles were amazing.

That night when I came home from work I told my wife this seemingly unbelievable news about my coworker and she revealed to me that someone on her side of the family (who shall remain nameless) also hates the Beatles. “What!?! You mean there are two people on this planet who feel this way???” I was flabbergasted. Were these people delusional? In denial? Living with an as yet unidentified genetic disorder? I had a hard time wrapping my mind around it.

In the four years since that inauspicious day I have stumbled across a couple of other anti-Beatles people in a rock music chat room I created on Facebook. Every time I learn of someone new who hates on the Beatles I feel a little twinge of pain somewhere down in the core of my being. It’s not like I’m some closed-minded idiot who feels like everyone should like the exact same music I like (indeed, my favorite band is actually Rush, and I’m completely fine with the fact that there is a very large contingent of people who can’t stand them), but rather that the Beatles’ music: a) seems inherently likeable; b) contains such a wide variety of styles that there’s something there for everyone; and c) laid the foundation for all rock and pop music that came after it. To me, saying “I like rock music, but I hate the Beatles,” is akin to saying “I like beds, but I hate mattresses.” It simply doesn’t make sense.

Originally I was going to spend the rest of this post explaining to those who hate the Beatles why they should, in fact, love them, by describing the joy and/or brilliance of specific albums and songs in minute detail. But unfortunately, I believe this would be like trying to explain advanced calculus to a canary (or to me for that matter).  Instead, I’ll just leave off with an appropriate lyric from each one of the Fab Four.

“Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.” –John Lennon, Strawberry Field Forever

“Take these broken wings and learn to fly.” –Paul McCartney, Blackbird

“And the people, who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion, never glimpse the truth.” – George Harrison, Within You Without You

“Resting our head, on the sea bed, in an octopus's garden near a cave.” – Ringo Starr, Octopus’s Garden 

Alright, so maybe Ringo wasn’t the world’s most profound lyricist, but that doesn’t mean you should hate the Beatles.

My Presidential Platform

As various politicians on both sides of the aisle have begun to announce their candidacy for president, it occurs to me that if I’m going to take a run at the White House in 2016, I better say something sooner rather than later. I mean, I don’t want to be left in Hillary Clinton’s and Rand Paul’s dust, if for no other reason than it would wreak havoc on my sinuses.

The truth is that at 45, I feel I have finally reached the age at which a presidential run is realistic. (Yes, I know that technically one can run for president at 35, but that would mean in about four months Macaulay Culkin could file his paperwork to run for president, and does that seem in any way prudent?) If I were to run for president, I would be sworn in when I was 47 years and 126 days old, which would make me the fifth youngest president of all time. And of the four elected at a younger age, two (John F. Kennedy and Ulysses S. Grant) ended up having their faces put on money, one (Theodore Roosevelt) ended up having his face put on Mount Rushmore, and one (Bill Clinton) ended up having his face put on the cover of the National Enquirer. So…um…my point is that for the most part, younger presidents seem to be revered once they leave office.

But perhaps it’s too soon to ponder my post-presidential legacy when I haven’t even gotten my party’s nomination yet. Of course this begs the question of which party’s nomination I’m hoping to obtain. I have to be realistic here and concede that I have little chance of becoming the nominee for the major (or even minor) political parties, considering that the front-runners for those tickets have millions of supporters and I have less than 400 Facebook friends. It seems that my best chance of being nominated is to start my own political party, which will be called the Ampersand Party. This party is so named because we believe that the ampersand (&) should always be used instead of the word “and” in order to save space in written documents. It is estimated that just by using that simple substitution, more than 500,000 milligrams of ink will be saved over the next ten decades. Indeed, from this point forward I & all of my constituents will employ this tactic.

Of course, using an ampersand to conserve precious ink is not the only component of my presidential platform. It would be ridiculous to run on the strength of only one issue, so let me lay out my five-point plan:

1 – The Proliferation of the Ampersand: I have already discussed this concept above & do not feel the need to waste more vital ink on this topic.

2 – Free Donut Fridays: I & my staff will work diligently with the CEOs of Dunkin’ Donuts, Krispy Kreme, & Winchell’s Donut House to ensure that all Americans can get unlimited free donuts every Friday. This may require subsidizing the donut industry to account for the weekly losses, but this is a hard choice I am willing to make.

3 – No Advertisements before Online Movie Trailers: A movie trailer is essentially an advertisement. When you click on a movie trailer online what you are saying is, “I am willing to watch this advertisement.” It makes no sense that prior to watching an advertisement you are willing to watch, you are forced to sit through one you are not interested in—say for heartburn medication or carpet deodorant. One of the first orders of business of my administration will be to work with the FCC to stop this barbaric practice.

4 – Unification of the Designated Hitter Rule: Let’s face it, the fact that the American League uses a DH & the National League does not is nonsensical. This anomaly has been going on for 42 years now with no end in sight. & the truth is, nobody likes watching a pitcher hit—it’s downright painful. This travesty needs to be rectified posthaste. & since the President has no real jurisdiction over Major League Baseball (MLB), I’m going to be obliged to turn the MLB into an executive branch of the government. Easy-peasy.

5 – Mandatory Life Imprisonment for People Who Spell the Word “Grammar” as “Grammer”: I think this one is pretty self-explanatory.

Now that I have clearly laid out my presidential platform, I can hit the campaign trail & share my views with the American public. After the masses have had to endure countless stump speeches about education, immigration, & foreign policy, I’m sure that my views will be a breath of fresh air & will almost certainly lead to a presidential vicory. Maybe the United States Mint should start working on the template to put my face on the thirteen-cent piece now.

Me standing on the shores of the Potomac River across from the Jefferson Memorial, about 1.2 miles from the White House-- my new home as of January 20, 2017.

Not Sure If I Want My Milk In A Bag

Every time I do our weekly grocery shopping I have a high level of anxiety while checking out, because I know, as I stand there watching items get swept across the scanner, that I will soon be asked that dreaded question by the bagger, “Would you like your milk in a bag?” And I just don’t know the right answer.

The truth is I don’t drink milk myself, and haven’t drunk it for almost 25 years. And back when I was drinking milk, I was living at home and my mom was the one who did the grocery shopping. So it wasn’t really until about seven years ago, when my older son turned one and was given the go ahead to drink milk by his pediatrician, that I purchased milk for the first time. (Yes, it’s strange that someone can go 38 years without ever having to purchase milk, but I’ve led a charmed life.)

So for the past seven years, every time I go to the grocery store, I’m asked the same loaded question, “Would you like your milk in a bag?” To this day I’m not sure why I’m being asked this, because there’s no other item that they ever ask me this about. And really, why wouldn’t I want all of my groceries in a bag? It sure seems convenient.

The first time I was asked this, I thought the kid was just joshing around with me, so I played along and said, “Nooooo. Whatever you do, keep that thing out of a bag.” He looked at me funny and didn’t bag my milk. I thought he was just playing along with the gag.

But the next time I had a different bagger and she asked me the same question. I nervously chuckled and said, “Yes, please. I’d like my milk in a bag.” And she obeyed.

It was at this point that I realized that grocery store workers must think this is a legitimate question. Indeed, there must be some customers who prefer not to have this particular grocery item in a bag, otherwise why would the question be asked? I wondered if there is a right answer to this question. And does it say something about me as a person if I want my milk bagged or not bagged?

But why is this question being asked in the first place? I’ve spent many a night up late wondering about this. It can’t be because of the size and shape, because I’ve purchased things like orange juice in similar containers and don’t get asked this question. It can’t be because it’s dairy, because nobody has ever asked me if I want my sour cream or butter in a bag. I wondered if maybe there’s some sort of deadly chemical reaction that takes place between milk and grocery bags, but then I assumed if that was the case they wouldn’t even give you the option, otherwise they’d lose a lot of customers.

Now, seven years into my milk buying days, I’m still not sure why I’m being asked this question or how I should answer. So I change up my answer on a frequent basis. Sometimes I say, “Yes!” sometimes I say, “No!” and sometimes I say “Surprise me!” just to see the look on the bagger’s face. Once, when I was in a particularly playful mood, I said, “Yes, I’d like my milk in a bag, but not my pickles, toothpaste or instant brown rice.” I got a blank stare and then everything was bagged anyway.

And so, this week when I go grocery shopping, the same mystery will play itself out. I’ll get asked if I want my milk in a bag, my heart rate will increase as I desperately wonder how I’m supposed to respond, I’ll mentally flip a coin to make my choice, and life will go on as usual. Or maybe I’ll just turn the tables on the bagger and say, “Do you want my milk in a bag?” Ah-ha! Let’s see what happens when the shoe is on the other foot!

Chandler, Arizona: Too Clean for Cub Scouts

About four months ago my eight-year-old son became a Cub Scout, which means that his calendar (and by extension, mine) has suddenly gotten much fuller. We’re putting together shell collections, building pinewood derby cars, and solving cryptograms. It’s a lot more than I ever remember doing when I was a Cub Scout. Really my only memories of my scouting days are eating cupcakes at the end of den meetings and being chosen to play “the mom” in a skit in which I had to don a wig and a green dress. (I think my son’s got it a little better than I did, because they still get treats at the end of pack meetings, but so far I haven’t seen any of the scouts forced to dress in drag.)

Last week my son had to go on a hike and pick up litter along the trail, so I took him and my younger son to Veterans Oasis Park in southeast Chandler. This park has 4.5 miles of hiking trails featuring desert landscape, so I figured it would give us lots of opportunity to both admire cactus and pick up discarded soda cans.

With a brand new 13-gallon drawstring garbage bag in hand we started our hike figuring by the end it would take all three of us to drag the sack back out. But apparently the good citizens of Chandler are cleaner than we banked on. Ten minutes into our hike looking both on the trail and off, we still hadn’t found any litter. On the one hand, I was glad that I live in a city with such cleanly folks, but on the other hand, I was hoping we’d have at least a few slobs to help out my kid’s project.

I had all but given up hope of finding any trash at all when my younger son shouted, “There!” and pointed to a spot about five feet to our left. The three of us slowly crept over to the spot as though we were stalking prey and then under a bush we saw it—a one-inch by one-inch clear piece of plastic that may or may not have been a food wrapper at one time in its life. While I wasn’t quite sure what it was, it was clear that it was not something that would occur naturally in the dessert and so could only be defined as litter. I had my older son put on his work gloves (the Cub Scout handbook explicitly states that for safety purposes one must always wear gloves when picking up litter) and put the miniscule piece of plastic into the trash bag. 

We all felt a great sense of accomplishment at having removed the offending trash—so much so, that we decided to reward ourselves by eating the granola bars we brought as snacks. Of course once we ate the bars we had to throw the wrappers into our 13-gallon garbage bag, giving us a great sense of accomplishment once again.

And so the morning went, with my eagle-eyed six-year-old spotting a piece of litter smaller than my thumb every ten minutes or so, my meticulous eight-year-old carefully putting on his gloves to throw it out, and all three of us generating more litter between us than we found in our entire two-hour hike.

By the end of our mission we were all exhausted. Two hours of hiking is a lot on the legs and the six times we had to bend down to pick up litter only compounded our bone-weariness. But at least my son got to check off “Requirement 7” in his Cub Scout handbook. Now if only there was a requirement in his handbook that would make him clean up his room.

Amazing Nieces

Long before I was a dad I was an uncle. It’s true. I have two older brothers and between them they popped out seven kids (well, technically their wives did the popping out part) before I had even met my wife. The youngest of their brood is nine years older than the oldest of mine, so I had years of experience as an uncle before I ever became a dad—20 years’ worth, in fact. (Note: Experience as an uncle does not, in any way, shape, or form, prepare you for being a dad. But more on that thought in a future blog post.)

These days, of course, I’m much more focused on the accomplishments of my own kids than I am on my brothers’, and my blog posts reflect that. But this time around I’ve decided it’s high time to give some props to my brothers’ kids—specifically the nieces, of which there are two (one for each brother).

My older niece, Alyssa, is a film major at Brooklyn College, specializing in sound mixing. Apparently sound mixing is distinctly different from sound editing, as my niece explained to me last September when I was in New York. At the time she gave an excellent explanation of those differences, and for about five minutes after that conversation I probably could have articulated those differences to someone else. Now, five months later, I probably have as much chance of explaining the differences between sound mixing and sound editing as I do explaining the ins and outs of particle physics. Yeah, I’m not good with technical information.

Of course, being a film major is not in and of itself an amazing thing. Anyone can major in anything. (I could have even majored in physics…for about four days before I would have flunked out.) But in my niece Alyssa’s case, the thing that verified my biased uncle opinion that she’s amazing at what she does, is that she is one of five people across the country to have been nominated for a student achievement award by the Cinema Audio Society. She has been invited to their 51^st annual award’s ceremony in Hollywood, where they give out awards for motion picture and television sound mixing. This is sort of like the Oscars for sound mixing folks. (Believe it or not, there’s an entirely different awards ceremony for sound editing people. See, I told you there was a difference.)

The point is that in less than two weeks my niece will be in Tinsel Town rubbing elbows with the sound mixing greats. Who knows, she might even end up sitting next to Gregg Rudloff. Yes, that Greg Rudloff, who won both an Oscar and a Cinema Audio Society award for The Matrix and is nominated for both awards again this year for American Sniper. (Okay, I never heard of him until now either, but his resume is pretty impressive, including having done the sound on This is Spinal Tap, one of my favorite comedies of all time, so I’m impressed.) In summation, it looks like my niece is on a much better track to realize my dream of winning an Oscar than I am. Good for her! (Seriously, that was said with pride, not jealousy.)

My younger niece, Lauren, is in the first year of a seven-year combined college and medical school program. So clearly she’s got some smarts. Indeed, she must have a few I.Q. points on her dad (my brother) because it took him eight years to finish college and medical school. Slacker!

But not only is my niece incredibly smart, she is incredibly talented as well. This time I will magically remove my uncle bias from the equation by letting you know that she is the reigning National American Miss New York Teen. This is no joke, as the current Miss America—Kira Kazantsev—was the National American Miss New York Teen in 2012. Now I’m not saying this means my niece will be Miss America in three years, because that is a bit of a leap, but four or five years, tops.

Yes, I see lots of red carpet activity in both my nieces’ futures. Oscars. Crowns. Maybe a Nobel Prize for good measure. I’m not ruling anything out with these two. They make me proud to be an uncle.

(Note: I don’t mean to imply that my nephews are slouches—four of them became Eagle Scouts by the time they were 13 and the fifth was the 10^th grade New Jersey State Chess Champion last year.)

(Note 2: Yes, I know this blog was particularly boastful and self-serving, but hey, it’s my blog and I can write whatever the heck I want.)

(Note 3: Sorry to use strong language like “heck” on the internet, I’ll try to refrain from doing it next time.)

(Note 4: There is no Note 4.)

The Price of Guacamole

Growing up in Brooklyn in the 70s and 80s, Mexican food wasn’t really a thing. Well, I guess it was a thing, but not a thing that I had any exposure to other than through an episode of The Odd Couple when Oscar ate tacos and aggravated his ulcer. It wasn’t until the early 90s when I was living in Manhattan that I tried Mexican food for the first time. There was—and according to Google, still is—a restaurant in the Village called Caliente Cab Co. that I ate at with friends a few times. I enjoyed it and thought it was quite exotic, but considered it the kind of place one would only eat at on special occasions. I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I had Mexican food before I moved out to Arizona.

In Arizona, Mexican restaurants are ubiquitous—sort of like pizza joints in Brooklyn. “Exotic” is no longer the word I would use to describe Mexican food. We eat the stuff a couple of times a week, but only at a restaurant every other month or so. This, of course, means that Mexican food is on our regular menu at home. We do burritos, quesadillas, and of course, Oscar Madison’s favorite—tacos. We also do taco salad, which is essentially a taco in salad form. (Note: that last bit of clarification was for my New York readers, many of whom are not wise to the ways of Mexican food. I know that many of my Arizona readers likely rolled their eyes and thought, “We know what a taco salad is, you yutz!” If you’re a reader from another state, I formally apologize for not addressing your level of Mexican food awareness within this parenthetical note.)

On taco salad nights we usually include avocado in the mix. Over the past few years avocados have quietly become one of my favorite foods. I’m not a trained food critic, so I can’t quite describe the flavor of an avocado, but I’ll just put it this way—they’re freakin’ yummy. While there’s no denying that avocados by themselves are delicious, one thing you can do with them to heighten their deliciousness is combine them with salsa and sour cream to make guacamole. Finding the right combination of these three ingredients to make the perfect guacamole is tricky—the kind of thing that mystical elves in an enchanted forest might be skilled at—but somehow my 8-year-old son has a knack for getting the combo just right to make what he now calls his “famous guacamole.” So on taco salad nights my son’s “famous guacamole” has become a hot commodity.

On our most recent taco salad night my son suddenly decided to become entrepreneurial with his guacamole. Once he finished mixing his prized concoction he offered it up to the rest of his family for a penny a serving. My wife and younger son took him up on the offer but I passed at first—not because the price was too rich for my blood, but because by the time he got around to making the guacamole I had already finished my taco salad and was full. When I politely declined my son’s offer, he apparently thought I was balking at the cost, prompting him to say, “Okay, instead of a penny you can dance for your guacamole.” I stifled a laugh and decided to have some guacamole after all, at the original price of one penny, as I didn’t feel much like dancing.

After dinner when it was time for my older son to collect the penny from his brother, I heard the younger tot try to renegotiate the deal. “Can I do a dance for you, instead?” he asked. The older boy agreed and 30 seconds of freeform dancing sans musical accompaniment ensued.

Ultimately, the price of my son’s guacamole is pretty reasonable. At all the local restaurants it costs much more than a penny and I’m pretty sure they won’t let you do a dance rather than pay for the stuff. Of course, I don’t know this for sure, because I’ve never asked. Maybe next time I’m at Rosita’s I’ll see if I can do a rumba in exchange for my guacamole. Probably won’t work, but at least it’s got a better shot than offering to do the tarantella for an order of garlic bread in Brooklyn.

The Stress of Chess

I have been a competitive Scrabble player for the past 14 years and have 177 official tournament games under my belt. Many of these games were extremely close nail-biters that went down to the last play and quite a few of them had money on the line. The difference between coming in first or second, second or third, Scrabble glory or Scrabble goatdom, often came down to a last second decision on how I placed my tiles. Sometimes I’d win some money because I bingoed out (Scrabble speak for using all seven tiles on your last play) and sometimes I’d finish just out of the money because I got stuck with a Q at the very end. It’s often a rollercoaster ride and as you might imagine, it can be quite nerve-wracking.

This past Friday night, however, I found myself in a tournament environment 50 times more stressful than any I have ever been in before…and I wasn’t even playing. I was observing as my 8-year-old son participated in his very first chess tournament, and at times my heart was beating so fast I thought it might explode.

That my son has little to no interest in Scrabble, but has developed a love for chess, is perhaps ironic, but I’m okay with it. I don’t want to be the dad that maniacally pushes his kids to do exactly what he wants them to do, so he could sculpt them in his image. I’m more of the “let them try different stuff until they find what they like” sort of dad. So when my son stumbled across chess while at school and displayed an interest, we signed him up for the school’s 12-week chess class. Lo and behold it turned out he had a bit of a knack for the game (he can already beat me without my letting him…not that that says much) so we decided to let him try a kid’s tournament.

So there I was on Friday night, looking through glass as my son and 17 other kids played in a two-hour tournament. Most of the parents just dropped off their kids and came back later, but I wanted to stick around to see how my son did. In retrospect that may have been a mistake, because had someone taken my blood pressure during this two-hour span, I’m certain I would have immediately been sent to the E.R.

I watched as my son got his opponent in check and didn’t notice; I watched as his opponent made an illegal move that my son tried to explain to the kid you can’t do, only to be ignored; and I watched as my son clearly lost interest in his third game and started making any random move just to get it over with. It took every ounce of willpower I could muster not to pound on the glass or go barging through the door to get my son’s attention and correct whatever odd injustice was taking place on the chess board. If your kid’s in a soccer match you can scream stuff from the stands, but if he’s in a chess match you have to bite your lip bloody and let the pieces fall where they may. My lips were a bloody mess by 8:30.

As it turns out, my son ended up winning two games and losing one (with two others called on account of taking too long). I was very proud of him (despite the fact that watching him almost gave me a massive coronary) and he seemed to enjoy the experience and indicated that he wanted to do it again.

A couple of hours later I spoke to my brother, whose 17-year-old son is a very high-ranked chess player and was the 10^th-grade New Jersey state chess champion last year. I told him how stressful it was watching my kid play and being powerless to help, and he chuckled knowingly and said, “You just described the last decade of my life.”

The thought of having to deal with an entire decade of watching my kid play chess terrified me at first, but then I realized it could be worse. How much more stress would it be on me if I had to sit by quietly while I watched my kid play competitive Scrabble?