major award

I can't compete with this. What a ham. AND the guy had braces during age-appropriate seventh grade. Sheesh.

This is only fueling me with bad ideas. Grade school dentist stories I can write about, for one. Also, I think I may need to pose with a bunch of my soccer and tennis trophies at my parents' house and paste those puppies all over this site.

Stay tuned.

silver and gold

Today my dentist recommended I consider braces or Invisalign, while my brother just won an Emmy for his show Pardon the Interruption.

I ask you, Ladies and Gentleman, who is the REAL winner today?

upright piano/downright impressive

Last night I went to see the band Ambrosia perform here in Brooklyn. They encored with "Biggest Part of Me" and some off-the-wall keyboard antics and vocal acrobatics:



I have to say, during the set the keyboard player looked like Nick Nolte's mug shot. I think you see what I mean. This is the second instance I have used that comparison in the last few weeks. The other occasion was describing my very nervous cat upon arrival at the vet ER for the second time in twelve hours for a tail injury. He was all jacked up on pain meds, covered in nervous shedding, and walking like a drunk man. He's also cross-eyed so it really enhanced the whole Bonkers Look.

(I saw the keyboard player mingling at the merch stand afterward and it turns out he cleans up nicely. He also seemed very genial.)

On a related music-of-that-ilk note, the other day I looked up Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, guitarist for Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers, on Wikipedia. Everything read impressively and as expected (played in said legendary outfits, went on to do session work with a barrel full of icons on a pile of seminal records, etc.). This trivia, however, gave me moment's pause and had me chuckling and uttering "wow" aloud:

He also occasionally plays in The Coalition of the Willing, a band comprising Andras Simony, Hungarian Ambassador to the United States; Alexander Vershbow, US Ambassador to South Korea; Daniel B. Poneman, formerly of the United States National Security Council and now of The Scowcroft Group; and Lincoln Bloomfield, former United States Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs. On June 19, 2007, Baxter jammed with former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow's band Beats Workin at the Congressional Picnic held on the South Lawn of the White House.

And then I arrived at the "Defense Consulting Career" section.

[Brakes screeching]

Unreal. I mean, maybe it is common knowledge, but I had no idea.

flop of the topps

When I was in third grade freedom meant going over to my friend Justine's house and walking around the corner, unchaperoned to Woolworth's to purchase Topps Movie Posters. At my home office, the local drug store was one-and-a-half-blocks and two major intersections away. My mom rarely granted that kind of clearance, unless I was in the company of my older, taller siblings.

Justine lived a stone's-throw-and-no-street-crossing-necessary from a virtual retail Elysium and the rules were different in her familial fiefdom. This was never taken for granted. After school or on a weekend we'd stroll over, dollars in hand, and walk straight to the Topp's product shelves. Each time I thought, "This time it will be different. Luck WILL be a lady."

As with their baseball and movie cards, the thrill and anguish with Topps posters was you never knew what you were getting. You paids your money you tooks your chance. That said, if you were Justine, you knew you were getting something awesome. If you were me? You knew no matter how you tried to improve the odds—picked from the bottom or took from the top of the Topps, had Justine choose, etc.—no matter how you sifted and selected you WERE going to tear open the waxy packaging to unveil: THE BLUE LAGOON.

Every. Single. Time.

Justine was blessed with the movie poster Midas touch. She could cull from a box filled to the brim with Blue Lagoons and still end up with a Superman banner in hand.

Each time the moment of bijou truth arrived, she tore the packaging open to reveal Star Wars!, Rocky!, The Pink Panther! And I, ever hopeful that "this time it will be different, this time I will slightly rip the top of the wrapper like Charlie Bucket in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to reveal the golden ticket in the guise of Animal House!", peeled back the corn yellow ceraceous husk to reveal the never-wavering verdict: Christopher Atkins, Brooke Shields, The Blue Lagoon.

f-ing gonutz

I'm not going to lie to you, this commercial jingle used to get stuck in my head on the regular until my college years:



This catchy hosanna finally went on furlough in the turntable of my mind until a few days ago when a friend ordered fried gnocchi at a restaurant. It tasted to me like, well, a bowl of donuts.

Let's talk about this commercial. First of all, I love that Coach No Sport gets right behind this product. Second of all, I like the baritone donut that foghorns "dough-licious." Most of all, this verse alone is a total touchdown:

They look like powdered donuts do
Taste like powdered donuts, too
Yeah donuts!

It reminds me of the commercial my father wrote for a product called The Buttoneer.

The problem with buttons is they always come off.
The problem with buttons is they ALWAYS come off.

Overall, I am tempted to tailor the Donutz campaign to fit my new favorite breakfast food: The Kiwi Berry.

My local produce market just started carrying them. They are essentially baby kiwis without the regular kiwi gorilla suit covering. You can jam them whole like, well, donut holes. I feel like pulling the random coach in my life aside and singing a brainwashed dancy ditty about them. But if we are gonna get serious here, my actual attitude toward the kiwi berry discovery is more along the lines of the profanely satisfied customers in the Mr. Show "Ding Dong Burger" commercial. (Warning: This video contains all kinds of filthy language. NSFW.)