"Still The Same"

Like the Bob Seger song of the same name.  In fact, if you “YouTube” the song and play it while you’re reading this, you’ll have a blog post with its own personalized soundtrack. 

I think I’m a genius!  I mean, not entirely, because I’m not doing it myself, but you know… I had the idea.  

I thought I was way finished with the Golden Globes.  But then, a situation came up that reminded me that no matter how old I get, there are parts of me that remain unalterably the same.

For example:

The “Acute Gullibility Factor.”

Which you’d think would improve with age. 

“Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me a few hundred times… I’m an idiot!

With me, however, it seems indisputably the case:  No improvement.  On the “up” side, at least my gullibility is not getting worse.  Although, come to think of it, how could it?  “Gullibility” is like falling down a hole.  There is no falling half way.

So Anna and I are on the phone, hashing over the Golden Globes.  First off, she is surprised that I watched it, because I have demonstrated little interest in awards shows since they stopped nominating me, the last time being in 1997, for being a “Consulting Producer” on The Larry Sanders Show.

Anna then asked if I watched the whole thing.  And, to her amazement, I replied, “Yes.”  To which the only reasonable follow-up question, and, being no dope Anna asked it, was…

“Why?”

Her question immediately shot me back to the mid-1950’s, when our family regularly spent the “Passover Season” in pre-casino, Atlantic City – eight days of matzah and merriment at Malamud and Meltzer’s renowned Breakers Hotel.  (I recall two giant monogrammed “M’s”, intertwined on the entryway carpet.)

I received a dollar a day to entertainment myself at the Boardwalk’s arcades, a sufficient amount, since the arcade games were a nickel.  Five cents was also the purchase price for little brown paper bags of birdseed, which you could hold in your hand while the Boardwalk’s ubiquitous gatherings of pigeons gobbled it up, pecking simultaneously at your palm, as if birdseed was good, but birdseed mixed with a little “palm skin” – Delicious!

When I tired of the “Shooting Gallery, I could hang out with the world famous “Mr. Peanut” at the enormous Planters Emporium.  I could get my shoes polished by a guy who, from dawn till dusk, stood dead-eyed, mechanically droning, “You can’t look near if your shoes are beat.”  I could also wander down to the Steel Pier, and imagine an event long-since curtailed – most probably by the ASPCA –

Horses diving into the ocean off the end of the pier.

But my favorite activity, bar none, was watching guys try to sell things. 

Though I have no hucksteral tendencies myself, I am in prostrating awe of the “Huckster Community.”  There must have been a dozen of them, interspersed among the Boardwalks’ booths, mesmerizing “Magicians of Merchandising” stationed behind tall counters before a rapidly accumulating audience, with their sleeves rolled up and their machine-gun patter, hawking products you don’t want, you don’t need, and you will never use in your entire life.

Glass knives.  Pens that write underwater.  Athlete’s foot remedies (accompanied by graphic photographs of patients, their legs strapped to hospital beds, keeping them from scratching their excruciatingly itching feet into a lacerating pulp.) 

And, of course, there was the Chop-o-matic.

“It slices.  It dices.”

I could literally watch these guys for hours.  The sun would go down, and I’d still be standing there, buying nothing, but utterly entranced. 

On one memorable occasion, one enterprising “Pitch Man” brought out “Robby The Robot”, of TV and crap movie fame.  I was nine, and I was in heaven.  After a brief but captivating performance, “Robby The Robot” departed the stage.  I distinctly remember the “Pitch Man” unfastening his wristwatch, and placing it on the counter in front of him.  He then pointed dramatically at the wristwatch and announced,

“In exactly ten minutes, my friends, “Robby the Robot” will return to the stage, where, for your entertainment, he will perform a little dance.” 

I remained there long after it was dark, the indefatigable “Pitch Man” babbling away, hawking everything from “Shammy Cloths” to stain remover.

“Robby The Robot” never returned to the stage. 

The next thing I knew, I was surrounded by two very tall Atlantic City police officers, who escorted me back to the Breakers Hotel, delivering me to my apoplectic mother.  I did not understand the excitement.

“I thought you were lost!” my mother tearfully exclaimed.  To which I replied a line that, in time, became part of “Pomerantz Family Lore”:

“‘Lost’ isn’t when you don’t know where I am,” I explained.  “‘Lost’ is when I don’t know where I am.”

Why did I remain watching that pitchman for over seven hours?

I was waiting for “Robby The Robot” to come back.

Why did I watch the entire Golden Globes show?

I was waiting for hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to come back.

(A three-hour program – they returned to the stage maybe three times.)

Yup, they’re still doin’ it.

And me?

I am still fallin’ for it.

"A Post Mortem With A Message"

My favorite kind of post mortem.

I shall keep this short, consistent with the experience itself, which was of limited duration.  Plus, I have health issues to take care of today. 

These days, activities relating to my physical wellbeing have become my dominant form of social interaction.  And of financial remuneration.  For many years, after I stopped working but before I went on Medicare, my primary source of income came from Writers Guild Health Fund medical reimbursements.

Okay, so here we go.

It is the final day of our highly enjoyable Hawaiian vacation and, as a regular part of my morning ablutions, I am flossing my teeth, using my “Travel Floss”, which I brought along instead of my regular floss because its plastic dispenser is an eighth of an inch smaller and thinner than my regular floss, so you obviously can’t pack “The Big One”; you have to take the “Travel Floss” instead.

The difference between the two is that, with my regular floss, the flossing ribbon is flatter and comparatively less abrasive in its effect.  My “Travel Floss”, on the other hand, inflicted the penetrating sting of a trip-wire thin thread, the kind of cord Tony Soprano might have used for the strangulation of his adversaries.

I have finished my flossing, and am now ready to rinse and spit.  But when I do, I discover, intermixed with the saliva and the particulate food residue, an astonishing expectoration of blood.

That’s never good to see. 

Subsequent rinses and spits progressively readjust the proportions, the transition “back to normal” comprised of a “Four-Step Process”:

Step 1:  Almost all blood.

Step 2:  More blood than saliva.

Step 3:  More saliva than blood.

And finally, to my incredible relief,

Step 4:  All saliva.

Phew!

(It occurs to me that I may be grossing you out here.  First, sorry.  And second, the gross-out portion of the story is substantially over.)

Okay.  With the crisis behind me, the question now becomes,

“What the heck happened?”

To which, my immediate and obvious conclusion:

I had accidentally lacerated my aging and hypersensitive gum line with my inordinately punitive “Travel Floss.”

That’s how the experience would be logged permanently in my “Memory Bank”:  As an unwelcome final-day-of-our-vacation periodontal misfortune.  (With hopefully no deleterious consequences down the line.)

DISSOLVE TO:

We are exiting the hotel, me, handling the luggage, while Dr. M orders our rental car brought up for our departure.  Suddenly, I sense a nagging discomfort in my right hand, and I look down to determine its source.

It is then that I find the middle finger of my right hand dripping copiously with blood.

(Note:  For me, one bleeding episode in a day is upsetting.  Two, engenders borderline hysteria.) 

A careful examination of my right hand's middle finger uncovers a tiny blister on the bottom of its tip, an abrasion which, I now realize, my “Travel Floss”, razor-sharp and wrapped tightly around that area during the earlier flossing procedure, had apparently aggravated and induced to bleed. 

This realization triggers a reevaluation of the entire experience.  It was now clear to me that my inadvertently injured right hand's middle finger, having been deeply involved in the flossing procedure, had, in the course of that procedure, found its way into my mouth, leaving behind, upon exiting…

A substantial residue of… the red stuff.

I had, it turns out, made a substantial error in my understanding of the situation, an embarrassing blunder on its own account.   More globally, however – as I am nothing if not a “Lesson Learner” – I found my egregious misjudgment driving home a reverberating message; to wit,

The evaluation and everlasting recording of events in my – or, may I boldly suggest – our “Memory Banks” can frequently be shockingly incorrect.

I was certain I had lacerated my mouth. 

When I had, in fact, actually lacerated my finger. 

You know what I’m talkin’ about?

"Aloha Memories 2013 - Loose Ends"

I love loose ends

“And she loves me…”

During our trip, after having being the unhappy recipient of several of my insightful observations about people, my daughter Anna accused me of being judgmental.  My somewhat umbraged response to her accusation was that I don’t judge.  I simply notice things.  And then pass on what I notice to others.

Apparently, to some hypercritical family members, passing what I notice is indisputable evidence of judgmentalism.  To me, noticing things and then keeping them to yourself is like… that’s crazy!  You prepare the meal and then don’t serve it to anybody?  What kind of chef would do that? 

“Eet’s eemposseeble!’

I entirely agree.

So here’s a smattering of what I noticed on our recent Hawaiian vacation.  (And some of it’s about me.  Does that make me judgmental about myself?  That’s stupid!  Okay, “That’s stupid” was judgmental.  But not the stuff that’s coming up.  As far as I’m concerned.

Okay, fine.  You decide.

---------------------------------------------------

A woman comes up to me on the beach, clearly expecting that I would know who she was.  When my undisguised face-signals revealed that I didn’t, she flamboyantly tears off her big, floppy hat, daring me not to recognize her then.  What I recognized was a woman I didn’t know without a hat.  Finally, she reveals her identity (a woman we had met on a previous visit) and she asks me how I’m doing.

“Okay,” I reply.

“Wonderful!  And how is your wife?”

“She’s all right.”

“Fantastic!  Are you having a good time?”

“Pretty good.”

“Sensational!”

The woman’s exclamatory responses got me thinking.  Was she drastically inflating her enthusiasm?  Or was I having a better life than I realized?  (I would lean in my direction in this regard, but I am afraid that that would make me appear judgmental of her hyper-enthusiasm.  To me, it seemed atypically “over the top.”  Simply an observation.)

---------------------------------------------------

You go to Hawaii for the ocean and the sun.  Is that being judgmental, or merely being accurate?  If you went there for the skiing and the exploration of ancient cathedrals, you would be seriously disappointed.  I may be dangerously going out on a limb here, but I think Hawaii’s sun and the ocean play a significant part in most people who come there’s vacation-planning decision-making.  

Just saying.  Not judging. 

So when I notice people – as I did with one couple – turning their cabanas around, so as to face away from the sun and the ocean…

I find that – not stupid, or even odd or bizarre, which would all be judgmental – but – come on, cut me some slack here – at least…

Noteworthy.  

There’s an easier way to avoid Hawaii’s sun and the ocean.

Don’t go to Hawaii.

The same way, to avoid the blizzards and the sub-zero temperatures?

I do not spend “Christmas Week” vacationing in Toronto.

Is that judgmental?  I say, “No sir!”  It is just, “Look at that.  They go to Hawaii and then literally turn their backs on what makes going to Hawaii spectacular!  That’s noteworthy, don’t you think?” 

That’s all I’m saying.

------------------------------------------------

Our hotel replaced its formerly unimpressive and overpriced Japanese restaurant with an equally unimpressive and overpriced Italian restaurant.  Walking in, it felt somewhat, let’s say disconcerting, having the restaurant’s identifiably Hawaiian (in physiognomy and attire) host greeting us as we entered with an effusive

“Bon giorno.”  

This cultural cognitive dissonance reminded me of a response one of our dearest friends once delivered when we dined together at an Italian restaurant in Los Angeles. 

The overwhelming majority of “service help” in Los Angeles restaurants are of Hispanic derivation.  The conundrum occurred when one of them finished refilling the woman’s water glass, and, desperate not to offend, she was divided as to whether to respond to his attentiveness in Italian (in deference to the restaurant’s motif) or in Spanish (respecting the nationality of the server.) 

What emerged from this torturous dilemma was a strangled and unwieldy

“Grazie…as.”

Nothing critical. 

Just noticing.

Okay, to show I can take it and not just dish it out,

What I Noticed About Myself:

I cannot enter a tiled public bathroom without immediately breaking into song, or whistling.  (It’s the echo.  I sound sensational in bathrooms.)  This leaves my fellow urinators who traditionally have no place to look with now also no place to listen.

Okay, that’s kind of tame, more endearing than a source of condemnatory judgment – Hillary Clinton in her 2008 Primary Debate admitting her biggest flaw was that she worked too hard.  (Or she cared too much – some confessional but tranparently adulatory revelation of that nature that would impel me never vote for her unless she was running against a Republican.)

Hold on, I can do better.

To offset the expense of the recently inflated room rates and restaurant charges, I would regularly eat my breakfast and lunch in our hotel room, partaking of provisions purchased at a nearby supermarket.  I also enjoyed a daily mugfull of our accommodation’s complimentary Starbucks coffee. 

Gleefully, with every homemade meal and unpaid-for imbibement, I internally tabulated an accumulating “Negative Restaurant Tab.”

“Free coffee – saved sixty twenty-five, plus a tip.”

“Teriyaki rice bowl with chicken – saved twenty-one dollars – plus a tip – on the coffee shop hamburger.”

“Cereal and papaya in the room – saved thirty-five dollars – plus a tip – avoiding the Plumeria Beach House’s ‘Breakfast Buffet.’”

It was a rewarding exercise, combatting the hotel’s exorbitant charges.  I could hear myself cackle with every unsquandered dollar.

Judgmental?  “Is that guy cheap!”?  I don’t think so.  It is simply what I did.  And I noticed myself doing it.  (Which is all I do with others.)

Any other revelatory observations?

Oh yeah, this one:

One day, I had a beer at lunch, a “Lave Flow” in the afternoon, and a glass of Macallan’s Scotch on the rocks after dinner.  Were you counting there?  That was three alcoholic beverages in a single day. 

Okay, that’s a little frightening.  Normally, I don’t drink anything.  But I may have toppled over the edge there and gone straight to “I’m Earl, and I’m a alcoholic.”

Or maybe it was just a matter of temporarily vacationally lowered standards.

The foregoing generates today’s question:

Does noticing necessarily imply judgment?  Even for the good stuff?  “I noticed a butterfly.”  Does that imply a critically “oblivious” judgment on the people who didn’t?

I don’t know the answer.  Noticing – judgment.  I am unable to delineate the distinction.

I just know I had a great time with my family in Hawaii, I saved a boatload of money eating in my room, and one day,

I was really, really

Drunk.    

Man!  I would kill for a recording of what I sang in the bathroom then.