Category: Essays

I just finished off a nice can of **Guinness**. In a plastic cup. On a train. It only bothered me a little bit that a pint of Guinness is only 14.9 ounces. But the taste was exquisite. When I was really drinking the stouts, I preferred **Murphy’s** to Guinness, especially on tap, but having that last pint, in a plastic cup, on the train, tasted just like a [Murphy’s *Irish Stout*][2] after downing a pint of **Anchor Steam’s** *Old Foghorn* (on tap) while hanging out with Tom McTeirnan at **Tubby’s** in Hauppauge. After drinking the bitter barleywine, Murphy’s tasted like liquid chocolate. On the train, too, drinking that can of Guinness, yum… liquid chocolate.

Today was a pretty good day for unexpectedly delicious treats. I grabbed some coffee that my wonderful wife brewed before she left for work. I think it was Amaretto-flavored. I don’t sweeten my coffee, and flavored coffees tend to be rather bitter without sweetener, but I’ve gotten used to it. At any rate, today I thought I’d pour in some **Silk** eggnog into the coffee, and it was rather tasty. I wasn’t sure what it was going to taste like, but it actually reminded me of an eggnog latte from **Starbucks**.

I’m going to backup here. Silk’s eggnog, like all the Silk products, is made from soy. So, yes, it wasn’t a milk-based product; it was soy. I know several folks who would be repulsed by this, and I used to be one. But when I worked at a vegetarian kitchen, they didn’t feel comfortable with animal’s milk in the refrigerator, and I reluctantly tried some Silk in my coffee. The plain flavor didn’t do much except cool the coffee down. But the vanilla and hazelnut flavors were pretty good. All alone, soy-milk is chalky, but when it’s in coffee, it’s pretty smooth.
And then there is the soy-milk eggnog. I like eggnog, but it’s so rich that I can usually only have one cup a year, and then I’m good until next Christmas. Two years ago, on a whim, I purchased some Silk soy eggnog. It’s definitely not as creamy as the real thing, but it was delicious and it didn’t leave me feeling like I just drank 12 oz. of liquid butter. I could have two or even three glasses of it in a season.

Another thing that’s increased my consumption of eggnog, and led me to appreciate it even more, is discovering that it’s made for whiskey. Get a decent Bourbon in there and it’s a jolly Christmas season. Grind a bit of [nutmeg][1] on top and it’s kind of like Jesus was born to just experience this. Putting whiskey (or rum!) and nutmeg in Silk eggnog allows me to have more than one, which, of course, is the point. The milk/cream version is richer, and a slight bit tastier, but the Silk-version doesn’t lack for anything.

So, back to breakfast, I had my coffee with the Silk eggnog. No whisky, though. Then for lunch, I had a sandwich that my wonderful wife had purchased for me the night before from **The Good Steer** in Lake Grove. The Good Steer has been around for 50 years. It’s a Suffolk County institution. It’s mascot, on the sign in the parking lot, is a [smiling bull’s head with a halo between his horns][4]. Many of my friends referred to it as *angel cow*. I now live two blocks away from the Angel Cow, and they have great burgers, shoe-string onion-rings that my wife has a love/hate relationship with, and a nice turkey-meat Reuben. That’s what I usually go for when we eat there. Just give me rye bread, Swiss cheese, and sauerkraut grilled together with Thousand Island dressing to dip it in, and it would buy it. The turkey meat is in there to justify the $12 price tag.

The Good Steer has a cole slaw that people who would never consider eating cole slaw actually eat, and a pretty decent red-potato salad. I had both of those with my cold, left-over sandwich for lunch. [Reubens][3] are meant to be eaten warm, but I don’t really care at what temperature I eat my food. Well, let me be more specific, I prefer cold food unless it’s French fries or white rice. Anything else, congealed or otherwise, I’ll eat right from the fridge.

So my Reuben was cold, but it was so so yummy with the cole slaw and potato salad.

And on the way home from work, I wasn’t really hungry. I often get something in **Penn Station**, just because I’m bored waiting for my train and can’t resist temptation, but, tonight, nothing grabbed me. I didn’t feel like a beer, either, until I thought that I hadn’t had a Guinness in a while. For those people who don’t drink beer, you may not be aware that Guinness, and other Irish stouts, are in a class by themselves. Comparing a Guinness to any lager (like **Budwiser**) is like comparing a stylish hat to white jockey shorts. Sure, they’re both technically clothing, but only one of them demonstrates my extremely refined tastes.

The major problem with buying beer in Penn Station, though, is the lack of vessels to pour it in. I’m a firm believer in letting the scent of beer be a part of the experience of drinking beer. As much as I prefer bottles over cans when purchasing a beer at a store, I prefer pouring a bottle into a nice pint glass when I drink it, because bottles trap the aroma of beer. Guinness is one of the few beers that I buy in a can, because of the amazing widget that adds nitrogen to the beer upon opening. (Other than Irish stouts, Sapporo is the single beer that’s better in a can than in a bottle.) But drinking straight from a can of Guinness is an awful beer experience. It’s foamy and soapy–not yummy. But when I went to see what the beer vendor was selling, I saw a stack of plastic cups next to him. I got the cup, and the beer, and waited for my train.

I finished it before the train left the tunnel on it’s way towards Long Island. It was chocolatey and delicious. I had, honestly, forgotten how good a can of Guinness was. I think I have to pick up milk when I get home tonight. I think I’ll get me a 4-pack of Guinness, too, when I’m at the store. I’m going to let the deliciousness continue this weekend.

[1]: http://video.google.com/videosearch?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=nutmeg+song&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#q=john%20legend%20nutmeg%20song&emb=0
[2]: http://www.murphys.com/
[4]: http://www.thegoodsteer.com/about.htm
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuben_sandwich

I saw **The Police** play at [Jones Beach][1] on August 5. Back in the early spring, my friend Melissa said she was going to the August 4 show. At the time, I was sure I missed the opportunity to see The Police in their extra-final-for-real-we-mean-it concert, as they had came through the area last year, and the August 4 show was already sold out. But through a perfect example of serendipity (but not [synchronicity][2]), the day that Melissa came over, they had just added the August 5 show and the tickets had gone on sale that day.

The seats I got were expensive, but not great seats. Still, Katherine and I were sitting in the middle of the theater, and, while in the top section, we had a great view. Some of those seats at the top suffer from really awful echo effects due to the concrete walls around that section, but we far enough away from any of them, so the sound was pretty good, too.

Now, when I purchased the tickets, the **Ticketmaster** site proclaimed that **Elvis Costello and the Attractions** were opening the show. Of course, it was **Elvis Costello and the Impostors**, since the Attractions bassist, **Bruce Thomas**, and Elvis Costello haven’t spoken for over 10 years. Still, I was extremely excited to see a show that I could have very well seen back in 1979, except that it would have been very irresponsible for my parents to let an 8-year old go to a *new wave* concert at **CBGBs**.

I am a huge fan of Elvis Costello, and his opening act was fantastic. He’s a *performer-extraordinaire*, and he got the thin but dedicated crowd excited and involved. (Most of the audience didn’t begin to enter the theater until the sun began to set around 8 o’clock, but Elvis got on stage before 7:30.) However, except to mention that **Sting** came out to sing “Alison,” and all three of The Police came out dressed as late 70s Elvises during Elvis’s last song, “Radio Radio,” I’m not going to talk more about Elvis’s set here.

Nor will I point out that most of the audience, a bit on the older-side, was there to see Sting, because he is so sexy or something, and not the band “The Police.” My wife, Katherine, was amused at the inappropriate shoe-selection of many of the women in our section, high up and plenty of steps to get there. “What?” she wondered, “Did they think that Sting was going to see them up here and notice how sexy their shoes were?”

The Police started off their set with “Message in a Bottle,” and “Walking on the Moon.” Both of these were a bit jazzier than their studio-versions, but very recognizable. Sting sang every song with a kind of wizened detachment. It seemed he was older and didn’t recognize the kid that wrote these lyrics–or maybe that was more of a reflection of the person watching Sting. I don’t know how many people recognized “Demolition Man,” because it’s not often played on the radio and it certainly lacked the signature horn-section from the studio-version. It was then that I noticed that The Police were just the three of them. I *knew* it was just going to be the three of them. But I’m jaded, I guess, seeing concerts with 57 people of stage. But they’re a power-trio. It’s only going to be them on stage. So, I dug “Demolition Man,” even though it was vastly different from the only version I’ve ever heard before. The essence was there without the production.

At this point, I noticed, too, that Sting and **Andy Summers** were using a single bass and guitar, respectively. They didn’t have racks of instruments behind them, using a different one for each song. The varnish on their guitars was wearing off in spots. This really impressed me for some reason.

Their next songs were “Voices Inside My Head,” joined with “When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What’s Still Around.” Then, “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” and “Driven to Tears.”–a nice “Zenyattà Mondatta” set. “Zenyattà Mondatta” was the first album I really got into, thanks to my mom. She would play it often, and the sound of this album was truly unique. Years later, I found out that The Police were rushed in the production of this album, and were never satisfied with the end results. There were problems in the studio, and they had lost the original track reels. It was this reason, that in 1986, they went back in the studio to re-record “Don’t Stand So Close to Me.” We all kind of dodged a bullet there, since the re-recording sessions were so awful, ending The Police recording together That 1986 version was really, really awful and is never discussed in polite company. The concert version on August 5 was closely hewed to the version from “Zenyattà Mondatta,” thankfully.

“Everything She Does Is Magic” followed a wonderful version of “Hole in My Life.” Then they played “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” where I explained to Katherine that the song helped increase my vocabulary way back when, with words like *alabaster* and *fruition*. My dad had a cat named “Mephistopheles,” so I already knew that one. They followed that with “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da,” which I believe decreased my vocabulary way back when.
And then they played “Invisible Sun.” For most of the concert, the screen behind The Police was just showing various close-ups of the band, with the occasional gratuitous graphic embellishment thrown in. But for “Invisible Sun,” the images were black and white photographs of children’s faces, mostly, I suspect, from [war-torn nations][3] because most of the children were not white. All at once, I remembered why I practically worshiped The Police back in high school. The song, nominally about [growing up in Northern Ireland][4], has not, sadly, lost its relevance. “I don’t want to spend my time in hell/Looking at the walls of a prison cell/I don’t ever want to play the part/Of a statistic on a government chart.” Seems there are a score of places I can apply this to. I’m shocked that my nation is one of them.

The Police aren’t all about geo-politics though, and their next songs returned the screen to what the audience wanted to see, Sting and his skin-tight shirt soaked through with sweat. Blending “Can’t Stand Losing You” and “Reggatta De Blanc” into an audience participation bit was inspired, and it closed the first set.

They opened the next set, or the first “encore,” with **Jimi Hendrix’s** “Purple Haze.” I imagine this was a bit for **Stewart Copeland** and Andy Summers to show off their chops. Then “Roxanne,” “King of Pain,” “So Lonely,” and “Every Breath You Take” completed that set. “Every Breath You Take” may have been necessary, as it’s their most popular song, but it was as much a downer live as it is on the radio. The video was cool, I remember, but just about everything else about this song rubs me the wrong way, from fans misunderstanding its totally horrible message of controlling another person to its constant overplay on the radio and its use in an even more awful **Puff Daddy** track.

But all was forgiven by a second encore of “Next to You,” my second-favorite early Police song. (The first is “Hole in My Life,” for those of you with scorecards.) They showed pictures of the roadies and technicians on the tour while they played it, and Sting came out without his shirt to sing it. Everybody wins.

Katherine had heard they were closing the show with “Synchronicity II,” but after “Next to You,” the lights came on and we were done. At 10:30. Old people suck.

At any rate, the show was worth every dollar. I wish it wasn’t, since it just encourages these older acts to charge way too much for shows. The concert t-shirts–“without sleeves,” I kept yelling–were $35. (With sleeves–$40. I wish this was a joke.) The bottled waters, oddly not branded by The Police, were $4.50. And there’s no beer at the Jones Beach Theater. Bah. I guess complaining about things is another thing older people do. Now get off my lawn!

[1]: http://www.livenation.com/venue/getVenue/venueId/287
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity
[3]: http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/services/cds/countries/
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Sun

There is nothing that irks me on the road quite like speed bumps. They exist solely because some group of people have decided that I don’t know how to drive safely. Long Island doesn’t have many areas with them; usually just private roads in apartment complexes where they’re trying to discourage thru-traffic. I understand this, but I think it’s backwards to punish the 95% of drivers who will use those roads, e.g. the tenants who are paying for it, to prevent the 5% who may or may not actually speed in a residential area.

Recently, I came across a private community that had a single access point for entry and five speed bumps. These bumps were on slopes and may have, at one point, been painted white, and were very difficult to see. One was marked by a tiny road sign that indicated it was there, in one direction–*to people leaving the community*. The first speed bump was located just feet from the entrance, making it difficult to react to when you turned in, and it was completely redundant on the way out, since the exit was bounded by a stop sign. So drivers had to slow down for the speed bump before they slowed down for the stop sign immediately after. Why was it there?

Florida would have speed bumps on nominally public roads. Where I drove, the Fort Lauderdale area, most public roads were huge 6 to 8 lane monstrosities. There were no speed bumps there, or there would have been blood, but turn off any main thoroughfare and you wouldn’t know what you were going to encounter. Often it was cul-de-sacs, and often those cul-de-sacs were littered with speed bumps designed to keep traffic bobbing up and down at 10 miles per hour, between bumps of course.
I know the idea is safety. They design roads with speed bumps in areas that have pedestrians, especially children. But again, speed bumps punish good drivers. Dangerous drivers may be discouraged by them, but they’re not learning to drive better because of them.

There is an article in [The Atlantic][1] describing why driving in America is so screwed up by people trying to make things safer. Because of the ubiquity of signage and prohibitions, we’re creating drivers who react slower and don’t use foresight to consider driving conditions.

Consider the stop sign. It seems innocuous enough; we do need to stop from time to time. But think about how the signs are actually set up and used. For one thing, there’s the placement of the signs–off to the side of the road, often amid trees, parked cars, and other road signs; rarely right in front of the driver, where he or she should be looking.

Then there’s the sheer number of them. They sit at almost every intersection in most American neighborhoods. In some, every intersection seems to have a four-way stop. Stop signs are costly to drivers and bad for the environment: stop/start driving uses more gas, and vehicles pollute most when starting up from rest. More to the point, however, the overabundance of stop signs teaches drivers to be less observant of cross traffic and to exercise less judgment when driving–instead, they look for signs and drive according to what the signs tell them to do.

The author, John Staddon, is from the UK, where they use traffic circles instead of stop signs at many intersections. I’m not a fan of traffic circles, or roundabouts, but this may change my opinion:

Roundabouts in the U.S. are typically large. But as drivers get used to them–as they have in the U.K. over the past three or four decades–they can be made smaller and smaller. A “mini-roundabout” in the U.K. is essentially just a large white dot in the middle of the intersection. In this form, it amounts to no more than an instruction to give way to traffic coming from the right (that would be the left over here, of course, since the Brits drive on the left).

This makes perfect sense. Roads don’t have to be widened, and it trains drivers to be cautious at intersections. Late at night, when I’m crossing service roads with traffic lights, I still slow down going through them, because, even though I have the right-of-way, drivers on the service road act as if they’re on the actual highway. Too many times, I’ve seen drivers blow through those red lights as if they weren’t there.

The article concludes with this, “…U.S. traffic policies are inducing a form of inattentional blindness in American drivers,” and I couldn’t agree more. Yes, I am advocating for fewer signs and “safety” features on the road. Driving is something that takes skill and constant vigilance, and it’s time for both drivers and traffic laws to grow up.

[1]: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/traffic?ca=aOkI8lJifd8gGmr7fLBnF%2B5GH%2FdwDqIPBEkGsWcAzsI%3D

I’m not one to think that things *were better* in my childhood days. The 70s, for all those who choose not to–or are too young to–remember, sucked. Really. The 80s sucked, too. Sure, we’re all nostalgic for big hair and [men in shorty-shorts][2], but except for an underground music scene that would pay off dividends in the 90s and beyond, my generation was the first to find their world more difficult to prosper than the previous generations in America. But, wait, I come here not to whine.

Instead, I find myself chuckling at this [article from Newsday][3] about a group of kids arrested after one of them was found with an “apparent ‘caustic liquid'” on his clothing. Because one of the group may have said something about “blowing it up,” this vague threat lead to four arrests and bails in the $60k range.

So here’s a case where I can say, “Boy, times sure have changed,” and think wistfully back to childhood, where one of my friends, in junior high school, could bring a glass beaker, filled with a clear liquid, covered with tinfoil, and sporting a taped label saying “Dangerous: ACID.” He was not stopped the entire day, even though he displayed it at various times, including leaving it on the lunch table, during which a couple of other friends and I would mercilessly tease him about carrying “acid” in his bookbag covered with a flimsy piece of foil.

This is a true story, so I will not name my friend on this blog. Suffice to say, he knows who he his, and so do most of my friends, and so does the Mock Trial club from that year; because the beaker was not filled with “Dangerous: ACID”–it was filled with a pint of Vodka. Oh, it still cracks me up that the “acid” got no attention from anyone, but when a dozen kids were later caught in the girls’ room with their dixie cups, it became the crime of the century.

Times have changed, though. These kids, today, in [the mean-streets of Levittown][4], may have actually had an acid, since the ‘caustic liquid’ kid’s shirt was burned, but I do believe that the authorities are over-reacting, as these four were going to be as successful in their “blowing it up” as the Mock Trial kids were in getting their booze on, all those years ago.

**Update:** Setting the record straight. There was a Mock Trial scandal, but this wasn’t it. Mock Trial was high school. Some of the kids involved with this one were involved in the later one, and I just blended the times together. I apologize for the mix up. (Thanks, Laura!)

[2]: http://ultranow.typepad.com/ultranow/images/short_shorts1.jpg “Warning: Man in shorty-shorts!”
[3]: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/suffolk/ny-liskul0621,0,3157315.story
[4]: http://www.newshounds.us/2007/01/31/since_when_is_selfcreated_wealth_a_negative_on_fox_since_its_democrat_john_edwards.php