Where things can get pretty igry ...Rick's Cafe Americain

Sidney McLaren Star came into the world at 12:43 PM on Saturday, July 19. He’s healthy and happy - and Mom looks great!

This is not a pretty picture on many levels. (Note to self: Ablutions before taking the picture. Maybe a pedicure. Nobody needs to see those toes.) Still, it must be the picture of record, as it was taken on the morning of November 14, 2007 in order to confirm a bet with F-Train. As many* of you know, F-Train recently won a lot of bets when he gained over 17 pounds in under two and a half months. I tried to get him to take a double-or-nothing bet that he couldn’t do it again. Because he has been eating, he had enough energy to think through the bet and he declined. I assume he suspected that it was worth $20 to me to give him a heart attack.

In any event, in an effort to get back my money (or at least to delay payment) we have come up with a separate double-or-nothing: I have to get down to 195 by March 1, 2008. I have to lose 18.5 pounds in three and a half months. As in F-Train’s scenario, I will be dressed the same in every pic and the same scale will be in the same place when I take the picture. I’ll post an updated picture every two weeks or on any day when I feel like it. By the end it is my hope that I will not have to hold the camera as low to keep my gut out of the frame.

And now I’m opening the betting to you. Betting closes on Sunday and all monetary bets are the same for everyone: $20. If you want to get creative, I’m listening (and, FYI, married and a member in good standing of the New York State Bar). Betting closes on Monday, November 19, 2007 or, should I actually get 15 people to read this and care, $300. Leave the bets (or suggestions) in the comments.

Short FAQ after the jump.

I wrote this last Tuesday but forgot to post it. I have to get better about that.

November 6:

I had a salad for lunch today. This would be unremarkable but for the fact that Carrie and I just returned from our Paris and Madrid where we redid our honeymoon and dramatically improved the experience.

To recap the comparison:

LOW POINTS
Honeymoon 1: I feel asleep at the wheel and drove into a very large tree and we got to see a Tompkins County ER.
Honeymoon 2: Our passports ended up in the laundry and we got to see the U.S. Embassy!

HIGH POINTS
Honeymoon 1: I won $15 in a four person poker tournament with friends from college.
Honeymoon 2: As we looked down at the lights of Paris from Montmartre ... do I really need to finish this sentence?

Anyway, back to the salad. This was my first normal salad in over two weeks because, strangely, they don’t have vegetables in Europe. After our trip to Barcelona two years ago, we didn’t expect to find any in Spain. (It is my current understanding that it is illegal to either grow or import vegetables in that country. Which explains the pat down at the airport.) However, France shocked me. France is the epicenter of cuisine; I figured that green vegetables was part of the repertoire. I figured wrong. Potatoes? Lots. Squash? Sure. But NOBODY simply sautees some spinach or asparagus or broccoli. Even as a side dish.

There was nothing in all of Paris that could reasonably be called a salad by anyone not consulting for McDonald’s. Vegetables are apparently only to be used as garnish. And the only salads we ever saw were meat dishes ... on a bed of lettuce.

On our last night in Paris I thought we had finally stumbled upon something that looked like a salad we would understand: “frisee aux lardons”. I assumed I’d get a plate of frisee (I am the only person who would look forward to such a thing, I assume) with a bit of bacon for flavor. What I received was a plate of lettuce with a pound of diced, thick-cut bacon on top.

I will always regret that it was the one day I forgot to bring the camera.

Even though it was probably the defining feature of my teens and 20s, since meeting Carrie I have little to no fear of rejection. Last Friday saw a reversion to the awkward teenage years and it will take some time to recover: I was rejected by a dog.

I should start with the way-cool news that Carrie and I are going to get a dog (actual dog TBD). Carrie has been previewing dogs on Petfinder (lots of rescued dogs to choose from!) and we found one that we both really liked: Beansy. A mix of labrador and American staffordshire terrier (and probably something else) with sweet, soulful eyes (project much, Charles?).

I wasn’t in a great state of mind to meet a dog, which may have been part of the problem. I was reading Love is a Mixtape on the train on my way to the meeting. Love is a Mixtape is the memoir of a man who lost his 31-year-old wife to a pulmonary embolism, and I was reading about the dark year immediately after her horrible, shocking death. Needless to say, I couldn’t focus much. Since I lost my father, anything involving the death of a family member is hard for me to watch. Case in point: I cried on a plane during Love Actually. LOVE ACTUALLY! On A Plane! I am not proud.

When I got to the coffee joint on 1st Avenue, I was a mental mess. And after shaking hands with the owner, Beansy lunged at me and started barking like a guard dog. I nearly lost it. The combination of lost-wife-memoir and dog-who-hates-me was a little too much. It threw me into a noticeably deep funk. By the time Carrie arrived, my eyes were drooping and I wasn’t saying much. After Carrie arrived (Beansy loved Carrie), the dog decided it still didn’t like me and went for a second round of lunging and barking. I honestly don’t think there was any chance of biting, but it was a little harrowing nonetheless.

The whole thing is bothering me because I went into the experience really, really wanting to take this dog home. Beansy is adorable. He is probably sweeter than my first impression. And now, I am in effect rejecting him - even though by the end of our visit, Beansy was sitting with his head on my lap and letting me pet him calmly. I am choosing not to take in this dog, which very badly needs a home. I am shrugging my shoulders and saying “someone will take him” - though that is by no means certain. I can’t help but feel that I am shirking a responsibility by not working through whatever ‘issues’ we had.

Dogs aren’t children, of course, and so I don’t want to take the analogy too far, but I can’t stop thinking about parenthood. If we have a kid, that child is ours, no questions asked. I almost wish that anyone who wants a dog be issued a dog by the Dog Council so that I don’t have the luxury of saying no. At the same time, it felt strange that I had to prove my worth to a puppy.

All that said, though Beansy isn’t the dog for me (and there were other smaller reasons that he wasn’t right for us), he isn’t a bad pup. I hope someone else takes a look and considers taking him in. Check him out.

Today was a minor milestone in my career and a bit of a silly one: I picked up my first set of headshots. It is neat because now I actually have a headshot. It is a tangible thing on heavy-duty 8x10 paper. My mother can hang it on her office door. And she will. It will, in some way, feel like I am making progress to her, just in the same way it feels like making progress to me. This is despite the fact that both of us know that with a digital image and $100, anyone can get a headshot done.

And so the definition of progress is internal: I felt that I was ready to get a headshot. Worthy. In need. Able to take advantage of their presence. The headshot, then, is the manifestation of my own sense of progress. With that, Silly Thing becomes Good Thing.

Of course it isn’t exactly me. A little touching up was necessary because I am flawed and even a good photograph has some unavoidable imperfections. The shine on my nose and cheeks and two stray hairs: gone. The refraction from my glasses: corrected. The bump on the end of my nose: erased. It is still me, but a ‘better’ me. It is still far enough from perfect that it looks like no work may have been done at all. A touch dishonest, but a far cry from the photoshop crimes and out-of-date pictures that decorate the profiles of match.com.

Don’t worry, Mom. It’s me in the picture. You remember the flaws, right?

5/9/07

I have a bad cut on my knee. I hurt it riding my bike over the weekend. I have a bad history with bicycles, so this is par for the course. It all falls under the theme of “Did the person who used the expression “it’s like riding a bicycle” to describe how easy it is to restart an old activity ever ACTUALLY take a long hiatus from riding a bicycle?”

I rode my bike a lot when I was a kid. Of course I did. I was a kid. (If you didn’t ride a bicycle as a child, your childhood was probably unbearably sad.) Then I kind of stopped riding. I went to school on a bus and anything else I did was pretty much close enough to walk or far enough to drive.

After a few years of not riding, I got jealous of all of the people in college who zipped back and forth to class while I found myself slowly trudging everywhere, so I pulled my bike out of the garage and brought it up to Ithaca. During my first week of riding, as I was struggling up a hill, I was passed by a woman pushing a stroller.

The bicycle went back into the garage.

14 years later I met Carrie, who rides or walks everywhere. One night, when I had to go home because I didn’t have work clothes at Carrie’s apartment, Carrie volunteered her bike to me. For some reason it didn’t occur to me that a trip from a neighborhood called “Park SLOPE” to one named “Prospect HEIGHTS” was not the ideal maiden voyage. It was a mile and a half, uphill, over the streets of Brooklyn - which are roughly like downtown Fallujah. It the intervening 14 years I had completely forgotten how one cushions ones balls from the shock and by the time I arrived home, I was sweating like I just came in from a thunderstorm, heaving like I was having a
heart attack and walking like I just rode a bicycle for a mile and a half without any shock absorption.

The next time I needed to go home for a change of clothes, I walked.

3 years later, Carrie finally convinced me to get a bike so we can ride together. I like it. It is red and shiny and maybe I’ll get a bell for it, just to recapture my youth. This past weekend, however, I was using it to ride to the softball fields in Prospect Park. As I was riding in the park, I saw that I was going to have to make a left turn into a steep incline up. So I leaned forward, pressed hard to make the charge and fell over.

I repeat, I fell off of my bicycle. I didn’t hit anything or anyone. I wasn’t avoiding a dangerous object. I FELL. OFF. MY. BICYCLE.

I have been limping since Sunday and have not been on the bike since.

The Ramble Project continues.

6/8/06

In the immortal words of Biggie Smalls, Mo’ money, mo’ problems. Oh, the perils of homeownership! Because I am now the sort of person who says domestic things like “My fiancee and I bought some flowerpots at Home Depot for our front stoop,” Carrie and I bought some flowerpots at Home Depot for our front stoop. They were squarish and funky looking and we placed (but did not actually pot) plants in them and set them on our stoop.

And then two days later they were gone, along with a less funky mate.

When Carrie noticed that they were missing, she immediately claimed that she was going to jog around the neighborhood, find them on someone else’s stoop and swipe them back. Fearing that I would have to ID her in the morgue with shards of broken flowerpot in her head, I told her that would be a bad idea. And then, the very next day, when walking home from the subway Carrie noticed the flowerpots - our flowerpots - in the front window of a health food store AROUND THE CORNER FROM OUR HOUSE.

When I confronted the store owner the next morning, he said (in a Jamaican accent, that you are free to do as you are reading becuase it is accurate (or not, if you fear that it will sound racist)) “Someone left them in front of my store and I thought they were so beautiful that I put them in the window.” I took the flowerpots back without incident.

I am amazed at his story, though. Those pots were heavy. Apparently three separate people stole our flowerpots and got tired of carrying them after walking the exact same distance. Very suspicious. From now on I am going somewhere else for my spirulina needs.

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I pick up today with what was the introduction of the term “RAMBLE” for my meanderings. It was for Mother’s Day, last year. So here are the first two Rambles.

5/13/06:

It has been so long since I’ve sent one of these schedule notices. It is like we have become strangers. I so very much do not want us to become strangers. And who is the very opposite of a stranger? Mom! So let us celebrate Mom together. What a relief that tomorrow is Mother’s Day, salvaging the relevance of this homage. (Schedule follows the ramble.)

THE RAMBLE
--------------------
Unfortunately this is the worst possible forum for me to celebrate my mother. It is supposed to be funny, so heartfelt praise would be out of place. On the other hand, an e-roast wouldn’t be a kind surprise to lay on her either. She reads this silly thing - and even posts it on her office door because her coworkers like to feign interest in my career.

Instead I will talk about a “trend” piece in today’s Wall Street Journal. In it, the author claims that there is a wave of young men who, in lieu of a Mother’s Day gift, undertake a bit of self-improvement that they “know” will make their mother happy. Examples in the article including lasering off a now-regretted tattoo, removal of a hideous back sweater or signing up with a dating website so that they won’t forever be alone. In other words, they are assholes.

Thinking only of themselves, they do something that they want for themselves, jot that idea down on a card and imply that their selfishness is, in fact, the ultimate sacrifice. I suppose the furthest extension of this idea - and just the sort of thing these louts would do - would be to say “Whenever I talk to my mother I get upset. And she says that she just wants me to be happy. So I am not going to call my mother this year. It is exactly what she would want.” Jerks.

That is why, Mom, for Mother’s Day, I am telling these jerks off in this email on your behalf. I know it is what you would want. You can thank me tomorrow by picking up the check at brunch.

5/29/06

Happy Memorial Day, everyone. I know that my Memorial Day will be filled with holiday goodness because I was recently informed that the building is technically closed, so I will be working sans A/C. If you look at your computer screen, you will note that I am sweating enough to cloud your monitor. You might want to get that looked at.

THE (short) RAMBLE
-----------------------
As it happens, there is only one thing worth talking about. I have joined 2004 with a bullet and finally signed up on MySpace. If it is anything like Friendster (it isn’t! it is so totally better!), I will check it for a couple of weeks and then never, ever look at it again.

But that won’t happen because MySpace is great! I have over 100 friends already (popular!) and you can use it to lure and murder teenage girls! (or boys; no sex discrimination around here!) Not that I want to but it is so awesome that I totally could!

What I am saying is that MySpace makes me want to use exclamation points and I’ve never felt this way before! Please kill me!

But add me first.

Please?

As I go through my the mailings from the last three years, the first thing that I am realizing is that the long free-form writing didn’t come until later. Instead, I’ve got a lot of short one liners, so I’m just going to give you some Pre-Ramble highlights. It is also fun to read my enthusiasm for shows that I wouldn’t really want to do anymore (notably, bringer shows on weeknights).

To the highlights:

2/15/05:

I have just been doing the same old things: performing at open mics, lazing around my apartment and trying to prove to myself that the fact that I have a a girlfriend isn’t a delusion or an elaborate prank. I’ve almost convinced myself, but I have to say that Occam’s razor - combined with 33 years of contrary evidence - points to the “delusion” or “prank” theory. Needless to say I don’t expect that posing the question here will bring me any closer to an answer.

9/8/05:

First, the real news: Carrie and I are engaged.

Many of you know this. Others of you do not. To the latter group I say “Man we really should talk more often! It really has been a while.” And then awkward silence may follow as we realize that we no longer have very much in common but remain friends because of shared history or inertia or something. But hopefully we will instead realize that not talking is the result of our busy lives, not emotional distance, and we will make a concerted effort to reconnect and all will be well.

1/7/06:

Bush’s new Medicare prescription plan may bring promised savings, though. Since a lot of old folks are being refused their meds, this could considerably cut down on the cost of long term care.

3/10/06:

Carrie and I moved in together on February 21 and so far, so good. If you picked two weeks in the “How long before she realizes what she’s done Pool,” you lost. However, if you picked two weeks in the “How long before they realize that the renovations are way more expensive than they realized Pool,” congratulations. Unfortunately I can no longer afford a prize for you.

4/6/06

It is freezing again! Hooray! At least it isn’t snowing today; yesterday felt a little apocalyptic around lunchtime. I hadn’t found time to repent or find Jesus in my heart, so when the wind starting blowing and the skies opened up I was worried that a reckoning was coming. It wasn’t. And with that knowledge any temporary worries about repentance went away. Good thing; Mom would have been furious if I backed out of our seder plans.

In other news, my house is more expensive than an addiction to snorting cocaine through straws made from original Picasso sketches. We have now replaced the bathroom fixtures, floor, paint and some plumbing in the tenants apartment; de-cancered the basement (adios, asbestos); lined the boiler chimney; removed a fence that was destroyed by three years of ivy growth and decades of rot; replaced a refrigerator apperently housing the dessicated - but still stinky - remains of Jimmy Hoffa or D.B. Cooper (time has made it tough to tell); and just found out that the shower tile in the master bath is porous and the drywall behind it is probably shot.

Did I mention that I love this house? I say that because my mortgage actually requires that I make clear that I love the house. It does this with 402 pages of legalese that makes clear that (a) it is mine, no-backsies and (b) the no-backsies rule is unilateral; they can take it if they feel like it. Also, there is the matter of Carrie who loves the house unconditionally and can do far more damage to me than the bank could ever aspire to. So, I repeat “I
love this house.”

Please, come to a show. I’ll let you buy me a drink so I can save money for when the blood starts seeping from the walls. Exorcisms are more expensive than you think.

OK, that’s enough for now. More tomorrow. If you like this sort of thing and would like to get on the mailing list, go HERE.

First things first: yes, I know how to spell “inaugural.” I’ll get back to the title in a second.

As the few of you who still check in from time to time know, this blog is mostly dead. The remnants of the blog serve as a comedy schedule and a place for once-in-a-blue-moon posts that don’t feel appropriate for Stay Free! I’ve been doing most of my writing there or as a contributor to Onion News Network. Unfortunately, neither of those fora are particularly good venues for the writing most like my stage comedy which tends to be very personal stuff. For that, my writing goes only to my mailing list. UNTIL NOW!

With some prompting from Dawn, I’ve decided to start posting the free-form writing exercises that I send to my mailing list here on this mostly dead blog. Which brings me back to the title.

My first mailing to the list didn’t have any content aside from the schedule, just excitement about actually having a mailing list and a euphoria induced typo. Which resulted, almost immediately, in my second email to the list. The first email had no writing content, and so it shall be with the first reposting.

Over the next few weeks I’ll start adding the essays - named, at some point, The Ramble. So I guess we both have that to look forward to.

What does this mean? It means that it is time for me to make another audition tape! This time, the jokes will be as funny as the last tape but I won’t jerk around like I’m davening.

So click on the images to get the details about the show or just read this:

Thursday, May 10 at 8PM at Mo Pitkin’s - 34 Avenue A between 2d St. and 3d St. Only $5!

So, who else is on this show? My coproducer once again is Rachael Parenta. She is an excellent coproducer because she does most of the work. Adrienne Iapalucci and Claudia Cogan complete the bill.

Our headliner is the hilarious Pete Holmes. Pete Holmes is on VH1’s Best Week Ever, was on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend, is a favorite at CollegeHumor.com and is the host of periodic late-night open mic Gut Bucket at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre with TJ Miller. Also, we play poker together sometimes.

The whole thing is hosted by Tony Camin, who has also been on Premium Blend, is one of the co-writers of hit play The Marijuana-logues, and is the co-host of talk show Broin’ Out with Leo Allen, currently at UCB. Here is another clip of him.

Seriously, this is going to be awesome.

If this dead blog is going to be good for anything, it will be self-promotion, So, on that note…

I have gotten in bed with the kids from America’s Finest News Source.The Onion launched the Onion News Network last week and I am one of the contributors. I haven’t had anything on the air yet but if I do, you’ll here it here. I have also been doing some voice work for the Onion Radio News including here, here, here and here.

Also, I was recently invited to write for the Looking at the Look Book column on Gawker, a cheap shot at New York Magazine’s “Look Book” feature. I’m happy with it, but Gawker’s usually acrid commenters apparently decided that they could anger me more by not commenting at all than by insulting me. Which turns out to be the case. Well played, jerkoffs.

Anyway, here is the promo for ONN. The site will update frequently, so get the RSS feed. This clip contains an ad for Dewar’s which I have decided I can live with:

A few weeks ago I wrote about an uncharacteristically political strip in the profoundly horrible Soup2Nutz for the Stay Free! blog. I didn’t expect to write about it again so soon, if ever. And yet, in yesterday’s cartoon retarded older brother Roy-boy is revealed to be a Pirates fan.

This news is nearly as bad as the trade for Shawn Chacon.

All along I thought I was a 35-year-old from Queens. It turns out that I am an 18-year-old dude from Wyoming.

Did I mention that I’m on MySpace?

Poor kid is probably too young to realize that it is his fate to look like a lesbian in photographs for the rest of his life. 

Last December, after we had been dating for around 7 months, Carrie emailed me Quitting the Paint Factory: On the Virtues of Idleness, proving she already knew me quite well.

True to form, I printed out the article but it sat on my desk for the last 15 months, occassionally taunting me with its presence but usually buried under a pile of unread mail. I finally started reading the article last night.

Because I am moving on Sunday and was supposed to be packing. You sent me the article, Carrie, so you only have yourself to blame.