Coffee jerk

Tried to get an iced coffee from Cafe Fresh, the attractive but not-very-well-managed coffee place across from campus, on Amsterdam Ave. I went in and the guy barked, "We're not open right now." I asked him, "Well, when are you going to open.'' He said, "I'm not getting into the details of why we are not open.'' So I repeated, "No, no,I didn't ask WHY you aren't open, I wanted to know WHEN you are going to open so i can have an iced coffee.'' He replied, "I don't feel like having a conversation right now about WHY we are not open.''

And so I went to Starbucks. Nuff said. Their coffee was delicious and they were nice.

Mountain extravaganza

I've just returned from a grand tour of the mountains for a freelance writing assignment. I threw down a 12-mile trail run into the backcountry, explored a creek and a briny lake, hiked through a field full of swallows and dragonflies, traversed a national park, learned a lot about mining and earthquakes, ate a duck, toured an Ayurdevedic spa, interviewed 20 people, spent the night in an historic lodge and watched the sun set over the humpbacked mountains. It was a terrific experience though I'm sleepy now and trying to get some rest but my cat is mauling me. Tomorrow I'm back in NYC (but only for a couple of days)

Return of the human boomerang

I just had a strange realization about my life in relation to geography. I was born on the West Coast, and then my father moved us all to the East Coast when I was two. At age three, my family moved back to the West Coast, where I stayed for 15 years. Then I moved to the East Coast for six years, at which point I returned to the West Coast for six years, at which point I moved to the East Coast for three years. Now, I'm about to move to --- guess where - the West Coast AGAIN!! I am a human boomerang but didn't realize it until this moment.

The tease continues

So check this out. I went into our friendly local grocery store the other day, the one that sells tomatoes that look like someone hurled them against the wall -- and for once, they were unblemished, tasty and beautiful. I decided to try my luck in the 'student rush' ticket line for the Broadway show, "Talk Radio,'' expecting to get shut out and yelled at by nasty people. But guess what, there was no line, the tickets were cheaper than dirt, we got second row, dead center, and Liev Shrieber just tore the roof off the place. In fact, the guy at the ticket counter sold me the tickets 15 minutes before the box office was supposed to open! How weird is that?

New York is a tease

This city has been showing its very best side to us, now that it knows we are leaving.

We have been going to the Shake Shack and getting their vanilla ice cream cones, then watching the Empire State Building flash a strange new color each night. We've been going on long hikes and runs, snarfing the famous banana pudding at Buttercup Bakery and strolling through the cherry blossom esplanade in Brooklyn's surreal botanical gardens. I know that if we changed our minds and decided to stay out here, the nice weather would vaporize in an instant, and cockroaches (as big as spaniels) would crawl into our apartment and throttle us in our sleep. But this is a perfect, gorgeous time in NYC, a time when there is no better place on the planet. Everyone is having fun, throwing Frisbees all over the place, and even the rickshaw drivers near Columbus Circle are almost smiling. In three or four weeks, the weather will be hot and disgusting, and desperate people will pay good money to see Sandra Bullock movies just for the air conditioning. But in this two-week grace period, the city is accessible, overflowing with options, good humor, art, music and dogs of all shapes and outlooks. I'm scrambling to take advantage of it.

Dreading the bagels but full of anticipation

I am moving, for the time being, to the Bay Area --- lovely place, brilliant people, great weather, although the bagels are dinner rolls with bellybuttons. Though I am excited to be out there again, I am not looking forward to the bagel withdrawal. As a result, I've been mainlining H and H and Absolute bagels like you would not believe --- just opening my mouth and shoveling in fistfuls of bagels to make up for the fact that I will soon be eating Noah's bagels, which are so insipid. One time at Noah's Bagels in Santa Cruz, I asked for a toasted bagel with cream cheese on it. Instead, the guy ignored me and microwaved the hell out of a bare bagel. When I complained, and clarified what I wanted, the guy took the microwaved bagel, stuck cream cheese on it and then put it in the toaster!!! It was like eating a shingle with mouth-searing, melted cream cheese on the top of it.

However, I am very much looking forward to seeing loved ones, being able to afford sushi (the kind of sushi that I can afford in NYC looks suspiciously like the stuff that they drag behind fishing boats in shark-chumming contests) and enjoying a wonderful fellowship (the Steinbeck, through the auspices of San Jose State University) which will allow me to finish my book, develop a second book, and get going on some intensive research. I will miss the Chelsea pier, cheap student tickets at the Metropolitan Opera and the staggeringly good vanilla cones at the Shake Shack. I won't miss our stomping, thumping sociopath neighbors and the rats in the laundry room, but I will miss my colleagues at Columbia's School of the Arts (though I've been told that a huge contingent of them lives in the Bay Area.)

The sweet misery of free ice cream

Yesterday, I waited in line with thousands of other people to get free ice cream at Ben and Jerry's in the Upper West Side. I'm not sure if the delicious frozen treats were worth the volley of verbal abuse. You should have seen the ice cream servers screaming at everyone! "WHO WANTS CHOCOLATE? I KNOW SOMEONE SAID STRAWBERRY!!! MOVE THE LINE ALONG!! GET MOVING!! WHICH ONE OF YOU SAID CHERRY GARCIA!! MOVE YOUR BUTTS RIGHT NOW!!'' When I finally got to the front of the line, I was sure that the server was going to start pounding on me for no reason or at least lob a big lump of ice cream on top of me. "WHAT DO YOU WANT??"" she roared. "Cherry Garcia,'' I replied, sheepishly. She reached into the vat and scooped me up a big wedge of ice cream and practically stuffed the cone up my nose. I grabbed up my treat and got out of there as fast as I could. In the ice cream servers' defense, they had to wait on an endless crowd of mopy, rain-drenched people and they probably got carpal tunnel syndrome from all the scooping. The other weird thing was the line itself: A kid, no older than 11, took it upon himself to herd the line into single file. He would not let my wife and I pass by until he was sure that we were walking in an orderly fashion. This sort of behavior scares me. Pre-teens are supposed to resist authority and not behave in such a crypto-fascist way.

Graduating, sort of

When I was checking out grad schools, I crashed on the floor of a fiction writer who took me to a protest the next day while dressed up as a cow. (He was protesting the cost of tuition. The cow suit was relevant to the protest. It's a long story.) It's hard to believe that three years have passed since the angry-cow incident. These are my final days in the Columbia MFA program. I will definitely miss homework (reading two books every week) and having a dozen or so smart and dedicated people close-edit my work. I'll also miss the study alcoves at Columbia, the lectures about crazy short stories, the constant visits from writers and the occasional beery hangouts at Toast and the Amsterdam Lounge. This has been great (and the three years have gone by in a flash.) I'm grateful that the program has given me a chance to teach Ivy League freshmen, work as a research assistant to an NY Times editor and shape a full-length manuscript. Now I'm marking the end of my time here with a little get-together this weekend in the Upper-Upper Westside. I guess this means that I am graduating -- though that isn't true technically (I'm still fiddling with the thesis and probably won't do the graduation "walk'' in June.)

Vodka in matzo balls: Don't knock it til you try it

I'm in the middle of a Jewish soul-food blitz right now. This week I made a big batch of matzo balls fortified with a full two tablespoons of Popov vodka in the batter. They have a nice "kick'' that your run-of-the-mill ordinary matzo balls don't have -- a bit of a sting at the top of your mouth when you bite them --- but I'm concerned they aren't Kosher for Passover. (I know there are strict restrictions on certain grains and legumes during Passover, though it's also true that vodka is made out of all kinds of different things. Perhaps there is a matzo-flour-based vodka that's out there somewhere on the market.) Anyhow, I'm wondering if anyone else has tried this concoction. I got it straight out of the New York Times Passover Cookbook. In case you're curious, it also involves a cup and a hald of matzo meal, four to five farm-fresh eggs, a tablespoon or so of cooking oil, a tablespoon and a half of chicken broth, salt to taste and the aforementioned tablespoon and a half of vodka. Boil in broth for 45 minutes. I strongly recommend cooking them in canned chicken soup for that time and then transferring them into a big vat of Zabar's Homemade Chicken Soup.

Here's the Today Show Link

Click here to watch my interview about the male biological clock.

Nationally televised smooch and soundbite on the Today Show

I was, briefly, on national television this morning, (the Today Show) kissing my wife, and talking briefly about male menopause. I was on for about seven seconds.

They had me remove my glasses for the interview and the smooch because the Klieg lights were reflecting off the lenses. It was fun to take part in this. I hope I am on television again.

Cactuseaters on the Today Show

I am on the Today Show, Tuesday morning (Seriously!) at some point between 730 and 8 a.m., talking, with two other dudes, about male menopause and other issues, including male fertility, etcetera. They taped the segment today. Among other things, they had me talking about aging, talking about my Dad, and at one point I smooched my wife in front of a zillion potential TV-land viewers.

On Tuesday morning I will watch myself and find out how I look on TV. They didn't give me any make-up (unlike a cable access program in Santa Cruz, where they put so much pancake make-up on me that I looked like Gray Davis.) It was pretty casual and fun, and I got to check out the Big Room where Al Roker and Matt Lauer hang out. Also, they had me use the same throat-microphone that George Clooney used last week.

Even rats hate rats

The other day I was getting take-out from my very favorite Italian place near here, Max's Soha, when I heard a scream and a squeak. I looked down and saw that four rats were getting into it, having an all-out brawl, right on the street corner near a stairwell, just flogging each other with their tails, clawing, fisticuffs all around, fur flying, literally. It went on for a very long time and they finally scattered in all directions. I guess even rats can't stand rats, which is sad when you think about it. I spend so much time being disgusted by putrid, fat, stinking rats that I forget they are sentient mammals, with self-esteem issues and concerns like everybody else. You'd think rats would be united with an 'us against the world' attitude toward us humans, but being vermin has taken its toll on their self-image. Their response is to brawl in the streets.

Rat prints in the snow

I saw a bunch of cute, mysterious footprints in the snow near my apartment yesterday -- and i was shocked and disturbed when I saw that the footprints led straight into a rat trap! I swear, they were as big as rabbit prints.

Vosges chocolates

This is the wildest, craziest chocolate in the world, and probably the most expensive, but it is delicious. The people who make them are fearless. They throw just about anything into their candies --- Banks Beer, rum, champagne, dried violets, powdered tea leaves, even dried-up kalamata olives. They have one chocolate that is so fiery spicy hot that it will make your tongue shrivel in your mouth and fall off (my tongue actually fell off, no kidding, after I ate it.). They have another chocolate that is made from the mashed-up roots of an unpronounceable, endangered shrub. I got a bunch of these candies for my wife for a late Valentine's day gift and she loves them. She's eating one a day. They come in a big purple box. My only concern is that the Vosges flavors will one day get so "daring'' and weird that they will become inedible. (i.e. sausage-flavored chocolates)

Werner Herzog at Columbia

I managed (somewhow) to get a seat for Werner Herzog's ultra-sneak preview of his new movie (it hasn't been screened anywhere until now and there isn't even a release date.) The packed crowd was told not to blog about it but I can at least say that someone should check and make sure the main actors (including Steve Zahn, who was great in this, and completely believable) are still alive and well. It looks like Herzog damned-near killed them making this movie!! You've never seen such skinny, scratched, tormented and dragged-about movie stars in your life. Anyhow, that's all I can really say, but Herzog was a fascinating presence, talking about the tribulations of movie making and his absolute confidence, which I envied. Asked if he ever doubted himself, he replied, "NO.'' I tried to get my class into this discussion because Herzog directed a documentary called 'Grizzly Man,' about a well-meaning preservationist with a Prince Valiant hairdo who gets eaten by one of the critters he's attempting to 'protect.' Herzog is obsessed with capturing authentic moments on film, which is why he once had the cast of an earlier movie drag an actual ship over a mountain, and, at one point, he reportedly hypnotized a film crew. In this movie, you see a lot of unsettling 'actual' stuff taking place but I don't want to spoil it so I'll just leave it at that.

Binging can be fun

Today I ate an entire gooey pizza that I baked myself, a huge bowl of Tuscan white bean soup, a chocolate croissant, a turkey burger with everything and an enormous bowl of cereal. And I don't feel the slightest twinge of remorse about it.

FDR's house --- kind of a dump.

I was out at Hyde Park the other day to see FDR's house --- and it is not in very good shape! The paint was cracked and peeling, and the place had that neglected-outbuilding-storage-sheddy vibe, and there were no visitors at all except for me and Amy. It's strange to think that they don't fix the place up a little bit. FDR, after all, was a good president. The whole New Deal thing was impressive, and he made it cool for presidents to use cigar holders. I think he deserves better. The FDR stables were creepy -- no horses in them, and there was no stables-ish smell at all in there; it was just musty, like an outdoor attic. Strange, how people revere FDR and yet his house is such a dump.

It makes me wonder if George W. Bush's house will ever be opened to the public 60 years from now. I would bet against it. They'll probably just knock his original house to the ground, leaving a weedy field, and maybe there will be a small pebble with an inscription, in Magic Marker, saying, "George W. Bush used to live here but no one cares.'' And then the pebble will get stolen. Also, we tried to go to the CIA (Culinary institute of America) but all the damned restaurants were closed!!! It was Sunday, but the stupid guidebook said they would be open. I found a guy wandering around campus and begged him to make us an omelette or something but he refused so we left.

There's a cool blog about cacti!

Today my upcoming book was mentioned in an unusual blog that talks all about cactuses. I swear. The blog somehow tracks every online mention of cacti. The book is not all about cactuses, per se, though a cactus plays a very important role in the narrative. The blog also included a very cool 'patent' that tells you how to get rid of the spines (which would have helped me tremendously if I'd known about it)

World's Greatest Backpacker

A couple of days ago, I made contact with the world's greatest backpacker --- Scott Williamson, the sport's Lance Armstrong, who is less famous than Lance Armstrong simply because people put so much stock in biking and so little in the sport of backpacking. I've known Scott for quite a while but lost contact with him because he's been out in the woods and changed his email. Anyhow, I want Scott to be one of the people I feature in my book to provide some good balance. In case you haven't heard of him, Scott is the guy who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail twice in one single, sustained effort. I, on the other hand, took two years to hike it, in large part because I contracted giardia and lost more than 30 pounds in the process while recovering in the town of Happy Camp, California. Anyhow, I'm in awe of anyone who can travel 5,200 miles in about five months, in all kinds of steep terrain, in snow, desert, etc.