Working Out (My Writing)

I just started taking this intensive personal essay writing class (because I love to write and I love to talk about myself- it makes sense). I need to post more so I'm just gonna throw some of the stuff from class on this bad boy. Below is the VERY first exercise we did in which our instructor throws out a phrase and we run with it. Not my finest hour but what the heck. Enjoy this sucka...

On a cool day in March of 1997, I went to see Howard Stern's Private Parts.

In the language of Spies Like Us, Chevy Chase and Dan Akroyd gave underrated performances. Was it their best work? No, but there's little better than vegging on your couch on a cold Saturday, eating a good sandwich and watching that flick.

A bowl of clues under your bed for your parents to know you were doing something you weren't supposed to. Could I have gotten rid of them?

She threw stones across the water to make them jump, I've seen this done a million times but never as sensually. The stones kept skippin' and I kept lookin'.

A morbid fear of dancing and what do I do? A dance split. At my 10 year reunion. And I split my pants. And what was my solution for saving myself? I took my pants off.

Somewhere in the middle of the 3rd movement I fell asleep. I didn't want to, I wanted to give the impression that I cared, that my sensibilities were sophisticated enough. Really, I'd rather be at a Springsteen concert.

A magnesium flare in the distance, I don't even really know what this means. But what could it be? I guess it is bright and shiny. It would probably look pretty cool in the wilderness at least.

Green ribbons are what I received when I was a runner- I don't know where they are anymore.

What I forgot to say was really how much being here means to me. It means I am taking steps, taking control of my own destiny, not just playing it safe. Putting it out there to be judged- it's scary but okay.

So there you have it. I re-read what I wrote and if I were these strangers in my class I would gather that I am: A Baba Booey-loving, pop culture obsessed man-child who still worries about his parents knowing about the naughty things he's doing. Furthermore, I am horny, bad at problem solving, have never been outside of Jersey, am retarded and can't get past my glory days. Plus, I am embarrassingly corny and self-conscious. This is not totally true (but to an extent it is) but it just dawned on me that there's 15 people now that probably think I am a douche. Oof, it's gonna be a long semester.

Stolen Memories: Rickey Makes The Hall

They announced today that Rickey Henderson has made the Hall of Fame, on his first year of eligibility to boot. I couldn't be happier. The man only played for the Yankees for four seasons (1985-1989) but there was something very important about his first year in New York: it was also the first year I fell in love with baseball.

The summer of 1985 was monumental for me: I started to understand the great game of baseball, had my first catch with my dad (I even got to use his original glove from the 50s-and I ended this important milestone by throwing the ball right into his chest) and went to my first Yankee game. It was August and my dad and I drove up to the Bronx (1985 Bronx, not now Bronx, it had literally just stopped burning). As we got on the road and closer to the Stadium, I could see we were in a galaxy most definitely far away from the 'burbs, and I loved it. The graffiti, the squeegee guys and the beauty underneath the urban grime, I was drawn right to it. When you walk up to it for the first time, it is striking and it really is an experience. But even more so is when you step inside The House That Ruth Built. I'll never forget being blown away as my dad pointed to the field and talked about the legends he saw play there like The Mick and so many others. I was in my element and looking at my dad's face, certain he was reliving the first time he did this with his own father, I knew he was too.
Rickey didn't have the game highlight (though he did go 2-3 with a double, 2 runs and a stolen base), that honor goes to Ken Griffey, Sr. The man broke his arm while extending it over the left field wall for what otherwise definitely would have been a home run ball. Rickey wasn't even my favorite player of that era (he's 3rd behind Don Mattingly and Dave Winfield). Even so, that day no. 24 was put into the hero category. Donnie Baseball was the guy that everyone wanted to be, the All-American player and Winfield was the suave power hitter, but Rickey had something like NOBODY else- speed (that and the same name as my brother, which always drove me nuts because I'd missed Graig Nettles by like five years). It was a blast to see him steal base after base after base and fool the pitcher every single time. On the rare occasion in Little League that I did reach base (and even when I play softball now), I'm Rickey Henderson. I am the exact opposite of All-American (I don't shave enough to qualify) and suave- we'll I'd rather just move on. But I can run and I can run fast. I'd step off of 1st, crouch in the set position and take off, without a thought of what I was leaving behind. I'd even push my helmet towards the top of my head so it would be more susceptible to falling off, like I'd seen happen with Rickey (still a cool move). Rickey was cocky and a bit of a hot shot and THAT'S what I wanted to be.

Henderson's going into the Hall but it was only a couple of years ago that he was playing in the Independent League for the Newark Bears, ready to get back to the league that he took by storm with his ability and speed. When all is said and done, I think that's what all of us aspire to be- no matter how much we've accomplished, we don't give up on ourselves and strive for more, and we do so going at full speed. Congrats, Rickey.

Thoughts On The Wrestler

I'm a guy from New Jersey who loves comedy and was a teenager in the 1990s so it's obvious I am a Kevin Smith fanatic. To me, specifically the Jersey Trilogy (Clerks, Mall Rats, Chasing Amy) perfectly captured what it was like to be a young person person of my hood just trying to figure it all out ( and to sprinkle that message with dick and fart jokes certainly got my attention). Though his later films don't always hit me on the same level as the others, I'll still catch anything Smith does. Still, it has been a long while since I've connected to a story out of the Garden State. That is, until I saw The Wrestler.

In every review I've read or heard, every critic talks about Mickey Rourke's brilliant performance and the resurrection of Mickey Rourke. This is absolutely 100% true (though I thought the guy came back almost 4 years ago in Sin City and Hollywood comebacks confuse me in general anyway). What nobody seemed to mention though is the fact that NO MOVIE EVER has captured my beloved state the way The Wrestler has. Not only does Bruce contribute a brilliant track to it, but this movie really is the cinematic version of a Springsteen song (I guess making Kevin Smith Jon Bon Jovi, which is not a bad thing at all). Oddly enough, director Darren Aronofsky grew up in Brooklyn and although many of us Jersey-ites come from or have family from Brooklyn, we would never expect someone from there to perfectly capture our little universe. The ONE thing in the movie that bothered me is that Marisa Tomei's character wanted to move from Elizabeth to Trenton, simply because the schools are better. If you're from a hundred miles outside of Trenton you know this is ridiculous because I am sorry, but the once shining city and current state capital is, with a few exceptions (like the burger joint Rossi's), is a total dump. A lot of Trenton kids are bussed to Hamilton schools (where my mom lives). Trenton is so bad that during gang initiation week, Hamilton residents are urged to stay inside as aspiring members are ordered to murder people. If this lady is trying to escape Elizabeth for some sort of paradise in Trenton, she's a mental patient and unfit to be a mother.

Everything else in The Wrestler is 100% spot on. It showed a New Jersey that was rarely if ever shown on The Sopranos. It showed the trailer parks, just out of reach from the McMansions. It showed the VFW halls and 'roid gyms where the non-WWE wrestlers can be found. Like the Sopranos, it showed Asbury Park, but it showed it in a truer light: as a beauty that once was that might be once again.

The Wrestler also had characters that I know. For example, I know guys eerily similar to Mickey Rourke's character, Randy "The Ram" Robinson. One guy is in a profession quite similar to The Ram's. When I knew him, his day job was doing random moving gigs and he had simple living conditions and a girlfriend that I was certain was only around to take advantage of him. He also might have been "special." Regardless, he was a gentle giant who it seemed only really fit in when he was in his world, on the stage. Aside from him, when I was a bartender (and at a real bar, not one of these fancy Manhattan places), I came across many men who were well past their glory days but somehow were able to relive them night after night on that bar stool. It was sad because you could see that they had been beat around by life- but when they told their war stories you still saw something in them.

I also knew Tomei's character, Cassidey the stripper. This woman was beautiful, sexy, smart and just amazing. I fell in love with her every time I saw her. But she was 40 and I somehow sensed that she felt like she was stuck and her days using her body were coming to an end. Her heyday was the 1980s and the 80s were long gone. Much like Asbury Park yes, she had seen better days, but there was still beauty to be seen. On top of that, she had a child to worry about at home and I could see balancing her two worlds was tiring, to say the least. I think a lot about her and hope that she hasn't given up the good fight.

At the end of the film, Springsteen's The Wrestler plays over the credits. It's lyrics are beautiful but realistic and, combined with the content of the movie, it hits hard. When Bruce sings, "These things that have comforted me, I drive away/This place that is my home I cannot stay/My only faith's in the broken bones and bruises I display," he's not describing a happy ending. All of the characters I've met over the years, I am not sure what there ending will be, but here's to hoping that, like The Ram, they find their glory again, even if it's just one more time.