Existential Dread

The (East) End is Nigh!

Here's one more sign that the good ol' world that we used to know is evermore resembling a fantasy world that requires E-Tickets only when most of us just ain't got 'em.

Today I just saw SpecHampton, a blog targeting those swinging sultans of the South Fork who have dreams of getting rich(er) by buying and "flipping" houses.  I'd like to "flip" some of these nabobs.  This post -- Middleweight Spec House Battle -- ever so blithely compares the relative virtues of spending either $4.3 million or $3.9 million for either of two neighboring McMansions on a bog next to a cornfield.  The author, whom I'm sure I'd be dear friends with if he showed a bit more karmic insight and a rosier disposition rather than his trademark eagle's nose for a good deal, thinks that all things being as good as equal, he'd opt for the castle that's $400,000 cheaper.  To him I toss this softball, you take the el cheapo abode and come over to my pad next door to borrow a penny or chamomile tea.  Good luck, Charlie!

Whom Would Job Root For?

I wanted to write about my anxiety and dread about the war and the trade and budget deficits and about how science has become a naughty word in America, but I can't get past my nostalgia for those 1,000+ yard season from Curtis Martin.  Even in this most dismal of Jets seasons, the site of #28 giving it his all and playing for reasons none of us can imagine would elevate my mid-sunday malaise. But, alas, no more; from now on, only dread.

Few people seem to blog about the Jets.  Can anyone really be surprised?  One man, Fred Wilson, who writes the "A VC" blog on venture capital, not only roots for the Jets and b-l-o-g blog blog blogs about them, he even features a picture of him and his family at a game wearing Jets jerseys.  Clearly, here is a financier for whom "green" signifies much more than money.  And yet, his recent post extolling this weekend's win over Oakland fails to resonate with me.  Sure, I loved seeing B.J. Askew run roughshod over the Raiders and John Abraham earn what I hope will be a multi-year deal this off-season. And I am not one of those fans "rooting" for a high draft pick.  Ugggghhhh.  No, when the pain is too much for Curtis Martin, then the dread is too much for me.

And still I wonder, where did this obsession come from and what did I do to deserve this misery?  I blame my buddy Will, whose family was tight with the Hess family and who took me to Jets games way back in the day -- I remember freezing out at Shea watching Joe Namath in a Rams uniform.  Ugggghhhhh, again.  By the time I was a Jets fan, I don't think I even knew who the New York Giants were. 

When I look my monday morning dread in the face and ask myself "how did it ever come to be thus?", I am reminded of an op-ed piece from the New York Times' sports section from 10 years ago, called "Sunday, the Rabbi Roots for the Jets."  I found it through Google this morning.  The rabbi's anguish resonated with me, indeed, and I feel compelled to quote him at length:

Assorted perquisites that are voluntarily extended to clergy by laypeople are an informal supplement to the formal rabbinical diploma of the rabbi. Twenty years ago a generous member of my congregation gifted me two tickets for single games of the New York Jets. "I can't use them and the rabbi comes before everyone else who might want them", he explained. That gracious act really made me feel that I had arrived as a rabbi! Additional confirmation of my status occurred when upon arrival at the stadium I discovered that the seats were on the fifty yard line. Eventually, single game tickets became a pair of season tickets for myself and my son...perenially on the fifty. "They are yours as long as I am alive", my benefactor assured me...

...As the years unfolded, though, I began to have the gnawing feeling that what I hoped would be my respite had become my punishment. Enduring cold, wind and rain only to witness teams that crashed in December and did not do much better before that, seemed a masochistic break from the wear and tear of my clerical work. My hopes were lifted each time there was a change of coach or the drafting of a star college player. Todd and Harper and Klecko and Mcneil were names almost as familiar to me as Rabbi Hillel and David Ben Gurion. Unfortunately, Jones (Lam) and Farrout and Nagle were equally well-known...

...Today, it is the image of the suffering of the Biblical Job that defines my mood as the new season begins. Why do I deserve to endure such anguish for twenty years..? I conclude with Job that my pathetic lot must all be part of the divine plan. But what heavenly wisdom governs a franchise which consistently drafts miserably, plans poorly, and plays dismally? Job's friends counseled him that God's beneficence would not necessarily be apparent in one lifetime. My recurrent nightmare is that in the season immediately following my death, the Jets arrive to the Superbowl. My wife wakes me as I groan, assuring me that it is only a bad dream. I explain that it is the reality, not the dream, that elicits my anguish.

Perhaps the fact that God is a Jets fan even explains the war, the trade and budget deficits and the dumbening of America.  I only wish it made me feel better.

Ho Ho Hum

Is it me, or does this holiday season seem particularly less merry and just plain cold?  I can not seem to warm up -- to the spirit, to the decorations, to the bonhomie... or to room temperature.

Let me make a list and, if I can be bothered, check it twice.  What do I want for Hanukah?  I echo my man Elvis Costello and call out for ever more Peace, Love and Understanding.  (OK, I'm really echoing Nick Lowe, so what?)  And what do I get?  War, Intolerance and Stupidity.  Ugh.  I keep wanting to write about the president, the right-to-lifers and those intelligent design idiots, but it is waaaaay too dreadful to confront.  Ugggghhhhh.

One day, maybe when I can't take it anymore, I will confront those matters here, but for the present I will grimly and passively protest that assemblage of cheer mongers with my own dearth of merriment.  That's my gift to the holiday season.  Ho Ho Hum.

Flickr is Lame

I first want to say that I *get* Flickr.  I have been tempted to use it to share photos.  I even kind of like the idea of a 24/7 global slideshow in which we are all voyeurs and exhibitionists.  But Flickr is lame.

I'm afraid that if such "web 2.0" services become as widely adopted as it seems they might, that the Internet will cease to be the exciting gambling-and-porn-filled wasteland that we love and will suffer the same "tragedy of the commons" fate that befell dear old Las Vegas.  When an exciting tool like Flickr becomes the plaything of millions upon millions of boring and uninteresting people -- that is, goes mainstream -- it just ruins it for the people who seek the edge.  In my book, dumbed down is just plain dumb.

Why Walk When You Can Ride?

A perennial gripe -- one too common to bother blogging about -- is feeling all too rushed and harried by the lack of time to get where I need to be and do what I need to do. But what about those people whose laziness and sense of entitlement get in my way and fill me with dread?  Here I speak, of course, about people who ride the elevator from the 2nd floor to the lobby.

Nothing aggravates me more on a daily basis than taking the elevator in my office building from the top where I work to the lobby -- which naturally seems to stop on almost every floor during peak periods -- and, just when I think I'm almost on the ground, its stopping on the second floor so somebody who has probably been waiting five minutes can take the 12 foot drop down to the lobby. 

What's worse is that in my building there is a grand, marble staircase connecting the lobby and the second floor, a staircase that actually feels good to ascend, let alone walk down.  I feel particularly justified in my gripe by the fact that these people almost always appear to be those who could most benefit from even a little extra exercise.  It may be too sanctimonious to suggest that they ought to walk up from one to two even for the sake of their own health (though they should), yet I feel the wisdom of Solomon in asserting that the world would be a better place if their daily constitutional included walking down some stairs just once a day, thus actually improving their life while also speeding along mine in my all too busy day.

A Sunday Kind of Dread

While I usually deplore being referred to by the sports pundits as a "long-suffering Jets fan," I have found myself, a long-time fanatic of the New York Jets, to be suffering this season, which seems very long, indeed.  In my search to alleviate this dismal autumn's football dread, I have looked for solace in unlikely places. 

First, I tried to root for the New York Giants, but I am, alas, not True Blue, and my inauthenticity tends to exacerbate my dread rather than lighten it.  Second, I have tried to tune out football season by instead turning early to the NBA and rooting for the new new look New York Knicks, yet in less than a month that option only promises to extend my dread into June rather than stem it.  And regardless, when Sunday rolls around, I seek the football games and nevertheless want to watch the Jets... and suffer.

More than ever in this, my season of discontent, the inane rules and customs of NFL football sting my conscience.  For one, the spike rule.  Spiking the ball to stop the clock is the NFL's equivalent of baseball's intentional walk but seems more like the designated hitter rule.  Aren't three time outs enough?  Why be able to trade a down to stop the clock by intentionally grounding the ball, when intentional grounding is a penalty that costs 10 yards plus loss of down.  Why should doing essentially the same thing result in a different outcome?  And what of the slippery slope problem?  If the QB takes two or three steps before the intentional spike, does it become intentional grounding?  Where is this line drawn?  What would Antonin Scalia say?

In the likely event the Jets' downward spiral and my fan dread continues, I will continue to seek comfort in decrying the infuriating contradictions and tortured nuances in the NFL's rules and customs.  Consider yourself two-minute-warned...

Terminate the Turkey... with Extreme Prejudice

Am I the only person who finds it beyond laughable and truly dreadful watching George W. "pardoning" a turkey before Thanksgiving.  Could the guy be once again any more out of touch?  Does he expect that anybody believes that down in Crawford the Bush clan will be serving Tofurkey?  He unleashed Cheney this week to shore up the base, and so I wonder if this gesture is his way of concurrently pandering to the extreme vegan left?  I mean, the guy hasn't met a natural resource, be it plant, mineral or animal, that he wouldn't sooner carve up and feed to whomever paid him the most for it, all other considerations be damned.  In truth, I'm a little surprised that W. didn't inoculate the bird from avian flu after he commuted its sentence, which would actually have been a more meaningful message than sparing the turkey.

I imagine that the irony of saving the life of old Marshmallow is not lost on Cindy Sheehan -- who will be joining the president in Texas this Thanksgiving though not at his table, naturally, lest it make her nauseous -- that the president would save the life of single bird in a meaningless gesture while committing many more young humans to death, injury and trauma for a cause that nobody can believe in anymore, let alone even articulate.

I know this annual turkey clemency is a presidential tradition, but so is serving the interests of the majority of Americans by protecting the lives of its sons and daughters by not needlessly placing them in harms way... and by serving Turkey on Thanksgiving.

Everybody Talks About the Weather, but Nobody Does Anything About It

Even on a rainy day sometimes a good cliche can wipe the clouds away.  One of my faves is "everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."  How true, how true.

On NBC Nightly News last night and on The Today Show this morning, Brian and Al and Ann were talking about this week's rain along the east coast and its possible impact on Thanksgiving holiday travel like it was some Big Story. Since when is a middling, mildly annoying rainstorm national news?  When New Orleans sinks or Kansas is blown to Oz, then the weather is arguably of national interest.  Is everyone so freaked out from hurricane season and the specter of global warming that they  lose interest in other critical facets of American life about which the country seems paralyzed, such as our overly levered economy, corrupt congress and the unjust war for oil currently underway in Iraq?

Well maybe the bad weather is a cold comfort of sorts.  Thursday is Thanksgiving, people have to travel and eat -- come hell or high water.  And all anybody can do is talk about the rain and happily reassure themselves with the fact that they can't do anything about it.

What is Existential Dread?

Do you ever feel like it's cold and rainy out even when it's balmy and sunny?  Or that life is so mind-numbingly boring, even when you're on vacation in a spectacular place you've never been before?  Or you feel that in 2005 the concept of an American government "of the people, by the people, for the people" mocks you more than it inspires you?  Or that the selfish jerk in front of you on the checkout line at Gourmet Garage counting out exact change in pennies when all you want to do is pay for your milk and cereal and get home to watch another re-run of Curb Your Enthusiasm is just such a useless sample of time-wasting flesh?  Ah, existential dread... you know it well.

Well, this blog is about the little things in life that seem like big things because they are just so annoying, frustrating and aggravating -- or at least they feel that way... to me, to you, to every one of us.  I like to think of them as pet peeves that on the wrong day feel like universal vexations.

So, if like me you occasionally feel like you've got a touch of the dread, I invite you to join me in complaining about it -- often and at length -- in the hope that it will all feel a little bit better.  So if you've got dread, why don't you proclaim it and bum somebody else out today?