Blog

One of my minions (sorry Despicable Me is playing in the background as I write this) got me one of the newer "thoughts create reality" books. She dropped it off at my building while I was having free Indian food at Boardwalk Hall. She's not a minion. But how cool would that be to have some? I'd settle for one of those helper monkeys. I'd settle for a dog that actually fetched. Anyway my dear friend bought me a book. I'm reading it.

The book is called E2. I'm taking it as an omen as my agent's website is E2live. What does it mean? Right now it means no gigs and a book I don't understand. But I'm remaining hopeful. I'm a slow reader. So I'm only on page thirty. However I did use my super powers to find a lost Fitbit One. Does that count as usingThe Secret?

To Be Continued...

I learned a very valuable lesson on Saturday. They say that bigger is not always better. But I learned that newer is not always better either. 

I'm living in an apartment building that was built in the eighties. Remnents of keycard readers long demagnitized adorn my front door. My apartment came furnished. Furnished with Golden Girls furniture. Appointed with bubble gum pink carpeting and most unsubtle silk flower arrangements. Although I can look to my right when I am out on the balcony. My direct view is that of the Tropicana parking garage and the valet at the Chelsea. I love my apartment more today than I did on Friday. Wanna know why? Because I toured a luxury building on the other side of town.

The Bella Condominiums are going under. They are having an auction on some 38 unsold units in the building. I had to see them. What if? You hear those stories about how people stubble into an auction and buy homes for pennies on the dollar. Why not me? 

It was the weirdest place I had ever toured. that is saying a lot. Since I sold real estate on Long Island. This is a place where a house would have a washer in the kitchen and a dryer in a shed out back. But what the folks who built the Bella are trying to sell is what I called a luxury efficiency units. What they didn't think about is the fact that there is no market for this. A rich guy wants a bigger place. A poor guy can't afford these. 

To be continued...

I finally made plans earlier this week with my girlfriend to have no plans this Saturday. I have been coastal living for the past few years and like many others who boarder the ocean I can count on one hand the beach days I have enjoyed. I mean I walk on the beach regularly. I look at the beach all the time. I ride my bike on the boardwalk. But to pack a cooler, spread a towel out, , get full of sand and hide my keys and wallet in my shoe is sadly something that seems like too much work for too little reward. 

But today was a great day of being in the right place at the right time. The universe had many takeaways for me today. I had a great breakfast while watching Bill Maher on demand. Who doesn't learn a thing or two from watching him and his engaging panel? Then I went to an open house for a "luxury" apartment building that is having an auction for unsold units. Much better than garage sale hunting. You can't pick up any clutter in a corner unit. I don't think I will pick up the corner unit either. More on that tomorrow.

Then it was on to the beach. You know what stinks bout going to the beach? Packing the car, icing the cooler down, grabbing snacks, loading up the summer read and sunscreen, driving in shore traffic, circling around for parking and lugging all the crap to the beach. But I don't have to do that anymore. Because I live on the beach! If I need something I can go in the apartment and get it. No peeing in the ocean for me pal. The only problems I dealt with today was finding a malt liquor can that looked enough like Arizona Iced Tea and wondering what in the hell all these strangers were doing on my front yard.

I was glad to bump into one of them though. He was a lovely Indian man who was carrying a cardboard tray of tofu curry, gulab jamun (Google it), and watermelon. "Wow look at you", I said. "Oh you can have it too. Go up to the boardwalk. There is a free feast and festival." Hmmm...free Indian. Telling me that is like telling Walmart shoppers "free hot pink stretch pants." Get out of the way or hide your eyes. But I'm coming.

As I descended damp from the ocean onto the boards and collected my meal from men in white and ladies in saris saying "Hare Krsna", a man handed us each a mala and said "would you like to join us for a meditation?" "We would love to. But we are going to eat." He told us "you can eat later. Now we meditate." We set down our trays.

To be continued...

Since ancient times citizens could run into a church and claim "sanctuary". Remember The Hunchback of Notre Dame? But somehow terrorists now use religious centers as places to shoot fish in a barrel. What happened? Even back in Bronze Age there were rules of engagement and honor. How did we go backwards when we have every creature comfort and information about literally everything at our fingertips?

What's worse is "he-who-shall-not-be-named-in-this-blog" gets fifteen minutes of fame thanks to our Information Age. He's gets to trend on all our social media. His hashtag will beat out #MotherTheresa, #NelsonMandela and #countlesshardworkingfathersof4 for weeks to come. 

With the interconnectedness of our new world everything has basically been said about this terrorist attack. So when I blog about these current events I try to capture a new idea. Tonight it is this: let your actions actually give you the outcome you want. 

This gunman, as the many before him, failed to get the outcome he was looking for. He wanted to spark a race war according to his roommate Joey Meek. He failed. Epic fail. In fact he improved race relations in my little microcosm. 

I watched the bond hearing to research this post. Yes. I fact check. Surprise surprise. At the court proceeding, representatives of the victims families were allowed to speak. The unidentified daughter of victim Ethel Lance said over tears "I think he took something very precious away from me. I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you," she said. "You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. May God forgive you," she said. "And I forgive you," she repeated. 

I cried when I heard the pain in her voice. I thought she did the bravest thing you can do in that situation. I will remember her, her mother and their family in my prayers tonight. So this lunatic who wanted to start a race war by sucker punching an entire community has this east coast white girl praying for a black family down south that before this Wednesday she didn't even know existed. Epic fail crazy racist.

I found out the name of Ethel Lance's daughter by the way. I told you I fact check. Her name is Nadine Collier. Do you know what she said outside the courtroom? “She’s in a better place now, and we’re all trying to get there. But God knows the Lance family.” And now so do we. I will try to always remember the Lance family. But there is one name that I soon will forget.

Only handle it once. That's what the life coach at the library said tonight is one of the keys to getting rid of clutter. Only handle it once. There's got to be a metaphor for life in there too somewhere beyond the junk drawer, the rubber band ball, and the Tupperware falling out of the cabinet.

Think about it. What would your life be like if you only went out with one bad boy? Or how about if you only bought a scratch-off lottery ticket once? Only procrastinated about the writing the term paper freshman year? Only drank until you threw up on your 21st birthday? Wow. If we only handled the things that held us back over the years once. We would probably all be senators or something now. 

But you can't go back. But what I learned tonight I can do is give my old or ill-fitting blue jeans tohttp://www.bluejeansgogreen.org/ and they will be turned into insulation for habitat for humanity homes. If only it were as easy to get rid of a bad boy.