Variations on Stand By Me

Getting the edge

Thanks to a certain play and movie, it isn't hard to figure out why getting a straight-edge razor shave has gotten a bad rap.

True, maybe not as bad or enduring as the one dentists have to live with thanks to Laurence "Is it safe?" Olivier in Marathon Man.

But still, mention to anyone you're getting a straight-edge razor shave, and it definitely conjures up certain images. Not all of them pleasant.

Fortunately, not all barbers wielding the blade are named Sweeney. In fact, mine is named Manny.

Every year when I vacation for a week at the Hotel Del Coronado, I walk on Orange Avenue to 10th Street to the Bow Ties and Haircuts Barber Shop. The place has been in Coronado forever, catering not only to vacationing touristas like me, but also many of the military personal from the naval base on the northwest side of island (which explains all the fighter planes thundering over the pool at the Del. I love watching them, but judging by the reactions of other guests it's easy to tell a lot of them didn't see anything about it in the brochure).

Anyway, I'd never had a close shave, in the literal sense, in my life. So one year I decided to try it. I planted myself in Manny's center chair, cleared my head of all the Sweeney thoughts, and went for it.

Now, ask anyone who knows me, I mean really knows me, and they'll tell you that despite appearances to the contrary, I'm really a pampered poodle at heart. Not afraid to admit it. My macho self-esteem isn't threatened. After all, you're reading the blog of a guy who used to go for three-hour haircuts at Giusseppe Franco's in Beverly Hills.

Giusseppe would shake hands with everyone and ask how it was going, offer a cup of espresso, then go upstairs and talk Harleys with his beauty school mate Mickey Rourke. Meanwhile, downstairs the stylists, in short skirts and tight tops, each more beautiful than the next, were dancing to the blaring music as they were cutting away.

Every six weeks, it was like dying and going to MTV.

So when I walked into Bow Ties and Haircuts, it was decidedly old school. Which to my way of thinking is exactly what you want in a barber when he's holding a straight-edge razor to your throat.

When Manny puts the chair back and starts by covering my face with the first of three or four steaming hot towels, I try not to think about the razor he'll be holding to my throat. Instead I try to focus on just how smooth and amazing it's going to feel when he's done.

Occasionally the thought does cross my mind that all those hot towels are there to mop up the blood spurting from my carotid artery, but then I realize I haven't done anything to make Manny mad so it's probably not anything to worry about. Too much.

Manny skillfully guides the blade across the contours of my face, even the curves that I have difficulty navigating. When it's over, the last towel is a cold one, which Manny tells me is to close the pores (if you're following along in your barber-to-english dictionary, you'll see that means stop the bleeding).

Afterwards, my face is amazingly smooth to the touch. This is what a shave is supposed to be.

I thank Manny, and tell him I'll see him next year.

But as I think about how this shave turned out, as opposed to the way it turns out with my little 59-cent Bic disposable razors, I think a year may be a little too long to wait.

Too close for comfort

During the course of the day I don't usually have any reason to bring up the fact that I was a theater arts major (oh yes I was).

As the old joke goes, "Oh really? Which table?"

Obviously if I'd wanted to stick with it I would've. It's not like I didn't pursue it because I couldn't get used to having my work rejected. I mean, look at the profession I chose.

(Realizes he used the word "profession" and waits for uncontrollable wave of hysterical laughter to subside).

But instead, I just sold out...er...changed my mind...uh...paid my rent...um...decided to learn a new craft. Yeah, that's it.

Remember that quote from Jerry Maguire, "it's an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about, ok?"

Yeah (Pauses. Looks up. Whistles nervously.), me too.

No seriously, I kid. I kid because I love.

It's not like every time I hear this song - and my son loves Weird Al so I hear it a lot - I replace the words "tour guide" with "copywriter" in my head. It's not like that at all.

Thanks a LOT Weird Al.

I have to go drink now.

Look what iDid

As much as I want to, I just haven't been swept away by the "magical and revolutionary" iPad as much as some of my friends have.

Of course, that hasn't stopped me from appreciating its elegance. Its intuitiveness. Its simplicity. As well as its overall bitchin'-ness.

But I already have an iPhone. And a 17" MacBook Pro. And between those two things, I couldn't quite see where it would fit into my life. I haven't been able to justify a reason for falling in love with - much less purchasing - the iPad. Until now.

I was in an Apple Store this morning with my partner in crime, my daughter. We had some time to kill before picking up my son. As we perused the display table with a dozen iPads on it, I wondered how this very blog would look on that screen.

Well, the answer is rockin' good news.

I loaded it on to one of them, and as you can see from the picture, it looked awesome (really awesome in person, trust me).

Like Rosie O'Donnell at a Hometown Buffet, I've always operated under the theory if one is good, two is better. And if two is better, then twelve must be even six times better than that.

So in an act of brazen vanity and shameless self-promotion, I enlisted my daughter and we proceeded to load my blog on to every iPad on the table. All of 'em. They looked amazing.

Then we thought, there's no reason all the other laptops in the store shouldn't feel the love. So we loaded my blog on them.

Suddenly, a profound feeling of loneliness and loss came over us. It took us a minute to pinpoint the source, but then we realized it was coming from the iMacs and monitors, who were feeling abandoned and alone. Discriminated against. Their self-esteem shattered.

We couldn't have that, so we loaded my blog on to those screens as well. By the time we slinked our way out of the store, virtually every screen had this blog on it.

That's not even the good part. The good part is people were reading it.

I'm pretty sure I didn't pick up any long-term followers. But at least some new eyes got a look at a few of my posts they wouldn't have otherwise seen.

I used to complain because the only thing my kids wanted to do was go to the Apple Store.

After today, I'll definitely think different next time they ask.

Passing on seconds

Late the other night I was flipping through cable channels and I saw John Travolta chomping mighty heavily on some scenery, so I decided to see what the movie was. Come to find out it was the remake of The Taking Of Pelham 123.


Now, I'm a fan of the original with Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw. It was smart. Well-acted. Sly. And cast with a lot of unknown-at-the-time actors as well as more famous ones. But since I didn't see this remake in the theater, I decided to plant my big bahooki down on the couch and give it a chance.

                              Just the same way I gave the remake of Psycho a chance.

                                              And the remake of The Pink Panther.

                                                 And the remake of The Stepford Wives.

Here's the thing - I'm not one of those cinema elitists who don't think movies should be remade. I think many times remakes have done justice to the spirit of the original while improving on it by giving it a more contemporary spin.

Little Shop Of Horrors. Dawn Of The Dead. The Fly. The Thing. True, all horror and sci-fi examples, but still, better for the remaking.

And then, there are the movies that don't need to be remade because the original was so perfect.  Movies like the ones above. And Arthur. And Rosemary's Baby (both of which are being remade).


There's probably a treatise to be written on the dearth of ideas in Hollywood, and the constant returning to the well of proven properties to wring the last bit of cash out them (yes, I used the word "dearth"). 


But I'm too tired to write it now.


Maybe I'll just copy one that's been written before.

Now making his final descent

Steven Slater isn't a folk hero. He's an asshole. And an angry one at that.

You may have heard about him today: he's the Jet Blue flight attendant who apparently "snapped" after he asked a passenger, who was trying to take his luggage out of the overhead before they reached the gate, to have a seat.

The passenger cursed him, and apparently they got into a small shoving match. Afterwards, Slater was mad as hell and wasn't going to take it anymore.

He marched up to the front of the plane, went on the p.a., and cursed out the passenger who cursed him. Then he grabbed two beers, opened the door to the plane triggering an emergency inflatable slide, slid down and drove home where he was later arrested.

The news channels all show him being led away, wearing handcuffs and the very definition of a smirk you want to wipe off his face.

Here's the problem I have with all the Facebook fan pages he's getting for doing something so stupid. Flight attendants? Rude passengers? What do you need, a roadmap? It comes with the territory. It's covered in the training. And if, in fact, he's been in the industry for twenty-eight years like he says, this most definitely wasn't the first time he's been called a few names.

By opening the door and slide, he scared the hell out of the remaining passengers on the plane. He alarmed the pilots and other crew members. And he could have easily injured or killed any of the ground workers who could've been struck by the slide, which deploys at 3,000 pounds per square inch in seconds.

It's not like he's a waiter who just walked out (slid out) mid-shift. He has a bigger responsibility than that.

This, after all, is one of the people you would be depending on in a real emergency to help you get out alive. And by real emergency, I mean something a little more life-threatening than having his feelings hurt because someone swore at him.

If we all stormed off our jobs when we had a really bad day at work, there'd be a lot of jobs to fill.

Steven Slater deserves to lose his job and be charged with reckless endangerment. He does not deserve to be called a folk hero, or get the adoration of anyone - at least for this action.

The real folk heroes are the flight crews who, day in and day out, do their jobs professionally and reliably even in adverse situations. Even with unruly passengers.

Where are their fan pages?

All that jazz

The mistake was naming him James. I should've named him Miles. Or Dizzy. Or Cootie.

I went for the traditional, solid, timeless name. But had I known my son would love playing jazz trumpet as much as he does, and be as good as he is, I might've chosen differently.

I like that one minute he enjoys the music you'd expect a boy in his early teens to like, and the next he's down the hall, in his room trying to work out Two Bass Hit or Boplicity.

He recently joined a jazz workshop group that actually plays gigs around the city. I've seen him play four times now. Each time he's more accomplished and natural than the last.

I love that he's found something he's so passionate about at such an early age. And the fact he happens to be so good at it is just icing on the cake.

No funny wrap up line here. Just extremely proud of my boy.

Training wheels

A long time ago, on a bike far, far away, I was in shape.

Pause for laughter to stop.

No really. I used to live at the beach - I mean at the beach - in Santa Monica.

I was bike path adjacent.

I'd ride my bike far and often, sometimes down to Redondo Beach, sometimes up to Malibu.

It wasn't hard to get motivated riding along side the edge of the continent, listening to the waves crashing into the shore. And bikes crashing into pedestrians.

But since I moved away from Santa Monica (don't get me started), I've been somewhat undisciplined about keeping up my biking regimen.

That fact catches up with me every year as I get ready to go for our annual trip to Coronado. We always bring our bikes and ride around the island almost every day. In order to do that, I begin training for it about three weeks before our trip.

I always make sure I have the things I'll need to make the ride more enjoyable and worry free. Helmet. Water bottle. Bike lock.

And this little accessory. Fortunately it has its own wheels so I can take it along for the ride.

We interrupt this program

It's the grand experiment we try every year. This time, August drew the short straw.

For the next 31 days, we will be a television-free household. Well, technically the next 29 days since I did watch True Blood, Mad Men and Entourage last night. But what self-respecting month starts on Sunday anyway?

So starting today, we're going on hiatus until September.

I'll admit the fact that most of the network shows are in reruns for the summer makes it a lot easier. And because all the cable shows I watch are being TIVO'd, my sense of entertainment loss is somewhat lessened. But the important thing is the example we're setting for the kids.

Yeah, that's it.

We're teaching them that there's more to life than the Disney Channel (for my friends who work at Disney, that's just what we're telling them).

We're teaching them that sometimes sacrifice, carefully measured sacrifice, sacrifice that comes with an end date can be beneficial.

Then there's all that uninterrupted quality time we're going to be spending with each other. Time for sharing. For learning. For finding out the details of each others day. Time to ask the questions and say the things we can't because the TV is always on and....

OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHERE DID I HIDE THE REMOTE!!!