Glass slipper

While it's not a picture of my foot, it may as well be. Here's what happened.

About nine days ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with a craving for cold, clear, healthy water from the dispenser in our refrigerator. I'm absolutely sure it had nothing to do with the leftover cheesecake that was also in there. No one's under oath here. Anyway, somewhere on the well worn path between the bedroom and kitchen, I stepped on a small piece of glass. Funny how that'll wake you right up.

I reached down, pulled it out of my foot, threw it away and continued on to the cheesecake. Excuse me, water.

Fast forward to last night. I came home from having lunch with my great friend Carrie (Petros in Manhattan Beach - chicken souvlaki is the hot tip), got out of the car, set my foot down and could barely walk. I managed to make it into the house, fell into one of our living room chairs (the one without the dog on it), and stayed there most of the night.

Since the glass stepping happened a week and half ago, and I'd been fine since, I didn't give it a second thought. Instead, I figured it was the new orthotics I'd gotten about five days ago and was still getting used to.

Whatever it was, it hurt like hell. And the bad news is that I was supposed to leave with young Mr. Spielberg for Comic Con this morning.

However, it was not the pain-free foot morning I'd hoped for. I was going to tough it out and just go - always a good idea with four days of walking and standing in lines ahead - but the wife put her foot down (SWIDT?), insisting I call my podiatrist and get it seen.

So my son drove down to Comic Con with his friend Austin at 7 this morning, and I saw my doctor at 10.

My foot was clearly swollen, with a redness emanating out in a circle from one spot on my foot. He pressed the center of the spot, and I believe there may still be a hole in his ceiling where I went through.

So he decided to scrape my foot, which is exactly what it sounds like.

Scraping skin off the bottom of my foot, he wasn't having any luck finding anything. Then, he stopped for a moment and said, "Ah, there it is - don't move." I didn't move, and he got a tweezer-looking thing and pulled out a small chunk of the glass I'd stepped on nine days ago.

I couldn't believe it. He said if I'd come down here to the Con with it, I probably would've wound up in the ER with a fever and nasty infection. Instead, he got it out, gave me an antibiotic to take if it didn't feel better by the end of today (which it does) and suggested I soak it in hot water with epsom salt (just finished my second soaking).

Fortunately tonight was Preview Night at Comic Con, so I didn't miss much except walking the exhibition hall, which I couldn't have done anyway.

My son and his friend scored tickets to the world premiere of Star Trek: Beyond, so that's where they are tonight. My excellent friend Dale is here, so he met me at the Fox Sports Grill in the hotel and we had dinner (it didn't involve walking, just an elevator ride).

With my foot feeling considerably better, the Con will start for real for me tomorrow.

I still don't know what broke in our house or where that piece of glass came from.

But I think the lesson is don't have cheesecake leftovers, and I won't have to walk to the kitchen.

Waits and measures

This is going to come as a surprise to a lot of people who know me, but raspy, gritty, gravel-voiced singers seem to be the ones I'm most drawn to. That would explain the Springsteen thing. But I haven't always been the hardcore Springsteen fan you know me as today. Before there was Bruce, long before, there was Tom Waits.

When I was growing up, I lived in West Hollywood not too far from the Tropicana Motel where Waits lived for years. There was a restaurant called Duke's downstairs from the motel (it's since moved to Sunset Blvd. near the Whiskey), and it was for a long time the best breakfast in L.A. My friends and I would eat there a lot, and more often than not - if it was early enough - we'd see Waits there. I never spoke with him, but I do recall a few nods were exchanged.

Anyway, by any criteria, Tom Waits is that word that's used all too often to describe considerably lesser talents. He is a musical genius.

There are a few genuinely great, timeless songs that transport you to another place, or capture an experience and moment so well they just grab you by the throat. Or the heart. Their sad poignancy and melancholy, with visual lyricism so precise it's as if you're watching a movie instead of listening to a song, washes over you completely. For me, one of those songs is The Heart Of Saturday Night.

Over the years I've heard him perform it many times in concert. This video - which is actually just the audio off the album of the same name - is how I first heard the voice of a young Tom waits sing it.

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Waits has always experimented with all kinds of sounds and instrumentation throughout his career. And while he's never strayed too far from music, over the years he's also carved out a respectable and varied acting career for himself.

Which I think is a good thing. Because, and I'm braced for the flack I'm going to get for saying this, after years of smoking, drinking, carousing and vocal strain, it is impossible to listen to the Tom Waits of today and enjoy it.

Every singers voice changes with age. Some get richer, deeper. Others lose the ability to hit the highs and lows. But where once the grit in Waits voice lent his songs their melancholy, power and romanticism, for me the truth is now he's unlistenable.

Take a listen to this recent recording and see what you think:

I guess it could be described as beautiful noise. Or a bold expression of his art.

For me, the Tom Waits of today sounds like gravel and broken glass in a garbage disposal.

I realize how harsh that sounds. But I'm angry that the Waits I loved didn't care better for his instrument, and let it have the emotional impact of his early years even if in a more mature sound.

To those who think I've turned on him, I haven't. I will always respect and admire his genius, and will always have his library of songs to listen to.

Only now, it's not the songs that make me sad.

Money down the drain. (Or what a glass hole).

Garbage disposals are great for grinding up leftover food off dirty dishes, eggshells, broccoli the kids don't eat, orange peels, things like that.

Glass? Not so much.

Two nights ago, while hand-washing a large, expensive, Pyrex glass storage dish in soapy water, my wife lost her grip on it and it shattered into a bazillion pieces in the sink.

I was in the next room when I heard it shatter, and immediately went running into the kitchen screaming the one question any concerned husband would ask, "Did the dog get hurt?"

Unfortunately, it broke over the side of the sink with the disposal, and a ton of glass went in.

I know what you're thinking: hand-washing? Downright primitive, right? What's next? Pounding laundry on rocks? You're preaching to the choir.

Next thing you know we'll get rid of our microwave and start cooking hot dogs in a toaster oven.

Oh, wait, we did that. Crap, I thought I dreamt it.

Anyway, after I cleaned all the shards of glass out of the sink, I decided reaching into a disposal full of broken glass to get the pieces out might not be the best idea. I also thought grinding it up and washing the glass down the drain probably wasn't much better.

But with Plan B I got to keep my fingers. So I turned on the disposal.

Besides Gilbert Gottfried and Fergie there aren't a lot of things that sound like glass being ground up by a garbage disposal. It jammed up almost instantly, and I knew we'd have to get a new one.

So today, Raphael the plumber was here to install the new Insinkerator. I would've done it myself, but as I've said before the only tool I know how to use is the Yellow Pages.

Raphael has been here before. When the faucet on our bathtub sounded like we were going to need a crucifix and Father Karras to fix it, Raphael did his magic - not with an entire new pipe and stem like we thought, but with a 99 cent washer.

An honest plumber. A man of integrity. There's a lot of love for Raphael in our house.

Our new glass-free Insinkerator is awesome. More compact than its predecessor, we now have room to lose old sponges and store more almost-empty cans of Comet under the sink. It's also considerably quieter, and not just because it's not grinding glass.

So, what can we take away from all this?

Don't hand wash the dishes. Nothing good comes from it. Ever.

There are honest plumbers in the world. Well, at least one.

And finally, don't ever trade in the microwave on a toaster oven. Making hot dogs is okay, but you won't have popcorn nearly as often as you used to.