Weekly Mail December 20 2015

Hello (from the other side)


       I like where I live now. Oceanside is a very nice community. I've managed to make several new friends there, I love going to the parks, I like being just a couple miles from the beach. It's a nice place to live.

But Woodside still feels like home.

      I think back to the walks I used to take on Saturday night from my house to Roosevelt Avenue, either on my way to Donovan's or Shelley's or even getting the train to Manhattan, I didn't realize how much I would miss those walks. At the time, I probably thought they were a pain in the a$$. But the other night, I met up with Ray and Karl and Ed at Donovan's, and getting off the LIRR and walking up Roosevelt Avenue,. I had a very strange sense of nostalgia come over me. After almost 10 years of marriage and 6 years after moving to Nassau County, I can't really describe how it was. It just felt good to be back in the old hood.

      A couple of years ago, the Donovan family sold the bar/restaurant to Jimmy Jacobson and Danny Connor, the former Donovan's long time ace bartender and the latter his brother in law. Chris Santangelo, another bar tending great and budding TV star, was hired as the manager. It was a brilliant way to keep the place in the family, to preserve what makes the place so awesome.
 From 1994 till a year after I got married, I spent pretty much every Thanksgiving Eve at Donovan's, and more than a few New Year's Eves. I spent many a Saturday night talking sports with the late great Pete McGuiness. Jimmy and Chris and Jimmy's brother Gary always rolled out the proverbial red carpet for me, as well as the rest of our crew. Tara brought her sister there one night, and she couldn't believe she had had that great a time and still had money left over.

 Hanging out with my soul brothers the other night,  it just felt like nothing really changed. It has changed of course, all of us are married, some of us have kids. Pete McGuiness and Tom Brophy are gone. In the past I never had to look at the Donovan's menu, I was either having one of their award winning chesseburgers or their amazing shepherds pie. (after scarfing down mozzrella sticks and potato skins) Now of course there are no more appetizers for me, and grilled chicken replaced the burgers. And with all that, it still felt very familiar.

It still felt like home.


NERDS OF THE HERD.

           I started making a list of 10 people who pissed me off for a given year back in 1991. Since the list's audience consisted of Karl, Ray and Mary, the list was mostly ex girlfriends/boyfriends, (or more likely girls who had turned us down for dates) guys who had badmouthed us, (I mean who would say bad stuff about us four?) teachers we didn't like, bosses we didn't like, and if I had a hard time coming up with 10, I would round out the list with a newsmaker or two who did something particularly loathsome.

           With the dawning of the internet, the list began to go viral, but since now it was easier for people to see it, I ran the risk of offending someone. I once got grief from a buddy of mine, who while he appreciated me sticking up for him, didn't agree with my sandwiching the gal who left him between Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein on that year's Nerd of the Herd. (hey, you mess with the bull you get the horns) Another year I gave the top prize to some college basketball player who turned her back on the flag during the national anthem. That list also included some terrorists and other criminals. I think Phil Hartman as Frank Sinatra put it best "When you see Old Glory going up you better stand up a salute baby." I take my flag etiquette seriously. But I had gotten away from the spirit of what the list what supposed to be about. So I ended up doing away with it.

         I'm tempted to bring it back. There is no shortage of people who made a$$es of themselves this year. The trick is narrowing it down to 10. There are actually two people this week who could contend for the title.

         Eujin Jayla Kim, the principal of PS 169 in Sunset Park, banned any mention of Thanksgiving, Christmas or Santa Claus, and worst of all, the Pledge of Allegiance.  Now, you don't want to offend non Christians by not mentioning Christmas or Santa? I don't like it, but I can maybe see that. If you are one of those people who feel bad about what happened to the Indians 500 years ago and you don't want to celebrate Thanksgivng, I think you need to get a life, but I'll kind of sort of (but not really) respect your point of view. As the noted philosopher Rocky Balboa once said, "You call it Thanksgiving, I call it Thursday".

          But under no set of circumstances should any school in this country have any reason not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. Preferably the way Miss Mary Anne taught me on Romper Room, (one nation under GOD, indivisible...) Yes we may be all different religions and nationalities, but if you are getting educated here in this country, there is no reason not to salute the flag. Everyone is up in arms about Donald Trump looking to keep all immigrants out, I bet there are plenty of them who would give anything to be able to come here and be considered Americans, proud to salute our flag. You want to keep people out? Start with those who don't want to.

          Then there is this tool Martin Shkreli, the 32 year old CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals.  Earlier this year, this d-ck jacked up the price of a potentially life saving drug used to treat AIDS symptoms from $13 a pill to over $750 per. He also bragged about paying 2 million for a Wu Tang Clan album and is just a general a-hole.

        This week, in the "Couldn't of happened to a nicer guy" dept, Shkreli was arrested and carted out in cuffs for federal fraud charges. Apparently he is being accused of running a Madoff-esque Ponzi scheme from a Hedge fund he was running. You can't arrest a guy for being a douche bag, but you can arrest him for stealing. Karma's a beeotch isn't it?


Want to finish up on a positive note, this being Christmas week and all, Timmy got an award this week for creative writing. He gets his good looks and brains from his mother, now he's getting something from me (besides his blazing foot speed)

Merry Christmas to all.

Have a Great Week