The Awl http://www.theawl.com/ Be Less Stupid Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:00:50 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.2 Larry David's Rough Night Out With The Aging Literary Lion http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/larry-davids-rough-night-out-with-the-aging-literary-lion http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/larry-davids-rough-night-out-with-the-aging-literary-lion#comments Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:00:50 +0000 Evan Hughes http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/larry-davids-rough-night-out-with-the-aging-literary-lion A column that resurrects the highbrow gossip of yore.

In the "Seinfeld" episode "The Jacket," which aired in 1991, Elaine recruits Jerry and George to join her for a drink and dinner with her father, Alton Benes. He’s a cranky old writer, distinguished but well past his prime, and he’s impossible enough that Elaine says she needs a "buffer" to spend an evening with him. (This comment might mark the moment when we all started using the word "buffer" in this particular way. "Re-gifting," "double-dipping," "low-talker"—in the lingo of the educated urbanite, all roads lead to “Seinfeld.”) Elaine ends up being late, and Jerry and George face some unpleasant minutes with the embittered and intimidating old author.


Alton Benes: Which one’s supposed to be the funny guy?
George Costanza: [cheerfully pointing to Jerry] Ah! He’s the comedian!
Alton Benes: We had a funny guy with us in Korea. Tail gunner. They blew his brains out all over the Pacific.

The character of Elaine Benes was loosely based on Monica Yates, who dated Larry David some years before he created “Seinfeld.” Monica Yates’s father is the novelist Richard Yates, the author of Revolutionary Road, a classic of the last American century. This scene was inspired by a real evening out with Richard Yates in the 1980s. Fun fact—but here things start to get less amusing.

Richard Yates, who died in 1992, became a literary giant at age 35 with the publication of his first novel, Revolutionary Road, in 1961. As Blake Bailey writes in his terrific biography A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates, my main source here, Yates was a worshipped figure in the ’60s on the faculty at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop—a towering example, a handsome man, and a generous teacher as long as you didn’t bully other students or think too highly of yourself. But over time he suffered repeated horrible bouts of depression and psychosis and became an often mean alcoholic.

One classroom show-off at Iowa who crossed him was his student David Milch, then 21, who went on to become one of the most powerful writer-producers in Hollywood ("Hill Street Blues," "NYPD Blue," "Deadwood"). Yates found him arrogant and obnoxious, an entitled Ivy Leaguer, and defended other students from Milch’s high-handed remarks. Yates’ ongoing complicated relationship with Milch grated on Yates over time, underscoring his long decline. In the ’70s, Milch was teaching at Yale and hinted that he might be able to arrange a job there for a struggling Yates. It was a galling reversal for Yates just to be hoping for Milch’s help—worse when the wanted job didn’t materialize. “Maybe I didn’t follow through,” Milch told Bailey.

Still later, Milch heard of Yates’ poor condition and offered him an easy job writing treatments and put him up in his guest house in Los Angeles. Yates couldn’t afford to refuse. It is a bitter irony that Revolutionary Road was made into a big-budget movie starring the Titanic duo of DiCaprio and Winslet only after Yates’ death; his books fell out of print in his lifetime and he really could have used that money. Yates hated the work he did for Milch and loathed being on the wrong end of this charitable gesture. He would lecture Milch on how badly the young man was selling out as a writer.

Monica felt a strong affinity with her father, unpleasant though he could be, and he made touching efforts to be a good father to her and her sisters. In periods when he kept it together, he and Monica would talk on the phone for hours. "He always got it, he always said the right thing," Monica told Bailey. But he made things hard. When Yates was living in Boston, divorced and alone in the mid-'80s, Bailey writes, "former acquaintances would sometimes see a gaunt, stupefied, ragged old man staggering around the streets of Boston; an incredulous second look would confirm that the wretch was none other than Richard Yates. The usual impulse was to hurry away before one was recognized by this poor ghost, though of course there was no danger of that." Monica said to Bailey, "You can’t be a doting daughter to a guy who falls apart like that. You have to be strong."

Around this time, Monica asked Larry David, who had remained a friend since their breakup, if he would come out one night and meet her visiting father at the Algonquin Hotel in midtown. Despite his admiration for the writer, David wasn’t in the mood to be sociable (imagine that), but Monica pleaded; her father was sure to get drunk, and she "dreaded being alone with him," Bailey writes. Monica was, in fact, late, and Larry David’s conversation with Yates did not go well. In an attempt at levity, David told a story about pretending to be suicidal to get out of serving in Vietnam. Yates remarked that he himself was a veteran of World War II. (If David figured that recreating this dialogue faithfully would not have been as funny as the exchange about the tail gunner, he was correct.)

Yates didn’t drink too heavily at the Algonquin, but he wheezed and muttered and seemed none too keen on David, who was thoroughly intimidated. As in the “Seinfeld” episode, when it came time to leave the hotel, David had a problem: now it was snowing outside and he was wearing a brand new suede jacket that was likely to be ruined by the snow. He considered turning it inside out but the jacket’s lining was garish (pink and white stripes on "Seinfeld"), and he didn’t want to be ridiculed by Richard Yates. Swallow the pride or swallow the expense? "I decided to eat the jacket," David told Bailey. "It was never the same."

An odd side note here: the actor who played Yates, Lawrence Tierney, was himself in the latter stages of a volatile life. While making his name playing tough guys from the '40s (Born to Kill) to the ’90s (Reservoir Dogs), he also got into numerous drunken scrapes with the law, often involving violence. In 1975 he was questioned in connection with the apparent suicide of a woman he was visiting; he told police she "just went out the window." (Tierney was also a regular, strangely, on "Hill Street Blues," so David Milch knew both the troubled, alcoholic Yates and his troubled, alcoholic double.) During the "Seinfeld" shoot, Jerry Seinfeld discovered that Tierney had tucked a butcher knife from the set under his jacket, apparently planning to steal it. Jason Alexander, who played George, said in an interview, “Lawrence Tierney scared the living crap out of all of us.”

Richard Yates, alerted by Monica, ended up watching the "Seinfeld" episode with a few graduate students at the University of Alabama, where he had taken a job. He was 65 but seemed much older. He would be dead within two years. At the end of the show, Yates asked the others, "What’d you think?" One said, "Well, it was kind of funny, Dick." "I’d like to kill that son of a bitch!" Yates roared and left the room. Monica felt the "Seinfeld" episode could have been so much worse. Larry David "could have focused on the physical infirmity, the frailness, the runny nose, the drinking," she said. Instead Alton Benes was simply gruff and frightening. Monica told Bailey that she suspects her father was in fact more pleased than not by the episode; he just wanted to act indignant in front of his students. It had been thirty hard years since Yates had written what he considered his best book. At least Larry David still treated him as an imposing figure.



Previously: The Cordial Enmity Of Joan Didion And Pauline Kael


Evan Hughes' book, Literary Brooklyn, a work of literary biography and urban history, has just been published. He's on twitter.

---

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]]> A column that resurrects the highbrow gossip of yore.

In the "Seinfeld" episode "The Jacket," which aired in 1991, Elaine recruits Jerry and George to join her for a drink and dinner with her father, Alton Benes. He’s a cranky old writer, distinguished but well past his prime, and he’s impossible enough that Elaine says she needs a "buffer" to spend an evening with him. (This comment might mark the moment when we all started using the word "buffer" in this particular way. "Re-gifting," "double-dipping," "low-talker"—in the lingo of the educated urbanite, all roads lead to “Seinfeld.”) Elaine ends up being late, and Jerry and George face some unpleasant minutes with the embittered and intimidating old author.


Alton Benes: Which one’s supposed to be the funny guy?
George Costanza: [cheerfully pointing to Jerry] Ah! He’s the comedian!
Alton Benes: We had a funny guy with us in Korea. Tail gunner. They blew his brains out all over the Pacific.

The character of Elaine Benes was loosely based on Monica Yates, who dated Larry David some years before he created “Seinfeld.” Monica Yates’s father is the novelist Richard Yates, the author of Revolutionary Road, a classic of the last American century. This scene was inspired by a real evening out with Richard Yates in the 1980s. Fun fact—but here things start to get less amusing.

Richard Yates, who died in 1992, became a literary giant at age 35 with the publication of his first novel, Revolutionary Road, in 1961. As Blake Bailey writes in his terrific biography A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates, my main source here, Yates was a worshipped figure in the ’60s on the faculty at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop—a towering example, a handsome man, and a generous teacher as long as you didn’t bully other students or think too highly of yourself. But over time he suffered repeated horrible bouts of depression and psychosis and became an often mean alcoholic.

One classroom show-off at Iowa who crossed him was his student David Milch, then 21, who went on to become one of the most powerful writer-producers in Hollywood ("Hill Street Blues," "NYPD Blue," "Deadwood"). Yates found him arrogant and obnoxious, an entitled Ivy Leaguer, and defended other students from Milch’s high-handed remarks. Yates’ ongoing complicated relationship with Milch grated on Yates over time, underscoring his long decline. In the ’70s, Milch was teaching at Yale and hinted that he might be able to arrange a job there for a struggling Yates. It was a galling reversal for Yates just to be hoping for Milch’s help—worse when the wanted job didn’t materialize. “Maybe I didn’t follow through,” Milch told Bailey.

Still later, Milch heard of Yates’ poor condition and offered him an easy job writing treatments and put him up in his guest house in Los Angeles. Yates couldn’t afford to refuse. It is a bitter irony that Revolutionary Road was made into a big-budget movie starring the Titanic duo of DiCaprio and Winslet only after Yates’ death; his books fell out of print in his lifetime and he really could have used that money. Yates hated the work he did for Milch and loathed being on the wrong end of this charitable gesture. He would lecture Milch on how badly the young man was selling out as a writer.

Monica felt a strong affinity with her father, unpleasant though he could be, and he made touching efforts to be a good father to her and her sisters. In periods when he kept it together, he and Monica would talk on the phone for hours. "He always got it, he always said the right thing," Monica told Bailey. But he made things hard. When Yates was living in Boston, divorced and alone in the mid-'80s, Bailey writes, "former acquaintances would sometimes see a gaunt, stupefied, ragged old man staggering around the streets of Boston; an incredulous second look would confirm that the wretch was none other than Richard Yates. The usual impulse was to hurry away before one was recognized by this poor ghost, though of course there was no danger of that." Monica said to Bailey, "You can’t be a doting daughter to a guy who falls apart like that. You have to be strong."

Around this time, Monica asked Larry David, who had remained a friend since their breakup, if he would come out one night and meet her visiting father at the Algonquin Hotel in midtown. Despite his admiration for the writer, David wasn’t in the mood to be sociable (imagine that), but Monica pleaded; her father was sure to get drunk, and she "dreaded being alone with him," Bailey writes. Monica was, in fact, late, and Larry David’s conversation with Yates did not go well. In an attempt at levity, David told a story about pretending to be suicidal to get out of serving in Vietnam. Yates remarked that he himself was a veteran of World War II. (If David figured that recreating this dialogue faithfully would not have been as funny as the exchange about the tail gunner, he was correct.)

Yates didn’t drink too heavily at the Algonquin, but he wheezed and muttered and seemed none too keen on David, who was thoroughly intimidated. As in the “Seinfeld” episode, when it came time to leave the hotel, David had a problem: now it was snowing outside and he was wearing a brand new suede jacket that was likely to be ruined by the snow. He considered turning it inside out but the jacket’s lining was garish (pink and white stripes on "Seinfeld"), and he didn’t want to be ridiculed by Richard Yates. Swallow the pride or swallow the expense? "I decided to eat the jacket," David told Bailey. "It was never the same."

An odd side note here: the actor who played Yates, Lawrence Tierney, was himself in the latter stages of a volatile life. While making his name playing tough guys from the '40s (Born to Kill) to the ’90s (Reservoir Dogs), he also got into numerous drunken scrapes with the law, often involving violence. In 1975 he was questioned in connection with the apparent suicide of a woman he was visiting; he told police she "just went out the window." (Tierney was also a regular, strangely, on "Hill Street Blues," so David Milch knew both the troubled, alcoholic Yates and his troubled, alcoholic double.) During the "Seinfeld" shoot, Jerry Seinfeld discovered that Tierney had tucked a butcher knife from the set under his jacket, apparently planning to steal it. Jason Alexander, who played George, said in an interview, “Lawrence Tierney scared the living crap out of all of us.”

Richard Yates, alerted by Monica, ended up watching the "Seinfeld" episode with a few graduate students at the University of Alabama, where he had taken a job. He was 65 but seemed much older. He would be dead within two years. At the end of the show, Yates asked the others, "What’d you think?" One said, "Well, it was kind of funny, Dick." "I’d like to kill that son of a bitch!" Yates roared and left the room. Monica felt the "Seinfeld" episode could have been so much worse. Larry David "could have focused on the physical infirmity, the frailness, the runny nose, the drinking," she said. Instead Alton Benes was simply gruff and frightening. Monica told Bailey that she suspects her father was in fact more pleased than not by the episode; he just wanted to act indignant in front of his students. It had been thirty hard years since Yates had written what he considered his best book. At least Larry David still treated him as an imposing figure.



Previously: The Cordial Enmity Of Joan Didion And Pauline Kael


Evan Hughes' book, Literary Brooklyn, a work of literary biography and urban history, has just been published. He's on twitter.

---

See more posts by Evan Hughes

17 comments

]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/larry-davids-rough-night-out-with-the-aging-literary-lion/feed 17 Eating Out At Four Of TV's Best-Known Restaurants http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/eating-out-at-four-of-tvs-best-known-restaurants http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/eating-out-at-four-of-tvs-best-known-restaurants#comments Mon, 27 Jun 2011 13:12:13 +0000 Josh Kurp http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/eating-out-at-four-of-tvs-best-known-restaurants
Holsten’s in Bloomfield, New Jersey ("The Sopranos")
In the final episode of "The Sopranos," the family meets up at Holsten’s in Bloomfield, New Jersey, to eat (among other things) onion rings that are, according to Tony Soprano, “the best in da state.” Last year, for my birthday and shortly after my girlfriend Nadia and I finished watching the show—a time during which we lived and breathed all things Johnny Cakes and Ralphie—we rented a car and drove from Brooklyn to Jersey, with the simple goal of sliding into the same booth that Tony, Carmela and A.J. once shared.

Holsten’s is a charming, old-fashioned diner that, having homemade ice cream and candy, bills itself as a “confectionary." On "The Sopranos," it looks dark and peeling, like the back office of the Bada Bing, minus the posters of naked ladies; but seen in person, it's well lit, wood paneled, and family friendly, somewhere old people and Boy Scouts alike can enjoy a steamed ham. The sodas are homemade and the milk shakes are gigantic and authentic. It’s like the 1950s never ended, down to the hideous storefront and menu fonts and waitresses that call you “hon.” We both got burgers (diner burgers, like most things in life, are usually better in imagination than in reality, and the ones at Holsten’s were no exception) with a side order of onion rings, presented to us in a small brown plastic bowl. The rings were good, but nothing special; they could have been a little more burnt, and besides, I once had a perfectly good meal of onion rings at the Burger King in the 11th most Jersey’ish rest stop on the Turnpike.

We were seated in a booth against the wall. Above us were photos of David Chase and the Sopranos crew filming on location back in 2006, right next to The Booth, the one where Tony may or may not have met his fate from Members Only Jacket. Midway through our meal, the occupants of The Booth left, leaving it wide open for Nadia and me. We called the waitress over, and given that we had done nothing but gawk like tourists in Times Square since we walked in, we barely had to finish our request about switching booths before she said, “Go right ahead.”

The final episode of "The Sopranos" aired in 2007, and I can imagine that, in the post-finale world, hundreds, if not thousands, of fans of the show came to Holsten’s, some looking for clues, others wondering if Tony was full of shit with his onion-ring proclamation. Three years later, Nadia and I seemed to be the only non-regulars, or at least the only two who were awed that James Gandolfini’s ass had once touched this exact seat. (It should be noted that I let Nadia sit on the Tony side of The Booth, while I rested where Carmela and A.J. resided—if only Meadow had parked that car quicker).

The onion rings not being up to snuff wasn’t the most disappointing thing about Holsten’s, however: They didn’t have “Don’t Stop Believin’” on the table jukebox! And the jukebox doesn’t even work! I flipped through the thing three times, hoping that this wasn’t the one jukebox in the country that doesn’t have the Journey classic, but alas, it was, and I felt oddly betrayed, even more so when I went into the bathroom and realized that there was really no good hiding spot for Members Only Jacket to retrieve a gun. (This is assuming, of course, that a), he killed Tony, which he obviously did; and b) he didn’t already have the gun on him, which I don’t think he did because he would have popped him on the way to the bathroom and the gun-in-the-bathroom staging is clearly a nod to The Godfather, the single biggest influence on "The Sopranos").

On the plus side, Holsten's ice cream is fantastic, and, on the way out, I picked up a promotional postcard for Donald and Allison, "Sopranos look-alikes" and Tony and Carmela’s doubles on the show, to come “liven up your next party, promotion, corporate event, or fundraiser.” Outside of Roseanne and Dan Conner, Tony and Carmela would be the ideal choice if you ever needed a TV couple to come into your office and start screaming at one another, especially if you could find a Gloria impressionist somewhere out there, too.


Twede’s Café in North Bend, Washington ("Twin Peaks")

My father and stepmother moved to Seattle from Houston in 2008, a location change that made me happy; who wants to visit Texas when they can spend time in the place known for its greenery, grunge and G., Kenny? When Nadia and I visited in March 2009, we went to the Space Needle (obviously, and it’s really disappointing, like visiting Plymouth Rock), the house where Kurt Cobain shot himself (don’t judge), and then the town of Snoqualmie with its famous waterfalls and the lodge which was used as the exterior shot for the Great Northern Hotel in David Lynch’s "Twin Peaks."

After pretending we were Laura Palmer for a bit and then getting caught in the rain and hail, we drove to Twede’s Café, which markets itself as the Twin Peaks Diner. Roy Thompson built the building in 1941 (and it's been owned by Thompson’s family ever since), and from the outside, it looks 80 years old. Inside, though, it feels inauthentic; in 2000, a fire damaged much of the building and the interior had to be re-done, and now, instead of replicating the interior, there are dirty Tweety Birds hung all over the walls and ceiling—it looks the way someone trying to replicate nostalgia would decorate their establishment. In other words, like a Johnny Rockets. But you can still see tons of "Twin Peaks" memorabilia, including trading cards, placemats, bumper stickers and pictures from when the cast and crew shot the pilot there in 1990, where it was called the Double R Diner. (For the remainder of the show's run, any scenes set in the diner were filmed on a soundstage in Los Angeles.)

The real diner has a selection of 50 burgers, which are listed from A-Z, meaning you could get everything from the Backfire (pepper jack cheese, hot peppers and hot mayo) to Whoa Baby (a pound of beef). There were no A or Z choices, but a Peanut Butter & Jelly Burger was available. I asked a waitress if anyone had ever ordered this. No one had.

I ordered the Philly (sautéed onions and peppers, Monterey Jack, lettuce, tomato and mayo), Nadia got the Santa Fe (pepper jack, bacon, guacamole, peppers, onion, lettuce, tomato), and we both asked for a side order of fries. The portions were huge, with the fries spilling over the side of the plate (as it should be at every diner), but the burgers were overdone, which I guess is better than under-, but still. The fries were plentiful and crunchy and delicious.

We ended our meal the same way any self-respecting TV fan would have: with a slice of cherry pie and a damn fine cup of coffee. But like the onion rings at Holsten's, the coffee was, at least according to Nadia, normal—nothing special about it. As for the pie, even with a sugar-encrusted top, it wasn’t particularly memorable—not even Norma Jennings could save it from mediocrity.

As a fan of "Twin Peaks," it was fun going to Twede’s Café, even if the place barely resembled what it looked like on the show. As a fan of food however, well, I wouldn’t go as far as a Yelp reviewer who quipped that he now has a “pretty good idea what killed Laura Palmer,” but even for a diner, it was underwhelming. Twede’s seems confused about to whom its marketing—"Twin Peaks" fans or truckers or elderly women—and it shows. Maybe they should be looking into the "The Killing" fanbase? Instead of Tweety Birds, they could have red herrings pinned to the walls.


Tom’s Restaurant in New York, NY ("Seinfeld")

So far the theme of these pilgrimages has been unexpected disappointment, so let’s switch things up: I knew I wasn’t going to like Tom’s Restaurant before I even got there.

I’ve lived in New York long enough now to have heard word-of-mouth reviews of nearly every tourist trap in the five boroughs, particularly Manhattan. And as a fan of "Seinfeld," my ears always perked up at mentions of Tom’s Restaurant, which is located on the corner of 112th Street and Broadway, near Columbia University. The diner first became famous as the setting of Suzanne Vega’s mega-hit “Tom’s Diner” (which I listened to for the first time in years while writing this piece, and it’s still just as memorably awful, but in a catchy sort of way, as I remember it being, especially the "I Dream of Jeannie" beginning), and then mega-famous as the fictional setting of Monk’s Café, where Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer would eat on "Seinfeld."

Like Twede’s Café, only the exterior of the building was used on the show, and if you pay careful attention, you’ll notice on "Seinfeld" that the “Tom’s” of the Tom’s Restaurant was almost always cut off, so that they wouldn’t have to pay for the rights. The interior looks nothing like it does on the show (the waitresses aren't as busty, either) and the only "Seinfeld"-related piece of memorabilia in the diner is a poster of The Kramer. Of course, that doesn’t stop them from having an online store, where you can purchase a Tom’s Restaurant postcard, to “send [to] a loved one or a Seinfeld fan,” for only .99 cents.

Even though I did my best to keep an open mind, my expectations turned out to be accurate: the food was pretty bad. Although the prices are decent (Cheeseburger Deluxe for only $7.15) and the hours college student-friendly (Sunday-Wednesday, 6 a.m.-1:30 a.m.; Thursday-Saturday, 6 a.m.-5:30 a.m.), Tom’s seems to be coasting, and doing steady business, based on past reputation alone. Maybe I’m expecting too much out of a simple diner, but I mean, how tough is it to make a good burger, one that isn’t burnt to a crisp or tastes like grease? The service was terrible and you can’t even order a Big Salad, which I would have thought was a given. The Large Green Salad just doesn’t have the same ring to it. If you’re going to be a pop culture landmark, at least go all the way.


Jimbo’s Place in Virginia Key, Florida ("Dexter")

My grandparents live in Boynton Beach, because they’re grandparents and that’s just where grandparents go. Their apartment complex is an hour’s drive from Miami, a city I had no particular interest in visiting until I started watching "Dexter," about a serial killer who kills other serial killers but works for Miami Metro Police. Of my many man-crushes, Michael C. Hall tops them all, and although "Dexter" is a severely flawed show that treats its viewers like they’re idiots who crave exposition, I can’t help myself from loving it, mostly because of MCH.

(The fact that my reason for loving "Dexter" is because I have a dude crush on Hall says everything about the show—or maybe about me…)

Most of " Dexter" is filmed on West Coast, so Nadia and I were pretty limited with on-location hot spots to visit in Florida. But there are two notable attractions: Dexter’s apartment (which we went to, then promptly ran away from in fear due to all the signs proclaiming “Cops Will Be Here in Five Minutes If You’re a Dexter-Loving Trespasser”) and Jimbo’s Place, which is inexplicably one of Florida’s most-filmed locations.

You know how people tell a cab driver, “Take me to somewhere great off the grid"? Jimbo’s feels like the sort of place where you might get dropped off. It isn’t a bar so much as it's a place where people hang out and drink, and it looks like a displaced, brightly colored trailer park after a storm came through—and that only adds its to charm. It’s reminiscent of the pre-Disney Florida (or at least the way someone who’s lived in the Northeast his entire life envisions the Sunshine State was before Goofy and Mickey invaded).

After stretching a 20-minute drive from Miami into a one-hour journey, as we kept taking wrong turns trying to find the place (I recommend watching the Quicktime video on the website before trying to find it yourself), we drove up and saw a dilapidated shack, outhouses, smoked fish stand, wooden fences painted in a variety of colors, an old school bus painted with graffiti, a covered bocce ball court, cats, more cats (there were a lot of cats, some 40 in all), and a variety of knick-knack-type stuff, everything from old fishing nets to cigar butts, all seemingly arranged by the Little Rascals.

A very important scene in "Dexter" happened here: after the death of his wife, Rita, Dexter goes for a boat ride to think things over, and ends up at Jimbo’s. Dexter comes across a redneck who calls him a word you shouldn’t say to anyone, let alone a serial killer in his mourning period, and after our hero says he’s had a bad week and that his wife just died, the redneck says that Rita could suck his dick. This comment puts Dexter over the top and, in a rage, he stabs the redneck, killing him immediately. Dexter’s father, Harry, who’s long since passed away but still provides his son with advice on how to deal with his Dark Passenger, says that this is the first human thing he’s ever seen Dexter do.

Jimbo’s would be a great place to kill someone, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. It’s remote, located right on the water and mere steps away from the unknown wildlife.

I tried to put this thought out of my mind when Nadia and I walked up to the sign announcing “Beer $2” and away from it with two Miller Lites in hand. Not sure where to go first, we instead just stood around in the middle of everything. One of the patrons came up and introduced himself. He was a regular of the establishment and began to tell us about all the different photo shoots, movies (Ace Ventura, Porky’s II) and TV shows ("Burn Notice,""Flipper," "Miami Vice") that had been shot and filmed there over the years. To emphasize his point, he pointed over to the old school bus where a professional photographer was taking pictures of a soon-to-be husband and wife in their wedding clothes. They were not holding $2 Miller Lite cans.

Using my BlackBerry (yes, there was cell service, and yes, I’m a terrible person for checking my BlackBerry all the time), I found stills from the episode, so we could know exactly where Dexter stood (remember everything I said about Hall earlier? Multiply that by ten for Nadia). Once satisfied that we were within a few feet of where a fake serial killer once killed his victim, we drifted over to a sofa (surprisingly rigid) next to the shore, plopped down and, beers in hand, watched the water gently flow, not unlike the way the blood came out of that poor, stupid redneck.

Jimbo’s Place was a bitch to find, but it was all worth it for that moment.



Josh Kurp really wishes Uncle Moe's Family Feedbag was a real restaurant.

Photos of Holsten's, Twede's and Jimbo's Place by Nadia Chaudhury, used with permission; photo of Tom's Restaurant by n8kowald from Flickr.

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]]>
Holsten’s in Bloomfield, New Jersey ("The Sopranos")
In the final episode of "The Sopranos," the family meets up at Holsten’s in Bloomfield, New Jersey, to eat (among other things) onion rings that are, according to Tony Soprano, “the best in da state.” Last year, for my birthday and shortly after my girlfriend Nadia and I finished watching the show—a time during which we lived and breathed all things Johnny Cakes and Ralphie—we rented a car and drove from Brooklyn to Jersey, with the simple goal of sliding into the same booth that Tony, Carmela and A.J. once shared.

Holsten’s is a charming, old-fashioned diner that, having homemade ice cream and candy, bills itself as a “confectionary." On "The Sopranos," it looks dark and peeling, like the back office of the Bada Bing, minus the posters of naked ladies; but seen in person, it's well lit, wood paneled, and family friendly, somewhere old people and Boy Scouts alike can enjoy a steamed ham. The sodas are homemade and the milk shakes are gigantic and authentic. It’s like the 1950s never ended, down to the hideous storefront and menu fonts and waitresses that call you “hon.” We both got burgers (diner burgers, like most things in life, are usually better in imagination than in reality, and the ones at Holsten’s were no exception) with a side order of onion rings, presented to us in a small brown plastic bowl. The rings were good, but nothing special; they could have been a little more burnt, and besides, I once had a perfectly good meal of onion rings at the Burger King in the 11th most Jersey’ish rest stop on the Turnpike.

We were seated in a booth against the wall. Above us were photos of David Chase and the Sopranos crew filming on location back in 2006, right next to The Booth, the one where Tony may or may not have met his fate from Members Only Jacket. Midway through our meal, the occupants of The Booth left, leaving it wide open for Nadia and me. We called the waitress over, and given that we had done nothing but gawk like tourists in Times Square since we walked in, we barely had to finish our request about switching booths before she said, “Go right ahead.”

The final episode of "The Sopranos" aired in 2007, and I can imagine that, in the post-finale world, hundreds, if not thousands, of fans of the show came to Holsten’s, some looking for clues, others wondering if Tony was full of shit with his onion-ring proclamation. Three years later, Nadia and I seemed to be the only non-regulars, or at least the only two who were awed that James Gandolfini’s ass had once touched this exact seat. (It should be noted that I let Nadia sit on the Tony side of The Booth, while I rested where Carmela and A.J. resided—if only Meadow had parked that car quicker).

The onion rings not being up to snuff wasn’t the most disappointing thing about Holsten’s, however: They didn’t have “Don’t Stop Believin’” on the table jukebox! And the jukebox doesn’t even work! I flipped through the thing three times, hoping that this wasn’t the one jukebox in the country that doesn’t have the Journey classic, but alas, it was, and I felt oddly betrayed, even more so when I went into the bathroom and realized that there was really no good hiding spot for Members Only Jacket to retrieve a gun. (This is assuming, of course, that a), he killed Tony, which he obviously did; and b) he didn’t already have the gun on him, which I don’t think he did because he would have popped him on the way to the bathroom and the gun-in-the-bathroom staging is clearly a nod to The Godfather, the single biggest influence on "The Sopranos").

On the plus side, Holsten's ice cream is fantastic, and, on the way out, I picked up a promotional postcard for Donald and Allison, "Sopranos look-alikes" and Tony and Carmela’s doubles on the show, to come “liven up your next party, promotion, corporate event, or fundraiser.” Outside of Roseanne and Dan Conner, Tony and Carmela would be the ideal choice if you ever needed a TV couple to come into your office and start screaming at one another, especially if you could find a Gloria impressionist somewhere out there, too.


Twede’s Café in North Bend, Washington ("Twin Peaks")

My father and stepmother moved to Seattle from Houston in 2008, a location change that made me happy; who wants to visit Texas when they can spend time in the place known for its greenery, grunge and G., Kenny? When Nadia and I visited in March 2009, we went to the Space Needle (obviously, and it’s really disappointing, like visiting Plymouth Rock), the house where Kurt Cobain shot himself (don’t judge), and then the town of Snoqualmie with its famous waterfalls and the lodge which was used as the exterior shot for the Great Northern Hotel in David Lynch’s "Twin Peaks."

After pretending we were Laura Palmer for a bit and then getting caught in the rain and hail, we drove to Twede’s Café, which markets itself as the Twin Peaks Diner. Roy Thompson built the building in 1941 (and it's been owned by Thompson’s family ever since), and from the outside, it looks 80 years old. Inside, though, it feels inauthentic; in 2000, a fire damaged much of the building and the interior had to be re-done, and now, instead of replicating the interior, there are dirty Tweety Birds hung all over the walls and ceiling—it looks the way someone trying to replicate nostalgia would decorate their establishment. In other words, like a Johnny Rockets. But you can still see tons of "Twin Peaks" memorabilia, including trading cards, placemats, bumper stickers and pictures from when the cast and crew shot the pilot there in 1990, where it was called the Double R Diner. (For the remainder of the show's run, any scenes set in the diner were filmed on a soundstage in Los Angeles.)

The real diner has a selection of 50 burgers, which are listed from A-Z, meaning you could get everything from the Backfire (pepper jack cheese, hot peppers and hot mayo) to Whoa Baby (a pound of beef). There were no A or Z choices, but a Peanut Butter & Jelly Burger was available. I asked a waitress if anyone had ever ordered this. No one had.

I ordered the Philly (sautéed onions and peppers, Monterey Jack, lettuce, tomato and mayo), Nadia got the Santa Fe (pepper jack, bacon, guacamole, peppers, onion, lettuce, tomato), and we both asked for a side order of fries. The portions were huge, with the fries spilling over the side of the plate (as it should be at every diner), but the burgers were overdone, which I guess is better than under-, but still. The fries were plentiful and crunchy and delicious.

We ended our meal the same way any self-respecting TV fan would have: with a slice of cherry pie and a damn fine cup of coffee. But like the onion rings at Holsten's, the coffee was, at least according to Nadia, normal—nothing special about it. As for the pie, even with a sugar-encrusted top, it wasn’t particularly memorable—not even Norma Jennings could save it from mediocrity.

As a fan of "Twin Peaks," it was fun going to Twede’s Café, even if the place barely resembled what it looked like on the show. As a fan of food however, well, I wouldn’t go as far as a Yelp reviewer who quipped that he now has a “pretty good idea what killed Laura Palmer,” but even for a diner, it was underwhelming. Twede’s seems confused about to whom its marketing—"Twin Peaks" fans or truckers or elderly women—and it shows. Maybe they should be looking into the "The Killing" fanbase? Instead of Tweety Birds, they could have red herrings pinned to the walls.


Tom’s Restaurant in New York, NY ("Seinfeld")

So far the theme of these pilgrimages has been unexpected disappointment, so let’s switch things up: I knew I wasn’t going to like Tom’s Restaurant before I even got there.

I’ve lived in New York long enough now to have heard word-of-mouth reviews of nearly every tourist trap in the five boroughs, particularly Manhattan. And as a fan of "Seinfeld," my ears always perked up at mentions of Tom’s Restaurant, which is located on the corner of 112th Street and Broadway, near Columbia University. The diner first became famous as the setting of Suzanne Vega’s mega-hit “Tom’s Diner” (which I listened to for the first time in years while writing this piece, and it’s still just as memorably awful, but in a catchy sort of way, as I remember it being, especially the "I Dream of Jeannie" beginning), and then mega-famous as the fictional setting of Monk’s Café, where Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer would eat on "Seinfeld."

Like Twede’s Café, only the exterior of the building was used on the show, and if you pay careful attention, you’ll notice on "Seinfeld" that the “Tom’s” of the Tom’s Restaurant was almost always cut off, so that they wouldn’t have to pay for the rights. The interior looks nothing like it does on the show (the waitresses aren't as busty, either) and the only "Seinfeld"-related piece of memorabilia in the diner is a poster of The Kramer. Of course, that doesn’t stop them from having an online store, where you can purchase a Tom’s Restaurant postcard, to “send [to] a loved one or a Seinfeld fan,” for only .99 cents.

Even though I did my best to keep an open mind, my expectations turned out to be accurate: the food was pretty bad. Although the prices are decent (Cheeseburger Deluxe for only $7.15) and the hours college student-friendly (Sunday-Wednesday, 6 a.m.-1:30 a.m.; Thursday-Saturday, 6 a.m.-5:30 a.m.), Tom’s seems to be coasting, and doing steady business, based on past reputation alone. Maybe I’m expecting too much out of a simple diner, but I mean, how tough is it to make a good burger, one that isn’t burnt to a crisp or tastes like grease? The service was terrible and you can’t even order a Big Salad, which I would have thought was a given. The Large Green Salad just doesn’t have the same ring to it. If you’re going to be a pop culture landmark, at least go all the way.


Jimbo’s Place in Virginia Key, Florida ("Dexter")

My grandparents live in Boynton Beach, because they’re grandparents and that’s just where grandparents go. Their apartment complex is an hour’s drive from Miami, a city I had no particular interest in visiting until I started watching "Dexter," about a serial killer who kills other serial killers but works for Miami Metro Police. Of my many man-crushes, Michael C. Hall tops them all, and although "Dexter" is a severely flawed show that treats its viewers like they’re idiots who crave exposition, I can’t help myself from loving it, mostly because of MCH.

(The fact that my reason for loving "Dexter" is because I have a dude crush on Hall says everything about the show—or maybe about me…)

Most of " Dexter" is filmed on West Coast, so Nadia and I were pretty limited with on-location hot spots to visit in Florida. But there are two notable attractions: Dexter’s apartment (which we went to, then promptly ran away from in fear due to all the signs proclaiming “Cops Will Be Here in Five Minutes If You’re a Dexter-Loving Trespasser”) and Jimbo’s Place, which is inexplicably one of Florida’s most-filmed locations.

You know how people tell a cab driver, “Take me to somewhere great off the grid"? Jimbo’s feels like the sort of place where you might get dropped off. It isn’t a bar so much as it's a place where people hang out and drink, and it looks like a displaced, brightly colored trailer park after a storm came through—and that only adds its to charm. It’s reminiscent of the pre-Disney Florida (or at least the way someone who’s lived in the Northeast his entire life envisions the Sunshine State was before Goofy and Mickey invaded).

After stretching a 20-minute drive from Miami into a one-hour journey, as we kept taking wrong turns trying to find the place (I recommend watching the Quicktime video on the website before trying to find it yourself), we drove up and saw a dilapidated shack, outhouses, smoked fish stand, wooden fences painted in a variety of colors, an old school bus painted with graffiti, a covered bocce ball court, cats, more cats (there were a lot of cats, some 40 in all), and a variety of knick-knack-type stuff, everything from old fishing nets to cigar butts, all seemingly arranged by the Little Rascals.

A very important scene in "Dexter" happened here: after the death of his wife, Rita, Dexter goes for a boat ride to think things over, and ends up at Jimbo’s. Dexter comes across a redneck who calls him a word you shouldn’t say to anyone, let alone a serial killer in his mourning period, and after our hero says he’s had a bad week and that his wife just died, the redneck says that Rita could suck his dick. This comment puts Dexter over the top and, in a rage, he stabs the redneck, killing him immediately. Dexter’s father, Harry, who’s long since passed away but still provides his son with advice on how to deal with his Dark Passenger, says that this is the first human thing he’s ever seen Dexter do.

Jimbo’s would be a great place to kill someone, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. It’s remote, located right on the water and mere steps away from the unknown wildlife.

I tried to put this thought out of my mind when Nadia and I walked up to the sign announcing “Beer $2” and away from it with two Miller Lites in hand. Not sure where to go first, we instead just stood around in the middle of everything. One of the patrons came up and introduced himself. He was a regular of the establishment and began to tell us about all the different photo shoots, movies (Ace Ventura, Porky’s II) and TV shows ("Burn Notice,""Flipper," "Miami Vice") that had been shot and filmed there over the years. To emphasize his point, he pointed over to the old school bus where a professional photographer was taking pictures of a soon-to-be husband and wife in their wedding clothes. They were not holding $2 Miller Lite cans.

Using my BlackBerry (yes, there was cell service, and yes, I’m a terrible person for checking my BlackBerry all the time), I found stills from the episode, so we could know exactly where Dexter stood (remember everything I said about Hall earlier? Multiply that by ten for Nadia). Once satisfied that we were within a few feet of where a fake serial killer once killed his victim, we drifted over to a sofa (surprisingly rigid) next to the shore, plopped down and, beers in hand, watched the water gently flow, not unlike the way the blood came out of that poor, stupid redneck.

Jimbo’s Place was a bitch to find, but it was all worth it for that moment.



Josh Kurp really wishes Uncle Moe's Family Feedbag was a real restaurant.

Photos of Holsten's, Twede's and Jimbo's Place by Nadia Chaudhury, used with permission; photo of Tom's Restaurant by n8kowald from Flickr.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/eating-out-at-four-of-tvs-best-known-restaurants/feed 20 New York City Police Commissioner Told Me He Likes Enya http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/new-york-city-police-commissioner-told-me-he-likes-enya http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/new-york-city-police-commissioner-told-me-he-likes-enya#comments Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:31:27 +0000 "David Shapiro" http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/new-york-city-police-commissioner-told-me-he-likes-enya i am drinking a fruity cocktail inside Cipriani, a gala hall on 42nd Street that's about the size of a football field and decorated like a palace. mike is around here somewhere, interviewing the general manager of the New York Mets. tonight we are at an event that is hosted by the Police Athletic League to honor the organization of the New York Mets, who, as the security guard at work told me today, are one of the worst teams in professional baseball despite their enormous payroll. behind me, a heavyset man with a Queens accent and a haircut from Goodfellas walks through the entrance and admires the lavish setting and says "so this where they're puttin' all their money, huh?" and some other heavyset guys laugh. the haircuts here fall mostly into two categories: wispy white comb-overs for the Mets organization and junior bouffants and crew cuts for the Police people

in front of me, 1980s Mets icon Keith Hernandez is milling around by himself and sipping a cocktail. he's the person who i want to talk to most tonight beside Jim Leyritz, another Mets icon who was charged with manslaughtering a woman while he was drunk driving but got off in 2009 because she happened to be drunker than he was and was not wearing a seatbelt. life is like that sometimes i guess. anyway, Keith Hernandez is very tall and looks exactly like he did when he starred in a Seinfeld episode like 15 years ago

so i go up to Keith Hernandez and say "hi my name is david and i write for a culture website—can i ask you one question please?" and Keith Hernandez nods and i ask "what is your favorite Seinfeld episode beside the one you're in?" Keith Hernandez says "i don't really watch it..." and i give him a bewildered look like "how could you not watch Seinfeld? you're Keith Hernandez, one of the stars of Seinfeld!" and Keith Hernandez says "i just don't watch primetime TV—it comes on right when i'm eating, you know?" Keith Hernandez is very warm and i nod even though i don't think Seinfeld has been on in primetime for at least a decade

i ask him if he watches his own episode and he says "well, yeah, i watched it a couple times, but i can't watch it that much because i get embarrassed. sometimes i'm channel surfing and it's on..." and then i thank Keith Hernandez, who, as i'm disappointed to realize, doesn't really like Seinfeld but doesn't want to say it explicitly

then i walk back to the press area and drink another cocktail and wait for more guests to arrive. there is an elevated DJ booth in the corner of the room and right now the DJ is playing a spirited live version of Cheeseburger In Paradise by Jimmy Buffett and a few minutes ago he played a Frank Sinatra song whose name i don't know. i think if the NYPD had music charts, Frank Sinatra would have completely dominated for the last 70 years

then mike comes over to the press area and the New York City Police Commissioner walks in and gets his picture taken by about 15 photographers. i notice he has a single raindrop on his shoulder, probably a drip from the ice melting on the scaffolding outside. it is almost poetic. mike leans over and whispers "what are you gonna ask him?" and i whisper "probably what his favorite cop movie is?" and mike goes "shit that's a good one, can i steal it?" and i think about it and say "okay fine". later he will tell me that the Police Commissioner's favorite cop movie is Police Academy

then a man with a junior bouffant haircut goes up to the Police Commissioner before we can reach him and says "this is a real nice function, thanks for havin' us here" and they shake hands. then another guy comes up to the Commissioner and introduces him to a man who looks like he's about 3000 years old and whose hair is so wispy that he makes Gandalf look like Jimi Hendrix. zing! and so now the Police Commissioner is talking to this old dude about their rain footwear. the Commissioner is wearing black synthetic winter boots and the old dude is wearing tan leather Timberland boots. the Commissioner says "yeah, these get great traction and they're very light" and he lifts the sole of his boot to about the height of his knee and the old dude inspects the boot and seems to approve

a rollicking rendition of Piano Man by Billy Joel plays over the PA

then mike interviews the Commissioner and then i do. the Commissioner is receptive to my questions and doesn't look like he's trying to get away from me which is a quality that doesn't go unappreciated in any conversation. i ask him what artists he's listening to right now and he tells me he has very eclectic tastes and that he really likes Foo Fighters, The Rolling Stones, and Rod Stewart. i ask him what the last song he listened to was and he tells me "something by Enya." man i didn't see that coming

then i wander around for a few minutes, surreptitiously following the cocktail waitress who is carrying the tray of pigs in a blanket and every few minutes i eat one. i know she thinks there is something wrong with me because guests are not supposed to follow the cocktail servers around gorging themselves on hors d'oeuvres, but we were told that we had to leave before dinnertime, so all the free food i'm gonna get out of this is gonna come in blankets

then John McEnroe walks in and gets his picture taken by the 15 photographers. he is hosting this gala and he looks really nervous. me and Mike watch him from a distance and try to generate questions as Is This Love by Bob Marley is playing over the loudspeaker and a generously proportioned woman takes a self-pic with John McEnroe. now he is talking to the owner of the Mets, Fred Wilpon, and he seems really weird because he shuffles his feet and speaks hurriedly and doesn't make much eye contact. mike notices too and whispers "do you think he's on something?" and i shrug

then a heavyset old man in big black sunglasses walks in and John McEnroe hurries over to him and says "take your glasses off, stay awhile!" and then introduces Fred Wilpon to the man in the black glasses by saying "say hello to my father, john mcenroe senior" and they all chat for a while and John McEnroe turns to his dad and says "be careful, it's gettin' slippery here" and kicks against the floor to communicate that it's slippery

a few minutes later, a reporter will go up to John McEnroe to interview him and McEnroe will agree to it but then he'll immediately excuse himself and say he'll be right back. then he'll do the same thing to me, and then he'll do it again to another reporter. it's really weird because generally if someone doesn't want to do your interview, they just politely decline and that's that. John McEnroe has the air of a man whose wife just told him she wanted a divorce 15 minutes before he had to leave to go host a gala and he hasn't told anyone else yet

so anyway, Fred Wilpon walks away from John McEnroe and John McEnroe's elderly father and gets stopped by an NBC television reporter and gets interviewed and i am standing right behind Fred Wilpon during the interview. if you are watching the local news on NBC tomorrow in New York, and you see Fred Wilpon getting interviewed and there's a kid standing right behind him typing on his BlackBerry, i am that kid and this is what i am typing

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile


"David "Shapiro" is 22 and lives in New York City and has a Tumblr.

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]]> i am drinking a fruity cocktail inside Cipriani, a gala hall on 42nd Street that's about the size of a football field and decorated like a palace. mike is around here somewhere, interviewing the general manager of the New York Mets. tonight we are at an event that is hosted by the Police Athletic League to honor the organization of the New York Mets, who, as the security guard at work told me today, are one of the worst teams in professional baseball despite their enormous payroll. behind me, a heavyset man with a Queens accent and a haircut from Goodfellas walks through the entrance and admires the lavish setting and says "so this where they're puttin' all their money, huh?" and some other heavyset guys laugh. the haircuts here fall mostly into two categories: wispy white comb-overs for the Mets organization and junior bouffants and crew cuts for the Police people

in front of me, 1980s Mets icon Keith Hernandez is milling around by himself and sipping a cocktail. he's the person who i want to talk to most tonight beside Jim Leyritz, another Mets icon who was charged with manslaughtering a woman while he was drunk driving but got off in 2009 because she happened to be drunker than he was and was not wearing a seatbelt. life is like that sometimes i guess. anyway, Keith Hernandez is very tall and looks exactly like he did when he starred in a Seinfeld episode like 15 years ago

so i go up to Keith Hernandez and say "hi my name is david and i write for a culture website—can i ask you one question please?" and Keith Hernandez nods and i ask "what is your favorite Seinfeld episode beside the one you're in?" Keith Hernandez says "i don't really watch it..." and i give him a bewildered look like "how could you not watch Seinfeld? you're Keith Hernandez, one of the stars of Seinfeld!" and Keith Hernandez says "i just don't watch primetime TV—it comes on right when i'm eating, you know?" Keith Hernandez is very warm and i nod even though i don't think Seinfeld has been on in primetime for at least a decade

i ask him if he watches his own episode and he says "well, yeah, i watched it a couple times, but i can't watch it that much because i get embarrassed. sometimes i'm channel surfing and it's on..." and then i thank Keith Hernandez, who, as i'm disappointed to realize, doesn't really like Seinfeld but doesn't want to say it explicitly

then i walk back to the press area and drink another cocktail and wait for more guests to arrive. there is an elevated DJ booth in the corner of the room and right now the DJ is playing a spirited live version of Cheeseburger In Paradise by Jimmy Buffett and a few minutes ago he played a Frank Sinatra song whose name i don't know. i think if the NYPD had music charts, Frank Sinatra would have completely dominated for the last 70 years

then mike comes over to the press area and the New York City Police Commissioner walks in and gets his picture taken by about 15 photographers. i notice he has a single raindrop on his shoulder, probably a drip from the ice melting on the scaffolding outside. it is almost poetic. mike leans over and whispers "what are you gonna ask him?" and i whisper "probably what his favorite cop movie is?" and mike goes "shit that's a good one, can i steal it?" and i think about it and say "okay fine". later he will tell me that the Police Commissioner's favorite cop movie is Police Academy

then a man with a junior bouffant haircut goes up to the Police Commissioner before we can reach him and says "this is a real nice function, thanks for havin' us here" and they shake hands. then another guy comes up to the Commissioner and introduces him to a man who looks like he's about 3000 years old and whose hair is so wispy that he makes Gandalf look like Jimi Hendrix. zing! and so now the Police Commissioner is talking to this old dude about their rain footwear. the Commissioner is wearing black synthetic winter boots and the old dude is wearing tan leather Timberland boots. the Commissioner says "yeah, these get great traction and they're very light" and he lifts the sole of his boot to about the height of his knee and the old dude inspects the boot and seems to approve

a rollicking rendition of Piano Man by Billy Joel plays over the PA

then mike interviews the Commissioner and then i do. the Commissioner is receptive to my questions and doesn't look like he's trying to get away from me which is a quality that doesn't go unappreciated in any conversation. i ask him what artists he's listening to right now and he tells me he has very eclectic tastes and that he really likes Foo Fighters, The Rolling Stones, and Rod Stewart. i ask him what the last song he listened to was and he tells me "something by Enya." man i didn't see that coming

then i wander around for a few minutes, surreptitiously following the cocktail waitress who is carrying the tray of pigs in a blanket and every few minutes i eat one. i know she thinks there is something wrong with me because guests are not supposed to follow the cocktail servers around gorging themselves on hors d'oeuvres, but we were told that we had to leave before dinnertime, so all the free food i'm gonna get out of this is gonna come in blankets

then John McEnroe walks in and gets his picture taken by the 15 photographers. he is hosting this gala and he looks really nervous. me and Mike watch him from a distance and try to generate questions as Is This Love by Bob Marley is playing over the loudspeaker and a generously proportioned woman takes a self-pic with John McEnroe. now he is talking to the owner of the Mets, Fred Wilpon, and he seems really weird because he shuffles his feet and speaks hurriedly and doesn't make much eye contact. mike notices too and whispers "do you think he's on something?" and i shrug

then a heavyset old man in big black sunglasses walks in and John McEnroe hurries over to him and says "take your glasses off, stay awhile!" and then introduces Fred Wilpon to the man in the black glasses by saying "say hello to my father, john mcenroe senior" and they all chat for a while and John McEnroe turns to his dad and says "be careful, it's gettin' slippery here" and kicks against the floor to communicate that it's slippery

a few minutes later, a reporter will go up to John McEnroe to interview him and McEnroe will agree to it but then he'll immediately excuse himself and say he'll be right back. then he'll do the same thing to me, and then he'll do it again to another reporter. it's really weird because generally if someone doesn't want to do your interview, they just politely decline and that's that. John McEnroe has the air of a man whose wife just told him she wanted a divorce 15 minutes before he had to leave to go host a gala and he hasn't told anyone else yet

so anyway, Fred Wilpon walks away from John McEnroe and John McEnroe's elderly father and gets stopped by an NBC television reporter and gets interviewed and i am standing right behind Fred Wilpon during the interview. if you are watching the local news on NBC tomorrow in New York, and you see Fred Wilpon getting interviewed and there's a kid standing right behind him typing on his BlackBerry, i am that kid and this is what i am typing

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile


"David "Shapiro" is 22 and lives in New York City and has a Tumblr.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/new-york-city-police-commissioner-told-me-he-likes-enya/feed 3 Unemployed Man's Aptitude at Nut-Opening Rewarded By Health Benefits http://www.theawl.com/2010/05/mans-aptitude-at-nut-opening-rewarded-by-health-benefits http://www.theawl.com/2010/05/mans-aptitude-at-nut-opening-rewarded-by-health-benefits#comments Wed, 12 May 2010 11:20:12 +0000 Dave Bry http://www.theawl.com/2010/05/mans-aptitude-at-nut-opening-rewarded-by-health-benefits CAN DOSince losing my job as an editor at a music magazine last year, I've been thinking a lot about what else I could do to earn a living. I have a lot of records and I can write pretty good and I edit okay with the help of spellcheck. But these things do not seem to be as lucrative in today's market as they might have been in the past. (They were never really that lucrative in the first place, I don't think.) More than once, I've had the conversation with my wife like the famous one from Seinfeld, wherein George and Jerry are talking about what kind of job George should try to get and George wonders whether he might be able to become a general manager of a baseball team since he likes baseball, or a projectionist since he likes watching movies. Pretty depressing, I know. I am as unoriginal as I am single-faceted. When I think of things that I am actually good at, like better than other people, I always end up at the opening of pistachio nuts.

I am really good at opening them. Even the difficult ones. I've never entered into a competition or anything, but I really think I might be exceptionally good at it. I end up opening and enjoying many pistachio nuts that I think would go uneaten by most people, tossed back in the bowl, dumped into the garbage with the empty shells. I don't mean the totally sealed ones, of course. I'm not getting out the exacto knife for 1/49th of an ounce of protein. Those do go in the garbage. But give me the slightest slit, a fingernail's breadth of daylight, and more times than not, I'll work my way in. I'm diligent, but really, it doesn't usually even take me that long. Find the purchase, crack the hinge. Call it a gift.

So then yesterday there's this article at the BBC talking about how nuts are so healthy and that eating them has been proven to lower your cholesterol level. And I read it and I'm psyched, because the last time I had a check-up-which was much too long ago. I need to make another one, which unfortunately will entail finding a new doctor, because my doctor has moved to Long Island or something. There was a letter in the mail like six months ago. When I had my last check up, my cholesterol level was too high-my bad cholesterol level, I guess I should note, since there are good ones now, too. The since-disappeared doctor told me I should try to eat less cheese and meat or whatever and to lose a little weight. (And to drink less and to not use certain types of drugs that I sometimes like to use, etc. etc.) She said I should make another appointment in a couple months, and that we'd check the level again and if it hadn't gone down maybe she'd prescribe me some Lipitor or something.

So I tried to change my diet for a while, and I tried to go jogging more often. But I gave it up pretty soon. And didn't ever call to reschedule another appointment. Because I really didn't want to go on Lipitor. And then I lost my job and stopped jogging altogether, because being unemployed has, strangely, made me feel busier than I did when I had a job. And then the doctor moved. So I was sure my cholesterol level would be higher than ever now. And this was kind of bumming me out. Because, while I don't want to go on Lipitor, I also don't want to die. I have a kid and stuff. But maybe the one thing that I'm actually good at will save me.

---

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]]> CAN DOSince losing my job as an editor at a music magazine last year, I've been thinking a lot about what else I could do to earn a living. I have a lot of records and I can write pretty good and I edit okay with the help of spellcheck. But these things do not seem to be as lucrative in today's market as they might have been in the past. (They were never really that lucrative in the first place, I don't think.) More than once, I've had the conversation with my wife like the famous one from Seinfeld, wherein George and Jerry are talking about what kind of job George should try to get and George wonders whether he might be able to become a general manager of a baseball team since he likes baseball, or a projectionist since he likes watching movies. Pretty depressing, I know. I am as unoriginal as I am single-faceted. When I think of things that I am actually good at, like better than other people, I always end up at the opening of pistachio nuts.

I am really good at opening them. Even the difficult ones. I've never entered into a competition or anything, but I really think I might be exceptionally good at it. I end up opening and enjoying many pistachio nuts that I think would go uneaten by most people, tossed back in the bowl, dumped into the garbage with the empty shells. I don't mean the totally sealed ones, of course. I'm not getting out the exacto knife for 1/49th of an ounce of protein. Those do go in the garbage. But give me the slightest slit, a fingernail's breadth of daylight, and more times than not, I'll work my way in. I'm diligent, but really, it doesn't usually even take me that long. Find the purchase, crack the hinge. Call it a gift.

So then yesterday there's this article at the BBC talking about how nuts are so healthy and that eating them has been proven to lower your cholesterol level. And I read it and I'm psyched, because the last time I had a check-up-which was much too long ago. I need to make another one, which unfortunately will entail finding a new doctor, because my doctor has moved to Long Island or something. There was a letter in the mail like six months ago. When I had my last check up, my cholesterol level was too high-my bad cholesterol level, I guess I should note, since there are good ones now, too. The since-disappeared doctor told me I should try to eat less cheese and meat or whatever and to lose a little weight. (And to drink less and to not use certain types of drugs that I sometimes like to use, etc. etc.) She said I should make another appointment in a couple months, and that we'd check the level again and if it hadn't gone down maybe she'd prescribe me some Lipitor or something.

So I tried to change my diet for a while, and I tried to go jogging more often. But I gave it up pretty soon. And didn't ever call to reschedule another appointment. Because I really didn't want to go on Lipitor. And then I lost my job and stopped jogging altogether, because being unemployed has, strangely, made me feel busier than I did when I had a job. And then the doctor moved. So I was sure my cholesterol level would be higher than ever now. And this was kind of bumming me out. Because, while I don't want to go on Lipitor, I also don't want to die. I have a kid and stuff. But maybe the one thing that I'm actually good at will save me.

---

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2010/05/mans-aptitude-at-nut-opening-rewarded-by-health-benefits/feed 24 Dear Emily http://www.theawl.com/2010/03/public-apology-dear-emily http://www.theawl.com/2010/03/public-apology-dear-emily#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:20:49 +0000 Dave Bry http://www.theawl.com/2010/03/public-apology-dear-emily apologyDear Emily,

I'm sorry for wearing sweat pants to our first dinner date and for getting stoned before meeting your parents for the first time.

This was in 1999, before we were married. We'd been friends for a couple years at that point, and had recently started seeing each romantically-the result of a particularly drunken night at the WXOU Bar on Hudson Street, near where we lived in the West Village. I'd asked you out for a first proper dinner date, to Hangawi, a fancy Korean restaurant on 32nd Street.

It's funny now to think about what I was thinking as I got ready to meet you. It was a Saturday, and I had been wearing a pair of green sweatpants that I used to wear on weekends. They were the kind that George Costanza used to wear on Seinfeld, the kind that Jerry once said announced to the world, "I give up. I can't compete in normal society." It occurred to me that I might change into something else, but I stood in my bedroom and thought for a minute and decided against it. I put on a white polo shirt and my Converse All-stars and walked out the door.

It wasn't that I was trying to feign ambivalence, to give the impression I didn't care enough to put on pants with buttons and belt-loops. I had made it very clear, in fact, that I wanted us to be girlfriend and boyfriend. If anything, you were the one who took some convincing. (Glaringly easy, in hindsight, to see why.) My thinking, as best I can explain it, was more along the lines of "take me as I am." I was a guy who wore green sweat pants on a Saturday. I wanted to make a good impression, but changing pants for that reason felt wrong. Like I'd be faking it, presenting myself as someone I was not. This type of thinking makes very little sense to me now and is derailed by something as simple as the fact that I certainly didn't wear those sweat pants exclusively. I had lots of other pants, many of which I often changed into before dinner without much thought at all. But that day, I felt myself in the hands of fate: These were the pants you put on this morning, these are the pants you shall wear tonight.

I don't know. I used to be really superstitious, too. And that's just a terrible way to live. I was smoking too much pot those days, I suppose.

Which brings me to the second part of this apology. A couple months later, our relationship having miraculously survived my sweat pants, you'd arranged for us to go to dinner with your parents-my first time meeting them. Bored, sitting around my apartment that afternoon, I came to the same kind of question as before: Here was a situation in which, on any other day, I would be smoking pot. Should the fact that I was soon to be meeting these important people, the parents of the woman I was falling in love with, should I let that change my routine? I knew that I'd be brighter-eyed and clearer in conversation if I refrained, and I definitely wanted your parents to like me.

But then I thought, well, the way things are going, chances are I'll be spending a lot of time around these people in the future. There would be lots of days like this. I wasn't planning on making any major changes to my personal lifestyle. They might as well get to know me half-lidded and cloudy-headed. I packed a bowl.

Dinner went fine. Your parents turned out to be groovy 60s-types anyway. Towards the end of the evening, after I recognized a reference one of them made to the Steve Martin-Lily Tomlin movie All of Me, and mentioned that it was as a favorite of mine, your dad said, "Anyone who appreciates All of Me is all right by me," and my heart felt warm in my chest. I'd lucked out.

Still, thinking back, it seems pretty stupid. There's a reason most people would choose not to get stoned before meeting their girlfriend's parents. Just like there's a reason to change out of sweatpants before going on a date to a fancy restaurant. Making decisions based on principle rather than pragmatism is a prescription for failure. Even more so when the principle is so confused and self-defeating.

Was all this a test for you? I guess in a way it was, odd as that sounds. Not that I'd meant it that way. But I remember the expression on your face when we met at the restaurant for that first dinner date. You looked down at my sweat pants, and then back up to me, and gave a bemused little sigh. "So this is how it's going to be, huh?" You thought for a second more and said, "All right."

Again, I lucked out.

---

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]]> apologyDear Emily,

I'm sorry for wearing sweat pants to our first dinner date and for getting stoned before meeting your parents for the first time.

This was in 1999, before we were married. We'd been friends for a couple years at that point, and had recently started seeing each romantically-the result of a particularly drunken night at the WXOU Bar on Hudson Street, near where we lived in the West Village. I'd asked you out for a first proper dinner date, to Hangawi, a fancy Korean restaurant on 32nd Street.

It's funny now to think about what I was thinking as I got ready to meet you. It was a Saturday, and I had been wearing a pair of green sweatpants that I used to wear on weekends. They were the kind that George Costanza used to wear on Seinfeld, the kind that Jerry once said announced to the world, "I give up. I can't compete in normal society." It occurred to me that I might change into something else, but I stood in my bedroom and thought for a minute and decided against it. I put on a white polo shirt and my Converse All-stars and walked out the door.

It wasn't that I was trying to feign ambivalence, to give the impression I didn't care enough to put on pants with buttons and belt-loops. I had made it very clear, in fact, that I wanted us to be girlfriend and boyfriend. If anything, you were the one who took some convincing. (Glaringly easy, in hindsight, to see why.) My thinking, as best I can explain it, was more along the lines of "take me as I am." I was a guy who wore green sweat pants on a Saturday. I wanted to make a good impression, but changing pants for that reason felt wrong. Like I'd be faking it, presenting myself as someone I was not. This type of thinking makes very little sense to me now and is derailed by something as simple as the fact that I certainly didn't wear those sweat pants exclusively. I had lots of other pants, many of which I often changed into before dinner without much thought at all. But that day, I felt myself in the hands of fate: These were the pants you put on this morning, these are the pants you shall wear tonight.

I don't know. I used to be really superstitious, too. And that's just a terrible way to live. I was smoking too much pot those days, I suppose.

Which brings me to the second part of this apology. A couple months later, our relationship having miraculously survived my sweat pants, you'd arranged for us to go to dinner with your parents-my first time meeting them. Bored, sitting around my apartment that afternoon, I came to the same kind of question as before: Here was a situation in which, on any other day, I would be smoking pot. Should the fact that I was soon to be meeting these important people, the parents of the woman I was falling in love with, should I let that change my routine? I knew that I'd be brighter-eyed and clearer in conversation if I refrained, and I definitely wanted your parents to like me.

But then I thought, well, the way things are going, chances are I'll be spending a lot of time around these people in the future. There would be lots of days like this. I wasn't planning on making any major changes to my personal lifestyle. They might as well get to know me half-lidded and cloudy-headed. I packed a bowl.

Dinner went fine. Your parents turned out to be groovy 60s-types anyway. Towards the end of the evening, after I recognized a reference one of them made to the Steve Martin-Lily Tomlin movie All of Me, and mentioned that it was as a favorite of mine, your dad said, "Anyone who appreciates All of Me is all right by me," and my heart felt warm in my chest. I'd lucked out.

Still, thinking back, it seems pretty stupid. There's a reason most people would choose not to get stoned before meeting their girlfriend's parents. Just like there's a reason to change out of sweatpants before going on a date to a fancy restaurant. Making decisions based on principle rather than pragmatism is a prescription for failure. Even more so when the principle is so confused and self-defeating.

Was all this a test for you? I guess in a way it was, odd as that sounds. Not that I'd meant it that way. But I remember the expression on your face when we met at the restaurant for that first dinner date. You looked down at my sweat pants, and then back up to me, and gave a bemused little sigh. "So this is how it's going to be, huh?" You thought for a second more and said, "All right."

Again, I lucked out.

---

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32 comments

]]> http://www.theawl.com/2010/03/public-apology-dear-emily/feed 32 "Curb Your Enthusiasm": Jerry Seinfeld Reconsidered http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/curb-your-enthusiasm-jerry-seinfeld-reconsidered http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/curb-your-enthusiasm-jerry-seinfeld-reconsidered#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:00:30 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/curb-your-enthusiasm-jerry-seinfeld-reconsidered Okay, fine, you're both funnyDid you watch "The Simpsons" last night? I did, and about halfway through I had a weird and difficult-to-categorize feeling that I was only later able to identify as shock that the episode did not entirely suck. I'm not making any claims for its greatness, mind you, but it was one of the few times in the last, say, ten years where I saw a new "Simpsons" episode and thought, Well, wow, that wasn't terrible.

Which brings me to "Curb Your Enthusiasm."


I was slow to warm to "Curb Your Enthusiam." It probably took me until the second season, with its "Survivor" joke, before I finally got on board. I know plenty of people who can't stand it, because the humor can be off-putting or downright annoying, depending, but whatever, it worked for me. For that reason I thought the last season's finale-with Larry a full member of the Black family-was almost the perfect way to end the series, because it was so unexpected and not in keeping with the rest of the show. It was the perfect absurd capstone.

So I was already predisposed to dislike this season. It seemed a little too meta, in that, like "Seinfeld," it was a show past its prime going back for another bite of the apple. (I also have a theory that every episode of "Curb" is a direct analogy to an episode of "Seinfeld," but lord knows it will take someone with much more fortitude and interest than I to get tangled up in those weeds.) And, at least for the first half, I was considerably less amused than I had been previously. The show was trying too hard, Larry was too obnoxious, the scenarios were too outlandish, etc.

But the last couple episodes, with the "Seinfeld" reunion, were indeed some of the funniest television I've seen this year. And they managed to do something I would have thought impossible: They made me rethink my distaste for Jerry Seinfeld and his eponymous show. What to me was one of the more interesting aspects of "Curb" was the way that it seemed to be Larry David's claim to the legacy of "Seinfeld," i.e., "Everyone thinks the show was all Jerry, but really, look how much of it was me." It's like Keith Richards' first solo record (Talk Is Cheap, 1988), where you're all, "Oh, right, THAT GUY. I knew he was good, but I had no idea how much of the sound came straight from him.") What has been absolutely amazing about the end run of this "Curb" season is the way that Jerry Seinfeld, appearing on Larry David's show, has been able to present himself as, yes, just as much the voice of "Seinfeld" as David. The meta is off the charts.

Watching the episode-within-an-episode last night, hearing all the familiar "Seinfeld" cadences, really made me wonder: Why do I hate "Seinfeld" so much? I mean, I liked it when it was on. It was certainly fresh for its time. Is it the endless repetition, the fact that you are more than likely to flip past it at least three times a night? It it some kind of reverse nostalgia against the nineties? Whatever the reason, last night's "Curb" finale made me reconsider.

But let's end it here, shall we? I mean, how are you gonna have a better series capper than that?

---

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27 comments

]]> Okay, fine, you're both funnyDid you watch "The Simpsons" last night? I did, and about halfway through I had a weird and difficult-to-categorize feeling that I was only later able to identify as shock that the episode did not entirely suck. I'm not making any claims for its greatness, mind you, but it was one of the few times in the last, say, ten years where I saw a new "Simpsons" episode and thought, Well, wow, that wasn't terrible.

Which brings me to "Curb Your Enthusiasm."


I was slow to warm to "Curb Your Enthusiam." It probably took me until the second season, with its "Survivor" joke, before I finally got on board. I know plenty of people who can't stand it, because the humor can be off-putting or downright annoying, depending, but whatever, it worked for me. For that reason I thought the last season's finale-with Larry a full member of the Black family-was almost the perfect way to end the series, because it was so unexpected and not in keeping with the rest of the show. It was the perfect absurd capstone.

So I was already predisposed to dislike this season. It seemed a little too meta, in that, like "Seinfeld," it was a show past its prime going back for another bite of the apple. (I also have a theory that every episode of "Curb" is a direct analogy to an episode of "Seinfeld," but lord knows it will take someone with much more fortitude and interest than I to get tangled up in those weeds.) And, at least for the first half, I was considerably less amused than I had been previously. The show was trying too hard, Larry was too obnoxious, the scenarios were too outlandish, etc.

But the last couple episodes, with the "Seinfeld" reunion, were indeed some of the funniest television I've seen this year. And they managed to do something I would have thought impossible: They made me rethink my distaste for Jerry Seinfeld and his eponymous show. What to me was one of the more interesting aspects of "Curb" was the way that it seemed to be Larry David's claim to the legacy of "Seinfeld," i.e., "Everyone thinks the show was all Jerry, but really, look how much of it was me." It's like Keith Richards' first solo record (Talk Is Cheap, 1988), where you're all, "Oh, right, THAT GUY. I knew he was good, but I had no idea how much of the sound came straight from him.") What has been absolutely amazing about the end run of this "Curb" season is the way that Jerry Seinfeld, appearing on Larry David's show, has been able to present himself as, yes, just as much the voice of "Seinfeld" as David. The meta is off the charts.

Watching the episode-within-an-episode last night, hearing all the familiar "Seinfeld" cadences, really made me wonder: Why do I hate "Seinfeld" so much? I mean, I liked it when it was on. It was certainly fresh for its time. Is it the endless repetition, the fact that you are more than likely to flip past it at least three times a night? It it some kind of reverse nostalgia against the nineties? Whatever the reason, last night's "Curb" finale made me reconsider.

But let's end it here, shall we? I mean, how are you gonna have a better series capper than that?

---

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27 comments

]]> http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/curb-your-enthusiasm-jerry-seinfeld-reconsidered/feed 27 What is the deal with cum stains? http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/what-is-the-deal-with-cum-stains http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/what-is-the-deal-with-cum-stains#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:08:21 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/what-is-the-deal-with-cum-stains Here is a tale about a group of artists who faced adversity because of a commitment to verisimilitude that made creative compromise an unimaginable option. Fortuitously, a solution to their problems presented itself in the most unlikely fashion, resulting in a heartwarming denouement.

---

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5 comments

]]> Here is a tale about a group of artists who faced adversity because of a commitment to verisimilitude that made creative compromise an unimaginable option. Fortuitously, a solution to their problems presented itself in the most unlikely fashion, resulting in a heartwarming denouement.

---

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5 comments

]]> http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/what-is-the-deal-with-cum-stains/feed 5