Someone Might Say “Only In New York” About This One

Here’s something you don’t hear every day: There’s a great story about Jews in the sports section. In what might come as less of a surprise, it’s about the lead bond lawyer for the financing of Yankee stadium, who happens to be a Jew. His name is Jonathan Ballan. As the Times reports, Ballan “reserved the stadium for his son’s bar mitzvah on Saturday, June 5. In addition to providing lounges, the Yankees promised to give the Ballan party access to the stadium’s giant scoreboard in center field for 30 minutes.” (No word on whether Jay-Z and Alecia Keys will perform “Empire State of Mind” and “Hava Nagilla,” but one would think it’s a possibility.) Unfortunately the Yankees are now in negotiations with boxing promoter Bob Arum to hold a major bout in the stadium that same night-one which would draw some 30,000 fans to watch the World Boxing Federation’s 154-pound champ Yuri Foreman-who happens to be an observant Jew!-fight Miguel Cotto (a shaygetz). So the three parties have to work it out. “The price of the bar mitzvah is at issue,” Arum told the Times. You don’t say.

One possible solution is that the bar mitzvah still be held in the lounges, while the bout takes place on the field. But of course, the Ballans would have give up use of the scoreboard. Foreman has offered to meet the bar mitzvah boy in his locker room before the fight. The Yankees would give the kid and his friends autographed baseballs. And Arum has offered all the bar mitzvah guests free seats for the fight.

So okay, here’s what Ballan should do: Take the offer of the free seats for the fight. But then just expand the bar mitzvah guest list a little, say to, up around 25,000 guests. And maybe let it be known that for this particular celebration of a Jewish boy’s passage into manhood, the family is expecting presents slightly more generous than the traditional $36 gift certificate to J&R; Music World. Nothing unethical, mind you. But, you know, if you use your yiddishe kop a little bit, you can maybe figure out a way to turn a nice profit out of the situation. Fershtay?

Everyone’s still talking about that Esquire profile of Roger Ebert, including Roger Ebert. It’s a terrific post script to a terrific article.

Oh, crap! What are Republicans going to do if the economy actually picks up? Short answer: mostly yell about terrorism.

Wu-Tang Trio’s Choice In Group Name Disappoints Dork

Bummer. Method Man, Ghostface Killah and Raekwon opted against “Three Wus Three 57 Trip Pyramid 3 A charm 3 U 3 Scales,” instead naming their group the more mundane “Meth, Ghost & Rae.” Oh, well. At least the album cover sufficiently caters to their middle-aged fan base’s collective inner-thirteen-year-old. Wu-Massacre is out on March 30th. In other disappointing rap news: Bronald Oil & Gas, the Cash Money Millionaires’ green energy company? Bloomberg looked into it and it seems that, thus far at least, the company exists primarily in the tattoo on Baby’s head.

“An article in some editions on Jan. 30 about an exhibition celebrating an abandoned tenement on East Third Street and the squatters who made it their home in 1986 included an erroneous account from one squatter about his involvement. The squatter, Andrew Castrucci, who had said that he was present on the first day that squatters explored the building and that he used a sledgehammer to enter a rear doorway, now says he recalls being at the building sometime after squatters first broke in, but not on the first day, and that someone else first used the sledgehammer on the rear doorway of the tenement, at 292 East Third Street.”

Hey, Lindsey Vonn won a gold in women’s downhill! Even I, who dislikes both sports and winning, sort of admire this.

Dear Owner of the White House At the Corner of Northvale and Southvale Avenues in Little Silver, New Jersey

Dear owner of the white house at the corner of Northvale and Southvale Avenues in Little Silver, New Jersey,

I’m sorry for throwing rocks at your house.

That was me that night, back in the winter of 1987. I was a sophomore in high school. My friends Will and Ted and I were coming from a party at Nancy Dorn’s house, down the block. We were loud, laughing, wasted-drunk. Someone had brought a bottle of vodka. We sat around a coffee table in the den, filling tall glasses and chugging long gulps-daring each other to do more. We had to go fast, Nancy’s parents were only out for the evening. One time when it was Ted’s turn, he said he needed a chaser, and asked me to get him some water. I went in to the kitchen and found a bottle of gin-Nancy’s parents’ I suppose (there’s another apology due)-poured a healthy, refreshing-looking glass of that instead and took it back to the table.

“Here you go, man,” I said. Ted took a deep breath, downed half a glass of the vodka and quickly reached for the chaser. “Ha ha,” I said, as he ran into the bathroom to puke.

Everyone except Ted really liked that joke. He would get me back, though, more than a year later (memory like an elephant, he had) with tequila disguised in a bottle of light beer. “That’s for that time at Nancy Dorn’s house, asshole,” he said, as I was leaned over a garbage can in Kevin Thistle’s backyard.

Anyway, this is the kind of idiots we were. And we were full-on that night, still early as it was, probably around 11 o’clock, when we spilled out of Nancy’s. No one knew what to do. We had nowhere to go. Everyone else left. So we just started walking. Ted was extra riled up, I think, because he’d left Nancy’s house without making-out with her, which is something he got to do sometimes but not always, and particularly not after his supposed friend had made him puke in front of everybody by giving him gin instead of water. Upon getting out on to Northvale, he tried to karate kick a little wooden lawn display thing in a neighbors’ yard, but he’d missed and caught his foot over the top, and fallen flat on his butt. This was about the funniest thing that Will and I had ever seen. And Ted soon joined us in laughing and then just shouting curse words at the sky. “Fuck it!” he shouted. “Yeah, fuck it!” we shouted. “Suck my dick!” “Yeah, suck my dick!” Cursing just to curse. Punishment, though, basically, for anyone unlucky enough to share our sleepy suburban town with us.

None of this is to excuse or even explain, really, the fact that as we staggered, cackling, past your driveway, I picked up a handful of gravel from your driveway and threw it at the façade of your house. It could have broken a window. I’m very glad it didn’t. For all I know, you had children, even babies maybe, sleeping inside. The question of what I was thinking barely applies. That I was some kind of rebel? A punk rocker? In my Army-Navy-store trench coat, like Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club, and L.L. Bean duck boots, laces left loose, but just so, with little knots tied at the ends, to keep them from slipping out of place. Embarrassing to remember.

We must have been making enough noise on our approach for you to be on the alert, because not ten seconds after the pebbles strafed the shingles-I’ll never forget the sound, a clatter like shuffling cards-your garage light flicked on. Then you were there, in your yard, a bobbing flashlight beam racing towards us. “Holy shit!” Will shouted, and we took off.

We crossed Northvale and bolted into someone’s backyard. You followed us, close, maybe thirty yards behind. But you didn’t say anything. Not “Stop” or “Hey, you kids!” Nothing. There was just the herky-jerk bounce of the light when I turned to look. This made me think you were very serious and I realized that you had more in mind than just chasing us off your property. “Go! Go! Go!” Will said, from right next me, all of us still laughing as we ran. “He’s coming!” It was clumsy, sprinting all bundled up, and so drunk. But we kept our lead. Maybe you were wearing slippers? Maybe you were old?

Adrenaline cleared what had been a blurry night. I remember the particles of mist in the halos of back porch lights as we went from one yard into the next. In front of us, hedges appeared. Ted lowered his head and charged into them. I followed, thinking we’d burst through like football players or something. No. There was a chain-link fence inside, or just on the other side, that absorbed us for a moment then flung us backwards and then onto the hard winter ground. Stunned, amazed, we got up quickly and kept going. Will had found the perimeter and we went around that way. Another yard. Then came a tall wooden fence, the kind with flat, pointy pickets and two horizontal crossbeams. Will, who actually did play football, and very well, for the school team, jumped up to climb over. I watched as the whole length of it, forty feet probably, all tipped forward with his weight and fell flat with him on it. We howled and kept going. Will scrambled up, Ted and I passed him. Then there was the pool that the wooden fence had enclosed. Covered in a taut, springy tarp for the winter. We didn’t see it, and screamed when we found ourselves stumbling, splashing, knee-deep in very cold water. I fell forward and caught myself with my hands, soaking my coat before scrambling out.

We kept running. Slogging, really, now in wet clothes, to the edge of the next yard, where we slowed, and then walked, panting, not believing what had just happened. It was like the scene in The Naked Gun when the guy drives into the oil tanker and then the missile launcher and then the fireworks company. I don’t know when you’d stopped chasing us. Before we’d hit the hedges? After we’d knocked over the fence?

Back on the street, we split up, in case you’d called the cops, and headed off in separate directions to sneak into our parents’ houses and make up lies to tell the next day.

I don’t know if I’ve ever had more fun. Still, I wish I hadn’t done it, for what it’s worth.

Dave

BREAKING: A man will end nearly three months of silence Friday when he speaks for the first time about a thing that happened to him, after which other things that he had done came to light. The man will speak to a small group of trade reporters at 11 a.m. Friday from a room in a space where the man works occasionally in his chosen profession. “This is all about the next step,” a representative of the man’s business interests said. “He’s looking forward to it.” Everyone is very excited and curious about what the man will say. He must be very important.

You-can-imagine-who (okay, Andrew Sullivan) provides a fascinating explanation of a Catholic rejection of torture. (I mean, obvs, not that you need a religion to build such a defense! Just mostly that it becomes downright impossible to make a case for torture as a Catholic. But folks can sure try!)

Thinking about sex will improve your performance on analytical tasks, while thinking about love will boost your creativity, says Science. However, thinking about sex with someone you love marks you as a self-delusional romantic or someone with a very poor imagination. (Science didn’t say that part, but you know it’s true.)