bye-atus

After a nice long break, I'm slipping on the ol' shitproof suit and heading off to work Monday. Don't feel sorry for me. Hiatus was good and I feel satisfied. Here's the scorecard:

I walked around and looked at stuff.

On a few occasions I drank during the day.

I read books.

I visited faraway lands.

I dipped my toes in two oceans (not pictured: me).

I bowled at a professional level.

I finally signed up for facebook. Like two days later, my boss made me a facebook friend, effectively ending the facebook experience for me.

I took the kid out for some homemade old timey ice cream.

I biked like a madman.

I found out that one of my favorite bloggers had not retired. Through him I learned what RSS is and now I use it. Sort of.

I tried a bottle of the Tiger Woods Gatorade, and I believe it took my performance to the next level. It's hard to tell, though, because the day I drank it I was just sitting around the house watching TV. I did feel stronger and more focused while doing it. I think.

I got a new gadget which allowed me to take slightly better pictures of meaningless crap.

I ate lunch right next to Mickey Rivers and Oscar Gamble and failed to recognize either of them.

I found what's left of my game on the empty courts of Orange County and brought it back East in the overhead compartment.

In NYC I lugged it out onto the court against 2 or 3 separate groups of 18-22 year-old kids who played beautifully and didn't act like babies. They gave me hope for the future of the game I love. Beating them and having them shaking their heads at what the fat man can still do gave me hope that I can keep playing into my 40's.

I made plans for my first trip to Chicago since 2004. Leaving Thursday.

I drank some gross green healthy shake things and started to watch what I eat and as a result lost maybe 20-30 ounces.

I didn't grow a moustache. I'll always have the Summer of '07.

Hope you enjoyed your summer. It's over, you know.

it must be tuesday

I woke up this morning and decided to fulfill my Central Park Reading Day plan. Around noon, I began riding up the East Side on my bike. My apologies for the quality of these photos -- they were taken by a) my iPhone or b) my old digital camera, which is all kinds of fucked up, as you will see. I am getting a new camera soon. Regardless, you can click on these photos to make 'em bigger.

The view from the East Side bike path:

The East Side bike path sucks, by the way. It ends around 30th street, so I had to ride up pothole-covered First Avenue. But before I got off the path I saw this piece of sensible graffiti:

I agree with that, and I also agree with a not-too-crowded sheep meadow, a 78 degree day and not a care in the world. Man this HIATUS is good.

I was already deeply, deeply happy, and then I remembered that I didn't have a beer. Nobody came around selling it, so I hopped on the bike and made a deli run. I returned with a couple of cold pals. The only company I would need.

Everybody was feeling right. Frisbees flying, girls pulling their boyfriends' pants off, the whole deal.
Below: my formula for satisfaction. It was a great New York day and I didn't need to add much to it. This book Cruddy, by the way, is incredible. I am only about 80 pages in but I feel a deep connection with it.
I decided to head home down the West Side, and stopped for a Gatorade in a depressing deli on Amsterdam. This guy looked like he could use a Gatorade, too. Maybe Fierce Melon flavor.

The West Side bike path is so much nicer it ain't even funny. I rode all the way around the tip of Manhattan and then back up the East Side. When I ride by myself I play a little asshole game where I sort of pretend to get pissed when other cyclists pass me on the bike path. I don't ride very fast, until I get passed. Then I take it as a mini challenge. I wait until the moment is right, when it doesn't seem to be intentional, and then I retake the lead. When I stopped to take a picture of this duck some completely unathletic looking hausfrau in blue jeans passed me. I made it my mission to pass her. But somehow she just kept pulling further away, and her legs were barely moving. She must have been in some supersonic cosmically aligned gear. I continued following her down the path and shifted to a higher gear. Finally, after like 60 blocks, I passed her. Man I bet she learned a thing or two. She was probably genuinely concerned that I was following her with malicious intent, and decided to just let me pass. Whatever, I'll take the win, baby!

Look at these working stiffs! Ha ha ha! Hey guys, don't forget to set the alarm tonight!

I bet Deion knows what building this is. There was a guy in an Orioles hat fishing off the path right around here but he didn't want me to take his pic (I asked). I did ask if he was a fan and he said no.

It was a great day. If I die in my sleep tonight, I went out on a high note. I may do it again tomorrow, if the soreness in my verbungle subsides. And on Thursday crsmal is coming in to the city for a samwich and a beer. You're invited. No, not you. You!

stfu vol. LVII

Dear Pals,

Perhaps chastened by the guilt from my unedited, stream-of-consciousness asshologue the last time I went out drinking, I have successfully managed to bite my tongue at least twice in the last week when somebody said or did something that I knew in my heart needed to be addressed with sarcasm/spite/insults, etc.

Part of me is still itching to say something, but I think the restraint makes me a better man.

Oh, and this HIATUS has been incredible. Much better than last year. Obviously not having the constant anxiety about my father's health is part of it, but I am also just treasuring every second more than I did the first time. I keep reminding myself that this is why I worked so hard all year, so I can get my loaf on in the summertime. There has been bowling, daytime drinking, bike riding, basketball playing, NBA Finals watching, movie going, baby tickling, and we're just a week in. Still ahead: reading day in Central Park (maybe Monday) where I lay in sheep meadow with my new book ("Cruddy" by Lynda Barry) and slurp on a contraband Bud purchased from one of the hobo/entrepreneurs who stroll through the park with coolers full of refreshing beverages and still have the decency to refrain from overcharging too badly. Also: I am going to buy a DSLR soon. Suggestions welcome.

Yours in leisure,

Hans

my everest

So HIATUS has been pretty productive so far. On Tuesday I was able to check something off my list of athletic triumphs. Read it and weep, kids. My first 200 game. What strikes me (no pun intended) is how hard I had to work. I mean, after the first frame I had no open frames at all and I still needed to pick up a difficult spare in the 10th to break 200.

Anyway, check it off the list. Next up: shattering a backboard (as Michael Jordan does in this rarely seen clip from a 1986 Italian exhibition game):



The only thing that could make that better is if they scored the clip with music from "Crocodile Dundee." Wait...they did. Shit.

Hopefully the heat will break on Wednesday and we can all walk around outside for more than ten minutes without getting clammy and stinky. It's been in the mid-90s for at least three days now. Wednesday afternoon -- watching soccer at Tom & Jerry's with Pete B.

another embarrassment in a lifetime full of 'em

It's been a rough stretch for me. I feel like I've been buried alive for the last 6 months but the tip of my nose is finally busting through the dirt and breathing real air again.

I think it might be HIATUS time. I'm afraid to say it out loud (SHYATUS?) because I wasn't sure I was even getting a HIATUS but now I seem to be on it for at least a couple of weeks and man is that a just-brushed feeling I could get used to. I haven't given it nearly as much thought as I did last year, and maybe that's good. I'll just see what happens. Who's up for a daytime drink this week?

I am about to sign a three year contract at my job. Holy hell am I worried. I hope it gets easier. The bright side is that I negotiated a much better deal for myself so at least I am OK with my compensation level.

On Friday I went bowling with a bunch of people from my old job and dear friends I overdid it again on the drinking. I made a raging ass of myself. I told people truths they should never have heard. I guzzled down what they put in front of me and asked for more. I laughed and slapped backs and pretended I knew all the answers. Not just to my problems, but to his and hers and yours. If you didn't have a problem I'd assign you one and solve it within minutes. For a good two hours, I felt like the goddamn King. And it's a safe bet that if I feel like the King at some point in the night, I will rise in the morning with the shame of a thousand sinners weighing on my soul.

That's what happened. A rough morning and a day full of resurfacing snippets of stupidity from the night before. I still haven't put it all the way behind me.

After more than 20 years together, I am not even one step closer to figuring out the mysteries of booze. My relationship with alcohol is similar to Bruce Banner's with stress -- during sober times I am mild mannered, cautious, insecure, always worried about saying the wrong thing. The minute the cold beer hits my lips I am alive with confidence, unstoppable, surging, arrogant, obnoxious, not nearly as fun or clever as I think I am but determined to prove otherwise. And I am usually shirtless and wearing purple pants. Stay away from me.

I wonder if my drunken asshole personality is a closer reflection of who I am than my sober scared schoolboy personality. I wonder if the real me lies somewhere in the midlle. I wonder if the reason I am so aggressive when I am drunk is that I have so much repressed rage swelling up inside me from biting my tongue all the time. Mostly I just wonder if I'll ever learn.

Hey, maybe I will try to eat better and exercise during my break...I could stand to lose about 25 pounds. LOSEWEIGHTUS.

simple and right

Look, there's not that much going on right now, so I am going to keep talking about HIATUS and the moustache project and that type of crap. You may not really care about that stuff, you may be all, Enough Already, but I won't stop. All I can say is, when you see this moustache, you are going to have a hard time not falling in love with it. In love with me. In love with us.

So feel free to click elsewhere for awhile if you aren't interested. This is what we're about right now.

So my HIATUS is going to (finally) officially start on Tuesday. I guess you could say it starts today but I am working a few hours on Tuesday (and not getting paid, long story). How did that happen? Where did HIATUS go? Where have all the cowboys gone? My HIATUS is now less than a three week deal (although I did have two weeks in Cali that were pretty spectacular, have to count those). The reduction in time off has forced me to scale back my little boy dreams about what exactly is going to go down in the next three weeks.

I gotta simplify. So here's what I got (in addition to the usual glorious things I do every day):

1) See my ailing pops as much as possible.
2) Play basketball enough so that I suck 42% less than I do now. The last time I played was an embarrassment to pudgy pushing-40 fuckups everywhere.
3) Read at least one book. First, probably the Paul Auster book that Mrs. Sandals just loaned me. Then finish Stop-Time.
4) Have afternoon drinks at least one time.
5) Write a story based on an idea I had as I was going to sleep the other night. Not a great idea but good enough to get out of bed and write down.
6) Ponder how the Knicks just managed to get more unlikable. Zach Randolph? They didn't give up much but I would rather have nothing than have him.
7) Grow a moustache. It starts on Monday and runs through the end of July, which has prompted me to finally give it a name: The Monthstache. It's like a reunion tour of your favorite band. You have a limited time to catch it so don't miss out. I think I'm going for a Don Mattingly 1984,
with a dash of horrible late-period Eddie Murphy as well:

There, that's it. Very manageable.

HIAT-US

So Joe Monkeyweb is on HIATUS, too. Unbelievable. This may have a major impact on my HIATUS plans.

As of right now, I am leaning towards spending a lot of my HIATUS with my dad in his new apartment in Brooklyn. He is getting discharged from the hospital on Tuesday for the 6th time in the last 6 months. The guy just won't quit. So obviously it's going to be important and meaningful to hang with him as much as possible. And I will. I'll probably ride me bike out to Brooklyn two or three times a week.

So without doing the math, it's becoming clear that HIATUS is not going to be a two month solo excursion into immortality. There's too much to do. It's going to be great, but it will probably end up only being a handful of days that I am free to just fuck around or pursue greatness.

Which is fine. But it does make the moustache project even more critical. And with my buddy Joe joining me 'on the chill' (that's slang for 'on HIATUS'), I am starting to dream big.

I think it's a given that Joe will join me in the project. The question is, do we just grow our fur peacefully and organically, let the 'staches grow up together as friends? Or do we turn it into a competition, with daily photo updates and a space for you to vote? Do we shave the moustaches on the final day and weigh the trimmings to determine a winner? Do we pair our moustaches against two other 'staches from the world wide web? Is anyone else out there up for this? Ideas are welcome.

I am not sure I want to tangle with Joe, I think he's had full beards in the past. I'm new to this game.

Thanks for all the reading suggestions. On the strength of two recommendations, I ended up buying Stop-Time, which was in my parents' house for years and always interested me just enough to almost pick it up. Now I am going to read that shit up nice and good.

on the beach

It was, as Ice Cube would often say to me back in the early 90's as we laid on our backs in the sand after a carefree afternoon spent wading in the surf, chasing girls and playing Kadima, a good day.

Walked in 72 degree sunshine. Played hoops at Laguna Beach. Took Baby Bungle into the ocean and she loved it.

Didn't even have to carry any keys. The less keys you're carrying, the more fun you're having.

Only downside is I got me some sunburn. Neck, nose, arms, feet, legs, and, I believe, eyeballs. Nose is looking like it might just fall right off. I used some SPF 40 sunblock, too. I guess I was a little haphazard in the application, and I paid the price.

To protect my eyes and face, I borrowed some low-budg hat and eye-wear from the in-laws. I was sexy. So sexy that I decided that when I grow my manly stache, I may have to sport some oversize cheapo sunglasses to keep it company. Picture this stud with a full-on furlip. It's scary.


Also, I kind of just plain suck at basketball these days. I had a decent moment here and there but I was out of breath and I kept getting stripped of the ball by younger and more competent players. Oh well, I did manage to win most of the games, including one against some dudes who shoulda killed us. No pictures were taken, so you'll just have to imagine how sexy I looked in my sweaty undershirt.

I hope cW's rooftop blowout was a blast, I wish I could have been there. Rooftops + Warm Weather + Beer = Guaranteed Fun.

I saw Spiderman 3. Piece of shit. And I loved 1 & 2.

I am also looking for a nice HIATUS read. I bought a Babe Ruth biography and I can already tell it sucks. I think Mrs. Sandals is hooking me up with a Paul Auster book I haven't read, but until then I am open to suggestions. As always, a good coming of age novel would be swell.

hold my calls, shirley

(note: this post was created the other night; I am now in California)

The air will taste fresher tomorrow, the Cheetos will be crisper, the Budweiser will be richer and more complex.

That is because tomorrow I am officially on god-diggity-damn HIATUS, you poor working stiffs.

I will fly to California at 9am. California is a land of righteous yellow sunshine and sea breezes and bouncing basketballs, where men are free to grow the moustaches of their choice. Where children wake up with smiles on their faces and the homeless body-surf themselves clean. I can think of no better place to launch the Summer of Slack.

Moustache Update:
6/2-6/15: HIATUSing in cali with in-laws, moustache unlikely
6/18-6/22: back at old job for one additional week of work, moustache possible
6/23-7/22: more glorious HIATUS, in NYC. Moustache probable. Fuck that. Moustache definite.

It's a nice stretch of relaxed living and I deserve it. I will be taking care of Baby Bungle on Mondays and Fridays, so it's really only three days a week that I will be completely free to do whatever stupid thing I can think of, which means I'll probably have only 12 such days all Summer. Shit, I feel like it's over already.

7/23: HIATUS and moustache end. I make two columns on a piece of looseleaf paper and decide if life is still worth living. If so, I return to job.

I'll miss you, Summer of '07. We only danced for a short while, but I'll never forget the way you felt against me. Or the way your teeny mouth quivered when I told that my moustache was your moustache. Girl, we were meant for each other. Kiss me again before I grow up.

stop the flop

Jeff Van Gundy, who is turning out to be a somewhat entertaining and insightful announcer (I like the sarcastic interplay between him and Mark Jackson -- it's like a slightly more intelligent update on Bill Walton vs. Snapper Jones), went off the other night about flopping and how he hopes it is addressed next season by the league. I agree 100%.

Flopping, and the way defenders leap dangerously underneath driving offensive players in an attempt to draw charging fouls, is the single biggest reason basketball isn't as much fun as it used to be.

In the Golden Age of Basketball, an offensive foul used to happen a few times a game, when the player with the ball either:

1) Cleared out space with his off hand as he shot
2) Ran at full speed into a defender who was planted.

Rarely, and I admittedly have no statistical data to support this, would an offensive player be called for a charge when he had already left his feet on his way to the hoop. Nor when he was backing down a defender in the post. Now the paint is full of bodies. Guys are diving all over the place searching for calls. Defenders are scrambling to get in front of driving offensive players in an insane race "to the spot." Guys are falling down and getting hurt. Whistles are blowing. Flow is interrupted. Channels are turned.

Suggested solution:
1) Review game tape and punish floppers with a point system leading to an eventual suspension.
2) Stop calling offensive fouls when guys are being undercut. Stop calling offensive fouls when dudes fall down after a post player leans on them slightly. Adjust the dial on block/charge by like 25% until guys stop using "step-in and take the hit" as a defensive strategy.

One guy who plays pure defense is Andrei Kirilenko. He rotates off his man to help, he goes after blocks and steals, he tries to stay in front of the guy he's guarding, but he doesn't resort to flopping and begging. As much of a mess as he is offensively, he is a joy to watch on D.

***

Hope you had a good weekend. I have only three work days left until HIATUS. I have started putting together some ideas for how I will spend it. Thanks for your suggestions. I appreciate DLee's thought that I should be looking for another job that is less soul-sapping. I probably won't get around to it, though. I'm fucking spent. One thing I will attempt to do is eat better. Stay away from the chunky chews. Get back to my sexy weight.

Disjointed new softball recap is live.

hiatus 2007: when I became a man

The 2006-2007 Shitsacking Season has kicked me in the balls with tremendous force nearly every day. In fact, even outside of work it's been a challenging and exhausting year. And the next 5 weeks may be the hardest of them all. I think on Tuesday I am scheduled to kill a man at 10 am and then tell his family about it on a conference call after lunch.

5 more weeks of working Saturdays and Sundays, staying late every night, having a pit in my stomach, making the Anxious Hans face, and gasping for sweet air at the end of the day.

But then, and here comes the good part, I go on HIATUS. For June and possibly half of July, I will be free. Free to do what I want, any old time. The dark side of the HIATUS period is that the real possibility exists that I get laid off when HIATUS starts, in which case HIATUS becomes BYE-ATUS. I have a one year contract and it's expiring, so if they wanna dump me they can. No questions asked. Some of my friends probably won't be back next year. And it could definitely happen to me as well. (5/3/07 edit: I didn't get laid off! Some friends did however.)

But I am not worried about that. All of my available brain units are focusing on two things:
1) Surviving the next five weeks.
2) HIATUS, bitches.

During HIATUS, I will be on the dole. This completes the Bungle legacy -- now my entire family (mom, pop, sis, me) has been on unemployment at one time or another. $350 a week is what I hear. We should be OK because I am making decent dough throughout May. America, expose for me your glorious teat and I will suck it contentedly for two months straight.

So the question becomes, What will I do on HIATUS? Somehow I only started thinking about this the other day. And now I can't stop thinking about it. It's like 6 straight weeks of Christmas. It's fucking unprecedented.

Here are some preliminary thoughts. I invite you all to weigh in on these and suggest more of your own (10 GP's for every suggestion that I actually implement).

-Get in shape -- not bloody likely. Even if I have 16 free hours a day, I will probably come up 15 minutes short of the 15 minutes of non-sports-related exercise I'd need to make a difference.
-Rediscover my love for basketball and play it 3 or 4 times a week. Get good at it again. Possibly ride my bike around the city, playing on different courts and using the experience as a launching pad for a story about how the sport has changed my life over the last 24 years. Most likely I will just play once or twice a week and not write any such thing. I'd still be satisfied.
-In a related idea, get my bike up and running and ride that shit all over the place. Explore the city. Check out some cool things I never checked out before.
-Smack it up, flip it, rub it down, oh no.
-Spend a couple of afternoons at the bar. Sipping beer, talking shit. Maybe go to that beer garden in Queens. Hey, take the day off. Join me. I just need to clear it with the wife.
-Go to a couple Yankee games alone and sit in the bleachers. The last time I went to a baseball game alone was in 1987, when my friend Herm was supposed to meet me on the 59th street subway platform and didn't show up. I tried calling him but he didn't answer, so I just went and sat there at the game and it was still a good time. Later I found out that the reason Herm hadn't shown up was that he'd been in a terrible bike accident that left him with a big (and sexy) scar on his face.
-Take a class, better myself in some measurable way
-Count down the Final Days of Barker on The Price Is Right
-Read three great books (suggestions, please)
-blog like a rabid badger
-Spend time with Baby Bungle -- as of now she is all mine on Mondays and Fridays.
-Grow a moustache. This is as inevitable as your own approaching death. It will happen. It's out of our hands now. The universe has spoken, and it wants it to happen. As you should do whenever you are reaching for greatness in life, I even did a trial run last weekend. I had a pre-stache for about four hours, including our Sunday softball game. The game was great (recap, anyone?), and so was the pre-stache, as you can see here:

I'll think of more later.

It's gonna be a hell of a summer.