A More Perfect Union

I come across these things too late - it's a week old - but you must watch this in its entirety, particularly if you're considering watching a rerun of America's Next Top Model instead. Whether or not you're voting for him, take a look.

Assimilation

1. I was on the train back home last night and there were a bunch of assholes at the 57th stop keeping the doors open for one of their friends for an obscenely long time (#5 in the "How to Be Rude on the Subway" photo below).



It went on for awhile, and of course the train can't leave when there's an idiot holding the doors open. They do this all the time, and everyone else on the train hates it and groans and mutters to themselves (the cardinal rule for commuters in NYC is to remain anonymous), and the train conductor usually yells at them through the speaker, never to any avail. But out of nowhere I screamed "GET OFF THE TRAIN!" and the one holding the door looked at me, stopped grinning, let the doors go, and got off the train.

2. Walking to work today, I came to the corner of 2nd and 70th and saw one of those huge industrial hampers on the corner amidst a pile of trash, and there were legs sticking out of the top of it. There was stuff piled in the hamper, so I couldn't see if the legs were attached to anyone. They had some Nikes on and white socks, and jeans. Definitely human legs. There was no smell, so I figured he wasn't dead. I walked on and forgot about it until just now.

Assimilation, baby!

40/sushi

Drank a 40 for the first time in about 11 years last night. It was surprisingly refreshing. Probably because it wasn't genu-wine malt liquor, like King Cobra or Colt 45 or Crazy Horse or Ballantyne or Olde English or Mickey's or Ice Man:



It was Bud Light, which probably doesn't count. But it remained fresh for the hour and a half it took me to drink it, which runs counter to everything I remember about drinking 40s in the 90s. They were usually stale about halfway down, and if you gestured while drinking, completely undrinkable after 2/3rds. That didn't stop us.

Saw an old friend in San Francisco last week and it brought back some memories of the good ole days when we used to go up to Bobby's garage attic, drink 40s, play darts, and start trouble. One of the other regulars at The Cave, as it was called, was Kate, who wildly and coincidentally now lives about 3 blocks away from me in Brooklyn. We got together last night and decided it was time to revisit the concept of the 40. We ordered sushi and downed the heady brew and discovered, to our utter delight and amazement, that it pairs deliciously and quite perfectly with a spicy tuna roll.

I was going to wrap this post up with an insightful paragraph about the pairing of 40s and sushi and how it's an apt metaphor for the youthful abandon and tightly-wound responsibility of married life without children in NYC at age 33, but I couldn't pull it together. Sometimes 40/sushi is just 40/sushi.