Whole Foods for Thought

As we all know, Amazon bought Whole Foods last week for 13.7 billion dollars. When asked why, Jeff Besos said "I was hungry." Ooh, never shop when you're hungry Jeff. That's the first rule of shopping; well second, if the first rule is don't talk about shopping. Anyway, I'll argue that, a lot like the fruits and magazines and juices in the front of Whole Foods, this was an impulse buy. CEOs, they're just like us!  Except, where we say we are going to buy something from the market, they say we are going to buy the market. We better get some good Whole Foods Prime out of this or something. I don't care what, just something. 

I am glad that Besos bought Whole Foods, I just think he payed too much, almost as if he shopped at Whole Foods. For comparison, here are some other things that he could have bought with 13.7 billion dollars: 

- 163679 tesla model x's with money left over to upgrade the seats.

- 15 penthouses in 432 Park Avenue with some money left over to knock down the walls in between.

- 113,223,140 NYC MTA monthly metro cards, and still be late to work because it's the MTA, which stands for "making travel awful", with a little money left over to stop at Starbucks for a dark roast.

- 849.4 miles of Trump's border wall, although I believe Mexico is paying for it

-  4 Air Force Ones, with money left over to hire Harrison Ford to yell "Get off my plane!"

- My identity, including all of my personal information and my dignity, with 13.69999 billion left over to build 849.39938 miles of Trump's border wall.

These are just a suggestion. He is his own man. Hey, don't let me tell you how to run the most successful online store of all time. But I'm just asking "Whole Foods, really?" I would have bought Trader Joe's. I'm a sucker for frozen food. 

Let's Get This Show on the Road

Remember that I want to make a book out these posts? Well, first I had the crazy idea to  make a live show out of them, where three selected posts become monologues by me, and then teams do improv based on what they heard. Cause if it ain't improv, no one's buying. It'll be fun. It's called 700 Mondays, a la Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays and it'll be at the People's Improv Theater on the Striker main stage for your viewing pleasure at 9:30 pm tomorrow. Come on out if you can. 

This gets me to thinking. Its time that book finally comes out. Its time to get the 'ol show on the road, as they say. Well, I don't want them to toot their own horn, but they are right. By the end of this year, I will have the manuscript. Hold me to it. I need a little fire in my belly. I finally got started on writing a spec script of a TV show, so who knows? I'm feeling like I can accomplish anything. 

It's a nice feeling. I think people really respond well to those who are confident that they can accomplish anything. If you don't have confidence, fake it until you make it. If you do have confidence, make sure it's not arrogance. The two look interchangeable but beget different results. Anyway, come to the show tomorrow. I'd love to see you there. I'm confident that you will enjoy it!

I'm Feeling Spiritual

I cry at funerals. There, I said it. It doesn't even have to be the funeral of anyone that I'm close to. I'll just cry like I knew the person my entire life. I'm a bawler, what what!! I guess it means I'm sensitive or whatever (ew gross). That can be good, in moderation. "Shove it down, Charlie. Control yourself." So don't invite me to your funeral, unless you want me to cry all over you. Or do invite me. I don't care. It's your funeral.

I've been to too many funerals. It wasn't something that my parents ever shielded me from. It's like "Someone died, the funeral is Wednesday, and you're going." I had no time to say "No." I'm so used to going to funerals now that whenever I hear I'm going to one, the first thing that I instinctively ask is "Lox or corned beef?"

But it's more than that. Funerals can really put things into perspective. You hear all of these stories you've never heard, you meet people who were very special at one time or another to the deceased, and you reflect on your own life in a way that means something. We take life for granted, so it's always good to stop and take stock of what you've got. And by take stock, I mean try the chicken soup that the deceased family has generously made.

I went to a funeral/memorial service this weekend. It was the right blend of spiritual and religious. There was one psalm, and it wasn't the one you're thinking of. The rest of it was poems and heartfelt stories. They were really nice. It was like a poetry slam without the snapping. And we planted a tree next to the ashes of the deceased. That's the right way to do it, I feel.

Sorry this post wasn't "funny." (But, let's be honest, have any been?) I'm just feeling spiritual and doing some thinking. I'll snap out of it. But this is where my head is right now. Well, my head is right here, on my body, but you know what I mean. I guess I just have to go live in the woods for a week. Alright, if you need me, I'll be in the forest, by which I mean hugging one of the few trees that I can find in Brooklyn. Does anybody know if trees grow here?

*walks outside, passes a bodega, sees a small, saggy tree, and hugs it*

Bye Bye Bedstuy

Bye bye Bedstuy and hello... still Brooklyn?  (Record scratch!) That's right, I've gotten so good at moving in New York, that I've given up my pipe dream of living in the sewers of Manhattan (all I can afford) and stayed within the runty stepchild that is Brooklyn in the NYC borough family. And I've gotten so good at moving in general that I've realized something: I've become my parents.

Look, we all knew it would happen eventually, I just didn't think it would be so soon. However, if you rent a Uhaul twice within the span of one year in order to lug junk from one locale to another, you, by definition, are my parents. There is no denying that.

The only difference here is that the move was as easy as the morning we did it on: Sunday. It took approximately four hours, and I only had to pay one friend to help. Luckily, he accepts my preferred method of payment: a medium unsweetened ice tea with lemon from Dunkin' Donuts. Uhaul takes actual money and I didn't care for that.

Yesterday, I was so sore that I couldn't move until 12:00 pm. This is lame, unless you take into account the fact that I was running around all week and weekend between two apartments trying to pack and move all of my stuff. And I have a lot of stuff. We all do. But, it was a rainy Memorial Day, so it was ok for me to relax and to remember the good people who have perished in the good fight for this country. Everything that makes it possible for me to switch apartments on a whim.

The new place is great. My girlfriend is there so that's good. And we are making a room our own. My creativity is running wild. Currently, I'm working on a musical called Bye Bye Bedstuy!, which is a parody musical of Bye Bye Birdie. The only commonality between them that I can think of so far is the turtle on speed. But I'll get others. Don't worry. It's part of the process. Now, of you'll excuse me, I need to go unpack.

Win, Place, Show

Well, I've said it before and I'll say it again; Cloud computing is the way to go! What am I talking about? The horse, of course. This Saturday was the ever popular Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown. (by the way, my improv team Second Leg is performing at the Triple Crown on 7th Avenue on Friday in what can only be referred to as "A competition improv show.") If you were tired of the horse stuff two weeks ago, I don't know why you came back. It'll be more of the same.

Well, not exactly. This week, let's look at only the top three. What happened is considered to be a major upset, like that time David beat Goliath. You see, Always Dreaming was asleep at the wheel and Classic Empire was all set to reign (wordplay!) when out of nowhere, maybe the clouds, Cloud Computing was like "Let me hack this race." And what a hack-a-thon it was. He tore up the last few furlongs like Jack the "furlong' Ripper. Everything fell into place, well, really only Classic Empire, who came in second. 

Senior Investment came out of nowhere, much like many senior investments do, and really put on a show, meaning he came in third. Senior Investment comes from old money, I'm guessing, and so it's easy to imagine why people would buy into him so much. All I can say is that most of my investments will happen when I'm senior aged, because I have no money now. But I'll have money later, or so they tell me.

Anyway, I'll be going now. It's late, your eyes are tired from my terrible color background, and nothing good can come from reading this much longer. Catch ya next week!

Reply All

Today is one of those days, trust me. It's a Monday, and I feel about this Monday the way Garfield feels about all Mondays; I hate it. I'm just extra tired today from being up late last night. But in my defense, I was at the glorious Triple Crown Ale House & Basement playing the devil in Hell, and by that I mean I was in the Triple Crown basement. So I have a boring reason for being tired. I don't hate all Mondays (#notallMondays). That would be daycist of me (#All MondaysMatter). They'll be marches for both of these causes that you can attend later in June. OK? I've already made a sign.

But that's kind of what I want to say tonight. Being tired affects how we communicate with each other. Now, on a good day, my responses back to people are jumbled, incoherent, and don't make much sense. But today, especially, my response this morning to "Hey, how's it going?" was downright wrong. I replied "Have a good one." We've all been there, am I right?

What had happened was I walked into the bathroom to take my morning dump at work like a young professional, and I bumped into a coworker who said the above mentioned greeting and I said my above mentioned response and this all sounded better in my head. Point is, you don't know what I meant. I could've been asking a question about his peeing, like "Have a good one?" See, I care about office morale. I want to make sure everyone has good pees. You don't know. That could be what I meant. You don't know. 

Anyway, it's been bugging me all day, although he didn't seem to notice, and maybe I mumbled it. Aww, who am I kidding? I definitely mumbled it. Could this be a win for my mumbling, finally breaking it's 0-700 losing record? Maybe...? Am I going to end this blog with a bunch of rhetorical questions? Probably, what's it to you? Leave me alone. I'm exhausted. 

I Didn't Even Have a Horse in the Race

As many of you know, the first leg of the Kentucky Derby took place on Saturday at Churchill Downs, where some 20 odd horses raced around a track for about 2 minutes. The off-again on-again weather proved to make things difficult, but still 158,070 people showed up to watch little people ride horses and risk their lives. Sure, it's all Fun and Games until Someone Loses An Eye (not real horses, but they could make great names). I watched the whole race, so that entitles me to give you my review of each horse and where they finished. Let's begin.

1. Always Dreaming took the top spot, proving that if you believe, you can achieve. I guess dreams really do come true. 

2. Looking At Lee must've been kicking himself instead of the ground, because he spent the entire race looking at Always Dreaming as he trailed in second place. 

3. Battle of Midway managed to end up showing in third place, proving that not all hard fought battles are worth fighting for.

4. Classic Empire couldn't seem to break the top three, finishing about 8 lengths behind the number one spot. Ha! Classic Empire! 

5. Practical Joke was my clear favorite to win the entire thing, but after a whoopie cushion of a start, he took a pie to the face instead of a win in first place in that great big horse race.  

6. Tapwrit couldn't seem to be tapped hard enough by his jockey, so naturally he held a leaderboard spot but fell to the middle of the pack. I guess Tapwrit will have to go back to being some type of legal document, I'm not sure.

7. Gunnevera couldn't get his nerves "gunder" control, as he flopped around on the muddy track for way too long. Afterwards, he was quoted as saying "Come on, did you really think a horse with 'never'  in it's name was going to win?" I guess not.

8. "Unleash the McCraken!" is what they would they have said if McCraken ever showed a chance at breaking the top five. Here's a horse with a nautical name but naut a good finishing time.

9. Gormley had terrible formley and normley I wouldn't root for him, so yesterday was a big convincer that I'm always right, uniformley. 

10. Irish War Cry couldn't be heard, as the deafening sound of the nine horse in front of him crushed all of his hopes.

11. Hence wished he could have finished one place ahead of where he ended up. Hence, he could be hence in tenth place.

12. Untrapped felt exactly the opposite. Never even broke the top ten. I would call that a prison of his own design.

13. Girvin sounds like a navigation system, but that didn't help because he was lost the entire race. I guess he'll always be a virgin at Churchill Downs. 

14. Patch couldn't "patch the gap" between himself and Girvin and the other 12 horses in front of them. Such is life when your name is a noun and a verb.

15. J Boys Echo did anything but, finishing at a disappointing 15th. None of the boys was able to echo to any of the other horses. Try again next year, boys!!

- The Glue Factory Scoreboard (I assume that the last 5 horses go straight to the factory.) 

16.  Sonneteer waxed poetic about finishing in 15th place or above, but alas, could. not. beat. the competition. *snap* *snap* (said as a beat poet squeezes a bottle of Elmer's Glue all over the place.)

17.  Fast and Accurate wasn't. 

18.  Irap spit hot bars, and I by that I mean he spit on the hot bars of the gate as poor technique led to an even worse finish.

19.  State of Honor finished 19th in a state of disgrace. What he lacks in stamina and ability, he also lacks in his name's potential.

20.  Thundersnow was all show, right from the start. And much like thundersnow, the event, a lot of loud noises and white stuff is coming up. Loud noises being the sound of machines at the factory and white stuff being an endless supplie of glue for children to eat.

I hope you enjoyed the race as much as I did. It really was a good one. See you in two weeks as we race for the 2nd part of the Triple Crown.  (Also, come see my new improv team Thundersnow at the terrible Triple Crown Ale House in NYC.)

FDNY Not?

Update on last week!  The only thing gassier than me is, apparently, my girlfriend's apartment. We got a phone call Friday night that said that the FDNY broke the door down to stop a gas leak. I'm glad they were able to shut it off. I'm a little jealous of the apartment, trying to steal my gas title by "threatening to explode!" How petty!

You would think that I would have only had to interact with the FDNY once this weekend. Well, you'd be wrong, you idiot. I saw them again for a totally unrelated reason. This reason is my brother's worst fear come to fruition: a stuck elevator. I can now check "stuck in an elevator full of Asian people" off my bucket list.

I used to live near Koreatown. Koreatown isn't so much a town as it is a street in midtown Manhattan. I lived in the building opposite the rooftop bar that I was hanging out in on Saturday. That was easy street. I called it easy street because my rent was $1500, and I could easily see myself living on the street. How lucky I was to be alive right then! I've since moved far away, but I'll always remember that building for what it had: working elevators. (Close friends/visitors will point out that the elevators were regularly under maintenance and usually not working. Shhh!!!) The hotel NYMA, right behind my old apartment, needs to get itself together. 

We had gotten tired of paying way too high prices for way too sweet margaritas at a way too high up bar. It was called Cloud Social, which I thought was the sequel to Cloud Atlas, the only movie featuring Tom Hanks that isn't three hours long. But alas, it's just a bar where you can talk to and look at the clouds (touching costs extra!). Well, we were done with it and ready to move. A bunch of us piled onto the elevator, about 14 in total. We hit the L button and made our descent. The elevator hit floor L, but the doors never opened. 

We were stunned. Some people started to get scared. I was confidently telling everyone that the doors take a while to open. No one was buying it, especially not the doors. They remained shut, like the legs of girl you just insulted. In fact I'm pretty sure I did insult the girls behind us in the elevator. The first thing we all felt was the heat. I don't want to say it was hot in there, but at one point we were drawing dicks on the foggy doors. Drawing dicks on the foggy doors is a euphemism that I use for sex, but in this case I meant it literally.

Someone had the bright idea to call 911. I said good luck, as AT&T gets terrible service everywhere. We got a hold of the police (whoop! whoop!), who had the FDNY show up. Ladder 24, to be exact. Fine men there. They yelled through the doors to make sure we were ok, and then insulted us by saying that the elevator got stuck because we had too many people in there. I challenged (Point/Counterpoint). If you think of the average person as weighing 150 pounds, then 14 x 150 = 2100 pounds, weigh under the 2500 pound limit. Take that, FDNY. Just get us out of this elevator. 

They pried the elevator open with a crowbar. We were not in fact at the lobby. We had gone about 2.5 feet past. The cinderblock ledge we stepped up on to was the lobby. I let the ladies and children exit first, then I gingerly stepped up out of the elevator with the help of August and September from Ladder 24. I ran out of the hotel, but not before inquiring about the rates and if there was an elevator discount. The front desk guy wasn't amused, but I wasn't expecting him to be. I'll be contacting management.  

All in all, it was a good elevator story. My favorite part was when the guy behind us said "Can we stop the unnecessary talking, it's fogging up the elevator?" And then a bunch of us slowly suffocated him with our belts. I didn't stick around to see what FDNY did with him, but hey, at least the doors were a little less foggy. Heat rises, so we all helped him go low. Moral of the story? I used to live in midtown Manhattan, right by Koreatown. 

What's that Smell?

There's two questions that you can ask me where the answer is always yes. Those are "Are you farting?" and/or "Did you just fart?" I don't know what's wrong with me (probably my diet), but I have a constant stream of gas. I'm like the embodiment of the Dakota Access Pipeline. We should mine me for natural gas. I'm thinking about replacing National Grid as being the sole supplier of gas to New York City. Someone let me know if this is something that I can do. I've been looking for a new job. 

Although, it is the one thing that makes me hesitant about changing jobs now. Because I've spent all of this time customizing, getting used to, and farting in this desk chair; to change it now would be a pointless. Although, maybe I'm just thinking of the sunk cost fallacy, or as I call it, the stunk cost fallacy, which says you shouldn't consider time and money spent doing something a reason to stay involved with it. But, I digest (not properly, I'm assuming, based on the smell).

I've mastered every type of fart. Silent, silent but deadly, silent but lively, monotone, monosmell, cute, and crop duster. It's my own built in defense mechanism. Like comedy. Anybody walking behind me is subject to a fart in their face. And also my comedy in their face. Both are enough to scare people into walking the other way. One day I'll finally find a way to harness this power and use it for good. Let's just chalk it up to another superpower that I have. So until next time, this has been Methane Man saying Peace!!!

You're Not Making a lot of Cents

Well, it was only a matter of time. You knew it would happen eventually. You just didn't think would be so soon. But here I am, about to ramble on and on about small change again, a subject near, and dear, to my pocket. And it might not amount to much, or might make a lot of sense. I don't know, you decide. 

See, I think about small change in a big way. If you place a high amount of value on the smallest part of something, that bigger something is going to matter. Take the larger act of recycling. Do you do it? I mean really do it. Why not? Is it too confusing, too hard, or does it take too much effort? Don't worry, I won't judge. I'm not on any high horse. (They're too expensive and most apartments don't allow them. What is this, 2 Broke Girls?)  The point is, we don't care enough to be motivated to recycle, or at the very least, take a plastic bottle or can back to the store. Here in NYC, they charge a bottle deposit per can/bottle. It's only $0.05. Most people are like 'screw it, I'll forget the nickel.' But what did we just talk about? It's just me and the Chinese lady, standing at register 6, both screaming Bottle! until someone helps us. Why does $0.05 motivate me and not you? What number would motivate you?

I've asked a lot of questions, so I'll go back to rambling. It never really crosses anyone's mind, the small change amounts, I mean. But what if you're me, buying a bagel from the market every morning? When the bagels cost $0.34 a pop, it sure as heck makes cents to count pennies. These little guys add up. Now, that's the kind of change that Barack Obama was talking about. Also, they are legal tender and should be treated as such. (What if this turned into a PSA about the penny? That would be weird...)

If you want to see me give a shout out to the penny, watch this month's The Late Stream on Facebook Live. Follow it on there. My friend is doing a good thing producing a great late night show and if you take the time to watch, I'm sure you'll have fun. It's free, which as you know, is even cheaper than a penny.