Magic Jewball

Just as I thought, a good twelve hours at the Open made me forget all about yesterday’s traumas. Yes, twelve! How could a person spend twelve hours (give or take, with transportation) there? Let’s examine (click to enlarge photos).

10am – time I’m supposed to leave

10:30 – time I’m supposed to leave, only more so

10:45 – time I actually leave

11:35 – run like an old OJ commercial through the Tennis Center. People! Out of my way, David Nalbandian awaits me.

11:40 – finally ensconced watching David Nalbandian play no-name German “Other Guy.” Despite promise in JBall to sit amongst rabid Argentineans, actually sit behind mild-mannered German family with clean-cut hair.

11:41 – notice Nalby is losing, first of several heart attacks commences. Goes on to lose first two sets. Anxious muttering in the hopes of controlling his play with my mind.

1pm – look up to see Whitey McRacist on the big screen. He won his match. Fucker.

2:20pm – fifth set! Instead of being dismayed that the 4th seed is playing so miserably against Other Guy, I’m thrilled that I have brought him to this moment WITH MY MIND.

2:45 – Nalby wins! All is right with the world. Notice ass is stuck to seat. Man, I hate that.

2:50 – make way across Tennis Center to join Brother2 at the soon-to-start Hingis match. Yeah! Go Chucky. Pause to consider mortgaging apartment for an ice cream on a stick. Keep moving.

3:05 – Guy next to me asks me what country Hingis’ opponent Peng Shui comes from. Ummmmm…..yeah. That’s a real head-scratcher.

5:15 – Hingis wins! And she didn’t even need MY MIND.

5:30 – catch last 3 points of Israeli Noam Okun match. Kadimah! Okun wins, enjoys greatest moment of his life since he got out of the army, signs every autograph, poses for every picture. Wonder if security will be needed to remove Okun from court. Brother2 asks him to sign autograph in Hebrew. Autograph is abstract design of several circles. Fabulous.

5:40 – Head over to what Brother2 has dubbed “Real Brit vs. Fake Brit,” aka, Henman vs. Rusedski. Wonder if they threw Rusedski out of Canada for being a jerk. They don’t go for that in Canada, you know. Way too crowded with Brits of every accent but worth it just to hear someone say, “Come on Henman, my bruvva.”

5:55 – follow Argentineans to Gaston Gaudio/other Italian guy match. Gaudio yells at himself a lot, but he says “por favor” so at least he’s polite. Brother2 gets bored, moves on to Kukalova match because he met her earlier and feels it would ruin her match for him not to be there. Notice I’m sitting amongst Gaudio’s coach, girlfriend, and posse of twelve. They call out, “Vamos Gasti!” Teeheehee to myself.

6:25 – get a little bored myself, notice people on next court waving Russian and Paraguayan flags, realize those flags are nearly exactly the same. Peer over to match to the left and consider the merits of naming firstborn child, “Scoville Jenkins.”

6:50 – Match ends, posse of 12 hug each other, Gaudio relieved he can stop talking to himself, others are now available.

6:55 – move over to next court, the aforementioned grudge match between longtime historic rivals, Russia and Paraguay. Davydenko beats Delgado. Continue not to care too much about it.

7:30 – pop over to court next door to watch last game of Mahut/Scheuttler match. Mahut wins. Remember that I hate Mahut for being a jerk at a match the previous year. Fucker. Good haircut, though.

7:35 – rejoin Brother2 to purchase $20 hot dogs (the Kosher stand is near Court 11!).

7:45 – head to tiny Court 8 to watch former French Open champion Juan-Carlos Ferrero be disrespected by being forced to play on tiny Court 8. I’m tired. J-C is tired. Other Guy, Swiss George Bastl is tired.

10:30 – crowd helps J-C win in fourth set WITH OUR MINDS.

11:45 – ass once again on own sofa.

2am – eat, finish this post, way too tired to find song

10am – lather, rinse, repeat

The reason I’m actually here this evening to write a post is because the freaking rain drowned out the freaking US Open. I’m a little pissed off, in case my red-hot wrath hasn’t oozed off the page quite enough for you to feel it. I’m sure you’re just like me in that once your mind goes off in a ranty direction, it pretty much never comes back. Shall we follow my train of thought? Let’s. So first I started thinking about how I really should post tonight but now there won’t be any fun pictures of me and “Bob” watching James Blake at the Open. And I can’t do Jew&A because only two of my readers sent in any questions. Yeah, that just won’t do it. I’ll wait and hope for more. Then I started thinking about making up my own questions and passing them off as other people’s. Now that I’ve said that I can never do that, by the way.

That led me to think about how several other blogs steal my stuff and don’t credit me. This is not to inflate my blog’s importance, mind you, it seems to happen everywhere. You probably know who you are, especially the blog that credited me but called me Erica. Or the people that troll through the files on my server trying to steal aspects of this theme which was designed JUST FOR ME. I like to think I don’t do this. If I have, and you feel you have been wronged, send your complaints to complaintdepartment@magicjewball.com. Since that address is fake, better send any Jew&A questions you still have to the one in the sidebar.

Maybe tomorrow when I’m sitting with the Argentineans watching David Nalbandian or even with some of my brethren watching Shahar Peer, I’ll feel better about all this. Oh yeah, somewhere in the middle of writing this I realized I stole the post’s entire concept from Larry. Oops.

Deftones – Lifter

I never really got the whole competitive eating thing, not only does it look horrifically disgusting, but it’s kind of grotesque in a world where so many people are starving. However, I just realized that I spent my entire weekend doing that. Yes, it was a Becca Family Bar Mitzvah.

Let me digress for a moment and say that I think of my blog as sort of like Law & Order. The thing I always liked about that show, besides foxy Chris Noth, is that you never saw the principal characters’ home lives and it only snuck in when it was apropos of a storyline or a good joke. Sure, you knew Briscoe had been married a bunch of times and had a daughter who had a drug problem and then died, but you never really saw much of that. It was just the case of the week and that’s it. So that’s how I see J-Ball, nothing terribly personal, just as far as it fits into the post of the day.

Anyway, since I haven’t done much of anything this weekend besides shmooze with my family and eat copious amounts of food, it’s really hard to keep that all out of this thing. And I especially need to since one of the only members of my family who is allowed to read Magic J is the sister of the Bar Mitzvah boy. But she’s in Argentina for the week, so let’s sneak this in. So, this is what my family does because I have 146 cousins who I am in contact with. We all go away to a hotel for a weekend of gossip and piehole-stuffing. If it gives you an idea of how much food was involved in this weekend’s festivities, the napkins at the Saturday night event had this message, “are you still eating?!” Indeed. Between the four meals a day there was an open tearoom, and here “tea” meant a panini table and “fill your own bag of candy” bar with 85 kinds of candy. It was kind of like a cruise without the water.

But it’s kind of a rude shock to come home from a hotel with marshmallow soft bedding and meals that contain frites bars and make your own sundaes to your own pigsty of an apartment where you are required to cook your own food from a refrigerator that contains condiments and spoiled milk. Luckily there’s another Bar Mitzvah in two weeks. Bring on the elastic waist pants!

PS, the Bar Mitzvah boy did great. Now I’m off to hurl.

Mary J. Blige – Family Affair

If you don’t know that I’m a big Joy Division fan, then you just haven’t been reading my blog enough. But that’s OK. You have your own life, I understand. Even if you knew, maybe you were curious as to what my favorite JD song is. Or maybe you thought “Love Will Tear Us Apart Again” was a fine song and you wondered where to go from there.

I have about eight songs which qualify as my #2 Joy Division track but #1 stands apart and has no competition in my mind. Sure, most of JD’s songs were bleak soundscapes of lyric and music, literally music to commit suicide by. But sometimes you’re just in the mood for that. Anyway, this song is different in that it alternates between hopelessness and despair, Ian Curtis’ voice never sounding deeper. It’s fast/slow/fast, urgent/yearning/urgent. You could pretty much guess that his life and marriage were falling apart, just from these lyrics and the way they were sung.

Joy Division – Twenty Four Hours (not available on Napster, God knows why)

Lyrics:
So this is permanence, love’s shattered pride
What once was innocence, turned on its side
Grey cloud hangs over me, marks every move
Deep in the memory of what once was love

Oh how I realised how I wanted time
Put into perspective, tried so hard to find
Just for one moment I thought I’d found my way
Destiny unfolded – I watched it slip away

Excessive flashpoints, beyond all reach
Solitary demands for all I’d like to keep
Let’s take a ride out, see what we can find
A valueless collection of hopes and past desires

I never realised the lengths I’d have to go
All the darkest corners of a sense I didn’t know
Just for one moment I heard somebody call
Looked beyond the day in hand – there’s nothing there at all

Now that I’ve realised how it’s all gone wrong
Got to find some therapy, this treatment takes too long
Deep in the heart of where sympathy held sway
Got to find my destiny before it gets too late

Mostly because I’m all out of ideas, I’m going to test the statement that my friend Becky made that I can make things that usually bore you interesting. Ha, see if this is interesting!

A Coffee Break in the Life of Becca

Like most people I know, I never actually drink the swill that they call coffee in my office. Frankly, I think the machine exists because there’s some law that says businesses must provide bathrooms and coffee machines. But I’m not sure the word “coffee” actually applies to this beverage. Instead, I go to Starbucks because, well, I’ve bought into the same hype the rest of you have.

I’m going to digress here and make my daily comparison of my life to either Seinfeld or the Simpsons. You know that Seinfeld where George buys a chair for the security guard who has to stand all day (and promptly falls asleep and gets robbed)? Our security guard has to stand, but his real problem is not the lack of a chair but more the utter and complete boredom that must be his world. His territory is a hallway and a reception area with no actual receptionist (we had to get rid of her when you people started stealing music on the Internet – happy?). There’s a video loop running all the time, but, must I say it again? Our bands are crap. Plus, it’s the same 10-15 videos all day long. Sometimes I see him staring at the 10 screens in slack-jawed fashion. But mostly, he seems to have occupied himself with a new role as doorman. Yes, I’ve shared all this with you merely to tell you that on my way out, the security guard opened the door for me. Thrilling, right?

Then comes the decision of which Starbucks to go to because there are 4 within 3 blocks in any direction. And yet, I’m still not satisfied because my last office had a Starbucks right in the base of the building. Three blocks is just not acceptable. But my decision was made for me because about 3 seconds after I walked out the revolving door it started to rain. Luckily, one of the Starbucks can be reached by entering one subway entrance and exiting another. Fantastic!

Once I got there, I got on line and was amazed to see that on the line one over there was an actual Italian couple. Italians at Starbucks! It’s as though I had popped into a bagel shop in Jakarta and it was peppered with phrases people think New Yorkers say but they really don’t, like “Fuhgedaboutit” or something of that nature. I felt mortified at the thought of having to say “grande skim latte” in front of them. And I knew they weren’t just Italians who live here because the woman was wearing an “I (heart) New York” t-shirt which (pay attention tourists) is something New Yorkers never do. I’m not sure why tourists do this, sort of like the people at concerts who buy a t-shirt and immediately put it on. What’s that supposed to represent? Am I supposed to say “Hey! OMG, you like Tool too? No way!”? But, after a few moments on line, they consulted with each other and then left. Phew.

So here is my question. What’s to stop people from just wandering into a crowded Starbucks and swiping a drink right off the counter? Several drinks always seem to languish there for a few minutes. All you have to say is, “why yes, I did order a Caramel Macchiato” and walk away nonchalantly. I mean, I was once standing at the counter waiting for a drink when a couple of kids walked in, grabbed the tip jar, dumped it into a bag, and ran off in about 3.5 seconds. That place is just coffee theft waiting to happen. Maybe people waiting for caffeine are just not thinking quickly enough.

Speaking of tourists, I work in an area that has recently, maybe in the last year or so, become much more touristy. So when I was walking back to the office (it had stopped raining, if that tells you how long the line was at Starbucks) …wait, you know, it’s a cliché to tell funny “tourists standing with maps in the middle of the sidewalk” stories. I’ll spare you. You’re welcome!

When I got back, I got the inevitable indignant “why didn’t you tell me you were going to Starbucks?” questions. Because you would have made me carry you back a drink, idiot. Duh.

Then I drink my coffee and burn my tongue. No lawsuits are involved. The end. And hey, if that didn’t entertain you, at least it kept me awake during the most boring conference call known to man. I really should have gotten a venti this morning.

Social Distortion – Story Of My Life

Should you wish to give me something to actually write some sort of substance about, especially if you don’t want to read about tennis all week next week, send your burning questions about Judaism to me for my next Jew&A post. Please use the e-mail addy in my sidebar rather than a comment so as not to give away all the questions in advance. You know you love surprises.