The Pigeon Whisperer

So I’m up on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, taking in the view. Outdoors, 86 stories up, 55 degrees. Beautiful day. As I’m standing there, I notice a pigeon walking around near me on the ledge, on the other side of the guard rail. “What the hell is a pigeon doing all the way up here?” I think to myself.

A few paces away, a small cluster of people are gathered around something. I go over and see that they’re watching a man who is clutching another pigeon in one hand, belly up, as he works to untangle some thread that’s caught in its foot.

My first thought is that this man must be an employee of the Empire State Building, some sort of bird handler who is treating this wounded – or at least inconvenienced – wild animal. Then I think, wait a second. That doesn’t make any sense. This isn’t a fucking zoo. Why would the Empire State Building care that a pigeon has some thread in its feet? That’s like the city paying a guy to comb the rats’ fur in the subway.

So then I think, well what’s the alternative? That this guy just picked this pigeon up off the building ledge, and is now fucking grooming it? Is that what’s going on here? It’s not like this guy was homeless; he was around my age, wearing a beanie and a shoulder bag. I stood and watched this guy, along with like four other people, for about ten minutes. In fact, there was another pigeon on the ledge also watching, clearly distressed, because he was pacing back and forth, warbling frantically. All the while, the captured pigeon is just hanging out, calm, cool and collected, while this man holds him and picks thread out of his foot. Here’s a picture I took of this bizarre scene:

I was losing my mind. I had to know what was happening. Finally, I spoke up. “Excuse me?” I said. The guy looked up at me. “Did you just pick up that pigeon?” I asked.

“No entiendo,” he said. So there you go. Dude didn’t even speak English. He was a tourist. He had come to see the Empire State Building, and while he was up there, he fucking picked up and cleaned a pigeon. I mean, that’s a hell of a story. I’d never seen anything like it in my life.

A minute later a security guard came over and told the man he had to put down the pigeon. The guy muttered something and kept working at the bird’s foot. The guard became more insistent. The guy held up a strand of thread to the guard, who then lightly smacked the guy on the arm, saying forcefully, “Sir! Put down the pigeon right now!” Finally the guy released the pigeon back onto the ledge, its foot now unencumbered from the thread.

The guard calmed down. “That’s nice of you,” he said. “But don’t pick up any more pigeons.”

A quick epilogue: I ended up behind this guy on line for the way out. He was with a female, who he at one point put his arm around. Which means his girlfriend is totally cool with her man intimately handling stray pigeons, then handling her.

Welcome to New York.

Excuse Me, You've Got Some Shit on Your Face

I wanted to say that about a hundred times today. Every religion has its ridiculous customs. Jews are absolutely no exception. No pork? Are you kidding me? I've always said that if God himself asked me to choose between Judaism and pork, it wouldn't even be close. Bacon provides me infinite more fulfillment and inner solace than religion ever could.

But the stupidest tradition has to be walking around with a black, smudgy cross on your forehead all day long. I walked from my apartment down to the Empire State Building today, passing dozens of Ash Wednesday observers. Otherwise normal people, in normal clothes, walking around New York doing normal things, save for a huge, unsightly smear across their foreheads. They looked like extras from an exorcism movie.

I've never really noticed this practice before today, probably because I've never lived in a place where I'm amongst so many people all the time. But man, it's really a weak look. How can you expect to be taken seriously in a Starbucks or a business meeting or something when everyone is staring at you like you just tripped facedown in the dirt?

The only time I spoke to an ashhead was the woman selling the tickets at the Empire State Building. She told me admission was $22 to go to the observation deck on the 86th floor, or, for another $15, I could go another 16 stories up, to the 102nd floor. I asked her if it was worth the extra $15 to go higher.

"Well, it's a height thing," she said. "One is 16 floors higher, encased in glass."

"I understand," I said. "But in your opinion, is it worth the money for the better view?"

"It all depends on how high you want to be," she replied unhelpfully.

"You're really selling it. I'll just do the normal admission," I concluded. It was all I could do to resist licking my thumb, reaching under the glass and wiping that shmutz off her face.

Tune in tomorrow to hear about the weird scene I encountered up on the observation deck.

February: The Tuesday of Months

I just got an iPhone. My first one. Very exciting. I had a good, solid run with the Blackberry; I'll never forget those years. But it was just getting painfully obvious I needed to upgrade. I felt like Newt Gingrich, and my Blackberry was one of his early wives: frumpy, sickly, probably a real drag to bring to sexy Capitol Hill galas.

So of course, because I am me, I let the saleswoman at the Sprint store talk me into buying the protective shield that you put on the face of the iPhone. $30, and you just stick it on yourself. But because I suck at doing things myself (http://www.kaptainkvetch.blogspot.com/2011/06/light-of-my-life.html), I somehow fucked it up and got unsightly air bubbles trapped under the sticky protective film. My roommate wasted no time in publicly shaming me for taking it out in a restaurant.

Fortunately, this product came with a replacement guarantee. Anything goes wrong, they ship you a new one. I was pleased to remember this information for all of about two minutes, when I investigated how to get my totally free replacement shield, and it involved me shipping them back the old one, at my expense, and also providing them a shipping fee to send the new one.

It's such a no-brainer that I will never get around to doing this, it's almost laughable. Going to the post office these days is worse than going to the dentist. And I say that with a robust dislike of dentists. So, that's pretty much it. Another $30 just mindlessly flushed down the toilet. I hate doing that. So much.

Well, at least I have my cool new iPhone...which will have all the more use to me since, on my way home from the Sprint store, I dropped and shattered the screen of my semi-new Kindle Fire I bought recently. With no return policy whatsoever. Here's a picture of it I took with my iPhone. See? It's coming in handy already.

This concludes my feelings on February.

A Modest Proposal

You hear a lot of talk these days about Israel and Iran, and who's going to attack first, etc, etc. It's a very interesting geopolitical situation, and one that reminds me a lot of playing the board game Risk.

Just like in Risk, you have two countries on the verge of some sort of war. Each has its allies, who have their own interests at stake. And just like the game, there are very serious negotiations taking place leading up to whatever actions occur.

This got me thinking about a potentially interesting event that we could inject into our own political process. I think I speak for most political junkies when I say that we're all growing a little weary of these endless primary debates. When candidates are arguing about who's going to build a moon colony first, you know they're running out of material.

That's why I suggest that, in lieu of more debates, the candidates should all play a televised game of Risk. By pitting them against each other in a game of global domination, we would learn far more about their foreign policy and strategic methods than we ever could from debate talking points. We wouldn't have to watch the entire five hour game; they could get Stuart Scott to just give us the highlights later that night on SportsCenter.

And if they play the new-and-improved Risk: 2210 A.D., they can even colonize the moon. I think I know Newt Gingrich's strategy already.

I'm Sorry, What?

Two weeks ago I purchased the book "The Card: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card." Being a big baseball fan, and having spent many of my formative years as an avid baseball card collector, I was quite interested in the legacy surrounding the T206 Honus Wagner card from 1909, widely regarded as the most valuable baseball card ever. The book is written by Michael O'Keeffe and Teri Thompson, both sports journalists for the New York Daily News.


Well, I just finished the book and flipped past all the notes, citations, special thanks, and so forth that often follow investigative pieces like this one at the back of the book. Then I got to the second-to-last page, titled "Copyright," that has this disclaimer:

"This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. And resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely fictional."

And, scene.

Hangin' with Bradley Cooper

Last night I was watching last week's The Office, and they did something that kind of chaps my lips. There was a running bit about how the gang was watching the movie Limitless, and talking about the film's star, Bradley Cooper.

The problem with this is that Ed Helms, one of the actors on The Office, famously starred in the movie The Hangover with Bradley Cooper. So for Helms, as his character, Andy Bernard, to be discussing Bradley Cooper on The Office, it calls attention to this whole paradox. Namely: does The Hangover exist in the world of The Office? Certainly it must, because without the success of The Hangover, Bradley Cooper would never have been catapulted to the stardom that made it possible for him to be in Limitless. But if The Hangover does exist in this fictional world, then who played the part of Ed Helms's character, Stu?

I've often wondered about this subtle phenomenon in the past. For instance, in a Tom Cruise movie, you can create a perfectly realistic fictional world, except for the fact that the actor Tom Cruise doesn't exist. There can be no Tom Cruise in that world, because then your protagonist would look exactly like Tom Cruise. And we buy into that, because we know we're watching a Tom Cruise movie. That's all well and good, but then you can't exactly have people in that movie start talking about how great Top Gun is.

I've always thought that would actually be a funny thing to do in a movie - reference other movies that the star has been in, to intentionally draw attention to this paradox. But on The Office, they didn't really do that. They just kind of annoyingly skirted that line, making me think about this glitch in their matrix for the rest of the episode. Which, by the way, wasn't that good. The whole show has predictably gone downhill since Steve Carrell left.

Kvarma

Last night I went to dinner with two of my compatriots, Bobby B and Lance Ford, who was in town visiting from LA. We went to a restaurant down in Gramercy Park called Rolf's, which is a bizarre German place decorated so extensively with lights, ornaments and creepy dolls, it's like you're eating inside a Christmas tree (so you know I loved that).

Our table wasn't ready yet, so we decided to get a drink at the bar up the street, which was very crowded, filled with financial-looking people. As we were waiting for our drinks, Lance turned to me. "I hate these Wall Street types," he said. "What do you think of them?"

I looked around. "Eh," I replied. "It's not my scene. But they don't bother me."

Ten minutes later, we're back at Rolf's, which is such a shitshow, Lance and I wait outside the entrance while Bobby B goes to check if our table's ready yet. I'm still struggling to comprehend what happened next.

Three guys walked by us, into the restaurant. The first was the epitome of a "Wall Street type": tall, pinstripe suit, slicked back hair. He looked like Luke Wilson playing Patrick Bateman. Behind him was a preppy guy in a sweater and a hipster Asian guy wearing sunglasses. As they walked by us, in rapid succession, all three made snide, sarcastic comments to us. I don't remember exactly what they said, because it all happened so fast, but it was something akin to this:

Wall St. Guy: "What, are you guys just gonna fucking stand here? That's great."

Preppy Guy: "Early bird catches the worm, guys."

Asian Hipster: "Don't hurt yourself out here."

I swear to god, this happened. Lance and I looked at each other, completely flabbergasted. The whole thing seemed totally rehearsed, like we were the dorky extras getting picked on in the scene introducing the bully antagonist and his cronies in an 80's movie. Even if there had been time to respond, I don't know that I could have come up with anything in the next fifteen minutes.

Fast-forward to after dinner. I get up to use the restroom. I go in, pee, wash my hands, and come out. There are a couple people waiting outside the door to use the bathroom - which, by the way, is not a single bathroom; it has a urinal and a toilet. One of them is a different Wall Street type, and as I walk by him, he says: "Hey, that was really quick in there."

I stopped and looked at him. "What?" I asked.

"I said thanks for being so quick."

Again, I was totally stunned. "What are you talking about?" I asked, becoming confrontational.

"Nothing," he said, getting defensive. "I'm just saying, you took a really quick piss." And with that, he walked into the bathroom.

I came back to the table and relayed what had just happened to my friends. "Maybe he was being sincere," Bobby B said. I explained that that was impossible, because I had not been exceptionally quick in the bathroom; I had taken a totally normal amount of time. And even if I had been fast, who would say that sincerely? That's even weirder than being insulting. "I think he was just paying you a compliment," Bobby B insisted.

I rolled my eyes. "Bobby B, I know when someone is making a sarcastic quip. I do it all the time." We left the restaurant, and I have been contemplating this bizarre phenomena of Wall Street jerks insulting me, unprovoked, ever since. I can come up with no plausible explanation for why...

Oh, wait. Now I get it. I would like to take this moment to apologize to begging vagrants everywhere.