Visions

the time draws near.

in six hours, it will be 2006. in six more hours i will be in jfk waiting for my flight home to la after an exhausting yet very uplifting stay in new york.

there is still much packing to do, a hasty dinner to eat, and probably at least one more screening of madagascar yet to come...but i can see the light. i can see the light.


my new york trip 2005 has shown me many things.

it has shown me my month-old niece for the very first time. it has shown me she has very strong lungs and can fart as powerfully as an alcoholic adult many times her age.

it has shown me a waitress working in an otherwise perfectly respectable restaurant who insisted my brother's girlfriend try a semen-colored shot served in a plastic sperm despite the place not having a liquor license. she 'could tell' we had 'a good sense of humor'. we 'could tell' she was wearing a 'got crabs?' t-shirt.

it has shown me a surgical store window mannequin dressed in what appeared to be futuristic bondage gear.


it has shown me that friends i haven't seen in years are aging just like i am and that you always have something to laugh about with someone if you have thrown up in front of them.

it has shown me that a bed that i once thought was the most comfortable in the world was really sent by the devil to prevent me from a single night of solid sleep.

it has shown me food upon food upon food upon my rapidly swelling tits.

it has shown me that my mother has an incredible attitude when it comes to her latest go-round with myeloma and that the next time i think i'm tired or cranky or lazy or whatever, i'm really just being a big fat, balding baby.

it has shown me that brushing your teeth with vanilla mint toothpaste can make all the rage go away, even after waiting 90 minutes for your luggage after a 40 minute fight from rochester and arriving at your parents' house at 1 am with two zombified children.

it has also shown me a jar of milk at mrs b's grandparents house.


mine eyes have seen the glory of the ending of the year.

peace, love, laughter, safety, health and all that to you and yours.

love, moe

Mea Culpa

ok, despite my optimism, it hasn't been a banner week for posting. as i write this, i am in a car, in the snow, in front of dunkin donuts...where my phone lost its signal. i now pick up the action at mrs b's grandparents' apartment - where everyone is sitting down to bagel brunch and the smell of lox, eggs, onions, and four decades of doral cigarettes hangs in the air.

one main reason for the dearth of metznews is the fact my parents' computer is in the room in which the boys sleep - which they were doing whenever i had a free minute. and i didn't realize i could do a rudimentary typething on my new phone until about an hour ago. Oh, well.

so, for the record, this was just a note to let the world know that i haven't died, despite the best efforts of the schedule i've been keeping.

You Too, Ted Levine

they say it happens in threes.

first, my man vincent "mr vargas/mr kerber/subway ghost" schiavelli...


then, michael "time to make the donuts guy/sam breakstone" vale...


yo, robert costanzo...


let's be careful out there.

How To Get A Rochtown Beatdown

greetings from greytown, usa - rochester, ny. our flight has been delayed for two hours, giving me time to do a little overdue writing.

anyhow...

today we took the boys to barnes & noble to air them out and pick up a gift for my old man in the process. the b & n routine usually involves letting the boys pick out a book or two for me to read to them in the childrens' section. today was no different, except for the massive post christmas crowd in the store which spilled over into the kids' zone. luckily, i managed to get a prime spot on the benches along the back wall, facing the poor unfortunates stuck reading books to their kids while wedged into mini-picnic bench things.

jb chose 'curious george and the pizza', which featured some major negative interaction between george and tony - if i recall his name correctly - who was the owner of the shop. as you would imagine, george's curiosity eventually caused the guy a lot of grief, which i amped up by reading tony's dialogue to jb in a nice over-the-top italian accent.

"dats-a not-a good monkey! you make-a me very angry, you doity a-monkey!'

yeah. like that.

if you saw it coming out of some guy on a sitcom, you might think it was offensive. if you saw it coming out of a father trying to give his kid the best show possible in the back of a barnes & noble, you probably wouldn't feel the same way. you might even admire the guy for trying.

unless you were the handsome olive-skinned fellow sitting across the way from where we were, scowling me a nice western-new york style scowl when i wrapped the show up.

i felt even more like a piece of shit when he called his kids so they could all leave the store together.

"antonio! vito! angelina! time to get-a going. now!"

i don't blame you if you hate me.

File Most Of This Post Under 'Inconsequential'

1) it's not as cold in rochester as i would have hoped.

2) the travelling was not nearly as bad as i would have imagined.

3) this is one sweet story.

It's The Xanax Talking

at this time tomorrow, i will be somewhere outside of rochester, new york, freezing my soft been-living-in-california-for-two-years ass off. i will be happily reunited with my boys and wife but freezing nonetheless. it really is amazing how quickly you lose your northeast weather callous.

first, i fly to jfk to meet my family. then, we all fly together for another hour and when we land, we will be greeted by mrs b's sister, my brother in law and their month old daughter, who ab insists on calling 'baby peanut'.

i'm really looking forward to making my uncle debut...i am not really looking forward to 9 hours or so of travel.

anyhow, all the flight preps are done - and by 'flight preps', i mean 'ipod loading'. i've packed Old Reliable with a hatbox full of podcasts (a lot of shit from kcrw, meet the press, some buddhist thing that i am counting on to lull me to mile high sleep, and an episode of 'this american life' recommended to me by a co-worker/loyal reader), and as has become custom when i fly, i have also downloaded a comedy album to pass the time. for this journey, i have decided to go with some classic cos.


say what you want about grumpy bill...but the guy was b-a-d back in the day.

after rochtown, it's back to my parents' home on strong island for a few days of soaking it all in like some short, plump, rapidly balding sponge.

-----

i've promised myself that i will do my best to keep up my post-a-day goal while i'm on the road. by my count, there are exactly seven of you who meet the metz on a daily basis (not counting the friends i browbeat into visiting or the many people who are tricked into a one-time-only visit by hitting a link attached to the posts i leave on the chowhound los angeles message board hoping that someone will do exactly that) and i would hate to withhold even one day of insight into the various unimportant aspects of my life from you all.

at the risk of sounding sally-fieldish, it just blows my mind that people who i've never met somehow found this little thing that i started to keep my writing skills from atrophying and then kept coming back to read self-important little life summaries that, i could have sworn, would mean nothing to anyone but me.



bottom line, i feel great when i sit down to write everyday. i feel even better knowing that someone appreciates what i'm saying. and since i also started this thing as a form of therapy, it's going to take more than time in the godforsaken wilds of western new york to keep me from my self-appointed rounds.

in closing, i hope whatever holiday you're rolling with makes your cheeks apple red and your blood warm with love.

unless you're isiah thomas. if that's the case, i hope your testicles hurt. you ruined the knicks.

I Guess I'm Just Not As Cool As You, Rest Of The Blog World

if you were to examine the music i added to my itunes collection/listened to a lot in 2005, you'd see that the vast majority of it falls somewhere between this year's annual clot of out-of-touch grammy nominees and the Great Unwashed Mass of indie bands with massive blogcred.

this year, i finally learned about the old 97s and stereophonics - probably by reading about them on some blog somewhere. the coolest byproduct of this awakening was getting to watch jb sing along with 'question' after a few dozen listens, which provided some of the best sentimental dad just-can't-help-it tears of 2005.

despite the urging of at least one of my good friends, i was also late to the party with the killers, but i'm glad that i was finally convinced. (although i'm very embarassed to say that it was hearing one of the contestants on INXS/Rock Star sing an acoustic 'mr brightside' while i was falling asleep as mrs b watched one night that may have sealed the deal for me.)

the boys' sudden love of they might be giants' kids' music had me going back to revisit that group for the first time since my days as a high school radio station nerd at wkwz. i felt just as nerdy 17 years later, but i cared a lot less.

i tivo'ed matisyahu on jimmy kimmel as a joke because i saw the words 'hasidic rapper' and ended up having my mind blown. especially when ab latched onto 'king without a crown' for a few weeks over the summer.


but at the end of the day, there was one cd that, to your boy, outpaced everything this year in listening...

mike doughty's 'haughty melodic'


for whatever reason, this thing just hit the spot for me from day one. it's catchy, it's well written and it's fun...and best of all, for me, it's nice to see an artist mature along with his audience. (and i mean that in the most non-patronizing way.)

the guy who looks back at what he was jamming to 10 years ago fondly really appreciates the faint hint of soul coughing - one of my all time favorites - and the 33 year old guy whose tastes have caramelized appreciates how doughty has pulled in the reins and changed the ride. my man calls what he does 'medium rock' - and despite what you may picture if you've never heard it, i couldn't think of a better description.

give a listen, yo.

"your misfortune"

"unsingable name"

live at the troubadour, los angeles, 5/23/05

Hey ESPY Awards! You Can Have This Easy Joke That Will Only Be Funny Only To Hardcore Sports Fans for $50

from the scotsman

Stalin's half-man, half-ape super-warriors

"THE Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents.

Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior.

According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat."

funny...I always thought David Wells was from Torrance.

Tough Jews

i'm posting way too late tonight, especially considering The Jackhammer Alarm will be assaulting me in almost no time, but i am a man who wants to stick to his goal of writing everyday.

and so...

a very brief review of the screening i've just returned from.

munich

intense. very heavy. lots of killing. sort of heavy handed. long, but not check-your-watch long. grim. quite good.


bottom line, my mom won't like it (too many heads exploding) - my old man will (plenty of secret hebrew spy shit).

Baby Farfel and Baby Finkel

four years ago today, i was in an imaging center in great neck, ny - standing half in an exam room with a 30 weeks pregnant mrs b and half in the hallway, trying to eavesdrop on a conversation between the radiologist who had just done the sonogram and my wife's ob/gyn. his face was grim as he explained quietly that, in his opinion, they needed to get those kids out of there as quickly as possible. evidently, in the two weeks that had passed since the last exam, fetus a hadn't grown at all and it was not a good situation. mrs b's pregnancy had been a mess for more than two months at that point, rife with preterm labor and anti-contractants and hospital stays and plenty of stress and discomfort...but to say that i was unprepared for what i was hearing would be a major understatement. we show up at the office assuming that we're just going to get a sono-peek at the two tiny boys, maybe leave with a photo or video of them sloshing around in there. instead, we're about to hear that our kids are going to be born 10 weeks early because the doctors think there could be some major league badnews shit about to go down.

thanks to my nosiness, i already knew what the doctor was going to tell us when he walked back in the room, so i prepared myself for how mrs b would react. and she reacted exactly as you'd think she would. not well.

a few hours later, we're in the labor and delivery center at winthrop hospital sitting with the head of the neonatal intensive care unit who is explaining everything to us. he is speaking calmly but seriously about all the things that could and will happen. how the boys will probably need oxygen and that they're going to be very small and if they don't cry when they're born it's not necessarily a bad thing because they are going to get a lot of help and so on and so on and plenty of other things that kind of put me in a trance.

the funny thing is, despite the seriousness of the whole situation, and it may have been naive of me or just stupid, but i didn't doubt for a second that everything would turn out just fine. i just pulled on the set of navy blue scrubs that, to this day, was the most flattering outfit i have ever worn, and followed my wife and the medical dream team into the delivery room.

in no time at all, the doctor tore into mrs b like a pot pie as i sat calmly by her head making small talk, yammering on and on like i do when i'm nervous. after a few minutes, there was a flurry of activity and then out of nowhere, the tiniest, shrillest whining noise. it was the greatest sound i had ever heard in my life. fetus a - the one that was in the most trouble - was out and he was breathing on his own. we got a 2 second peek before they whisked him off, long enough for me to determine he looked like my father-in-law, and then two minutes later, more itty-bitty yelling. fetus b, also breathing on his own.

once they put mrs b back together, we weren't allowed in the NICU to see the boys for more than an hour as they wired them up and examined them and did what they had to do. and even though they prepared us for the worst sight of our life, when we finally got through the automatic doors and saw them sleeping in their little incubators, it was only breathtaking in a good way.

we stared at them for what seemed like hours, then they took mother b upstairs to recover and i drove back to my parents house, tears of joy streaming down my face as i listened to and sang along with ryan adams' 'new york, new york' over and over and over for reasons i still haven't figured out.

and even though the boys were born as early as they were, and even though they weighed less than a bag of big macs, they have never had a single developmental problem. (actually, not to brag, but they are really, seriously smart for their age. guess they take after their old man.)

today they turn four years old and i mark four years of being the luckiest man in the world. considering how bad it could have been, i am constantly in awe of how well it's gone.

and just in case you thought this was just another case of Sentimental Dad blathering on and on about two kids you may not even know...i've come up with a little game.

match the freaky birth picture to the recent snap
(answers in comments)

A B

1 2

and by the way, i can see now why the nurses kept trying to prep us as we were about to meet the boys for the first time. for the uninitiated - or for people who aren't looking at their children - it's really kind of creepy. nevertheless, two days after they were born, in my Happy Dad haste, i sent about 100 NICU pictures to everyone i knew, resulting in what i am sure was untold horror when people opened up their inboxes. (my brother told me in a moment of candor, that he thought they looked like chickens with wigs on.) if you were one of these people, my apologies.

And Now It All Lives In My Ipod For The Sake Of Nostalgia And Irony

sometimes, i think about the music to which i used to listen when i was younger and i get very frightened.


some of this stuff actually used to give me chills. you remember the goosebumps you got as a kid the first time you saw the end of rocky III or the karate kid? yeah, well all i needed to summon the power was little bit of warlock. (who by the way, i saw open for megadeth at the beacon theatre sitting in front row seats i scammed from my high school radio station.)

the worst part was that i was always running through my genres, from the classic entry level/gateway stuff to the extreme, with absolutely no regard for quality.

i'd start out with van halen, and i'd end up with venom.


i'd get a taste of run dmc, and end up feasting on k-solo.

You See, It's Funny Because Children Don't Really Have a Complete Grasp on Idioms Yet

just dropped the family off at bob hope for their trip east.

i was saying goodbye to the boys and after i hugged and kissed jb, i picked up ab and told him "ok, buddy, give me a big hug and make it count."

he did exactly what he was told. he squeezed me as hard as he could and whispered in my ear, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5..."

and so, the week of solitude begins.

Beats Digging Ditches

tonight, for the first time in a long time, i found myself crammed into a steel pen in front of a los angeles movie theatre along with a few dozen of my fellow entertainment media miscreants covering a premiere. but not just any premiere...the premiere of jennifer aniston's new movie 'rumor has it'.

normally, when i cover a premiere this big, i'm out there to produce talent. tonight, however, due to the cramped quarters, i was the one with the mic. that meant i got to ask rob reiner about jennifer's belly button, and jennifer all about her yves st. laurent dress.

at the risk of sounding jaded, i think my face says it all.

but regardless of where i would have rather been, there is an important question to be asked...

did i actually learn anything tonight when i was away from my family on one of their final evenings at home before they head off to new york and leave me alone for a week?

you're damn right i did.

1) jennifer aniston looks pretty darn good in person - even with a fever.
2) jerry penacoli from 'extra' (the gentleman to my right in the camera phone self portrait above) gets rob reiner and carl reiner confused easily.
3) he also favors paisley scarves.

(now who else gives you inside hollywood poop like that? honestly.)

Christmas Links From An Honorary Gentile

god, do i wish i knew the backstory to this photo.

enjoy plenty more "santa scares the shit out of kids" stuff here

oh, and if you're looking for a way to drop those holiday pounds, you're not going to get any good advice here

and with a tip of the stocking to patton oswalt and said the gramophone...

what happens when you play alvin and the chipmunks' most famous christmas song at the speed in which it was originally recorded? well, if you're me, it disturbs you greatly.

ho. ho. ho.

Potpourri

tonight i put the finishing touches on what i hope will be the b family's holiday card this year. it looks like a winner to me, but the truth is you really never know. in fact, i am still a little sore about being voted down by the old lady on last year's card.

this is what i wanted to put on that one.


what we ended up going with was something much different - something a lot less anton corbijnesque. it was also not taken by The Kid.

i am not going to show you what it was because i am a sour, vindictive man.

and speaking of sour vindictiveness...

earlier tonight we took the boys to the mall to take care of a little shopping and i saw something that happens to us every few months or so...something that never fails to make me smile when it see it go down.

the boys were playing around on the crappy fifty cent rides - you know, the rotating teletubby and up and downicopter kind of rides - and mrs b and i were waiting for the fun to end. now, if you know the teeny tiny mrs b, you know that at times, especially with her hair back, she can look kind of young. like teenage bride young. especially if you have bad eyes. generally, the older you are, the younger she looks. which can lead to what i saw tonight - an old couple sitting and glaring at her as she happily rounds up her apple-cheeked children obviously thinking 'oh my god! she can't even be 20 and she has twins!? for shame.'

tonight's edition featured the woman nudging the man, gesturing to mrs b and shaking her head in a half disapproving/half upset manner.


usually when i catch a glimpse of this sort of thing, i grab mrs b by the arm and tug her in my direction with something like 'let's go, bitch! i got stuff to buy' loud enough for grandma and co. to hear. tonight was no exception.

and now i am going to sleep well with visions of horrified old people dancing in my head.

I Hate To Bring The Room Down, But...

two years ago to the night i am writing this, my friend albert was dying in a cuban hospital.

each of us is prone to sentiment and hyperbole when it comes to remembering people who have left us, but i can honestly say - truly and sincerely - that albert carvajal was hands down, the sweetest person i have ever known. that look you see on his face in the photo above? that was as low-key as it got. status quo for him was a smile. happy was something your face and mine just can't register the way he could.

albert was a case-study in following your dreams. as long as i knew him, he told me he was going to be a filmmaker. and in the end, that was how every single news report described him.

albert carvajal...american filmmaker killed in cuba.


my last memory of albert was on my final day in the new york office, before i moved out to la, about a month or so before he was going down to cuba to show his film in the havana film festival. i was cleaning out my desk and found a basically new palm pilot that i really didn't use anymore, and i figured he would appreciate it a lot more than i would, so i called him into my office and told him, "papi, as an important filmmaker, you're going to need to place to keep all your contacts. i want you to have this."

he beamed from ear to ear and told me, "papi, i'm going to fill this thing up and make you proud."

i had no doubt he would be testing that thing's capacity within the week.

before i left the office that day, albert and i shared a huge hug and exchanged good lucks. "papi," i told him, "i expect your movie to be the thing that ends the embargo and i have no doubt that when castro sees it, he's going to buy you a cigar."

he thought that was pretty funny. but, then again, albert thought most things were pretty funny.

-----

it's probably not cool to bite a complete article from a newspaper and post it on a blog, but keith greenberg's 'requiem for albert' from the january 12, 2004 edition of the new york observer just about says it all. do me a favor. take a minute to look it over and if you're the praying type, whisper a little holiday something for my man bert, his wife and his two kids.

"As a production assistant for TV shows like Entertainment Tonight, Hard Copy and Access Hollywood, Albert Carvajal would occasionally interrupt celebrity interviews with questions of his own. Once after a female producer returned to New York from a long assignment, he innocently pointed out that she'd gained weight. During one tense shoot at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Albert went missing. A member of the crew found him in a van on a cell phone, describing the events of the day to his mother.

"He was blissfully unaware," said Access Hollywood cameraman Darryl Henry.

On the day of my sister's wedding, Albert paged me five times. When I finally replied, he told me that he wanted to talk about Buzz Tyler, a relatively obscure professional wrestler best remembered for holding the now-defunct National Wrestling Alliance Central States title.

I had met Albert when I was working as a freelance producer for Hard Copy . I noticed that he was almost a scholar about a number of subjects, including the Kennedy assassination, the history of the American Mafia and Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. He had an encyclopedic memory of professional-wrestling story lines and once broke down in tears on a TV shoot in front of his hero, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper.

I never knew about Albert's passion for dominoes, but it was powerful enough to motivate him to direct ¡Capicu!, a 30-minute film correlating the ardor of the game to romance. When the movie was accepted into the Havana International Film Festival last year, everyone who'd ever worked with Albert was euphoric. Access Hollywood correspondent Billy Bush-the President's cousin-bought the gangly Bronx boy a Hugo Boss suit. The show's bureau chief, Christine Fahey, purchased a new pair of shoes for her aggravating but endearing P.A.

A beaming Albert arrived in Cuba on Dec. 7. That night, he went out with some shifty friends he'd made. The situation had all the hallmarks of another Albert story: Albert goes out in a Third World country in an expensive designer suit with $700 American in his pocket and gets mugged. Except this time, Albert Carvajal-a 33-year-old husband and father of two small children-died.

Albert's parents moved to the South Bronx from the Dominican Republic when he was three months old. He seems to have grown up without a hint of self-consciousness: At family parties, he flapped his arms and wiggled his legs in a dance routine his relatives characterized as "Albertito style."

"He always thought he was going to be famous," said his brother, Rudy, 29. "When we were kids, he convinced my mother to pay $5,000 to put his picture in a modeling book."

"Somewhere in his soul, he had to be around celebrity," said cameraman Mario Porporino.

The gunplay of his neighborhood barely fazed Albert as he rambled from block to block, smiling at everything.

"People didn't bother me," Rudy said, "because someone in somebody's family always knew Albert."

Young Albert was almost oblivious to danger, and he was just as daring when he began doing odd jobs for a number of TV shows in the late 90's. "We had a shoot out on Long Island for Hard Copy , and Albert offered to drive the van," said Mr. Porporino. "When we got on the highway, he barreled through these cones into a lane that was closed to traffic."

"Albert, how long have you been driving?" the cameraman asked.

"Oh, I just got my license yesterday."

Television jargon escaped Albert. When a cameraman once asked for another "brick" (i.e., battery), Albert returned with a brick. "I still call gaffer's tape 'gaff' because that's what Albert called it," said audio technician Gary McCafferty.

Every time I heard Albert's name, there was another tale. The celebrity he was supposed to mind got into a limo and left-while Albert passively observed. The light stand he was dismantling crashed through a table. One time, audio technician Gus Roccaforte and Albert entered an office building and were instructed to load their equipment onto the service elevator. When Mr. Roccaforte arrived upstairs, he saw Albert leisurely strolling past a conference room.

"Albert, where's the equipment?" Mr. Roccaforte asked.

"It's still on the elevator."

Mr. Roccaforte was incredulous. "He just loaded $100,000 worth of equipment on the elevator and walked away," he said. "I was telling him that you had to take the equipment with you, when suddenly the elevator door opened and all the equipment was there. I don't know how that happened. It was like he had an angel on his shoulder."

In a sense, he did. No one could ever truly get mad at Albert. "He was a lovable, goofy, joyous fellow," Ms. Fahey said.

"I learned pretty fast that teaching Albert to do anything technical was a losing proposition," said Mr. Porporino. "But even when he made mistakes, it took the seriousness out of the situation. I was afraid that if I got him fired, he'd feel like he failed at something. And I couldn't do that to him."

So Albert just kept on being Albert.

"I'll never forget our talks in the bathroom," said Mr. Bush. "Only Albert would want to talk while we were going to the bathroom. I'd say, 'Albert, please, not now.'"

Even the interview subjects seemed to realize that Albert meant no harm.

"We were on a shoot for Entertainment Tonight with Jackie Chan," said Mr. Roccaforte. "Albert was really into Jackie Chan; he was loving life. The reporter was doing the interview when, all of the sudden, I heard Albert fire a question from across the room. Jackie looked away from the reporter and answered it. Then Albert asked a follow-up question!"

At Access Hollywood , Albert regularly regaled the New York office with song. "We'd tell him, 'Albert, you're terrible,'" said Mr. Bush. "And he'd say, 'No, Papi, I'm good.'"

When cantankerous American Idol judge Simon Cowell was interviewed at the bureau, Albert suddenly stepped in front of the camera, offering his rendition of Céline Dion's "Love Theme from Titanic ."

Mr. Cowell was uncharacteristically polite. "You know what, Albert?" he commented, looking at his watch. "I don't mean to be rude, but we really have to go."

"I don't think that Simon understands that I have talent," Albert told Mr. Bush.

Albert may have been the one taking orders downtown, but at home "he was the light of our family," said cousin Johanna Abreu, 20. "He'd ask us to scratch his back, bring him blankets, go down to the store for him. We did everything except feed him."

In recent years, Albert had worked almost exclusively for Access Hollywood , running errands and delivering tapes, among other chores. "He knew messengers," Ms. Fahey said. "He knew lawyers. He knew security guards. He knew people from the movie studios. He cut through social lines, racial lines. Everybody stopped to talk to Albert."

That wasn't always a good thing. "Albert would have to deliver a tape from a publicist for a day of air," Mr. Henry said. "He'd disappear; no one would know where he was. I'd go downstairs and I'd see him giving a doctoral dissertation to a delivery boy."

"Albert looked at everybody as a possible contact," Rudy said. "He told me about being in the elevator at Rockefeller Center and smiling at someone who looked important. They began talking, and the guy said, 'Maybe we can exchange numbers.' Albert said, 'That would be good.' When the elevator doors opened, the guy was trying to kiss him."

Eventually Albert crossed paths with a group of Latinos with similar goals, including Lise Ramos. Together they wrote, directed and produced ¡Capicu! -named for a winning move in dominoes-in Washington Square Park.

"He had a very specific vision of, say, how a certain domino shot should look," said the film's associate producer, Lorraine Rodriguez. "There were times when you actually saw him very serious."

As in life, Albert refused to adhere to convention on the set. "He didn't force you to stay on-script," said actress Elena Adames. "He allowed you to explore your character, which was very cool."

Now Albert had a new network of friends, and they began shopping the film around. They entered ¡Capicu! in the Latin U.S.A. Film Festival in November, where it won first prize for best short film. "He couldn't shut up when he made his acceptance speech," said Roberto Monticello, a director who attended the event. "He was practically jumping from the stage."

Mr. Monticello was among those who encouraged Albert to attend the Havana International Film Festival. On the Delta charter to Cuba, Albert walked the aisles handing out business cards for his new South Bronx Films company. The crew was so amused that they let him show ¡Capicu! on the flight.

"When he got down to Havana, he was floating," Mr. Monticello said. "He couldn't wait to go out and see everything."

But some of his companions were concerned about Albert's child! like trust of strangers, particularly a group that had allegedly been overcharging attendees on rides from the airport.

"One woman seemed very vulgar and was drinking aguardiente," said Ms. Adames. "One of the guys wouldn't look me in the eye. I said, 'Albert, be careful. These people seem like moochers.' But Albert said, 'No, they're cool.'"

When Ms. Adames left Albert at the Hotel Nacional on Sunday, Dec. 7, he told her that he was going to a party with his new friends. After he failed to rendezvous with her the next morning, she sought out a festival director, who told her that Albert had been found unconscious on a bustling street near the hotel. His sneakers, pager, leather jacket and wallet-including the $700 he was carrying-were missing. His companions from the previous night insisted to Ms. Adames that they'd never gone out with Albert at all.

At Calixto Garcia Hospital, a confused Albert told a different story.

"He said he was out partying with these people," Ms. Adames said. "They left the first party and were going to another party, and four to five strangers did something to him, and he passed out."

"He wasn't really clear on what happened," Mr. Monticello said. "He said he might have been mugged, but those were dreams."

Albert had few bruises, save for a series of scrapes that apparently occurred when he fell to his knees. "He had no wounds from the waist up," Mr. Monticello said. "No one gets mugged by getting hit in the legs. It made me wonder whether he was drugged and robbed."

Still, no one doubted that he'd make a full recovery.

"He was sitting in bed asking, 'Am I going to get distribution in Havana?'" Mr. Monticello said. "He didn't understand that this doesn't happen in Cuba."

But Albert seemed to decline further each day. "The doctors said he had blood in his urine," Ms. Adames said. "They gave him X-rays, a C.A.T. scan, a sonogram, and they couldn't find anything."

By Dec. 11, his kidneys were failing. "He was groggy," Ms. Rodriguez said. "He said he couldn't feel his legs. He kept telling me to put my hand on the arch behind his neck and on his back, where his kidneys were. He said he was in a lot of pain in those places."

Albert's friends inquired about having him flown to a hospital in the United States. Someone got in touch with Access Hollywood, and Billy Bush started making calls to his influential relatives. On Thursday night, Albert fell into a coma. Early Saturday morning, Dec. 13, he died.

"No one really understands why this happened," Mr. Monticello said. "Did he have an allergic reaction to something that somebody gave him? It's a mystery I guess we'll never solve."

For Ms. Rodriguez, the flight back to New York was eerie. "We'd reserved six seats, and Albert's seat was empty," she said. "A lot of the other passengers were on board on the way down, when Albert was showing his film. Now he wasn't alive anymore."

After his death, Access Hollywood and USA Today did stories about him. NBC picked up the tab for his wake and funeral at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home on the Upper East Side, where one of Albert's idols, Celia Cruz, also had her viewing. Women in puffy furs and designer handbags intermingled with Dominicans from the Bronx, everyone stunned and misty-eyed. Albert's mother, Olga, wept out loud. His wife, Candida, held their sleeping son, Albert Jr., 4, her face frozen in disbelief. Albert's daughter, Lisa Marie, 2, rushed toward family friends and hugged them, her laughter as chaste as her late father's.

"He was naïve and innocent and sweet," said Ms. Fahey. "A lot of things the rest of us are not.""

Dog Ass Tired

i generally like my posts to have some theme or singular thought or joke attempt or something like that, but sometimes, when you're assdraggin', you've just got to go with the old carpetbomb of bullshit.

as i write this, i'm listening to the dulcet tones of jb and ab coming tinnily through the monitor we set up after we built their new room, as they bargain for more awake time in the darkness. what follows is a real time transcript:

jb: mommy!
mrs. b: good night!
jb: daddy! daddy.
ab: all my animals have disappeared.
jb: where did your animals disappear, ab?

(one minute of silence)

ab: mommy! i can't go to sleep. mommy, i can't go to sleep. mommy. mommy. mommy. mommy. mommy. mommy. mommy. mommy! mommy.
mrs. b: good night!
ab: i can't go to sleep. jb, i can't go to sleep.

(two minutes of silence)

ab: mommy...you have to cut our toenails.

----

two important things i learned sunday at the press junket for 'rumor has it'


1. shirley maclaine thinks i speak too quickly.
2. coconut tapioca tastes very good.

----

in closing, i direct you to this link - courtesy of scatterolight who in turn owes it to another site - which leads you to a wonderful version of my favorite christmas carol.

normally, i find christmas music abhorrant - and not just because i'm a jew - but i happen to go for this particular holiday favorite in a big way...mostly because i like to think, if i were a gentile, my christmases actually would be merry and little.

"The Saddest Thing In Life Is Wasted Talent" - A Bronx Tale

what a dick.


the new york times:

"In 1993, Lillo Brancato Jr. was a 17-year-old unknown actor from Yonkers who scored the biggest of Hollywood breaks for his first film: appearing opposite his idol, Robert De Niro, in "A Bronx Tale."

From there, he landed roles in more than two dozen movies and television shows, playing a young Navy officer who has to fix a submarine radio to prevent World War III in "Crimson Tide" and later starring as a mob upstart on the HBO series "The Sopranos."

Yesterday, Mr. Brancato's real life turned stranger than fiction, when the police say he and another man tried to burglarize a vacant home in the Bronx in the early morning darkness. An off-duty police officer who lived next door, Daniel Enchautegui, confronted them and, in the ensuing gun battle, Mr. Enchautegui was shot and killed, the police said. Mr. Brancato, 29, and the other suspect, Steven Armento, 48, were wounded and were in serious condition at Jacobi Medical Center, police said.

Although It Didn't Help Ted "Bubbles" Bundy

as the citizens of california sit and wait to see what governor schwarzenegger has decided when it comes to the clemency of childrens’ book author/gang founder/murderer stanley ‘tookie’ williams…

and los angeles sits and waits to see it it’s riot time again

those in favor of canceling the execution have one major thing in their corner.

it’s a lot harder to kill a guy with a nickname like ‘tookie’ than it is to put a guy named ‘icepick’ or ‘killer’ in the gas chamber.

To Say The Least

so i get home from a screening at about 930 last night - 'rumor has it' with jennifer aniston, kevin costner, shirley maclaine...not really all that good - and i walk in the house, head to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of juice. i take a sip, turn around and standing in front of me is ab in his adorable little pj's.

"i need to go home," he says.

"you are home," i tell him as i scoop him into my arms, figuring he's kind of wandering around in sort of a sleepwalking thing, "now let's go back to bed before mommy gets mad at me."

"no," he says, "i need to go home. to oregon. i need to get home. it's been too long. i left my wife there. i left my baby girl there. in oregon. i really need to get home. you need to take me there. please take me home."

and then he starts to cry.

(actually, this didn't really happen. the boys were asleep and lainie was watching that farkakta show 'reunion'... but, boy oh boy wouldn't that be fucked if it did?)

And For The Record, When I Bleached My Hair In 1999, It Had Nothing To Do With The Fact That He Did It First

the big man with the mighty swing and slickly trimmed moustache is leaving.

the mets declined to offer salary arbitration to mike piazza today - and so, an era is ending.

that would be the era that began, for me, when this then-unemployed baseball fan heard the news on the FAN in may of 1998 that mighty mike was heading to shea while i was sitting angrily in my car on grace avenue in great neck, new york waiting for mrs. b to come out of the tailor.

that is why, on behalf of all fans of this eternally lame franchise, i am going to offer this sparsely read "thank you" to number 31.

"thank you to number 31".

thank you for that first post 9/11 homerun. the one, that when i see replays, still gives me kirk-gibson-i-don't-believe-what-i-just-saw type chills.

thank you for the grand slam against the braves on june 30, 2000 that capped that unbelievable comeback in the year of the subway series. that would be the same grand slam that i missed seeing in person because i left the game in the sixth inning - despite it being fireworks night and my primo seats 8 rows behind the plate thanks to my boy, frank "coach" cap - due to the fact that i was sure that the mets couldn't come back from 10 runs down. the same home run that when some dude down the car from me on the LIRR heard the news on his walkman, stood up and told the whole train and the whole train thought he was kidding. the same home run that resulted in mrs b turning to me and saying "what the fuck are you doing here and not at the stadium?" when i walked into my apartment just as benitez was closing things out. that homerun.

oh, and thank you for the "i'm not gay" press conference.

not that we would have loved you one ounce less had you really been gay...but more for the absurd high comedy aspect of the whole thing.

and we forgive you for not being able to throw out anyone at second base for the past 7 years.

(and fuck roger clemens.)

A Lecture About Music You Didn't Ask For

in a world where bloggers much cooler than i walk around all chubbed for any number of semi-underground bands, i stand before you today ready to declare my admiration for one decidedly uncool guy - and one hell of a songwriter.


i believe in writing this short missive about lyle lovett, i become the first blogger ever to publicly stand on his or her soapbox and preach about a genre-busting recording artist who has also played a malevolent baker in a movie.


first things first.

why lyle...and why tonight? well, honestly, i was just fiddling around with my ipod for a little while a few hours ago and - for whatever reason - i noticed just how much of this guy's music i could listen to over and over without getting even the slightest bit bored by it. the guy just delivers. over and over and over. consistantly well written songs in a variety of moods.

it was also at the only lyle lovett concert that i've ever been to - in morristown, new jersey of all places - when i finally realized just what kind of power an artist has over his audience from the stage. i mean, sure, i've seen knee jerk crowd reaction at tons of shows...but this was something really special. the guy and his band would whip through a song and then after the applause died down, he would dryly address the audience about various unimportant things, and everyone would eat it up like a delicious pie. and i mean EAT IT UP fat guy style.

my man would say something like, i don't know...something like "the fellas and i were having out supper tonight backstage and, boy, did i make myself a good sandwich" and the 4,000 people there would absolutely roar with laughter. like piss-in-your-pants-the-first-time-i-heard-the-jerky-boys-when-i-was-as-high-as-a-kite type laughs.

"this is a song about what happens when love goes south. we all know a bit about that, don't we?" and 4,000 new jerseyites clap and cheer like they were being blessed by the pope.

and then he would start a song and the guy sitting next to me would inevitably mutter to himself, but loudly enough for the entire row to hear, "what a voice. what. a. voice."

you know, when i really think about it...it was all kind of weird.

anyhow...

lyle is also probably tougher than anyone in your favorite band. i mean, the guy took on a bull after it attacked his uncle and saved the guy's life. i mean, sure, he got absolutely fucking crushed up...but do you think anyone in the strokes is doing that?


oh, and for a kind of - let's call it "unique" - looking man, the guy's done all right for himself over the years.


yes, i am unabashedly unashamed to keep the entire lyle lovett catalog tucked among the "cooler" tracks on my itunes. YOU should be ashamed that you don't own any of it.

(next week's lecture: the importance of ben folds)

Excuses, Excuses

i've been a little crazed for a couple of days - including last night's marathon wee-hour daddying session with j "nosebleed in my sleep" b.



for a while, my bathroom looked like a crime scene...but thankfully, this morning, we're all back in business.

my man is tired, pale but ok. lb and i are exhausted.

i'll do my best to return with the stuff all 11 of my loyal readers crave like french fries later.

until then, here's another photo from the boys' birthday party.



they really love those mopeds.

(This Is The Story Of) A Camera

this is my man, walter.

walter is the genius who fixed my broken camera in time for the boys' big 4th birthday party today.


this is who works next door to walter in downtown la.


which of these photos do you think is my favorite?

Joe Uncool

when i was a boy, there was a short period in my life when i thought the word "flirt" meant "have sex".

for real.

you can imagine the confusion this caused me.

especially on the day i was reading a "peanuts" collection in my elementary school library and came across a comic in which charlie brown's sister, sally, took snoopy to school for show and tell and then got angry at him for "flirting" with a girl in the front row of her class.


and then there was the time i came across snoopy explaining how he was through fighting the red baron and planned to spend his days sitting in french cafes and "flirting with waitresses".


good grief.

Apropos Of Absolutely Nothing

with nothing major on my mind that i care to share

enjoy an altered photo of me with david lee roth instead.