Slap Happy

TUESDAY

Mistakes, I've made a few. It's so frustrating to work so hard on this newsletter, read it over several times looking for errors, hit SEND, read it again as an email and discover numerous fuck ups. Like when the spell check function doesn't catch a word spelled correctly that's wrong. Last week it was “I hope in the car" – which can be done but isn’t what I did. Then there are the extra words never deleted after a rewrite That happens constantly. The biggest dropped ball from last week's SYNT was the conversion of $47.50 in 1962 dollars to 2022 dollars. I dropped a "4". It’s not $46.24. It’s $446.24.

Beyond mistakes, I question the sustainability of this current model of SYNT. It's a whole bunch of work. And time. Time is in short supply these days and I wrestle with how to reinvent SYNT to make it easier. Like writing throughout the week, rather than setting it all down Monday or Tuesday. Or keeping notes on my phone. Or taking pictures to jog my memory. But still. The time I spend on this is time I don't have elsewhere. While I love having these newsletters to look back on, I wonder if it's become an indulgence I can no longer afford. I’d love to know what you think. I have ideas for how to pivot SYNT. I could make it a laboratory for the Nihilistics book and send out new writing each week. Or is that giving away the milk for free rather than selling you the cow?

Whatever happens, change is afoot.

Before the day ends, the owner of Sixth Street Vintage texts, asks if I'd mind the store for her Saturday in exchange for table space to sell some things. Hmmm...

WEDNESDAY

After breakfast I swap out the light module on my car. This, my mechanic reasoned, is why the BULB OUT idiot light on the dash stays lit. But it doesn't solve the problem. My passenger side parking lamp won't illuminate and the idiot light does. Fuck. I try four different bulbs and three different bulb sockets. Nothing. The problem must be elsewhere. Back to the fuse box. From what I've found online, many electrical gremlins on these cars are traced back to fuses that LOOK intact but aren't. The torpedo fuse for the right (passenger) side marker light also serves a bunch of other functions, so I theorize something else could be causing the bulb not to light. My mechanic, Lee, doesn't respond to this theory when I text him, so what the fuck do I know? BTW, this is a dual function bulb, one element glows for the parking light, the other’s for the turn signal. The turn signal works, so at least I won't be getting a ticket. But this is so annoying, especially trying to access what Mercedes calls the “side marker”, AKA the unit that houses the bulb. It requires removal of the air filter housing, then squeezing your hand into a tiny space and contorting your wrist so your fingers can reach and press the tab, hopefully releasing the side marker. When I try to grab the lens of the side marker to coax the whole thing out, the lens comes off in my hand. Great. Just great. After ten minutes of fucking around, I give up and put it back the way it was sans lens. I suppose I'll be tracking down more used parts on eBay or Marketplace.

Today's trip outside is to Lark Street Music in Teaneck. I’d like Buzzy to do a written appraisal of the 1962 Les Paul for our insurance agent. I've done this with any guitar of value still in the house. If something happens, I don't want the insurance company giving me a hard time. I luck out when I get to Teaneck: there's a space right out front of Lark Street. I've brought the Les Paul in its vintage case and the new case it came with. Inside the new case are various parts – parts is parts, as the say – for horse-trading with Buzzy. I'm also hoping he'll want the new case.

Being in a music or guitar store always transports me back to adolescence, when I was first getting interested in guitar. Lark Street is one of the finer guitar stores in the Northeast – probably in the country – and my eyes widen any time I go in. Floor-to-ceiling guitars, amps lining the walls, a glass showcase full of effects. I have to keep reminding myself Do NOT come home with anything. Buzzy greets me and I remind him why I'm here.

"This is that ’62 Les Paul I told you about. I need a written appraisal for my insurance. Can I put it on that table?"

"That's what it's there for."

The table is a new addition. Usually, guitar cases are placed atop a purple Hi-Watt speaker cabinet near the cash register. I lay the case down, open it, extract the Les Paul, hand it to Buzzy.

"To me, it looks all original."

Buzzy eyes the guitar up and down.

"It does. When do you need this appraisal by?"

"I mean, I'd love it if I didn't have to leave the guitar. I was going to get lunch across the street..."

"I don't know if I could do it that quickly but I could probably have it ready to be picked up later today."

"Okay."

The Les Paul goes back in its case and Buzzy sticks it behind the counter. I place the new SG case on the table, open it.

"This is the case that came with the guitar. I was hoping you could use it."

I open the compartment in the case, pull out a bag of assorted parts.

"I also have these parts. Some bridge saddles from a Greco Strat copy. And a few knobs."

The parts are are spilled out in the case. Buzzy takes particular interest in one knob. He grabs it, brings it over to a Rickenbacker bass on the wall, holds it up.

"I need this. It says 'Bass Volume' on it but the knob's different."

"Can you pry that top plate off without bending it?"

"Maybe."

"I was hoping we could work something out for the appraisal."

"I can always use an SG case but they don't go for much."

"Whatever we can work out. I don't need it. And I have some other stuff I can bring. A Gretsch ukulele."

"Is it brown?"

"No. It's one of those camp models, round, like a blue-green finish?"

"Okay. Bring it in."

Buzzy goes behind the counter, grabs a receipt, asks for my info.

"I'll call you later."

He hands me the receipt and I head out the door for the Provident bank. I need cash if I'm going to make change Saturday at 6th Street Vintage. I haven't yet figured out what to bring but I know I'll need ones, fives and tens. After the bank I stop at Bischoff's for split pea soup and a grilled cheese.

"I'm sorry. Split pea soup is Thursday. Today is vegetable."

Bischoff's is empty except for an elderly couple discussing Ukraine, and I wince when the waitress tells me I'm here on the wrong day. I opt for an egg salad sandwich, which arrives with coleslaw and a pickle (I’ll come to regret this decision).

Back home I begin searching through That Cave boxes in the basement, looking for things that might sell at Sixth Street Vintage. It hits me again just how much shit I've accumulated over the years. I'm not yet 60 but it's time for some Swedish Death Cleaning. Since losing the store I can't look at its contents without feeling I'm suffocating. I dream of hiring an assistant just to help me make sense of it all and unload it somehow. Of course that’d mean paying someone to help and the point of selling stuff is to earn a few dollars. My other fantasy is to call the GOT JUNK? truck and have them haul it all away. But there's several thousand dollars of value here and the thought of someone else profiting off of my castaways makes me mad. No, I need to step up and begin unloading shit at a much faster pace.

I fill two bankers boxes, a Halliburton case and a Rimowa suitcase with stuff to sell Saturday, then gather up some of the items I used at the store to display things. Vintage locker baskets, a few old wooden crates, flat oak drawers, a tiered display from IKEA. It’s all piled near the garage door for loading into my car Saturday morning.

When Sweet T. gets home I make dinner. Before I can take a bite I have to rush to the bathroom. The rest of the night I'm cursing the Bischoff's egg salad from the toilet bowl.

Should've gotten the vegetable soup.

THURSDAY

Today, I venture into Manhattan for a long-overdue dental cleaning and checkup. It's been at least two years, maybe three, since I've been to the dentist, who happens to be my childhood friend Jim. You might think it odd to have one of your best friends seeing to your teeth but I find it reassuring. At least I know Jim's not going to suggest unnecessary work.

After breakfast I spend an hour on the newsletter, then drive myself down to Lincoln Harbor where I catch the NY Waterway ferry across the Hudson. It still strikes me odd this was my daily routine a dozen or more year. I was on the 7:15 AM boat every weekday morning, heading back between 3:30 and 5:00 PM. I rode the ferry so often I ended up in one of their videos advertising the service. Now it's all reflections of a life that used to be.

In the city I grab a NY Waterway bus that loops 42nd and 34th streets, getting out just shy of 8th Ave by the Port Authority Bus Terminal. As a Nexus of Suffering™, this building has few peers in the USA. There's a light drizzle falling but I have my new raincoat, a gift from Sweet T., to protect me as I make my way to 41st and the dental office. I pass two COVID testing vans, three or four panhandlers and a dozen tourists agog. At the corner of 8th and 41st I'm momentarily confused by the New York Times building, which seems to have been built up and out since I was last here. There's a momentary panic of Am I on the right block? until I snap to. There’s a good thirty minutes to kill so I hit the Muji store on the 40th Street side of the Times building, picking up three chunky Lucite™ picture frames. When I get to the building housing the dental office I see it’s been entirely redone. New exterior, new lobby, new elevators. Time hasn't stood still everywhere. Before I enter I put on my mask and my glasses instantly fog. I can't wait for this masked era to be done.

After check-in they get to me fast. I'm in the X-ray chair in minutes, then the dental hygienist comes for me. I'd forgotten that feeling of drowning as the intake of water from the cleaning tool outpaces its removal by the suction tube (at one point, two suction tubes). After the cleaning, Jim comes in to review my X-rays.

"I forgot about this tooth you have here, the one that didn't fully come in.”

“Yeah. That thing.”

"And this undescended canine."

Shit. I don't think I knew about that one.

"How does that happen?"

"Your baby tooth never fell out so it didn't come in."

"I suppose there's no point in doing anything about it now?"

"No."

The dental hygienist is Ukrainian and I ask her if she has family back there. She does.

“How are they faring?”

She squints.

"Doing. How are they doing?"

She wishes her mother would leave. She wants her to come to the states but her mother doesn't want to go. I find myself trying to bright-side the most recent news.

"It seems like the Russian army isn’t doing so well. Wait until those Russian mothers start getting their sons back in body bags.”

She corrects me.

No. They are burning them.

"Oh. Right. I suppose you can't stop everything to ship bodies back to Russia. Although, that might be what's needed. A flatbed truck piled high with dead Russians."

I hear myself saying this and wish I'd shut the fuck up. Nothing coming out of my mouth but plaque could possibly be helping this young woman cope. Jim thankfully changes the subject.

"Did you give him his goody bag?"

She hands me a paper bag with the Crest logo. Inside, there’s a new Oral B toothbrush and a small tube of Crest.

"Thanks. Nice meeting you."

Jim walks me out and I ask if he wants to get lunch. He can't. There's more teeth to examine and he's not breaking for another hour. I put my goody bag in my Muji bag and go.

Schnipper's is right on the corner and I haven't eaten since 6:30 AM, so I go in. The place is heavy with tourists but there's also locals, a reassuring sign. I order mac & cheese and onion rings and eat them at a table near the window, eavesdropping on an English couple to my right.

On the way back to 42nd Street I pass a Weed Cart. I'd heard about them but hadn't seen any yet. I ask the attendant if I can take a picture and he says yes.

"How much are the edibles?"

"Gummy or brownie?"

"Gummy."

"Thirty."

"Never mind."

Thirty dollars for a gummy?! The guy must think I'm from out of town. It's odd but I've always thought of myself as a New Yorker by temperament. Having been born in New York State (Long Island is its own world, really), I suppose I come by it honestly. Those qualities we associate with New Yorkers – well-honed bullshit detectors, a mordant sense of humor, that no-nonsense-I-haven't-got-time-for-this mien – I've long claimed for my own. But I've lived in NJ long enough to also take honorary ownership of its underdog roll-with-the-punches-fuck-you-if-you-don’t-like-me approach. I'm a hybrid, astride both states. But now I'm heading back to the NY Waterway terminal to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEW98670LAQ. There's no bus headed west so I walk the six or seven blocks, happy the rain's stopped.

Before I head to Weehawken I swing by Sixth Street Vintage in Hoboken to retrieve the key and get the lowdown from the owner.

At home, I round up the last of the tax info for the accountant. If I can get them everything tonight we can arrange a meeting for next week and finish up. It's taken forever but a picture finally emerges: That Cave broke even in its short lifespan. I suppose that's better than losing money.

FRIDAY

I need room for all I’m bringing for tomorrow's stint at 6th Street Vintage, so it's time to get the snows off and mount the All-Seasons currently occupying my trunk. The tire shops I've been to want fifty or sixty bucks to simply swap one set of mounted tires for another. On a whim, I call Firestone in Fairview on the way to Home Depot for bathroom sink parts. I've been to this Firestone before on the recommendation of my mechanic. They tell me they're not that busy, that I should stop by. When I get there everyone's fixated on what's happening across Bergenline Ave. Four Fairview Police SUVs are lined up in front of the White Castle and Noches De Columbia. A white pickup truck is blocking the entrance to the White Castle and the pickup driver and his passengers are surrounded by cops.

"That doesn't look good."

It's one of those “random interaction with a stranger” moments we all live for. The Firestone mechanic fires back.

"How could it be?"

"What did this guy do to get all these cops out here?"

"Who knows? Probably nothing?"

"I bet the White Castle manager's not happy about this. 'Hey, how's anyone supposed to get to the drive-thru?!’"

"Yep. No one's buying sliders with that going on."

The Firestone rep behind the counter finds me in their system quickly and shocks me with his quote to swap out my tires.

"Twenty three dollars."

"Each?!"

"No. It's twenty three for all of them."

"Oh. Great. Yeah, let's do it. How long should it take?"

"Thirty, maybe forty minutes? We'll call."

"Cool."

It's practically a summer day and back outside I decide to see if the White Castle has those Impossible Sliders I heard about. The cops are gone by the time I walk over there. Too bad. I wanted to ask what was up with the traffic stop. The Impossible Sliders turn out to taste exactly like my memory of an actual Slider. The fries are fine but I probably should've passed on them. By the time I'm done with lunch and walking back to Firestone my car’s on the lift and three of the snows have been swapped for All-Seasons. The mechanic (or "Tire Technician" or whatever Firestone HQ dubs them) does the last tire and lowers my car. Then he can't figure out how to open the trunk, so I do it for him.

"I like this car, man."

"Oh, thanks."

"How long you had it?"

"Bought it in 2018, forty-three thousand miles on it."

"Wow. Well, it's a nice car."

These unsolicited complements happened with my previous Mercedes, too. But I'd have to go back to my 1979 Jeep Wagoneer for anything similar.

After settling up with Firestone I continue on for sink parts but switch it up and go to Lowe's instead. It doesn't matter. Lowe's doesn't have everything I need and I end up at Home Depot anyway. Thank Jeebus they're next door to each other.

When I get home of course the sink parts aren’t the right parts. I returned the universal drain stopper lever replacement kit for a Pfister kit, which turns out to be the wrong size Pfister kit, even thought I brought the old part for a side-by-side. Fifteen years later I'm not convinced I'm cut out for home ownership.

There's a new Aerial View tonight but my guest Keith Hartel can't make it in person, so we settle for Skype. After dinner, Sweet T. and I watch King Richard and agree Will Smith gives a commanding performance as Richard Williams and deserves an Oscar.

SATURDAY

I'm up at 7:30 AM, showered by 8 and eating breakfast by 8:30. The car’s loaded up by 9:30 and I get to Sixth Street Vintage fifteen minutes later. I let myself in. Then I empty the trunk and the back passenger seat into the store. The table I'm taking over is maybe six feet by four feet and I have no idea how to maximize the space. For a brief moment I'm overwhelmed because the doors are supposed to be open in less than an hour. It all comes together, though, once I figure out to use the overturned wire baskets as risers. My That Cave tables ends up looking a hundred times more cluttered than the rest of the store, which has a more sparse aesthetic. But I'm trying to unload as much as possible. The owner of the shop stops in briefly on her way to an Estate Sale she's running on the south side of town. She likes what I've done and shares a few more tips on what to expect and when to reach out to her with questions.

"If there's something without a price just send me a picture."

I think I can handle this. And I do. It's not that different from running That Cave. There's no wi-fi so I'm taking cash or Venmo only. And rather than play my usual store music I'm streaming Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto and Os Mutantes all day. It fits in well with the vibe in the store, which is much more laid-back than That Cave. The customers stop in all day long, passersby shuttling themselves to or from Hoboken's main drag, Washington Street. They're mostly women, with mothers or daughters in tow, sometimes husbands or boyfriends. Only one dude comes in solo. He buys a dartboard, not mine. My stuff gets a cursory glance from the 30-and-under crowd. I count two customers who are anywhere near my age. The rest are too young to know what an egg beater is ("Is this like the one I have that plugs in?") or that a 70 year-old glazed ceramic bowl is not dishwasher-safe. The most challenging part of the day is the lag between texted pictures of items without a price and the response from the shop owner.

"This will just take a minute. She's responding pretty quickly."

For some people, thirty seconds is too long and they're out the door. Others aren't in a rush and the sale goes through. When 6 pm rolls around the owner's made $486. I've pulled in $54. I don't dare do the math to see how much I earned per hour. This may be another sign I'm not cut out for this. It takes a solid thirty minutes to get out the door. My stuff is staying another day, though I don't have to be here.

On the way home I try to stop for some beer but the store's closed, so I make do with the Prosecco in the refrigerator, the last bottle from our aborted Solstice Party.

SUNDAY

We're supposed to be flying to California a the end of July but I'm having no luck booking an AirBnB. They're either too expensive, not where we want to stay or not at all private. I put it aside and decide to head back to 6th Street Vintage (above) with a 45 adapter for the record players I have up for sale. I'm also bringing lighter fluid to fuel up the various Ronsons, Scriptos and Zippos on offer. I'm there thirty minutes, then back home working on a graphic for our garage sale next weekend. Over lunch, Sweet T. and I discuss the beneficiary disbursement method for her pension.

"The odds that you'd predecease me are slim. Statistically, women outlive men."

Like most couples, conversations around money tend to make us nuts and I'm glad when it's finally decided how to handle what might come my way. Sweet T. jokes I can spend the money on my girlfriend. More likely it’d be spent on a cat.

The day speeds by until it's time for the Oscars. We miss the first twenty minutes and bail out an hour in to watch WeCrashed. When we return the third hour's begun and all hell breaks loose when Chris Rock shows up to give the Oscar for best documentary. We all know what happens next but at our house it went down like this:

"WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED? WAS THAT A JOKE? DID HE ACTUALLY JUST PUNCH CHRIS ROCK IN THE FACE?! WHAT THE FUCK?"

Look, you've heard enough about the “Slap heard 'round the world” so I won't weigh in. Except. Do we no longer believe "Sticks & stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me!"? Maybe it was never true. The words directed at me as a kid still sting. I know they fundamentally affected me. But. To watch a man sabotage his crowning professional moment like that was shocking and sad. Chris Rock will recover from the injury. Will Smith will carry that shit the rest of his life. The slap will be mentioned in his obituary.

MONDAY

I’m due at NJ Imaging at 10 AM. Liver scan. I've made the mistake of booking it at the nearest NJ Imaging, which is in the horrid Kennedy Medical Center building on Tonnelle Ave just north of 495. It's cold as hell and I'm wishing I'd booked the scan at the Rutherford location, where I've been before. This place is a vertical nightmare of medical offices, one after another. I take the escalator up two flights, then the stairs to the third floor. There's no seats in the waiting room, so I stand in the hallway waiting my turn. Thankfully, things go quickly and in a few minutes my belly's being greased for an ultrasound reading. My doctor wants to see what my liver looks like. Pre-pandemic, when I was freelancing for Merck, I attended a two-day conference in Short Hills all about the scourge of fatty liver disease. Apparently, it's a big deal and there's big money to be made for the Big Pharma firm that figures out an "intervention". Of course, obesity is a risk factor for fatty liver disease, so what are the odds? They hand me a CD with my scans when I leave but how the hell would I know a scarred liver from a healthy one? Before I leave the building I visit the Unique store (above) in the basement, a massive thrift store unlike any I've seen.

Meanwhile, The Slap is everywhere and all anybody can talk about. The invasion of Ukraine will just have be back-burnered for a bit.