Intra-office Nomad
I have a new perspective at work today. That’s because I moved to my third different cube since starting here about 18 months ago. That’s because we’ve had to shuffle while our company renovates its offices. I’m not really too particular about my workspace as long as it’s fairly clean, has a drawer for my coffee cup, headphones, a couple of pens and some paper. Oh, another requirement is a decent chair. The chair I had at my last two cubes had stains I can only guess came from a previous owner’s losing bout with incontinence. On the upside, the stains did have a remarkable resemblance to the shape of Latvia, which at least provided a conversation starter with those touring the office. “Hi! that’s an interesting stain on your chair!” “For sure! It’s the shape of Latvia!” “Uh, nice. Where do you keep your medical supplies?”
It’s also important to me to have what they call good ergonomics. That means your knees don’t hit the counter when you pull your chair up to the work surface. In the L-shaped space, one generally places their computer monitor and keyboard at the intersections of the two legs. Unfortunately, the counter is too low and the arms on my chair are too high, so my fingers can barely scrape the edge of my keyboard, making my job as a writer somewhat more challenging, but not impossible. I’ve figured out how to blow enough air through a straw to depress the keys. It’s takes a little while longer than touch typing but if I add a little sound, I can pretty much hum any song I like. My co-workers are not amused but I did bring a full box of straws and have invited them to form a blow-typers band. Not have yet accepted and I fear I’m being blown off.
Before I retired I was senior manager at a car company and had an office enclosed in glass. It was more room than I needed and way too isolated from my teammates but our HR department said it would “send a bad message” if I worked from a more modest, and sensible space. I actually think it sends a great message when you take up only as much space as you actually need. In fact, I can fit all of my personal items in a small Trader Joes shopping bag and be out the door in 12 seconds when it’s time for me to move on.
One thing I noticed by moving three times is the difference in background sound. At my first spot our team was fairly isolated and I mainly heard conversations that pertained to our piece of the puzzle. Then we moved into the main newsroom and I liked being there because there was a nice view of Ford Field and Comerica Park, but that was offset by the woman across the divider from me who sneezed no fewer than 75 times every hour. When I was new in that space I attempted a “Bless you” and a “gesundheit” but after the first dozen sneezes I no longer wished this person good health, praying instead for death by Kleenex.
My new, and I’m told, permanent cube, is in what can only be called a mixed neighborhood. I’ve been placed between two people who aren’t on my team and they’ve yet to acknowledge me. I suppose I could take the initiative but as someone who mainly works from home, only coming in to the office every few weeks, it seems like an unnecessary burden. They’ll forget my name, I’ll forget theirs and I don’t want to become so familiar that one of them hits me up to borrow a pen I’ll never see again, or asks about my weekend because then I’d have to ask about their weekend and the small talk quotient would simply be far beyond my level of toleration. I do enjoy that sort of chatting with my teammates because I already know their names so half the work is already done.
Meanwhile, my knees are getting sore bumping into the counter so I’m moving things around a bit. I have five drawers and only three possessions so it may be entertaining to switch their locations from time to time then play a game with myself to see if I remember where I put everything, since I have no idea when I’m scheduled to return to the office. Plus, it will take me only 12 seconds to pack up….when it’s time to move…again.
Which brings us to Easter. My wife has a deft touch when decorating the house for every holiday. For the Resurrection she exhumes a host of colorful, sparkling eggs and they rise to hover over us from various light fixtures. This not only adds the bright hues of Spring and hope to the house, it provides a reminder that between Easter and Passover ….eggs suffer from a high mortality rate. 
I’ve never attended an opening day as a spectator, but I do have some clear memories of a couple that I was compelled to cover as a correspondent for CNN. I remember them because one involved almost being beheaded by a ball thrown by a Cleveland Indian, and the second involved mayhem at the old Cincinnati Riverfront Stadium when I covered the banning of Pete Rose from baseball.
Suspecting the fans would be pissed, I was sent to get some comments from Tigers players before the game. I walked up to giant Cecil Fielder who mumbled some gibberish only decipherable by a code breaker. As I attempted to get the slugger to form actual words, Indians outfield Kenny Lofton decided to take advantage of my vulnerable position and whizzed a ball by my noggin’ so close I saw Sparky Anderson’s life before my eyes. 
Lofton’s asshole move sparked a chuckle from Fielder who then mumbled something like “igotnuthintosay.” I only know that because a drunk guy in the front row listening to my attempt at an interview was annoyed when I persisted in trying to get the beef slab to give me just ten good seconds of wisdom I could use. He shouted at me, “hesayhegotnuthintosay!” Oh.
I covered the entire arc of Pete Roses’s banning from baseball and that’s worth an entire blog post by itself. But I’ll tell you about the first opening day after Rose was bounced, replaced by Lou Pinella as Reds manager.
She was not a nice person..banned from managing the team from 1996 to 98 for spewing garbage supporting policies by that great baseball figure Adolph Hitler. Her constant companion, aside from her bigotry, was her dog Schottzie, which she brought to the game. I both the dog and the cur in a front row box seat and I attempt to get some obnoxious comments. Schottzie decides he doesn’t like reporters, hops over the rails and takes a dump at my foot. Marge says she agrees with that comment then goes on to blab blab blab about what a good boy Pete Rose is.
My next quarry was manager Lou Pinella. It was a kick to try to talk to him since I’m a native New Yorker and a big Yankee fan and Looouuuuuuuu was a favorite when he wore pinstripes. Now he wore the scarlet letter R but I didn’t hold it against him. What I did hold against him was that he was a ton taller than I imagined and I was barely able to get the mic up to his mouth. I was glad he turned out to be a cool guy and didn’t let any animals take a crap on my crappy shoes.
Can’t help it. Every time I heard his name I thought of Office Dibble on the old Top Cat cartoon show. 
When I ask about his feeling about Pete Rose he goes completely bonkers to the point of incoherance in his support of his former manager. Everyone picked up our soundbite which may have been ESPN’s Play of the Day that day.
No, this has nothing to do with Woody or Buzz. It has everything to do with red ink, Chapter 11 and the loss of places parents could rely on to be tortured by their children.
That news comes in the wake of the closing recently of beloved Detroit-area Doll Hospital and Toy Soldier Shop and who knows how many other independent toy stores around the country. 
My first recollection of going into a toy store was a little place in the line of stores pictured above on Union Turnpike and 248th Street in Queens, where I grew up. Stuck in a strip near a bar, booze shop and deli, It was called Mitchells. Yup. Owned by a guy named Mitchell. Wasn’t sure if it was his first or last name and didn’t care as long as the names he carried included Mattel and Remco and Parker Brothers and Hasbro, Lionel and Ideal and Gilbert. Mitchells wasn’t a big place. It was about the size of a small deli, only instead of pickles and pastrami his shelves were stuffed with toys of every kind.
Fast forward to a time my older brother and I were in college. We decided to go into Manhattan and the flagship FAO Schwartz store where Tom Hanks jumped around on a giant keyboard in “Big.” 
We needed to buy a special toy for one of our cousin’s birthday. But we became hopelessly lost in the giant store, forgot our mission and started tossing around a football my brother picked up from one of the shelves. The other customers were smart enough to realize neither of us were adept at passing accurately…or catching the ball, for that matter and got the hell out of the way. The nonsense finally ended when a smartly suited salesman suggested we remove our sorry selves from the esteemed purveyor of playthings. Ha! We never did get around to buying that gift. The poor kid received a nice card and our best wishes. 
The stores sold these big plastic playhouses and had the samples lined up like little Levittowns in a center aisle. Our kids would check out every one of them and, like adult lookie-loos, would advise us of which one best suited their dreams. One year we actually bought on of them. It sat in a special corner of our basement and the kids filled it with balloons…naming the plastic cottage the Balloony Goony House. They had a lot of fun in it until they outgrew the three-foot high doorway and we sold it to our neighbors at one of our garage sales. 
Maybe it’s true today’s kids would rather bang on a keyboard, fry their eyes gaping at one screen or another or perform every task on their little phones…just like adults. As Joni Mitchell wrote, “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” but I hate to think of a time when kids never know of places where fun, exploration, surprise and discovery were were right out there. Not online on a screen. But right there…to touch and see…sitting on shelf..and shipping was always free..because it came home with you, in your parent’s car. 
One panelist said he refuses to use the term “fake news,” others, including myself, surmised fake news could be anything from the satire of The Daily Show to maliciously-published falsehoods. A Thomson Reuters report on Fake News released yesterday described the term as being “weaponized” by the current cretin in the White House who launches it every time a story he dislikes is released, whether or not it’s true.
What struck me more than anything about the discussion didn’t actually come from the panel, but from the questions fired at us from the audience. A mostly middle aged crowd brought up reading newspapers and watching Walter, they seemed almost desperate…at loose ends..to find out from us how things got this way. What happened to journalism, where did all the “real” journalists go, how do I find reliable sources of fair and accurate news?
I don’t wanna see their book shelves because some people buy the classics or high-minded tomes but never cracked the covers. It’s all pretentious bullshit. But a person rarely buys music and doesn’t listen to it. Doesn’t matter what the format is. They own the music and when the mood strikes for a particular song, artist or genre, just the right selection isn’t far away. 
I wanna be able to discuss one’s collection. There are often great stories about how a person came to own a particular album, regardless of the medium.
One of high school buddies was a nut for the guitar group, The Ventures. He had every album. I have of few from them as well, but Manny Hershkowitz was thoroughly hypnotized by them…
Then there was Al Schmertz. He only collected comedy albums. Especially live performances. He had ‘em all. Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Steve Martin, Rodney Dangerfield. Couldn’t carry a tune. Ever. But he was awesome at saying, “thanks. you’ve been great.”
I do own some strange stuff like the album by the 
I own albums by comedy troupe Firesign Theater, a double LP of early live performances by Woody Allen before he became creepy. 
How about a live double LP from a rock festival in the early 70‘s in Puerto Rico called Mar y Sol, featuring, among others, Long John Baldry
I do own some 45’s including Fabian’s “Hound Dog Man” bought by my brother and a bunch of other singles that were sent to me by various record companies when I was a radio station program director, including this total oddball from actor George Segal called “What You Gonna Do When the Rent Comes “Round.” It was free.
Let’s not forget a bizarre Steve Martin platter called “What I Believe..A Patriotic Statement). I can only imagine. A needle hasn’t ridden its grooves since before the Bee Gees turned disco.
As the Winter Olympics come to a close I ask you this question..do you speak Olympian?It’s more than Greek to me–it’s like a cross between Mesopotamian and Klingon. When I hear the announcers describe what’s going on I wanna call 911 because I think they’re having apoplexies. What do I mean? ok…you flip on the snowboard half-pipe event. the announcer starts getting cranked up, just ready to scream out things that make no sense at all.. ok..here we go, there goes schleppy callaghan, whoa! just did a quadruple grab his ass backwards opposite front reverse rolling in the shit switch fake back side flip us off 1080 canadian bacon mindy method mulekick! That was awesome but the judges may take some points off for the shaky roast beef rusty trombone. 
Right. I can’t tell the method from the madness but i can pretty easily figure out some insane person that’s only 4 feet tall wearing baggy clothes just shot themselves into the air then did a bunch of contortions that made it look like the poor kid just got tased. Then, if they’re lucky, they land on their feet and shoot up the other side of the half-pipe and do something even more crazy that will once again set off the announcer who cries…..ohmygod! that’s the first anyone’s done a quintuple kiss your ass goodbye stiffy stuffy pickpocket …while eating a breakfast sandwich! Uh..yeah..whatever. None of the announcer’s gibberish helps me understand what just happened aside from watching a young person do things that, for most people, would prevent them from becoming an old person. With no hope of emulating what I’ve just seen, I attempt a soft sofa dismount, but lose 3 points for a two-footed landing..and spilling beer and chips on the carpet. I settle for a bronze..just beating an in-law who fell on a Frito. 
I’ve been watching it for decades and to this day, I don’t know the difference between a flip, loop, lutz, salchow or axle. It’s all just skinny people lofting themselves above the ice, twirling, smiling, crying, falling in different ways. 
When I heard Tara and Johnny kvell that some skater landed a triple lutz, all I could think of was what my father would often ask when someone went crazy about something that didn’t impress him. he’d say, “yeah…but is it good or bad for the jews?” Lutz sounds German, so it probably isn’t. In fact, it’s named after Austrian skater Alois Lutz, but Austria’s just next door to Germany so I’m not budging. i suppose in this age of double, triple, quadruple screen viewing I could have webpages open that define all these terms but if my eyes are averted for even a second when i hear the announcer scream, “holy crap..they just landed a 1600pennsylvaniaavenuetrumpiancombover….and i miss it…well that would pretty much send me into a 1280snuffmytorch.
edLINES 