it's easy...

so it turns out i wasn't at my desk bringing you the cheese and the skinny this morning. nor did i bring you any news at all, let alone all that was fit to print.

there is a very good reason for this-- me and the wife took a long walk down to the social security office, kind of where the tenderloin meets union square, in the first of a three- pronged offensive* to change her name officially to mine. also we had some returns to do at bloomingdale's.

i have been thinking about yesterday's column and thought i would try to say something nice about religion, people's religions, etc., and i came up with this: i was very honored to give the second reading at one of my best friend's wedding's church service a couple of weeks back [i've mentioned this wedding several times now] and i wanted to share with you the beautiful reading i was asked to give.

a reading from the first letter of saint paul to the corinthians

brothers and sisters:
strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.

but i shall show you a still more excellent way.

if i speak in human and angelic tongues
but do not have love,
i am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
and if i have the gift of prophecy
and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge;
if i have faith so as to move mountains,
but do not have love, i am nothing.
if i give everything that i own,
and if i hand over my body so that i may boast
but do not have love, i gain nothing.

love is patient, love is kind.
it is not jealous, is not pompous,
it is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick- tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
it bears all things, believes all things
hopes all things, endures all things.

love never fails.

the word of the lord.

now that's not so bad, right? and john lennon reiterated it well, i think, a little later on when he summarized and said, "all you need is love". and that's all i'm saying, people. there's nothing you can do that can't be done. nothing you can sing that can't be sung.

~lee.

ps. i am off to go see i'm not there with the wife in a minute and i couldn't be more excited. hope you all are staying warm out there.

*the other two prongs? her driver's license, and then all her credit cards. after that she's mine!

jesus fuckin' christ...

goodness.

between this ridiculous lil' tidbit and the poor british teacher who's going to jail, i was most of the way through a rather hostile polemic regarding organized religion, referencing john lennon and benjamin franklin and christopher hitchens and amerigo bonasera with the whole "i believe in america" thing*, and how i'm going to rename all of my cockrings muhammed and that jesus as an idea i guess i don't mind but i don't want to hear another fucking word because seven times outta ten anybody actually referencing jesus is just going to wind up saying something hilariously antithetical to what they say jesus said...

...turns out i was just hungry. i took a dinner break and now i'm cool.

i've missed you badly, however [talking to you, d--], and will be at my desk first thing tomorrow morning to bring you the cheese, the skinny, and all the news that's fit to print. until then: word is born, and keep your unit on you.

~lee.

*plagiarizing sarah vowell. yes, i know.

l.l's.d.p. vol. III...

at this point, i will be so happy when this debaucherous weekend is over... i just can't do it anymore. i have eaten and eaten and drank and drank. i feel like i look like a late- period orson welles and have achieved a girth somewhere close to that of the state of missouri. there is a non- profit called heifer international that my wife is currently reading about aloud, sitting across from me at the table, and i'm thinking seriously of changing my name to heifer interntional as well.

anyway, i hope that you have all been well. this morning finds me at my in- law's house [we drove in yesterday morning for a big reunion- type thing] and as such i have little time to share with you*. i'd like to accomplish something here today, however, and so, without further adieu, i present to you a special thanksgiving weekend- hangover installment of l.l's.d.p., specially dedicated today to my in- laws: thank you for letting me crash last night and also for letting me marry your daughter.

1] we are trying to have a baby, by the way.

2] my vegetarian alter- ego.

3] aquarium drunkard and athens.

4] in anticipation of xmas shopping.

5] you gotta have a sense of humor about these things.

i will be back on the horse tomorrow, folks. until then, i'll be thinking of you. and fat.

~lee.

*i'm going to skip the cliched minutiae of how pejorative i find the word 'blog', by the way, but suffice it to say that i do and that furthermore i'd simply like to refer to my sharing with you here as 'an independent online column'. okay then.

bad news...

sadly, i want to let people know that ted, the owner of the grit in athens, has died. you can read more about it here.

i didn't know ted at all-- met him a few times-- nevertheless my heart goes out to his family and friends back in athens. what a shame.

~lee.

turkey bunnies, con't...

Word of the Day for Friday, November 23, 2007

postprandial \post-PRAN-dee-uhl\, adjective:

Happening or done after a meal.

A gourmand who zealously avoids all exercise as "seriously damaging to one's health," he had caviar for breakfast and was now having oysters for lunch, whetted with wine, as he fueled himself for a postprandial reading at the Montauk Club in Brooklyn.
-- Mel Gussow, "The Man Who Put Horace Rumpole on the Case", New York Times, April 12, 1995

When I wake up in the morning, I can have my usual breakfast -- a slightly bizarre concoction of three kinds of cold cereal topped with grapes and a cup of decaf -- and then stagger back to bed for a postprandial snooze.
-- Sylvan Fox, "It's Less Hectic Staying Put In One Place", Newsday, April 3, 1994

Postprandial is from post- + prandial, from Latin prandium, "a late breakfast or lunch."

********************************************************************************

i ate and drank way too much yesterday and as such the neurons in my brain simply aren't firing as quickly as i'd like. i give you the venerable woody allen in my place.

********************************************************************************

NOTES FROM THE OVERFED

(After reading Dostoevsky and the "Weight Watchers" magazine on the same trip)

I am fat. I am disgustingly fat. I am the fattest human I know. I have nothing but excess poundage all over my body. My fingers are fat. My wrists are fat. My eyes are at. (Can you imagine fat eyes?) I am hundreds of pounds overweight. Flesh drips from me like hot fudge off a sundae. My girth has been an object of disbelief to everyone who's seen me. There is no question about it, I'm a regular fatty. Now, the reader may ask, are there advantages or disadvantages to being built like a planet? I do not mean to be facetious or speak in paradoxes, but I must answer that fat in itself is above bourgeois mentality. It is simply fat. That fat could have a value of its own, that fat could be, say, evil or pitying, is, of course, a joke. Absurd. For what is fat after all but an accumulation of pounds? And what are pounds? Simply aggregate composite of cells. Can a cell be moral? Is a cell beyond good and evil? Who knows-- they're so small. No, my friend, we must never attempt to distinguish between good fat and bad fat. We must train ourselves to confront the obese without judging, without thinking this man's fat is first- rate and this poor wretch's is grubby fat.

Take the case of K. This fellow was porcine to such a degree that he could not fit through the average door frame without the aid of a crowbar. Indeed, K. would not think to pass from room to room in a conventional dwelling without first stripping completely and then buttering himself. I am no stranger to the insults K. must have borne from the passing gangs of young rowdies. How frequently he must have been stung by cries of "Tubby!" and "Blimp!" How it must have hurt when the governor of the province turned to him on the Eve of Michelmas and said, before many dignitaries, " You hulking pot of kasha!"

Then one day, When K. could stand it no longer, he dieted. Yes, dieted! First sweets went. Then bread, alcohol, starches, sauces. In short, K. gave up the very stuff that makes a man unable to tie his shoelaces without help from the Santini Brothers. Gradually he began to slim down. Rolls of flesh fell from his arms and legs. Where once he looked roly- poly, he suddenly appeared in public with a normal build. Yes, even an attractive build. He seemed the happiest of men. I say "seemed," for eighteen years later, when he was near death and fever raged throughout his slender frame, he was heard to cry out, "My fat! Bring me my fat! Oh, please! I must have my fat! Oh, somebody lay some aoirdupois on me! What a fool I've been. To part with one's fat! I must have been in league with the Devil!" I think that the point of the story is obvious.

Now the reader is probably thinking, Why, then, if you are Lard City, have you not joined a circus? Because-- and I confess this with no small embarrassment-- I cannot leave the house. I cannot go out because I cannot get my pants on. My legs are too thick to dress. They are the living result of more corned beef than there is on Second Avenue-- I would say about twelve thousand sandwiches per leg. And not all lean, even though I specified. One thing is certain: If my fat could speak, it would probably speak of a man's intense loneliness-- with, oh perhaps a few additional pointers on how to make a sailboat out of paper. Every pound on my body wants to be heard from, as do Chins Four through Twelve inclusive. My fat is strange fat. It has seen much. My calves alone have lived a lifetime. Mine is not happy fat, but it is real fat. It is not fake fat. Fake fat is the worst fat you can have, although I don't know if the stores still carry it.

But let me tell you how it was that I became fat. For I was not always fat. It is the Church that has made me thus. At one time I was thin-- quite thin. SO thin, in fact, that to call me fat would have been an error in perception. I remained thin until it was my twentieth birthday-- when I was having tea and cracknels with my uncle at a fine restaurant. Suddenly my uncle put a question to me. "Do you believe in God?" he asked. "And if so, what do you think he weighs? So saying, he took a long and luxurious draw on his cigar and, in that confident, assured manner he has cultivated, lapsed into a coughing fit so violent I thought he would hemorrhage.

"I do not believe in God," I told him. "For if there is a God, then tell me, Uncle, why is there poverty and baldness? Why do some men go through life immune to a thousand mortal enemies of race, while others get a migraine that lasts for weeks? Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered? Answer me, Uncle. Or have I shocked you?"

I knew I was safe in saying this, because nothing ever shocked the man. Indeed, he had seen his chess tutor's mother raped by Turks and would have found the whole incident amusing had it not taken so much time.

"Good nephew," he said, "there is a God, despite what you think, and He is everywhere. Yes! Everywhere!"

"Everywhere, Uncle? How can you say that when you don't even know for sure if we exist? True, I am touching your wart at this moment, but could that not be an illusion? Could not all life be an illusion? Indeed, are there not certain sects of holy men in the East who are convinced that nothing exists outside their minds except for the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station? Could it not be simply that we are alone and aimless, doomed to wander in an indifferent universe, with no hope of salvation, nor any prospect except misery, death, and the empty reality of eternal nothing?"

I could see that I made a deep impression on my uncle with this, for he said to me, "You wonder why you're not invited to more parties! Jesus, you're morbid!" He accused me of being nihilistic and then said, in that cryptic way the senile have, "God is not always where one seeks Him, but I assure you, dear nephew, He is everywhere. In these cracknels, for instance." With that, he departed, leaving me his blessing and a check that read like the tab for an aircraft carrier.

I returned home wondering what it was he meant by that one simple statement "He is everywhere. In these cracknels, for instance." Drowsy by then, and out of sorts, I lay down on my bed and took a brief nap. In that time, I had a dream that was to change my life forever. IN the dream, I am strolling in the country, when suddenly I notice I am hungry. Starved, if you will. I come upon a restaurant and I enter. I order the open- hot- roast- beef sandwich and a side of French. he waitress, who resembles my landlady (a thoroughly insipid woman who reminds one instantly of some of the hairier lichens), tries to tempt me into ordering the chicken salad, which doesn't look fresh. As I am conversing with this woman, she turns into a twenty- four- piece starter set of silverware. I become hysterical with laughter, which suddenly turns to tears and then into a serious ear infection. The room is suffused with a radiant glow, and I see a shimmering figure approach on a white steed. It is my podiatrist, and I fall to the ground with guilt.

Such was my dream. I awoke with a tremendous sense of well- being. Suddenly I was optimistic. Everything was clear. My uncle's statement reverberated to the core of my very existence. I went to the kitchen and started to eat. I ate everything in sight. Cakes, breads, cereals, meat, fruits. Succulent chocolates, vegetables in sauce, wines, fish, creams and noodles, eclairs, and wursts totalling in excess of sixty thousand dollars. If God is everywhere, I had concluded, the He is in food. Therefore, the more I ate the godlier I would become. Impelled by this new religious fervor, I glutted myself like a fanatic. In six months, I was the holiest of holies, with a heart entirely devoted to prayers and a stomach that crossed the state line by itself. I last saw my feet one Thursday morning in Vitbsk, although for all I know they are still down there. I ate and ate and grew and grew. To reduce would have been the greatest folly. Even a sin! For when we lose twenty pounds, dear reader (and I am assuming you are not as large as I), we may be losing the twenty best pounds that we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty or, in the case of one inspector general I knew, just some unsightly flab around the hips.

Now, I know what you are saying. You are saying this is in direct contradiction to everything-- yes, everything-- I put forth before. Suddenly I am attributing to neuter flesh, values! Yes, and what of it? Because isn't life that very same kind of contradiction? One's opinion of fat can change in the same manner that the seasons change, that our hair changes, that life itself changes. For life is change and fat is life, and fat is also death. Don't you see? Fat is everything! Unless, of course, you're overweight.

********************************************************************************

[excerpted from the book Getting Even. a very special thanks to all involved in making the san francisco henderson's inaugural thanksgiving day celebration such a memorable one. also to mr. allen's attorneys...]

~lee.

turkey bunnies...

very quickly, i wanted to say first that i apologize for not being in touch these last couple of days. i'm sure you understand.

additionally i'd just like to wish each and every one of you a very happy holiday. i have alot to be thankful for this year [as always], one of the most fundamental being that i am able to sit comfortably in my chair, listen to jeff buckley swoon about kingdoms and the "sweetness of her laughter", and communicate with you. have a great day.

Word of the Day for Thursday, November 22, 2007

deipnosophist \dyp-NOS-uh-fist\, noun:

Someone who is skilled in table talk.

~lee.

14 july 2007...

what a terrific morning i'm having.

i've spent it [after getting up especially early and hitting the treadmill] looking through one of my best friend's wedding photographs, reliving not just her wedding*, but, in the process, our own as well.

i am especially proud of our wedding. i consider it one of the crowning achievements of my life so far, in fact. the trick my wife and i were able to pull off, what i'm most proud of, was that never did we compromise the vision of how we wanted to present ourselves to the world and that, in the end, all of those decisions [so minutely detailed in some cases, and agonized over-- planning a wedding is hard work] worked out so well.

it was a real coup, one i've come to think of almost allegorically... don't be afraid. trust your instincts. don't acquiesce. shakespeare said it best when he said, "this above all: to thine own self be true".

all this as i was pulling off the most incredible trick of all, getting my wife to marry me in the first place.

what a terrific morning i 'm having.

~lee.

*i know a thing or two about stunning brides, and if there ever was one [besides mine], she was it.