Things heard on the commuter train

The other day I was listening to a podcast with Hollwood director Jason Reitman. He recently won a golden globe for his screenplay for ‘Up in the Air’, which M and I saw and both enjoyed greatly. He also directed ‘Juno’ (we liked that as well) and ‘Thank You For Smoking’ (I have not seen that one yet). He is also the son of famous and mega successful producer/writer/director Ivan Reitman. On the surface it seems like this guy should be a monumental tool. He joked that he was so at ease in the Beverly Hilton because he’d been to so many Bar Mitzvahs there. Boo Hoo. Growing up in Beverly Hills is so hard to do. He talked about how he had every privilege and consideration, never had to worry about where his next dollar was coming from, etc. But he also discussed how difficult it was for him once he decided he wanted to be a director. Being the son of an already successful director, one would think that daddy could pull some strings and get him some easy work. This might work in some slacktastic world like politics or law, where there seems to be a plethora of legacy country club overpaid hacks, but in other professions you have to have some actual talent and being a relation of someone famous can be a hinderance. I am sure Michael Jordan’s sons get guarded extra hard by defenders who want to say they shut down MJ’s kid and he sucks. Being the scion of a great talent means you’re always going to be compared to them and not your actual peers. The point it, Jason Reitman told a very sad tale about how no one wanted to work with him and he got his start with lots of commercials and small Sundance-type films. Now he’s an award winning director, working with A-list stars and his movies and scripts get tons of critical buzz. And he’s 32 years old. WHAT? Come on. When I heard that, I wanted to toss the iphone off the train. 32? (it must run the family – Ivan Reitman’s Animal House came out when he was 32. Since then it’s been Meatballs, Stripes, Ghostbusters - all good ones – ending with My Super ex Girlfriend in 2006 at the ripe ol age of 60). I’m 32 and I have no industry awards to my name. I don’t even know what awards my industry gives out. I know I’m the same age as Tom Brady and he has 3 superbowl rings and an MVP award. But most pro athletes are finished by age 30, and I didn’t exactly live at the gym during my teens and 20s, so I am not feeling any pain there. And at least I won’t limp when I’m 50. Most musicians blow up well before their 30s. If you’re trying to make pop music in your 30s, forget it. I can’t even sing Happy Birthday, so I don’t allocate and shelf space to missing Grammy’s. Plus, the really legendary musicians are dead by 27 and I’m way past that. And John Mayer really is a douche.

I’m not just saying that. Pardon the sidebar, but he was in the NYTimes, talking about his watch collection. I’m a big fan of watches and know a lot about them. From what they showed, I was unimpressed. There’s one pretty boring Patek Phillipe he owns, it has a bunch of diamonds on it, and he’s up there bragging about how unique and spectacular it is. There are a hundred similar looking pieces out there. “I have a Patek Philippe 5971 — platinum perpetual calendar, diamond baguettes on the bezel. I know it to be the most beautiful watch with diamonds”. Patek Phillipe is the Rolls Royce is watches, don’t get me wrong. But it’s expected for a rich guy to own one. I would never expect a ‘car guy’ to actually drive a Rolls or Bentley. Give me something interesting, something rare, exceptional. It’s the default ‘I have a ton of cash’ toy with a shiny label. Everyone knows Rolex and Patek Phillipe, Rolls Royce and Ferrari. Give me a Richard Mille or HD3 for a watch, give a Koenigsegg or Gumpert Apollo for a car. I want something that no one I ever meet will know anything about. Ok Rant over.

Van Gogh was pretty much washed up by 32. Of course he was insane and killed himself at 37, but that’s not an excuse. It’s well documented that math freaks do their best work by their early 20s. If you’re not a certifiable math celebrity by 28, get a new line of work. So here I am, 6 months from being 33 and I don’t have the great lifetime accomplishment anywhere on my horizon. I know everyone thinks, deep down, when that look in that mirror every day, scratching their armpit, that they are above average. I hate to break the news, but that’s mathematically impossible. At least half of us are below average. There are 3 billion people below average. Of course there are 3 billion above average as well. Maybe I am one of them? The comic book industry makes a lot of money off the premise that hidden deep inside ever cellar dwelling pale skinned geek is a super power just waiting to reveal itself. I’m not holding out hope for my flying abilities to one day just appear.

In the middle of a segment about how directors have their most creative period, Reitman had the courtesy to mention that for directors, that creative burst tends to come in their late 30s and early 40s. He’s in his peak now because he started earlier. So maybe my peak is just about to happen? I’m worried that I peaked sometime in 2005, right about the time I was crushing Madden and tearing up the streets of Grand Theft Auto in record style. Playstation2 could have been my big moment and I just let it fly by. Actors have the luxury of having extended peaks, because they get to grow with the roles they are offered. Maybe you can’t pull off the grizzled Army General when you’re 23, but you have the young soldier role. For non-actors, maybe there isn’t a peak? When I think of a peak, I automatically assume that’s when you’re making the most money. From what I can tell, for white men, that’s when you’re 55 with a nice set of silver temples and Seacrest-white teeth. At that point, you’re in charge of something, playing a lot of golf and cashing checks with all sorts of commas. Creatively though, I bet these codgers best days are way behind them. I don’t know what the value of the old guy is, except to get along with the old guys at the top of the other businesses they deal with and call in accumulated favors for their own benefit. They rely on young people who want to work 80 hours a week to do the real work. So maybe I have another 23 years to go until I hit that peak? My great invention hasn’t flickered in the brain yet, the great novel sits cobwebbed and unwritten, the political career ended sometime in 1997; the modeling days at about the same time. On the flip side, street criminal has definitely passed me by. I think the peak age for that is somewhere in the teens or 20s. By 32 you’re dead or in jail. Hipster is also long gone. 32 year olds serving coffee with skinny jeans and Amish beards are straight losers. Good thing, too. Beards and I do not get along.

All new stuff

Welcome to the ‘10s, or something along those lines. It was a nice little break for the Christmas/New Year. Granted I didn’t take any actual time off (I’d greedily taken all my vacation already), but everyone else took time off, so that was pretty much the same as me taking time off. We got to see the Pops again. This time M managed to get front row seats on the top balcony. Having gone to the Pops for several years in a row now, we’d decided these were the best seats for the money. Way back in March or something M patiently waited for the tickets to go on sale. The day of the sale she logged on a few minutes early (just to see if she could) and bought the tickets. The scheduled time to begin didn’t seem to matter much. Fast forward to the night of the Pops the guy behind us demanded to know if we were season ticket holders. He’d tried to buy the tickets right at the designated start time and was unable to (they were sold already, sucker) and needed an explanation. I can imagine him sitting home and fuming for 9 months waiting for the day he could confront the people who got his seats. Unfortunately he was just a little guy and he ended up with 4 much bigger people sitting in front of him. Merry Christmas. Speaking of Christmas, M and I had done some last minute shopping that day in the Prudential and Copley Malls. During a lull in the shopping, I decided to stop in a jewelry store to look at a watch I’d seen in a magazine. A helpful salesman saw me enter and asked if he could help me and as confidently as I could muster, I said “do you carry the Yachtmaster II?” (I don’t know how you communicate II or III instead of 2 or 3, maybe it’s in the snobby tone) I didn’t need to say the ‘Rolex’ Yachtmaster II, for some reason he just knew what I was looking for. I flipped through The Economist a few weeks back and saw one of these for the first time and I made M take a look because I thought it was a particularly handsome watch. Now I’d done some minimal research to see if this was even a possibility, but at $30k+ this was not the case. Regardless, I gladly took hold of the shiny chunk of Swiss craftsmanship. I mentioned some of the features to show I knew what I was holding and the salesman asked if I would be talking it home today. I laughed and said he’d have to take my car in trade, to which he replied that they offered a sort of ‘sign and drive’ option for people who were expecting big bonus checks or something. Then I casually asked what he charged for the watch, and then threw out a range that I was expecting and he said I was dead on. I took his literature and went back to my shopping, telling him that I’d be back when that check arrived. An hour or so later, M arrived and I wanted to show her what I’d found. The salesman immediately recognized me and waved me right over. M was unimpressed. That was when I noticed the watch didn’t have a date feature. I don’t know what else it did, but for that much cheddar they should include a date. Earlier in the month M and I went to the New England Auto Show. While we looked seriously at cars we could ostensibly one day afford, we spent a good amount of time in the big boys toys, pretending to drive to our various vacation homes. In one such car, the Audi A8, another man was sitting in the driver seat, looking unimpressed. We chatted briefly and I informed him that I much preferred the Lexus LS and again named some things I liked about it. He said he agreed completely and offered me his card and told me to come on down for a good deal on a Lexus LS. He was a salesman and was scouting the competition. While it’s good to know that I can pull off either the “I have so much money, I dry myself in a towel made of $50s” or the “I am ridiculously irresponsible, take money I don’t have” look, I don’t know what I will do with my newfound powers. Christmas weekend was a long one, but in a good way. It was the three days of Christmas, minus the turtle doves and partridges, pear trees etc… M and I did a ton of eating (ok I did a ton of eating, M was very well behaved), including at least an entire pound of nuts (or more). We’d made 3 lbs of spiced nuts to bring to various get-togethers and I ate lots of these nuts at every event and then for days after. I know I abraded my tounge from scraping nuts residue off my teeth. It’s only now healing. We participated in a few yankee swap-type things and ended up with decent kit from these. I have to send the anonymous shout out to the saint who rescued me from the snuggie. The traditional gift giving was also a big hit. One of the more interesting gifts I received was a talking alarm clock. You say hello to the clock and it responds and then you do everything you would normally do with an alarm, but without pressing buttons, only talking. At first this seemed cumbersome and I sort of wanted the old war horse I’d had for 15 years, but now I’m loving it. It’s kind of cool to call out across the room and get the temperature or change the time. I am also now the proud owner of an espresso machine, which changes things considerably. It uses little espresso cartridges, so I am spared the grinding and packing associated with the mess and hassle of espresso machine. Now, armed with my (also new) milk frother, I can make as many triple grande lattes as I deem necessary. I’m not giving up on coffee in any way, but I think I’ll be having a few more afternoon espressos in the future. Soon I can stop shaving regularly and start wearing skinny clothing and forming opinions on everything and gesturing a lot with my hands and driving a little scooter around.

Some movies I’ve seen recently:

Public Enemies - not my favorite Michael Mann film, but very watchable. Starts kind of slow.

Avatar – See this in a 3-D Imax theater if you can. Really cool.

-Someone named Stephen Lang has a pretty significant role in both Avatar and Public Enemies. I’d never seen him before, but he’s apparently a big actor on the stage. I liked him better in PE.

Transformers 2 – This is on a lot of 10 worst lists. I disagree. Bad, but there are many worse. Picking on Michael Bay is too easy. Do some real work, critics…

District 9 – original, gritty, shocking. The more I think about this, the more I like it.

500 Days of Summer – another original, new film. I don’t think I could classify it as a comedy, but it had funny or cringe inducing moments.

Extract – Not as funny as I’d hoped. My least favorite of this bunch.

New Year’s eve was an mostly uneventful night. I avoided exploding pyrex this year, but what would New Year’s Eve be without a kitchen spectacular? This year I made a Stromboli. First, because they are delicious, and second because I made it myself and no one can tell me to save some for the guests, as had been the case many, many years ago. M and I carefully selected the ingredients, then I roasted some garlic and made a special olive oil with the garlic. Carefully I rolled out the dough and twisted up a delicious masterpiece of meats, cheeses and vegetables. Into the oven it went for a nice slow cook. After a while I started to hear some sizzling and went to investigate. A thick orange slick of grease was leaking out of one end and sizzling as it hit the oven rack, so I rotated the Stromboli to make sure that end would no longer droop. Sizzling turned out to be the least of my worries. I started to hear a new noise coming from the oven. Sort of like someone punching a pillow. When I opened the door, I saw bigger drops of grease falling directly on to the heating element and exploding into fireballs. The punching pillow sounds were grease bombs going off in the oven. Of course a huge plume of smoke came pouring out and M and I were forced to open the doors and windows into the 15 degree night. Luckily the Stromboli was not permanently injured. New year’s was not the only night of cooking disaster though. During Christmas dinner I confidently bragged that I hadn’t had a big disaster in a long time because I had such good instincts and knew how to fix most things. Cue the ticking time bomb for Sunday night… M and I decided to host some friends for dinner. We were going to make a roast beef of some kind, asparagus risotto and a banana pudding. The banana pudding was to be a copy of the magnolia bakery recipe that we’d enjoyed so much when we were in NYC. I figured it was just bananas, pudding and banana bread. M strenuously objected to this and suggested we seek a recipe out. We found one that involved mixing pudding with ice cold water and letting it sit overnight, which we did. Come next morning and we still had a giant bowl of runny muck and no pudding. After a little research we figured we could cook the pudding and that did the trick. The banana pudding turned out to be fantastic, by the way. The dinner itself left something to be desired. I defrosted a tri tip roast, which I originally purchased for the grill. And that’s where it should have stayed. This was not suitable for a slow cooker and came out like sliced roofing shingles with only slightly less flavor. This was another online recipe and I am forever swearing off recipes that do not come from trusted sources. The internet is full of talentless hacks who think they can just throw anything up there. See the previous 2 pages for proof.