So the CBGB documentary was excellent. It was a rough cut; the sound was murky and the filmmaker has yet to clear all of the music (although I cannot imagine why anyone would bust her chops, as the movie is a love letter to the place and bands who played there.) Still, it was a great achievement for the filmmaker, whose name escapes me. She’s young and Jewish. (I’m a regular Google, aren’t I?)

At the pre-party, I’d had a few drinks, but didn’t feel like going to sleep. And so I did what any normal, well-adjusted person would do: I wrote a press release for a fictitious documentary called “Super-Attractive” and sent it to my friend, who will be co-starring alongside me (obviously).

Except that I recast her part with Jessica Alba now taking the lead. Try explaining to someone that you are making a documentary about them called “Super-Attractive” only they cannot play themselves. It’s uncomfortable. And so I did that, too. For fun.

Then, I wrote a list of child-rearing tips for a friend who just told me she was pregnant. It included such helpful hints as “If it gets to be too much, dial 444 and Angelina will come by, take it, and give you a brand new car.” Important stuff like that.

Why do I waste my time, writing farcical stuff? I do it for the same reason that Rocky Balboa pounded those sides of beef: to practice my craft and to toughen my hands.

By now, my hands are plenty tough.

Late obviously. Busy arguing on Twitter with a West Coast friend about “Adventureland”, watching a documentary on how the Mayans predicted our fuckedness back when they were beheading their own. I am also monitoring a trade on my fantasy baseball website, making a cup of chamomile tea and I have an atlas splayed open before me, so I could get a better feel for the countries which border Bhutan, a place that I have always dreamt of visiting.

The wife is upstairs in bed and has called down, “What are you doing down there?” I replied, “nothing.” And pretty much meant it. I like being home, but I am not really a vegout kind of person. If I am watching TV, I am usually writing down ideas for people who I am doggedly wooing, or reading a book or emailing stories to friends. I only wish that I could channel that boredom into three hours at the gym, but I cannot. I know that comes to a shock to you.

Going to the Tribeca Film Festival tomorrow night to see the premiere of a documentary about CBGBs, a club in which I spent boucoup time trying to avoid using the bathroom. And for anyone who had ever been in that place, you understand why. The bathroom made the one in Trainspotting seem clean. Even the heroin addicts avoid shooting up there; hell, junkies have standards too.

The bands I saw there were usually still on the way up,  from Face to Face and Rancid, to Smashing Pumpkins and Rollins but I also saw a million shitty little bands whose members were awestruck by the place and guzzled free beer, unaware of what awaited them, in lieu of a toilet.

I will report back..

It’s Olga Kurylenko out. Like really hot. But anyway, where was I? That’s right. I ran around this morning (no, not literally) and have finally come inside for the duration of the day. My friends are coming over and I will grill some steaks, we will drink beers and watch six numbing hours of an event that GG would rather be waterboarded by women wearing Crocs than be in town for. Not even a moment of it will she endure.

It’s okay, I have cleared it with her probation officer. (This joke is merely a cheap ploy because she doesn’t read the blog entries until someone tells her that she is mentioned. Imagine. You can imagine? So can I.)

I cannot explain why I like it so much. The Vikings usually screw up their picks and draft a bunch of undersized guys with mental problems—literally—and I eat my weight in cashews and sour patch kids and my teeth hurt worse than Joan Rivers’ daughter’s face, Wait, was that mean?

After the weekend is over my friends and I go back to a day-to-day lives and wait a year to see if anything we thought turned out to be correct. Maybe longer.

Why do we like it so much? Good question. I think because its part-chick repellant, part-armchair QB. But I’ll think about that and get back to you later. There are only four hours until the Vikings pick. I need to prepare.

Heaven forbid I miss a minute of it.

This is a true story. If I’m lying, I’m dying. Seriously. Okay so I had dinner with some friends tonight at Freemans and one of them brought along her fiance, who was an Aussie, and a good bloke. He seemed pretty reserved on the surface, but you never know about people. Because when I asked him what he did for his bachelor party last weekend he said, matter of factly, that he went to New Orleans with a bunch of friends and they handcuffed him for a day-and-a-half to a black dwarf that was painted up like a Smurf. And that the dwarf had his own agenda: to have sex with a stripper, despite the fact that he was handcuffed to a drunken five-ten Aussie.

Okay, still with me? Good. He proceeded to tell me that, despite the party atmosphere, the dwarf was moody. I countered that he was, in fact, a dwarf painted blue sitting amidst a bunch of investment bankers.  The fact that he wasn’t homicidal should’ve been enough.

Apparently, they bonded a bit, while chained together like Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones, and in one drunken moment, exchanged phone numbers, promising to get together, after the bacchanalia had ended. As luck would have it, the Smurf lives in NYC. Oh, happy day!

Without the veil of alcohol clouding his visage, I think the Aussie realized that he and his diminutive friend were too star-crossed to build a friendship. Not to mention, he wasn’t exactly sure that the guy was being completely straight with him and was also less than “completely straight” as he kept offering to “strip down to a g-string.”  Which means? Yes, a bisexual, black, dwarf Smurf.

And now the Smurf was calling. He asked me what he should do. I thought about it and said “have him arrested” and went back to eating my steak. And he nodded.

You have a problem, I have a solution. Yes, big or small.

I went to the gym this morning. There was an ambulance outside. I saw that as a sign that something bad was going to happen, and debated turning around, but soldiered on. Then I came home and dropped a can of Progresso soup on my bare foot (from about five feet high) and smashed the fuck out of my little toe. Serves me right, I guess.

I think I found the secret as to why unemployed people go postal: daytime television. This is what’s on during the day: shows about bastard children; about serial killers and rapists; commercials for erection and depression drugs; documentaries where some ancient civilization is destroying another one; and lastly, financial shows gleefully milking the present calamities the way those freak show Weather Channel anchors milk a hurricane for all it’s worth.

To whit: I just watched a documentary about an event that was being billed as “the first Columbine.” Catchy. Topical, certainly. The girl, who was 12, looked like the love child of Mitch Hedberg and Axl Rose, if such things were even possible. One day, she brought a rifle to school that her father had purchased for her even though she hadn’t even asked for one (sweet, right?) killed a couple of chaps and wounded several kids. When the cops asked her why, she calmly replied, “I don’t like Mondays.” Yes, like the song. This was 1978.

At her parole hearing, twenty years after the crime, she says, for the first time, that she was molested by her dad. And we as an audience are made to feel like “hold the phone.” Because people will say anything to get out of jail. Then she tells us that the duo slept in the same bed, and that while she was in prison, the father married her fifteen year-old cellmate who looked exactly like her. To the point that when the police saw them together, one remarked, “How in the hell did she get out of jail?” Stop holding the phone. It’s the dad’s fault. Clearly.

And they interview the guy and he is a crazy lunatic. Like three teeth, pointing in different directions as if they are being controlled by satellites. And you can’t help but think that while she probably didn’t like Mondays—I mean, who does? —she also never stood a chance in life. And not just because looked like the love child of Mitch Hedberg and Axl Rose.

But I did take something from it and hope you do too: no matter how strong the urge is, never confuse your child’s cellmate for your soul mate. I mean, I thought that was a given. But I heard that you watch daytime TV and figured, you know…..

I have seen a lot in my 27 years (haha), but I have never gazed upon five girls in dresses with heels acting as pallbearers. I call them girls, because that is what they call themselves. My friend Lisa’s best friends: Rosa, Lisa Christina, Gina and Lena.  Promise I won’t belabor this funeral stuff, but it was this morning, and it was really a sight to behold: five crying, tough as nails, Bronx girls carrying their friend’s coffin out of a church and into the cold drizzle and fog.

To improve my mood, I am now reading, “Love is a Mixtape” by Rob Sheffield, and am at the part where his wife drops dead, while GG is watching Grey Gardens. This could be the “before” scene in an Abilify advertisement, but neither of us will end up smiling or running with balloons. Not today.

So I have been writing a lot lately. Here and many other places. I am enjoying myself, although it is not exactly a get-rich quick endeavor. It’s more about keeping the knives sharp.

It also staves off boredom. Thankfully, I have a passel of clever friends, whose witty emails require likewise responses. And I have been writing a lot of introspective poetry lately. Mostly stuff that celebrates nature and it’s many wondrous gifts.

That’s the first laugh I’ve had all day. Thanks.

My friend Lisa, who I told you about a couple of weeks ago, lost her courageous battle with cancer on Saturday evening at home, surrounding by her family. She had fought as hard as she could muster, and while she slept, she slowly drifted away, as her mother whispered comforting notions in her ear. If you had to go, that is not a bad way to do so, right?

Her mother relayed the story to us tonight at the wake, which took place up in the Bronx. As is customary with Italians, it was an open casket. Lisa was young and beautiful and that is how I choose to remember her. But I do understand the need for some people to say goodbye in such a manner. Certainly the older generation.

Lisa’s mother, despite having to bury a daughter, words that are so difficult to write, was remarkably composed, more so than us, certainly, and just kept repeating, almost to herself, “Thank God it’s over.”

I’ll second that notion.

Last night I went to the movies, which is a feat in and of itself, because I enjoy going to the movies about as much as I enjoy going to Franny’s Pizza place in Brooklyn, home of the….never mind, I made a promise not to pick on BK and I am going to stand by it. (For as long as humanly possible.) We went to see the documentary “Anvil. The Story of Anvil” as I had heard such good things about it. We met another couple there, two people who I have long feared are far cooler, collectively, than us.

So when the wife showed up last night in those crazy butterscotch beach glass cat eyeglasses, I felt as if the referee in the sky was pounding the mat three times. Our little contest, if one wants to call it that, is over.

Anyway, I was one of those mid-80s kids who listened to heavy metal, nearly exclusively. I wasn’t your prototypical headbanger kid, but I liked metal. And this was before hair bands, although the guys did have silly hair. Many of them were like Sabbath: working class English toughies and American misfits. There were great bands—Maiden, Priest, Metallica, Anthrax, Scorpions—and some okay ones—Exodus, Saxon, Krokus and, yes, Anvil.

As a connoisseur of the stuff, I always considered Anvil to be a bit simplistic, and, therefore, not worth my time. I had owned a couple of records, but it wasn’t like I was dying to see them. And I saw a lot of shows as a teenager. But they never seemed to make the cut, in my world. So last night, I was expecting to reminisce a little bit, and I had hoped that the other three, who had no sense of context with which to judge Anvil’s place in the metal pantheon, were not going to be so bored.

As it turned out, the movie was fantastic and uplifting and not in the crippled-lady-runs-the-marathon way; but in the way that told about perseverance and belief in oneself, and bonds of friendship. In any other context, the plot—two fiftysomething guys still trying to live the rock-and-roll dream when life had handed them one setback after another—would be depressing as hell.

Yet because the band’s leader, Lips, was happy with the tiniest crumb of adulation, and generally seemed thrilled to be playing his guitar for even one person, he and his partner, drummer Robb Reiner (seriously) were transformed from delusional losers to something far more heroic. The last line of defense in holding onto your dreams, however remote they have become.

The movie’s ending was priceless, and if it weren’t a documentary, it would seem to be “too Hollywood”. Put it this way, when the credits began rolling, the audience actually cheered. For a movie. In New York City. How often have you seen that happen?

I hate to drive. But, really, it’s more than that. I am pretty well freaked out when I do so. Isn’t that nuts? I think so. And if there were one thing that I would change about myself, besides for the, uh, overeating thingy, it would be my aversion to driving.

I’ve been in a few accidents, but nothing that would warrant such irrational feelings. But over time, it kept growing. And now, living on island, the opportunities to drive so are limited, it’s not like practice is going to help.

But even beyond that, I hate being in the front seat of cars. Hate it. Which is why the staff who shall not be named was such a joy to travel with: one got car sick, one got terrified, one barraged the driver with questions and one would tell a story that required strict attention. It was…madcap.

I used to be very embarrassed by it. Because driving is such a masculine thing, I thought it said something about me. I have since learned to accept that, and to do it in a pinch, Otherwise? I’d rather have you handle the driving, for both our sakes.

I used to work with a guy who loved to point this out to people, whenever he got a chance. It was one of those weird things that people sometimes do, they try to knock others down to make themselves feel stronger. It was ridiculous. People would be saying, “Hey, let’s gets pizza for lunch!” and he would reply, “Tony is afraid to drive.” Douche-y, right? I know. We don’t talk anymore, which is just as well, as that behavior was one of the things that I have always had great difficulty reconciling.

I generally don’t like to point out my friends’ soft spots, as I like to call them. No one is perfect. Everyone deals with their own shit. I have a friend who is afraid of olives. No, seriously. Afraid. Now, there are a million of his attributes that I will ridicule. I will even exaggerate or invent things. But that? No chance.

Anyway, I’m sure there are things that you hate or are afraid of, and that you generally don’t go around telling people about. Mine is driving. Actually, mine was driving.

Now? Killer monkeys and Derek Jeter’s fade. That’s about it.

Last night, after hanging with Freddy at Citi Field and watching the Mets lose from right next to the Mets bullpen, due to his crazy hookup, I came home and watched Garden State, for about the trillionth time.

It was an odd, little movie with a superlative soundtrack. And the writing was wowza. Direction, too. Sarsgsaard’s eyes do all of the acting and Zach Braff is okay, except when he smiles. And Natalie Portman does what she normally does in everything, even that movie with Javier Bardem, where she was hairier than Lourdes Ciccioni: strings together a million tiny moments into a deft performance. A hot, deft performance.

She is best when she plays the oddball and this character was like a broken little teacup that had been glued back together and was missing…..oh, never mind.

I have always liked oddballs. Not weirdos or creeps or anything. I don’t find insanity remotely compelling, even my own, relatively speaking, I just like eccentricity as a character trait.

The main difference between male oddballs and female oddballs speaks to the reason that I prefer the female ones: they get laid. Male oddballism is a singular practice and therefore veers off into much darker, depressing places. They collect things like Jack Kirby’s garbage, wrestling videos and alt-porn. They are fun at a party, for a few moments, but reek of desperation mixed with some kind of aerosol cheese product, and go home alone more often than that tragic woman from “Britain’s Got Talent”. They are not being ironic; they are just being themselves.

Oddball girls collect snowglobes, have crazy glasses and own at least two knives. They are oblivious to the effect on men, can offer you no advice on how your woman’s mind works, and generally have way more guy friends than women ones. But they have a man somewhere. And can get many more. As many as they want. Because men will overlook almost anything for sex. But you knew that already.

So whether they are making sculptures out of coffin nails or getting tattooed up like Korean Abdul-Jabbar, who is a rarity—oddball and crazy—they still know they are part of general society. And my address book.

How lucky can one oddball get? Don’t answer that, freak.