I'm a Brooks Brotha

I like Brooks Brothers.

I do.  I really, really do.

I own three Brooks Brothers shirts.  Two, I bought from thrift stores for a grand total of $22, and one was purchased for me, at full price, by my in-laws.  It has an eyelet collar (that's a hole through each collar, through which a solid gold tie-bar (they also bought that for me) goes through and fastens behind your necktie's knot.  I can't even imagine how much that shirt cost.  I don't want to imagine it, but I sometimes find myself imagining about it.

Against my will, of course.

According to Facebook, which is never wrong about anything except that one thing someone I didn't go to middle school with said once about Tina Fey that time, Brooks Brothers is "the official men's clothier for The Great Gatsby".

What the fuck does this mean? I genteelly asked myself, in that Great Gatsbian way of mine.  Google, which is also never wrong about anything except for that one time someone Googled "donkey porn electrified cum twin badgers" and got to My Masonic Apron, informed me that Brooks Brothers teamed up with costume designer Catherine Martin to design over 500 costume pieces for Baz Luhrman's film interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby", starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby and Toby Maguire as that other asshole whose name doesn't matter.  I'm guessing that ready-to-wear versions of these costume pieces will be/are available for wealthier-than-average Republican motorcar aficionados and parlour games enthusiasts at nationwide Brooks Brothers retail establishments.

I don't recall much literature I read in high school for required reading.  I don't remember much of the literature I read in high school for the other kind of reading either-- what was it called?  Where the student gets to pick the book?  Voluntary?  Secessionist?  I forget.  It's far easier for me to remember middle school.  There was a story in the obligatory Houghton Mifflin Reader about an Eskimo dog whose heart explodes while he's doing something heroic.  Or something.  I remember distinctly reading about an explorer who, along with his crew, froze to death while searching in vain for the Northwest Passage, and I didn't sleep for two months thereafter.  I remember in 6th grade, I chose to read "Death Be Not Proud", which was sitting there on the shelf (right where it had no business being) and its morbid back cover synopsis, the tale of a young boy in the 1940s being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and dies at 17, of course called out to morbidly-obsessed 12-year-old me seductively.

I remember reading Graham Chapman's "A Liar's Autobiography" the following year, in 7th grade.  Actually, I didn't read it, I listened to it on several tape cassettes, because the book was out-of-print.  How I managed to score the tapes, who knows?  I recall being fascinated by Chapman's vivid and frank discussions of his alcoholism and his homosexuality, and the moment he realized he was gay.  He was in medical school and was having sex with a nurse, or a nursing student, I forget.  He said that he had the epiphany that he was attracted to men "as I came between her breasts for the third time".

I did a long book report on "A Liar's Autobiography" and Miss Stein, a newly-minted year-long substitute, gave me an A, and couldn't look me in the eye when she passed the graded report back to me.  There were no comments and, fortunately, no phone calls home.

In high school, I know I read "The Crucible", and I appeared in it onstage, too.  That was a mistake.  So was the time I appeared in it in college.  I hope to not make that mistake a third time.  I read "Major Molineux" which, apparently, is actually called "My Kinsman, Major Molineux", but who cares?  I also read "The Scarlet Letter" which is by Hawthorne, too, and it was hot-- much hotter than Major Molineux.  I read a short story by James Joyce in eleventh grade, but I couldn't tell you what it was called.  There was "The Grapes of Wrath" and "The Great Gatsby", too.  But I didn't find either very wrathful or great.

Maybe that's because I'm a phony bastard.

I fell in love with "The Catcher in the Rye" the same way every depressed, repressed, neurotic, sardonic scowling and howling boy of sixteen or whatever does, and I'm embarrassed to be such an ardent cliche, but then, I'm also a Jew with a big nose, too, so what can you do?  I could sit here and write all day about it, but then you'd probably start to get worried about me.  But then, maybe you wouldn't even notice.  People never notice anything.

I'm kind of surprised Brooks Brothers didn't release a line of clothing inspired by late 19th century garb after the movie "Lincoln" was released.  Throwbacks.  Vintage.  Silk top-hats with grosgrain ribbons for everyone.  I learned yesterday listening to a radio interview with Julian Fellows, the creator of "Downton Abbey" that, in the 1950s, they briefly brought back the corseted, crinoline clothes of the 1880s, only to abruptly halt making them, because even rich people in the 1950s didn't have valets or maids to help them button seven thousand buttons the side of a baby's pinkie fingernail.  People have to get dressed themselves now, like big boys and girls.  I put on a pair of spats for a gig last month, and I almost broke my ankle, my wrist, and fell off the bed.  I was just pretending.  When I wear my Brooks Brothers shirts, especially the one with the eyelet collar, I'm just pretending.  I'm a marvelous pretender.

I guess what I really want to say about all of this is I'm very jealous of people who get to shop at Brooks Brothers, you know, regularly.  Like, when I say I'm going to "the store to get some clothes", I'm talking about a thrift store, typically, or Kohls.  I know there are people out there who say they're going "the store to get some clothes" and they're talking about Brooks Brothers, and I hate people who say that.  I hate people who say they loved "The Great Gatsby", because they didn't.  They'll sure like wearing the clothes, though.

I know they will.    

Noted Author & Recluse

When J. D. Salinger died, I realized that I didn't want to be a famous writer anymore.

When I read the article written about him in the local papers, an unfortunate mirror of other articles written about him in other not-so-local papers, all I could do was shake my head. Even at the headline.

"Salinger: Noted Author & Recluse Dies at 91"

Noted author. And recluse.

Why?

I suppose it isn't enough that he wrote one of the best-selling, most-beloved books of all times-- thumbed through by hundreds of thousands of middle and high schoolers for decades. Because he shunned the spotlight, he had to be "noted author & recluse." Because we didn't see him on "Entertainment Tonight" and on television endorsing Acme Brand Puppy Chow-- because he didn't choose to bust his ass and sell his soul giving corny-ass lectures at universities and book readings in front of the salivating masses across the country, we slap that label right on his dead, wrinkly ass.

"Recluse."

Oh, and then there was the part in the article where is daughter talks about him drinking his own urine. Well, really-- what literary genius isn't a little bit eccentric? I mean, Augusten Burroughs has a dog named "The Cow."

It was a thoroughly disappointing obiturary as obituaries go. It was split into two decidedly unequal parts-- the one about him being a tremendous writer of irrevocable influence on youth and the 20th century, and the one about him shutting himself away from the world in his little hamlet in New Hampshire.

Sipping blithely on his own pee-pee, apparently.

My guess is that, if J. D. Salinger had died thirty or forty years ago, his obituary would have read very differently. The press wasn't as salacious, we the public didn't have such a voracious, insatiable appetite for slander and filth and pornography, literal or figurative. The man would have been lauded as a literary great, a master of the pen, and maybe the sentence, "He was content to live his life apart from everyday society in his small home in New Hampshire."

And that probably would have been that.

I just don't understand what the point is in becoming a great, vaunted genius if, after you die, they're going to make you into some kind of perverted degenerate, as if he ate a constant diet of blue food coloring so he could throw up on himself every morning and shout, "THE FLOOD OF BLUEBERRIES IS UPON US!" into a megaphone to wake up the entire neighborhood. I mean, Jesus-- all the guy wanted was a little privacy from a socially retarded world-- the world that invented "Throw Mama From the Train," college football, "American Idol," the made-for-TV miniseries, sweaters for dogs, and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Can you blame the bastard?

If you took some time to think very seriously about the world in which we live and function, trust me, son-- you'd go running for New Hampshire to some basement where you could sit, shivering, with a wool blanket over your head.

Maybe Salinger was trying to escape the ridiculous convention of the media. Well, it was abundantly clear that, after his death, it found him just the same.

They say that denying people something just makes them want whatever it is even more. This is probably true-- take a look at children. Tell them over and over and over that they can't touch the stove and watch how many of them wind up with coil ring-shaped imprints branded to their palms and the words "General Electric" on their faces. Salinger denied the world his presence, and his comments on day to day happenings, something that a megalomaniac like Mark Twain could never have permitted. Even when he was too sick and tired to walk, he summoned newspaper reporters to his bedside so they could record his daily dose of witticism. But Salinger didn't want that. And people sought it out anyway.

People like my high school writing teacher.

I think he was of Polish descent-- his last name was thoroughly unpronouncable, ending in wicz or some combination of those letters-- so we called him "Mr. O." Mr. O was a peculiar fellow, wearing his eyeglasses down on the very tip of his nose, with the lenses tilted down and almost pointed directly at the floor, so that the frames were almost always falling off his face. Somehow they never did, leaving me to suspect that Velcro was somehow involved. Mr. O had legendary pit stains and an bodily odor that bordered on the post-mortem. His hair resembled a graying birds nest, haphazard and sticking up in places and his moustache bore specks of food and tiny shavings of wood, presumably because he enjoyed gnawing on pencils.

I don't remember much of what Mr. O taught us, but I do remember a few anecdotes. He told us that, for one year, he stopped speaking-- to anybody. I remember a fellow classmate of mine asking if it was for any sort of religious reason. Mr. O replied no, that he just wanted to see if he could do it, and that he realized he didn't have very much to say to anybody.

I also distinctly remember him telling us (I don't remember, though, how it came up) of his unquenchable love for popcorn.

"If there was a bag of popcorn sitting right on the edge of a cliff, and my wife was also hanging off the edge of that same cliff," he told us one day, "I'd go for the bag of popcorn."

The only other thing I remember about Mr. O was him telling us about the time that he stalked his favorite writer, J. D. Salinger. Somehow he'd found out Salinger's address (these things were a lot harder to do in the 1970s) and he drove up to the town where Salinger lived. He stocked up on tinned tuna and chicken and other necessities, purchased camouflage facepaint, covered himself in it, and hid in Salinger's bushes.

For a week.

Finally, Mr. O told us, he couldn't take it anymore, and he summoned up the nerve to walk up the path and ring the bell of J. D. Salinger's house.

"I couldn't believe that I was about to meet my hero, J. D. Salinger," Mr. O told us. "I crept up the walk, slowly, slowly, and I stood in front of his door for at least ten minutes. And then, finally, my finger reached shakily for that little circle button on the side of his door and, I don't know how I got the nerve to do it, but I pushed it."

"What happened then?" someone in the back of the room asked. Mr. O looked at the kid as if he'd asked a very stupid question. He gave his answer in a manner that would suggest that we all should have been able to predict the outcome of this tale.

"I ran away."

Phony

I spent much of this weekend writing a grant. It's for an ambulance company-- not the one I used to work for. They want a powered stretcher that automatically lowers and raises at the push of a button, so the EMTs and paramedics operating it don't pop their vertebrae every time they have to transport a fat bison. It's also extra durable and extra wide, again, for the benefit of the bison.

I mean "patient."

I met the managing director of this ambulance squad after I had written a scathing editorial in the Philadelphia Daily News about the state of Philadelphia's 911 system, which is pretty poor. I wrote the letter after a woman called 911 complaining of chest pain and shortness of breath. According to national standards, the average response time for an emergency call to 911 should be under 9 minutes. An ambulance showed up at her house 41 minutes later. She was obese, like many patients are, and the crew had a very difficult time getting her out of the house and into the ambulance. Once they had her loaded in, the truck wouldn't start. They called for a second unit, which had to race across town to get there. They arrived in around 3/4 of an hour, too.

Don't be surprised when I tell you that the patient died.

In the editorial, I wrote that the Philadelphia Fire Department, manning 40 ambulances, cannot possibly provide effective and timely service to the 1,447,335 citizens of Philadelphia without assistance, and I suggested that they integrate any number of the almost 50 different private ambulance companies that operate in the city for help when Philly can't respond to calls for help.

This gentleman, the managing director of a private ambulance company, read my editorial and was impressed. He had long been saying the same thing I was saying, and he was happy to find a friend. He asked me to come work for him as a grantwriter. This was last year, and it began my first paid gig as a writer.

The only problem is, I'm not a grantwriter.

In my regular, full-time job, I write grants also. But I'm not a grantwriter. I never learned how to write a grant. Nobody ever told me. I've never been to a grantwriting seminar. I've never read "Grantwriting for Retards" and I've never been formally trained on the ins and outs of writing grants. I've been given advice by successful grantwriters. I've looked at a lot of grants, both successful and unsuccessful, and, by this point in time, I've written probably close to ten full grant applications. I've applied for a total of probably close to $200,000. Let's just say I haven't earned nearly that much for my benefactors' benefit.

I told you: I'm not a grantwriter.

Engaging in professional or even avocational activities for which I am unqualified, untrained or unskilled appears to be a hallmark of my existence. My level of fakery, then, must be pretty good, because people keep trusting me with responsibilities, hiring me for jobs, giving me assignments and casting me in roles when, probably, they shouldn't. In November, I'll be appearing in my fifth Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. I know nothing about singing technique. I've never had a private voice lesson. But I get by, I guess. People keep handing me the keys to Gilbert's Rolls Royce. Don't ask me why.

At age 20, I was hired as an optician in a small eyeglasses store. I didn't even know what an optician was. Was it the doctor? Did I just get hired as an eye doctor as a sophomore in college? Was I going to have to puff air in peoples' eyes and perform surgery on fishook eyelids? Didn't you have to go to school for that? To my relief, I found myself cleaning 300 pair of eyeglasses and the display boards on my first day of work. I eventually sold, repaired, cleaned, and adjusted eyeglasses, checked prescriptions, managed the doctor's appointment book, ordered lenses, cut and grooved lenses (though I never got very good at this), measured bifocal heights and did a lot of other boring stuff like taking out the trash (which I was very good at.) I learned how to do all of this stuff by watching my boss. But I didn't actually know anything. I was faking my way through it.

Then I was hired as a loan officer. Talk about faking it. Amortization schedules? Debt-to-income ratios? Charge-offs? Lending practices? I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about. But I had an office with a big desk, and a computer, and a filing cabinet and a bunch of loan applications that I barely knew what they meant. I was on the phone with banks and they were saying shit to me that was like some alien dialect. I was truly alone in the ocean with this one. But I hung on for a year. Being a phony.

We're all phonies to a certain degree, I suppose. Some more than others of course. People trust us with things and tasks that they probably shouldn't, mostly because they're probably too lazy to go out and look for someone who is actually qualified. Plus, qualified people are much more expensive than unqualified people, aren't they? They demand big bucks for their competence. Us? We're just happy to have a job.

My favorite character from literature is probably Holden Caulfield, not that that should be pretty surprising to any of you who know me well, or even those of you who don't know me well. I love Holden very much, and it depresses me that, if he met me, he probably wouldn't like me half as much as I like him. He'd undoubtedly call me a "phony" but I guess that's okay, because I am. And he is, too, and I guess that's the point. Holden and I have very little tolerance for the world, but, then again, I don't think we're particularly fond of ourselves either.

"My brother D.B.'s a writer and all, and my brother Allie, the one that died, that I told you about, was a wizard. I'm the only really dumb one."