CJG's Top Ten Annoying People of 2010

It's fashionable at this time of year for every news outlet, pundit, and pontificator to give us their top ten of everything lists. The top ten sports plays of 2010. The ten biggest news stories of the year. Ten best movies. Ten best books. Top ten reasons to do this or that before the new year. Such a cliche thing to do. So obvious. So trite. That's why crankyjewishguy (CJG) is going to dive right in and name the top ten people who drove him up the wall in 2010, not including members of his immediate family.

Now, CJG totally ruined any suspense on this one with his post two days ago where he shared a photo of this woman who, it should be obvious, is clearly having a bad hair day:

But, let's move beyond She Who Shall Not be Named and simply concede that for reasons that hardly need listing, she is the undisputed No. 1 annoying person of the year. So, starting with No. 10 and counting down to No. 2, here they are:

No. 10: Newt "I'll Say Anything No Matter How Idiotic to Try and Get Some of the Media Attention Now Going to that Woman from Alaska" Gingrich. His statement that to understand President Obama's world view one has to understand the mindset of Luo tribesman of Kenya was racist and moronic. And his "I think I'm the smartest guy in the room" demeanor is the equivalent of scraping your fingernails on a chalkboard.

No. 9: Brett Favre. Talk about over-exposed, the guy texted pictures of his penis to a female employee of the New York Jets. CJG is glad he's not in Brett's calling circle. Favre should have left at the top of his game; instead he kept coming back over and over and getting the shit kicked out of him on and off the football field. Just because of him CJG would never buy a pair of Wrangler jeans. This isn't the picture of Brett Favre CJG wanted to show you, but the other one isn't available.

No. 8: That Nigerian widow who keeps e-mailing CJG and asking him to help her move millions of dollars from secret bank accounts in Nigeria to the United States. CJG is tired of writing back to her and explaining that he only helps the poor and disadvantaged. CJG is also getting suspicious that this is some kind of scam, probably being perpetrated by this guy:

No. 7: FOX News diva Greta van Sustern or Cistern or Susteren or whatever the fuck her name is. Plastic surgery did nothing to help her cause. She's still unwatchable.

No. 6: Flo, the Progressive Insurance Lady. Whoever sold this ad campaign to the execs at Progressive is a genius, but not at advertising because this has to be the lamest ad campaign CJG has ever seen. The GEICO Gekko wipes the floor with this dipshit.

No. 5: Tony Hayward, the former CEO of British Petroleum and huge yacht owner. True story: a couple of weeks after the rig explosion, BP put up a virtual suggestion box on its web site where ordinary folks could submit their ideas for stopping the spill. CJG was game: he wrote in and suggested they lower BP executives directly into the broken pipe to staunch the flow. The very next day, CJG received an e-mail from BP's "technical team" thanking him for his suggestion but explaining that after careful review CJG's idea could not be applied "under the very challenging and specific operating conditions in the Gulf." Seriously? How hard could it be to put cement boots on these guys and stuff them into a pipe? They do that off the coast of New Jersey all the time. Tony Hayward not only said ten of the stupidest things uttered in public in 2010, his uncanny resemblance to Mr. Bean made him doubly annoying. Can you tell which is which?

No. 4: The Three Musketeers, a/k/a Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor and John Boehner. Their highest priority was ensuring tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans and they were willing to let taxes go up on the other 98% to get their way. Those 2%, they argued, are the "job creators" and unless they got their tax breaks well, they just weren't going to create those jobs for the proletariat. Funny, the rich got their tax cuts early in Bush's first term and by the end of the Bush years the economy lost 8 million jobs. CJG doesn't pretend to have a degree in economics, but before the tax cuts, during the Clinton years, the economy added 23 million jobs. To CJG guy this suggests the connection between tax cuts and jobs is being a wee bit overstated. In fact, CJG thinks this job talk is just a ruse and the real reason this is The Three Musketeers' highest priority is that 98% of these guys' campaign funds come from...you guessed it, the richest 2%. By the way, to CJG's knowledge, Cantor is, surprisingly, the only Jew on this top ten most annoying list though he has his suspicions about Brett Favre. But unless we see those pictures we may never know.

No. 3: CJG's friend and spin instructor, Bill. The first time Bill dressed up like this we all thought it was very funny. The second time it was still good for a chuckle. But, honestly, by about the hundredth time it was clearly nothing more than a desperate plea for attention.

No. 2: Long before he got himself fired from CNN for a ignorant rant about Jews and the media, Rick Sanchez was a bloviator of the first order. The guy's Ted Baxter-esque ego was so big and his talent so small, CJG would sit dumbstruck before his television wondering how Ricky ever landed a job that paid more than minimum wage. If you never saw his coverage of the Hawaii tsunami that fizzled, it's a classic. Do yourself a favor and watch this windbag in action.

Which brings us, once again, to our number one annoying person of 2010, Sar...oops...She Who Shall Not be Named (SWSNBN). As CJG noted above, there are about a million reasons he finds SWSNBN the world's most annoying person, but one of them is her utter disrespect for the native tongue. CJG believes that the ability to speak English with reasonable fluency should be a requirement for any aspiring president, and certainly for any media hound, and it's statements like this one, spoken on the Sean Inanity Show in November, that really make CJG want to pour candle wax in his ears: "I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism. And I have a communications degree." And a hard won degree no doubt.

Maybe she should see a neurologist about that tic.

Be It Ever So Humble

Crankyjewishguy (CJG) is posting a little later than usual this morning because his flight home from San Juan was delayed for more than four hours yesterday, a ripple effect from the Blizzard of Oh-ten, and he got in very late last night. And being just a wee bit compulsive, he couldn't go to sleep without unpacking, watering the plants, doing the laundry, and returning a call from the MasterCard early fraud detection unit who wanted to know if CJG used his card to buy a baked stuffed potato for $5.84 in Puerto Rico. (No, CJG is not kidding.) Normally, all of this, especially the anxiety producing airport delay, would make CJG very irritable but there was a guy at the San Juan airport who'd been there for three days trying to get back to New York and the earliest flight they could give him was January 2. CJG doesn't delight in the misery of others; once in a while he uses it to put his own into perspective, though mostly he simply wallows in his own little miseries regardless of the calamity that has befallen the next guy. But stuck in an airport for seven days? Now that's misery. Who among us is as lucky as this girl, who only needs to click her heels to get home?

With tens of thousands of travelers stranded in airports, who doesn't
despise this lucky girl and her three enablers?

At the airport CJG observed a fundamental law of human nature: that the more anxious people are to get going, the more they will act in ways designed to further delay the proceedings. When the plane that would fly 180 weary travelers back to Boston finally arrived, people rushed the gate area even though it would be another 90 minutes or so until the plane left because of government overregulation of the airline industry. For some reason the bureaucrats at the FAA have one rule that states that arriving passengers actually have to be allowed to leave the plane before departing passengers can board and another that says no plane can fly without a pilot. Since the crew that flew our plane in had maxed out their flying time for that day, the airline scrambled to find a pilot, at one point offering a free round trip anywhere in the continental United States to anyone willing to fly the plane to Boston. People mobbed the gate even though they knew when the time did finally come to board, we'd be boarding by row numbers, not based on whoever was a big enough douche bag to push their way to the front like they do in Tajikistan. And once the boarding announcement was made asking everyone to please clear the aisle so those whose row numbers were called could actually get to the fucking plane, these people simply moved imperceptibly to one side or the other and made a big fuss doing so as if they'd been massively inconvenienced. Having staked out their little piece of territory for an hour they were loathe to give it up.  Hence, the boarding procedure looked like this:

Eager passengers in San Juan rush to board Flight 734 for Boston.

That's when CJG realized that there's really only one thing that makes him cranky. Other people,

Write or Fly?

crankyjewishguy (CJG) is in a tough spot this morning because he has to choose between honing another hilarious blog post to perfection or making his flight back to Boston from San Juan. His wife and kids are arguing vehemently for flying home since none of them gives a shit about his blog. CJG is torn. On the one hand, he feels he owes it to his legions of readers, now numbering in the dozens, to produce another post. On the other hand, he occasionally has to take the feelings of others into consideration, no matter how trivial or irrelevant. So, while you admire this photograph of CJG he is going to flip a coin.

CJG knows what you're thinking: that's Tom Brady. No, it's not, but people make that mistake all the time. Anyway, CJG flipped a coin and it came up heads so he and the family are flying home. But before he goes, he wants to inform readers that his blog will soon include some insightful and penetrating political commentary. Though he can hardly afford to alienate readers, CJG is nevertheless going to risk losing some of you here because nothing, and CJG means nothing, makes him crankier than this woman, hereinafter referred to as "She Who Shall Not Be Named." Just thinking about her makes CJG want to stick pins in his eyes.

She Who Shall Not Be Named attempts to sucker punch an innocent microphone
which has turned her speech into unintelligible gibberish.

More from Boston tomorrow. Until then, shalom.

CJG's Big Night Out in San Juan

You know your Caribbean vacation has taken a serious turn for the worse when you're having dinner at the Outback Steakhouse in the Embassy Suites Hotel near the San Juan airport on Monday night, your flight doesn't leave until Wednesday afternoon, and you realize you could be eating off the exact same menu a mile from your house with the exact same group of three thousand overweight American tourists whose highest aspiration in life is to move to New Jersey and whose only ambition when they travel is to try and recreate exactly the same conditions they left at home.

There's nowhere CJG wanted to eat more in Puerto Rico than Outback.

Crankyjewishguy (CJG) and his family were supposed to be spending Monday night at the cliffside condo they'd rented overlooking Aguadilla Bay, but for some reason the city of Aguadilla decided to declare a water rationing program under which they delivered exactly no water to parts of the city for what was going on seven hours when CJG and the family decided to pack it in and head back to San Juan ahead of schedule. CJG is cranky on a good day so you can imagine how he was doing during the two hour drive back to San Juan in the pouring rain. His spirits were not lifted when the desk clerk informed him that the room his wife had just reserved two hours earlier was not available. Though Mrs. CJG had ambitious plans for the night in San Juan, the children (well, they are 20 and 15) declared a moratorium of their own on going anywhere outside the confines of the hotel, hence last night's outstanding dinner at Outback featuring exotic dishes with Australian names you can only find at about twenty thousand other chain restaurants throughout North America. At least CJG could pretend he was in Australia surrounded by spanish-speaking Puerto Rican waitresses.

While we're on the subject of Outback Steakhouse, sentient readers of this blog will recall that a few days ago CJG was kvetching about the fact that no Jew can travel, even to remote corners of the globe, without running into people he or she knows, or is maybe even related to. Hence, the chance encounter between CJG's son and two of his fellow Tulane students (brothers) and their parents on a local surfer beach on the west coast of Puerto Rico. But, just when CJG thought the world couldn't get any smaller, it did.

Before their hasty departure for San Juan late yesterday afternoon, CJG and his family were at a beautiful outdoor seaside restaurant enjoying another of the leisurely (i.e. excruciatingly slow) meals for which Puerto Rico is famous, when a woman comes over to the table and asks if CJG is from Boston, to which CJG replies, "Yes. Any other questions?" After all, it doesn't take a genius to guess CJG is from Boston since older son is wearing a Red Sox cap and a t-shirt that says "Charles River Y." Then she asks, "are you from Mayberry?" (For his own protection, CJG is substituting "Mayberry" for the real name of his town which, except for a very good Indian restaurant and a Starbucks, is in all other respects exactly like Mayberry.) OK, wonders CJG, who's stalking me now? Then the lady points to a twenty-something kid with long sideburns, a scruffy beard and a hat that once belonged to Mike Nesmith of The Monkees sitting a few tables away and says, "my son used to work at Starbucks in Mayberry and he used to see you in there every day." As if it isn't embarrassing enough to be outed as a daily user in front of his wife and kids, now CJG is going to have to spend part of his get-away-from-it-all-vacation saying hello to this lady and her extended family, including Kyle, who for a full year made CJG his tall decaf mocha latte with whipped cream and who, when he didn't prepare it properly, made CJG really cranky. What does CJG need to do to get away? Climb Mt. Everest?

CJG's Starbucks barrista, the one who tracked him down
on Shack's Beach in northwest Puerto Rico.

What Blizzard?

crankyjewishguy (CJG) doesn't get it. He keeps reading about some huge blizzard bearing down, and friends up north keep e-mailing him about it, but he's looking out his window and he doesn't see what all the fuss is about. This is the view from CJG's window:

CJG enjoys a huge snowstorm as much as the next guy, except maybe Shaun White, especially when he's reading about it in Puerto Rico. But, just so readers being buried under two feet of snow and whipped by 50 m.p.h. winds don't feel too badly, there were some rain showers here yesterday, the result of a cold front that kept temperatures down in the upper 70s. So, CJG and his family have been enduring some weather-related adversity of their own. Feel better now? CJG observes that your frame of reference instantly changes when your location changes since his wife complained all yesterday morning about the rain, even as friends up north were stocking up on Spam, bottled water, candles, batteries, flashlights, generators, shovels and Snowmelt in preparation for the onslaught.

Now, it has occurred to CJG that when he gets home in a couple of days his driveway and front walk will be buried in what will then be heaps of frozen snow and ice, some of it piled up by the snowplow operators who delight in dumping a new foot of snow at the end of your driveway just when you've finished digging out a foot of snow.

Thanks to Bill for sending this photo of CJG's car. Unfortunately,
CJG left the sunroof open when he left for vacation.

CJG hopes all his friends and neighbors, to whom he has given so much over the years, will remember his kindnesses and have his driveway and walkway cleared by Wednesday around suppertime. Would dinner be too much to ask?

A Shout Out to Canada!

Last week, CJG gave a shout out to Croatia for being second, only to the United States, in page hits on his blog. In recent days, however, Canada has moved into the silver medal position and in recognition of its performance CJG offers below a unique interpretation of the Canadian national flag. In fairness to Croatia, CJG notes that Canada's population is about eight times Croatia's and weighted for population, Croatia is still way outperforming Canada. But a promise is a promise and CJG needs all the help he can get from the Great White North. (I'm talking to you, Sidney Crosby). In the future, however, CJG will adjust the figures taking total population into account. Note that no special adjustments will be made based on the size of the Jewish population since CJG seeks to appeal to everyone regardless of race, religion or level of intelligence.

CJG hopes global warming skeptics take a close look at this photo.
This poor woman's natural habitat is literally disappearing out from under her feet.
How will she feed her young?

Call me, Sid.

CJG Unhurt After Encounter with Famous Tough Guy Actor

So, crankyjewishguy (CJG) is sitting at this beach front surfer shack called Sonia Rican on spectacular Jobos Beach in Puerto Rico while his older son orders something like his tenth meal of the day even though it's only lunchtime, when this very distinctive looking fellow sits down next him and CJG knows he's this actor he's seen a million times but of course can't remember his name. But CJG says hello and asks him if he's the actor he's seen a million times whose name he doesn't remember and sure enough CJG's celebrity antennae is right on. As CJG and his family get up to leave, CJG says goodbye to the actor and the actor wishes CJG a Merry Christmas, which is too bad because then CJG has to tell him not everyone celebrates Christmas. Some of us are Jewish, you know. Then the actor says, "geez, what a cranky jewish guy," and CJG is like, "wow, I can't believe you recognize me from my blog." What the actor says next you can't print on the Internet. Actually, he was a real mensch, which, in Yiddish, means a person of high character and integrity, or more simply, a good guy. 

Anyway, CJG looked him up when he got back to the place he's staying. Like CJG, this actor was born here, but raised in the upper 48. His name is Luis Guzman. He's been in tons of movies (Traffic, Boogie Nights, and Anger Management to name a few) and TV shows (Miami Vice, NYPD Blue). CJG recommends that you not mess with the Guzman. 

Feliz Navidad: Christmas in Paradise

As almost everyone knows, Jesus Christ was Jewish so it seems like an incredible coincidence that he was born on Christmas. Like, what are the odds of that? Maybe 365 to one? Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday!

As readers of this blog know by now, are maybe even sick of hearing by now, crankyjewishguy (CJG) and his family are spending this Christmas in Puerto Rico. Since CJG grew up and still lives in a place where winter exists, it's a little hard to get that Christmasy feeling when all the houses look like this:

Thanks to gross overconsumption of fossil fuels as depicted
here, this is what Christmas will look like in Winnipeg by mid-century,

One thing CJG has noticed about the tropics is that with the notable exception of south Florida, people who live in balmy climes are much less cranky than other folks. CJG worries that if he spends too much time here he may have to change the name of his blog to "mellowjewishmon" (pictured below). Breathe easy!

CJG is Now Facebook Friends with God!

crankyjewishguy's (CJG) wife is pretty savvy about social networking and she is trying her best to drag CJG into the 21st century. She explained to him that to build an audience for a blog you have to create lots of links and cross-links and you have to learn to use Facebook. So, CJG immediately went on God's Facebook page and "friended" him (or "liked" him). Whatever. Now, CJG is hoping that God, who has like 4 billion Facebook friends, will "friend" or "like" him back. CJG is praying God isn't too selective. For those who don't know God (so to speak), this is his Facebook picture (you think he could have put on a shirt for the photo?):

Anyway, enough about God. Yesterday, CJG and his wife drove from San Juan to CJG's hometown of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico while the boys sat in the back seat and watched Jackass 2.5 on a laptop. After all, why would you fly all the way from Boston to Puerto Rico? To look at the scenery?

As in San Juan, CJG was disappointed in the reception he received upon arriving in the town of his birth after a 57 year absence. The bagel, lox and cream cheese reception never materialized. Even Gerard Depardieu got a warmer reception in The Return of Martin Guerre and that was after the locals figured out he wasn't Martin Guerre after all but an imposter. It's not that there weren't plenty of people in the streets for CJG's homecoming. There were. Unfortunately, all of them were in cars trying to get to one mall or the other. Though Aguadilla isn't much to look at from street level, CJG and his family are staying in a clifftop condo with a spectacular view of the ocean and beach below. This makes CJG very mellow, except that the neighbor with the adjoining rooftop patio has outdoor stereo speakers that play bad music all day long. CJG guy and his college age son spent a good part of the afternoon trying to figure out if they could take out the speakers with a few well placed fastballs.

Now, it didn't take more than five minutes on the beach for CJG to be reminded that no Jew can truly get away no matter how far he travels from home. At Crash Boat Beach, a surfing spot frequented by locals, but few tourists, CJG's older son immediately ran into two guys he knows, brothers, actually, and Jewish, of course, who attend college with him at Harvard on St. Charles, otherwise known as Tulane University. And once the parents started talking they discovered that three of them, out a possible four, attended Tufts University at the same time, CJG being the exception as he is both older than the others and attended a different and, according to the infallible U.S. News and World Report college rankings, slightly more prestigious institution of extremely higher learning. 

Crash Boat Beach without people, as CJG would have preferred it.

Now CJG can be very sociable if he tries, and he enjoys chance encounters as much as the next curmudgeon, but sometimes he just wants to get away from it all. So next year he's taking the family to the Falkland Islands in February. With his luck he'll be standing in a penguin rookery and Howie Finkel, his arch nemesis from junior high school, will walk up and give him a wedgie.

CJG Arrives in The Homeland: Greeted by Huge Yawn

As crankyjewishguy (CJG) wrote last week, he was about to make a trip with his wife and kids to The Homeland. Well, CJG is pleased to announce that thanks to his little white pills he made it! But, while CJG was happy to leave the cold and snow behind for the balmy breezes of his native Puerto Rico, he has to confess he was a little disappointed with the reception he received upon arriving at Luis Munoz Marin Airport in San Juan. Not only did he learn the airport is named after somebody else, apparently someone in this establishment forgot to tell the people of Puerto Rico that CJG was coming home after 57 years. CJG was sort of expecting a reception that looked like this:

Instead, CJG was met by this guy:

Oh, well. That's life. A series of small disappointments interrupted by sleep. CJG is optimistic, however, that when he and his family leave San Juan later today for his hometown of Aguadilla, word will quickly spread and a bagel, lox and cream cheese banquet will waiting for him when he gets there. (Don't forget the capers!) 

By the way, CJG is well aware of the controversy surrounding Barack Obama's birth certificate and that some ridiculously large percentage of the population (a percentage that correlates, not surprisingly, with the mentally deranged population of the country) believes Obama is a foreign-born Muslim terrorist. But CJG was very surprised to receive a lot of e-mail from "birthers," some of it rather impolite, challenging his claim that he was born in Puerto Rico. Since CJG is keeping all of his political options open, he presents here for your inspection a genuine, uncertified facsimile of his own birth certificate, slightly redacted at the request of the Department of Homeland Security. 

CJG's birth certificate proving he came ashore on the island of Puerto Rico.

CJG guesses the only remaining question is whether being born in a U.S. territory, not a state, makes him a "natural born citizen" and, therefore, eligible to serve. In that regard, CJG points out that John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone and that's in a whole other country. CJG thinks it's in Panama. Granted, for a zillion other reasons, among them his choice of running mate and senility, McCain was utterly unqualified to be president, but no one argued his birth in the Canal Zone disqualified him. CJG rests his case and announces that if nominated, he will name Lewis Black as his running mate, the first all-Jewish ticket in history. For future reference, this is Lewis Black, a great American, off his meds. He will preside over the Senate.

The Ten Commandments of Spinning Etiquette: Thou Shalt Schvitz!

Please note that starting tomorrow crankyjewishguy (CJG) will be filing from The Homeland: Puerto Rico. He is assuming they have Internet there. As CJG will be wandering The Homeland for a week, if he is unable to get online he will not be able to post. If CJG does not reappear by New Year's Eve, please notify whatever authorities you deem appropriate.

Let crankyjewishguy (CJG) reintroduce readers to Bill, CJG's technical advisor and spin instructor. Bill and his sister, Alex, own Spynergy, an awesome spin studio in Wellesley, Massachusetts. This is Bill:

Bill is widely considered one of the most innovative people in stationary indoor cycling today. Proof in point: the protective head gear and artificial breathing apparatus. Some in this arcane, somewhat obscure, marginally relevant field even call Bill "a genius," though CJG thinks this is overstating it a bit. CJG realizes Bill looks a little like the winged God, Mercury, in this photo, but that's just a light fixture on the wall behind his head. Why Bill is wearing golf shoes CJG doesn't know. You'll have to ask him.

CJG is an avid spinner (in winter) and cyclist (in spring, summer and fall). It's how he keeps his youthful figure. CJG has given a lot of thought to spin and has developed, in consultation with Bill, CJG's Ten Commandments of Spinning Etiquette that he generously shares with you here (not be confused with The Ten Commandments):

CJG'S TEN COMMANDMENTS OF SPINNING ETIQUETTE® 

            Nothing ruins a good spinning class like bad spin etiquette. Spinning is about camaraderie, group spirit and good karma. Why is etiquette so important? Because it makes you a better human being. It makes for a world worth living in. It ensures that you don’t inflict your petty needs and wants on others. Etiquette keeps other people from thinking of you as obnoxious, self-centered, and egotistical even if you are obnoxious, self-centered and egotistical. New spinners and experienced spinners alike should memorize and observe CJG'S Ten Commandments of Spin Etiquette®  or risk the opprobrium of the group.

1. Though Shalt Follow General Decorum. Spinning is very demanding exercise and new spinners often overdo it the first time in a thinly disguised effort not to appear weak and inadequate. But the shame of being a beginner pales in comparison with the shame of actually throwing up in class. So, know your limits, restrict alcohol intake to no more than six drinks in the previous two hours, and, under no circumstances come to class under local anesthesia.
2. Though Shalt Not Chit-chat (part 1). Chatting is for the coffee shop. There are some people who call themselves spinners who see spin class as just another occasion to gossip, and the majority of these chit-chatters, CJG is obliged to point out, are women. These are not true spinners. These are people talking while sitting on stationary bikes. If you can carry on a conversation during spin class you need to turn up the tension on your flywheel and pedal faster.
3. Thou Shalt Not Chit-chat (part 2). It is never, ever, OK to use your cell phone while spinning. In fact, if your ringer so much as goes off during class it is not only acceptable, but encouraged, for your fellow riders to bludgeon you to the edge of death with sweaty towels. Though CJG said “never, ever” there actually is one exception. It is OK to call to call someone on one of the other bikes to tell them to stop talking.
4. Thou Shalt Not Be Late. Come to class on time, especially if you are new to spinning. There are new people who come into class just as it’s about to start and then need help setting the various adjustments on the bike, assurance from the instructor that they will not be carried out of class on a stretcher, and a recitation of the various spinning positions. This delays the start of class for everyone else during which time the gossipers work up an irreversible momentum. Very bad vibe.
5. Thou Shalt Observe Basic Rules of Good Hygiene. Wipe down your bike after class! For an hour your sweat has been dripping all over the handlebars and the tension knob and accumulating in a puddle underneath the bike. Please, take a minute to help prevent the spread of disease. The Centers for Disease Control has verified that most global pandemics begin not on Vietnamese poultry farms or in remote Nigerian villages, but in suburban indoor cycling studios. (For men, condoms are always recommended.)
6. Thou Shalt Not Eat. Never bring anything to eat during spin class. There was a guy who used to spin at a club with CJG who always brought a banana to eat during class. What next? An Egg McMuffin®? Hey, man, it’s spin class, not the Tour de France! At least share.
7. Though Shalt Not Smoke. It probably goes without saying, but please, NO SMOKING until after class.
8. Thou Shalt Dress for the Occasion. Heart monitors are acceptable. Wearing a portable defibrillator is not. Discrete, unobtrusive jewelry, such as a cross or Star of David worn around the neck, is OK. Wearing a yarmulke and a talus is not. There is no religious discrimination in spin class, but style is important and you simply cannot spin properly if you are dressed like a rabbi. Silent prayer is permitted since it is often needed.
9. Thou Shalt Not Yell. Some spinners get so carried away in their own reverie they treat spin class like a Southern Baptist Tent Revival, yelling “Amen,” “Hallelujah,” and other words of rapturous joy in response to the instructor’s commands. Others sometimes let loose with a Navajo war whoop. This is very distracting to other spinners who, lost in their own reverie, can be easily startled and then fall off their bikes.
10. Thou Shalt Not Covet Other Spinners (some restrictions may apply). This is a nuanced area of spin etiquette that may take months to master. Let’s start with the simple first rule of looking. It is always OK to look at the instructor. That’s why he or she is there. To be looked at. Looking at the instructor helps you figure out what to do. Should I be in the saddle? Should I be pedaling faster? Is the class over? Visual cues from the instructor help you answer such questions. If you haven’t seen the instructor for more than ten minutes it is safe to assume that class is over and you can stop pedaling. It is impolite for men to stare directly at the beautiful woman in skin tight, low cut Spandex. You may, however, select a bike that gives you a perfect view of the beautiful woman in skin tight, low cut Spandex in the mirror in which case the only other people in class who know you are staring at the beautiful woman in skin tight, low cut Spandex are other male riders who, had they gotten to class earlier, would be riding the bike you are on. Women are always allowed to check out the men in the class, but should do so in the first ten minutes of class before their staggering incompetence becomes apparent.

You Call This a Wonderful Life?

Today, crankyjewishguy (CJG) feels like Ray Kinsella, the character played by Kevin Costner in the 1988 film, Field of Dreams. For those much younger than CJG, Field of Dreams is about a farmer in Iowa who hears a voice telling him to turn his valuable cornfield into a baseball diamond and when he does, Shoeless Joe Jackson and the 1919 Chicago White Sox show up to play. It's a documentary. Anyway, CJG isn't hearing more voices than usual, and none have told him to build a baseball field yet. Mostly they tell him to fold the laundry or take out the trash. So, why does CJG feel like Ray Kinsella today? Because there's a scene in the movie where Ray stares wistfully out the window at Christmastime watching the snow cover his precious baseball field. If Ray had been more imaginative or Jewish (same thing), he'd have made provisions for turning the baseball field into a hockey rink, hence CJG's major criticism of the movie. Anyway, today CJG is staring out the window of his local Starbucks (where else?) as the first snow of winter descends on his little town of Bedford Falls and that makes him cranky.

CJG's view from the window of Starbucks.

Actually, CJG doesn't really mind the first snow of the season. It harkens back to his days as a young lad in New Jersey when he used to don skates with his friend, Hans Brinker, and glide over frozen ponds until his mother called out to say his hot cocoa and latkes were ready. But, CJG knows this is just the first snowfall of a winter that will last until April. It's days like this when CJG understands the appeal of Chinese food served under palm trees in Miami Beach on Christmas.

Tower of Babel

I'm in Starbucks. Who isn't?

crankyjewishguy (CJG) spends an inordinate amount of time (and money) in Starbucks, but he hates his local Starbucks because it's very crowded and noisy. But he keeps going back because it's close to home. At Starbucks, CJG observes that 99% of the population is self-absorbed and completely oblivious. Here is a bunch of pictures of people in Starbucks.

"Hold on. The asshole at the cash register
 is interrupting me to take my order."

"Hey, I finally got laid last night!"

"My gastroenterologist says I have three
polyps on my colon, can you believe that?"

Waiting for upgrade (or Godot).

This is more like it.

"A black man is president? That's rich!"

"I'm in Starbucks. Where are you?"

"Am I the world's biggest schmuck, or what?"

"The dorks behind me are telling me to shut the fuck up.

What's their problem?"

What a powerful and important man.

CJG has written to Starbucks about eight thousand times suggesting that if they want to move a notch above McDonald's they should encourage customers to keep cell phone conversations private, preferably by taking them outside. (CJG always mentions he is a major Starbucks stockholder. He thinks he owns at least five shares.) Of course, Starbucks never does anything except send him coupons for free drinks with a preprinted card that says they hope his next visit is better. (For your free coupon, send a complaint of any kind to Starbucks by clicking here.) CJG thinks one problem is that the Starbucks logo sends the completely wrong message: the mermaid appears to be holding two cell phones, one in each flipper.

Returning to The Homeland

By early next week, crankyjewishguy (CJG) is really going to be out of sorts, and it's not going to have anything to do with overdosing on Christmas music. Why is CJG going to be cranky? Because he and his family are going on vacation to Puerto Rico. I know; why would the prospect of going to a sun drenched island with palm trees and spectacular beaches in the middle of December make CJG cranky? A couple of reasons actually.

First, CJG hates to fly. He feels very insecure up there. Second, CJG doesn't tolerate chaos well and packing, for some members of his family who will go unmentioned, requires that every stitch of clothing be removed from the closets, dressers and armoires to be liberally strewn about the house for several days before final decisions about what to pack are made, and in the end, almost everything will be crammed into overloaded suitcases. Packing for CJG is very simple and takes about five minutes, regardless of destination and length of trip: one pair jeans, two pair shorts, sneakers, t-shirts, underwear, socks, toothbrush and medications, including the little white pills that help him board the plane. CJG guy will also be cranky because his sons, 20 and 15, will constantly be telling him to calm down.

The Other Jewish Homeland

Actually, CJG is kind of stoked about this trip because he is returning to the land of his roots. You see, CJG was born in Puerto Rico, but has never been back to Aguadilla (see map above), the town where he was born. He can't wait to see the monument the grateful people of Aguadilla have erected in his honor. He thinks it will look something like this:

Because he left Aguadilla for the mainland long before he could walk, CJG has few memories of life in Puerto Rico, but it was probably awesome. In fact, here is a picture of CJG enjoying life in the Homeland the last time he was there. The weather looked pretty good. Hakuna matata.

crankyjewishguy with Mom and Carly in 1953. If he could have
talked he would have complained about the dirty diaper left on the
 beach (left center).

NEWS FLASH! 

Just one week in the blogosphere and crankyjewishguy is already an international sensation! He's had visitors from the United States and nine foreign countries, including one page view in Nepal. Nepal? That means 100% of the Jewish population of Nepal has visited crankyjewishguy! If that guy needs to have a minyan he has to borrow Jews from neighboring China.

P.S. After writing this News Flash, CJG was surprised to find a web site called Jewish Nepal. Who knew Jews could live so high above sea level?

Would You Buy a Used Joke from This Man?

True story. A few years ago, crankyjewishguy (CJG) took his two sons, then about 14 and 10, to see a show in New York. Across the street from the theater was another theater where the legendary comedian Jackie Mason was doing his one man show. To his astonishment, CJG looked across the street and who should he see standing on the sidewalk in front of the theater but the man himself. So, CJG says to his wife and kids, "come with me."

CJG introduces himself and the family and says, "Mr. Mason, I've been a big fan since I was their age," pointing two his two blond, blue-eyed sons. Mason is very gracious. "Yeah," says CJG, "my parents had all your albums and one of my favorite jokes was when you said, 'my Mother had thirteen children, but she stopped after thirteen because she read in the paper that every fourteenth child born in America is an Indian. She figured since the Indians don't have Jewish, why should the Jewish have Indians?'"

"You remember that pretty good," Jackie Mason said to CJG, who wasn't known as CJG then.

"Let me ask you a question," said Mason. "Are you Jewish?"

"Yes," replied CJG.

"Are those your children?" asked Mason.

"Yes," CJG said again. Pause. (Imagine Mason's staccato delivery now.)

"Those are the most gentile looking Jewish kids I've ever seen in my life."

True story.

The Cookie Swap

Today, crankyjewishguy (CJG) is going to cheat a bit and dip into the archive. You see, tonight is Debbie's famous cookie swap, an annual holiday tradition that involves copious quantities of sugar and butter. CJG first wrote about Debbie's cookie swap in 2005 for The Boston Globe. Why does Debbie's cookie swap make CJG cranky? Because it means our kitchen is going to be a disaster area all day as Judy works feverishly to make hundreds of cookies for tonight's swap. And since CJG hates clutter and messes and is compulsive, he will be cleaning the kitchen with industrial strength cleaners while Judy is out eating cookies. CJG is also cranky because Judy will bring home tens of thousands of calories in the form of cookies made by other people, some of which will be very tempting. So here it is:

Every year around the holidays, my wife, Judy, gets invited to at least one cookie swap. A cookie swap is the social equivalent of the fruitcake: a lot of people give them, but most people dread them.

What? No Hannukah cookies?

The premise of a cookie swap is that every woman should seek to gain at least 20 pounds before making a New Year’s resolution to lose 20 pounds. It works like this. One woman, and let’s just make up a name and call her Debbie, invites about twenty other women to her house one evening before Christmas. Each invited guest is asked to bring a dozen home-baked cookies for each of the other guests, who, in turn, are also bringing a dozen home-baked cookies for each of the other guests. Now, let’s do the math and, for the purposes of the math, let’s count Debbie as a guest. That means that Judy will bring 252 home-baked cookies to Debbie’s house and will return home with 252 cookies baked in someone else’s home, hopefully under sanitary conditions.

Now that’s a lot of cookies, especially because all of them are made with massive quantities of butter. But, Debbie (again, I want to stress that Debbie is a completely fictitious character) usually isn’t the only one to engage in this romantic 1950s era holiday tradition. In fact, a friend of ours has been invited to no fewer than seven cookie swaps this year. If there are twenty guests at each, she’s going to be baking almost 1,800 cookies this season. Of course, I would advise our friend to simply bring the cookies she gets at one cookie swap to the next one until everyone ends up with the cookies she originally baked. But since nine out of the ten guests are likely to have been at the previous cookie swap our friend could easily be outed for this most serious breach of cookie swap etiquette.

I dread cookie swaps, too, even though I’m never invited and I don’t bake. I dread them for two reasons. First, because by the time Judy finishes baking her cookies for the cookie swaps our kitchen looks like the final, climatic scene from Ghostbusters. The devastation is everywhere and usually so is the butter, and given my low tolerance for chaos, I’m the guy who has to clean up after the parade. Second, how’s a man to keep his figure with all those cookies floating around? To be honest, most of the cookies that find their way home from these affairs aren’t all that appetizing. I hate little butter cookies with a dollop of raspberry jam on them. But I do like the little Christmas tree ones with those multi-colored sprinkles.

All this cookie swapping also begs a larger philosophical question. If men had holiday swaps, what exactly is it they would swap? Golf balls come to mind, as do certain video tapes. Lacking imagination, men might also opt for swapping money. Each guest would bring each other guest $100 and come home with exactly the same amount of money, just in different bills. Come to think of it, the host, being a man, would probably take a commission.

You see, men approach the holidays with a certain grim determination to just get through them, not with that special holiday cheer required to pull off a cookie swap. Thrown willy-nilly into awkward social situations with people dressed in sweaters that can only be worn during the two week period immediately before Christmas, assaulted by countless “assembly required” holiday gifts, and heavily laden with credit card debt and cookies made with large quantities of butter most men, given the choice, would crawl into a small cave to await the first sign of spring which, of course, is the day pitchers and catchers report to spring training.

Next year, however, I am going to suggest that Judy and her friends try something new -- a stuffing swap just before Thanksgiving. That, it seems to me, would be far more practical. Everyone loves stuffing.

Flying the Friendly Skies

Last week my older son calls home from college down south and he’s sick as a dog in the middle of finals and he’s beside himself. All drama this one. He gets a cold and you’d think he has the Plague. The younger one? He could sever his carotid artery and he’d put on a band-aid and go back to his video games. Don’t get me started on his video games. He’s seen more action than David Petraeus.

Anyway, the older one? He’s in finals at a fine southern institution, Harvard on St. Charles, and he ends up in the emergency room with strep and a stomach virus and now he has to reschedule his exams. You think he’s inconvenienced? Now I have to call the airline and get him on another flight. Have to be careful here because my friend, Bill, my social networking technical guy (see photo), tells me big corporations have software that searches the Internet for their name so they can track everything people say about them and if they don’t like what you say they’ll hunt you down like a dog and sue you.

Anyway, so I call JetIndigo and I explain my son is practically dying in New Orleans, but he’s supposed to fly home on Saturday even though it’s the Sabbath, and he’s using one of my frequent flyer awards. (If you need a flight to Florida click here.) He tells me they can change the flight but it costs $100. So I say, listen, I just had to put a new oxygen sensor in my Volvo and I’m a little strapped for cash at the moment, but I’ll call back because I don’t know when my son is going to pull out if his coma and he says, oh, by the way, did you know we had a schedule change for his flight back to school? No biggie, I figure, but if I hadn’t called when exactly were you planning to tell me this? You think I have ESP? So, he says, we cancelled that flight so he’s on a flight the next day. So, I said, well that’s not a schedule change, that’s a whole other flight on a whole other day and he has to be back at school and I only booked this flight like, oh, six years ago and it’s going to cost you $100 because I have a policy that if my airline changes my flight I charge them $100 and if he wants I can have my lawyer, Goldberg, fax him my terms of service. And I tell him we’re really good customers and as a matter of fact the four of us are flying JetIndigo to Puerto Rico over Christmas (more on that next week) so they should be nice to me. Then I say, how about we make a deal?  I don’t charge you for changing his flight back and you don’t charge me for changing his flight home and we’ll be even. He says sorry, he can’t do that. It’s policy. Oooooh, policy. Like it's carved in stone like the Ten Commandments.

JetIndigo agent displays the airline's Terms of Service.

OK, so my son starts to get better and I call back to see what flights are available and I get another agent and we go through the same routine. JetIndigo won’t budge. I wait some more because my precious son still isn’t sure when he’ll be done with exams. So, I call back again when he knows and this time the agent says, of course, we’ll waive the fee since we moved your son’s flight a whole day. I didn’t even have to argue, which was kind of disappointing. And I’m like that’s interesting because I called twice before and they refused and she says all the agents have discretion to waive the fee. From this I conclude that two out of three JetIndigo agents are obsessive compulsives. And now that I know that what do you think I’m going to do next time I need something from JetIndigo? Hondle, that’s what!

While I have your attention, I’m in Barry’s Deli the other day; great brisket sandwich! Anyway, on the bulletin board there's a piece of paper says, “Jewish Joke of the Year.” This is the unabridged joke: Two Jewish women were sitting quietly, minding their own business. Perfect!