High Fidelity

OK, crankyjewishguy is back from his short break and thanks you for your indulgence. He hopes you made good use of the 45 seconds you spend reading CJG each day while he was away.

CJG's younger son turned 16 the other day, remarkably exactly 16 years after he was born, and to celebrate the entire CJG clan went to New York City to see Saturday Night Live (SNL) live and in person because Mr. 16 is enamored of television and all that goes into putting a television program on the air. CJG would not be surprised to see his son sitting in the SNL control room some day.

Before SNL, CJG et al. indulged themselves first at the Grand Central Oyster Bar and then at a legendary New York steak house called Keens on West 36th Street. Even by New York standards the steaks are expensive, but let CJG tell you, he's never had a better, more perfectly prepared steak. Keens is a clubby, intimate, low ceilinged place so CJG was dismayed when, two minutes after being seated, he realized the woman at the next table with the shrill voice and the ear piercing laugh found it appropriate to carry on ad nauseum at a volume that made it difficult for CJG to hear his wife and children who were sitting at the very same table with him. Not that her five companions were much better, though CJG would like to thank them for at least staying off their cell phones. In situations like that, CJG really lets it get the better of him and comes this close to saying something, politely of course, like "shut the fuck up...please," because if he's going to drop $250 on a dinner he feels he has a right to enjoy it 100%. To make matters worse, as friends of CJG know, CJG has voice issues of his own, the details of which you don't need to know, save to say that he has a lot of trouble being heard over ambient noise because he only has one functioning vocal cord. This is actually true. So, maybe he's a little more sensitive than the average person to people who abuse the privilege of having a full voice by using it beyond a reasonable level. In situations like that CJG always wonders: do these people have any idea what it's like to have to sit next to them? The answer is clearly "no" because if they did they would never venture out in public. Around the time CJG and his family got their desserts, the loudmouths at the next table had departed and it was so quiet you could hear CJG's spoon going through his creme brulee. Heavenly.

There are eight million people in New York City and
 at dinner CJG had to be seated next to this woman.

P.S. You may remember that a few weeks ago the Congresswoman from Neptune, Michelle Bachmann, said that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery, a massive mis-statement of American history that made every American with an IQ higher than 80 cringe. Well, she was at it again in New Hampshire over the weekend saying that the battles of Lexington and Concord during the Revolutionary War occurred in that state. Gag. There is, in fact, a town in New Hampshire called Concord, but the battles of Lexington and Concord took place in CJG's adopted home state of Massachusetts. CJG knows this for two reasons: first, he reads books, and second, he has personally visited the sites of those battles and seen the historical markers for himself. When she's not wrapping herself in the flag, Ms. Bachmann, who, by the way, home schooled all of her children, maybe she ought to wrap herself in a basic history book. And this woman wants to be President of the United States? Duh.