Viva Lost Wages

Alex Trebek: Dangerous liaisons with Cubans. Sleep deprivation. Waterboarding. Brinkmanship.

You: What is The Cuban Missile Crisis, Alex?

Alex Trebek: No, I'm sorry

Me: The answer is What is Las Vegas…to…the…FACE.

I finally arrived at my apartment just shy of midnight on Sunday night. A mere shell of the man who so naively boarded a plane last Thursday evening with a nice little wad of crisp hundreds. I'd never been to Las Vegas, and now I'm wondering I'll ever go back. As a sportsman I'll give you this analogy, "leave it all on the court". Suffice to say, I just witnessed ten guys (it was ten, I think, I sometimes had trouble counting) just leave it all on the proverbial court. In fact, I think the best example of literally leaving it all on the court occurred at the club on Saturday, where a big-boned, high-heeled, strong-willed woman projectile vomited about an oil drum worth of Welch's Grape Juice and Hennessey on her way to rush the stage to get as close to Snoop Dogg as possible, since he was performing for some reason. She literally didn't even break stride. If I didn't have a drink in my hand I would've clapped. It was simultaneously the most inspiring yet disgusting thing I think I've ever seen. Welcome to Vegas.

Before I recount the glories of the weekend it's only fair to share the inglorious aftermath. At work on Monday I was, how you say, less than efficient, mostly due to severe dehydration and a bout of sleep apnea. At one point I was texting with the bachelor (the reason we went to Vegas) that when I'd gotten home I'd emptied my bag of its contents and then burned my computer. He wrote back, "why did you burn your computer", to which I wrote back, "I meant my clothing". Clearly I was not firing on all cylinders. But why did I want to burn my clothing…because it smelled like Las Vegas. More on that later. I'm still recovering I think. Primarily because of I've been downing the sweetest nectar on this planet…water, not eating Denny's at 6am, and doing this thing called sleeping. It's amazing by the way. Try it.

So what of the rest of the weekend? As you know…what happens in Vegas blah blah, so I'll honor that and just paint some broad strokes. Let me first describe the all-day bacchanalia at the pool/club/awesomeness at the MGM on Saturday. You know how if you wrap anything in bacon it makes it exponentially better. Bacon-wrapped scallops. Bacon-wrapped dates. Etc. Well if you had to dumb down the description of what went on at the MGM that gorgeous day, I think you'd have to basically say it was bacon-wrapped Spring Break 2010. Yeah, let that marinate for a minute. I think we gave a new definition to the word gluttony, but little did I know we'd continue to give a new definition to the word gluttony every subsequent evening. For shame Finger:TheBlog, for shame. Well as you can possibly imagine, after we finished up at the pool eight hours later I wasn't quite in shape to operate heavy machinery so I took a nap. I woke up to the phone buzzing at around 11:45pm. It was my friend, we'll call him Liev Schreiber, and he was saying that I had 15 minutes to get downstairs because he'd just won a serious four-game parlay of the Sweet 16 games that day, and then had thrown those winning on red and won that too and we were going out. In a near zombie-like state I took the coldest shower of my life, smacked my face a few times and headed downstairs to the lobby. At this point I was cold and shaking and hungry and in need of a hug. It was off to a Gentlemen's club.

I expected to go somewhere to learn how to better open doors for ladies, and how to properly ballroom dance. You know, gentlemanly pursuits and such. Well well well. I had been tricked because when I showed up at this "gentlemanly establishment", the most gentlemanly pursuit taking place was that a…um…actually there was nothing particularly gentlemanly going on. There's something magical about strippers and by "magical" I mean "grossed out by their c-section scars", but magically grossed out I suppose. And what of that smell? What of that smell? All weekend I was trying to put my finger on what that omnipresent smell was. In the elevator. In the lobby. In Denny's. In the cab. In the airport. I'm not scientist, but I'm pretty sure it's a combination of strawberries, Lysol, crushed up Marlboro Reds, and leather. I'm actually in talks with a major manufacturer to get this turned into a perfume. It's going to be called "Slots". I'm looking for some VC money so let me know if you're at all interested. Typical me, I was interested in the back stories of these wonderfully-talented women. I imagined they'd grown up in the Eastern Bloc, nibbling small rations of stale bread and potatoes in the depths winter just to stay nourished. They'd come to Vegas in pursuit of their lifelong dream of becoming a biochemist. They attended UNLV where they had just applied for a Marshall Scholarship to continue their studies, and stripping was just a way to pay the bills for school. Listen, I know it's not likely, but it's possible. In fact, the closest these girls would ever get to becoming a biochemist would probably be working in a meth lab to pay off their pimps. I'm not going to get into details of the evening, because they were pretty normal, given the circumstances of course. Get your mind out of the gutter people. This was clean, wholesome, American fun.

I'm not even going to try to describe the events at the club the next evening. Something about a giraffe, a 7-month pregnant woman, cocktail dresses the size of washcloths, our gracious and kind and caring club hostess Amber, shenanigans, shenanigans.com, www.shenanigans.com, follow me on twitter @shenaniganstotheface, Snoop Dogg, anger, redemption, pseudo-Cuban Bulgarians from Henderson Nevada, making assessments, drinking Baileys from a shoe, and the man of the weekend who was responsible for the tsunami of events that almost ended the lives of ten strapping young gents…Old Greggggggg.

I sum up Las Vegas like this…the city simultaneous embodies every reason why America is the greatest country on Earth and every reason why so many people on Earth hate America. From the mouth of the former self-proclaimed Most Disciplined Man in Media Services, I must say that Vegas is a true battle of the mind versus the body versus the wallet, and in some inexplicable way even though we all lost, we all won...big…and this, my friends, is why we go to Vegas.

Duende

I didn't know what the word duende meant. In fact, I hadn't even heard it until Thursday when I read this article about David Simon and his new HBO show Treme. David Simon is the man, and I'm pretty jazzed, pun intended, for the premiere of this show. If you don't feel like reading the entire article, just sample this passage.

“THERE’S A THING about being capable of a great moment,” Simon told me on a break from shooting. “This city is capable of moments unlike any moments you’ll ever experience in life. To see an Indian come down the street in full regalia on St. Joseph’s Night on an unlit street of messed-up shotgun houses and one burned-out car, and he’s the most beautiful thing on the planet, and everything around him is falling down. It’s a glorious instant of human endeavor. It’s duende from the Spanish, chills on the back of your neck, and then the next minute it’s gone. Lots of American places used to make things. Detroit used to make cars. Baltimore used to make steel and ships. New Orleans still makes something. It makes moments. I don’t mean that to sound flippant, and I don’t mean it to sound more or less than what it is, but they’re artists with a moment, they can take a moment and make it into something so transcendent that you’re not quite sure that it happened or that you were a part of it.”

And you wonder why the writing on The Wire was so damn good. But back to duende, defined as the ability to attract others through personal magnetism and charm. So about two hours after reading the article on Thursday I'm walking from my office, through Grand Central, to the subway, and there's this huge painting on the wall in one of the buildings that connects to Grand Central that says "Duende". Coincidence...I suppose. Blog fodder...fo' sho'.

Duende sounds like a very appropriately seasonal word. Very "Spring-like". Warm, but not oppressively so. Flirty, but no overwhelmingly so. Now that I know what duende is, I want it. But alas, duende is most certainly a quality that's going to be elusive for a good percentage of people, and one person who does not have duende was a nice young lady I became acquainted with on the 6 train this past week.

It was a crowded downtown train but I had a seat. As the car I was in got increasingly crowded, people were getting jostled as they tried to exit at each stop. At one particular stop, I think maybe Union Square, this small elderly white woman tried to push her way through to exit the train. Her path was blocked by an extraordinarily tall black woman. The white woman couldn't make it out, missing her stop. The black woman then went on a rant saying how all white people were ignorant and didn't have the courtesy to say "excuse me" and that all the small white grandma had to do was say "excuse me" and she could've gotten out at her stop but now, because she was ignorant, she had missed her stop. Things got awkward for a second and then slightly more awkward when the charming black woman got in the white woman's face and said, and I paraphrase, but barely, "I'm 8 months pregnant. I'm from Brooklyn and I'll knock that ass out and leave you in the gutter because that's how we do". Now, I'm no doctor but I'm pretty sure a woman who is 8 months pregnant should avoid knocking anyone out and leaving anyone in the gutter. I'm just saying. I'm sure this woman's child will end up being as non-confrontational as her mother. The story ends well though, because at Astor Place as the train pulled into the station I believe every single white person in the entire subway car said "excuse me" whether they were getting off or not. I know I did. What, you think I'm trying to end up in a gutter? This woman certainly gave me, as David Simon says, "chills on the back of my neck", but obviously for all the wrong reasons. Sadly, there was no duende on the 6 train that afternoon.

But if I can't find duende on the 6 train, where in the world can I find it? Las Vegas perhaps. Yes, that sounds about right. I'll be venturing out to Sin City for the first time this Thursday evening. I've been told there are some incredibly sweet and charming young ladies who just like hanging out and doting on you and rubbing your shoulders as you gamble. How sweet and innocent sounding. From what I've heard, after 3 nights in Vegas I'll be so cooked and over it that I'll welcome an old fashioned Brooklyn beatdown from a pregnant woman.

Walk That Earth

Watching Michael Lewis on 60 Minutes talk about bonuses and Wall Street makes me recall several conversations I had this past weekend. This question was posed to me this weekend, "how much money would you need right now, liquid, to leave your job and walk the earth?"

Hmm. Think about it. Now, I'm not saying that you would never work again. In fact, you might decide to travel for a month and then come back and get back into the workplace. But the point is, how much money would you need to leave, taking everything into account, such as the state of the economy and the uncertainty of job prospects upon returning home. There are a million and one variables. The answer I gave when posed this question was about $10 million different than the answer a friend gave not 30 minutes later. I thought this was pretty funny actually and as we talked about the rationale behind our numbers I figured I had to throw this out to the readers.

Maybe it's because I did some earth-walking last summer and that I know how far a good ol' greenback can go in Southeast Asia, that my number was much lower than several of my friends' numbers. I think once you've tasted the freedom it's hard to get that taste out of your mouth and you're willing to do more with less, or at least try to do more with less. While I was on the road for only six weeks we definitely came across people who had been walking the earth for a long time. These folks, very often couples, were "next level" travelers and it was pretty apparent. They traveled very minimally. Just the small packs on their back, often hoofing it on the beach with full gear which seemed to suggest that they'd camped out under the stars all night, or perhaps just swam up Navy SEAL-style right onto the shore from some undisclosed prior location. They wore versatile clothing that to me said, "hey, may look like a sari but it's also a headwrap/hammock/towel/parachute/flaming jumprope". These folks also maybe wore a puka shell necklace or two, and had tans so irreversibly deep that even Snooki would blush. Despite their quirky fashion sense and apparent need for a good dermatological once-over, these folks by and large looked extremely happy and you could just tell that they looked at all the junior varsity travelers like myself with a sense of, I don't want to say arrogance, but knowingness. Is that even a word? Yeah, apparently it. So yeah, with a sense of knowingness that at some point my trip was going to come to an end and I'd have to do the single most dreaded thing post-warm climate vacation...put on socks. And then of course head back to Responsibilityland. But getting back to the question at hand...how much would you need in the bank to set off on your own adventure, knowing full well you would or could come back whenever. How much would you need to be able to draw down on and set off with your main squeeze, like the aforementioned earth walkers, on an adventure like that? Or forget a companion. How much to just going it alone?

Since I'm pretty sure I'll never get this opportunity, or more accurately, take this opportunity, until I'm retired that is, it's at least fun (read: kind of depressing) to think about it. Feel free to share your number in the comments section. It's anonymous. Nobody's judging. It's much better getting actual real people comments instead of Taiwanese spam.

This could be you and your new, cool, hungry, earth-walking friends. Look how happy they all are playing in the sand. Walk the earth, people. Walk. The. Earth.

Indians Love Papaya

(Dusting off the keyboard)

Yeah, it's been a minute. General malaise. Downright laziness. Snowdrifts blocking my path to the computer. Lindsay Lohan lawsuits. Killer whales. Too soon? Perhaps.

I can come up with a million and one excuses for taking so long since my last post but I don't really care and I imagine neither do you. The fact of the matter is there is very very little that stands between this man and Spring. Although perhaps another huge snowstorm, but aside from that, very little. Spring brings little gifts that are absent during the winter, like the title of this blog, "Indians Love Papaya". You see, there's a fruit truck outside my office, and during the bleak days of winter the asian husband and wife team that works inside this little metal kiosk of an office don't bother showing up. And frankly why would they bother freezing their tails off trying to sell people fruit and fruit smoothies. Well, with temperatures flirting and playing a little grab ass with the 50 degree mark the fruit truck is back, and when the fruit truck is back I get my $3 strawberry/banana/blueberry smoothie aka "the #5" aka "the yummy shake". THe name "Yummy Shake" is what they call it. Their forte is slicing and blending and not so much coming up with names. Today I took down the first smoothie I've had in a long while. The lady working the blender wasn't the usual woman, but she seemed quite pleased to earn my $3. In fact, she was so excited that she kept talking about her brother, or maybe it was a boat rudder, or maybe a cow's udder. I couldn't understand a damn thing she said, but she sure hooked me up with a delicious smoothie. My buddy from work came with me for the smoothie break. He's Indian. The woman working the blenders seemed especially excited to see my friend, talking to him unintelligibly as well. Strangely though, in crystal clear english she pointed to my friend and said "Indians love papaya". I looked at my friend quizzically and he nodded in confirmation. Indeed, Indians love papaya. Who knew?

You see, this is why the Spring is so wonderful. New cultural insights at every turn. So what that I was outside shivering my ass off drinking a fruit smoothie while my fingers turned blue. It was a nod to Spring and it was worth the frostbite.

More cultural insights this Spring...In my current rotation we deal periodically with the Brazilian office. I love me some international exposure, but the only problem is I never can tell who is who. It was the same thing at Michigan. We had a couple Brazilians in our section and when we'd have a new class and the professor would call roll he'd say a name and everyone would scratch their heads, look around and be like "no sorry, he's not in our section". And then from the last row the Brazilian student would put down his caipirinha, raise his hand and say, "eh, yes, this is me but eh, this is my fifth name", which begs the question, how many names can these Brazilians have. So here's an example, let's say there's a guy you work with from Brazil, and his name is Cristiano Feitosa. Well, his actual real name isn't Cristiano Feitosa, it's probably Joao Gilberto Feijoada, but of course around the office he's probably known as Didi. So when your boss says call Didi, I mean, what the hell are you supposed to do, put "Didi" into the company directory? I'll tell you what I do, I go to this website and have myself a couple good laughs then go to lunch. (PS, I'm Fingincha). When did life get so difficult? WWPD? What Would Pele Do?

I have to ease my way back into blogging so I'm going to call it an evening, but do me a favor, seek out those crocuses (croci?), give them funny Brazilian nicknames like Crocusinho, and appreciate the fact that Spring is allegedly lurking right around the corner.

Before You Fall Asleep Reading This...

I once read where music impresario Lyor Cohen works and stays up as late as he can until he literally cannot keep his eyes open, and can only muster enough strength to take himself to bed. Found it. Every week I read "Corner Office" in the New York Times which is an interview with a CEO of some sort. This past week's article was an interview with a woman who works for an apparel company. She says that she sometimes sleeps two hours a night. Granted, she works part time in Germany, and perhaps that's just her German efficiency kicking in, but where I come from, two hours of sleep is called a nap. But hey, she's the CEO of a multinational operation and I'm the CEO of a not-for-profit blog that attracts spam from Asians.

Now that's I've tasted what it's like to have a decent amount of personal time outside of work, I can't help but feel that I'm not utilizing it appropriately. Back in the day (like 4 or 5 weeks ago) I got home in time to eat, shower, maybe read an article or two of something not work related, curse myself a little bit, and then pass out. So what I'm thinking about doing is training myself to start keeping longer hours, and thus sleeping less. I realize that this has disaster written all over it, because my body has been known to rebel if I burn the candle on both ends. For example, I have this trick hamstring, that tells me in a most painful way when I'm not hydrated enough. At first the muscle will kind of spasm, then it will go into "you think this is a joke, son" mode and hurt like the dickens. What I'm saying is that I'm fine tuned. Maybe not fine tuned, but tuned, at least, to a certain extent.

The saying goes that "nothing good happens after 2am", and I'm not saying that I'm going to start staying up until 2am, but I've gotta say, that when I do stay up after 2am it's usually because I'm out having fun. I'm not sure this saying applies to gang members though. Standing on the corner of 61st and Fifth and flashing gang signs to homeless people sleeping on the benches the border the park is a fairly innocuous activity. Move 60 or 70 blocks north and doing the same thing will probably net a different result. So perhaps in some situations nothing good ever happens after 2am. By the way, Vatos Locos for life, homes.

I'm usually in bed by 11 - 11:30, but what would happen if I just stayed up much later. You always hear about these chefs who would stay up late at night in their kitchens perfecting dishes with the help of their pet rat...or was that Ratatouille? Whatever. The point is that genius occurs as the sun comes up but during this time most of us are out cold dreaming about swimming in pools of candy or whatever other ridiculous dreams about unicorns and manifest destiny you folks are having these days. Weirdos.

All these pop/rap collaborations you see now have become so passe. If you told me Raffi just did a collaboration with Gucci Mane I'd barely bat an eye.

Oh hey there Raffi. How about singing that one about apples and bananas?

What was the first real cross-genre collaboration you can recall seeing or hearing...probably Aerosmith and Run DMC's "Walk this Way". If you for one second believe that the idea for that was conceived at an hour earlier than 2am then you are sorely mistaken. For chrissakes, in the movie Young Einstein, when a young Albert Einstein splits the beer atom with a chisel in order to add bubbles to beer, when do you think that happened? After 2am, duh? Scientific facts are irrefutable. It's true. Just ask the Texas Board of Education...wait what?

I suppose the question is this, would you sacrifice sleep and in turn be more grumpy in the morning if you knew that at night you were unlocking your sheer genius, whatever that may be?I hope you say yes, and I hope you stay up tonight and create the most badass origami Eiffel Tower the world has ever seen, or the most delicious carnitas taco the worst has ever tasted, or perhaps the most incoherent rambling blog the world has ever read. Don't take if from me, take it from a certified doctor....Dr. Bunson Honeydew...burner of midnight oil.

What I do Not Recognize, I do not Like

First, let me just say that I can't explain just about any of the comments I've been receiving on this blog. They all look like spam as far as I'm concerned. They make no sense. Here's what they all sound like.

"This is most certainly exciting. Perhaps more color would be an addition. I very much enjoy the spectacle of earth. Buy some Levitra".

What?

Those of you who waited for a pithy Valentine's blog, well, I'm sorry, but I really didn't have it in me this year. You could've checked out my sad sack blog from 2008. Someone at work gave out those little cards that you used to give and get when you were in elementary school. My card had SpongeBob on it and that was the most love I got all weekend. In fact, on Valentine's Day proper I went and destroyed a double cheeseburger with bacon, a side or fries, a side of onion rings, and also a plate of fried pickled tomatoes. And of course a beer to wash it all down. Don't judge me for what I put in my body though. I'll leave the judging for those at work.

I like my new job, particularly the atmosphere. It's bright, quiet, and the people are young and nice. The only bad thing is that just about every morning at 9am the place starts to absolutely stink. Not stink, but reek of something that can only be described as sewage. The first couple days I just assumed it was the ventilation because I sit not too far from the bathroom, but then I noticed a number of people on the floor talking about it. Apparently it's been an ongoing problem. But then I started doing some sleuthing because my olfactory sense is better than yours. People would walk by our side of the floor and say out loud, "jesus, something smells like shit". Not so fast there ugly americans. The sense of smell is a very keen sense and it can stir up many emotions and memories, and after focusing a little bit I closed my eyes and was transported to a dusty, dirty alley in Ho Chi Minh City. Before me sat an old lady, smiling, hunched over a little push cart, folding spring rolls and placing them over the fire. Street meat. My friend and I were too hungry to pass up some fresh spring rolls so we sat on low, plastic, backless chairs, and pulled up to an equally low plastic table. The piping hot spring rolls were brought out with some greens and a side of sauce that smelled like something I wanted no part of...vinegary fish sauce my friends. I turned to the cube behind me to see my Chinese colleague tucking into some something from a tupperware that came from home. That was it.

I feel bad a little that people continually insult her breakfast without knowing, but she eats it all the time so she either has thick skin or fails to realize what she's doing to our side of the floor. I'm almost embarrassed for everyone in this scenario. I never saw an Asian eat cheese the entire 6 weeks I was away this summer so I'm going to assume they don't have an affinity for it. So I guess it would be like working in China, whipping out a grilled cheese sandwich (so tasty) and having everyone say how horrible it smelled. If I cared enough I'd offer some sort of diplomatic solution, but I don't care enough.

In other news, I went skiing this weekend for the first time in about 15 years and for the third time overall. It was a lot of fun, except for those few occasions when I felt I had little to absolutely no control over what was going on. A little scary, and at this age, I think first about how tremendously horrible it would be to blow out an ACL or something. But I survived. In fact I only bit it twice. But those beginner snowboarders...what's the point. They spend half the day on their ass. Strapping, Unstrapping. Strapping. Unstrapping. The falling I can understand, but what a production. I like skiing but I still like a sport where you just show up and you either have it, or you don't. There's not gear, no layers. It's just you. Although unfortunately there's no apres basketball, like there's an apres ski. Could you imagine. If you are trying to maximize your time on your feet learning you might as well ski. If you want to dress like an asshole and suck, apparently snowboarding is your game. I'm just reporting on what I saw. I'm excited to go skiing again. Maybe even...."out west"....which from everything I've heard might as well be Shangri la, ain't that right Lindsay Vonn?

Off to the gym to go for gold. Wish me luck.

The Andon System

This past week I received a lot of positive feedback about the last blog on dating, so thank you for that. I figure maybe I'll touch on that topic a little more often.

In business school we took a class called Operations. I didn't particularly care for it, as to me the scenario of sorting and sifting through a cranberry processing plant never really seemed like it would be particularly applicable to anything I would ever be doing...except for that time I worked at a CRANBERRY PROCESSING PLANT! No. I lie. I didn't. I never worked at a cranberry sorting factory. I remember the final exam for that class being particularly cruel to me. It was probably a fair exam, but just not to me. It was the type of test where you open up see the first question, decide to skip it and come back later, and tackle question two first, and then five minutes later you find that you've flipped through the whole test and are back at question one, staring you in the face saying "now who wishes they'd paid attention to that cranberry sorting factory case study?"

I remember one question had to do with waiting in line at a hamburger stand, and there were three cashiers, a rate to build the burgers, a rate on how long it took to fill the sodas, and something about how many customers could be served in a certain window of time if it was a Leap Year or something. I think my answer was go next door to the taco stand where there's no line. I did learn though. I learned about the Andon system. To make it short and sweet, the Andon system is basically a way to signal an issue at a particular workstation in a manufacturing plant. If an issue occurs, work is stopped, the problem is quickly isolated, and the proper remedies are deployed in order to get the process up and running again. Simple and brilliant. Today, the Andon systems are way more involved, and I'm sure there are all kind of crazy computer programs and microchips and weird looking UPS-guys diagramming the heck out of the Andon system.

Insert your favorite Thomas More horsehair shirt/self-mortification joke here

While the Andon system doesn't seem particularly groundbreaking today, it was considered groundbreaking many years ago. In fact the Andon system was pioneered by a company largely regarded as the toast of the town in the world of manufacturing. You guessed it, Toyota. Well well well. How the tables have turned. How the tables. Have turned. So this unlikely turn of events for Toyota this past week begs the question of how a (now presumed) best-in-class car manufacturer can let something so important, like a issue with brakes, literally and figuratively run themselves off the road. Are you ready for some metaphors?

I really like the idea of the Andon system in the context of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If you don't use it (Toyota), what's the point of even having it.

Say you are dating someone. This someone is cool. This someone is popular. This someone is also fuel-efficient. However, you know that there's an issue, and it's not something insignificant. You see that Andon cord (it used to literally be a cord before things became automated) and you're staring at it. This someone starts going all "bitches be crazy" more and more often, and you're just staring at that Andon cord, kind of hoping someone will pull it and stop the craziness to address the problem, but the only person who can possibly pull that cord is you. And you just stare at it because pulling it is not the easy thing to do. This doesn't just apply to dating of course. It applies to jobs too and pretty much just about everything else on this planet. Sometimes you just have to do the difficult thing and pull that Andon cord. Toyota more than anyone else should have known better. I will dismount my soapbox now.

On to more pleasant things though. With one week of the new job under my belt I can say with a high confidence interval that I'm probably going to be able to have more of a social life this next four months than I had the last four months. In fact, I actually made plans for wait for it, wait for it...mid-week. Yup. It's going to happen (hopefully/possibly).

That's about all I got. Go enjoy the Super Bowl folks.