Don't go West

One pleasure of the New Jersey Turnpike is WBGO. It says it's a jazz station but is more unreliable than that. If it were more reliable it would be worse.

 The other day I turn it on to find it interviewing Cornel West. Wikipedia describes him as a public intellectual which is not the same as an intellectual; he left Harvard in a huff after the president suggested that he might like to do more with his time than make rap CDs. Well, one rap CD actually.

 Which is enough to establish him, or anyone, as a humourless bore. So I flip. The next channel is a country station playing a song about reggae cowboys.

Piker boy

The New Jersey Turnpike plays a large part in my life, although I live in London. This is because the alternative is Route 1 (rout not root). After dropping off the family at Newark airport I very nearly found my way onto the turnpike but as usual missed the crucial sign telling you to swerve across four lanes of traffic towards Elizabeth. The swerve is not the problem, the problem is to remember that Elizabeth has anything to do with any other destination, intended or not. So I was stuck on Route 1 the whole way. And I had to trust to God that it was indeed Route 1 that I was stuck on, there wasn't a sign to be seen. Getting lost in that part of Jersey is no fun, the Sopranos was a documentary.

Route 1 is like any major highway, fast heavy traffic all the time. But with lights. You're in a herd, barreling towards these lights at 80, wondering if you can stop if they change. And JESUS CHRIST THAT WAS A LEVEL CROSSING. No lights there, what happens when a train comes? No doubt about it, the turnpike is worth its $6.50.

It has other attractions too. The Newark runway is right next to it, so you can be tooling along at high speed only to be overtaken by a 747 coming in to land. And is the smell that of the refinery at Linden or is it that smoking heap of machinery? Which is either my friend Bruce's clunker or a Dreamliner having an emotional crisis. My money's on the Dreamliner, Bruce's clunker has more self-respect.

Brain strain

I look up from Powell and Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale on the laptop to see that the white lino floor of the kitchenette is undulating. No, more than that, it's writhing. A quick mental check of the drugs I've taken recently confirms, only 2 beers, so WTF? Oh, I remember, I'd run out of dishwasher detergent so had improvised with the liquid stuff, seemed a good idea at the time but isn't, the dishwasher is pumping out foam by the gallon.

Remember, I screw up so you don't have to.

Living la vida loca

I've known Charlie since we were 2. Now he's a corporate litigator in mid-town Manhattan; when Consolidated sues Amalgamated Charlie's in there chopping someone off at the knees. Saving widows and orphans? Don't be silly, they're poor. At lunch we discuss my legal encounter of the previous day, which was a phone call from Carlos' lawyer asking, can I be in court tomorrow to do my bit as a character witness. Well with more than 24 hours notice it would have been a pleasure, but I'm in NY. Carlos doesn't know anyone else respectable (trust me on this, I honestly am respectable, really boringly so) and I wanted to help; he is a, er, shall we say less polished version of my brother and it would be a shame for him to go away.

Useful

I'm spending a few days with my mother; my brothers and I have been taking turns doing this since our father died earlier this year. Of course, the rota is approximate, since life gets in the way (not as much as death I suppose), but that's fine. We even managed to arrange the funeral without fighting. The point is not to be useful (fixing windows, throwing away unnecessary correspondence, suggesting that maybe that bill should be paid, doing it myself if the reaction is too hostile) as it is just to be there and reassure her that we don't plan to put her in the poorhouse ("Mum I don't think they have poorhouses any more").

Anyway we're not here to be useful we're here to be interesting. Aren't we?

Feel the fear

I watched the England-Germany game until it got to 4-1, then stopped. It was embarrassing, like watching an animal that's been run over twitch and die. I know nothing about football and could understand less of what the manager said. That is, he sounded scary and impressive, but while what came out of his mouth was grammatically and syntactically correct, it conveyed no meaning, especially after I thought about it. Is that why the English players looked so terrified?

"Christ what does he want us to do now?" "I've no idea but I'm really really afraid and I'm going to cry, please will that nice referee blow his whistle."

Oh btw I'm taking a break from poker. Recently I've encountered some significantly bad luck (no excuse, the paradox of the gambler's ruin is that even a skilled player is highly likely to encounter a terrible run of luck some time) and this has made me play much worse, tentative yet rigid. Let's see if I can stick to that resolution.

Psychometrics

Precision Handling is dedicated to public service and the extermination of adverbs. In the first vein here is one in an occasional series of personality tests.

You are a science nerd if when you overhear people discussing chemistry it disappoints you that the subject turns out to be sexual attraction and not the stuff involving, you know, actual chemicals that smell and explode.