New York pizza so close I can taste it

Well the apartment has been locked down, the ticket has been bought and the bags... have not been packed. Nonetheless I am coming to New York city on Wednesday and ready for the experience of a lifetime.

I will be living in the 'fabulous' district of Chelsea, under a block from my office (google maps has it down as a two minute journey on foot) and work starts on Monday. I am filled with emotions ranging from excitement to stone cold fear. I am afraid of the size of the city, of being kept up at night by the pizza place below my new apartment and I am especially scared of Mr. Youth: the hip, young and fast paced agency where I will be interning. My Mr. Youth internship is also exciting me, of course I simply worry about what everyone worries about in a new job, that it will be too much to handle, that I wont get along with my coworkers, that it will be infested by termites, or that the company is simply a front for a massive drug dealing ring. In reality I believe that this agency will be an exciting place to work and I hope I can learn and thrive there. I am excited for the opportunities in the city and at the ad agency, excited for all of the beautiful women, tall buildings and flashing lights; the genuine adrenaline rush one receives from walking through a big city on a calm summer night simply cannot be matched.

I am hoping to be able to spend the rest of this week and the weekend becoming acclimated with the new city, the new apartment and my new roommate, but I know that in a city like New York, that feat cannot be achieved in one week. Despite this, I will be doing my best to explore the city, meet up with my friends and relatives and have as good of a time as I can.

For The Beatles today I've decided to choose a song from when the fab four themselves came to New York City. When The Beatles played Shea Stadium in 1965 it was among one of the largest concert audiences in history. No band had ever played to such a large crowd and their "stadium tour" set the stage for modern touring to this day. I thought that Ticket To Ride which was played in Shea stadium, from the 1965 album 'Help!' seemed to fit perfectly with my move, as well as voicing the apprehension and acceptance of such a move. Anyway, here we go...

"I think I'm gonna be sad,
I think it's today, yeah.
The girl that's driving me mad
Is going away.

She's got a ticket to ri-hide,
She's got a ticket to ri-hi-hide,
She's got a ticket to ride,
But she don't care."

New York!

Well, not much to say this time other than... I GOT AN INTERNSHIP IN NEW YORK CITY!

That's right, on Thursday I was called up by New York social media ad agency Mr. Youth who offered me a copywriting internship for 10 weeks. The agency's CEO has been on The Daily Show twice and their clients include Barnes&Noble, HP and Victoria's Secret among others. I honestly could not be more excited and more nervous for this opportunity because I do believe it has the potential to change my life and certainly set the possible course for my career. I will be staying in the city starting in June and although I do not have an apartment yet, I am working feverishly to find anything available. With any luck I will have a good apartment in Manhattan by the time the internship starts.

So what is the best part of this internship besides the fact that its in New York, at an advertising agency and will allow me to live out my Mad Men fantasies? The location of the offices. Mr. Youth is located in an indoor food court and office building known as Chelsea Market. Besides housing extremely high end grocers and top quality boutiques, Chelsea Market is also home to the Food Network Studios (where Iron Chef is supposedly filmed) MLB.com, EMI music publishing and who else but of course, Google.

I honestly can't think of a better place to be than among the best companies in the world, three iron chef's restaurants and at an agency where I have so much to learn from among the best professional ad men and women in the world.

Beatles today? Well the first one that comes to mind relates to fame, fortune and celebrity and right now I am feeling especially connected with all three of these concepts- despite the fact that I have neither fame, fortune nor celebrity- and though coming to New York will not bring these things to me, it does make me feel closer to the world of "things happening." From the "Magical Mystery Tour" LP its Lennon's Baby You're a Rich Man, a song I like to think was written by John while thinking about himself; if you imagine it as a conversation he is having with himself it takes on a brilliant new meaning and becomes a truly thoughtful and insightful song about looking into the soul of someone who has had fame thrown upon them.

"How does it feel to be
One of the beautiful people?
Now that you know who you are
What do you want to be?
And have you travelled very far?
Far as the eye can see.
How does it feel to be
One of the beautiful people?
How often have you been there?
Often enough to know.
What did you see, when you were there?
Nothing that doesn't show.
Baby you're a rich man"

Life flows on...

Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letterbox... no. Fixing a hole where the rain gets in... no. We were talking about the space between us all and the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion... yes.

Today seems to be a day where a lot of things can happen. I found out in the morning that I got a second interview for a fantastic internship opportunity, and since then I have spent the day relaxing. I have tried to take the day for some self-reflection and as usual it takes me back to The Beatles. I realized today that I have been somewhat hiding behind a wall of illusion, as George sings about in Within You Without You from 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.' I have been hiding behind a wall of my own misgivings, my own past transgressions and my own lies; I have to move on. I spent the week constantly thinking back to getting a ticket and the decisions that led to that and kicking myself for it, but the truth is I cannot do anything to change the past. No matter how much I want to change what happened, I cannot and I need to be living in the now, not in the past. I need to look toward my future and live in the moment, trying my best to absorb every second of life.

I reflected with my roommate today that my time in Bloomington is coming to a close and with it a chapter of my life, but that does not mean all is lost; with one page turning another is revealed. I hope for the future.

I realized that I should probably take a step back- as I did today- more often, and try my best to get out from behind whatever thoughts and feelings are holding me back. To step away from my own realities for at least a few minutes every day and think of things from outside myself. I think we can all benefit from doing that, from taking life into perspective. Go outside, see the grass, see the trees, see the sun shining; and if the sun is obscured remember that it is always there beyond the clouds waiting to make the Earth's day brighter.

"With our love-we could save the world-if they only knew.
Try to realize it's all within yourself
No-one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows on within you and without you"

The man got meh down, ah tells ya!

Well, in a pleasant yet unpleasant turn of events, the low point of my summer has already been reached and a mere two weeks have passed. The bad news is that my low point was receiving a speeding ticket: while hurrying to make my friend's graduation party I was caught on the ring-road around Indianapolis, highway 465, doing... fast... in a slow zone. The Indianapolis police, as I only found out after the fact, are scamming the good people of Indiana by intentionally passing out as many tickets as possible to collect revenue. Whats more, they have created a system wherein if you dispute your ticket you are liable for as much as $4500 in additional fees, regardless of circumstance- and while I know I was breaking the law and will not be disputing my ticket, it really is a huge F*** You to people wrongly accused of speeding. Furthermore, the system used to pay the tickets is an online system where it can take as many as six weeks to process the ticket and find out the cost of the fee (it is not printed on the ticket as per the norm) and you are only given 60 days to pay the ticket from the date issued, not the date you find out the cost. Obviously, bad news.

The good news is that it should be all uphill from here! If this is my low point, I should have nothing to look forward to but good news for the rest of the summer. Lucky for me, today I received a request for a second interview and managed to apply for a dozen or so other jobs across the country. With any luck and some karma for passing my 'low point' I should hear back from every single one of these jobs with a request that I appear in person to receive a 10 million dollar signing bonus and an undisclosed prospect from the minors.

Beatles today? Yes. This time it is yet another song that most readers will not have heard: Blue Jay Way. This trippy little ditty proudly sat on the grooves of the 'Magical Mystery Tour' LP and was written by the Beatles most under-appreciated songwriter, Mr. George Harrison. Based on his real experiences staying with a friend who lived on Blue Jay Way up in the Hollywood hills outside LA, it was a typically George song. George once approached Paul about 'Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da' and said something to the extent of "you know none of those people are real, right?" This was telling of his songwriting personality at the time; he did not understand the concept that anyone would write a song that was complete fiction with made up stories and characters, all of his work was related to real life concepts and things happening to him at the time and Blue Jay Way was no exception. Blue Jay Way applies today because it has a classic 'true-to-life' George line that ever so calmly and coolly snaps at 'the man', the same man who got me down this weekend.


"There's a fog upon L.A.
And my friends have lost their way
We'll be over soon they said
Now they've lost themselves instead.
Please don't be long please don't you be very long
Please don't be long or I may be asleep
Well it only goes to show
And I told them where to go
Ask a policeman on the street
There's so many there to meet"

Rambled this off in March 2010 (when I was six years old)

Two people are cooking in a small kitchen, a man is preparing some chicken and a woman is cooking pasta. Suddenly the man, as he shifts the pan, spills a large amount of chicken. Before he has time to react the plate is sucked out of his hand and it flies up to the corner of the ceiling. The wall then smashes open to reveal a 20 foot tall robot made entirely of high end household washing machines. The robot monster had no face, but the same proportions as a human. The machine smashed the wall open and then smashed the outside wall as the people cowered in fear. The machine destroyed the room then, just as it prepared to jump out the window onto the street two stories below the 4th wall of the room smashes open as a monster of about the same proportions but made out of high end household dryers is revealed.

The dryerbot hits the washerbot in the midsection in a perfect spear attack dive. The washerbot, belly up, fell to the ground below with the dryerbot still holding on. The two massive bots smashed a hole in the road as they landed and immediately were up and fighting once the smoke had cleared. They fought, punching each other and tackling each other down the in use roads. Cars swerved about as the robots smashed into buildings. The two monsters eventually smashed into a small local appliance store and both freeze for a moment. The washerbot abruptly hops up and seems to flex all his muscles in a warrior like pose. Suddenly washing machines from around the store start flying up to the washerbot and attaching, forming an even larger being that smashes through the roof of the store into the apartment above. Just as the dryerbot smashes a separate hole in the building to revel it has grown even bigger.

The robots continue to fight and the dryerbot eventually seems to take the upper hand as they arrive at a strip mall. Both bots are about 40 feet high and they fall onto a home depot. They both immediately suck up all the stores washers and dryers and grow to nearly 100 feet tall each. Now formidable forces that destroy small buildings with a single step, they have the power to suck dryers and washers from further distances, including the very close by Lowes, Best Buy and Sears located in the same mall. The beings are now 500 feet tall and they continue to wreak havoc as they approach the skyscraper downtown. They destroy 30 story buildings as they tackle each other and fling cars about. The dryerbot gets clever and uses a rooftop as a deadly Frisbee to the midsection of the washerbot, some washers fall off in the impact.

As they tumble around through downtown, more washers and dryers get sucked onto the respective robots from all the small local appliance stores, citizens apartments and laundramats. The household are sucked into the respective robot-monsters as their bodies seamlessly increase in size while maintaining scale as they incorporate more washers and dryers into themselves. They are eventually lerger than the tallest buildings, over 1000 feet. They destroy dozens of square blocks as they tumble about smashing at each other brutally. Mangled washers and dryers fall off constantly as they hit each other at the same time as more of the appliances continue to attach to them from all over. Thousands are dead.

Now somewhere in the black mining hills of Dakota...

Here is a Beatles song I would bet most of the people reading this post have never heard of: Rocky Raccoon. Now you're probably thinking "sure, I can name 75% of the Beatles' members, but why should I need to know about a song about some crummy rodent?" Well, as usual, you are wrong and I am right.

What makes Rocky Raccoon a great Beatles song is the same thing that makes almost every Beatles song great: innovation. Gracing the B-side of the first disc of 'The Beatles' (commonly referred to as The White Album) this song sits at the end of a musical trio of songs with animal titles. First we get Paul's immaculate Blackbird, followed by George's social commentary Piggies and then finally Rocky Raccoon. These songs were deliberately placed together and while the move is small it is merely another sign of The Beatles subtle brilliance: no one in popular music at the time was even thinking of doing what they did, and that is innovative. On to the song.

Inspired by folk rock legend Donovan (who taught Paul and John to pluck their guitar folk-style while getting stoned with them in India- you'll notice its all over The White Album) not only are we treated to Paul's hilariously poor imitation of an American accent, but we then are treated to a calming, clever and kitschy little number. Sure, the song is full of references to Gideon's Bible, but I choose to ignore that for the song's humorous value and smart rhyming scheme. To me, what really makes this song shine are the non-Paul contributions: George Martin's honky-tonk piano and John's subtle but brilliant performance on the harmonica. Bring it all together and it really does transport you to some little town in the American west. All in all this song is what many less popular Beatles songs are: fun. Listen to Rocky Raccoon with your friends and have a laugh.

"The doctor came in stinking of gin
And proceeded to lie on the table
He said Rocky you met your match
And Rocky said, Doc it's only a scratch
And I'll be better I'll be better doc as soon as I am able.

Now Rocky Raccoon he fell back in his room
Only to find Gideon's bible
Gideon checked out and he left it no doubt
To help with good Rocky's revival."

And no religion too...

Can you be good without God? Can you be religious without God? Can you live happily without God? The answer to all three of these questions is definitively yes.

This is obviously a controversial subject, but one that is coming more and more into the public consciousness. In Europe, the lack of religion amongst people is prevalent and considered a non-issue. However, in the United States, this could not be further from the truth. While it seems more and more Americans truly do not believe in the literal word of the Bible, they are not as willing to admit it. This is because if you don't believe in the Bible you are either an Agnostic or (gasp) an Atheist.

I have had discussions with religious Christians, about just about everything there is to talk about. When I tell them that my religious views are leaning toward Atheism, they get this look on their face like the balloon of their interest in anything I have to say has deflated. "Oh... you're an Atheist" they say to me as if that means I've somehow lost my will to live and am nothing but a lost and dying puppy. It makes me livid inside but you know, for no other reason than to be an altruist and good person, I calmly attempt to explain to them my opinions and try my best to share my view of science, religion and the world. Usually this discussion doesn't change a single mind, and I can live with that because I know that by NOT exploding at them and saying "Are you kidding? Judeo-Christian religious extremists are responsible for a good portion of the problems today, and they're reading the same 2000-year obsolete book that you are!" it makes me a better person than I was the day before, with our without religion. I would also like to point out at this time that I hold NOTHING against people with faith, in fact I find it fascinating, moving and interesting, its just when someone tries to shove it down someone else's throat that it can bother me.

The point of all of today's rambling is that you can be good without God; a phrase spoken by many more intelligent and well-read persons than myself. You can even participate in religion without God. I proudly call myself a Jew and I always will, whether or not I believe in the divine nature of the holy books. Judaism separates itself from many other religions by being two faced. There is a religious face, dominated by an ancient language, 613 overly-strict rules and countless changes and interpretations made over thousands of years at the will of men: not Gods but mere men. The other side of Judaism- the side I am still an active believer in- is the cultural side; 2000 years of exile, persecution an learning has created one of the richest national cultures in the world full of food, family and a yearning for answers and I am happy to be a part of it.

No Beatles lyrics today, but instead something very, very close. Most people think that "Imagine" was a Beatles song, but it, of course, was not: it was solely a John Lennon composition, released in 1971. I titled this post as I did because when I listen to "Imagine" I really do try to imagine a world with no religion. What would it be like, who would I be without my Jewish upbringing, who would you be without a life surrounded by religion, whether or not you do or ever did subscribe to those beliefs?

"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace "

The critical #2

So here comes the moment of truth, the moment nobody has been waiting for and the world has anticipated for nearly six decades: the difficult second post. My first post since the "reboot" was literally inundated with praise from a full four people, making it- by far- the most popular blog post of my entire life. Now, I have to top that first post by making this second post even better.

Well... I haven't. I'm afraid that today the only news I have to share is that of a discussion of relationships from my skewed point of view. Having been an imaginary ladies man throughout my college career I can safely say I understand all that one would ever need to know about the female personality. And from my endless bank of womanly knowledge I have this simple piece of information to share: women are endlessly confusing.

That's right. My years of practical research and millions of dollars in funding have led me to that simple conclusion. Men are a simple bunch; we like bacon, bacon cheeseburgers, double bacon cheeseburgers and sex- there is literally nothing more to know. Women, on the other hand, don't all love bacon. This leaves the men in the world with no baseline for approaching, speaking with and crucially, living with women. My advice to men to counter this lack of a baseline is easy: act like you do, but try your best to avoid mentioning everything that you love (and that includes sex) because the less you talk about bacon, cheeseburgers and sex, the more likely a woman is to prepare you a bacon cheeseburger and follow that up with sex.

So there you have it: blog post #2. Everything a man will ever need to know about finding a woman, plus bacon. What more can I say?

I can say one more thing, it turns out. The Beatles, as usual, come into play in my life in the strangest of ways with this post. If you really, truly want to woo a woman, look no further than John Lennon. Lennon, as we know managed to not only woo the entire population of women on earth, but crucially a short Asian woman with no talent and a penchant for screaming. How can you use Lennon's brilliance to help you? Play her this, because Lennon knew what I now know thanks to him: Love plays. Love eternal.


"But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more"

We're back!

Well, after two and some change years I have decided to take up blogging once again. Spurred on by family, friends and the monster that lives in my desk drawer, I have decided that I don't care if nobody is reading: I want to blog. So welcome back, nobody, welcome back to the mind of a recent college graduate with no job, little career prospects, an undesirable degree, mediocre grades and a whole lot of optimism!

The world today, sadly, is almost as bad economically as it was when I last posted on this blog (about the economy) and improvement- while likely on the horizon- seems to be some time away. Nonetheless I am here to bring you all the news that is fit to type, or all the news I feel like sharing. Right now, I have become engrossed in the web site Reddit.com which has satisfied my need to constantly be bombarded with random information, poorly drawn comics, pictures of cats and mountains of laughter. Previously, the "entire internet" was the source of inspiration for my blog posts but now it seems Reddit may end up being the main source. Despite this I am going to try to keep things interesting by making rambling posts about my opinions rather than simply sharing relatively useless information.

Today I have one opinion to share and it is a simple one: The Beatles work can provide inspiration for any circumstance in one's life. Having graduated from college just two days prior to this post, I am feeling tremendous pressure, tremendous sadness and extreme fear for my future. Despite this, I can only think of Paul McCartney singing in "You Never Give Me Your Money" the first song in the epic B-side Medley on Abbey Road.

"Out of college, money spent. See no future, pay no rent. All the moneys gone, nowhere to go. Any jobber, got the sack. Monday morning, turning back. Yellow lorry slow, nowhere to go. But oh that magic feeling, nowhere to go. Oh that magic feeling, nowhere to go. Nowhere to go."