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Conference Call

We hosted our big (around 400+ people) pharma-conference & exhibition yesterday, and that’s the most nerve-wracking day of my year.

This edition’s Big Surprise occurred shortly before the first presentation, when our marketing assistant informed me that, while he did bring down the PC laptop that we use for the presentations, he forgot to bring the power supply for it. So I had to go through our exhibit hall, check out which of the 130 vendors happened to be using ThinkPads, and cajole use of their power-cords during the day.

We have 5 more presentations going on this morning, but the exhibition ended yesterday, so I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to manage to keep that laptop powered up.

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“And obscure as that heaven of the Jews”

(There’s a slideshow. Try that instead.)

I really did try. I went to shul on Erev Rosh Hashanah, back to the temple where I attended Hebrew school as a kid. I hadn’t been inside since 2001. There were about 18-20 people in attendance. Most everyone was celebrating the new year at home; there would be plenty more people on Thursday. Before services began, I heard one of the men say, “I should feel sorry for him? Why? We’re all in this together.” It felt like a credo.

A new rabbi had started at the temple a week or so earlier. I imagine it was daunting for her. Sure, I’ll likely have to give a short speech in front of 200 or so conference attendees on Tuesday morning, but they won’t be looking to me for any sorta spiritual guidance. Or so I hope.

Before the services began, I felt out of place. I mean, I hadn’t really been in shul this decade, and remembered almost nothing of the prayers. Still, I found I was able to follow along with the Hebrew pretty well, and the melodies of the prayers were still embedded in my brain, in the same section where I recently uncovered Glenn Campbell’s version of Southern Nights.

Anyway, the new rabbi started off alright. She called us all to the front of the seats, since there were so few of us and it would feel more intimate this way. We prayed, we sang, we read responsively: it was a celebration, bitches.

Then she gave her prayer/wishes-for-the-new year, in which she called for “action” in Darfur, offered her sympathy to the Palestinian people, and condemned Dick Cheney for leaking Valerie Plame’s identity. I thought, “Y’know, you could just wish for justice and peace in our time, and you’d probably sound a lot better.” It bothered me that she’d use the pulpit as a bully pulpit.

Exasperated, I rolled my eyes. It was then that I noticed I was seated beside the temple’s memoriam board, a wall display of small brass plaques with names and dates of death. I started reading over the names carefully, fearing who I’d find there. My friend Mandy’s dad was on the board, dead in 1993. Rabbi Sprinzen, who taught me, dead since the late 1980s.

I was midway through the board’s third column, when I saw the plaque for Saul Kohn. He died Sept. 1 2005, a month before Rosh Hashanah, and sixty years after being freed from Auschwitz.

I hadn’t seen Mr. Kohn in 10 years, back at the time when I’d at least occasionally go to shul. I knew he’d be listed among the dead, because otherwise he’d have walked up to me outside the temple, greeted me with a smile and handshake, and implored me to sit with him during services.

If you want to learn more about his life from the people who knew him and loved him, download this PDF. (It’s about 3mb.) I think it’ll give you a better impression than I could of what he meant to the community and what he tried to do with his life after Auschwitz.

I left temple that night wondering what’s going to happen when all the survivors have died? When I asked my brother for his impressions of Mr. Kohn — he knew him much better than I did — he asked the same question.

I woke up Thursday and decided I’d find a different way to celebrate the new year. I spent the morning writing to a number of friends and family whom I’d lost contact with in recent months, and then I headed into NYC to do something I’d never done before: walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Because of the hassles of getting to the city from where I live, I rarely go over into Brooklyn. So my buddy Mark, who lived in Brooklyn for years before moving up to Harlem, offered to be my tour guide (no “Virgil to my Dante” references for this trip). He told me that he’s walked across all the pedestrian-permitted bridges in the city, and was astonished to find that I’d never crossed any but the GWB.

Mark — not Jewish, but a public school teacher, hence his availability on Rosh Hashanah — led me on a merry jaunt through the borough and back into lower Manhattan. His knowledge of the area was virtually encyclopedic, and he enjoyed showing off the view from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, Henry Miller’s home, the statue of Fiorello LaGuardia, and a million other sights.

I didn’t talk with Mark about Saul Kohn, but we did talk about Jewish contributions to American culture and learning. Mark waxed rhapsodic, putting me to shame with his knowledge of Jews. Discussing a different topic, I remarked, “It’s amazing that, despite the massive lacunae in my reading, people still think I’m smart as shit.”

I’m always happy to learn, but I try to take in so much that it all overlaps, like this brick palimpsest.

Palimpsest

It was an impossibly lovely day to walk across the bridge: warm, dry, breezy and almost cloudless. The views were gorgeous. I was afraid the time of year, the beautiful weather, the lower Manhattan skyline, and the footsteps across the bridge would put me in mind of 9/11, but I felt very present-tense, and maybe even future-comfortable.

We parted around Madison Square Park, and I waited for my wife to finish work and some shopping, so we could ferry back to NJ, pick up the car, and get home. And that was my happy new year.

(I did warn you to go straight to the slideshow, didn’t I? It has plenty of neat details about our walk through Brooklyn.)

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IXPLODE

We all have a history with ugly cars. My college buddy Toure told me that, when he was a little kid, he and his friends would run up to a neighbor’s Pinto, smack the bumper with a wiffle-ball bat, then run away, expecting the car to explode.

Also, my first serious girlfriend drove a Chevy Corvaire. I once thought about writing an essay about our relationship entitled, “Unsafe at Any Speed.”

In that spirit, I offer up BW’s slideshow of The Ugliest Cars in the World (read the accompanying story, and the 400+ comments).

(Update: Looks like Time magazine just covered this subject, prompting a 2Blowhards response. Oh, and I’m not sure Elayne’s current car is much safer than that Pinto.)

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The Sopranos Never Ended

Friday night, I was a man on a mission, and that mission led me into the purple-, blue- and green-tinted world of Clifton, NJ’s Bliss Lounge to meet the world’s most devout atheist.

On April 13, 2007, retired boxer Bobby Czyz was involved in a terrible car wreck, one that left him in a coma for around four weeks. I’d been friends with his brother Vince since 1988, so when I read about Bobby’s injuries in the New York Post a month after the accident, I checked to see if there was anything I could do to help out. Vince, living in Turkey, had some stories about the accident and its aftermath, but I’m not one to gossip about a person who made a living out of beating people into submission.

My boss had known Bobby Czyz a lot longer than I knew Vince; he used to go see the fights at the Ice World in Totowa, NJ (where the Duvas started their Main Events promotion) back in the early 1980’s. I had filled him in on what I knew about Bobby’s injuries, which wasn’t much. Last Thursday, he was reading a local paper’s sports section when he came across an article about Bobby’s travails and the upcoming benefit for his hospital fund. The article has a lot about the accident, injuries and recovery, so you can check that out for the gory details (and some examples of Bobby’s sense of humor).

I considered going to the event, at least so I could report back to Vince about his brother’s general condition. Then I checked out the website for the venue, and developed a new Gil Roth Guideline: If I look at a club’s website for more than 60 seconds and still can’t tell if it’s a stripclub, I shouldn’t go there.

I joked with my boss about this new rule, until he reread the article and said, “Larry Holmes is gonna be there? You have to go! He has the third-biggest head I’ve ever seen in my life! You gotta get a picture of him around a normal-sized person!” I wondered if the other listed guests, Chuck Wepner and “Goumba Johnny” had similar claims to fame.

I checked with my wife; I was hoping she’d offer to come along, even if just to stay in the car with the engine running, in case I needed to make a quick escape. She decided I could fly solo on this mission to the heart of Goumbaville, NJ. So I drove down Rt. 3, paid the $20 cover (all proceeds go to the health fund), took a seat at an oval bar with a shifting-color light above it, and ordered the worst gin they had. I figured this would ensure that I barely drank it, as the last thing I wanted was to get pulled over for a DUI in Clifton, NJ on a Friday night.

The lounge’s site contends that it’s “the Northeast’s sleekest and most futuristic venue.” I’ll leave you to decide how futuristic the place is; here’s a collection of pictures from the venue, including security. If the future is going to look like this, color me retro.

I surveyed the club. At only 8:45, it was pretty laid-back; only two dozen or so people were in the place, a few of whom were checking out the sports memorabilia that would be silent-auctioned off later in the night. I figured it would get busier as the night progressed, but I was only planning on being there for a few minutes, enough time for 20% of a drink and a little conversation with Bobby. I’d have to get back home soon, lest my wife fear that I was getting ready to swap my Honda Element for a Camaro and switch allegiances from Springsteen to Bon Jovi.

But if there’s one defining aspect of NJ Italian “culture” more important than the Camaro and Bon Jovi, it would have to be the Sopranos, and one glance around this club told me that David Chase wasn’t making things up. There were a few skinny, dweebish boxing aficionados in attendance, but there were a bunch of men who seemed ready for a casting call for a Sopranos roadshow revival. They were bulky (but not huge) middle-aged men, balding, talking with their hands, chewing unlit cigars and wearing Cuban or Hawaiian shirts. I sat at the bar, about as out of place as ever, thinking, “Ooh! That guy wants to be Silvio! And there’s Paulie!”

Living in a quieter, more rural section of northern NJ, and never having been a clubgoer, I guess I hadn’t realized how closely reality and art hewed, when it comes to Italian-American stereotypes. A few years ago, Amy & I were wandering through an Italian furniture store up here — “I didn’t know you can actually make an entire piece of furniture out of shellac!” — when a salesman got a call on his cell-phone. The ringtone? The theme to The Godfather.

I was disappointed to find that Larry Holmes wasn’t present. There was only one black guy in attendance, and he was around a foot shorter than Holmes, with a normal-sized head. I figured Larry would arrive later, especially since the benefit was scheduled from 8pm to 2am. Of course, we all know that nothing good happens after midnight (Gil Roth Guideline), so I wasn’t going to stick around for him. Or “Goumba Johnny” and Chuck Wepner.

I headed across the room to introduce myself to Bobby. I have to say, the guy gave no visible indication of having been through the ordeal he went through. He told me that he dropped 35 lbs. in the hospital, and put about 15 or 16 back on since getting out.

Bobby and I had met once before at the publication party for Vince’s collection of short stories, but I wasn’t banking on the memory of a guy who’d been in a 4-week coma a few months earlier. I said, “I’m friends with your brother Vince. Published his book about 10 years ago.” He smiled, shook my hand, and proceeded to tell me how well he’s recovering.

It was a brief conversation, but he was energetic and happy to talk about his family (again, no gossip about people who can beat me to a pulp), Vince’s latest writing, and his experiences in the hospital. He told me that his conversation with God (according to the aforementioned World’s Most Devout Atheist) occurred when he was in a coma, but wouldn’t go into details about that.

The two times he flatlined, on the other hand, were alright. He said, “I found out that it’s okay when you die. Nothing happens, but at least you’re not getting punished or judged.”

We shook hands again, and I took his picture. Then I walked past the enormous bouncers, headed out to a parking lot of sportscars and Escalades, got into my Blue Toaster, and drove home.

Bobby Czyz