Thoughts from my fleet fingers to your gaping eyeholes

How come everyone's proverbial panties are in a bunch over bullying? I feel like everyday has a new bullying story, and good people in newspapers and on the internet agonize over what they can do about it. Apparently, there's a new movie on the subject out now. Apparently, that movie is called "Bully."

Without wanting to seem too callous, I can't really get behind this anti-bullying zeitgeist. Yeah, bullying's bad. In other news, water is wet.

I think a lot of this story would benefit from being fleshed out by getting the bully's perspective. A movie about bullying that I would really like to see would be something called "Bully for You!: Interviews with 100 Grown-Up Former Bullies and a Look at What They Did with Their Lives." What happens to these deficient, spiteful kids when they become adults? Once a bully always a bully? Do they even recall their behavior as bullying? Do they regret their violence and cruelty? Are they ignorant of the pain they caused due to their own depraved circumstances? Or did they perversely delight in it? Are they all serving prison sentences for battery, or domestic abuse? Or are these gap-toothed, fat-headed kids now sitting at the top of their fields, commandeering boardrooms the nation over, their lust for wedgies replaced only by their lust for profit?

And I suppose the cyber angle brings a new dimension to bullying. The irony of course is that now bullying can be done remotely by the very thin-skinned and even thinner-armed weaselly kids who should probably be getting bullied by some big lugs.

Anyway, I think we know what's to blame for this - e-parenting.

You know what's mildly annoying?

The kindle and its ilk are killing my subway snooping.

How can I see what people are reading, and judge them and social trends accordingly?

Oh well. I guess I'm not that nonplussed.

My morning

This morning, walking up to my usual street cart on the corner of 86th Street and Central Park West, having just bound up the subway steps, two at a time, to a glorious morning and the raspy, weathered voice of the Metro man calling in his singsong way "Metro! Get your Metro!", today alternating it with "Your bus is here!" for those taking the cross town bus which did indeed sit at the corner unloading and loading passengers, and there, in front of the cart, stood a young man, only one (for some mornings there may be a line of 5 to 7), with a blonde pony tail buying a single banana, and from the cart leaned out the slow, cherubic man who everyday pours me a large coffee with milk even on days when I don't stop because I prefer Dunkin Donuts but don't always have the time to go over to Amsterdam and then he'll tell me the next morning that he had poured my coffee but it's ok because he drank it himself, and this cherubic, Arabic man, who, according to a NY Post internet clipping posted on the 6th floor of my building, is engaged in what amounts to a race war with the neighbors, who accuse him (or one of the other men who work there; there's an older, nasty piece of work, but it couldn't be my cherub) of keeping his cart active 24 hours a day (apparently against New York law) and he, in turn, is quoted - mind you, I've seen the clipping as I leave the conference room from morning meetings - as rebutting that with the diplomatic phrase "that's a Jewish conspiracy," is now telling the pony tailed fellow that a banana costs 50 cents and the fellow, sensibly, according to the laws of commerce, presents a dollar bill but is told, I heard it, that he (the Arab cherub) doesn't have any change, and suggests the purchase of two bananas for a dollar, which the pony tailed fellow finds agreeable to the tune of the response "I can dig it."

I watched this transaction and then bought my large coffee, for $1.75, which I paid for in quarters.

Amen.

Q. Who is the most misunderstood figure in popular history?

A. Goliath

Think about it. The poor guy was just a big galoot, slower than most, tapped on one shoulder and when he turned, the Davids amongst us had darted to his other side.

Whaaaaaa? poor Goliath would say, while we, as Davids, would elbow our friends in mocking derision.

In class, he didn't get any of the many jokes that were at his expense.

Poor Goliath, you dumb ox. You couldn't help who you became.

Raquel Welch's philosophy of sex, in case you were wondering (as I'm sure you were)

Men's Health: You once said that you think sex is overrated. Could you elaborate?

Raquel Welch: I mean just the sex act itself.

MH: Really? Are you sure you’ve been doing it right?

Raquel Welch: I think we’ve gotten to the point in our culture where we’re all sex addicts, literally. We have equated happiness in life with as many orgasms as you can possibly pack in, regardless of where it is that you deposit your love interest.

MH: Okay, admittedly that doesn’t make sex sound very appealing at all.

Raquel Welch: It’s just dehumanizing. And I have to honestly say, I think this era of porn is at least partially responsible for it. Where is the anticipation and the personalization? It’s all pre-fab now. You have these images coming at you unannounced and unsolicited. It just gets to be so plastic and phony to me. Maybe men respond to that. But is it really better than an experience with a real life girl that he cares about? It’s an exploitation of the poor male’s libidos. Poor babies, they can’t control themselves.

MH: I cannot dispute any of what you’re saying.

Raquel Welch: I just imagine them sitting in front of their computers, completely annihilated. They haven’t done anything, they don’t have a job, they barely have ambition anymore. And it makes for laziness and a not very good sex partner. Do they know how to negotiate something that isn’t pre-fab and injected directly into their brain?

MH: You make some good points, but it could also be argued that railing against kids today and their sexual obsessiveness could come across as a little over-the-hill cranky and prudish.

Raquel Welch: I know it does, and I’m fine with that. I don’t care if I’m becoming one of those old fogies who says, “Back in my day we didn’t have to hear about sex all the time.” Can you imagine? My fantasies were all made up on my own. They’re ruining us with all the explanations and the graphicness. Nobody remembers what it’s like to be left to form your own ideas about what’s erotic and sexual. We’re not allowed any individuality. I thought that was the fun of the whole thing. It’s my fantasy. I didn’t pick it off the Internet somewhere. It’s my fantasy.

To Do List

1. Do not be a spectator of my own existence

Scenes of composure, Take 1

The scene: A couple dining at a fancy hotel restaurant. Heavy red drapes, black and white décor, chandeliers, circular tables. A piano is played softly in the middle of the room. We zoom into a man, immaculately dressed, sitting with an attractive woman. They both have martinis in front of them. We join them in mid, antagonistic conversation.

But my dear, you’re simply being ridiculous, says the man with a slight, pretentious, mirthless laugh.

Oh am I? AM I?! You always say stuff like this. Ridiculous. Ridiculous! I’ll show you ridiculous…

She grabs her martini and throws it dramatically in his face. She gathers her purse and storms off, as they say. The man sits there stoically. Olives rest in his damp lap. A hush falls over the restaurant. A waiter materializes, un-beckoned.

Oh waiter, the man says diffidently as gin drips from the tip of his nose. I thought we had ordered dry martinis.

* scene/guffaws*