The Great Plotnik

Monday, October 31, 2011

Birthday Feast

Last night, Plot and Duck got to celebrate his recent birthday at La Costanera, down the coast half an hour south of Saint Plotniko.

It's quite a place, on the beach in Montara, with a bar scene downstairs and Peruvian restaurant on the main floor. Of course, any time Pisco Sours are consumed Plot and Duck reminisce about Cuzco and all those memorable meals that started with rice, beans, avocados, eggs, french fries, boiled potatoes and bread and then moved on to the meal on top of all that.

None of that here -- you don't need to conserve energy at sea level, except to cross the highway to get back to your car. The pumpkin soup with corn, farmer cheese and chili was really good and so were the seafood empanadas.

Plot, of all people, did notice one thing: people come to really nice places dressed in the sloppiest fashion. You will notice he put on his nice long sleeved blue shirt and black slacks, and Duck looked like a million dollars as always. So why would somebody show up in ripped jeans and a red sweat shirt that looked like he found it in the parking lot?

Yes, it's karma. Plotnik has had this kind of comment tossed in the direction of his closet from time to time over the years, but maybe since he started reviewing theater and must look sharp at least fifty or sixty times a year he takes more notice than he used to.

That is, when it's not he who is wearing the ratty sweat shirt. Dinner was delicious. Excellent idea and thank you, Great Ducknik.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

"Caulk the Bastard, Doug:" A Remembrance of Larry Haun

The Great PD was taking the subway to work Friday and he opened up the New York Times and ran into this photo. He texted his dad right away -- it was a feature on Larry Haun, once a neighbor of the Plotnik family in Stiletto City, and a brief and world-class mentor of Plotnik himself.

Larry was what philosophers want to be when they tire of talking and want to go build something. He was the carpenter of carpenters and the curmudgeon of curmudgeons, plus he was the only artist Plotnik ever saw whose instrument was the sledgehammer. Read this and then you can read the story below about him, written by West Coast Housing Correspondent Douglas Qué.

Link to NYT feature on Larry Haun.

"Caulk the Bastard, Doug," by Douglas Qué

In the early nineties, my wife Barbara and I were developing a small sideline business where we would buy houses, renovate them and re-sell them. True, it was the wrong business for two people who love houses – you cannot survive in that world unless you buy low and renovate cheap and you cannot renovate cheap if you love houses.

But this was the nineties, and any house you bought today would supposedly appreciate tomorrow, as long as you made it look nice.

There was an old, tiny and decrepit cottage down Lakeshore hill. A very old lady lived in that house. You would occasionally see her in her housedress and slippers, puttering around the miniscule front lawn inside her falling-over white picket fence, where she grew enormous heirloom roses and camellias. The roses were taller than the house itself, which looked like a witch’s cute little storage shed.

One day, a sign went up on the front door that the house would be available for bids at probate court. We didn’t know what had happened to the old lady, but we had just finished one house and were looking for another, so we went downtown, started the bidding at $90,000, crept up by thousand dollar increments until we got to the last bid I was going to make: $107,000. I waited for the bidder standing behind me to make one more bid -- but he didn’t. The house, which you had to purchase before ever being allowed inside, now belonged to us.

When we finally got the key and walked inside we found decades of rot, piles of hoarded garbage, rooms too small to imagine living in and a foundation that seemed to be crumbling.

What to do? I knew that Larry Haun had moved a few years ago, and now lived right on top of this hill, so on a whim I drove up, knocked on Larry's door and asked if he’d like a job renovating a house within walking distance. To my amazement, Larry agreed. He asked if I would be working alongside him and I said yes.

“Do you have the slightest idea what you’re doing?” he asked.

“I’ve renovated houses before,” I said. “I can follow directions.”

Larry stared at me.

“So, no,” I said.

Larry was around sixty, tall, thin, wiry, with very long arms and huge hands. He was a vegetarian and hinted at being a Buddhist. But he didn't act like a Buddhist.

“Shee-it," he said. "But all right. Just stay out of my way. Here’s what you do. First, call John. Here’s his number. He’ll be our structural engineer. Get him to draw you up some plans and then you go down to the city and pull the permits. When you’re all done with that call me and we’ll get cracking.”

“I don’t need a more detailed design?” I asked.

“Shee-it," Larry said. "You’ve got me.”

For the next three months Larry did one kind of magic or another, but I remember the first day the best.

Larry and I stood outside the little house. I was wearing jeans and a work shirt and had a nice nail belt strapped to my waist, packed with tools -- a hammer, nails, screws, gloves, clamps, tape measure, spirit level. Larry wore old overalls and carried a sledgehammer. We (Larry) realized we (Larry) had to tear down a jerry-built porch on one side and put up a straight corner post for a new sitting room. That post would have to be perfect, straight, plumb and sturdy. The rest of the room would be built around it.

Larry grabbed his sledgehammer and started swinging at that old porch. He didn’t swing a sledgehammer like a Buddhist. The sledge pumped around and around, up and down. Boards splintered and fell. Rafters hit the ground. Support members were knocked ten feet away. Within twenty minutes the building was on the ground and I was cleaning it up. Now the hard part began.

Imagine, if you can: A six by six by ten post weighs 80 pounds. You’re holding it in one hand, which is a feat all by itself. In your other hand is your three foot sledgehammer, which probably weighs another fifteen pounds. You have to somehow use that sledgehammer, in your one hand, to drive that post, in your other hand, two feet into the ground and have it end up perfectly plumb: straight up and down. There is nothing to measure against, except what you are seeing in your own head.

Also, the place you have to start pounding is ten feet high and you're looking up at it.

I went to help Larry pick up the post but he waved me away. He grabbed it and held it up, looked at the existing house six feet away, looked down at the ground, looked at the house again, then drew an x on the dirt with his foot. He pointed the post into the dirt, and with his other hand reached up as high as he could and started pounding the post into the dirt with his sledgehammer He managed to get enough force on that sledgehammer that the post disappeared a few inches with every stroke.

You may have no idea how impossible this is to do. You are holding an eighty pound post with one hand, and your other hand is extended straight up in the air, holding a sledgehammer that is also pointed straight up in the air. At the top of the sledgehammer is the top of the post. You have to somehow develop enough strength to pound the head of the hammer onto the top of the post. Most other humans cannot do things like this. Maybe Buddhists can.

I could have held the post for him: no. He could have climbed up on a ladder: no. He could have used plumb bobs and levels to make sure it was level: no.

Within half an hour he had pounded that post two feet into the ground. I could not have done it in a year. He then put down his sledgehammer, sweat dripping onto his t-shirt. I offered him a paper towel: no. He pulled a bandana out of the pocket of his overalls and wiped his forehead, then picked up an eight foot long two by four and a power saw.

He stared at me, then at the power saw, then back at me. Aha! I ran over and plugged it in. Finally! Useful!

He eyeballed the distance from the post to the side of the existing house, pursed his lips for a few seconds then brought the wood level with one hand and with a loud whirr of the power saw sawed two feet off with the other.

OSHA doesn’t even have a category for how dangerous this is. Anyone else would cut their dick off at the very least if not slice their entire body in two. Larry then held the two by four against the house, far over his head, and pounded it into the post he had just inserted in the earth, with several nails that he grabbed from a different overall pocket and held in his mouth until he needed them, then, still holding one end of the two by four walked over to the house and attached the beam to a cleat he then pounded into the rafter.

Don't worry if you don't understand the names for the lumber pieces. Here's all you have to know: you CAN’T pound a two by four into a free standing post with one hand. Every time you pound the nail into the cross piece, the post will move. If nobody is holding the post you will never get the nails into it because by the time you get done the post will have been uprooted and will be sitting on the ground.

...unless you can pound in that three inch long sixteen penny nail with ONE mammoth stroke of the hammer, two at most. By the time the post is ready to come loose it has been tricked: it is already attached.

I walked over to hold the post: no. Larry looked at me with sorrow in his eyes. BANG. Done.

Two more two by fours, all cut off in in midair without measuring, in exactly the right place, and attached in the same John Henry Swung a Mighty Hammer style, and the top of the new room was now outlined. It would had to be perfectly level because a new roof would be going on top of it, but, of course, Larry measured nothing.

What I had done, so far, was to stand in one spot with my mouth wide open, plug in the power saw and bring him a few two by fours. And learn.

Five more two-bys and three four-bys later, the framing of the outside of the new room was finished. It had taken Larry an hour and a half to do all that, using nothing but a power saw, a sledgehammer and a nail hammer.

“I’m done for the day,” he said, got in his old pickup truck and drove home. "Caulk the bastard, Doug," he called as he left.

I waved good-bye, immediately took my levels and plumb bobs and tapes and measured all the boards, which were of course cut straight and attached perfectly level.

When he came to work the next morning I asked him what he meant by "caulk the bastard," and he explained that the number one enemy of every piece of construction is water. If you allow water in it will eventually rot the wood.

"Ever been to the Grand Canyon?" he said.

At that point I hadn't. That would wait until the Trip with the Randy Teenagers when BZWZ was sixteen.

"Well, it's a giant canyon with a river at the bottom. How did that river get down there?"

"Erosion?" I said.

"Right. And water will erode this house a lot faster than the Grand Canyon. So every place one piece of wood is attached to another piece of wood you cover it with caulk. Spread it on thick. We'll sand it and paint over it later.

"You mean I should caulk the bastard."

He had a big smile and I saw it then.

Larry Haun, I have thought of you so many times. I have your book and your video where you build a whole house with your brother and show us how to do it. I remember how much you liked country music and hated politicians. I don't know if you'd be a Tea Party-er or an Occupy-er. Probably neither one.

Every time I have built something since then I caulk the bastard, Larry, and I always remember you when I do it.

When Larry was done with the foundation, Barb and I stayed and finished the place. A solid year of every-day labor later, we had a brand new, lovely little cottage, which we managed to sell, if I remember correctly, for $153,000. Not a lot of profit for all that work, but it was worth every hour.

The young woman who bought it is still there. I promise you no water is getting in.


(Eric or Risa, if you read this: write me.)

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Excitement Within the Blah

Plotnik's four-play week ended last night. Duck had had enough, so Plot met Hanky Girl at SF Playhouse to see an intense and excellent show called "Honey Brown Eyes" about the Bosnian Civil War. You get up to walk out of a show like this and realize that so much of what we whine about in this country would be considered the best of all possible worlds on most of the rest of the planet.

Plotnik has to say Jennifer Stuckert, who plays Alma, not only has those honey brown eyes but one of those Jean Simmons faces at which you never tire of staring. Plotnik thinks that every once in awhile God just gets bored creating blah people who look like the rest of us and decides to turn out a really, really beautiful one, just to break up the routine.

Speaking of the routine: baseball is so boring when your team isn't playing. Plot knows there were some good games during this thankfully finished 2011 World Series, but neither team was really all that good. They both played badly, and one outlasted the other. Blah people playing a blah game in the mid blah west.

Friday, October 28, 2011


"Race," at A.C.T. now through November 13, is great theater. Written by David Mamet, it makes you squirm while you are laughing, then wince as you realize how little truth matters to the law, or to the rest of us.

Plot and Duck were knocked out by this show. Plotnik then looked up reviews from around the country since "Race" opened on Broadway in 2009. They are almost universally blah. Reviewers complained about the most banal niggles, seemingly forgetting the amazing dialog, the incisive acting and perfect pacing, not to mention Mamet's damning opinion about just about all of us.

But it's about race, y'know? America does not like to talk about it. Apparently Mamet has moved his politics to the right, which people in the theater don't like, but you'd never know it by this show. It's just hard-hitting brilliance with a lot of words we're not supposed to say.

I'd put it on top of my list, except I already saw it. Wow.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

We Need Water in the Vase

"When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
The age of Aquarius

Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golding living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revalation
And the mind's true liberation

(from "Hair" -- Ragni, Rado and MacDermot)

Plot and Duck saw "Hair" last night and Plotnik felt at first like a nasty old curmudgeon bemoaning the passing of time. First off, they parked on the street at Mission near Sixth. As they headed up Sixth, they continually dodged lurching drunks and toothless old women camped on the sidewalk. The theater beckoned a block ahead, its marquee ablaze with colorful letters spelling out the promise of "HAIR," as the old, the black, the sick, the befuddled, the down and the out, one block away, leaned against lamp posts attempting to remain vertical.

"I really hate this street," Duck said.

"Me too."

As Plot and Duck crossed Market and walked towards the crowded press table inside the Golden Gate lobby they were accosted by young people in "hippie" costumes.

"Peace to you brother," said the hired shills. "Peace to you, sister. Have a flower."

The lady at the press table made sure Plotnik had a daisy. Plotnik didn't want a daisy.

"I remember the sixties," he started, "it was a lot more than..."

She wasn't listening. She handed Plottie his tickets. "Reach into this pile and pull out your Hippie Name. Everyone needs to have a Hippie Name."

Plotnik stared at her. She nodded towards a pile of white stick-on rectangles.

Plotnik pulled out his Hippie Name: "Nug Sunburst."

Duck was "Jewel Moonlight."

A skinny dude with an afro wig pressed a daisy into Plotnik's palm. "Peace and love to you, brother." The evening was not starting out well.

"Nug Fucking Sunburst. Nug Fucking Sunburst," he growled, heading towards the counter where a young girl texting on her I-Phone was selling headbands, beads, fifty dollar sweat shirts and thirty dollar tie-dyes and little imitation roach clips (or maybe they were tweezers to pull your head out of your rear end if you think "Hair" is about fifty dollar sweat shirts).

"Take a deep breath," he said to himself, and with the application of a bag of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies, he and Duck took their seats, and the show started, and it was fantastic.

When The Great Plotnik was the Young Plotnik, curmudgeons would say things like "You shoulda heard Sinatra when he was young" or "You shoulda seen Joe DiMaggio. THAT was baseball!" Plotnik thought they were pathetic.

Now it's he who is saying "...but the sixties were about so much more than flowers or hippies. And "Hair" is a subversive political piece for God's sake. If you want to give away handouts before the show, give out flags. Or joints. Be for real."

Plot shook away drowsiness in the long Act Two, but the show ends with great songs and tremendous understated power. For the most part, he and Duck loved it. Happy Birthday, Plottie.

Then they walked back to their car, only it was three hours later. The armies of the Underclass had mobilized. It was like being in a video game, bouncing through the maze of the barely conscious - but somehow still a little bit menacing - as Nug and Jewel got back to their PlotMobile, fired up and beat it out of there...

"Leaving Flower Power in its blossomy space
Walking through that concrete place
Where they forgot to put water into the vase."

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Hair on My Birthday Plus Tiny Rant

'Tis a Good Birthday that endeth not in Zero nor Five.' -- Wm. Shakesplot

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, hot and sunny. The Great Plotnik is celebrating tonight by going to see "Hair" at the Curran. He and Duck saw it the last time on Broadway, in 1970.

The Fifth Dimension. All those hits from Hair like "Good Morning Starshine/The Age of Aquarius" and "Let the Sunshine In" -- can these songs really be more than forty years old?

Can Plotnik really be more than twenty years old?

Somebody from the Fifth Dimension once recorded one of Plotnik's songs but try as he might he can't remember who it was or what song they recorded. Jeezo. Must not have been a chart topper.

Plottie remembers the big scandalous thing about Hair was that people took their clothes off for a few minutes on stage. He and Duck (and everyone else in the audience) looked forward to that moment, but when it came the naked people were in a chorus, in the back of a bunch of other people, in the rear corner of the stage, and Plot and Duck's tickets were 'way up in the Cheaposphere. Sigh.

The thing that already irritates Plotnik is that the production company is advertising these 'get up on stage and dance with the Hippies' nights at the theater. Once again, hippies are the grand hysterical joke that seems to represent the age.

No, children. When protests were happening in the 1960s, the police didn't stand idly by like they do now -- everybody got smacked. Hippies and non-hippies all bled red. Why do you think that doesn't happen any more? Why do the police stand around Occupy Wall Street, for the most part, chewing on cheeseburgers and letting things slide?

Why has anything changed? Because others had their heads beaten. Because 20-year-olds at Kent State were shot to death. Because the old ways are now in disrepute. You can thank the hippies and the whole generation for that, whether or not you think their clothes look funny now.

Birthday Rant concludes. Curtain.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Food and Stories

The Great Mushnik and Silent Bill always find great places to eat. Yesterday's lunch was at Lung Shan on Mission Street -- hardly the place you'd expect such delectable Chinese food. If you can believe it, that is pastrami in the above picture.

Later on, Plotnik discovered the probable reason for the extra deliciousness -- all that extra fat. His stomach let him know all about it. But it was worth every bite.

Plot's birthday isn't until tomorrow, but the tradition of birthday lunches continues. Mushnik has already ordered up where she wants to be taken next month.

Last night Plot and Duck saw Word 4 Word act out two Shioban Fallon short stories about Iraqi vets returning home. She is the wife of a career major who currently lives in Jordan, and these stories are chilling. The collection is called "You Know When the Men Are Gone." Did you realize there are 44,000 injured Iraqi vets -- many whose injuries would have killed them in earlier wars? But now they get to return alive and maimed, veterans of yet another unpopular war.

In the small crowd at Z space was a friend Plot and Duck hadn't seen in awhile. Olivia is a Noe Valley Voice veteran and once, before she had two young kids, was a regular at NVV get-togethers. She's a good friend of Shioban Fallon and had the great opportunity last night to see stories that she has heard in many forms over the years actually acted get out on stage. What a thrill that's got to be.

Monday, October 24, 2011

You're Prettier When You're Younger

The Great Plotnik has noticed that the older you get the more pronounced your bad habits become. If you used to interrupt people before they were finished speaking, you do it more now. If as a younger person you might have (among friends) allowed the occasional gaseous eruption into the world while looking sideways to blame the next person, as your years advance there may be an increase in frequency (temporal as well as sonic).

Not that Plottie is talking about anybody he knows, just sayin'.

One of those features of aging seems to be an increase in anxiety. It has something to do with your diminishing sense of control over what's going on around you. Maybe you can't do anything about it but you can still worry about it.

Plottie recognizes this readily in his mother but she has an excuse. And he does it too. This morning he awakened very early with a sense of -- well, what was it? Not doom, not imminent danger, just a kind of unfocused ill-at-ease. He and Duck saw a play Friday night about a young man who has to move in with his aging mother as she becomes too frail to care for herself -- that could be part of it.

The upside-downing of this year's holiday planning, where nothing will be as it always has been -- maybe that's part of it too. Realizing he just did a nice long bike trip with PD should make him feel good, but instead he finds himself thinking about the things he can probably no longer do. Could he crank his knees up those stone stairs to the top of the mountain and then down into Macchu Picchu again?...and then continue on with BZWZ to the top of Huayna Picchu?

So why not worry about it?

But most of all, he does, in the middle of the night, what he feels like he spent decades teaching his kids not to do -- worrying about problems for which he knows there is no answer. Is he going to move in with his mom, like the guy in the play did? No. Is anyone going to find a solution to her increasing mental and physical isolation? No, at least not any solution she would ever agree to.

So why worry about it? Why waste hours of sleep upstairs in BZ's room, staring out the window as the sun comes up? Does this mean Plotnik is getting older too?

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Just Not Steve Buscemi

It's Sunday morning. The power was off all day yesterday as PG&E had a "We Shoot All Chronicle Investigative Reporters" Day. Two things surprised Plotnik:

1) He could NOT stop walking into rooms and hitting the light switches. When nothing happened it fooled him every time. All day long. As his mentor Bugs Bunny used to say: "What a mo-roon!"

2) All the neighbors came out on a glorious, hot and sunny day. Plottie sat on his neighbor's stoop and talked with people he hadn't seen in a year, and these are people he likes. Refer to Bugs's comment above.

In the NYT Travel Section this morning the cover feature is the guy who rode his bike across the whole country, including his last section where Plotnik and pals just finished. Plotnik is thinking about two more things:

1) The man's knees.

2) The man's nuts.

Bicycle shorts help for the first four hours. You may think you're wearing some kind of styrofoam diaper when you're off the bike seat, but when you're on it the padding is welcome. But by nightfall you feel like a squirrel has burrowed into your pants and is playing bocci with his friends.

Knees -- this guy is not a young man. Plotnik is impressed.

But does it sound like something Plottie would LOVE to do? Yes indeedy. Especially with a newspaper contract and film in the works with Plotnik played by anyone except Steve Buscemi.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Moammar's Gone, One More Round

Qaddafi's gone. The Libyan rebels got him. Now let's see what they do with their oil-rich, tribal patch of the Sahara.

Plot and Duck were on the sailboat this Spring when NATO started bombing Libya. It made no sense to Plotnik that we would commit our air power to toppling a dictator who was 'only' terrorizing his own people, since by those standards we'd be at war with the entire Middle East, half of Asia and Eastern Europe.

But once more, you've got to give it to President Obama: he set out a program, stuck with it and now he can put Moammar Qadaffi's bloated carcass up on his wall with Osama bin Laden. Meanwhile Sadam Hussein's head is in Crawford, Texas and who knows who's next?

What will the Republicans say this time? They'll probably keep quiet about this one.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

It Don't Get No Betta'n'dis.

So, like he told you last week, Plotnik reunited with his distant cousin Josh at Josh's wildly popular Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop on Sixth Avenue at 22nd Street in Manhattan, across the street from Madison Square Park and the Flatiron Building. At that time, Josh served Plotnik a deliciously disconcerting pastrami sandwich.

See, for Plotnik, Katz's Deli has always been the Pinnacle of Pastrami. But a few days before going into Eisenberg's, PD and Ducknik had gone into Katz's and had a disappointing, dried-out half-hearted pastrami sandwich -- and at $15.95 that's a lot of disappointment.

That overpriced and underwhelming sandwich may have been on Plotnik's mind when Cousin Josh lay two Eisenberg's pastramis down on the counter in front of PD and Plottie.

They were SOOO good! Plot thought he must be dreaming, because the sandwich was only $9 bucks. So he promised Josh he'd come back for further research after the bike trip.

"You can meet Robin then," Josh said. "The love of my life."

Sure enough. On Monday, all packed up and a train and a plane to catch, Plotnik hugged Isabella good-bye at her school and promised he'd see her next month in Seattle. Then, with The Great PD helping Plotnik trudge his suitcase and computer and carry-on up and down the subway stairs, the two veteranos of the Allegheny Bike Trail hopped on the R Train and went back uptown to Eisenberg's.

The Place was absolutely packed with a raucous lunchtime crowd, jammed as only a skinny New York deli can be, with people who couldn't get seats at the lunch counter shouting out their orders like at the NY Stock Exchange, accompanied by frenzied arm wavings and beseechings in many fractured languages.

Josh stood behind the cash register, wearing a blue shirt open at the neck. Josh is one of these big guys who look really good in open shirts. (Somewhere in the past, some very large Viking vacationing in Poland must have done some time with a female Plotnikkie antecedent, because Josh is at least six foot six. His brother is six-four. BOTH their parents added together are shorter than either of their kids. )

Josh can stare out over the masses of squabbling Plotnikkies crowding in front of him. The second Plot and PD jammed their way inside the door Josh shouted: "Daniel! Doug!"

(Plotnik does not know why Josh called The Great Plotnik and The Great PunkyDunky "Daniel" and "Doug" but they knew he was referring to them.)

"C'mere!" he shouted. "Meet Robin, the love of my life."

Standing next to him was a normal sized very pretty woman, in a checked blouse, obviously Josh's girl friend, who was calmly handling all the take-outs and phone-ins and cash transactions and translations, swinging her arms and holding take out food in paper bags over her head, all as easily as if she were home putting on a cup of tea.

"These are my cousins," Josh shouted to her.

"WHO'S GOT GRILLED CHEESE EXTRA ONIONS, CHOCOLATE EGG CREAM?" Robin shouted, holding a bag up in the air that Josh then grabbed to hold up very high, with one hand, while he wrote orders and punched keys with his other. "What's their last name?" Robin said.

"Plotnik!" Josh said.

"Plotnik!" Robin said. "Just like you!"

Josh beamed. He is such a nice guy.

"Josh, give us three pastrami-ryes to go," said Plotnik.

"Mustard?" Josh asked.

"Mustard," Plotnik answered. "And an iced tea."

"Lemon, no sugar, right?"

"How did you know that?"

Josh just laughed. "Look at you," he said. Josh weighs at least 300 pounds. Plotnik took it as a compliment, though he's not really sure.

OK. Plotnik hugged his boy good-bye, thanked him for such a great trip, then took two of the three sandwiches and the iced tea across the street to sit on a bench in Madison Square Park and eat his lunch, while staring up at the glorious Manhattan afternoon. The bench was crowded, and Plotnik also had his suitcase, carry-on and computer bag. He had an hour before he'd have to get back on the subway for JFK.

He found a seat. It wasn't easy but, surrounded by people staring at him, he unwrapped that sandwich.

Plotnik is here to tell you, fellow Plotnikkies, that the Hot Pastrami on Rye with Mustard from Eisenberg's Deli served from Plotnik to Plotnik on Monday, October 17, 2011, was the finest sandwich Plotnik has EVER eaten. Fat, juicy, greasy, perfect.

The sandwich was so good Plotnik would take one bite, then put the sandwich down, say "Ohh! Ahh!" while swiveling around to catch people's eyes, and then he'd pick it up and the whole thing would start over. It was orgasmic, but better because of all the grease.

There was a guy sitting next to him spooning a small container of Dannon yogurt. After awhile he stopped spooning his yogurt and just stared at Plotnik.

"That sounds like a really good sandwich," he said.

"It's the best of the best," Plotnik said, wiping his face with his napkin. "Ohh! Ohh!"

"Makes my yogurt look really stupid," the guy said.

"Mmmm, Oh God, smack," said Plotnik, still smacking his lips.

The guy stopped staring into his yogurt container. He was now staring directly at Plotnik.

"Really stupid," he said.

"Well, I know where you can get one of these," Plotnik said. "Right across the street, over at Eisenberg's. He's my cousin."

"Eisenberg's your cousin?"

"Nahh, not Eisenberg. My cousin Josh bought it from old man Eisenberg around six years ago."

"Must be really good, huh?" The guy kept staring at the other half of Plotnik's sandwich, and he probably sensed, through some pastramic telepathy that Plottie had yet another one in the paper bag, and that although he planned to take it home to Ducknik, it was still hot and equally delicious and possibly available.

"Only $9 bucks," Plotnik said.

"I mean," he said, "this yogurt was $4..." He let his plastic spoon fall into the container.

"Uh, huh," Plotnik said. "Well, you know where to go."

The guy kept staring.

Look, Plotnik has never claimed to be a saint. His own mother could have scammed a bite of that sandwich, and maybe Isabella, but only them and only a bite. Feeling no shame, Plotnik finished the entire sandwich, with Mr. Yogurt staring at him, Plottie moaning in the ecstasy you only get in New York, on a park bench, on a gorgeous day with the sun splashing off rooftops and fire escapes, buses beeping and taxis creeping, his legs folded and locked over his suitcases against some random thief, his lap covered with greasy plastic wrap, multiple napkins yellow with mustard and brown with meat grease, the greatest and most delicious sandwich in mankind's long history still alive in his hands, still hot, still steamy, coriander from the meat and caraway from the bread and diesel from the cabs and buses, and all the people moving up and around and with all the craziness of this city it all comes down to this very moment, and you can go from hell to Staten Island and back and it won't get, it can't get, it'll never get no betta'n'dis.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Pork Product! White Bread! Imitation Butter Spread! Gooooooo.....Allegheny!

It started at the carbo-intake capital of Western Maryland -- The Waffle House in Hagerstown...

...and ended, after 130 miles winding through southern Pennsylvania, back at the Crabby Pig outside the bike shop in Cumberland, Md. At the outset, The Great Plotnik, The Great PunkyDunky and the Great Chris-Baba were filled with energy.

They ended up looking more like this.

What a grand three days. Plottie, PD and C-B pedaled 40 miles the first day (half day, really), 50 miles the second (with an unforgettable side trip to Frank Lloyd Wright's 'Falling Water' in the middle) and 40 more the last day. The first day was flat, the second and half the third mildly uphill and the last half of Day Three was basically downhill all the way down into Cumberland.

(Yes, some people pedal all the way from Pittsburgh to Cumberland in one day. Like, so?)

The countryside was beautiful -- though many of the leaves had left the trees in the rainstorm Plot and PD drove through coming down from Brooklyn.

The fun, of course, had nothing to do with the bicycles, but with all the laughing, telling of tall tales, singing, beer drinking, cigar smoking and consuming of vast amounts of what no one would mistake for Health Food.

You get into such a nice rhythm on the bikes. The trail was wide enough for three to ride abreast at various points, though usually the alignment was one following two or two following one. The old railroad right of way had at one time hauled coal and coke from the mine country along the Youghiogheny ("The Yock") and Casselman Rivers up to Pittsburgh to be smelted and shipped out on the Great Lakes. Now, after being dead for decades, the tracks have been pulled up and the trail has picked up bicyclers and hikers and river rafters.

The little town of Ohiopyle is the jumping off point for a ten minute van ride up to Falling Water, which is Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece. He built it as a summer home for Edgar Kaufman in the 1930s. Kaufman owned the largest department store in Pittsburgh and the property had been a retreat for his employees until Edgar Kaufman Jr. met Wright and convinced him to consider building a home for his parents, centered around two small waterfalls.

These are really tame photos. The inside of the house, filled with Wright's furniture, with a great room that is the style today but was unheard of in the 1930s, is what makes it even more unique. But you're not allowed to take any photos inside. You'll just have to figure out how to get here some day, because for sheer beauty mixed with great taste Falling Water ranks right up there with Doris Duke's Shangri-La in Diamond Head.

Trip's over. Five hours in the car Sunday night to get back to Brooklyn, pastrami on Monday from Eisenberg's (more on that tomorrow) and then six more hours on a plane last night sitting next to a v-e-r-y- jumbo-sized man in the middle seat.

But it's all good. Plot is home. He is somewhat muscle-sore but just a little bit.

He knows now that there are few cooler sounds than the whistle from a steam engine. But if you try to chase it down on your bicycle you will only f*#&$ up your knee. Here's a tip: don't do it.

Kids everywhere love bridges, even abandoned bridges.

Riding through tunnels is very disorienting when all you can see is the light at the end of it.

Laughter, beer and pizza always make sore butts and creaky joints feel better.

Next year in Portugal? Why not?

Monday, October 17, 2011

Guitar Morning in Brooklyn, then it's Back to Saint Plotniko

The Great PD had a helper when he put down some guitar licks on one of Plotnik's songs this morning. Plottie now has to pack his voluminous amount of dirty clothes from the bike trip and somehow get them into his carry-on for the flight back from JFK to Saint Plotniko at 4:30 this afternoon.

Tomorrow we'll post all the wonderful photos from three days on the Allegheny Bike Trail. Yesterday Plotnik thought he may never walk again...but today? Perfect. It's been wonderful to be back East.

OK, packing now. 45 minutes to jam it all in.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

She's Quite a Swinger

Tonight Plottie and The Great PD leave for Harrisburg, PA, which announced bankruptcy yesterday. Tomorrow they hook up with Chris in Cumberland, Maryland and then take off for the Allegheny Trail.

It's supposed to rain a bit on the trail. 'A bit' is fine. Plotnik just took PD's old rain jacket to the lady on the corner who is sewing up the rips in the seams to make it more water resistant.

Yesterday Isabella played for a long time at the pickup hour with her good friend Lucy. And then she jumped into Plotnik's suitcase.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Anudda Gwate Day

Here's what The Great Plotnik was thinking about this morning when he was half-carrying, half-containing Isabella (yelling "Daddy! Daddy! I want my Daddy! I love my Daddy! Daddy!"), as Daddy disappeared in the distance towards the subway, leaving Plot and Belly to move not-very-quickly down DeKalb Avenue on the way to school:

It was the day Ronald Reagan was shot, which makes it March 30, 1981. The Great PunkyDunky was a little older than Isabella is now, and he, his mommy and daddy were on a ski weekend in Squaw Valley.

That is, Plot and Duck wanted to ski, so they needed to place little PD in Squaw Valley's day-care center. It was a little like taking your dog to the vet. All morning long, as everyone put on their ski clothes, PD was happy and singing to himself, happy as a rock in a snowball, until the second they stopped the car outside the Nazi Day Care Center.

Plotnik didn't raise no fool. PD has always been able to put 2 plus 2 together in an instant. He saw the day care center, saw the kids, realized his parents were about to ski away in a different direction and let out a HOWL. No, not a howl. A screeching heart rending child being tortured shriek. He started fighting the air. Nobody could get close enough to him to pick him up, so Plotnik dragged his belovedly screeching lunatic, with his snow boots dragging in the snow, because he refused to move his feet, leaving two thick lines in the snow from the back seat of the car all the way into the into the Nazi Day Care Center, up to the front door where they were met by Mr. Goebbels.

Mr. Goebbels was like December in the Aryan Fire Department Calendar. He was around six foot six, blonde, ripped (Plottie could tell) with a checked ski sweater and stretch pants. He had seen this before. He said something like "Zo, zat is fine, ve vill take gut care ov your leetle heh heh heh monster. You go. Go now, pleeze."

The last words they heard were "MOMMMY! DADDDDDDDDyyyyyyyy........."

All day long Plot felt like shit. He was convinced he had traumatized his child forever, leaving him with Nazis who would torture him and turn him into a Lutheran. Ducknik felt every bit as bad, without the religious overtone.

So they skied, but they sort of didn't ski either, worrying about their little boy, pausing each time at the head of the chair lift to listen for his tormented screams. At the close of the ski day, they took off their skis in a hurry and ran down to the Nazi Day Care Center to pick up the remnants of their child.

An ebullient Great PD came running up to them, happy and smiling and excited to relate to them all the wonderful things he had done that day at the Nazi Day Care Center. What were his first words to his parents?

"Anudda Gwate Day!"

He has never been allowed to forget his monumental temper tantrum followed by "Anudda Gwate Day!" And that's what Plotnik was thinking about this morning as Isabella howled and tugged and fussed and lamented in Plottie's arms -- until she saw her friend Beya out in front of the school, to whom she immediately raced, hugged, and holding her hand, bounded happily up the stairs and into school.

Papa to The Great PunkyDunky: this is all your fault.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Back to Zuccotti Park

It was starting out to be another hot and beautiful day in Providence when, early this morning, Plottie drove Ducknik to T.F. Green Airport for her flight home to S.P. A few hours later it was time for a somewhat teary goodbye to The Great BZWZ, Plot's all-grown-up scientist who will nonetheless always be his little girl. BZ drove Plot to the Amtrak station and a few hours after that Plot got off in the core of the apple. Even the stairs at Penn Station are painted up.

He and The Great PD went straight over to Eisenberg's Deli for lunch, and posed with their cousin Josh, whose pastrami sandwich was better at $9 than Katz's at $15.95. Josh sits at the counter and eats. What better advertisement for your restaurant? And he's not a little man.

After lunch The Great Plotnik took the R train down to Zuccotti Park to see what has happened to the encampment of Occupy Wall Street-ers in the two weeks since he and Duck were down there looking at the World Trade Center construction.

It has gotten huge.

The police seem content to keep the sidewalks clear as the hundreds of people sit on the concrete inside and an equal amount mill about outside the makeshift campground. It's very fluid -- young and old, black and white, male and female, everyone in their own -- sort of -- marked off spot where they might have a jerry-built display of recycled gray water or a sprouts kitchen or the planning desk with an activity set out for every half hour, or the medical area, or the free, donated food area. Or the people's library.

At one point, Plot was talking with a young guy holding a sign about how corporations are not humans. He made some interesting points. Then, he needed to take a break so Plotnik took his sign for him and held it up himself for fifteen minutes or so.

People came up to him saying all kinds of things, like "What do you guys want anyway, money? Is that it?" Plotnik said "look around. You'll be hard pressed to see any money at all. Money is not the issue here."

Someone else said "I did this in the '60s. I think it's a disgrace. Why are they dressed like it's a circus? Why aren't they wearing suits so people will pay attention?" Plotnik said "Ma'am, I was there in the '60s too. Nobody wore any suits and people paid lots of attention. This is just the start."

Cops surround the park. Plot went over to one of New York's finest and said "Excuse me, officer. You guys are being really nice to these people in here."

"Protect and serve," the officer said, mouthing the official slogan of the NYPD.

Plotnik persisted: "But the last time I did this, you guys were busting heads. I guess times have changed, huh?"

"Huh," he said.