03.17.10
St. Patrick’s Day NYC
You know, hanging around blowing our bagpipes and stuff.
08.17.09
I ran all night and day, I couldn’t get away
NYC Half Marathon 2009 Start
I competed in my first big competitive race yesterday morning, running and finishing the NYC 1/2 Marathon. The fact that I can say and not be lying that I finished the race while still actually running is something. I’d planned on finishing it that way and felt I’d finish it that way up until about mile 9 when my thoughts started to betray me and the idea of just stopping and walking it piped up. By mile 11, I’d had it and it was only the voice of a good friend who coached and mentored me in the ways of running that put me through. But I finished in 2:10 or just over 10 minutes a mile with each successive mile actually improving in time or what I now know as a negative split. The heat and humidity wasn’t anything I was used to running in and it beat me down brutally until there wasn’t much left to drag across the finish line.
The course itself was something pretty spectacular. It was 13.1 miles that looped around Central Park and then spit us out on 7th Avenue where we ran down to Times Square, the entire avenue blocked and lined with spectators, bands, the gay cheerleaders, cops and firemen. That was a shining moment where you can’t help but get a huge kick of adrenaline and I did…but then we turned the corner and ran down 42nd Street through Disneyland and out onto the West Side Highway. To look down that sun-spotted stretch and know that there were four looming miles knocked the wind out of me but I pressed on as did the 14,000 people running along with me.
My email to people who’ve asked today how the race went included two milestone events that were paramount to me in this race: “I finished” and “I didn’t poop myself”. The second one seems to take people by surprise and I’ve thrown off more then a few people from ever running by explaining that shitting oneself during a race isn’t unheard of. Jubilee Chris, Voice of the Lord, Hand of Light, and Power Tool of the Good Carpenter, also ran with me and regaled me with tales of how the front-runners in the race, those of whom each second in the run matters, often wait until just before the start and then pee, having deferred to their mental conditioning being the priority rather than a potty break. I would like to have said I scoped out said puddles of urine when I finally got up to the starting line but by that time I was already at the 5:00 minute mark and I wanted to make sure my fancy-schmancy shoe timer RFID thingy made as close as contact to the starting mat so my times would register so I missed the pools of urine.
Overall, I’m happy to say I ran it, clapped for and whistled at the cute gay cheerleaders, got to run through Times Square like a returning champion, and finished the race. I can’t imagine feeling the way I did and knowing that I was only half-way through if this had been the full marathon so it got me re-thinking that whole idea. I imagine I’ll do it again next year and know for sure I’m going to keep up training and working out and that’s the win for me: not letting how absolutely brutalized and beat down I felt at the end ruin the feel I get from running.
02.06.09
A Merry Old Soul
I have an unwritten list of things that I would like to do or should like to do in New York City before the end of my days here and I marked one off last night, finally.
Whenever you talk to people who live here, most have common NYC things that we all take for granted that we’ve never done, even though we’ve lived here for years and years. I don’t even remember how many years it was before Jeff and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and that should be one of those requisite events that every New Yorker does when they get to the city…it’s free and the view is stunning.
Section of Maxfield Parrish's "Old King Cole"
So on my unwritten list of which things seemingly pop out of nowhere was having drinks at the King Cole Bar in the St. Regis Hotel. It wasn’t so much about having expensive cocktails in a dark-paneled, up scale location where supposedly the Bloody Mary was introduced to the US, but rather the famous Maxfield Parrish mural backing the entire length of the bar.
Maxfield Parrish is a favorite artist and illustrator of mine. I’ve collected replicas of his work and always try to have at least a post-card hanging in my cube or office. Years ago Jeff and I took the day and drove down to a retrospective of his at the Philadelphia Museum of Art which was amazing.
So Jeff was a trooper and met me on 55th and 5th last night for a quick after-work drink. The bar is as dark and dark-paneled as you could hope for which seemed to be the perfect setting for the mural which is 8ft tall and spans 30 feet across behind the bar. The beauty and hallmark of Parrish’s work was his use of a glazing technique rather than just outright painting. In this, the light seems to pass through the layers of glaze and then reflect back out, causing the painting to glow from an internal light. The darkness of the bar framed this effect beautifully. The colors Parrish used, also specific to him and his art, were perfect and warm and inviting.
I spent most of my glass of red wine staring at the mural realizing other than Parrish painting it, I didn’t know much about it so I googled it up when we got home. What I’m most disappointed about was learning the legend of the wry smile on King Cole’s face, thought to have been modeled after John Jacob Astor who originally commissioned the mural for his Knickerbocker hotel bar. As the tale goes, there was an unwritten competition among illustrators of the day to see who could sneak the act of flatulence into one of their public works. Supposedly Parrish won this contest with Old King Cole. Not only is the King smiling a secret smile but the reactions of his flanking knights give it away.
It’s not the DiVinci Code, but I’ll take it because its funny and seems to be appropriate for early-American illustration.
When I was reading up on the mural I also found this article in the NYTimes article about its restoration a few years ago that also relates the secret farting tale.
Anyone coming to NYC with some time to kill, it would be worthwhile to sneak into the King Cole bar and check out this work of art. I’m glad I finally did.
06.17.08
The Face of 38
I turned 38 this past Sunday and though wishful thinking because of the potential hot twin boffing we could do and video for x-tube, I am not his twin. Though in general, I’d regard 38 as one of those birthdays that is a blurry slide into 40, this one is interesting to me for several reasons. First and foremost, my father, when he was this age, had a debilitating brain aneurysm that quite literally shattered and change irrevocably the lives of many, many people. I’m certainly not pointing this out because I’m all doom and gloom about the task of actually trying to live through 38 unscathed but rather, the stangeness of now being the age of my father and being able to see for the first time how much of his life he had in front of him.
At the time of his aneurysm, I was 14 and he was my parent so what did I know about it? Now I have a much different perspective. I’m just starting my life and finding it’s groove. The home life, the home, the man, the work, the friends…all things are really, really good and I can only see better days ahead and I’m sure that is how my Dad must have been too. His masonary business was taking off and he was venturing out into investing into finanicial partnerships that were going to make him even more successful than he had been. He was known for the quality of his work and the integrity of his work ethic. All this ended the moment he blacked out and came crashing down to the sidewalk where a stranger found him. And so there is some heaviness about being 38 that I didn’t quite grasp so fully before. I often think about all the things my Mom I and would talk about now if she was still alive and I think she’d be shocked and pleased at the understanding I’ve come into. I completely get how young they felt and how young at heart they were.
Related, but much more Me!Me!Me! is that idea that at 38, my parents had four sons, 19, 14, 10, and 9. I can’t even begin to fathom having kids and what it means at this age, let alone to have four, two of which were adolesents. Jeff and I are spoiled and rotten and if I don’t get my weekly comics, I’m grumpy and distressed so what did my parents give up so that we could be taken care of? The mind reels. I told Aunt Pam, who spent so much time with my parents along with all the cousins at that time, that the big secret I think I figured out is that not one of them had any clue about parenting and were really no different then I am now at this age…they just had to fake it and make it look like they knew what they were doing. They did a good job, by the way, in that we’re all still alive and kicking and generally happy and most of my cousins and brothers and their families are having their own babies and whatnot so what’s old is new again. Still, my mind reels.
And so 38! I actually had a hard time believing I wasn’t going to be 40 this year and a little disappointed too. I have a total hard-on for the 40+ crowd and don’t even get me started on the hotness of salt-n-pepper hair so to think I still have two years to go is just something else. I’m not the most patient of people but nothing I can do about it other than just continue to enjoy the good days and work on being better.
The whole sha-bang though, was clarified for me this morning, as I was running a practice 5K in the Central Park this morning, getting ready for the real deal NYC Corporate Challange coming up on Thursday. I’m in no way the hotness of him, or him, or him, or her, or the others who continually inspire and push me to pass on the bread at dinner and get up at 5:30 to go running but it’s a good first step for me to run the 5K. I’ve been on the treadmill for months but there isn’t anything like actually running outside and this morning was SPECTACULAR. Cool and low humidity, the sun was out, and I was reminded the very best of NYC is being able to run through Central Park, looking at the museums, and the Dakota, and the Bethesda Fountain and the Jackie O Resevoir, or finding a statue of a crouching panther hidden in the blossoming hydrangeas along the east side of the Met that I hadn’t ever seen before. I was just banging out a fantastic run when I totally got cruised by a hot bearded guy running the opposite direction. My gaydar pinged so hard I just HAD to turn and glance over my shoulder at him one more time and totally caught him doing the same thing! I’m 38 and I still get cruised. I mean, please. How much better could today have been? Perfection or endorphins, it totally doesn’t matter cause I’ll take the cloud I’m rocking on right now.