(From the song by Willie Nelson.)
According to a piece last week in The New York Times, Willie Nelson was absolutely right:
“After he left The New York Review in 2003, Mr. (Jon-Jon) Goulian had something of a lost decade…”
It could also be said that Mr. Goulian had something of a short decade. The way we count out here on Long Island, where the pace is slower than in Manhattan, a decade lasts ten years not eight.
Goulian has written what was described as a “new memoir,” “The Man In The Grey Flannel Skirt.” He is 42, which qualifies him, I guess, to write a “new memoir” rather than an old one. According to the Times, “Mr. Goulian…seemed to have been beamed in from a future century. Head shaved and body toned like an Olympic swimmer’s, he wore a brown knee-length tie-dye skirt, five-inch Steve Madden wedge sandals and lip gloss.” I’m not much of a swimmer, but I’d like to invite Goulian to come out to Long Island in that getup some weekend and play a little one-on-one basketball with me. If he’s not interested, then maybe Steve Madden will put on a pair of his own wedge sandals and stroll onto the court where I play. (Note to Jon-Jon and Steve: I usually show up around four or four thirty, after my nap. And even if I forget my lip gloss, I’ll be ready to play.)
Next to the article about the “new memoir” was an ad for Katie Couric’s latest book, “The Best Advice I Ever Got, Lessons from Extraordinary Lives.” Couric was showing a little leg and that never hurts when you’re looking for work. After nearly five years – didn’t it seem like a full decade? - she said farewell to the CBS Evening News last week with a long clip of highlights from her broadcasts. The next to last highlight¸ if I remember correctly, was her coaxing Clint Eastwood to say “Go ahead, make my day.” Didn’t CBS News pay her enough to afford a Netflix account so she can rent Clint’s movies?
The day after Couric signed off, my son Jack and I were at Yankee Stadium for a Mets-Yankees game, and I watched, as always, the “race” flashed on the scoreboard involving the B, D and 4 subway trains. At one point the announcer said, his voice rising, “The number 4 takes a shortcut.” What? How does a subway train take a shortcut? By switching tunnels? Jumping the tracks? The D train won. So much for shortcuts.
This brings us to Saturday, May 21, 2011, the day when a few souls were predicting the world would start to end or something. It didn’t, apparently, but I wonder if the folks who were convinced bad times were coming for the many, many sinners among us got confused by Newt Gingrich’s decision to run for the Republican nomination for president. Would his election mean the end of the world? Do you know anyone who might vote for Gingrich? Who would like to see him in the White House? If you do and that someone is a neighbor, you need to move, immediately!
Now that I think of it I may know a Newt fan. A guy at the gym wears ugly T-shirts with some crude printing he has put on the back, denouncing President Obama and Vice President Biden. I plan to sneak up on him one day and say, “I sure do hope you are working on some better-looking and more creative T-shirts AFTER Obama is re-elected.” If time is speeding by for Jon-Jon Goulian, think how it must be dragging for the T-shirt fellow. It’s still a long way to the 2012 election and then, if Obama is re-elected, another long four years until the next election. Tough, Mr. T-shirt guy, tough.
(Posted May 26, 2011)