Random thoughts from NYC

News reports say stranded cruise passengers survived on nothing but spam, mayo sandwiches and booze! Booze! Booze! Sounds like my diet from 1985-89.

I’m confident I could write a decent and semi-coherent blog post about the whole incident, but I’m lacking the motivation.

As previously reported, I’m in the midst of a splendid NYC frolic. My every instinct is to completely blow off the blog until I feel the urge to write something Thanksgivingy.

But after blogging about three times a week for more than two years I feel compelled to post something. Anything.

This is a mild form of insanity. It’s not like the blog police will come along and revoke my license to blog or make me take a blogging pay cut.

So here are some random thoughts from the past couple of days mingled with a tweet or two.

• Critics saying Bush's "Decision Points" is no "War & Peace." Had he been true to history, he'd have named his book, "War & War.” The release of books by two of my favorite topics for vastly different reasons -- Bush and Keith Richards -- should have spurred thousands of words of comment for me. But all I could manage about Bush was the “War & War” line. I just didn’t want to pile on. As for Keith, I’m couldn’t be more thrilled that by writing his life story he and I are now colleagues. 

• If coral is a stony ocean rock and corral is a pony pen, can corrral be a rocky ocean enclosure to keep seahorses?

• If the Shaws had a son and they named him Rick, would Rick Shaw be destined to go into the ground transportation business?

• Yesterday our group had a really great driver who full times as a decorated NYPD officer. He honored me by inviting me to ride shotgun in the big luxury van so we could yap without interference. We talked all day about our favorite foods. He’d recently driven his family to Pittsburgh just to enjoy a Primanti’s sandwich. How cool is that? We talked about America’s great heirloom sandwiches from muffaletta, to cheese steaks, to lobster rolls. He told me some great cop stories, too, about his involvement in the Times Square bomber case, which celebs are cool (Dan Ackroyd) and which are jerks (Alex Rodriguez and Beyonce). And he told mea about an incident from just the other day where he held a victim’s bloody, dangling eyeball in his hand while awaiting the ambulance. We’re going to meet for cigars next time I’m in town. All I bring to the table in this friendship is a lot of questions. He’s got the stories. I’ve got the questions. I could ask guys like this questions until out of boredom he tases my chest just to get me to shut up.

• How about a half-hour antiquing show where former Happy Days star Erin Moran seeks interesting items. Call it "Joannie Loves Tchotchke!”

• In all my years of visiting New York, I’ve rarely gone to Broadway shows. It just seems too prohibitive with costs, time and other concerns when there are so many other wonderful options. That’s going to change. Last night our gracious hosts took us to see “Memphis.” It’ll go down as one of the best times I’ve ever had in New York. It was absolutely enchanting and I was blown away by the joy and the talent up on stage. I wish I had the dough to tell my wife and the kids to meet me at the airport on Monday so I could fly them right back here to see “Memphis” again. I want to share it with loved ones and cranky strangers. Everyone’s life would be better if everyone went to see “Memphis.”

• I asked my cop friend if there’s ever been a show that even glancingly captures the day-to-day life a New York City police officer. Never, he said. Not even close. I discreetly refrained from telling him about my “NYPD Pink” idea.

• Spent a few hours at the Guggenheim Museum yesterday. It had me dreaming of opening my own art gallery. Patrons will enter and find four bare walls and a roomful of regular guys who do nothing but say, “Hello, I’m Art.”

• The toes on my left foot are getting so spread out I might be the first person in history to be able to give someone the finger with a foot.

• Visiting a really great museum gives me such a happy and peaceful feeling, yet if anyone knew all the moronic thoughts going on in my head security would hustle me out the door and forever ban my re-entry. One example: I saw a bunch of statues of nude men and was repeatedly struck by the bronzed examples of what Keith Richards would call their “tiny todgers.” Either men have evolved in ways that must be satisfying to women or else artists back then were intent on insulting their models. Maybe size didn’t matter in what was known as the age of enlightenment. Of course, what the hell do I know? Maybe next time I go to the Guggenheim, I’ll hire a hooker to comment on the scale of all the art.

• Like many great cities, New York is struggling for revenue. I’ll bet the city could earn nearly $1 billion if it sold for development just about six or seven prime acres of Central Park. Of course they’d never do that, nor should they. That Manhattan island, maybe the priciest chunk of land on the planet, reserves a whopping 843 acres for recreation is a tribute to the priorities of New Yorkers.

• Now, I hope you have a peaceful and relaxing Sunday in the warm embrace of loved ones. On my last day in New York City, I’ll be doing the complete opposite.