Frosty D. Snowman Feat. Ronald McD

Good afternoon and a cinammon spice tea. Sorry, that's a little homey. And misspelled. How about good ahftehnewn and a man with a British accent.

It's no secret that I don't particularly care for children. Not my thing. But I'm currently in a cafe with two adorable men, who happen to have their toddlers with them, and I must say that there's a few things about these kids that tug at my frosty heart.

1) I love the way kids wave at other kids that they don't know at all. The British dad just pushed his baby girl outside in a stroller. On the way out, British baby waved at American dad's toddler, who promptly toddled to the door after her and attempted to smack it open. As an adult who frequently pretends not to see acquaintances on the street to avoid conversation, this social instinct fascinates me.

2) Lovelorn, having lost his new best friend, American toddler decides to console himself with a pastry. No judgment, we all do it. Except we understand how a capitalist economy works (Let's Review! Supply. Demand. Adam Smith. John Locke.), while this kid knows only that he wants a pastry and that pastries are inside the glass case. So while dad is distracted with his sister, he keeps toddling behind the counter and trying to open the case to retrieve said pastry. Inevitably, he gets caught and carried back to the table, gurgling frustratedly, which breaks my heart because while I don't much enjoy children's company, nothing stirs my sympathy more than the desire for a pastry you can't have. (Especially for a kid who keeps getting so close before being thwarted by dad - just wait til he's a teenager.)

3) This is not so much something I admire about kids as something I am jealous of: On the way out, thwarted toddler breaks into a rousing chorus of twinkle, twinkle little star. Kids can sing any time they want with no understanding that it might be weird, and that's awesome. I definitely recall my infant cousin busting out Frosty the Snowman during my First Communion with a special shout out to Ronald McDonald, who I believe he thought was the priest. Here's a reentactment:



Being only about 8 years old myself, I probably would have much preferred the sacred body of the Hamburgler over the papery host wafer I received, which from a taste standpoint seemed extremely overrated. (Fortunately there was cross-shaped cake afterward and my faith was restored.) But to a child, what time is NOT the time for twinkle twinkle little star? What kind of fascists would live in a world like that?

Oh shit, I just realized I'm going to get kicked out of this café in 40 minutes and i just spent 10 minutes writing this when I was supposed to be working on a script. God damn kids are so distracting.

Aww COME ON!!!

Good evening and I was just applying some Burt's Bees lip balm, which I enjoy very much for its mintastic moisturizing properties. So HOW PSYCHED WAS I when I noticed there was a $2 coupon on the inside of the label good towards any Burt's Bees non-lip product?!

$2? Fo realz? I thought. That's a pretty fucking good coupon. Usually coupons are for 75 cents off baby wipes or buy one get one generic oatmeal. This is a coupon I could really use! I peeled back the label as instructed, taking in the slow striptease as the bar code coyly revealed itself, all the while thinking "COUPON!" Pursing my minty, moisturized lips together, I gently tore along the perforated line and ripped the fucking thing right in half.

Well, really more like 1/4 - 3/4.

I shouted a variety of obscenities so colorful that I'm surprised they didn't come out as a flock of tropical birds. Ask Jesse, he was on the phone at the time. Regardless, I just shredded my coupon and with it, my dreams of slathering my scaly winter arms with a creamy, heaven-scented tub of Burt's Bees Body Butter (uhhhhnnnnmm, it gets better with each B...)

In conclusion, Seriously?! COME ON!!!

FOCUS CROCUS!!!

I Missed Steve Martin Playing the Banjo: New Songs for the Five-Stage Bereaver

Good evening and it's mid-afternoon.

I am mourning the loss of Steve Martin. Don't be alarmed, Steve Martin is of course very much still with us. I'm mourning a personal loss resulting from the cancellation of a Steve Martin banjo concert, which was to take place this very evening in Montclair, New Jersey.

Last week, I learned too late that Steve Martin was commencing a bluegrass banjo tour to promote his new album The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo with a performance at Carnegie Hall. I learned this too late because the last time I went to SteveMartin.com was the day he posted a notice announcing an undetermined hiatus from updating his Web site. What's the secret to comedy? Timing. Discouraged, I failed to check back frequently, so unfortunately the first I heard of the concert was from someone already seated inside the venue.

Alas! (Eheu! for all you Latin scholars out there, by which I mean Simon and my brother.) Woe was me, plummeting instantly from perfectly unaware to I-cannot-live-another-day-without-seeing-Steve-Martin-play-the-banjo. Carnegie Hall was indeed lost, but seeing a glimmer of hope on the horizon, I raced urgently to SteveMartin.com, called Jesse, and shamelessly begged him to take me to the next closest show because, well, I don't have any money.

And so it happened that, having cashed in my Christmas present early this year, I spent one glorious day reveling in the fantasy that in exactly one week I would sit in the same building as Steve Martin and he would delight me with whimsical bluegrass banjo. Whimsical? Whimsical. That's my adjective and I'm sticking to it.

Whimsical indeed were my hopes, however, (see? I managed to bring that back around) for like a fleeting flight of fancy, they were fragile and not founded in fact. "Fuuuuuuck!" I exclaimed, on learning just one day later that the show had been canceled. No explanation, no apologies, no word at all except a voicemail from the ticket company saying Jesse's card would be credited.

Heartbroken, I combed the internet trying to make sense of the madness, slipping into the first of the five Kübler-Ross stages of grief: denial.

No! What? NO! I wailed into the phone, prompting Jesse to remind me that he would never joke about something so serious as a Steve Martin banjo concert. Pouring over SteveMartin.com, I found that someone had already struck the date from the tour calendar. Where Montclair, New Jersey had once been, now Washington DC sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Ontario, as if nothing had ever happened, including the invention of geography. Had it all been just a dream?

As Google search after Google search turned up nothing, I lashed out at the man whose comedy records I listened to incessantly in my youth and whose autobiography lay a few feet away on my bookshelf, demonstrating the second stage of bereavement: anger. How dare he cancel a show -- a show that people had been waiting ONE DAY to see. Well EXCUUUUUUUSE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Bargaining came next. The date of cancellation being Friday the 9th, the only dates left on the East Coast were Monday the 12th in Washington, D.C. and three or four hours upstate in Troy, New York on Oct 20th. I begged him to take me to the impending show in D.C., trying to swap it in for the canceled one. We'll take the dollar bus. We'll find a couch to stay on. You have work? We can still make an 8 pm show! When that failed, I turned to Troy. We don't have a car, but I'm sure we can borrow one? Spend the night at our alma mater in Saratoga? We can sleep on the student center couches, just like old times!

Having mostly aborted those attempts, except for a pathetic, Troy? every time Jesse schedules something into his iCal, I'm left with the fourth stage of grief: depression. The sinking feeling I felt when I first heard the news is now completely submerged. I've complained to everyone within earshot to no comfort and many replies of "Steve Martin? Like, the actor?" I've bemoaned and begrudged and bewatched innumerable YouTube clips, listened to bluegrass, rambled and gotten small, but none of it has changed the fact that tonight, I'm not going to see Steve Martin play the banjo.

Which brings us to the last in the five Kübler-Ross stages of grief: acceptance.

This past weekend, Jesse pointed to "steve martin!!!!!!" screaming in blue letters from my iCal and asked, "Don't you want to take that off there? You're just making yourself sad." All week "steve martin!!!!!!" has remained, innocuous if futile, propped up like Tiny Tim on the wobbly crutches of hope and what might have been. But tomorrow it will be a lie, and I have to delete it soon before that happens. And so I say to you universe, I accept! I lay down my sword, my cellphone and my laptop and surrender to your ultimate and unpredictable will. Unless...

Troy?