tennis « Vichy Water – Author's Blog

February 3, 2012

Fatherhood: A Journey to ‘The Apprentice.’ A Super Bowl Hype and Rutgers Brief Comment. Welcome to Hoopla Ha February 3, 2012

Filed under: November 2009 — Tags: by, club, Dashboard, Powered, tennis — earthood @ 7:22 pm

I like to jump in right away to things near, dear and relevant like today’s mentioning Rutgers University but before delving, here’s a bit of a blog subject explanation.

Recently I became a contributing writer for Only Good News/ Hoopla Ha, an amazing website now in beta test, and launching next week. Here’s their mantra: “Think…Relate…Smile…That’s what we’re all about. Visit us daily for an instant dose of happy, feel good inspiration. Make every day… a Hoopla Ha Day!” Here’s the link to the beta test: http://beta.hooplaha.com/. And thanks to Hoopla Ha for allowing me to post my article on my blog; they paid for it.

Marx Brothers. soup or something like that.

From Meatballs. It just doesn't matter. A nice mantra.

As my world continues to evolve into more journalistic pursuits with NJ Discover TV and with Hoopla Ha, I still need to inject my blog at vichywater.net with effusive and topical material; this article is perfect. Blog wise, I was torn between this article and drifting into the world of football, college and super and taking it into my streams of consciousness, depositing it in a fictional country similar to what the Marx Brothers elaborated. So maybe next week; I’ve even got a name already for the University where academics battle athletics in the fields of dreams with cannons and bow and arrows and recriminations. I have reliably computed that in the past two weeks, 67% of all local programming in New York and New Jersey has concentrated on the Super Bowl not a possible war in April in the Mid-East. I suppose leave the stock market alone at a three year high. I want to scream if I hear about one more Super Bowl recipe for slider hamburgers with toppings from an obscure town near the Arctic Circle. “It just doesn’t matter,” I want to yell as Bill Murray did in Meatballs. I don’t eat red meat; you should all know that by now. America has an obesity epidemic. This 67% is mostly about food intake. So I’ll close now with a loud resounding cheer, “Go New Jersey Giants, Beat New England and Go Rutgers, with a top 25 recruiting class coming in September.” Now my article:

Father and son at Rutgers football stadium pre game warm up

Muhammad Ali knocks out Sonny Liston in 1964. I was 3 minutes late and missed it.

Fatherhood: A Journey to ‘The Apprentice’

Since fatherhood caught up to me when I turned 40, a few abstract thoughts came to mind like being forever young, living to 150 years; basically notions of finding ways to keep up with my son as he gets older (maybe I won’t). When he was ten years old (16 years ago), I took him to his first college football game at Rutgers to do some father-son bonding. The following year we got season tickets for all the major sports at Rutgers and we’re still going strong. Of course there is more to the institution of fatherhood for me. I’ve been working hard at it for reasons like the essence of this article.

college beer pong. i have long arms. helps my play.

a keg stand. that's me in mid air. another college thing to do.

Six years ago my son was a college sophomore; living in the dorm and had just become a member of a fraternity (the same one I joined a few weeks after Muhammad Ali defeated Sonny Liston to win boxing’s Heavyweight Championship in 1964). One Wednesday, my son called and asked what I was doing Saturday night and if I wasn’t busy, I should come down to the fraternity house and hang with him and the guys. There was no hesitation. “What time? Should I come straight to the frat house?” I instantaneously knew what my son’s invitation meant to me and our relationship since the day he was born. I also thought about meeting real life movie ‘Animal House’ characters and I did. Third floor beer pong was going on when I arrived. My son and I teamed-up but I managed not to drink beer; visions of my making the cover of Time or Newsweek danced in my head as being a father who endorsed under-age college drinking; there’s something positive about partial conservatism and vibrant visuals.

Randall Pinkett who won The Apprentice (an undergrad at Rutgers) and Mr. Trump(do I have to call him that if I didn't get picked?)

Cut to a few months later. Rutgers University, Donald Trump (‘The Apprentice’) Randall Pinkett, who actually won ‘The Apprentice’ and was an undergraduate at Rutgers, endorsed a program reaching out to the Rutgers community to get them involved in the audition process for an upcoming season of ‘The Apprentice.’ Normally laborious long lines of waiting to audition were waived for a select group of Rutgers people. Without hesitation, even at 60 years old and far removed from only 20 and 30 somethings, I became one of the 125 people who auditioned on Rutgers College Avenue campus student center. Prior to sitting with Randall Pinkett and telling him why I’d make a great contestant (I could probably beat every one of the contestants in singles tennis or around the world basketball), I filled out forms and wrote five essays. One essay asked “What is Your Most Impressive Work or School Achievement.” Without hesitation, I wrote about my son calling and asking me to come down to the frat house and hang out. This was my most impressive achievement. In a public discourse like I’m doing right now, I’d venture to say no one from the world of ‘The Apprentice’ had any idea what I was talking about.

But I know that I’ve prioritized life, put my son and our relationship where it should be, ahead of any class of business pursuit; so when he grows up to be a young beer pong playing fraternity guy, he’d be comfortable and secure enough with me and our relationship to want me to hang out with him and his frat brothers; indeed my most impressive accomplishment and achievement. I figured that no one at ‘The Apprentice’ would understand or appreciate the depth of my essay answer and it would probably wind-up on the cutting room floor.

As they say on Broadway, I’m still waiting for the call back. Funny thing; I had a connection that could’ve placed my application and essays on Donald’s desk. However, this particular edition of ‘The Apprentice’ was shot in Los Angles for the summer (taking me away from my beloved New Jersey) and if you lost that week’s segment, the on screen television punishment was sleeping in a tent. I did that once my freshman year and woke up with a frog in my sleeping bag. I resolved no more tents in my life so I declined to have my application appear on Donald Trump’s desk. I hope that didn’t show my age.

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One Important note. Here’s a wonderful music video to listen/watch on You Tube featuring Linda Chorney, right from here in New Jersey, Grammy nominated for Best Americana Album.

Linda Chorney music video

Also a great article about Linda Chorney from her blog:

http://lindachorney.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/thanks-n-j-discover-a-blog-of-blogs-and-some-babbling/

Linda Chorney

Also a very worthwhile cause to read up on:

Butterfly Circle of Friends. http://www.butterflycircleoffriends.org/

MY CONTACT INFORMATION

website: http://vichywater.net

Facebook: Cal Schwartz

Twitter: Earthood

Email: earthood@gmail.com

book trailer. hey its 65 seconds long

Vichy Water book trailer 65 seconds long

IMPORTANT LINKS

If on Facebook check out this NJ Discover site:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000125711074

OR www.njdiscover.com

ARE you in search of another blog that is also outspoken, unique BUT refreshingly, topically unbridled which means uninhibited ???? Meet LINDA CHORNEY:

http://lindachorney.wordpress.com/

Immortality Institute (which represents advocacy and research for unlimited lifespan)

http://www.imminst.org/

LINKS TO VIDEOS. Please Watch.

1. ZOMBIE WALK October 22, 2011

zombie walk

2. VETERANS DAY NJ VIETNAM MEMORIAL

Nov 11, 2011

Veterans Day at NJ Vietnam War Memorial

3. RANDALL HAYWOOD & VICTOR JONES JAZZ CONCERT

Nov 19, 2011

Randall Haywood and Victor Jones Interview from Chico’s House of Jazz Asbury Park

Linda Chorney’s Album

Comments (2)

January 20, 2012

ER (a real one). I Still Hate the NCAA (Rutgers vs. St John’s Revisited) How to Fix the Economy by December. No Wire Hangers and No More Winter (Snow Fooling?) Linda Chorney Out West. January 20, 2011

Filed under: November 2009 — Tags: brunswick, by, east, nj, tennis — earthood @ 12:25 pm

With Linda Chorney during a NJ Discover TV shoot.

Before we talk about the paucity of Jersey winter snow, here are a few words about Linda. Life is a bowl of cherries as my friend, Linda Chorney sings on her Grammy nominated album “Emotional Jukebox.” I said goodbye to her the other day as she headed west to warmer climate and proximity to Los Angeles for the February 12^th Grammy show. Being a tease sometimes, I did mention that the temperature in New Jersey from the day she left hit 85 degrees. I tongue and cheek the institution of global warming, which is real and might make me a millionaire one day. The millionaire deal; if I live well inland, and the waters of the Atlantic Ocean rise because of melting glaciers and ice formations, then one day, but only for a short period of time, according to the Army Corp of Engineers, whom I play scrabble with on line, I’ll have beach front property. One of the corpsmen told me the beach front property deal might only last one season and to sell quickly then run to Western Pennsylvania.

from the movie 'Mommie Dearest' Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford is yelling "no more wire hangers"

speaking of wire hangers. i took this pix 2 weeks ago in downtown Brooklyn USA

Because a few Facebook groups are concerned with meteorology (many of the groupies are known in some parlances as snow weenies; those folks who live for blizzards and paralyzing snows and read a plethora of futuristic computer reports and charts like North Atlantic oscillation) I’ve decided that New Jersey will not have any snow this winter so I don’t have to buy a snow blower (my source of snow removal moved into his own NYC apartment last June). Passing mid-January the other day, and no sign of significant snow well into February (the weenies are depressed and are already looking at long range forecasts for next December. Well some of them. Others have just given up and are hanging out in Reddit) I’ve been gloating on my decision not to buy a snow blower. My next door neighbor, Charlie Brown, agrees with my wisdom.

Joan Crawford. She doesn't look like she hated wire hangers. Go figure.

Yesterday, ceremoniously I ran around the house in shorts and a red Rutgers tee-shirt yelling, “No wire hangers and no more winter snow.” My tolerant wife of many moons thought I was crazy after all these years. I call it unbridled enthusiasm. Oh the ‘no wire hangers;’ it comes from the movie ‘Mommie Dearest’ when actress and Pepsi stockholder Joan Crawford, a very bad lady, yells those words constantly to her abused little daughter, Christina, who later wrote the mother of all tell-all books about her mother.

So I never watched ER the TV show. Actually I never really watch much television; a lot of underlying reasons for such behavior. Give me liberty, some news, biography, discovery, college sports, history and old movies and I’m OK you’re OK.

J. R. Ewing. Can you believe I bought a hat like that in suburban Jersey

Years ago CBS TV produced ‘Dallas’ starring Larry Hagman, glamourizing oil rich Texans. One season the story line went off a tangent and CBS resolved that by coming back and scripting the whole year as a dream; an easy way to get out of a bad original script, except viewers like me, who actually wore a J. R. Ewing cowboy hat around the streets of suburban Jersey, wasted a viewing year. No wire hangers and no more insipid television. My wife watched ER.

a generic ER pix

they say hospital food is a turn off.

So this wife comes home from work last week with a sore throat and high fever. A higher fever the following morning means emergency room. I love the word triage; makes me think of ménage. I’ve got 6 years of pharmacy studies under my skin so I know things. We’ve got vitals and a pulse off the chart and with an abnormally high fever and sore throat, probably a strep throat; an untoward bug for a lady adult to have. I would’ve rushed blood tests to make sure it was strep and get her on IV antibiotics, start cardiac drugs to slow the heart (pulse), throw in a blood thinner(anti-pyretic for the fever) because atrial fibrillation. But hours go by, nothing happens and ineptitude is in the air ducts and heating system. And that poor downtrodden weary patient rep in a suit too short, exposing faded argyle socks; he avoided additional contact with this husband who had all kinds of acquaintances and threats to run to yet another suburban hospital for appropriate care.

On the other side of midnight and a curtain separating ER beds is an aged European lady, barely able to speak English. She’s alone and rang for the nurse for an hour, calling out for help in broken guttural sounds but no help comes because life is for the living and she has no one to be an advocate; there’s neglect, uncaring and microbes all over this sad excuse for an ER. The old woman even called in desperation to a custodian with mop. Then it hit me. She was Father Damien Karras’s mother from the movie ‘The Exorcist.’ A cold wind blew on my face; chills ran up and down my extremities. I could hear her calling for ‘Dimmy,’ a term of endearment for her son. Out of gripping fear of Mrs. Karras, and being possessed, I started walking to the nurse station to help her when finally a nurse approached with an extra blanket; the poor woman was cold; it’s the winter of my discontent with Emergency Room care in suburban New Jersey. One of my favorite movies was ‘The Hospital’ starring George C. Scott. Had I slipped through that wormhole, time stuck in celluloid? For three days I drifted into medieval times of plagues and famine. They sucked her blood three times a day for every kind of test; I later learned some of those tests were wasted days and nights; just good for the paper chase of reporting to the insurance company to pump a bill up and secure profits for the hospital. I know that. What a business for someone to check and cross check hospital tests with what’s billed and what’s actually done or the best yet, needed. I surmise major crimes of deceit. It’s all in the game as Tommy Edwards sang. Get thee to a nunnery but stay the hell away from suburban Jersey ER rooms.

You Tube Tommy Edwards “It’s All in the Game”

the joy of honest college sports as Rutgers fans rush court after upsetting #10 Florida. No cheating refs)

(the sports cover of the NY Post the day after refs fixed the St John’s game)

If you are so moved or curious, you can go back and look at my blogs from March 11^th 2011 and April 23^rd 2011 when I began hating the NCAA (watchdog of college sports). It all began last March when Rutgers Men’s basketball team played St. John’s in Madison Square Garden’s Big East Tournament. All the big money wanted St. John’s to win and play Syracuse the next day. Near the end of the game, Rutgers (a huge underdog) was about to upset St. John’s and cause a lot of bettors to lose ( I wouldn’t be surprised if one of those losers was the head of the Big East Conference.) So the three referees (under the eyes of the NCAA) did everything they could to help St. John’s by not calling five egregious fouls on them which would’ve put Rutgers on the foul line and then in front of the world and the announcers (and me) walked off the court with nearly two seconds left which was enough time for Rutgers to make a three point shot and win.

(more college sports joy; with the Pinstripe Bowl trophy before Rutgers wins it the next day)

Unheard of in college sports but imagine the pay day these referees got for fixing the game and all the money gamblers made. The NCAA loosely comments on the game and moves the three crooked referees out of Madison Square Garden for the remainder of the tournament. Personally, I hate the NCAA because no one oversees them; a neat monopoly. Some of NCAA executives make $300,000 a year plus for more than 30 years. They spit in the eye and there’s still silence across the land. I bring this up because one of the referees from the St. John’s game (Jim Burr) officiated at Rutgers versus West Virginia last week. Rutgers somehow got seven fouls called against them early in the game and West Virginia had none against them. I listened to the announcers when a West Virginia player threw a vicious elbow at a Rutgers player, enough for a flagrant foul, but nothing was called against West Virginia and Jim Burr was there and the NCAA is a vile crooked organization. Now I need a bowl of oatmeal sprinkled with raisins from sunny California.

I champion the absurdities of life. The American Red Cross President and CEO Marsha J. Evans salary for the year was $651,957 plus expenses and we all donate to them. I’m also a bit of cynic. The hype is beginning for the end of the world next December. I expect the hype to pick up and become intense by summer, somehow coordinated with the political landscape. Enough people start to buy into the hype, become fatalists and start living for each day by spending large amounts of money on seven-layer cakes, new zoot suits, a weekend in Dubai, a new car, a few packs of cigarettes and six month subscriptions to periodicals.

(the 3 complicit refs and head of big east who obviously ‘adjusted game outcome’ and NCAA looks the other way)

The effect becomes measurable across the land. Consumer spending increases and factory orders are up and unemployment drops. Economy is booming by the time kids knock on your door and ask for ‘Trick or Treat.” A lady on the street where I grew up in Newark preferred to give us a trick with a deck of cards. She had a heavy Fidel Castro accent and disappeared one day and not until now, being a fully matured cynic, do I wonder what happened to her. And I’m suddenly inspired to close off this blog by saying what Walter Cronkite used to say and he was the most trusted man in America, “And that’s the way it is” How’s that for a blog ending?

Walter Cronkite

(Seven layer cake sales to soar staring in summer?)

Two friends get published and go to basketball games.