Deal or no deal

This entry later ran as an Op-Ed piece in The Advocate (Stamford, Conn.) newspaper on March 27, 2008, under the headline "City budgeting not a game ... or is it?"

* * * * *

Gooooood day! And, welcome to this year's edition of "Stamford Budget Crisis"!

We have an exciting show for you today as we try to find ways to pay for all the things you – that's right, you! – need, want or couldn't-care-less-about-but-are-dear-to-certain-political-interests!

So, let's give the Wheel O' Gristle a spin to see what we will be trimming today to fund the "essentials" of tomorrow …

Oh, oh, oh … it lands on slashing public library funding for $750,000! Excellent! You get to shorten the operating hours and stop buying new books!

Wait, there's more!

Our exclusive, two-faced pointer thingy on the wheel has also landed on closing your most academically successful elementary school for a savings of $5.4 million! Fantastic!

What's that, Johnny?

Our announcer informs me that as an added bonus, we'll eliminate several crossing guards at the remaining schools because those near-minimum wage jobs for fixed income seniors really add up!

Such is life in my hometown. We may be on the alleged Gold Coast but every year the headlines read like we are in the poor house. This is because Stamford, unlike most of our neighboring towns, is really more of a rebounding, old industry city than a wine-and-brie bedroom community. Compared with most of Fairfield County, we have a wider diversity of ethnicity, socioeconomic standing and hamburger joints.

But that builds character … or does it create characters? Either way, it beats white bread.

Because of my city's location amid the home bases of celebrities, hedge fund kings and the plain ol' stinking rich, we tend to get the short end when it comes to state and federal funding for essentials like education and infrastructure repair, even though we have lots of the same issues as our poorer, more urban cousins. Stamford is a city, the Hartford and D.C. types forget, not a hamlet, and something is rotten in the state of the city.

Solution: corporate sponsorship.

Look, I abhor teams and municipalities selling the naming rights to ball parks. I also can't understand why corporations want their name on them because it tends to be a good predictor of whether the buyer is going kaput in the near future. Witness Enron Field in Houston, AmeriQuest Field at The Ballpark in Arlington, and PSINet Stadium in Baltimore. Mark my words, the Mets' new home being called Citi Field isn't good news for the financial giant's employees and stockholders.

But there is a market for it, so why not cash in? Capitalism, like freedom and democracy, separates us from the evil-doers and terrorists, I hear. Also, this is selling out for the sake of community enrichment, not personal riches.

Here are just a few suggestions that involve area corporations:

World Wresting Entertainment can make a nice donation to help keep the local libraries open at normal hours. In return, the city hangs banners at all branch entryways for the year, announcing: "We didn't close down on Mondays thanks to WWE SmackDown on Fridays (8 p.m. on The CW)!"

Priceline could give some financial help to the school system in exchange for high school stadium and sports team advertising. Here's your slogan: "Priceline.com: Where you 'Name Your Own Price' -- but not at the cost of educating Stamford's kids!"

We could spiff up the concession and restrooms areas at our beaches if we get one of the many major beverage distributors headquartered in and around town to pay for their names on these facilities. Welcome to the Pepsi Picnic Pavilion at Cove Island! If Rover does his business in the park, no worries – use one of the complimentary Doritos' Do-Not-Doo-Doo bags to pick it up. Then toss it into one of our many Quaker Oatmeal trash canisters because, while any oatmeal can help lower your cholesterol, only Quaker helps reduce pollution in Long Island Sound!

Disclosure: Those last examples are also shameless plugs and hints for my wife's employer. Hey, corporations have paid bigger bucks for dumber ways to advertise that didn't benefit anyone other than the C-level suits in the long run.

Now, let's take a commercial break.

When we come back, we'll play a round of that annual favorite, "Too Poor to Pay for the Fourth of July Fireworks Show," OK?!

When Irish pants are fallin'

St. Patrick's Day was never a big event in my family while growing up.

Mom would boil a slab of corned beef beyond recognition. My sister and I would find different ways to conceal the cabbage under mashed potatoes, used napkins or assorted condiments. Dad would put some green food coloring in his Carling Black Label. But that's about it.

It probably has something to do with that, despite our family name, we've never been real sure whether we had any Irish in our heritage. My mother's parents came over from Italy. My dad's family has lots of German and Polish in them. I remember having one Polish grand-uncle named Yosh and my dad always said his mother made great strudel. Not material that's going to get me into the Ancient Order of Hibernians any time soon.

Nonetheless, Ireland tops my list of places to one day visit if only to be able to pay respects to the brewers at Guinness for all the joy they've brought me over the years.

I took my first stab at a homemade St. Pat's feast this year. Cooked up my own batch of corned beef in the Crock-Pot this weekend … simmered in Guinness, naturally. Skipped the cabbage, but did the red potatoes, carrots and onions and bought a surprisingly tasty loaf of soda bread at the corner A&P.

I sipped down my annual shot of Jameson, a tradition I picked up from a real Irish TV cameraman I worked with during a college internship, and dug in. Shockingly, it was really good. The wife claimed it was the best corned beef she ever had.

Of course, My Love also believes it was the first corned beef she'd ever had in her life. Remember, my wife is a Midwest farm girl of an undetermined European stock that has most likely never even tried Lucky Charms. But I still accept the compliment.

True to form, my kids hated it. Thing 2 pronounced it "horrible" but he says that about everything that is neither a hot dog nor a McNugget. Thing 1, at least, liked the soda bread. It's a start.

But, this morning, I was greeted by a surprise.

Thing 2, who is that rare type of morning person who could make Attila the Hun soil himself, came downstairs all dressed for school for a change. But not in the clothes I laid out for him. Instead, he had put on a pair of green corduroy pants, a green school sweatshirt and the oversized, foam leprechaun hat his Mom brought home for him from a business trip to Dublin last year.

"And look!" he yelled.

With glee, he undid the button to his pants and let them fall to the floor. He revealed a pair of shiny, emerald green soccer shorts underneath.

Erin go brea, little buddy.

Sign o' the times

Shortly after we moved in to our home, I made two alterations. I added a massage head extension and a radio to the shower.

This caused My Love some concern. She feared next would be a mini-fridge. Still not a bad idea.

I like to get a dose of news radio with my Irish Spring (sorry for the images now dancing in your head) so I can make pithy comments to my wife, the corporate executive, about how horrible the morning commute is shaping up. Then I put on my fuzzy slippers and Brew Thru T-shirt and lumber downstairs to my desk.

Also, like this morning, I get lathered up just hearing that New York State Department of Transportation workers are rushing around to remove hooker-happy, ex-Gov. Spitzer's name from several hundred "Welcome to New York" signs.

Never understood the need to put anyone's name on these signs. There are too many places a politically savvy person shouldn't want to assume credit for.

And, what a waste of time and tax money when they need changing as often as they do here in the tri-state area. Yes, it took us less than four years to hit the gubernatorial pond-scum trifecta with Spitzer, New Jersey's James McGreevey (it's OK to be gay, but not to put your unqualified boyfriend in charge of homeland security without your wife's explicit written permission) and Connecticut's John Rowland, who still doesn't get it -- not that that stopped the Waterbury mayor who hired the convicted felon as an economic adviser.

It's not just governors. In my hometown, the mayor has his name on the signs welcoming you to town. He also has his moniker on the entrance signs of various city-owned venues. This includes the landfill-turned-recycling-center he tried to essentially close down earlier this year to save money. Hmm, I forget … was that before or after he announced his plan to make our city a model of energy efficiency, green technology and environmental goodness for generations to come? Well, rave on, Mr. "Cool and Green in 2020."

The only exception to my rant – the signs in and out of the borough of Brooklyn. My knowledge of them began when the shower radio let me down before taking a trip with the kids to the New York Aquarium a few weeks ago. But, my many detours led me to enjoy such bon mots as "Welcome to Brooklyn: Believe the Hype," "Welcome to Brooklyn: How Sweet it is" and "Leaving Brooklyn: Fugheddaboudit."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Borough President Marty Markowitz - stand and take a bow, gentlemen. I can't wait to go back to find "Leaving Brooklyn: Oy Vey!"

Put him in, coach

After 3-plus years of at-home work, I've learned that unless you are needed to sign, delivery people rarely let you know they are at your front door. They drop and run.

No knock, no doorbell, not even a "Yo! Got a package here!"

The one exception is my postman, Joe. When a delivery won't fit in the mailbox, he comes to the door and always rings. But only once, James M. Cain. Only once.

Luckily, I have a four-legged, one-acre Sonitrol with bullystick breath.

If it wasn't for Murphy, I'd regularly miss the hordes of deer zipping past the fringes of our property because I'm too focused on making sure my fingers are hitting the right keys. Packages and overnight letters would pile up for days on my porch because, like most suburb dwellers, we only go in and out of our house through the garage.

And think of all the Girl Scout cookies, magazine subscriptions and testimonies from Jehovah Witnesses I'd have been subjected to by now.

This morning, Murph barked to say a letter was being tucked between the front and storm doors. Its contents -- probably, the most important purchase I'll make all year.

Tickets to Opening Day.

This will mark my 14th Major League Baseball home opener. It will be my daughter's ninth, having gone to her first at age 7 weeks and not missing a year since. Most importantly, it will be my son's first.

Thing 2, named after Cal Ripken Jr. mind you, has been held out of the starting lineup for his first five seasons for a simple reason. The boy wouldn't sit still. His first night home, the Mrs. and I were up all night walking him around trying to get him to settle and sleep. It left my knees sore for a week.

Thing 1, meanwhile, was always an enthusiastic, but well-mannered fan. She now seems mostly interested in going for the overpriced concession food. And not the good stuff, mind you. Once you see them open up the king-size pillow bag of "cheese" sauce and gulb-gulb-gulb it into a warming tray, you'll opt for the bag of peanuts from that day on.

But the boy has come around. The turning point came in early September when the two of us took in a Saturday afternoon game at Shea.

He listened while I tried to explain things to him. He asked questions. When the digitally recorded bugle finished blowing out the PA system, he yelled "Charge!" He understood the need to turn his cap inside out and put it on upside down when the Mets needed some runs late in the game. He didn't whine about wanting to go home until about the 7th inning, and stopped when I asked him to.

He emptied my wallet within reason, too.

I remember calling home on the drive back. The words swelled with a father's pride when I said, "Honey, he's ready."

Of dice and men

Had a flashback to middle-school awkwardness this morning reading Joel Stein's syndicated column about the passing of Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons & Dragons.

My D&D days were relatively short, but vivid. My friend, Seth, started me on the game in 7th grade. He set up my first character (an elf that Seth - son of a graphic artist - penciled on my profile sheet with a crooked smile, craggy face, flat-top comb over and a pointy set of ears only Spock could love) and took me through my first campaign. With his artistic genes and anarchist pre-teen spirit leading me through the foggy moors and dank underground passages of strange medieval worlds, I was hooked.

The ever-present smoke and stray CO2 fumes from the wood-burning stove his family used to heat his house may have also enhanced the experience.

I geeked it out with my friends throughout middle school. I spent months creating my own elaborate campaign, based on the Moody Blues "Knights in White Satin" for wussiness' sake. Two of my friends even typed/programmed an adventure they created into a "state of the art" Commodore 64 gaming console computers with the cassette recorder hard drive.

OK, we had a lot of time on our hands in those days, but not enough to wait for the frickin' thing to reboot so they could scroll through endless lines of text and code on a tiny monochrome screen, trying to find if a +2 mace of confusion could be skillfully wielded by an uncharismatic half-human thief against an ogre huffing acidic stink breath while encumbered by 34 gold coins, a flagon of rancid mead and pouch full of -2 everlasting Gobstopper grenades.

My D&D days ended when I graduated into the local Catholic high school and my friends stayed in public education. I occasionally find stray sheets of the reams and reams of graph paper we used for mapping tucked into old books and files.

But I wonder whatever became of my tan suede pouch of 20-sided dice?

Opening theme

Here's the story
of a blogger-wouldbe,
who was trying to think of something good to write ...