timeless

For the past week, I’ve been utterly and completely overwhelmed by life. Between Bobby’s wedding, a cousin’s bat mitzvah, my parents and brother being in town for both events, and the extended process of wrangling tax returns for all of Paradigm Blue’s sub-companies, I’ve simply had no time to do the many, many other things I had hoped to fit into the week. I’ve been dropping balls left and right, constantly trying to clean the mess of those balls dropped, and overall nearing the point of admitting defeat and curling in corner in the fetal position, rocking quietly.

Now, however, having given up sleeping and going to the bathroom to free up time, I’ve finally begun to catch back up rather than fall continually farther and farther behind. The insanity, it seems, has peaked, and I’m finally gaining momentum on the long downhill slope back to the merely painful (as opposed to the current, suicidal) level of overcommitment that defines my life.

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alive

Yes, I survived what was, without a doubt, the longest weekend of my life. More details forthcoming once I’ve regained enough energy to compose coherent sentences.

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cue the music

As a prelude to the general troublemaking planned for this evening, friend and colleauge Yoav Fisher (with a bit of assistance from me) crafted this delightful and thoroughly offensive little ditty to perform for Bobby’s bachelor benefit:

The Ballad of Bobby Den

At his bris, his mother said
“marry a Jew or I’ll chop off your head.

Be a doctor or a lawya,
but make sure she’s Jewish and not a goya.

You can play or dance or laugh or read,
just don’t waste any of your Jewish seed.”

[Chorus:]

Oy what a mensch that boy became,
and all the ladies knew his name.

But mainly he learned, the one real fact is,
shiksa girls are just for practice.

[Verse 2:]

At his bar mitva the Rabbi said,
“puberty is just ahead.

You can talk to girlies, but please be wary
of those with names like Christina or Mary.

And this one thing you can’t ignore:
blond hair girls are all just whores”

[Chorus]

[Verse 3:]

At the college, his friends were stating,
“we think it’s time you started dating.”

He met a girl, her name was Tova
She ate some ham and it was ova.

He kept on trying with other girls,
But none appreciated his pais curls.

[Chorus]

[Verse 4:]

Then one day, he met a lady,
and he knew at once that he was ready.

She was the best looking girl on the Upper West Side,
and he asked her to be his Kosher bride.

Soon he’s a doctor, oy grandma’s proud,
and in just three days he’s wedding vowed.

[Chorus x2]

So long as we can get everyone singing along with choruses, it should kick things off nicely.

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bachelor debauchery

In the countdown to my close friend Bobby’s Sunday wedding, we this evening head out for his one last hurrah before the leash tightens. I cannot disclose the details of the planned events, bound as I am by the Bachelor Party Oath:

I (state your name) do solemnly swear that as a gentleman of the world I will respect and honor my brothers. I will not reveal the secrets of the evening. In taking this oath I understand that violating it will result in punishment that could include castration by way of a dirty, dull, knife. If asked about the happenings of the evening I shall reply:

“We ate pizza and watched porno movies. The groom got really drunk. His grandfather was there”

Still, I can say that I’m preemptively steeling my liver and throwing decency to the wind. Should be an interesting night.

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musique terrible

Direct off the train back from Boston last night, I headed to the single worst rehearsal of my entire life. I had been hired into a small jazz combo (trumpet, two saxes, singer and rhythm section), meant to play for several local ballroom dance schools’ upcoming dances and competitions. The group was led by a ballroom dancer-turned-guitarist, and by the end of the first tune, I was mainly thinking, “this guy should have just stuck to dancing.”

Beyond starting the song several times in completely wrong keys, the guitarist continued to misplay chords, fall out of time, and lose his place in the simple twelve-bar form. As he was the only instrument laying down the chord changes, his poor playing dragged us all down, making playing the melody coherently (much less soloing in any approximation of jazz style) virtually impossible. Things went from bad to worse when, after butchering our way through a couple of standards copied out of a fake book, he whipped out a set of arrangements he wanted us to work on. Unfortunately, the arrangements weren’t for jazz combo, but for string quartet.

Still, the situation wasn’t completely unredeemable. At one point, the guitarist stepped out to find another power plug for his failing amplifier, giving the rest of us a chance to talk amongst ourselves.

“Look,” one of the saxes pointed out, “if we can convince him to bring in a piano player and a bassist, we can definitely make this work.”

“That might work,” responded the singer, “as long as we also turn the volume on his amp all the way down.”

So, when the guitarist returned, we all chimed in (as respectfully as possible), pointing out that perhaps a pianist and bass might help us achieve a more dance-appropriate traditional big-band sound, as well as free up the guitar to play soloistically rather than simply strum out chords for us to follow. Apparently, we were rather convincing, as we left at the end of the rehearsal deputized to call pianists and bass players we knew who might be able to help us redeem the situation.

Still, there was at least one upside to the evening (two, if you count that I got paid): as poor as our playing was as a group with the deadweight of the guitarist dragging behind, it was still remarkably clear that the rest of the players were really, really good. I got home and started woodshedding, practicing hard the jazz skills I’d let slack off slightly over a stretch of months predominated by orchestral and classical chamber playing. With a solution to the guitar problem in sight, I certainly didn’t want my bandmates leaving next week’s rehearsal thinking, “sure, that was better, but now how are we going to cover up that trumpet player as well?”

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boston bound

While the next part of the ‘shape up’ series will be shortly forthcoming, I’m a bit harried today, as I leave early tomorrow morning to Boston. One of my closest friends, Bobby Den, gets married a week from Sunday, and I’ll be serving as his best man (leaving him in the very dangerous position of handing me a microphone in front of his family and our mutual friends). Bobby has, over the past few years, become increasingly religious, and so this weekend I’m attending his aufruf, a Jewish tradition of having the groom come up to the Torah the Shabbat before his wedding.

The aufruf stems from a story about King Solomon, who supposedly had two special rooms added to the great Temple, one for mourners and the other for grooms, so the mourners could be consoled and the bridegrooms blessed. In the centuries since the Temple was destroyed, however, a custom evolved to instead have the groom come to synagogue before the wedding so people could bless him there. So I’m whipping out a yarmulke, dusting off my Hebrew, and heading up the coast to catch the action. A joyous occasion, an aufruf is celebrated with food and drink and more drink, so it could be a long night.

Further, as I’ll be staying the weekend, I’ll also likely be joining Bobby at synagogue to celebrate Purim, a Jewish holiday based on the book of Esther. The holiday lauds Esther, the queen of Persia, for owning up to her Judaism and standing up to her husband, King Ahashueras, to save her people from massacre at the hands of Haman, Ahashueras’ right-hand man. The celebration involves not only a reading of the book of Esther, but a Talmudic command to drink “ad d’lo yada”, or “until one can’t tell the difference” between the names of Haman and Esther’s uncle Mordechai. (Side note: Exactly how undercover could Esther’s Judaism have been considering she had an Uncle Mordechai?) In other words, the Talmud says I have to get blitzed. And who am I to forsake centuries of Jewish wisdom?

Steady, liver, this could be a long couple of days.

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shape up – part 2: eat like a caveman

In the last section, I explained why eating old-school, waaaay old-school makes sense: our bodies evolved for it, and function much better when we do. Paleothic eaters, like more modern hunter/gatherers, were lean, fit, and free of most of the chronic diseases that plague society. So what, exactly, did they eat?

Well, lots of different things. Obviously Paleolithic hunter/gatherers in the heart of Africa ate wildly differently from those living in the Swiss Alps or along the coast of Alaska. Fortunately for you, with the miracles of the modern food system, you likely have access to the vast majority of what any of them ate. Unfortunately for you, you also have access to all kinds of other items that almost certainly didn’t show up at Paleo dinnertime. What makes the cut? First, two rules of thumb:

  • If you were stuck out in nature with nothing but some sharp sticks and rocks, would the food still be available to you?
  • Could you eat it raw, unaltered and unprocessed, and still extract the nutrients from it without becoming sick?

If you can answer yes to both, the food fits. That doesn’t mean you have to actually procure the food yourself using rocks and sticks. Similarly, that doesn

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shape up – part 1: listen to darwin

Take a look at Fido: lying on your kitchen floor, fat and arthritic. Then take a look at dogs in the wild: lean, muscular, with healthy teeth, bones and joints. That, basically, is the problem.

Like your faithful companion’s, your body evolved to live, work and eat in the wild. For over 100,000 generations, your ancestors lived as hunters and gatherers. Then, only about 500 generations back, they domesticated themselves, completely changing the way they went about life. Problem is, in evolutionary time, 500 generations is chump change. Your genes are almost identical to your ancestors’ from tens of centuries back. Somewhere along the line, how you use and feed your body, and how your body evolved to be used and fed, got horribly out of whack.

“So what?” I hear you say. Well, for a moment, let’s take a look at the fossil record those way-back Paleolithic ancestors left behind. As Hobbes wrote, lives that were “poor, nasty, brutish and short,” right? Well, no. Certainly, the average life span was shorter. But almost entirely because, research shows, of infectious disease and other now easily curable problems, especially among infants and children. Those Paleo hunter/gatherers who did make it through the perils of childhood (and past the ever-present danger of ending up as a sabre-toothed tiger snack) were remarkably healthy. Many lived surprisingly long lives, and virtually all of them were free from heart disease, cancer and stroke, today’s three leading killers.

Medical records gathered at the turn of the century from the few remaining hunter/gatherer tribes show the same thing: lean, physically fit people almost entirely free from the chronic diseases that plague the civilized world. Interestingly, in every one of those tribes, as their people moved to a modern diet and lifestyle, the health advantages disappeared, the populations quickly rising to obesity, cancer, stroke and heart attack rates on par with any other group’s.

An increasing body of research bears out the obvious conclusion: eating and living the way our bodies were evolved to makes us leaner, fitter, and less susceptible to chronic disease. But what exactly were we evolved to eat and do? Check back for part two, “Eat Like a Caveman” for a look at the food end of the equation.

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shape up – introduction

With the recent spate of warm weather, it feels as though spring is already upon us. Which means one thing: less clothing. And, with bathing suit season just a few months further, the likelihood of much less clothing in the near future.

Which, so far as I can tell, is the main motivation behind getting in shape: the desire to look good naked, or in some scantily clad approximation thereof. Of course, there are plenty of other reasons as well; living longer and healthier certainly spring to mind. Still, whatever your motivation, I hope you enjoy and benefit from this short series of ‘shape up’ posts about fitness.

Am I qualified to dispense advice on the topic? Probably not. But as there’s nothing like the specter of getting beat up in front of large crowds (the joy of competing in full-contact combat sports) to keep you motivated, over the past five years, I’ve methodically examined the science behind all kinds of fitness ideas. Then I’ve practiced what I’m about to preach, and I’ve been impressed by the results. With fairly minimal time and effort, I’ve managed to push myself into the best shape of my life, keeping my body fat at 6-8% year round, and ending up faster, stronger, more flexible and generally better feeling than I’ve ever been in the process.

While I’m hoping to flesh out ideas on training for athletes interested in high-end competition elsewhere, this series is a bit more narrow in scope. In short, it looks at the question, “what’s the very least I can do to get into excellent shape?” I hope you not only enjoy it, but put some of the ideas to work in your own life. I think you’ll be impressed by the results.

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urinal etiquette

While I was at Yale, the neuroscience major was tied in to the psych department. Because of that, neuroscience majors were required to take a few ‘soft’ psych classes. Which is how, in my sophomore year, I ended up in Psych 150 – Social Psychology. Frankly, I hated the class. The research we studied was garbage, and the teaching was at a third grade level. When we were assigned a final project – executing a piece of original field research – I realized I had my chance to let the teacher know what I thought of the class. In an effort to mock the careful study of the inane that characterizes social psychology, I chose the topic of urinal etiquette. Ironically, I got an A.

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The “Number One” Social Norm

Very few social norms are completely rigid; most are violated, at least occasionally or under special circumstances. Riding in an elevator, for example, people will speak to each other instead of simply looking at the door if they already know their fellow riders. Occasionally, even strangers will strike up conversations during an elevator ride. Other norms, like eating with utensils or not sitting on the table, are sometimes ignored as well. Although the violators may be looked down upon, these violators do exist. However, up to the time of my experiment, I had neither seen nor heard of anyone breaking the strict laws of urinal etiquette. For the benefit of my female readers, I must first try to explain the tacit yet complex code that governs men

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