Summer is here. You can feel the excitement. Kids are daydreaming. Soon school will be done and they’ll be able to ride bikes to the pool and help out on the family farm’just go with me. Hot dogs, crab cakes and corn on the cob. Summer is fun for everybody. The gals get to wear the little minky tops that show off all the January evenings schvitzing like a hazir on the yoga mat. The guys get to prove that we’ve lost none of the ballsy American pioneering spirit by expertly lighting pre-treated charcoal made by the ton somewhere else. Even the oil companies have fun. They get to manipulate the price of gas; coincidentally at the same time we all need extra gas, to get to all this fun and family this summer.
I blame the Arab countries for a lot, but on this one, I’ve got to give them a pass. It’s the oil companies. It doesn’t cost any more, this time of year, to get the oil out of the ground into the refinery and to my local gas station/Dunkin Donuts then it did three months ago. Maybe it’s just the greed filter they fit to the output pipe at all the oil refineries on Memorial Day every year. With Dunkin Donuts at every gas station I stop at now, I have to admit, I’m amazed I even notice the price of gas through my daily ice coffee and glazed donut fog. That glaze is something else.
I’m going to be the only guy who misses winter. I’ve figured it out. I am way better looking in the dreary dead of winter than I am on a steamy July day. I need to get in summer shape. Winter is perfect for me. As all my friends know, layering for fall and winter is what I do best. I add an extra layer and my gut looks like a muscle. I look like an explorer. I dress all winter like I’m ready to go skiing at a moment’s notice. I’ve figured out that I’m better looking in different parts of America too. I’ve worked in south Florida and, let’s put it this way, I am not attractive at all in Miami. I live by New York City and even here it’s iffy. Now Wisconsin. In Wisconsin I’m on a calendar. Mr. February in a camouflaged thong holding a chain saw in the woods. I’ve demanded the photographer shoot me from behind next time because that’s my good side.
My dad and I took the Yankee Clipper ferry from my neighborhood to the new and very subtle Yankee Stadium recently. That’s how you celebrate summer. A ballgame and a ferry ride. I guess it’s been said before, but you really do get a lot for 1.4 billion dollars. My dad’s a country boy who doesn’t come up too often, and I finally figured out that the way to get him to visit me in New York City is to stay on a boat floating around New York City.
I’ve already begun my summer manscaping. It’s beach season and it’s a constant fight to hold back the jungle. Olga my back waxer is already warming up and tearing linen sheets into little strips for a big summer of keeping me shiny and hairless. I’m doing shows at the Outer Banks in North Carolina this month’one of my favorite places in the world—and I’m shorn, plucked, and ready. The Outer Banks is the only place I’ve ever seen a guy fish from his truck. No, literally from his truck. The guy put a huge net out in the morning and then came by in the evening, tied the net to his trailer hitch, hit the gas and pulled in his catch. Maybe we’ve been doing it wrong in Pennsylvania all these years. One trout at a time.
Part of my summer problem is my lack of pigment. I guess I used to be a little sensitive about it. A young boy can only be told he looks like Strawberry Shortcake so many times before it starts to unleash madness deep within him. Damn you swarthy Mediterranean types! Let’s put it this way. My flesh color isn’t exactly flesh color. There is no crayon for me. When you’re as fair-skinned as I am, you need to be careful in the summer too. I look for SPF infinity when I’m buying sun block. If they market liquid shirt someday, I’ll be an early adopter.
I saw my chiropractor today at the Jersey shore and after he knocked my back into shape, damn my sacroiliac joint; we sat on the boardwalk in Asbury Park and had lunch. 45 minutes in the sun and my expanding forehead was fried like a pork rind. Or like a mock-pork turkey rind. You can’t use Yiddish and pork rind in the same blog’it’s some rule the Hasidim keep somewhere in Brooklyn. Maybe I’m too hard on this season. I’m not sure whether it’s his masterful manipulative technique in the office or the summer sun, beer, and lobster enchiladas (don’t tell the aforementioned Hassids) on the boardwalk, but I feel great.