Lox vs. Locks and Tuesday Movies Go Dark

Your faithful correspondent and his wife returned home shortly after 3 am today from a week-long trip to California, first to visit my sister Lee and her husband David in Los Angeles and then to attend a wedding in Laguna Beach where the weather couldn’t have been better—the whole weekend a balmy 71 degrees with a slight ocean breeze. That compares quite favorably to the mid 80s and high humidity in White Plains today.

My only complaint about the trip was I never got an opportunity to watch any episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report. Here’s an example of why I miss those two shows:

When you’re a Jewish comedian as Stewart is, you run the risk of telling an “inside” joke your gentile guest has no idea you’re making. During his interview with actress Ellen Page Monday night, Stewart couldn’t contain his positive feelings about Canada, especially Halifax, Nova Scotia, Page’s home town. He concluded his gushing by saying, “and by the way, the lox that they make ...” To which Page immediately responded, “I know, you can’t break the locks.”

I laughed at Stewart’s ethnic culinary joke and even harder at Page’s non sequitur response. To his credit, Stewart didn’t flinch. Though he tried to salvage the joke, the conversation quickly moved to another topic. No doubt, when he reviewed the tape of the show he mused and was bemused by the shmeared exchange.

It’s Tuesday Free Movie Day: Only until the end of May. My fellow senior citizens and I have been dealt a cruel blow. In the same week The NY Times came out with its summer movies preview section, we received notice that free Tuesdays and discounted-films-all-other-times at Clearview Cinemas we qualify for as part of our Cablevision Optimum Triple Play package will terminate by the end of the month. 

Cablevision has sold Clearview Cinemas. Until the company follows through on a promise of new movie deals, this will be a looong summer. Not just for me but for many seniors who took advantage of the free movies on Tuesdays. The promotion was not restricted to those in the sunset years, but we have been the major beneficiaries of the benefit. With everyone trying to stretch their bucks as far as they can, the free movie deal was a real bonanza. Consider this: Seniors normally pay $8 per ticket. You were entitled to two free tickets per week. If you went to the movies at Cleaview just one Tuesday a month, by yourself, you’d save $96. Go more often, or with a spouse, partner or friend, and the savings really added up. 

During the winter, the first screening started around 4 pm. But during the summer it was pushed up to around noon. Over the last few years I thought I’d take more advantage of the deal but something more important always came up. Now I’m feeling kinda disappointed I didn’t see more free films. 

News Updates: Gilda’s averaging a little more than 45 miles per gallon in her Ford C-Max. She’s even logged in a 50-plus mpg drive to work (the car informs you what your mpg was each time you turn off the motor). ... A quarter of the baseball season has passed and the NY Yankees are in first place. I readily admit it, I never expected this. Nor did I expect the Yanks to be among the American League team leaders in home runs, have the best earned run average and be ranked third in team defense. All this without a laundry list of high-priced veteran stars on the disabled list. Which should make Yankee fans wonder if our pursuit of top-dollar free agents might be a mistake going forward. Perhaps all we need are hungry-to-succeed players bolstered by a Robinson Cano who is having a monster of a year. ... Did you notice that American retailers did not join in the global effort to monitor and fund work and building conditions in Bangladesh. The plan was good enough for foreign-based retailers such as H&M, Inditex (Zara) and C&A to sign on, but U.S. companies like Wal-Mart and Gap resisted, believing their individual efforts would be better. Perhaps, as well, they feared being told what to do. It’s the same mentality that scuttled U.S. approval of a proposed United Nations treaty that would regulate international weapon sales despite the treaty’s specific language guaranteeing each country the right to maintain its own internal regulations, in our case the Second Amendment right to bear arms. ... JC Penney’s new/old boss Myron “Mike” Ullman has reinstated sales and pushed an aggressive advertising campaign acknowledging mistakes and asking disillusioned customers to come back. The ads have good production quality but the problem is they don’t reflect what’s going on inside the stores. Until Penney shifts its merchandise to match its customer profile, no amount of advertising will turn the battleship around. ... Here’s another example of Target getting a pass on a practice Wal-Mart would be crucified for: A new union election has been ordered for a Long Island store after it was ruled Target  acted improperly to stifle the vote, including threats to close the store if the union won certification. Wal-Mart’s constantly being harangued for its anti-union attitude. But few if any of the “sophisticates” who prefer “Tar-zhay” to Wal-Mart reconsider their patronage of the Minneapolis-based discounter.  

Shaken, Not Stirred

I didn’t feel a thing.

Just minutes after I entered the theater in Greenburgh at 1:49 pm for the free Tuesday movie, an earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale made its way up the Eastern Seaboard from Virginia passed Westchester on its way to Boston and beyond. No one in the theater twitched a muscle.

I didn’t know what hit me, or rather what I missed, until Ellie called a few minutes later. Then my sister-in-law Annette chimed in from Maryland to say they were all right. Then Dan called from Boston. Good thing I keep my phone on vibrate or I would have annoyed my fellow viewers, one of whom fell asleep and was snoring next to me (that’s what happens when the audience is mostly senior citizens and the movie, The Guard, has lots of heavy Irish accents).

I asked Ellie if the quake had damaged any of the exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. To her knowledge it hadn’t.

Amid first reports that some thought the earthquake was another terrorist attack, I couldn’t help but wonder if people thought back to another pristine day 10 years ago...


Service With a Smile: Southwest Airlines has a reputation for cheeky, funny customer service. Among its hall of fame pranks is hiding a flight steward in an overhead luggage bin for an unsuspecting passenger to discover.

Clearview Cinemas is on a customer service campaign. Before every feature, one of the staff greets seated patrons, advising if any assistance is required one merely has to seek out an associate.

Today’s staffer clearly has a future in true customer service. With refreshing honesty he admonished all, tongue firmly stuck in his cheek, not to bring any problems to his attention because he just doesn’t care.


I’m walking around naked. Now, before you get disgusted, or excited, let me assure you I’m not ambulating sans clothing. My nakedness is restricted to my ring fingers which are sadly unadorned for the first time in more than 28 years as I had to take off my wedding bands (that’s plural) because of a skin affliction.

For the first 10 years of our marriage I didn’t wear a wedding ring as the one Gilda and I picked out from my aunt and uncle’s jewelry store was too tight. Since it has a gold braid around it, my Aunt Vicki cautioned trying to stretch it might snap the braid. During one of my trips to Los Angeles 10 years into our marriage, I decided it was worth the gamble. I handed the ring over to Uncle Harry and told him of Aunt Vicki’s fears. He scoffed at the suggestion, stepped away for a few minutes and returned with the ring I have worn continuously day and night, in the shower, in the pool, while asleep or playing sports, for the last 28 years. Thirteen years ago, to commemorate our 25th anniversary, I bought a silver ring at the Camden Town open air market in London.

My hands feels naked. They look naked. I sure hope this skin condition clears up soon.


Follow the Link: The other day I wrote how difficult it is to edit your own copy. It’s unsettling when a computer does it for you, and I’m not talking about spellcheck.

Sunday night a one line note I was sending to a friend included the following: “see the attached file.” Only thing is, I had inserted a link to a Web site instead of attaching a file, a matter of no import to me, but to my computer it was a major transgression. As soon as I hit the Send button, up popped a window admonishing me I had not included an attachment! Did I want to send the email anyway?

Zounds! We live in a truly extraordinary, scary and infuriating age when machines have the capacity to challenge your every move.

I sent the note as written. Another victory for man vs. machine.


Speaking of attachments, I call again on the NY Yankees to sever their link to A.J. Burnett. This past weekend displayed in microcosm the reality facing the boys from the Bronx. Against the Minnesota Twins, a struggling ball club this year, Phil Hughes pitched a two-hitter, Ivan Nova pitched seven shutout innings and Burnett imploded after less than two innings, being debited for giving up seven earned runs! What’s he going to do against a team that hits well?

Don’t read anything into manager Joe Girardi’s strong defense of Burnett’s inept pitching and rude behavior when taken out of the game Saturday. Girardi did what any good executive is supposed to do. Publicly he stood by his man. Privately he must be seething.

Once Freddy Garcia returns from the disabled list and the Yankees no longer need a sixth starter, the only common sense solution is to remove Burnett from the pitching rotation and even give him his walking papers. Yes, it will cost them money, but keeping Burnett could jeopardize their chances of making the post-season. Burnett is a cancer on the team, depleting the relief corps in games he pitches and subsequent contests, plus he puts more pressure on everyone in the field and at bat to be perfect to make up for his imperfections.


Zipping Along: If it happens once it happens several times each day, almost every time I proffer a credit card. The clerk or the machine asks for my ZIP code. It’s a low-tech security control, as if someone who stole my card wouldn’t be able to discover my ZIP code. Some might tell you it’s a marketing tool for the retailer, but the truth is once your card is swiped your address and a whole lot more become bytes in the merchant’s data base.

In California, the Supreme Court earlier this year ruled asking for a Zip code is a violation of state consumer privacy statutes. Retailers who persist in asking for Zip codes could face civil penalties of up to $1,000 per request.

The restriction, for now, applies only in California, but the Golden State often is a bellwether for the rest of the nation.