99 problems

Years ago, I used to design promotional posters for a local DJ who put on a monthly dance party. I did these posters for him for many years. There was another DJ who worked with him at these parties and one day, she decided to branch out on her own. Her solo effort was an amiable split with the main DJ. As a matter of fact, he recommended that she contact me to do the promo poster for her very first event. She did so and we agreed on a very very fair price. (This event was over fifteen years ago and the price we settled on was fifty dollars. That price was offered as a favor for a friend and far below what I would normally charge for such a project.) I sent the finished piece to her and sat back and awaited payment. Payment never arrived. The date of the event came and went and still no payment. I contacted her via email which was my only form of contact for her. I received no reply. I began to email her more frequently and still no replies. After months and months of no replies and no payments, I gave up. Almost a year after the event, I received a reply. A very short, indignant reply. She said that the event was not as successful as she had hoped and she had no money. I countered, expressing my sympathies about the poor reception of her event, but reminding her that we did have a business agreement. I did do the work and I did supply her with a product as promised. I received no further emails from her. A few months after this futile exchange, I saw her name pop up in an internet chat room of a local radio station. I identified myself to her and, once again, asked about payment for my work. She replied that she had no money after buying  Christmas gifts for her friends. Then she promptly left the chat room.

No money after buying Christmas gifts? What? What about priorities? What about obligations and responsibilities? 

Some time ago, I arrived home from work to find my wife in tears. She explained that she just came from the bank. She was discussing a situation with a bank officer with whom we had recently secured a line of credit. In the course of the conversation, it was revealed that he — the bank representative — had supplied us with incorrect information regarding some aspect of the agreement. Instead of admitting his error and apologizing, he berated my wife — insisting that she should have read the details more carefully. Then he lied — lied — saying that he told us the correct policy from the very beginning. I was furious. No one should ever leave a bank in tears — with the exception of being a victim in a robbery. Otherwise, "banking" and "crying" are mutually exclusive. I got back in my car and drove over to the bank. I asked for the bank officer and confronted him over his reasoning for making my wife cry. He hemmed and hawed and stammered and shuffled... until he finally spat out, "Well, my father just died!" I told him I was sorry to hear that, but perhaps he returned to work too soon and he still needed time to grieve without taking his "five steps" out on his customers. (As an epilogue to this incident, I called the corporate office of the bank and explained what had transpired. The bank officer in question was no longer seen at the bank after that.)

Yesterday, I arrived home to find a car parked directly across my driveway, completely blocking access. There was a woman sitting in the passenger's seat, but no driver. I tapped my horn. The woman looked at me. I gestured towards my driveway. She shrugged her shoulders. I tapped my horn again, but this time, I lowered my window and yelled for her to move the car. Instead, she got out of her car and called up to someone standing on my next-door neighbor's porch. "This guy wants you to move the car. He says it's blocking his driveway." The woman on the porch called back: "Oh, I'll be there in a minute." and she made no attempt to make a move towards her car. In the meantime, a car was stopped behind me and another was stopped behind the blocking car, unable to maneuver past. I lowered my passenger window and screamed: "MOVE YOUR CAR!" The woman on the porch slowly — s  l  o  w  l  y — sauntered down the front steps and headed toward my car. She stopped just in front of my car and wagged her finger at me. "Sir!," she began condescendingly, "there is a person in this house who needs assistance in getting around. There is no need to be rude." I was fuming! I pointed to her car. "But blocking my driveway isn't rude?," I hollered. She turned on her heels and walked to her car, got in and even more  s    l    o    w    l    y  turned her vehicle around and sped away. When I got inside my house, my neighbor had send a text to my wife that read: "Please apologize to Josh. He seemed pretty annoyed."

For the past twenty-five or so years, my next-door neighbor — or someone living in or visiting her house — has blocked my driveway no less that seventy billion times. And I have complained each and every one of those times. One would think that, after all those years, she would say to a visitor or resident of her home, "Oh don't block my asshole neighbor's driveway. He's a jerk and he gets mad when someone blocks his driveway, even if they have a perfectly good reason to do so." Nope. She has never done that. Instead, she just continues to block my driveway.

The common thread in these three incidents (and many others like them) is the excuse. An excuse for rude and inconsiderate behavior is always rendered with words that make the offender's problem a valid, inarguable reason for bad behavior. It is as though their problem or issue is so important — so undeniably crucial — that it negates any other situation. Any one of your trivial, insignificant dilemmas are meaningless when compared to their earth-shattering, life-threatening, monumental concern. 

The DJ for whom I designed the poster — she was not aware of my financial situation. She didn't consider that I needed that fifty bucks to pay a bill or purchase medication. She didn't think that I make my living as an artist and this was how I meet my financial responsibilities.

The guy at the bank — I am sorry that his father died. My father died. So did my mother. And my grandmothers (the one I like and the one I didn't like). So did my best friend from high school. So did a lot of people. People die. But the death of his father doesn't necessarily affect the lives of everyone. And a personal tragedy has no place and no bearing on the day-to-day function of a bank and its services. 

That woman blocking my driveway — how does she know what may be going on in my house? Did she consider that I may be delivering important medicine for someone inside? Did it cross her mind that a long lost relative could be waiting to see me after many, many decades of little to no contact? Did she think that perhaps I was answering a desperate call from an elderly inhabitant of my house that had fallen and was in need of my immediate help?

When did we become a society of self-centered, self-righteous, inconsiderate, arrogant, narcissistic egotists? 

Sure, I can come off as an angry, complaining curmudgeon. Well, now you know why.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

I fought the law

DISCLAIMER: If you are a lawyer, you might want to skip this week's entry on It's Been a Slice. I know how sensitive lawyers can get and I know how insulting I can get. In this post, I will knowingly make blanket statements and unfounded claims with little to no proof to back them up. If you are a lawyer, you won't find this particular post funny. (As for the rest of you, you may not find any of my posts funny, but I am addressing just the lawyers right now.) I am giving you fair warning to get out now.

I worked in the marketing department of a fairly large east coast law firm for nearly ten years. In that time, I grew to really, really hate lawyers. For the most part (uh-oh! here comes one of those blanket statements I was telling you about!), I found them to be arrogant, condescending know-it-alls who were convinced that just because they went to law school, they were capable of doing your job in addition to their own. They were experts on everything. They were a source of knowledge on just about any subject. On a personal level, I was often given unsolicited design advice and instruction from lawyers. 

It's complicated.

The firm that employed me was very aggressive when it came to marketing and the marketing department boasted over a dozen members. Nevertheless, lawyers constantly injected their own ideas, based purely on the fact that they went to law school. Once, I was designing an invitation for a conference in our Harrisburg office. The lawyer I was working with asked for the size of the invitation. In a telephone conversation, I told him it would be in postcard form, measuring eight and a half inches wide by five and a half inches high. He said he could not visualize it and requested a printed sample. I asked if there was a ruler available in his office. Again, he pressed for a printed, actual size sample. I told him it was the size of a regular piece of copy paper — one that is currently in a tray in the office Xerox machine — folded in half widthwise. He was not interested in any sort of exercise in origami. He demanded — demanded, I tell you! — a printed sample. I was convinced that, despite his years of college and law school education, this guy was either too important or too dumb to know how to operate a ruler.

One of my other jobs at the law firm was producing standard "support" ads for program booklets. These are very generic ads, usually offering "congratulations" or "best wishes" for someone being honored by a local organization. These ads were solicited to raise additional funds to either lessen the overall cost of an event or to contribute to a charitable entity. Because the law firm placed so many of these kinds of ads, the ordering process was streamlined to a few clicks on the firm's intranet. Every so often, an attorney - who was placing one of these ads - would request a full-color version. I would check the specifications from the organization to see if they allowed for color. If they did not, I would inform the attorney that the booklet in question would be in black & white. This, of course, would lead to an argument, because you cannot tell a lawyer that they can't have something they want. I would explain — again — that the booklet would be printed in just black ink. In some cases, I was ordered to submit a color ad and "see what they could do." Of course, "what they could do" was to tell me to resubmit a black and white ad.

Another time, I was having a heated discussion with a co-worker in her office. Perhaps our exchange got a little too loud and our voices carried out into the hallway. One of the firm's lawyers poked his head into her office. I expected him to tell us to keep our voices down, which would have been understandable. But, no... he actually began offering ways in which we could solve our little disagreement. My co-worker and I were so taken aback by the uninvited hubris this guy exhibited that we nearly forgot what were were arguing about.

Yet another of the firm's lawyers supplied a mailing list of contacts to whom he wanted a mass-mailing sent for an upcoming seminar that he would be hosting. He was very specific about the names included on the list and asked the woman in charge of mailing to pay close attention to the list — not to add any of the firm's other contact lists to his special list. The invitation was prepared, printed and mailed to his special list, as per his instructions. After a reasonable amount of waiting time, the seminar was canceled for lack of interest. The special list received not a single reply.

I was relieved of my position at the law firm just before Spring of 2018. I have had three jobs since then. But, my feelings toward lawyers have not waned. 

If you are a regular reader of this blog (besides me, I wonder why anyone would be a regular reader of this blog), you know I spend an inordinate amount of time watching television. I have taken notice of several commercials for local law firms — two in particular. The first features a local lawyer discussing his various case wins with a group of folks in a relaxed setting. Everyone is seated on a sectional sofa while the lawyer expounds on his winning record — delivered in a tone that's a strange combination of empathy and arrogance, with the "empathy" part sounding very insincere. The lawyer in the commercial reminds me of a lawyer I encountered almost ten years ago when an alleged UPS employee sued me (via my insurance company) over an alleged fall on my property. He is slimy and weasle-y and in a gazillion years I would never hire this guy to represent my interest in anything.

In another series of commercials for another Philadelphia law firm, the two principals are shown discussing important facts of a pending case (I assume) while strolling past prominent and recognizable sights in Philadelphia. There are scenes of them near the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall and City Hall. (I suppose they opted against showing them cavorting with Gritty and that's probably for the best.) Both gentlemen are dressed in tailored business suits. One of them, however, desperately needs a haircut. Up front, he has a receding hairline, but in the back....? It appears as though he leapt from his barber's chair to attend to an unexpected emergency and never returned to finish up his haircut appointment. Ever. And that appointment was months ago. I'll tell ya... if I decided to employ the services of this particular law firm and this guy and his "bushy bushy blond hair-do" walked into the office for our first consultation, I would immediately show myself to the door. There ain't a jury in the world who would take this alta kaker and his flowing locks seriously. Plus he reminds me of an old boss that I hated.

I actually have plenty more to say about lawyers, but I think I've made my point. Plus, I probably have lost a few readers.

So, sue me.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

don't know nothing

See this graphic? I don't know what it means. I don't know what it's trying to illustrate. I don't know what sort of idea it is attempting to explain in simple, easy-to-understand pictures. I just Googled "marketing" and this came up. And that, my friend, pretty much sums up "marketing."

When I'm not drawing pictures of dead people or visiting cemeteries or watching fifty-year-old TV shows or shitting all over Ringo on the internet, I go to an actual job. I work for a large commercial printer that produces thousands upon thousands of circulars for supermarkets and other customer-friendly retail businesses up and down the east coast. I work in a small office with a dozen other graphic designers who, on a daily basis, toil over the whims and nonsensical ideas of any number of individual store owners or "marketing experts" with "a vison." That "vison" translates to every single circular looking exactly the same week after week after week. Despite this, every so often, a completely composed circular is disrupted just hours before it gets sent to press by some yutz with a "brand new idea." Understand that these stores are selling canned vegetables and paper towels and frozen chickens. The same products are included week after week. But, still, they want things to STAND OUT and GET NOTICED. They use phrases like BIG PUSH and BLOWOUT SALE and other meaningless jargon. A circular that should take a few hours to compose, ends up being stretched over several days because someone binge-watched Mad Men this weekend and fancies themselves the Don Draper of the grocery world.

I've been doing this, in one capacity or another, for over forty years. I've seen it all... and most of it has been bullshit. Sure, I have met and worked with genuine "marketing" professionals. These are people with legitimately clever and innovative ideas that have the potential to motivate and inspire customers. But, for the most part, true "marketers" are harder to find than a kosher ham sandwich or an honest politician. Instead the World of Marketing (sounds like a theme park) is filled with spineless, wishy-washy dishrags with no real ideas. I can't figure out how these people (and I have met dozens of them) are able to advance themselves to positions of authority. They get to a corporate level where final decisions are placed in their hands, yet they never want to commit, fearing a wrong decision will result in a dressing down from their boss. Instead, they shoot out monosyllabic emails that read: "Thoughts?," then sit back and wait for their underlings to come up with something. If submitted ideas are good, they will take the credit under the guise of "team leader." If a bad idea is chosen, they are the first ones to point their finger at the source. I saw this practice for the dozen years I worked in the marketing department of a large law firm. I never saw so many useless, lazy people with no original ideas. They just spewed buzz words and asked for "infographics" or some other new trend they just read about in a marketing publication. 

Once I traded in my "business casual" for the "down-and-dirty" world of pre-press (a big room of artists churning out quickly-composed ads for huge print runs. Google it, if you really care), I thought I'd never have to deal with that corporate mumbo-jumbo again.

I was wrong.

One of the companies I create circulars for on a weekly basis is a chain of supermarkets based in New York. They are a family-owned business, with ten stores located in affluent areas of Long Island. I deal with a young lady who is experiencing her first job right out of college. Here, she is able to apply her useless marketing degree for the sole purpose of selling an extra pound of strawberries – just by adding a big red "burst" that says "SWEET!" on top of the picture. My entire interaction with her (and everyone at this company) is via the internet through a collaboration website called Ziflow. All communication is through messaging on this website. Considering that I get the bulk of my instructions from her, she is an inarticulate communicator. She has a very difficult time explaining exactly what it is that she wants. Plus, her spelling is atrocious. Sometimes I have to stare at and reread messages several times before I can understand what I am supposed to do. She has no concept of proportion and sizing, however she uses terms like "lower the opacity" regularly. Oh, when she says "lower the opacity," she really means increase the opacity. But, after three years of doing these circulars, I have come to understand and interpret what is required.

Just this week, while working on this week's circular for this particular supermarket, I started getting messages from someone named "Norman" – a name I had not seen before. Norman instructed me to add a burst here that says "Great For Your Family!" Another message changed a headline that read "CATERING" to "Check Out Our Catering!" The next message asked for my thoughts on – and I quote – "reconfiguring the front page into a graphicly-pleasing hierarchy"... or some such third-year marketing bullshit. I merely replied that my job is to follow the layout with which I am provided. Surprisingly, he didn't press the issue.

I make no design suggestions. Zero. Zilch. Although I have been a graphic designer for over four decades, my role in my current job is not that of a designer. I am a layout artist – pure and simple. I do what I am told by the customer. I do not embellish, nor do I make any suggestions. I was told by my boss on Day One that we, essentially, produce trash. The circulars that we create have a shelf life of one week and are never ever looked at again. In that one week, they are just glanced at by the consumer. The target audience is someone looking for a good price on a box of Cap'n Crunch or a family pack of pork chops. We are not producing great works of art. We produce easy to understand presentations of everyday grocery items. If the consumer wants to see the Mona Lisa, they can go to the fucking Louvre. They are never gonna find it in a supermarket circular.... no matter what a store owner wants.

I Googled "Norman" and discovered that he has recently been hired by this chain of supermarkets with the title of "Merchandising Director" or something corporate-sounding like that. His job description is a run-on sentence of some of the thickest bullshit I have ever laid eyes upon. Immediately, I had flashbacks to my time stuck in marketing meetings at the law firm and watching a bunch of idiots with marketing degrees pat each other on the back while bandying about phrases like "low-hanging fruit" and "vertical juxtaposition" and "let's table that offline, but not until this afternoon, because I'll be out of pocket until 1 o'clock"... whatever that means. Norman, I quickly surmised, was a corporate asshole. And he proved me right after instructing me to add a big red burst to a picture of cherries that screamed "More Fruit, Less Pit!" His next decision was to make sure the words "Veggie Mac Salad" appear on one line, even though those words appeared on two lines in a featured block of various deli salads for over a year. Once I adjusted the size of the text to get "veggie" to drop down to the next line, Norman went home to tell his family that he made a crucial corporate decision at work today that will net the company untold profits. Later the same day, he indicated several places where he wanted the word "WOW!" to appear in a big red burst.

When Monday rolls around, I will be treated to another barrage of Norman's genius. Noman will pose passive-aggressive scenarios regarding whether a headline should say "Meat Sale" or "Sale on Meat." Norman will wait until an hour before press deadline to rearrange the placement of wedges of cheese or to question the height of a dollar sign.

To borrow a line from Ursula, the Sea Witch: "It's what I live for."

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

jam up and jelly tight

By the time you read this, we will be in the throes of Chanukah... probably the seventeenth or eighteenth day by now — I kind of lost track. Chanukah, as you may or may not know, commemorates the... um... the... well, something ancient involving the Jews overcoming some massive obstacle only to come out of it with flying colors and go on to face another obstacle. Or something like that, I'm not a biblical scholar and I make most of this stuff up anyway. Besides, this story isn't a history lesson. it's the story of a particular business in my neighborhood.

There's a little bakery around the corner from my house. It's tucked away in an awkward spot, occupying the bottom floor of a block of houses the fronts of which face the street on the opposite side. The bakery looks like the basement access to these houses and, at one time, that may have been the case. But, now, it operates in a tiny space jammed with glass display cases that only allow for one of two customers in the store at a time. There is barely enough room for customers exiting the bakery to pass customers entering the bakery without bumping elbows or — worse! — upsetting wrapped boxes of recently-purchased baked goods.

Sure, there are other options for baked goods in the area. Several nearby supermarkets have full in-store bakeries whose selling floors are twice — or three times — the size of the little bakery. The main draw of the little bakery is its kosher certification. There is a fairly large Orthodox Jewish population in my neighborhood and a kosher-certified bakery is an integral part of their day-to-day life. The little bakery prepares traditional baked provisions to meet the needs of this specific faction of the community. They bake and sell cookies, and cakes and other assorted pastries. Every Friday morning, the cramped shelves are packed with golden challah breads to be used as the centerpiece for familys' Shabbat dinners. On special holidays, hamantashen and taiglach are prepared to aid in the celebration of Purim and Rosh Hashanah respectively. As tradition dictates, the bakery offers sufganiyot — jelly-filled doughnuts — for the marathon that is Chanukah. As a special treat for my in-laws, Mrs. Pincus stopped by the little bakery to pick up some sufganiyot for her parents' dessert. She even secured a couple for us, as well as a couple of themed and decorated cookies. (I think there were supposed to be menorahs, but I was not fully convinced.)

Now, one would think that a small, specialized, neighborhood bakery would be run by a friendly, avuncular, gregarious character greeting customers with a smile and a cheerful demeanor and well as a grateful sentiment for browsers and purchasers alike.

One would think.

The guy that owns and operates this little bakery is a belligerent, angry, nasty, condescending jerk who berates his customers and loudly complains about his employees — in front of his employees and his customers. He's the last person you'd imagine as someone would own a bakery. A bakery! A place where cookies and cakes and happiness are sold! 

Mrs. P entered the bakery on Friday morning. She walked into a tirade from the owner. He stood behind the tiny service counter, blocking the doorway to the working bakery room behind him. He was barking ultimatums to the few customers. As his staff was busily stuffing jelly-filled sufganiyot into boxes, the owner defiantly announced that he would not make jelly doughnuts again until next Chanukah, adding that it's too difficult. My wife asked him, "If someone wished to order 500 jelly doughnuts in July, you wouldn't make them?" He frowned and scowled and growled, "No! No, I wouldn't! They are just for Chanukah!" Mrs. Pincus, who after years of hanging around Josh Pincus, has become something of an instigator, continued to needle the bakery owner. "You make hamantashen throughout the year, not just for Purim." The owner frowned again and grumbled, "That's different!" and he trailed off with no real answer to my wife's question.

A young lady in an apron appeared with a large tray of cream-filled doughnuts. As she fitted the tray into the glass display case, the owner warned, "The cream-filled doughnuts are only for people who placed orders! If you didn't pre-order them, you can't have them!" He put heavy, threatening emphasis on the end of that statement. Mrs. P eyed the cream filled doughnuts and asked the young lady if all of them were already spoken for. The young lady shot the owner a dismissive "side eye" and asked my wife if she would like one or two. Mrs. P asked for one jelly-filled and one cream-filled. She also requested a half dozen of the questionably-shaped cookies. As Mrs. Pincus paid, the owner continued voicing his displeasure with his business, his employees and the hand that life had dealt him. He waited on a customer and licked his fingers to assist in the opening of a paper bag to fill with baked goods.

After our dinner that evening, I made a couple of cups of tea for my wife and I. Mrs. P sliced the securing tape on the bakery box to reveal the goodies she had purchased that morning. The box contained two cream-filled doughnuts, not one jelly and one cream as was requested. Cream was smeared along one of the inside walls of the box, a result of a poorly-packed and unevenly-balanced packing job. The cookies were also defaced with excess doughnut cream.

The doughnuts and the cookies weren't especially good.

Neither is the bakery owner.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

safety dance

In 1920, the Chicago Motor Club and the St. Paul, Minnesota Police Department each created a program involving elementary school children acting as crossing guards and safety monitors at the city's public schools. With more and more automobiles on the roads, children's safety was becoming a major concern. With strong support from the Catholic archdiocese in St. Paul, a small squad of young volunteers were outfitted with badges and Sam Browne belts and were stationed at various locations along common walking routes to schools. With instruction from working traffic police officers, the young charges were tasked with maintaining a safe passage to and from school for the younger students. They took their positions very seriously and the other students offered their respect and obedience to these new "authority figures." Within a few years, other cities launched junior safety programs of their own, with support and backing from local automobile clubs and police departments. By the mid-1930s, Junior Safety Patrols formed in municipalities across the country with membership numbering over 11,000. Currently, the program boasts participation from over 50,000 schools nationwide... and girls are permitted entry to the once all-male ranks.

Thinkin' 'bout the times
you drove in my car

In 1949, 11-year old Marvin Klegman was assigned to noontime duty at Lowell Elementary in Tacoma, Washington. As he walked to his assigned post, just before noon, he felt the ground begin to rumble. He spotted second-grader Myrna Phelps in the school yard and instructed her to remain still and stay clear of the school building. Marvin ran inside the building as an earthquake began shaking the structure. He found kindergarten student Kelcy Allen alone in a hallway. Marvin led Kelcy outside to safety, but was unable to make it clear of the crumbling building. Marvin lay on top of Kelcy, shielding him from the shower of rubble. Marvin was killed but Kelcy and Myrna were saved due to the young safety officer's direction and quick action. While undoubtedly stirring, this, of course, was not typical of the Junior Safety Patrol.

When I was in elementary school in the 60s and early 70s, of course, there was a Junior Safety Patrol. Perhaps you have visions of obedient, fresh-faced young men sporting that white Sam Browne belt accented with a shiny silver badge. Maybe you are envisioning a confident young man standing attentively at a busy street corner, taking extra care to ensure the safety and well-being of the tiny younger students on their way to another informative day of public school education. If that's the mental picture you have when you think back about the Junior Safety Patrol of your youth, then you probably didn't go to elementary school with me.

Cream of the crop

There were no "Marvin Klegman"s in my neighborhood. If there was, I'm sure he would have been verbally pummeled with the same anti-Jewish rhetoric I was subjected to. My neighborhood was chockful of street tough boys, just a few years away from a full-blown life of crime. They were sneaky, lying, deceitful little bastards who thought nothing of shoplifting, stealing a bike, or rummaging through Mom's purse for a few unaccounted for dollar bills. They would regularly pick fights with friends, throw snowballs at passing cars and spew a nasty stream of racial epithets when the mood struck. It was from this cesspool of humanity that my elementary school had to select members for their Junior Safety Patrol. Left with no choice, school officials weeded through the dregs of the dregs and came up with the least offensive they could find... like naming the nicest Klansman. Their final choices were unsavory little shits who, once adorned with a badge and a modicum of jurisdiction, became power-drunk enforcers wielding their minuscule authority as though they were sanctioned by J. Edgar Hoover himself. Some roamed the school hallways with their chests puffed out, their arms swinging at their sides and a snarl on their lips, silently daring anyone to challenge them. Others were assigned to "keep order" on the school buses on the morning commute as well as on the ride home in the afternoon. They would pace the center aisle of the bus, gripping the edge of every seat as they passed. They'd glare at the small, intimidated occupants of each seat with a beady-eyed threatening stare. Sometimes they'd stop at a seat where two trembling lower-class students were sitting. The "safety" (as they were colloquially named) would announce some trumped-up accusation ("You were talking too loud during announcements" or "You stood up while the bus was in motion"). As the scared student fought back tears, the "safety" would point an accusing finger in their direction and seethe though clenched teeth: "You're going up!" This was a threat that no one wanted to hear. "You're going up!" meant that once the bus arrived at school you would be taken straight to the principal's office — do not pass GO!, do not collect two-hundred dollars. It was a promise that was rarely — if ever — carried out. "Safeties" were just as scared of the school's principal as other students were. But, they didn't want you to know that. Instead, they behaved as though they were special agents, working on behalf of the principal's master plan of a tight grip on every student at his school. But, if the principal passed them in the hallway, they would choke up with paranoia just like everyone else. (Kind of like being followed by a police car and knowing you've done nothing wrong.) I don't know anyone who was taken by a "safety" to see the principal, but I witnessed numerous threats. (In reality, the principal was an easy-going, not remotely intimidating guy who enjoyed playing street baseball with the neighborhood kids, some of whom were my brother's friends.)

Unread

On the last day of school, I was riding the bus home for my final time as a fourth grader. I remained quiet for most of the ride. Suddenly a "safety" named Danny, an older boy from my neighborhood who — on several occasions — had levied some anti-Semitic comments in my direction, stopped at my seat and told me: "On Monday, you're going up!" My lower lip began to tremble and I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. Just then, one of my older brother's friends reminded me that this was the last day of school and there were no more "Mondays" left in the year. He added, reassuringly, that there was no way Danny would remember his unfounded threat three months from now when school resumed. I sighed with relief. Sure enough, my first September as a fifth grade student was unspoiled by a trip to the principal's office.

However, years later, Danny stole my bike.

www.joshpincusicrying.com

you ain't no friend of mine

Boy, I sure had this uncanny knack for choosing jerks to be my friend. Not all of them, of course. I had some pretty good friends when I was a kid. But there were certainly some people I numbered among my friends that — today — makes me question my choices.

Just after I finished elementary school, there was a shuffle among the next stop in the path of higher learning. The high school had eliminated seventh grade in an effort to alleviate the problem of overcrowding. My brother — four years my senior — had gone right from elementary school to high school when his time came. Me? Well, the School District of Philadelphia had to scramble to find a place to put my entire graduating class, as well as our counterparts from at least three more elementary schools. The School District was in the process of building something called "a middle school," that would offer Grades 6 through 8. But, construction was slow and the building wasn't ready for the new school year. So, for seventh grade, my classmates and I were sent to a new school for one year, where we were mixed with other students who would be experiencing the same School Board miscalculation. We were sent to a school well out of our comfort zone that may have been in another country, as far as we were concerned. (In reality, it was just twenty minutes from our elementary school.) 

At the completion of seventh grade, the new school opened its doors and I was thrust into a classroom with another new bunch of kids from other schools. These strangers would be my eighth grade classmates, whether I liked it or not. One of the students was Aaron Goldman. Aaron was a jerk. I still — to this day — can't figure out why I hung out with him. We had relatively nothing in common. He lived far from my house. My other, long-time friends didn't like him. He seemed to go out of his way to toy with trouble. He smoked in eighth grade, purely to appear "cool." (It didn't work.) He always had some kind of "school contraband" hidden in the deep pockets of his faded US Army jacket (Something else he sported in an effort to appear "cool." That, too, failed.) One day, he'd produce a switchblade from his jacket pocket. Another day, it would be firecrackers. Always something he knew he shouldn't have... but, of course, that's why he had it. 

In April 1975, shock-rocker Alice Cooper was bringing his Welcome to My Nightmare Tour to the Philadelphia Spectrum to promote his current namesake album. I loved Alice Cooper and I owned a few of his albums including the malevolent concept story of "Steven," the main character in the songs on Welcome to My Nightmare. A few of my friends had already attended concerts. My brother, at 18, was a veteran of many Spectrum shows. I asked my mom if I could go to see Alice Cooper. My mom — a cool mom before such a thing was acknowledged — agreed, on the condition that I could purchase my ticket with my own money. It took some scraping, as $6.50 wasn't easy to come by for a 14 year-old. My mom was gracious enough to provide a ride to the South Philadelphia venue on the night of the show. She would even give dinner to my fellow concert-going friends.

I went to see Alice Cooper with three companions, one of whom was Aaron Goldman. On the night of the show, parents dropped their sons at my house a little before dinner time. My fellow 14 year-olds filed in and took a place at the Pincus kitchen table. My mom doled out huge helpings of spaghetti, generously covered in her homemade spaghetti sauce. My mom loved to make her own spaghetti sauce and it was one of my families favorite dishes. For my brother's Bar Mitzvah, my mom asked her brother to address the invitations, as he had beautiful, swirly, calligraphic handwriting. Her brother agreed, and requested a meal featuring my mom's spaghetti sauce as fair compensation.

My friends dug right in. My mom supplemented the meal with a big loaf of crusty Italian bread from a local bakery. Midway through the course of dinner, my mom asked each of my guests how everything was.

"Great, Mrs. Pincus" was the reply from my first two friends. I, of course reiterated the sentiment, as I had dome many times before when my mom served her "famous" spaghetti sauce. When it came to Aaron's turn, my mom repeated the question: "How is everything?," she asked.

Silence.

Aaron didn't even look up from his plate, He continued to shovel gobs of spaghetti into his sauce-stained maw. "Eh... I've tasted better.," he said. He actually said that — out loud — to my mom. My other two friends — my actual friends — froze. The room was silent. My mom frowned at me and said nothing. As a matter of fact, nothing was said from that point on. We got into the car in silence. We drove to the Spectrum in silence, When we arrived at the Spectrum, my mom briefly instructed us where to meet at the show's conclusion. 

And my mom drove away.

After eighth grade, I sort of lost touch with Aaron in high school. I saw him in the crowded hallways, but he had a new set of friends — ones that smoked and wore Army jackets and carried concealed switchblades and tried to be cool.

Years later, when my wife and I needed some small home repairs, someone recommended Aaron. He was now in the handyman business. Our phone number was forwarded to him and he called. He left a voicemail outlining his services, but explaining that he really wanted to do home inspections. (We didn't need a home inspection.) He ended his recorded message by saying: "I bet your daughter is growing up real fast. Hope to hear from you soon."

I have a son and Aaron didn't hear from me... soon or otherwise.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

nazi punks fuck off

I think we can all agree that Nazis were awful. Following Germany's defeat in World War II and the discovery of the full extent of the Holocaust, Nazi ideology became universally disgraced and is widely regarded as immoral and evil.

Except by assholes like Steve Johnson.

Asshole.

Steve lives at 1041 Lindell Drive in El Sobrante, California, sixteen miles north of Oakland (and fuck him if he doesn't like the fact that I published his address). Recently, Steve installed a 10 foot by 10 foot black cement swastika in his front yard, not far from a flagpole on which the ol' Stars and Stripes waves proudly in the breeze coming off the San Francisco Bay. Steve's neighbors aren't so proud. As a matter of fact, they are overcome by concern and ire. A very short time after the installation was completed, local news outlets descended upon Steve Johnson's home, in search of his reason for making such a bold statement. The media, I'm sure, didn't just happen to stumble upon Steve's home renovation project by accident. Lindell Drive is not a major thoroughfare. The entire street only stretches a quarter-mile and dead-ends at another home's driveway, just behind the Pinole Vista Shopping Center – where a Sizzler Steakhouse still operates.. Obviously, one of Steve's justifiably outraged neighbors called the Bay Area newspaper The Mercury News.

Asshole's handiwork.

Reporters from the newspaper, as well as representatives from local TV stations, questioned Steve about his motivation for putting a Nazi symbol on display in front of his house. He gave wishy-washy answers that smacked of insincere innocence. He feigned misunderstanding when he countered an NBC-affiliate reporter's question with "What is a swastika?" He contained with: "It doesn’t represent anything. [It] represents me not having to pull weeds over in that part of my yard; that’s what it represents to me. What does it represent to you?"

His neighbors are furious, including one woman who has lived on Lindell Drive – near Steve – for 27 years. The neighbor, who is Jewish and rightly horrified and offended by Steve's display, said, "I was very clear with him about my feelings. I don’t agree with it. I think it’s wrong. I don’t like it, but it is his yard." She also noted that he had never done anything like this in the past.

Aerial view of an asshole's house.

But, Steve keeps changing his story. He told another reporter that it was a symbol of peace and tranquility from ancient Tibet. When asked if he was, indeed, Tibetan, Steve replied rather cavalierly, "Maybe I am."

Then suddenly, Steve gained some sort of new found knowledge about the history and significance of the symbol. However, he took a decidedly dismissive tone, when he said, "The Nazi stuff happened 80 years ago. Get over it." When a reporter pointed out a swastika sticker affixed to his motorcycle, Steve abruptly ended the conversation and ordered the media off of his property.

This is 2019. In the United States. Land of the free and home of the brave. Where any red-blooded American can grow up to be an asshole.

www.joshpincusisrying.com

stand in the place where you are

My wife and I find ourselves in the supermarket quite regularly. We eat a lot of salad and fresh vegetables, so we must keep replenishing our stock. That stuff doesn't have a long shelf life and, honestly, the salads we make are pretty big. 

We live in close proximity to several large supermarkets, each one equally convenient, however not as equal in the products that they carry. The one that is closest to us – Acme, a subsidiary of the Albertson's grocery chain – does not carry bagged, shredded red cabbage. I love red cabbage in my salad and the amount that is included in the pre-bagged “Classic Salad” mixes (as offered by Dole and Fresh Express) is not sufficient to satisfy me. Acme is also lacking in other products, such as low-fat salad dressing. (I know. I know. I am very particular about my salads.) So, more often, Mrs. P and I find ourselves in the produce section of our local Giant supermarket. (Giant is the name, not a commentary on its size. It is no bigger that any other supermarket near us.) 

Giant has a beautiful produce section, with offerings that Acme never carries (including bagged, shredded red cabbage). Until a recent remodel rectified the situation, the Giant store was poorly laid out, with aisles running perpendicular to other aisles. There were aisles that did not run the entire depth of the store,  and aisles that ran part way across the store, making shopping a tedious and exhausting task, forcing the poor disoriented shopper (me) into feeling like a lab mouse caught in an impossible maze experiment. Well, they straightened out and simplified the floor plan, plus they introduced “Marty.” Marty is a robot that roams the aisles of Giant. That's right – a robot. Marty is a sleek gray plastic piece of equipment standing 6-and-a-half feet tall and outfitted with scanners and – inexplicably – a large set of googly eyes. Marty's mission is to identify spills and obstacles that may impede on a shopper's in-store experience. Marty glides almost silently through the store, moving slowly enough so as not to startle the elderly shoppers and to enable the curious to snap a quick selfie. Marty has been programmed to not bump into carts or shelving and nor will it block the aisles. 

Although that problem at Giant has not been fully resolved. 

One of the reasons I don't care to shop at Giant is an on-going phenomena among a large percentage of their clientele. It's a phenomena I have been subject to on nearly every visit to the store. It seems every single time I go to Giant, someone is blocking every single aisle. I have never encountered this at any other supermarket besides Giant. There always seems to be someone standing in the dead center of any given aisle with their shopping cart strategically positioned so no one can scoot around them on either side. This shopper is usually rifling through a fat cardboard folder of coupons or craning their neck in confusion while considering a display of products on a top shelf ten feet away. The other infuriating scenario is when folks saunter to the end of an aisle and stop. Just stop and ponder. Ponder which way to turn. Ponder what items are still remaining on their shopping list. Ponder which items they missed in the aisle that they almost exited. Ponder the speed at which the Earth rotates as it makes its way around the sun. Who knows what they are pondering. I just know they are not pondering getting out of the way. That one they got all figured out. 

On my most recent visit to Giant, I left my wife at the deli counter to peruse the various cold prepared salads. I told her I was just going to hop over to a far aisle and grab a jar of sliced roasted red peppers (another favorite salad topping of mine) and I'd be back in a second. On what should have been a ten second quest, I was held up no less that five times by shoppers standing at a dead halt at the end or middle of an aisle for no discernible reason. People just stopping dead in their tracks, as though they were trapped in quick-drying cement. These people have no regard for other shoppers around them. Other shoppers who don't lead a life of leisure that allows for a casual stop-and-start stroll though a bustling market. There are people who don't want to make a trip to the market like a trip to a museum. A lot of people want to get what they need and get on their way. That is the beauty of self-serve markets and the concept that brought them into existence in the first place. You want to stop and think about your next supermarket purchase? That's fine. Just do it off to the side and have a little consideration for someone who doesn't share your (and The Eagles') philosophy of “Take It Easy.” 

When I finally returned with my jar of roasted red peppers, I related my tale of woe to Mrs. Pincus as we made our way up to the check-out area. As you would expect, I prefer the self check-out lanes – except when I get behind someone with an issue or a problem or something they didn't mean to purchase. This time, though, we were lucky and it was smooth sailing. We quickly scanned our items, bagged them and paid. I gathered up our bags and we started for the exit. 

Only to be blocked by an emergency meeting of the Old Man Giant Door Blockers Union Local 101. I believe it is usually held RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE ONLY STORE EXIT! 

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

goin' down the road feelin' bad (redux)

Early on Saturday afternoon, Mrs. P and I set out to run a few small errands. We pulled out of our driveway, drove down our street, eventually making our way to Church Road, a main thoroughfare in our small, suburban community. Wait. Don't get the impression that Church Road is a bustling freeway with on and off-ramps. It's not even a sleek multi-lane boulevard. Church Road is a winding macadam covered street that twists and turns through several quaint hamlets in Cheltenham Township. In most places, it narrows to a single lane in each direction where passing cars are so close drivers could shake hands if they so desired (and slowed down enough).

My wife maneuvered her car onto Church Road and we headed east. Within a minute of our journey, we found ourselves behind a Porsche 911. Mrs. P pointed out that it was the type that her brother always talked about and, one day, hoped to own. (The closest he came was purchasing one of the German automotive maker's early forays into the burgeoning SUV market. Sometimes the line between "sporty" and "sensible" is a thin one.) No sooner had she delivered this little anecdote, than the Porsche ahead of us slowed to a crawl. It crept along casually. I saw that traffic behind us was beginning to accumulate, as this section of Church Road had a single eastbound lane. Any attempt to skirt around on the shoulder would send a driver rambling across someone's front lawn. Suddenly, the Porsche coasted to a complete stop in front of the driveway access of a house sitting on an elevated plateau of manicured grass about seventy-five feet from the street. The Porsche's hazard lights sprung to life, blinking in a regular pattern in its elegantly-designed taillights.

And it sat.

And sat.

And sat, while traffic behind us stacked up with more and more cars. We could see the silhouette of two people inside the Porsche — a driver and a passenger — but there was minimal movement. After thirty or so seconds, the passenger door swung open and a male leg extended into view. Slowly, the owner of the leg extracted himself from the passenger seat. Once fully out of the car, he leaned his head and shoulders back inside to fumble around with something. Again, he stood up, this time, however, he was holding the long cloth handles of a dark duffel bag. The man stood for few more long seconds and, through a full grin, offered a few more long sentiments of farewell to the driver.

There must have been at least a dozen cars stopped behind us on Church Road. Stuck. Helplessly stuck. This, obviously, was of no concern to the driver of the Porsche or his passenger. He waited until his colleague ascended the driveway and climbed the stone steps to the house. Then — and only then — did he disengage his flashers and pull away from the foot of the driveway...

.... only to pull into the very next driveway a mere ten feet further. The driver threw the Porsche into "PARK" and killed the engine. It may have even been less than ten feet.

This reminded me of a joke I once heard. A very wealthy man solicited an uneducated handyman for a job. "I'll give you twenty dollars to paint my porch out back.," the wealthy man explained. He directed the handyman towards a pail of gray industrial paint and a couple of brushes. The slack-jawed handyman headed into the wealthy man's backyard. Two hours later, the handyman returned for payment. "All finished!," he announced and he accepted two tens from the wealthy man. As he shoved the bills into his shirt pocket, the handyman remarked, "I don't think that's a porch, though. I think it's a Maserati."

Maybe this guy will be in need of a handyman someday.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

taking care of business

For over 20 years, Mrs. Pincus has sold stuff on eBay, the popular online auction/marketplace. Before you ask... no, she will not sell your stuff for you. We have enough "merchandise" to sell that will last a lot longer than the time we have left on earth. However, if you like to see some of the items that are currently up for auction, please... stop reading now and click HERE. You can come back to this story anytime. But you may get outbid on that one elusive treasure to complete your collection.

Now, when most people hear that my wife sells stuff on eBay, they wrongly assume that she quickly lists thousands of items and then sits back while the money rolls in. Hardly. Listing items is a tedious, repetitious and time-consuming task. But, it doesn't end there. There are endless questions from prospective buyers. Questions that could very, very easily be answered if the buyer would only read more than the first three words of the auction title. Mrs. P is very careful to include pertinent information for each item (color, dimension in inches, sizes for clothing). Unlike some sellers on eBay, she no longer includes an extended, flowery description — opting instead to post pictures of the particular item, taken from several angles. (A picture is worth a thousand bids, as they say in the online auction game.) Nevertheless, no matter how long or short the description, Mrs. P regularly fields questions like "What color is this?" or "What size is this shirt?," despite the answer appearing in the title or the first sentence of the brief explanation of the item.

Then, there's the packing and shipping of the items once they sell. Mrs. Pincus maintains an office near our home that serves as a merchandise warehouse and packing center, stocked with boxes and padded envelopes and tape and bubble wrap. My wife is a regular face at our local post office, making trips there three times per week. So it's a job, my friend. A real live job. Just like the one you go to and complain about every day.

The other thing Mrs. P has to deal with — just like at your job — is assholes. Yep. They are everywhere. While the majority of eBay transactions come off smoothly, every so often, some jerk pops up and causes unnecessary trouble. (Just like at your job.) There are folks who make up elaborate stories about bidding on items by mistake. ("My two-year old bid on this when I wasn't looking." or "I was putting my phone in my pocket and I accidentally bid on and paid for this item.") Mrs. P treats them with courtesy and in the most professional manner, although they are all lying thorough their fucking teeth.

Then there is what is referred to as "buyer's remorse." This is when a purchased item arrives and it is not what the buyer envisioned (although each auction displays numerous pictures of the item). Or, the buyer has second thoughts about buying the item in the first place. Both of these usually evoke some sort of made-up tale of damaged packaging or a flat out lie about the item never arriving. Both of these scenarios are usually accompanied by a demand of a full refund of the purchase price. This is when "buyer's remorse" becomes "mail fraud." 

And then there are times when the unbelievable occurs.

Some time ago, Mrs. Pincus sold a small figurine of DC superhero Green Lantern to a buyer. The figure measures a few inches tall and is meant to stand on a shelf and be observed. It is not an action figure for play, as it is affixed to a base and is constructed from solid piece of molded plastic. 

A week of so after the Green Lantern was paid for and shipped, Mrs. Pincus received an email from the buyer, explaining that the figurine arrived broken. As per my wife's usual procedure for items allegedly damaged in postal transit, she politely asked for pictures of the afflicted figurine in question. At first, the buyer balked and offered the lame excuse that he did not have a camera — a situation that no longer exists in the free world. After a little email back-and-forth and a bit more coaxing, the buyer sent one picture. This picture, as a matter of fact...

Mrs. Pincus and I marveled at this photo. We felt like we were playing one of those "Spot The Differences" games from Highlights for Children magazine we loved as children. First off, this is a picture of an action figure with articulated arms and legs. The original figurine that my wife packed and shipped had non-moving appendages. The green color of the costume is different. The costume configuration is different. The sculpting of his little muscles is different. (If I may draw your attention the the figure's groin area [I beg your pardon!], you will seen the green color extends down to the figure's upper thigh. In the original figurine that my wife sold and shipped, everything from the waist down is black. The green ends at the abdomen. What I'm trying to illustrate is — this guy sent a picture of a broken Green Lantern figure he happened to have lying around. (Remember that thing about "mail fraud" I mentioned? Insert that here.) Mrs. Pincus immediately reported the entire episode to the good folks at eBay's fraud department. They took care of the rest.

We can only imagine that we ruined this guy's intricate international Green Lantern action figure Ponzi scheme, assuming he must have a stockpile of broken Green Lanterns and various disconnected arms and legs.... and my wife foiled his evil plan.... or something like that.

I guarantee this won't be the last eBay flim-flam story. It certainly wasn't the first.

***** UPDATE *****

Thanks to a head's up from a loyal reader of this blog, it appears that this motherfucker was scamming us worse than originally imagined. The picture that he sent to Mrs. Pincus to accompany his claim of the broken action figure wasn't even his picture! It was nabbed from an online article about repairing broken action figures, published a few years ago. See for yourself HERE.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com