Mishpucha at the Movies

I have some news.

It has taken me quite a while to blog it.

Now the news is so old it's almost retro.

I have a job.  

A full-time, go to the office five days a week job.  

I had heard about these things,  but I never thought it could happen to me.

Farewell FurryCon, and Winkel in my eye, and all the other strange adventures of being self-employed.

The new job is very nice.  Everyone there is very nice.  Welcome to the family, people keep saying.  

Because apparently family is an indication of a warm workplace.  So long as you don't happen to be a Soprano, a Corleone, or have a family like mine.

Most people, upon landing a new job, might take a week off and go on an exotic tropical vacation, perhaps indulge themselves with a major purchase like a fancy new car.

The Macaronimaniac version of this Bermuda and a Beemer indulgence, alas, turned out to be spending the weekend in San Francisco hanging out with my college roommates, and treating myself to a new used Schwinn off Craigslist.

Yes, I am now such a bike geek, I am keeping a spare bike in another city.  

It is a little like having a mistress.

A maroon, ten-speed mistress whose tires could use a little air.

Okay, so maybe it's nothing  like having a mistress. 

It is a lot like having a method of transit to whisk yourself around the city, which is what college roommate Little Orphan Annie and I did, that one glorious Friday of her playing hookie from work and me not having started my new job yet.

We were so wild and out of control, we decided to go see a film right in the middle of the day.

Specifically, the new Coen brothers film.

Only problem, when you go to see a Jewish movie during the day, i.e. when they are not charging full price for the tickets, you are pretty much asking for it.

It being, having two AKs sitting behind you.  

(Note to my goyishe readers:  If you don't know what the AK in the previous sentence means, suffice it to say, 47 is about 20 too short.  If you still have no idea what in the name of Yiddishkeit I'm talking about, read up on it here).

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of amusing lines in the new Coen brothers film.  I just didn't need to hear them in surround sound--first from the screen, then repeated by Siskel and Eberg in the row behind us.

Welcome to the Mishpucha.

Air Show of Force

All work and no play makes Mac a dull blogger.

Most of the time.

But every now and again, work takes me to some fascinating new place, where I have exotic new experiences.

Like accidentally attending a FurryCon.

College friend Nick and I were back on the road this week, this time in San Francisco.
And since our biz travels always seem to coincide with something kinky, perhaps it's no surprise we turned up here to find it's Fleet Week.

It seems a little redundant to have shore leave in a city where everyone is already covered in tattoos, but I guess that's military intelligence for you.

For us, Fleet Week turned out to be more of flyover week:

The thing about the Blue Angels is that they're not as impressive as they used to be, back before movie special effects got so interesting.

Turns out, the actual planes are sort of mediocre by comparison to whatever is playing at the local multiplex. If you look closely enough at the clip above, you can practically see Shatner being tossed sideways in his Naugahyde captain's chair.

Still, it is loud and proud and does attract attention.

Kind of like a Jewish mother at her son's medical school graduation. Since the day he was born, I am telling you, the nurses in the delivery room all looked at him like he was already the one in charge.
Sort of amazing to see the cultured peeps of the City by the eBay getting their Blue Angels on.

Here are my fellow museum goers, in the sculpture garden, anxiously awaiting the next swoop of the jets.

Funny, most places in the world, when the U.S. military is about to fly over, the people beneath them are anxious in a whole other way.