Just in case you thought Florida had all the larger-than-life characters. This area does okay for itself: Lakewood is just a few minutes up the road from here. The nicer neighborhood.

I start off by saying it troubles me to no end that my brother is calling my beautiful niece Ellexa the name "Manzo". The name only has two associations: 1. the late monsignor of our Brooklyn parish or 2. the world's leading Dumpster company....BazzukaJoe, neither of these choices equal a rational thought.
So now let me weigh in on the Connecticut Malaise: if anyone is having trouble picturing it, I want you to close your eyes and hear Senator Joe Lieberman's voice...this is the morbid sound of a lifelong resident. John is right, we were able to envision that Connecticut woman's entire day, although I also felt that while her husband is away she sometimes takes out a secretly stashed pack of cigarettes and smokes alone in the backyard...after all Mr. Perfect Husband would never approve of that. I also believe that just prior to her evening valium binge, she reviewed her credit card statement and discovered that her daughter, who is currently a freshman at UMass., is averaging about $200 a week in bar tabs....that ungrateful spoiled brat.
So this morning I discovered that my parents cable company offers Karaoke as part of their premium package, so from the wee hours one could hear blasting throught the halls of Spumoni
Gardens my voice:
"Sharif dont like it....ROCK THE CASBAH, ROCK THE CASBAH!!!" and
"Oooh weeeee. Ooooo weee Baby, wont you let me take you on a sea cruise"
or the one that cracked Ree up (and woke her up)
"Life is a highway, Iwant to ride it all night long..."
By the way, right now I can not only smell the sauce but the aroma of roasting red peppers, BazzukaJoe you should invite over the execs from Estee Lauder for a new direction and possible fortune in the cologne business. Also Vin is blasting "You Dont Have To Be A Star" by Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis".....VH1 has no comprehension of what an actual "Surreal Life" is.

Hey, I realized after I made that last post: the Encyclopedia Mastandrea does not yet contain an entry for "Connecticut Malaise." I will take a stab at it here (but Steve may have additional commentary which he may add as follow-up).

We first identified the "Connecticut Malaise" in the year 2000, pretty much by accident, as we waited at the Stamford rail station so Steve and his pals could catch Amtrak back to Boston.

It was early in the morning (I'd woken everyone before daylight, using that reveille-playing alarm-clock from way-back-when). The train was to arrive soon, so people were driving up and popping their trunks to grab their luggage.

I had pulled up right next to the staircase to the platform so we were able to wait in the car, comfortably, with our music playing. Another car pulled up directly in front of us. That's when we saw her.

Groggy, and with nothing else to do, we watched.

"See that woman at her trunk?" I said, and we all did. "Does she look sad that her husband is making a trip? No. After the train takes him away she's going to sit alone in her big house, worried about her looks, comparing her finances to the people next door, wondering why she doesn't have fun anymore. She'll go to work tomorrow, but not because she has to make money. She never has anything interesting to talk about, but always wants to say something. Later today, she'll take some pills, sip some wine, and when the landscaper comes to clear the thatch in her backyard, she'll invite him in."

Everyone in the car observed her carefully. They saw it too.

"She's got the Connecticut Malaise."

I bet Simms saw that a lot at Harvard Law. Now he had a name for it.

Steve, what am I missing here?

Heard from Marlena yesterday and she and Jenia were just pulling up to their local farmers market. She described the people in their brand new and perfectly fitting exercise clothes. They were crisp. They were proud. They had bodies sculpted by personal trainers. Marlena narrated the scene and it struck me that she was experiencing the Florida equivalent of the Connecticut Malaise.

We should write our own DSM.

But then of course there's the rest of Florida... Here's a story of a Cape Coral woman who burned herself up in a bathtub full of gasoline. Who can afford to fill a bathtub with gasoline?

Mortimer is a great name. I have never met one but my dad had an attorney named Mort. And wasn't there a show on public access in brooklyn named "Ask Mort Horowitz?" Reminds me of Mortimer and Randolph.
How about Leonidus or i have guy at corporate named sashi.
i keep saying malapogi. but just inmy head over and over.
I am intriqued by the name Melvin and Stanley.
I do not know why.

I find it funny you call Alane Congoleum. I once called the baby Manzo.

I have been thinking about the music thing brought up Shteef.
I got my mind set on you by George Harrison-----driving to florida in the blue wagon. smelly ears.
oh what a night by franki valli--------joe vadala's party with Cousin Jimmy
young folks ---------moving last week

Just got back from the barbershop where Da Chimpz got nice buzz-cuts. They're a gouda luke. Nice place, that barbershop, with nice people. But it's just not the same as having Tommy in Bronxville give you the business.

I wonder how that guy is doing?

All morning, the name "Mortimer" has been in my head. Do we know a Mortimer?

Got all excited when I found this clip of the Toasters performing at a NJ venue in 1989 -- it was late in the summer of 1989 that I first caught the Toasters when I went with Gene and Tommy to a club near the Ocean City beach house they'd rented. Since then, Guido and I tried to catch them whenever we could, at places all over NYC. Often with the N.Y. Citizens and/or Bop Harvey.

It seems like so many years ago -- and it was. But I thought, "could this be a video of that first show I saw?" Not likely -- this place seems to be in or around Trenton, not the shore. So close, but no cigar.

Their music still kicks. Here's an even better video. And another of my favorite tunes.

Hey Frylock: was moving Bazzukajoe's stuff anything like emptying the Haynie Lane house back in 2004? Or was that just the space between the refrigerator and the wall? (Who knew a potato could grow real eyes!)

Does Broadway Joe perform his show live? Has a contestant's singing ever been so bad that it caused him to hurl? What's the Swedish word for hwolp? Yeah, it's disgusting. But is it any more disgusting than the kraut juice visual from the other day?

Hey, maybe she guzzled a can of kraut juice before the show. That and a few morsels of lute fiske and I think I too would be blowing chunks.

This other video made me think of Bazzukajoe's experience moving -- it's the kind of thing that would have happened to him if he'd decided to use heavy equipment. I especially like the guy running away. That would've been Little Vito.

This morning on the radio I heard a snippet of a song we all know and love:

I wanna put on...
My my my my my boogie shoes...

Yeah, that's a good idea.

I had a dream last night that I was going to fry some eggs, but when I took the egg carton out of the refrigerator, all the eggs were old and smashed. I tried to use them anyway. It didn't go well.

Finally got around to listening to some of those Infected Mushroom tracks I got last time I was in the office. Good stuff. Maybe gotta blast some while I work today.