Joel Keller

See this photo gallery of happy, smiling people drinking and having fun?

I was supposed to be one of them.

But as I learned for the 2,123rd time, no matter how many times I go into New York, or how well I think I know the city, something will happen that proves that the city is still capable of grabbing me by my underpants and giving me an atomic wedgie.

And when that wedgie happens because of a brain blurp, it makes the waistband over my head feel all the tighter.

Here’s the skinny: Whitney Matheson, a pop culture columnist for USAToday.com, was holding a meet-up of her column readers at a Lower East Side bar called Lolita. Since I’ve been a loyal reader of Whitney’s for many years, I figured a slow but painful trip into the city from my suburban New Jersey hidey-hole would be worth it. And, as luck would have it, I had been to that bar before, since a writing acquaintance of mine holds debates there every month. Huzzah! All I needed to do was shoot through the Holland Tunnel, make my way up Houston, and I’d be there.

Famous last words…

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For those who come to this blog via direct links, you may not know that this is a sub-site of JoelKeller.com, a marketing site that I use to show my writing work to editors and other curious on-lookers.

Every few months, I update the site with new clips, many of which I’ve already listed here, but some of which I haven’t, mainly because the articles were print-only and I had to scan them in before putting them up on the site. But here my favorite recent additions, if you need a good bathroom read (All are in PDF files unless otherwise indicated):

Profile of noted jazz pianist Bill Charlap

Profile of local theater director Barbara Krajkowski and her daughter, Jane Krakowski of 30 Rock

Profile of Edel Rodriguez, an award-winning illustrator who immigrated here from Cuba as a boy

Profile of former New York Giants center Bart Oates

Profile of Shaun Mehtani and his new Morristown restaurants (he was a hoot to interview, so I’m including the article here)

You know those stock shots of fat people’s mid-sections that you usually see on the local news whenever they do a story on obesity?

I wonder if I’ve ever been in one of those shots.

I mean, the odds are pretty good, I’d reckon. I walk around a lot. I have a gut. It seems inevitable.

Maybe one day I saw one of those stock shots of headless obese people and shook my head, not realizing that one of those beer bellies was mine.

I wonder if the local Y is offering membership discounts…

Ever think you’ve got the perfect subject for an essay or blog post, then when you actually get down to writing the thing, it comes out all wrong? That just happened to me tonight.

I was going to make some funny observations on how models are the best salespeople because they make even the boring clothes from Land’s End and Eddie Bauer look good (especially the women… the dresses they sell at those places look like potato sacks). But the more I tried to write, the more the blog entry sounded a) more like a true gripe than a humor essay, and b) made me sound like a nerdier version of Mr. Blackwell.

I guess that’s the reason why I started that blog; to have a place where I can work out the “clever” ideas that pop into my head and see if they’ll actually work on paper. In this case, I was able to see my folly before hitting the “Publish” button. But I still think there’s something there, humor-wise (hopefully in a way where I can incorporate the name “Bea Arthur” somewhere in the essay). Maybe you fine folks can help me find the funny in this one; it’s still on the site as a draft if I ever want to go back to it.

P.S. Like the new favicon? I added it on Friday night. It took me a couple of hours to get that bugger done and uploaded, but now it’s there for all to enjoy. Man oh man, I need to go out more…

I’ve heard that in order for your blog to have a realistic chance of being taken “seriously,” that you need to add at least three entries per week. As you can tell, I’m kind of falling behind in that regard. What can I say? I’m not really in a bloggery state of mind.

So, about this Sopranos mishegas…

From what I’m seeing, the percentage of people who were satisfied with how the show ended seems to be right up there with President Bush’s approval rating, and I can understand why. You watch a show for eight years, put up with its ins and outs, wait eons between seasons, and when the show finally reaches the conclusion everyone’s been waiting to see for almost three years, all they see is the screen go to black. Tony doesn’t get whacked, and we have no idea what actually happened. On top of it all, the show concludes with a cliched song from the second most boring band of all time (after Rush). So I can see how people would get frustrated on many levels.

But, as a writer, I could see where David Chase was going with that ending.
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Anyone know of a good way to block comment sp*m? I seem to be getting at least one of them per day, and it’s starting to annoy me. Maybe there’s a WordPress plug-in that’ll help me with this….