Joel Keller

Back Stories: My cubiclemate broke my heart. (PDF)
Jane, November 2006

An Encyclopedic Grasp of Hanukkah
The Washington Post, 12-26-2005

The Blue Plate, Special - Essay about my ancient blue NJ license plates
The New York Times, 02-08-2004

Good Food, Good Times, and Bad Fat - Essay about Italian hot dogs and good times
The New York Times, 04-24-2005

The Mall You Call Home
The New York Times, 08-28-2005

Guide-ing Light - Essay about the decline of the old TV Guide
mediabistro, 09-12-2005

Huffington Post Blog - I write every so often for HuffPo. Here are my entries.
Huffington Post, periodic

PCs Killed the Mix Tape Star
Salon, 01-22-2004

Want to Stop your Job from Being Outsourced? Join a Union.
Salon, 11-06-2003

My left shoulder’s been bugging me lately. Nothing major; just a twinge. But it it’s been enough of a twinge to wake me up in the morning and make me swallow some Advil, something I tend to avoid if I can.

How did I hurt it? Did I lift something that was too heavy? Throw a ball with a little too much oopmh? Did I sleep on it wrong?

I wish it was one of those three reasons. No, I’m pretty sure I hurt my shoulder while playing Nintendo Wii.

I know… sounds manly, doesn’t it?

Anyway, I was over my brother Rich’s house on July 4 and discovered that he bought a Wii a couple of months ago. Since I had never played it before, he popped in the Wii Sports disc and handed me one of those remote controllers that you strap to your wrist (I guess they have the strap there to keep the controller from braining someone if your baseball or tennis grip isn’t exactly solid). We played each other in baseball, and the results were what you’d expect from two people who each played one year of Little League: lots of swinging and missing and no score.

Of course, not realizing how sensitive the controller was, I over-swung on every pitch, and when I was pitching, I actually went into a full motion, like some spastic version of Mariano Rivera. Little did I know that you really only needed to move the controller a little bit for it to do whatever you need it to do.

After baseball, my brother handed the controller to my six-year-old niece Samantha, and that’s when the fun began. I’ll relieve the suspense right now: she kicked my ass. I don’t know whether she’s more coordinated than I am or it’s just the usual case of a kid knowing more about video games than her decrepit adult relatives. But she beat me soundly in bowling and golf.

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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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