Got the Jimmy Legs

June 11, 2008 – 8:14 am

MR BONES, 2001-2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

6/10/2008
Brooklyn, NY

MR BONES, of Brooklyn, NY, died on Monday from an unspecified illness. Long considered one of the most photographed cats in the 'blogosphere, MR BONES was admired for his wide girth and human-like social skills. Though shunning the companionship of fellow members of his species, he demonstrated an uncanny ability to cultivate human companions and to extract from them expressions of admiration, if not awe.

MR BONES was born in the vicinity of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in either September or October of 2001, still a question of some debate. After a hardscrabble early life in the streets, delis and parking lots along the western edge of the BQE, he found his way to the humble storefront abode of one Buzz McKinnon, inviting himself in and using his charm and charisma to extort food, shelter and water from the tenant. Inexplicably, and in short order, he was able to convince McKinnon to offer him permanent asylum, in spite of McKinnon's cat allergy and lack of competence. MR BONES' first litter box, assembled from household materials, was a cardboard box lined with a garbage bag. After the bag was shredded, McKinnon finally realized that a trip to the pet store was required, and soon caught on.

From Williamsburg, MR BONES traveled to residences in Clinton Hill, Bushwick, and finally to Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Featured on countless photoblogs, MR BONES gradually came to renown. Cat owners, upon seeing his likeness on the Internet, began feeding their own cats double doses of fatty foods in an effort to remake their own pets in his image. Ironically, MR BONES himself was on a special diet, dubbed the "Lance Armstrong Diet" by McKinnon, a reference to the cyclist who famously measured his food consumption down to the millimeter. Attempts at reducing the big cat's weight were for the most part fruitless, leaving veterinarians all over the borough stumped.

Collecting many friends and admirers, MR BONES settled into a life of luxury. In 2007, he quickly adopted McKinnon's wife Sylvia, and extended his sphere of influence.

A photo memorial is being organized, to be posted on the web at a soon-to-be-named location. "Thank you all for your generosity to MR BONES over the past six years," said McKinnon through a spokesman. "If you have some photos of him, please send your favorite one to buzz (at) motico (dot com). I'd be much obliged."

"You should think of MR BONES as an angel," McKinnon continued. "Just picture a big white cat angel with tiny wings and you're in the ballpark."

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By the way, I didn't write the obit, but it sums up a lot of what I'll miss about Monsieur Bones. He could be grumpy and obstinate but his singleminded personality was a balm for a world that throws so much crap at us all the time. I am pretty sure I'll never meet another cat like Mr Bones.

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Bad Stuff, Cats | Comments Off

May 28, 2008 – 3:30 pm

You just want to rhumba

How to Get Something Done in a Big Company the Requires Intra-departmental Funding in 13 EZ Steps:

Decide that your project cannot go any further until another department is brought in to do work because they own some back-end services they don't let anybody else touch. Sigh heavily at the prospect of getting them to do anything for you.
Approach them, pleasantly and gingerly, like approaching a young squirrel.
Ask them if they wouldn't mind doing the work that is, after all, their job to do in the first place.
They respond: Please have a funding number set up. Secured funding is a must before they can even consider the scope of work.
Ask how much money should be assigned to the funding number.
They respond they won't know how much it will cost until they begin the project.
But to begin the project, they will need that funding number.
Which, of course, will need to be set up with a certain amount of money. Spend about an hour trying to wrap your head around this, then pick a huge amount of dough to apply funding.
Ask the folks in the Finance Department to set up funding number with this funding. They won't return your emails or calls for one week. When you finally get a hold of them you are fuming and irrational, to which they will respond with insulted shock. Funding number will be created with less money than requested, even though the money 'belongs' to your department.
Return to 1st department armed with funding number. They respond with polite frustration, explaining that your funding number is not compatible with their billing system. You try to ask "Why didn't you tell me this in the first place?" but suddenly they no longer understand English.
After begging them to complete the work which is now weeks past due, they will finally admit they can do it once one of their Finance Department contacts alters the funding number to match their system.
With the money in place, the department can finally get to work. Immediately the entire department goes on vacation. Meanwhile, somebody else finds out about the funding number and, rather than go through all the trouble of setting one up themselves, uses it for their own project. Funding runs out; the project is now 3 months behind schedule and the boss is starting to notice.
Send frantic emails to every single person you dealt with during the course of this ordeal and wire some 'emergency' money into the account. The work is done by the next morning, perfectly. Except "American" is misspelled. Which is your fault. Blame it on the contractor in India.

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Funny to Me, Job | Comments Off

May 20, 2008 – 10:40 am

Can't you see I'm terrific at everything

The other day I got to work with a musician whose skill far surpassed my own. He could play piano and guitar (and reportedly many other instruments) with the great ease, and as if that weren't enough, had perfect pitch, listening a couple of times to a song and immediately knowing all the root chords and whatnot. Meanwhile I was struggling along on a bass guitar, trying to figure out the chord progressions, asking him incessantly to remind me of the note order (there were like 4 chords in the whole song). By this time he was improving and soloing over the song, while I continued to trip over my 4 notes.

It always frustrates me that I can't do everything as well as I'd like, but I wonder what it's like to be really good at something like that. I've known lots of people who have these innate talents. Of course, this guy may have been schooled for years at various instruments, and one could argue that's why he's so good now. But then I reflect, I have received lessons on no fewer than 3 musical instruments during my formative years, and now I'm lucky if I can get my pinky finger to go where I tell it. I'd say the ability to actually learn the discipline and stick with it is a talent in its own right, maybe even more impressive than the guy who just naturally has a talent for something. But of course, even that's pretty impressive.

So what does it feel like to be super good at something? Like the kid I met when I was in junior high, he was able to use the rudimentary drawing program on my Apple IIe computer and, using only the chunky mouse available, freehand an elaborate scene of a man on a surfboard (imagine what he could do with an Etch-a-Sketch.) I wonder if really talented people even have a capacity to appreciate how far beyond normal folks they are; maybe they can't even tell they're talented, because it comes so easily to them. That would kind of suck, but I suppose the really talented among us who actually realize the disparity become intolerably arrogant.

This of course makes me think of all the supremely UNtalented people I've known who still manage to be insufferably arrogant anyway. I could theoretically create a false sense of great ability by simply acting like a dick all the time. But sooner or later somebody would hand me a guitar and tell me to play a Billy Joel or Carole King song on sight, and the ugly truth would be revealed.

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Funny to Me | Comments Off

May 19, 2008 – 11:59 am

Catch the pigeon

I went on the latest BCUE walking tour of Bushwick, this time focusing on the southern tip of the neighborhood. Bushwick Specialist Adam Schwartz (of upfromflames fame) led some 20-odd folks around, getting down to the Trinity Cemetery and up to Irving Square Park, going through the side streets along the way. I'm not sure if the route was selected for this purpose directly, but we went by some lovely homes, and not the kind of thing I would have expected.

When I walk around my neighborhood, it's usually for some purpose like running errands or heading to the train. I don't get a lot of time to stroll around and just look at the place. Since I spend most of my time on Broadway, my view of Bushwick is loud and garbage-strewn, with a lot of shuttered storefronts. While this may be accurate, there's also a lot of charming homes and people hidden in there somewhere. It seems odd to have such a revelation since I've been living here for nearly two years; I realized that my estimation of the neighborhood has been, my block is nice but not much else is around here. But like my street, there's many well-maintained blocks full of beautiful houses. Thanks to the tour I was able to pay more attention to this fact, as well as pick up some history as well.

I was a bit disappointed to see only a couple of people I recognized from the bushwickbk.com, but this side of the neighborhood is not exactly a hotspot: most of the tour attendees appeared to be senior citizens, possibly residents of one of the former iterations of Bushwick. The meet-up was especially surreal because a) they were working on the street so there was almost no traffic, and b) the meeting spot at Chauncey is surrounded by new construction retail buildings, none of which appear to be rented yet. But when we plunged down the side streets, the scene changed immediately to the neighborhoody vibe that had attracted me here in the first place.

We saw several sides of the neighborhood, the beautiful churches, the Shell station that used to be Trommer's brewery, the houses on Chauncey Street with the weird little balconies. As we were covering the Our Lady of Lourdes part of the tour, we met Izzy, a local who led us to the church's current incarnation in a former Chevrolet warehouse off Bushwick Ave. The Most Holy Trinity Cemetery was founded on the notion that all people should be equal, at least in memoriam, so all the grave markers are made out of metal. A nice theory, but this leaves you with a field of rusty tombstones.

I had to ditch the tour a little early to go to a band rehearsal, but not before we saw an impeccably-appointed fire house, and spied a pigeon coop on top of a building on the corner of Eldert Street. Adam explained the sport of pigeon flying, in which competitors try to lure other people's pigeons (O.P.P.) into their flock. I knew about the sport after puzzling over the "Pigeons & Pet Supplies" store at the end of my block, but I've never seen a coop before. I probably just haven't been paying attention.

Ironically the tour ended up making things seem less exotic to me. Demystifying the neighborhood is a good thing since I feel like I understand a little more clearly how this spot I call home came to be. But knowing the history doesn't change the fact that it's still just a neighborhood, the changes that have occurred since I got here are just another drop in the bucket.

Full album here.

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in BCUE, Brooklyn, Bushwick, Gentrification, Walking Tours | Comments Off

May 14, 2008 – 10:52 am

Say baby do you wanna lay down by me

Okay, I have a lot of cats, but I maintain that I haven't lost all touch with reality. However, should I ever find that my cat obsession overwhelms all other aspects of my life, losing me my girlfriend, job and acquaintances, at least I can still meet other like-minded shut-ins:

PURRsonals.com appears to be less of a dating service for cat lovers as it is a beard service for closeted gay men. At any rate, what a ridiculous, sure-to-fail concept. Unlike, say, jedidating.com.