namaste

Yoga is big in New York City. Really big. Advertisements for classes are everywhere, and I’ll frequently catch my friends and coworkers – even the ones I’d least suspect of being secret yoga acolytes – toting the tell-tale little mat. Frankly, I’ve been curious. Just last weekend, I had lunch with a college friend – previously one of the bitchier girls I knew – who had been doing yoga for several months and now had purged herself of negativity, would only say kind things about others. Whatever was happening in that yoga class must have been powerful stuff.

Still, I’ve been more than a bit skeptical of the yoga movement. After all, I’ve observed hundreds of classes from the corner of my eye while at the gym, and from what I could tell, yoga consists mainly of awkward, oddly-named stretching movements held while an overly flexible guru repeats the importance of ‘centering ones mind’ in the tone of voice normally found only in the extremely stoned or those suffering from affective disorders.

My father, a sports medicine physician and my erstwhile workout buddy, had apparently been curious as well. Since I’m staying with my parents here in Palo Alto, he decided to take advantage of my presence (sort of a ‘safety in numbers’ deal) to give yoga a test run. He had picked up a Living Arts yoga DVD (as their pilates DVD is one of the best), and last night we took a run through the beginning yoga workout. In short, it was mainly similar to the stretching routine I already do in preparation for kickboxing, the only differences being:

1. They aren’t ‘stretches,’ they’re ‘poses’ or ‘asanas.’

2. They’re not named ‘seated hamstring stretch’ or ‘standing hip flexor stretch’, they’re named ‘corpse pose,’ ‘downward dog pose’ and ‘warrior pose.’ (The final one evidencing why India had never become a world military power, as most other cultures would have seen more of a ‘guy who thinks he’s a warrior but is really just asking for a severe beating pose.’)

3. The routine concluded with a solemn statement of “namaste,” or (roughly translated from sanskrit) “I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells. I honor the place in you, which is of light and peace. When you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, we are one.”

Apparently, I wasn’t in that place in me of light and peace where the entire universe dwells, because the instructor struck me as, basically, a moron. More than once, I also caught myself thinking: “You mean, if I do this for years, I’ll end up looking and acting like this guy? Looks like I’ve done just about enough yoga, thanks.”

It was definitely worthwhile though. Just one hour and my yoga curiosity is fully sated – you’ll never see me in the ‘powerful mountain pose’ again. Namaste.

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April 13, 2002

look out playgirl

Yes, due to this posting, in which I bemoan the number of old, fat naked guys lounging around the locker room of the Yale Club where I work out, I’m now the fourth entry in a Google search for ‘naked guys’.

And, for those concerned, I’m also still the second most authority on ‘urinal etiquette’.

Between the two, I can’t even begin to express my feelings of gratification.

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trapped inside a television

Ostensibly, I watch films as producer education. I turn on my DVD player, dim the lights, and pull up a chair, pen and paper in hand, ready to analyze. “What about this film works well?” I ask myself. “What about it would I want to replicate?”

Each time, however, by the time the credits roll, I sit up with a start. I notice that halfway down the first page, my notes trail off as though I’d been hypnotized mid-sentence. And each time, I realize that’s the point of producing films: a good movie can, quickly and completely, suck you into the veracious parallel world behind the screen. A very good movie can let you sit within that world, looking back out at your own life.

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April 9, 2002

a moment of wallowing self pity

My original plan for the evening involved attending a party at the acclaimed Osteria del Circo, sponsored by the equally acclaimed Ikon Model Management. Such parties are always a good time, as they not only feature really hot girls, but also allow me to hone my Napoleonic charm in the most difficult of environments. (Me: 5’6″; models: 5’10”; phone numbers: Inexplicably, yes.)

Instead, however, I’ll be lying at home, drunk off Nyquil and sipping chicken soup. I managed to get myself sick over the weekend, and have spent all day at work too hoarse to use the phone and brain too full of snot to send productive emails. (Which may, in retrospect, explain my fascination with the ads cited in the prior post). None the less, I have an exceedingly quick metabolism, so I suspect that by tomorrow things will be looking up. And yes, mom, I took some Echinacea.

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April 8, 2002

then i guess i’ve missed a lot of rehearsals

Yale’s big band, the swingin’ Yale Jazz Ensemble, with which I played for four years, is coming to New York for a gig. The promotional picture they’re using, however, is a bit out of date, as it still shows me at the lead trumpet stand, despite having graduated last year. Here’s a scan:

The Yale Jazz Ensemble, apparently still featuring Joshua Newman

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April 7, 2002

buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks

That time of year has once again rolled around. Opening pitches have been thrown and fans everywhere have whipped out their calculators to figure the odds of the Yankee’s left-handed batters bunting off inside pitches when the team is down by three in the fourth inning and there are two outs.

Or something like that. From what I’ve observed, people who love baseball, who really love it, are numbers people, and the sport provides endless statistics to compute, consider and compare. Frankly, I don’t really care. I mean, I like baseball; I love to head out to the ballpark, and I’ll catch games on TV. But I can’t list the Yankee’s batting order, much less the ERAs of their top pitchers, and I suspect most Americans can’t either. Yet baseball remains, indisputably, our national pastime, as quintessentially American as Apple Pie and hating the French.

After brief consideration, the reason becomes obvious: liquor. There are few other sports that you can follow as well as baseball when completely and thoroughly piss drunk. Cross a certain threshold and hockey, basketball or football games just move too fast. But in baseball, there are plenty of strikes, balls, crotch-scratches and tobacco-spits between anything exciting happening. Even once you’ve reached that precarious point of drunkenness in which, when you turn your head quickly, the world seems to lag a bit behind, you can still handle baseball.

Which is why the start of the baseball season is a happy and patriotic time for America, a time for us to reflect on the American way of life, at least as represented by pot-bellied guys running around a dirt square wearing stretch pants. A toast! Three rude cheers (hey ump, can I pet your seeing eye dog after the game?) and a big swig of Bud Light.

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