Really Like Those TV Dinners

What's not to like? Thaw it out... put it in the oven... munch on it... it's tender and juicy... nice choice bits... ready to eat... finger lickin' good... what a meal! Thanks Swanson...

How To Approach A Pesty Parker

So, this new family moves onto the block last summer and decides that because their driveway is narrow, they will begin using the street as their new parking spots. Now, the patriarch of the family commutes by train to work, so his black Toyota sits out in front of their house ALL week. The matriarch works a bit part-time but is mostly a mom shuttling her kids to playdates or heading to the gym from time to time. Her trips back and forth are not so excessive that she cannot park in the driveway. Further, there is no obstruction for her to worry about hitting when she backs out of her drive. But, of course, the two cars sitting there is a big obstruction for her adjacent neighbors, one with a large, 6-passenger sedan. The latter driver swears he is going to be in a rush one day, come out of the drive more quickly than usual and collide with one or both of their cars. Other times he gets so frustrated with the situation that he wants to purposely ram one of the cars, driving it up onto the offending neighbor's lawn!

Being the polite neighborhood it is, folks have been reluctant to confront them and share their feelings. Their bad perhaps, but it was expected that the family would have gotten the message by now. What to do?

The solution: Create a mock-parking ticket that expresses the frustration, makes a logical argument for parking in the driveway and outlines the benefit of compliance = happy neighbors, good vibes.

Will report back and let you know if the strategy worked.

Acoustically Speaking

It's Acoustic... in that it offers acoustic music... and a Cafe, but only because it used to offer food. Overall, it's got a good vibe this music nook in Bridgeport's Black Rock section. Just ask eagle-eyed door sentry Jessica, who's the keeper of the entry gate and has roosted here a while now. A sharp cookie with razor-sharp wit and a playful personality, J can sashay with the best of 'em.

Serving up the suds behind a makeshift jerry-rigged wooden fortress is Kelly, with hair swirled up high like a Dairy Queen double scoop with extra chocolate sprinkles. She administers shots of Jameson's like Nurse Ratchet laying down smallpox vaccine. Carrying a baby on board, Special K has a nurturing way, cradling the Bendy straws and rocking the register with a lullaby caress.

Meanwhile, the growing populace here enjoys their "Huge Ass Beers" including PBRs, Magic Hat #9, Brooklyn Pils, Bass and Blue Moon, the suds going down easy, filling eager bellies and enhancing moods.

Ceiling areas painted black hide industrial machinations and the coarse underbelly of the establishment, aglow in multi-colored gel lights.

The freelance crooner on stage lays down his tracks, making an appeal to the crowd. He gains acknowledgement with polite claps and a giggle, then is gone.

Leopard skin-patterned booths draw "hunters" of nightlife. They tote wads of dollar bills looking for good times.

Casual is the style here, with knit caps, ball caps, flannel and denim ruling the day. It's the uniform of the common, the salt of the earth, the real deal.

A lulling good time and tasty brews will be had by all.

If You Like What You're Reading, Throw a Buck Mike's Way

Mike Lauterborn is engaged in some pretty exciting new things -- writing for newspapers and magazines, trying to get his "Chasing Charley" book published, developing a second book project, looking to teach creative writing, trying to get a shore tours service launched and, most importantly, giving back and helping out the less fortunate whenever and wherever he can (case in point, helping improve his assistant's living conditions by personally gutting and renovating her apartment). Like all fledgling enterprises, funds are required to make these things possible and, right now, money is slim until these efforts begin to gain traction. So, here's the deal: If you like what you read here and would like to see Mike succeed at these positive endeavors -- particularly any charitable involvements -- send him a buck or two. Mike will keep a list of all supporters and their contributions and provide an accounting of how all funds are used. Mike will also provide when printed his first book at a discount off the retail cover price and personally autographed. The greater your contribution, the greater the discount (for example, $10 contribution=5% off, $20 contribution= 10% off, $30 contribution, 15% off and so on in 5% increments with each successive $10 increase). This is for real people. Let's do some exciting things together. To help out, make your check payable to Mike Lauterborn and send to:

Mike Lauterborn

48 Smith Street

Fairfield, CT 06824

Your good karma will be repaid in greater ways than you can imagine.

Thanks in advance for your support.

Another GE Plant Passes Into History

After a morning baseball scrimmage that he wanted to attend was called on account of threatening rain, Mike Lauterborn asked to check out his assistant Cynthia's place that she shares with boyfriend Orlando. The three and Mike's son Phil traveled in Mike's "squad car" through the streets of Bridgeport and to their basement apartment. As it happens, the flat is located on Boston Avenue directly across the street from a General Electric plant that's been in local news of late. Built on a 76.6-acre site nearly a century ago, the 13 five-story high interconnected structures ceased all operations two years ago and will be dismantled by 2012. According to published reports, GE took over the property from Remington Arms in 1920 and produced such products here as irons, toasters and radios, within 1.5 million interior square feet.

What was particularly coincidental about this GE site was the fact that Mike's dad (and grandfather and grand-uncle) worked in a similar complex in Schenectady, New York, and it, too, was razed after falling into disuse. The Schenectady plant, where the senior Lauterborn was a creative director, was a short bicycle ride away and employed 43,000 people at its peak. When city government raised corporate taxes, the death knoll sounded for GE refused to pay the increase, relocated its people, razed its buildings and Schenectady withered like a grape left on a vine. Mike Lauterborn penned the following related article, which went unpublished by upstate New York newspapers to which it was sent:

From Clean Streets to Mean Streets and Back

By Mike Lauterborn

© 2010. All Rights Reserved.

3/2/10

Some heartening news recently appeared in my email inbox, under the banner “Union College Finally Admits Where It Is.” It was a New York Times article my dad had stumbled upon, about how Union College was standing up for and helping to reinvigorate its host city of Schenectady, reversing a former stance of embarrassment and shielding prospective students and families from it when providing campus orientations.

The story had personal relevance, as Schenectady was the place of my birth back in 1964 and home until I was 12. I’d been saddened by its decline over the years and recent Moody’s Investors Service evaluations giving it the lowest bond rating among cities in New York State.

Indeed, on my last pass-throughs over a decade ago to attend family events, I was shocked to see a once-bustling downtown that had been thick with popular restaurants, shops and theaters mostly vacant, desolate and dead. Touring the neighborhoods I had known, I saw once ornately detailed Victorian-style homes now in disrepair, shady characters on street corners and litter everywhere. Front doors that might have stood wide open all day when I was a kid were now double locked and secured with iron bars. I was afraid to step out of the car, much less stop.

It was a difficult homecoming to be sure, destroying all the fond and too numerous memories I had collected in my mental archives: Skating on Iroquois Lake, visiting the zoo animals and clambering on an old fire engine at Central Park. Sledding on “Devil’s Hill”, a popular and steep embankment adjacent to the park that only the bravest of us kids dared to challenge. Swatting tennis balls on the courts at Schenectady High School. Helping build sets, acting in plays and trying on costumes at the Schenectady Civic Playhouse, with which our family was very actively involved. Playing kickball on the playground at my school, Elias B. Howe Elementary, on Baker Avenue. Buying jawbreakers, packs of Topps baseball cards and squares of Bazooka gum after school from nearby Salamack’s on Eastern Parkway (across the street was Friendly’s, where I took a first crush for Fribbles). Watching the mixer machine thrash paint cans back and forth at Stoddard’s. Picking out a new pair of Buster Brown shoes, munching on free pretzel sticks and riding the rocking horse at Bernie's Buster Brown Family Shoe Store. Learning to swim at the YMCA on State Street. The annual Festival of Nations celebration at the Schenectady Museum. Spaghetti and meatballs at Luigi’s in the Stockade area. Playing phonograph records on the floor of Dr. Oshetski’s (our family dentist) office on Union Avenue, steps from the apartment in which we first lived after I came into this world at Ellis Hospital and was baptized at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church.

Then there were the times I accompanied my dad through the impressive River Road entryway to the General Electric complex where he worked as a creative director promoting turbine engines among other company products. The site had accommodated over 43,000 employees (my dad's dad and my dad's brother among them) at its peak. Like a steel factory or mill in other cities built on industry, GE was the life sustainer and chief source of city revenue.

The way I have heard it told, the city’s downturn began when its governing body decided to put the burden of tax revenue on the corporate giant… and GE was not having it. The company razed 80% of its buildings there and relocated a majority of its people, many to Fairfield, CT, which coincidentally is where I have called home for the past 14 years. As the decline was beginning, my dad relocated us downstate to Scarsdale, NY, taking a job with the International Paper Company, another corporate giant that would itself later undergo significant restructuring and relocation of its people.

Now there are some things to be hopeful about with regard to my old hometown, where Thomas Alva Edison introduced the world to electric light. The historic Proctors Theater has been renovated; a six-screen movie theater, restaurants and hotels opened; and GE has sparked a renewable-energy plant. Union College has been right there pitching in by restoring decaying housing, establishing new dorms, creating new athletic fields, initiating community social programs and helping revitalize retail.

These efforts are no doubt giving high school seniors and their parents reassurance that Union College is a smart choice… and that Schenectady is on its way back to its once-admired stance as a center for industriousness, new ideas and salt-of-the-earth values. I think it may be time for another visit.

Lady In Red with Deep Ink

While out ogling the populace as is his wont, Mike Lauterborn encountered Michelle, a comely representative of the opposite species sporting rose red garb and profound ink. The tattooed message was a snippet excerpted from a song by Morrissey titled "I Know It's Over." The lyric sliver Michelle had chosen: "It's so easy to laugh, It's so easy to hate, It takes strength to be gentle and kind." A truism Mike thought, as you can certainly go to one extreme end or another, but to truly be gentle and kind takes work and self-dedication.

It's worthy to note that, in the opinion of at least one music reviewer, the song was probably the most poetic and expressive in Morrissey's career... so it was appropriate for the raven-haired temptress to have chosen the piece. The song is complex, speaking of the end of a fictitious relationship, contemplation of suicide yet fear of death, feelings of utter helplessness, pointless promises and self-delusion, all the while evoking a stong emotional intensity.

The interface with this Siren of the Night was unexpected but, then, so are most of Lauterborn's daily encounters!

Another Hottie a la Raquel

Talk about your spicy meatball, Gina Lollobrigida came to mind within the context of Raquel Welch. One of those timeless, riveting beauties that know no equal. As a young man, Mike Lauterborn had a poster of the actress plastered to the living room wall of his bachelor apartment. Talk about a source of inspiration... and perspiration... and masturba... well, we'll leave it that.