Month: July 2011

Dangerous Cliches, #2 “Less is More”

Try telling this untruth to my poor uncle, Pecunious Shwartz. He has lost most of his hair and so must do humiliating comb-over trying to hide baldness.

Or, you go to one of these new fangling boutique restaurants even propping up in Estonia now where on your plate you have tiny little piece of meat floating on shrimpy foam and one leaf of mint. You say “is OK, less is more“, but you will still be feeling hungry.

Less is not more people! The Devil likes to be saying this to discourage you, make you weak. Is there such thing as too much peace of mind? Too much sexy time with your wife? Too much fried Twinkies?

Okay so maybe not all good examples, but even when you overdo it, you learn. Did not William Blake write, “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom“? Yes he did, I know because I was there when he wrote it! In  fact it was my answer to his question, “hey Zamboni, is it ever too much?”

So remember, it is usually someone saying this when what they really want to say is,”this needs more!” The emperor has no clothes, he is naked. It is not just “less is more” or he is underdressed;  his hazelnuts are swinging in the breeze and that’s not good.

How is this more?

So friends, know here that more is more and less is less.

Bon appetite!

Can I have My Cake and Eat it Too?

This question comes from Maria in somewhere she is calling 29 Palms, Ca.

Maria, perhaps in a town named after a group of trees this may seem hard to accept, but the only way you should be having cake is eating it. Any other way is a waste of cake. And coming from a family of eight where limbs might be lost scrambling for even a crumb of cake, I say most definitely here: of course.

Eat the damn cake.

Hppy day for Zamboni, quick answer. Now I do golf.

Adieu!

Where have You Been Great Zambonio?

Thank you for asking this, and in the immortal words of the timeless sage L.L. Cool J, don’t call it a comeback. I was in Vegas, and I see many miracles, and eat some of them too.

I see a show with many tigers, even one of the 15 last great White Tigers, and this show is not in mighty room but in small space seating one hundred people and afterward the showman signs posters in the lobby with his one showgirl assisstant. This to me is pure theatre with heart. This man is Dirk Arthur and his “Wild magic” is at O’Shea’s. I know I had not heard of this place neither like you.

I touched Elvis on Fremont street who is singing with his brother who is also Elvis, and I explain to my two children of Zamboni, but little Zamboni boy junior still very confused, “then why do they say he has left the building?” I tell him life is simple but the life of Elvis not so.

I split New York steak of supreme flavor at the Golden Steer. A place you will drive right past because the outside does not tell you of the plush red and black leather and oil paintings of beautiful cows of the inside booths where Frank and Dino and Bugsy used to eat.

"No one does it like this anymore"

I see fountains of Bellagio shoot in sky for free with light and popping explosions and ballet of water sprays and even experience the miracle of Celine Dion song turned into hydropoetry not inducing nausea but actually beautiful.

I see a mindreader predict all the answers the audience person will give. I am in Venice at night even if it is during the day, I see zombie-eyed tourist taken in gondola past Abercrombie and Fitch and Mario Batali makes my pizza and the  local ingredient is Pahrump Honey because nothing much else grows in a 100 mile radius where it is dry like Mars. Driving to vegas you do not pass anything and you are driving toward that same mountain for two hours and your mind starts thinking too much with nothing to measure the time and the outside  temperature gauge climbing to 107 degrees.

And in the 100 degree night we watch the balls of fire erupting from the Mirage, every hour after 8pm. We feel the heat flash on our face as the tribal drums pound and I wonder why don’t the palm trees burn up?

They said the tigers were so close “they can smell your fear” but they seemed calm, so I guess we have no fear.

And still, Zamboni has never lost yet in Roulette.

You are surprised?

“What will I be when I’m thirty five?”

This question comes from “anonymous”.

Dear Anonymous, it is hard to say answer to this, even for Zamboni since I do not know you and cannot see you. I assume you are young, like teens yes?

I can tell you this ; if you take a good look at yourself as you are now, your dreams, hopes and most of all your pre-occupations and obsessions- that will give you great clues as to what you’ll be at the ancient age of 35. You are now busy turning into whatever you will be soon.

Yet, when I, little Zamboni, was sixteen, I saw only a future of making goat cheese, curing wild boar legs to eat in the winter, and perhaps marrying the plain daughter of a local brick maker. On the surface, there was nothing there to tell me I would become great zamboni. Yet if I delve back deeper to those times, I can remember I used to break watches to look at their littler moving pieces. I used to fantasize I was an international spy, and I would have dreams of travel. Thinking over this now, I see very clearly seeds of the growing Zamboni: the searcher for workings of universe, a man restless trotting over the globe answering peoples perplexings, solving their mysteries.

You cannot become anything you want. You can only accept what you are meant to be, or reject it.

The Romans believed we each had within us a “genius” a little spirit-dude-thingee that we had to let out and allow to be what it wanted to be. Like the “genie in the bottle” spoken of by great sage, Christina Aguilera.

I wish you luck in working with your genius…in some way each day- this you need to do. Then by 35, all will be well.

Some extra advice, don’t use credit cards, ever, it F#@k up your credit score in big way.

Be well!

Great Zamboni will be in Vegas until next Sunday, hear form me later then!

Clip from Zamboni Show, 2011

Herein I answer 3 questions from studio audience.. One about tennis, “Why is the backhand a weaker stroke?”,  one about Estonia Independance Day celebration, and one “why do people play golf?” To you people, put the mousie on that purple line below here and click!

Enjoy! And please hit the word “comment” below and ask me one of your own.

A Sentence About a Not so Lazy Day of Summer

q: "What is it? a:"the stuff dreams are made of "

I woke up and said today is gonna be a fun day, and Dash said why and I said, I don’t know I just feel like it is, and it was and maybe that had something to do with it, saying that, or it could have been the actual records-stacked-side-by-side jukebox in the Peninsula Fountain and Grill in Palo Alto, that actually works, green and red buttons lit up I can’t believe it works, yes if you hit the letter and the number buttons and hold them down at exactly the same time- and hearing “Shout!” a little bit louder now, “Shout!” as we ate our trio of pies Chocolate Pecan, Blueberry and Chocolate Cream, this after seeing Maltese Falcon at the Stanford Theatre, a 194o’s  little town movie palace complete with chandeliers and Wurlitzer organ, but we were hungry as hell so we didn’t stay around for, I know I  know, yes we skipped out on Casablanca which  was part 2 of the double bill,  we were hungry (short ribs with mash, turkey Pot pie, even Dash who’s the King of Blase says, “this is my favorite restaurant ever!” but as we paid the check the kids said “why not go back and see the end of it?” and we did, though it’d been a long day, and earlier laying flat on the ground outside Stanford Practice Football field where in a knothole in the fence we watched a coach dwarved against a defensive line of giants putting them through  some stamp on the ground flip over then stamp on the ground and flip back over again drill, yelling, “it’s not so fuckin hard is it? You wanna get the hell outta there on third down right?” and we all felt right at home then,  back on our couch plowing through all five seasons of Friday Night Lights, and then we’d tossed the pigskin around ourselves in the sun on the grass and buzzed over to the theatre for Maltese Falcon which isn’t one tenth what Casablanca is, sorry Dashiell Hammet, but now we’re in the balcony, about as high as that chandelier watching Casblanca and i’m filling the kids in where I can, whispering (“see, I told you we’d probably come in right at the flashback to their week in Paris” and “those are the Nazis who are kind of in control but the french are sort of too”) and we watched until the end and Faye laughed when Rick said don’t forget  i’ve got the gun pointed at your heart and Louis responds, “that is my least vulnerable part” and the fog rolls in so fast as that movie steams to it’s conclusion and the propellers start spinning, I notice the kids aren’t fidgeting and  when Louis says, “captain Strasser’s been shot…round up the usual suspects” I could tell they understood that some sticky situations  can work out alright with friendship thrown into it and when the two walk off into the fog and, “this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” and the applause rises from the crowd and in the car on the way home you hear them tell their mom on the phone, “it was such a cool movie” and I know that the first time they saw it was there, with me-  and maybe three people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this life but this is us three and it’s our damn beans, and Rick and Ilsa will always have Paris, but we’ll  always have this night, walking out as the mighty Wurlitzer plays it again Sam and fades away.

jw

“Where Does the Wind Come from?”

This was asked to Great Zamboni by Malthus Putloan, of Philadelphia, city of brothers and love.

This may come as a shock to you and most people of so-called science, but myself, Great Zamboni, does in fact know where the wind comes from. It comes from a small town called Globe, Arizona.

One night long ago after a week-long Peyote bender in Gila Bend I was tottering on Main street in Globe Arizona eating a bowl of cheese soup when I heard the wispers of a strange nature.

“Who’s that?” I asked to nowhere.

“It is I the wind,” a voice returned. “I am beginning my trip around the world here.”

“But why are you starting here in middle of nowhere?” I asked the wind.

“The rents are very cheap here. Plus, don’t you know wherever you are is the most exciting place to be”?

“But how can wind just start somewhere?” I ask.

It explained that things start as a thought then become action and so here was where the wind stayed and thought up different routes and paths to blow around, plus explaining that everyone needs a place to hang their hat.

This made much sense so Zamboni rides that wind back home to Estonia, sobered up, and I have not been back to Globe since, but if you pass through, make sure to say hello for me.

(Crestline Steakhouse now closed, very sorry to note passing of Oatmeal Ice Cream and Cheese Soup)

Audience Reacts to Zamboni

I want to thank the folks and Zamboni faithful that came out to see the show in San Francisco this past weekend. Though I have been to many places, Botswana, Lake Texoma, Walnut Creek and all the way to Modesto, like Tony Bennett said, I have left my heart in San Francisco, and  each time I come back to here I gain this heart again from you. My cutthroat managers from ICBM are currently arranging some new runs of show in the “Yay Area”, we shall keep you posted.

Among audience questions answered over the weekend:

*why is the backhand the weaker stroke in tennis?

*where does the wind come from?

*how do they celebrate independance day in Estonia?

Click below and see how audience members reacted to my show Saturday, Buna Zoi!!:

http://www.youtube.com/user/hypedrama#p/u/0/v93vgzGFXe4

“Why do Men Just Like the Chase?”

This question came to Zamboni last night at my show at Noh Space in the beautiful city of San Francisco, coupled with a second question, “where do babies come from?”

As to the first question, it is a simple answer, but not easy to admit, as I am coming to this answer not just as the great Zambones but as a man, man.

With my big wooden stick, I spend much happy hours in the forest of Estonia hunting badger, squirrel, and chipmunk, honoring these animals by hunting with so difficult a method and eating all I kill. More than the taste of badger -kind of like chicken- I must admit it is the chase I love. Yes, I also love the chase, not just of the small furry ones, but also of romance and the women. Or men, Zamboni play National and American League.

To chase I follow them down their tunnels and through bowels of the earth quite epic no!?

Why is this? Men love the chase because it is our nature. It is in our nature to hunt and chase and pursue.You, the question asker, must remember this, and more importantly accept it. Do not ask of a scorpion to snuggle with you then be angered when it stings you, why? It is a scorpion; it is only doing what nature tells it to.

Men love the chase, accept this, and expect this. When and if you find one that also enjoys the minivan and the laundry, be that much more grateful for it. Also, give them a chase, a long chase- you can enjoy this too then!

Now the second question, about where babies are coming from:

The Chase.