There’s really nothing to write about this week.

Seriously.

I mean, I know it’s weird for me to say that but, nothing major happened this week that stood out in my mind.

Usually, of course, there’s something poignant on my mind that I then write about and share with all of you…

But this week… Yeah, not so much.

Don’t get me wrong… on the whole, it was a fine week… there was just nothing extraordinary that happened.

That was my thought process when I was thinking about this week’s column, even when I opened my laptop to start to write. But then I got to thinking… why do we always need “something” to happen?

So many of us are conditioned to needing and expecting something extraordinary to happen at least every bunch of days… whether it be something strange, or exciting, or dramatic, or even positive, that we get upset if it doesn’t occur.

But why do we feel that need? Or more importantly, should we really have that mindset and mentality and feel that need to always have “something” occur?

I mean, I get the appeal of something happening, whether it’s positive or negative; it gets the blood flowing, the adrenaline going, and invokes emotions in us… it makes us feel something, even if it’s negative, and gets us excited.

But, again, why do we need that? Why isn’t everyday life enough for us, even just from time to time? We (hopefully) have jobs that we like and enjoy and find fulfilling…

OK, OK, that one can be a hard sell at times, and not everyone is fortunate enough to have that be the case for them, I’ll give you that one…

BUT… the vocational aspect certainly isn’t the only element of our everyday life which, I hope, brings us all joy and pleasure. We have the simple things like the music we enjoy and the TV shows we watch. We have the restaurants and …   More

Apple is freakin’ awesome.

No, not the fruit. The company.

Their products are pretty amazing, you have to admit. You can listen to music on players the thickness of two credit cards, some of which have widths as small as a large eraser. They have cell phones that do pretty much, well, everything. They have tablets that weigh nothing and do everything as well, and laptops that are just pretty cool.

In large part, we can thank Steve Jobs for all these amazing innovations and products. Of course, he passed away a couple of weeks ago from cancer but, he certainly made the most of his life while he was with us.

He had a dream and a passion, and overcame a ton to achieve it and follow his heart. He was given up at birth by his biological parents. He dropped out of college (to audit classes solely in the arena he was interested in) and didn’t get a degree. He went through multiple versions of his first product before finding one that actually worked the way he wanted. Oh, and not to mention he was kicked out of his own company after he’d found success.

Not bad, huh?

Everyone (or most people at least) have a dream of what they’d like to do with their lives. Much of the time, these aspirations are a bit more traditional, like becoming a doctor or a lawyer. Other times, however, as was the case for Mr. Jobs, the dreams we aspire to achieve and what we want to become are a bit more off the beaten path. Create a brand new product, put together a new computer program, come up with new ideas for television shows or movies…

I’m talking about innovation…

and not just innovation, but genuine creativity and following your passion.

This is such a genuinely two-sided topic, because innovation can be a real roll of the dice. On the one hand, if you go after your dream and fight through the frustration and leap the hurdles and achieve it, it can be terrific — not just for you, but as was certainly the case for …   More

Gov. Andrew Cuomo: “We made a difference.”

That quote appeared in a June 27 Newsday story explaining how Andrew, Dean (Skelos) and Sheldon (Silver) fared in the tumultuous legislative session that came to a close last week. The paper’s overall assessment is positive, with the New York Post also crediting the governor with “political skills, the likes of which [haven’t] been seen in the Capital for 50 years.”

On the assumption of truly achievable results, the accolades being expressed are warranted, at least for the time being. But I tend to be a bit more pragmatic in assessing performance. Cuomo did indeed push through a reduced spending budget without new taxes and also a game-changing property tax cap, the ramifications of which have yet to be realized. He accomplished (for the most part) what he promised to do when he ran for elected office, like it or not.

Despite those achievements, we are still light years away from actually realizing real reform. A number of examples come to mind. I mentioned in my column, “Stop the shenanigans,” (June 23-29) that the governor’s approach to pension reform avoids dealing with many of the well-publicized absurdities in the current system. A recent New York Times editorial disagrees with my assessment, suggesting that Cuomo’s approach, while more conciliatory than that of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, is as effective. I suggest Cuomo should examine the legislation just approved by the New Jersey Assembly. This law specifies adjustments that might just save $132 billion in labor costs over the next 30 years. Of particular note, if approved, these changes will affect more than 500,000 New Jersey state, county, town and school district employees, imposing mandatory pension and benefit funding requirements.

With state spending in mind, I also question whether the governor’s Spending and Government Efficiency (SAGE) Commission will ever accomplish anything productive. Why? It appears to be …   More

It’s that time of year…

Time for the proverbial “it’s Thanksgiving, so that’s what I’m going to talk about” column…

But I don’t want to do the usual. I kinda want to do the opposite, since I hate doing “the usual.”

We’ll see how that goes now, I suppose…

So, aside from the upcoming holiday, I’ve also been thinking a lot lately about the idea of hope. It’s not a concept new to my mind, though. It’s definitely something that’s entered my consciousness a fair amount.

I’ve noticed through the years that hope is a funny thing. It’s of course, not something tangible or literal. You can’t touch it, or hold it. And yet, it’s something that so often, gives so many people a positive mindset that they’ve been in search of, and are perhaps in need of.

People have problems in their lives. Come on, admit it, you do. Hell, we ALL do. Any person you meet who says they have no problems whatsoever in their life is either lying to you, or is the luckiest person on the planet. And, I’ve not met that person yet, or even come close. We’ve all got problems and issues to contend with, and that’s just part of the deal and part of life.

And of course, sometimes those problems can be somewhat overwhelming, and persistent and constant, more than the average. Enter, hope.

Hope can keep people going, fighting through those difficult circumstances each day. Hoping for a better circumstance, for things to get better, for things to turn around, envisioning that arena of their life the way they want it to be… It can allow people to temporarily escape from their present reality which they don’t like, and give them the push to continue on.

I know what you’re probably thinking… “What a bunch of crap!” And the cynic in me would venture to agree with you, quite frankly. I mean, I’m …   More

I’ve been thinking a lot about loyalty lately.

Not just the last few days or weeks or so, but for a few years now it’s been a consistent topic on my consciousness.

I’m what I’ve noticed is a bit atypical on this topic. Now, I understand that there’s a reason that the “survival of the fittest” theory exists (thank you, Charles Darwin). After all, there is some logic in play there. But, at the same time, there’s gotta be a line where you still feel a loyalty to your friends and loved ones, and act on it.

Doesn’t there?

For me, I think it’s pretty logical… If someone does something detrimental or negative to a friend of loved one of mine, I think ill of that and also think ill of the person who engaged in that behavior. And I take that approach regardless of whether the person committing the infraction, so to speak, is a friend of mine or someone close to me.

After all, wrong is wrong. Just because I’m close to someone and we have a relationship of whatever sort, that doesn’t magically make the behavior acceptable.

And OF COURSE, the same concept applies to me. Logically, I’d expect my friends and loved ones to hold me to the same standards. I’m no different so…

Now, of course there are lines and limits here. Naturally, the degree that I look negatively on a detrimental action and the person who commits it differs based on what it is and how legitimately bad it is. There’s a difference between bumping into someone and not saying “excuse me” and simply not showing up for a close friend’s birthday without a word… Between forgetting to call someone back and constantly bad mouthing someone behind his back with facetious comments… Between being a few minutes late to pick someone up, and treating a former boyfriend or girlfriend like crap.

You get the idea…

To me, this is all just very logical. It’s …   More

Wow, this is going to be a tough one to write.

I’m actually feeling a little queasy as I start to write this, come to think of it.

Admittedly, I’m not entirely sure how to start…

OK, here we go…

Remember a few weeks ago I wrote a column discussing how I’ve had some, shall we say, “interesting” experiences with dating and girlfriends? Well, here’s a specific story on that front… triggered by the fact that my ex-girlfriend’s birthday was last week.

We’ve been broken up for a couple of months now, and I’ve been dating and I’m sure she has, as well — not that I know this for a fact or anything, but it’s a relatively safe assumption.

Still, I can’t help that I’m aware of it and my brain acknowledges it.

It’s how my mind is wired, for better or worse. I can’t help it.

We ended quite terribly. Everything appeared to be fine. We were on the phone finalizing our plans for the upcoming weekend together, which included our Valentine’s Day plans, before she went into the shower.

Yes, we broke up just a few days before Valentine’s Day. I had to return the gifts I’d already gotten for her. Sucks, huh?

Then she got into the shower, came back out, and was an entirely different person. She called me back, crying hysterically. What the hell happened in that now infamous — in my mind anyway — shower?

I could finally decipher her saying that something was bothering her about me and/or us. I’m not sure which, but that much I was finally able to understand from her.

But she wouldn’t tell me WHAT it was. And to this very day, I still don’t know. I tried for the next 24 hours to get her to tell me, but she refused. She said it was “too hard” to tell me, and she “couldn’t tell me.” I …   More

The Giants are Super Bowl champions again!

Great game, great win…

The same was true a couple of weeks ago when they won the NFC Championship. I watched that game with a bunch of friends at a Kodiak’s in Farmingdale, and the place was packed. Everyone was clearly having a great time and enjoying the game and having fun spending time with friends…

And then, the you-know-what hit the fan…

In the middle of the third quarter, we heard the sound of a glass breaking and yelling from the other side of the bar. Our eyes found the beginnings of a fight that had just broken out, and fists flying.

A fight… at a bar… during a football game. How cliché.

Cliché or not, however, it is what happened. It took about a half a dozen staff members from the bar to eventually separate the two guys. Luckily, after being separated, they dropped it and it was done and over with.

Well, one of the two guys dropped it and was done, anyway. The other gentleman, well, not so much…

After both were ejected from the bar by some of the larger waiters — who locked the side glass door behind them — one of them proceeded to punch that door over and over again until it broke. When the police arrived shortly after (you had to know that cops were going to enter the equation here sooner or later), the story of what had caused the fight finally made its way around the bar.

And this is the part that really pisses me off…

As it turns out, the guy who just wouldn’t let it go was at the bar with his sister, his girlfriend, and his buddy.

The story was that the guy who threw that first punch had been slapping around his girlfriend, and his buddy tried to get him to stop.

Apparently that effort wasn’t appreciated.

Obviously, a few ridiculous things are in play here, from the fight itself, to breaking the door, to not letting it go. But what aggravates me the most, of course, is that …   More

After a week off, I’m back just in time to wish a belated Happy Father’s Day to all of the dad’s out there and everyone celebrating.

A number of weeks ago, as many of you will remember, I wrote a column titled “My Mr. Feeny,” about my mentor of sorts, Roger Humes, and my relationship with him. As I discussed at that time, one reason that relationship is so special to me is that, in realistic terms, I don’t have a father.

I mean, obviously I have a “father.” I know how the birds and the bees work…

Somehow, my “father” read that column and, apparently, all of my columns. I’ve not spoken to him in quite a number of years now, so, I’m not quite sure how he found out that I have a column or where to find it. My best guess is that he just Googled my name in general and my column popped up as one of the search results.

My birthday rolled around not too long after that column ran, and I actually received a birthday card in the mail from my “father.” I’ve received a card from him for my birthday each of the last several years, with a simple, short note that he wrote in it.

This time, however, was different…

It was in that card from him that I learned that he’d read that column. He evidently reads my column regularly, from what I could gather. He inserted a piece of paper into the card on which he typed a longer note. And on this note he wrote that he was upset to learn that I feel I don’t really have a father, and confused about why I feel that way.

Seriously? Are you freakin’ kidding me?

It takes more than that previously mentioned birds and bees “donation” to be a father. I’ve learned that, unfortunately, that concept is lost on many people… and my “father” is one of those people.

Even after everything that happened and was done by my “father” when I was a …   More

My birthday is this week.

I’ll be 28.

Damn, that went fast.

Birthdays can be a time for celebration, but also a time for self-reflection and re-evaluation. We get so lost in the pattern of our everyday lives and the process of running our lives each day, but the time of year a birthday rolls around can provide a good opportunity to take a real look at everything in the big picture.

We have so many goals and aspirations in different arenas of our lives, and sometimes we accomplish those goals and other times we fall short, still striving to achieve them. And I’m certainly no different in that regard, on both sides of the spectrum…

Career-wise and in respect to relationships, I’ve had some good, and some bad. And that’s certainly also par for the course for most people out there. But, there are unquestionably things that I’ve not yet achieved and accomplished that I want to do. I’ve had some great relationships, but I do want to eventually meet the right woman and get married, and have a kid or two. If my mother has her way I’ll have more than one, including at least one daughter, but that’s another story entirely…

Vocationally, I’ve been with four major broadcast and cable networks, and a few production companies, and of course, I now write this column as well. But there are even bigger and better things that I want to accomplish — continuing to develop as a writer, and getting involved with more television projects, this time my own.

One of my favorite quotes actually comes from Will Smith. He said “Being realistic is the easiest traveled road to mediocrity.” So true, so true. After all, if you don’t dream big in the first place, you can’t achieve anything extraordinary. And, while I know some people surely won’t concur with that viewpoint and modus operandi, I certainly abide by it, and have for …   More

If you’re a woman, don’t try to play a round of golf at Augusta National.

I mean, you can try, but it ain’t gonna happen. They aren’t going to let you.

The golf club founded in 1933 clearly thinks it’s still in the 1930’s. They don’t let women join the club, period. Not that their discriminatory membership policy against women was OK even then, but…

The most elite golf club in the country is also home to The Masters golf tournament which, of course, just concluded. IBM is the largest sponsor of the tournament, and traditionally, the CEO of the company is always extended an invitation to become a member of Augusta National. The computer giant, at least publically, has never voiced opposition to this policy.

But this year, there’s a new wrinkle. For the first time, IBM has a female CEO, Virginia Rometty.

What an opportunity for IBM to step up and take a stand for the betterment of our society and our country — to tell Augusta National and The Masters that if they don’t change their policy, IBM will pull its sponsorship dollars from the tournament.

It would have been nice if the company did so when they had male CEOs, or even if other sponsors of the tournament had done so, but there’s a window here now, with a female CEO who can’t be genuinely OK with this policy of gender discrimination.

As the CEO of IBM, Ms. Rometty may want to ignore being blackballed by Augusta National because sponsoring the tournament is good for business, but how good would it be if protesters decided to boycott her products?

Besides, as a female, Augusta’s discriminatory policy surely has to irk her. And as a person, she has to recognize that she’s now in a position to do a great deal of good, not just her gender, but our society and nation as a whole.

It’s amazing to me that in this day and age, a club in the United States of America, private or otherwise, still has a …   More