Thursday, June 30, 2005

Stedman Rocking All Night Long

Today as I pulled a tab off the number ticker at the Italian deli, the one at the base of the Hancock Tower, and was salivating over the kind of sandwich I would select today, something nearly as huge as Big John loomed next to me; a shadow was thrown across the case of caprese salads and cannolis.

[Dum-dum-DUM!]

Yep, it was Stedman. Yes, that Stedman, Oprah's...uhhhh...boyfriend? Beau? Life partner? Swain? Sweetheart? Paramour? Intended? Permanent Fiance? Lover?

Whatever.

The man is...enormous. Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man-sized. (and it's clear, isn't it, that there's an entire generation that remembers 1984 in blinding clarity and that will employ this form of measurement, thanks to Aykroyd, Ramis, et al).

A teeny-tiny woman backed into him, and, once she peered upward and saw who it was, murmured his name, mesmerized (and it's clear, isn't it, that I am embellishing the story for blog-effect).

Then Stedman, the Most Useless Man in America, proved he's still the winner and champeen of that title by continuing to wander around L'Appetito in his gray Armani, scraping beige-colored gelato out of a cup and carrying some papers and a folder of some kind. Finally, he settled, alone, at a small cafe table, and continued to scrape-scrape-scrape and to stare into space. Or, rather, into Earth's upper stratosphere, because that man is HUGE.

Meanwhile, in Africa, Oprah continues to nurse starving children back to health with soccer balls and copies of "O" Magazine and chicken-salad sandwiches while supervising the construction of huts custom-designed by Nate.

What else is a Permanent Fiance to do, then?

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Just Look Above.

Maybe it's the way the evening sun slants through the longest day of the year, gilding the delicate under-wings of a gull that's wheeling over street grit and spilled tacos, and ambitious spires and useless billboards, hothouse condos and bitter minds that reminds: when a waterside bird can soar like that overhead, there's something bigger than this city.