Father Knows Best, Again

In celebration of Father's Day today's post is a reprint of my very first blog attempt.

December, 2006

I very rarely read New York Magazine, but a cover story caught my eye last week as I scanned the magazine rack in Dr. Zaman's waiting room.

Authentic Happiness. Now there's a concept.

The author of the article, a New Yorker, treated the subject the way the Discovery Channel describes UFO sightings. They know UFOs are fiction, dammit! Why do so many people claim to have seen them? Happiness, authentic or not, is something that most New Yorkers experience through the eyes of others. Happiness, like alien visitors from another planet, is an illusion; a construct created by delusional fools to camouflage their misery. To a practical and prudently-maladjusted New Yorker happiness is simply unfathomable.

Unhappiness? Now there's something the author could sink her teeth into. What causes unhappiness? What can we do about it? Well, since happiness is an illusion and unhappiness is reality, why would anyone want to do anything about it? More to the point, since unhappiness is the default position and therefore uncaused, why is she writing about the causes of unhappiness?

I think she's stumbled upon something here.

The lack of wealth does not cause unhappiness, she claimed. Rather, it's a relative lack of wealth that causes unhappiness. Instantly, hundreds of conversations raced through my mind. The law partner who whined to me about how tough it was trying to make ends meet on $500,000 a year. My upper-middle-class friend from an upscale town in Westchester whose 17 year old daughter sobbed because her new Lexus didn't have the performance package (a $5,000 option). It's an interesting question. New Yorkers can't help but be bombarded with evidence of conspicuous and excessive consumption. Very few of us can look around and not see thousands of things we can't have. But is this the cause of unhappiness, or simply the trigger?

My father, in addition to being a man of immense intellect and courage, is able to place almost any situation in its proper perspective. Years ago, while fishing on my small runabout in Reynolds Channel I mentioned that it would be nice to have one of those fully-decked-out sport fishing boats that were buzzing past us. He pointed to the crowd fishing on the Magnolia Street Pier and said that those guys were looking at us and thinking the same thing. I was an adult at the time but this was an Andy-and-Opie moment, one of many that we've had over the course of the decades.

"Go after what you want in life," he taught me, "and don't look into anyone else's wallet." It was a lesson I took to heart at a very early age.

Basically it all comes down to this: If I get what I want, I'm a happy guy.

"Mr. Martini..." called Dr. Zaman's nurse. I put down the magazine, smiling, and went in for my yearly echocardiagram. "You're 100%," the doctor reported. "Keep exercising, watch what you eat and STAY OFF THAT MOTORCYCLE!"

"One out of three ain't bad," I mumbled.

The next morning I played the Red Course at Eisenhower Park and shot a 40 on the front nine.

Authentic happiness.

On the back, the course having somehow discovered my true handicap, double bogey followed double bogey followed double bogey for a 49. Yet just as I descended into sleep that night a wide-screen HD image emerged: A perfect swing with my 3 iron, my second shot soaring toward the Par 5 First Green and gently coming to rest 20 feet from the pin.

Before I could reach for my putter, I was fast asleep.

Happy Father's Day to all.

Ich Bin Ein New Yorker?

You can't blame Illinois-ans for feeling a burdensome sense of inferiority these days.

The White Sox are languishing around the .500 level. The Blackhawks and the Bulls are playing golf again during the playoff season.

Even the most rabid Cubs fans are wondering why their team is still in the Majors. If this was the European Premiereship League the Cubs would have been relegated to Serie "F" in 1909, never to return. A T-shirt seen at Wrigley Field recently stated: "Hey, every team has a bad century once in awhile."

Okay, so the White Sox clobbered the Yankees last night, but that doesn't count. Everybody beats the vaunted Bronx Bombers.

I won't even pile on and mention the pathetic performance by Dah Bears last January.

A short-lived sense of euporia lifted Illinois residents for a short time when they found themselves with the two front runners in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination.

This should have come as no surprise since Illinois, the Land of Lincoln, has a long and storied (some say bizarre) political tradition.

Illinois, after all, is the only state in the Union that has three senators and was able, without the slightest giggle, to report that JFK received 160% of the vote in Cook County.

So why is it that the good citizens of Illinois in general and Chicago in particular still feel this underwhelming sense of inferiority vis-a-vis their big brother to the east.

Maybe a recent story in the New York Post has something to do with it.

While campaigning through the Empire State Senator Barack Hussein Obama declared himself a New Yorker to an adoring crowd of admirers. His rationale, curiously, was the fact that he attended Columbia University more than two decades ago. Am I nitpicking? I think not. Not until I hear him declare himself Hawaiian--or Indonesian for that matter--will I believe that his identification with NYC is anything less than evidence of the deeply-held sense of inferiority experienced by most, if not all, citizens of the Second City.

Gadzooks! Even the self-applied nickname is an affront. They could have called themselves The Big Shoulders Comedy Troupe, The Windy City Comedy Troupe. Jeez-Louise, even the Hog Butchers Comedy Troupe is better than Second City.

Tell me, do you know any New Yorker who attended... let's say... Union College of Barbourville, Kentucky who would declare to the world: "I am an Appalachian"?

No! New Yorkers are New Yorkers down to the bone and will tell you so at every opportunity.

Yes, I tell people that I graduated from UCLA (University on the Corner of Lexington Avenue) but that's a joke.

My own senator, Ms. Rob-Em Clinton, considers herself multi-lingual because of her ability to slide between Brooklyn-ese, Arkansas drawl and Midwestern nasal twang within the same sentence. Curious? Not if you understand her history. But then again, enlightened people should maintain expansive and inclusive definitions of both multi and lingual.

Just ask Rosie O'Donnell. I understand that she recently told a joke in the obscure Chinese dialect spoken only in the remote region of Ching-Chong. Talk about inferiority, here's a pathetic blob of protoplasm who tells everyone that her hard edge comes from growing up in New York, when she spent her formative years in a remote ex-urbian outpost known as Commack, Long Island.

I'll bet Commack-ians are busting their buttons over this dubious honor.

Sort of like Chappaqua being famous as the adopted hometown of Bill and Hillary. But then again, Chappaqua has long been known as the bedroom community of choice for every low-life dirtbag lawyer in New York, so what's new.

But back to the main topic. Why do Barack and Hitlery have this compulsive desire to be Noo Yawkers? I think it's the inborn sense of optimism and confidence that native New Yorkers radiate. By growing up in the most densely populated and frenetic community in America, one develops a hard-shell patina as a means of protection. But, by the same token, New Yorkers instinctively understand that a collective personality inclined toward tolerance, grudging courtesy and mutual respect for each other's space is essential for peaceful coexistence. Outsiders may believe that New Yorkers are cold and distant. I believe that we're incredibly good natured given the circumstances. But, you'll just have take our word for that.

When the burly truck driver in the diner bellows: "Hey Mack! I said pass the sugar!" as one did to me yesterday, we know that he means it lovingly. It's kind of like baseball signals or what Bible scholars call a shibboleth: language meant to be understood by a close knit community. And that's what we are; eight million plus neighbors who understand each other perfectly. Interlopers may chomp on a knish in front of the TV cameras then retreat to their gated compounds, but they will never understand what it means to be a New Yorker.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy proclaimed "Ich bin ein Berliner" and his words resonated throughout the world because he was affirming solidarity with people who had suffered isolation from friends and neighbors, brothers, sisters and cousins. When today's politicians proclaim that they are New Yorkers because they spent a four hour layover at La Guardia, to quote John Cleese, it is something completely different.

How Do You Fix a Problem Like... Sha-Ria?

Just in case anyone this side of the kook border had any doubts that multi-cultural tolerance and "reasonable accommodation" have reached ridiculous proportions, here's a story that's guaranteed to warm your hearts.

A regular reader of this esteemed blog, The Warbasse Warlord, happened into his friendly neighborhood supermarket last week to stock up on sale items. Wow! Boar's Head Deluxe Ham for $5.99 a pound. As that great American philosopher, Stymie, once said: "Isthmus be my lucky day!" And from there it only got better as special offer after special offer for the Memorial Day Weekend jumped out at him shouting: "Buy me! Buy me!

So after filling his cart with low-cost goodies, including a $3.99 watermelon, buy-one-get-two-free Snapple, and a pound of Boar's Head Dead Pig (sliced thin), off he went to the checkout.

That's when he made a giant leap, unknowingly, out of the serene republic of Brooklyn and into...

The Twilight Zone.

Suddenly, the bagboy began speaking to the cashier in a very agitated tone.

"What's the matter?" asked the Warlord.

"Do you have meat in any of your packages?" she asked.

"Yeah, we're coming up on a big barbecue weekend," he answered.

"Well... uhh... Hassan can't touch any meat that's not Halal," came the explanation.

Call me intolerant, but bagboy at a non-kosher supermarket was probably NOT the best career choice for this pluralist American in training.

My good friend and legal counsel, Oliver Wendall McMansion, had a similar situation a few years back. On a Monday he hired an associate; a seemingly well-adjusted young lady who had graduated from a respected law school. On Tuesday she informed her new boss that she could not work in the cubicle that had been assigned to her because she suffered from adult ADD and needed a private office to screen out the distractions. This particular suite of offices consisted of one private office (belonging to the boss) and a large open area divided with cubicles. According to the Americans With Disabilities Act Oliver W. could either give up his sanctum, build her a private office, or face an ADA lawsuit.

One day on the job and this new employee orders him to "accommodate" her disability or incur the wrath of legions of angry Washington bureaucrats.

Here in New York, where cabbies are not allowed to refuse service to people who look as if they just stepped out of a dumpster, there are constant stories about Muslim hacks who refuse to pick up young women who are dressed inappropriately. It almost makes me want to get behind the wheel to pick up the crumbs these guys leave.

So what's a multi-cultural society to do? Reasonable accommodation makes sense to a reasonable person. It's just that "reasonable" is another of those elastic terms that members of the American Left interpret in the most ludicrous ways to justify the most idiotic policy decisions.

And every time we think it can't get any dumber the headlines shriek out about a woman in Florida who wants to take her driver's license picture with just her eyes showing behind a Casper the Friendly Ghost veil or a federal judge says that a youth sports league has to allow a teenage girl to play soccer with a table cloth wrapped around her face.

While we're at it, why not provide a driver's license exemption for members of that legendary southern civic group.

It just gets goofier and goofier.

Does an employer have to provide flex time for a worker who's not a "morning person."

Do our courts need special procedures to accommodate killers who come from cultures where honor killing has a long and glorious tradition?

Should we make a reasonable accommodation for immigrants from regions in Africa where the phrase "Having our neighbors for dinner" has a completely different meaning than it does here?

And what about me? I'm lazy and undisciplined. Why should I have to compete against people who are focused, ambitious and persistent?

Where's the justice... where's the reasonable accommodation... for those unlucky masses who suffer from my disability?

Why should I lose out to those who are the winners in life's lottery?

Why indeed?

Sha-Ria... say it loud and there's music playing. Say it soft, and it's almost like preying.

What Kind of Loser Would Want My Identity?

I've been trying for two weeks, without success, to come up with a humorous angle on this story so bear with me.

Yes, my identity was stolen.

Yes, the consequences have been relatively minor.

Yes, I'm pissed as hell and want to have the guy strung up by his scrotum in a junkyard filled with hungry, snarling Rottweilers.

And I would prescribe a more torturous fate for the long line of bureaucrats and political flunkies who could have helped at any point along the line, but chose to do nothing other than suggest that I "pay the two dollars."

Well, it's not two dollars. And while $750 may represent small potatoes to New York City's esteemed billionare-in-chief... THEY'RE MY POTATOES!!!

In case you're wondering, Mayor Mikey is one of the political flunkies who chose to do nothing, along with Betsy (uggghhh) Gotbaum, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Parking Violations Bureau and the City Marshall, one particularly heinous dirtbag named Richard Capuano.

So let's begin at the beginning.

It all started with the tribulations of a very old and tired 1990 Mazda 626. As jalopies go, this one would have long ago been rolled off a cliff by Wally Cleaver and Lumpy Rutherford, but it was perfect for ferrying fishing gear and gardening supplies and those periodic trips to the town dump. Then, in June of 2005, it reached the tipping point, as the Global Warming kooks like to say.

Like the old hermit living in the Arizona desert spitting out teeth as he walked, Ol' Mazie was dropping parts along the street at an alarming rate. When the brakes failed to slow its momentum at 5 MPH, it was time to put her to sleep. Even driving to the junkyard less than a mile away was more risk than I was willing to take, so I called Stevie the Junk Man and he showed up ten minutes later with his flatbed. Off came the plates and away went the car. Good riddance, you say, but I still wiped away a tear as it disappeared around the bend.

Like a good little boy I went to DMV and surrendered the plates. I love that expression. Imagine crawling up to the DMV dimwit waving a white flag with one hand and sheepishly "surrendering" the plates with the other. Then, with my receipt in hand, I returned home confident that I had fulfilled my civic duty. My thoroughness was rewarded a few weeks later when I received a refund check from the Comptroller of the State of New York for the unused balance of my registration fee.

What a windfall!

Then, in September of 2005 I received a cordial letter from the NYC Parking Violations Bureau informing me that I had failed to pay a parking ticket that was issued in August, 2005.

The summons was issued at the corner of Sutphin Boulevard and 94th Avenue in Jamaica.

Now, it's not that I have anything against Sutphin Boulevard or Jamaica. It's just that since Gertz, Robert Hall and the Valencia Theater closed more than thirty years ago, I have no reason at all to go there. Yes, I did take my father-in-law to the ER in Jamaica Hospital. I remember the incident because one of the "patients" took the ER nurse hostage at knifepoint. But that was still many years ago.

A quick phone call, I thought, would resolve the issue. WRONG!

The genius on the other end of the line suggested that I pay the fine and be done with it.

"Yes," I answered, "but it will never end because whoever is doing this will continue doing it." And continue he did. A letter to the mayor's office resulted in zero action, not even a reply telling me how busy Hizzoner is. At least Senator Moynihan had the decency to tell me he couldn't be bothered with my petty problem. He had a book to finish. Mind you, my petty problem was that my wife and child were stranded in a third-world country in the middle of a terrorist war, but the senator was busy writing his tenth book in his tenth year in the Senate. That's the ticket, become a United States Senator, cure writer's block (and banish those pesky rejection letters).

So on and on it went. I wrote to the Public Advocate (HAH!!!) explaining my problem: tickets on a car I no longer own. Two weeks later I get a phone call from Ms. James of the Public Advocate's office. I explained my problem again: tickets on a car I no longer own. Two weeks after that Ms. James calls back and says she's very sorry, but there's nothing her office can do.

"Do you know you have parking tickets?", she queried.

Excuse me, Ms. James. I have to scrape the top of my skull off the ceiling because MY HEAD JUST EXPLODED!

More phone calls. More letters. And still no action, until the fines, penalties, and ultimately the towing charges reached $750. Yes, I said towing charges. The Missus came out of school two weeks ago to find "our car had been stolen." A quick check confirmed that rather than car theft, this identity theft resulted in the towing and impoundment of my cherished 1995 BMW, a car that has a completely clean record.

Would that I were so lucky.

The next day, armed with all the relevant documentation I trudged down to the NYC Department of Finance/Parking Violations Bureau, curiously located on 94th Avenue just off Sutphin Boulevard. I should have recognized this as a clue, but I shrugged it off as a coincidence. More bureacratic mumbo jumbo. More gov-speak.

"Do you have documentary evidence?" asked the Senior Judge.

I showed him the receipt for the plates. "Anything else?" he continued. I showed him the stub from the refund check issued by the Comptroller of the State of New York. "That's still not enough. How about a letter from your insurance company indicating that you terminated the insurance on this car?"

Quick as a flash I got on the cell phone. The rep from GEICO printed the letter and faxed it to a nearby Kinko's. Breathlessly I submitted the final document to the Senior Judge.

"What about the bill of sale from the junkyard?"

The inferno roaring from my ears set off every smoke alarm in the building.

Several images began floating through my mind giving me the premonition that this episode would not have a happy ending. That's when I paid the $750, went to the Marshall's office in Rego Park, got the release, and then traveled to Whitestone to get my car out of hock.

My interaction with the fat bastard wearing the Yankee cap behind the bullet-proof glass in the Marshall's office I'll leave for a subsequent blog.

So, what had happened? Simple.

One hour of amateur sleuthing on my part revealed that a gentlemen living in close proximity to Stevie's Junkyard saw the Mazda sitting out front and offered to buy it, as is. He then put a set of stolen plates on the car and drove it for another year without registration or insurance. Then he registered the car in his own name and drove it for yet another year, racking up nine additional unpaid parking tickets. Since the car was not registered for a year the geniuses who wrote the tickets simply entered the VIN and let the computer do the rest of the work.

Apparently the computers at the DMV do not speak to the computers at the PVB which do not speak to the computers in the New York State Comptrollers office. Never did any of them take notice that the car and the plates did not match.

My only solace is that this fraud was committed by a corrupt slug, not an illegal immigrant from Yemen who stuffed it full of fertilizer and heating oil. Rather than paying to get my car out of the pound, I'd now be reading the Koran at Gitmo.

And what about the Sutphin Boulevard connection? Not only is the perpetrator of this fraud an investigator for the law firm that represents the Department of Motor Vehicles, this guy has the castagnas to go to PVB in Jamaica (94th and Sutphin) and contest the tickets while posing as me... and then he gets another ticket while he's there!!!

I have to show my photo ID to buy beer at the self checkout at Stop 'n Shop, but this guy has a formal hearing in front of a government magistrate and never has to show any proof that he is who he says he is.

This, of course, fills me with confidence in this post 9-11 world.

Especially when I see the livery drivers out every morning switching plates from one Crown Victoria to another.

But there's more to this story, because I'm not letting this one go.

Stay tuned.

Orfeo ed Euridice... or... I've Just Gone Through Hell for This Chick and She Still Won't Do What I Tell Her!

Proving once again that there's nothing new under the Sun, the Metropolitan Opera wound down its 2006/2007 season with a spectacular production of Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Orpheus myth, here's a quick synopsis:

Orfeo is mourning the death of his young wife, Euridice. But he sends everyone away because his grief is so overwhelming even their sincere and heartfelt support sinks him deeper into despair.

Then along comes Cupid, yeah Cupid, suspended from a wire no less, who tells him that all he has to do is follow his beloved's spirit into the underworld and bring her back.

But, she orders, he cannot look at her, or tell her why he can't look at her, until they're back home or she will die. And this time, for keepsies.

Yada, yada, yada... he descends into Hell, gets past the Furies, finds his wife and they start home.

"But why won't you look at me?," she asks, "Am I no longer beautiful?"

"Just shut up and follow me." implores Orfeo, but she's relentless.

"Is it because this dress makes me look fat?"

"Have you found someone else? It's that little tart from Thessalonika, isn't it?"

At this point the Missus turned to me and said "What a wimp. Why doesn't he just grab her by the scruff of the neck, tell to STFU and drag her out of there?"

Why not indeed? But this is an opera.

Finally, when he can't take her nagging anymore, he turns and looks her straight in the eyes and she promptly drops dead... again.

At that point poor Orfeo collapses to his knees and wails: "Che faro senza Euridice" (what shall I do without Euridice). Well lets see... for starters I'll play golf, go fishing and drink as much beer as I want anytime I want.

But no.

All Orfeo has to do is threaten suicide and Cupid returns to snatch the dagger from his hand. Touched by his devotion Cupid brings Euridice back to life and she immediately starts nagging him to finish mowing the lawn. What oh what shall I do without Euridice? What oh what shall any of us do?

Well, they live happily every after, have five kids and Orfeo gets a job playing in the house band at Euridice's father's catering hall. They are Greek, after all.

And we can only speculate as to how Orfeo's life would have turned out if he had passed on Cupid's "descend into Hell" offer and just looked around for a younger woman. After a respectable mourning period, of course.

But this is pure fiction. For the happily married among us, thankfully, Orfeo's tragedy is a prospect that few of us (gentlemen) will have to confront. All you have to do is glance at the obituary page or take a walk past your local assisted living center to recognize that we're not going to outlive our wives. It brings back memories of the old Alan King routine, "Survived by his wife." In fact, I'm sure that if we followed the Orpheus legend to its conclusion we'd find Euridice sitting in a beach chair in Boca Raton cashing Orfeo's pension checks from the Amalgamated Greek Lyre Players Union.

Face it, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

So when you're tempted to blurt out, "Why can't you do what I tell for once?", understand that this is a male/female dynamic that's been going on since there have been males and females. Just swallow those words before they jump out and get you into trouble because the odds that she'll do what you say are roughly equivalent to the chances that Alex Rodriguez will hit a bases-loaded homer with two out in the bottom of the ninth of the seventh game of the World Series while still wearing a Yankee uniform.

It ain't happenin'.

Next week: Wotan, the King of the Gods, chides his teenage daughter Brunnhilde for her disobediance. "You're grounded, young lady!", he shouts. Then he places her on a rock surrounded by a ring of fire for all eternity. Would that it were...

The Bully's Best Friend

Several years ago my wife and I attended the back-to-school festivities at my son's elementary school. This is the yearly exercise where hapless parents learn about all the new and wondrous miracle strategies that the public education system has cooked up to benefit "the children."

The evening was winding down, finally, when we bumped into the principal in the hallway. Although I tried my best to avert my eyes and hurry toward the exit, he corralled us and asked if we had any questions.

"Well," I said, "there is one thing I'd like to discuss. My son continues to be bullied by the same gang of four or five delinquents. We've told his teachers, we've informed your assistant, but it has continued now for almost a year."

"You do know that we have a full-time psychological social worker on staff," he replied.

The look in my eyes obviously betrayed a combination of puzzlement and contempt, but this genius continued anyway.

"Matt can schedule an appointment to come and talk. It will help him resolve his feelings."

"Matt has resolved his feelings," I informed him. "He hates their guts and wants them to be carried off by flying monkeys."

I went home that evening, my faith in the public education establishment reaffirmed, and had a long conversation with my son. It was reminiscent of conversations I had with my father when he told me it was always best to avoid a fight, but "when push comes to shove," he insisted, "you have to defend yourself."

These motivational encounters are seared into my memory because they were almost always followed by terrible beatings at the hands of the thugs in my old neighborhood. Defending yourself doesn't guarantee that you'll be victorious. In my case it invariably led to ignominious defeat and liberal applications of Mercurochrome.

"But Dad," Matt protested, "I'll get in trouble."

"Look, you may get in trouble with your teachers and you may get in trouble with your mother, but" I assured him, "you will never get in trouble with me if you defend yourself."

Unlike his skinny father, Matt's a big powerful kid who can do a lot of damage if he has a mind to.

He had always been told to avoid fights; to just walk away. This time he couldn't. They harassed him. They pushed him. And then, the unthinkable happened. A little girl he had known since pre-school jumped in and screamed at them to stop. When one of these sixth grade suburban gangstas pushed her aside Matt popped him. Just once. That's all that was needed. Matt got a reprimand from the school, but after a few weeks it was clear that the bullying had stopped. I felt very proud of my son and pleased with myself.

But did the bullying really stop?

Of course not.

They just went on to bully someone else's son.

My job is to see to it that my children don't get bullied. I did my job.

But it's the school's job to see to it that nobody's children get bullied, not to make them feel good about getting beat up every day during recess.

They weren't doing their job then, and they're not doing their job now.

Today, schools promote anti-bullying strategies which encourage the goons to talk to their victims. They attach no blame to the perpetrators. Predictably, they are failing, according to the British children's charity Kidscape.

Using this strategy the school forces the victim to provide a written statement describing how distressed he feels about the way he's been treated. He is then expected to read the statement to the good little boys who have derived pleasure from inflicting pain. This approach gives the thugs all the information they need to torture their victims even more.

One exasperated mother described the dismal results:

"They found out about my son's weaknesses, his feelings and his lack of confidence and had a field day bullying him and telling others. The bullying increased because the bullies knew he would not tell again after this devastating result."

In another instance a school principal refused to exclude a boy who had set fire to a young girl's hair. He was reluctant, he said, to single out a youngster who had "problems." Describing this junior arsonist as a youngster with problems is like saying that Jeffrey Dahmer had an eating disorder.

Maybe the girl with the flaming hair can resolve her feelings about being set on fire. Would anyone like to suggest that she talk to the psychological social worker?

Not me.

Because until and unless school officials get over their aversion to placing blame on kids with "problems", this cycle will repeat, and repeat and repeat. And for generations to come, children with problems will continue to be problem children.

For now, you'll have to excuse me. I have a therapy appointment. I'm working to resolve my feelings about elementary school principals.

Master of None

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm a hater.

This world is full of things I HATE!

I hate SUVs.

I hate cell phones.

I hate Blackberrys!

Not the sweet and juicy kind that grow on vines.

No, I'm referring to the ubiquitous annoying kind that are attached to the hands of self-important biz nerds.

These are people SO critical to the success of their respective enterprises they can't be out of communication range for even one second.

Curiously, this phenomenon is most evident among the job descriptions whose decisions are the least vital and the most subjective.

Are you listening all you ad agency geeks?

People whose decisions have real and substantial consequences understand that their attention is critical to the decision-making process. But for those whose decisions are limited to "the blue backdrop or the purple drapes, shrimp cocktail or lobster rolls" the myth of multi-tasking seems to be inextricably linked to their own inflated sense of self worth.

How many times have you tried to complete a conversation with someone who's checking emails or answering the cell phone?

"What is that? The kitchen is on fire?

NO, NO, NO... THE ICE GOOSE GOES NEXT TO THE VODKA AND CAVIAR!!!"

Now, what that you were...

YES. PICK UP MY SUIT AT FRANCESCO AND MAKE A 7PM RESERVATION AT UMBERTO."

Ugghhh... it's a madhouse. Now what was that again?... Fire?... Where?"

The bottom line: If you're not focused on being excellent at what you're doing-- right now--you cannot excel at anything.

The most successful people I've known have had the unique ability to do several tasks in rapid succession and give each of them their undivided attention. To the casual observer it may appear that they're doing five things at once, but they're not. They are paying close attention, making decisions, resolving problems and moving along.

You can accomplish a lot by simply paying attention. And you can do a lot of damage by trying to do everything at once.

Last week, during an ice storm, I was sitting at a stop light minding my own business. In my rear view mirror I was horrified to see a suburban armored personnel carrier, AKA a Cadillac Escalade, with 20-something driver yacking on the cell phone.

Closer... closer... closer... SPLAT!

Smack into the rear bumper of my magnificent 1995 525i. My cherished car has given me unconditional devotion and impeccable service for more than a decade, and it will be celebrating its 12th birthday next week in Bob's Collision Shop.

Okay, these things happen. Let's get out and exchange documents.

"What? No licence? No registration? But you remembered to take your cell phone!"

With that she burst into tears. I'm cooked. She slams into me, sends my spare tire into my back seat and she's crying. Luckily, daddy showed up in a few minutes and assured me that he would take care of the damages. He has three kids of driving age and runs an open tab at Bob's.

Okay, so I'm overreacting. A little damage to an old car isn't the end of the world.

But last month Westschester EMTs removed a corpse from a wrecked car that had careened off the highway. Stuck in the eye of this unfortunate accident victim they found a mascara applicator. That is the end of the world. The only positive anyone could extract from this tragedy is that it was a single-vehicle accident.

In the business world I've come across dozens, if not hundreds, of "Busy Bees" whose work days consisted of attending to 100 insignificant crises simultaneously. Not coincidentally, these crises were all manufactured to create a veil of busy activity masking a total vacuum of real importance.

To make matters worse, these busybodies invariably agonized over decisions that did not make one whit of difference one way or another.

Then, when finally confronted with a decision that carried some real consequences, they would throw their hands in the air and shout:

"I can't deal with this now!"

Of course not. You can't be expected to worry about the fire in the kitchen when you have to decide whether to put Mrs. Kolmeister and Mrs. Minciotti at the same table while choosing between gladiolas or gardenias for the centerpieces.

Uggghh... it's a madhouse.

As a clever motivational poster I saw recently stated: "When you earnestly believe that you can compensate for a lack of skill by redoubling your effort, there's no limit to the damage you can cause."

The moral of the story: Don't mistake busy for productive and never confuse activity with action.