The Zeitgeist with Howard Barbanel

      

Famous TV curmudgeons Larry David (left) and Andy Rooney (center). Modern-day car bumpers with a bumper guard.

Pet Peeves

My favorite TV grumpy curmudgeons (might be a contradiction in terms) are of course Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes and Larry David playing it for laughs on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. In last week’sCurb, David is infuriated by people who cross over the lines (literally) in parking lots and end-up taking up two parking spaces thereby either forcing the next person to also occupy more than one space or depriving the driving public of one possibly available spot.

While Woodmere and Hewlett are not as glamorous as David’s Beverly Hills, we do have the same kind of parking lots. Lawrence and Cedarhurst, being metered lots with legions of parking enforcement officers on the prowl are devoid of the multi-spot slam problem as the fear of multiple tickets is enough to keep people between the parking lines.

I can’t tell you how many times when trolling for parking here in the Eastern parts of The Five Towns, I encounter the nefarious multi-spot parkers who toss their SUVs, mini-vans or luxo-mobiles over the line. Parking around these parts can be tight and scarce even when people follow the rules. The obliviousness to this discourtesy and infraction are maddening to me, but parking hogs abound. With free parking here, drivers ought to be grateful not to have to subsidize the village budgets of some of our other towns. Hogging two spaces is just something like nails on a blackboard when I’m behind the wheel, so I find myself in complete accord with David’s televised frustrations.

Running a newspaper gives me the opportunity to fulminate on the world’s ills. To that end here are a bunch of other things that make me nuts. For example, how about the interminable construction on the Belt Parkway? They’ve been working on this road for all five decades of my life now. They’re building some new and supposedly better bridges but while they’re doing it lane closures are prolific and with that comes the 20-minute bumper to bumper grind. In the Sunbelt they build entire interstate highways in under a year. In Brooklyn and Queens they believe in perpetual slow-motion where any capital project must take at least five years by definition. Another reason to love New York.

How about left lane squatters? Invariably when you’re in a hurry the left lane will be dominated by someone doing 50 mph with a giant sense of entitlement to crawl in the fast lane and concurrently oblivious to the needs of the 10 people behind them. Weaving around this fellow can consume a lot of time and effort and it happens almost every day.

The opposite number is the person doing 90 in a 50 zone, typically in some revved-up sports car or some eight year-old brown Toyota Corolla tricked-out with 19-inch wheels. This driver is zigging, zagging and tailgating through traffic (often followed by one or two friends trying to keep up) and cutting everyone off with mere nanoseconds for you to slam on the brakes so as to avoid arriving at the world to come before you’d ideally like to get there.

Modern car bumpers – or the lack thereof. Why do they even call these flimsy plastic things bumpers? They crumple at a malevolent sideways glance, are adhered to the front and rear of your car with thumb tacks and Scotch tape and the paint will inevitably be sheared off by a stiff wind. Where are the chrome and steel barriers of yore? I’d gladly sacrifice one or two miles per gallon for some serious hardware fore and aft and I don’t care if the bumpers’ colors match the car’s paint job.

Car sales people – I’ve been shopping for a new set of wheels and the level of disconnect between what I want, what I say and what they come back to me with is as though we’re in an episode of Star Trek where the universal translator isn’t working and I’m speaking English and they’re talking in Klingon or something. They want me to buy what’s on their lot at their price regardless of whether this meets by taste preferences or my budget. Many a sale has been blown this way in the last few weeks. Dealers might be better off just letting us buy cars online like books from Amazon.

Bad service – so help me why is it nearly universally axiomatic that you will receive poor service in a kosher restaurant? And without a smile. Let’s not even get started on the caliber of food in many of these establishments. And I’m talking internationally, not just in our area. The apex of this trying experience can be found while flying El Al, where you can be held prisoner for upwards of 11 hours. Yet, when you’re a guest in an Orthodox Jewish home, the exact opposite is true to a point where you’re smothered in both food, drink, kindness and cheerful hospitality.

Stifling conformity – for many people adolescent peer pressure did not die its deserved death at 17 or 18. Some people derive comfort from being part of a herd and many people will comport themselves (outwardly at least) only so as to fit in and not make waves, not because they really want to. Failure to conform could result in all kinds of dire manifestations of social opprobrium or ostracism, the fear of which can be paralyzing for many. Pressure to become a Lemming is something I find grating to say the least and I try my levelheaded best to be a tad idiosyncratic and eclectic, which, to be honest, does not always inure to my benefit. Case in point my being a loyal Mets fan. But it does make life interesting.

So it is a paradox that I am apoplectic about the multi-parking-space people, seeking their conformity to park between the lines. I suppose marching to the beat of your own drummer is OK as long as it doesn’t hurt or inconvenience others or society at large, or the sound emanating from one’s drums doesn’t disturb your neighbors’ sleep. Therein lies the civilizing social compact that keeps chaos from ruling the day.

The Zeitgeist with Howard Barbanel

I Remember Grandma

Lately, I’ve been thinking about my late maternal Grandmother, Lee Steinfeld. She passed away right around now about 22 years ago. She was my “longest serving” grandparent as everyone else passed away either before I was born or when I was a little kid. Some of the “longevity” was due to her having my mother at 21 and my mom having me at 24.

Grandma Lee was a unique character in so many respects. Her father (for whom I’m named) came here alone at 16 before the turn of the 20^th Century from the town of Iassy, Romania and so my grandmother was born here in the U.S. in 1913. My Great-Grandfather Harry Schwartz (known as “Big Harry” because he was a strapping 6’1” at a time when most immigrant Jewish men were 5’2”) was by all accounts a highly charismatic figure who made a ton of money during Prohibition manufacturing distilling equipment for the Jewish Mafia. He did so well that he built a house for his family on Laurelton Boulevard in Long Beach with all cash and had a Packard limousine with a chauffer.

My Grandmother as a consequence grew up with money and comfort at a time when most newly arrived Jews were barely eking out a living shlepping pushcarts or working horrendous hours in the needle trades. She was also very slim and pretty (throughout her life) something that was always very important to her. I used to joke with her that she was one of the very first Jewish-American Princesses and one of the prototypes upon which succeeding generations of Jewish girls would be modeled.

With all these advantages, my Grandmother married well. Her father made a shiddach (match) to a young, successful Romanian-Jewish attorney, Lewis Steinfeld, who would become my Grandfather. They set-off on a month-long honeymoon tour of Europe and what was then British-ruled Palestine in 1931 and even took home movies of it. They had three daughters, one of whom is my mom.

Life wasn’t completely charmed by any means however. My Great-Grandfather suffered from the repeal of Prohibition and a bunch of bad real estate investments in Florida (the original “swampland in Florida” deals probably) and my Grandfather who also did real estate had some things go sour. He passed away at 63 when the average American man’s life expectancy wasn’t much more than that, leaving my Grandmother as a widow for 26 years, most of which she spent in Manhattan.

Like many of her generation, my Grandmother was not what I’d call very physically demonstrative. She loved people deeply and expressed her feelings in the kitchen. Born with a natural gift for cooking and baking, every meal was a work of art and a taste-bud extravaganza. Dairy dishes were awash in cream, butter, sugar and milk. Meat dishes spared no expense of chicken fat. She was exacting and persnickety when it came to buying meat, poultry, cheese and produce. Only the best quality stuff would do. Hours would be spent preparing even an average dinner and from the first bite you could always tell. She was so acclaimed for her cheese blintzes that for a few years Zabar’s in Manhattan actually sold them. I haven’t had a blintz since she’s gone that is its equal. Amazingly, in spite of her belt-busting cuisine, she never was heavy, owing to her French style of eating – very small portions of very rich food. We didn’t eat small portions though.

She also could be a lot of fun, enjoying beer or cocktails out at restaurants. She loved popular culture, in particular she had a longstanding crush on the singer Tom Jones in his 60s and 70s heyday. A religious reader of The New York Post and watcher of the Channel 5 News at 10 (“It’s 10:00 p.m., do you know where your children are?”), like most New York Jews she was avowedly socially liberal and staunchly Democratic. A huge fan of former Mayors John Lindsay (for his good looks) and Ed Koch (for his no-nonsense policies) she was paradoxically a big fan of the late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and a real right-winger when it came to Israeli security issues as she felt that anti-Semites should be taken at their aspirational, genocidal word. She loved the art of conversation and political debate and at the same time chic outfits, great restaurants and nice things. Her home was always spotlessly immaculate and her living room was sprinkled with bowls of candies and treats.

At the end of her life she was hit with cancer that could not be vanquished by the medical technology of the day. Over many years I would go to her home for dinner quite often when I was living or working in the City. She loved cooking for others and preferred that to going out. A couple of months before her passing, as I was leaving she uncharacteristically reached out and gave me a big hug and told me that she loved me like a son and got all misty-eyed, which was not her style. Trying to cheer her up, I told her, “Now, Grandma, you know you’re not supposed to be hugging people, what’s this all about?” I told her “You can’t leave until you see great grandchildren from me.” This was not to be as she passed soon after. She was one of the few women in my life (and for most people there aren’t that many) who loved me unconditionally and unreservedly. I miss her whenever I make her chicken soup recipe, see blintzes or eat her Romanian eggplant salad that my mother still makes. I think of her during the occasional Ed Koch or Tom Jones sighting, when reading The Post, and of course when her yahrtzeit comes around.

It is said that people can achieve a kind of immortality as long as people remember them. Now, you have shared some of my memories, so maybe in this exponential way you’ll share with me in making her memory be for a blessing.

The Zeitgeist with Howard Barbanel

     

A 1966 Pontiac Catalina Wagon (left), a 1969 Firebird and a 1983 Maserati Bi-Turbo Coupe (right).

All The Cars I've Loved Before

My car lease expires in about three weeks. We spend a lot of time with our cars and it can be argued they even become part of the family. I stopped buying cars about 15 years ago because I learned that, sadly, there is no free ride in this life. By that I mean that once you stop paying the bank on a car loan, invariably you start paying the various and sundry mechanics for anything and everything that breaks down or wears out.

You can rest assured that as soon as the loan is paid off, the warranty expires, the brake pads and tires need to be replaced, the wheels need alignment, the air conditioning needs work, new shocks and struts may be necessary (owing to the smooth pavement here especially on New York City roads) and far worse can unexpectedly materialize. That’s why I’ve been leasing. Car problem? Not my problem, it’s the dealer’s problem and every few years you get a brand spanking new set of wheels.

The cars we choose to drive often say a lot about ourselves, our self image, what we may look to project to outsiders and how much, if at all, we really care about all of that. They say that dogs often look like their masters. Cars also ape the image of their drivers and stereotypes abound. There’s the little old lady in the 30 year-old relic chugging down the street; the male senior citizen in his Cadillac; the greaser or “Guido” in his muscle car (Chevy Camaros, both old and new are the ultimate “Guido” car); the suburban white collar professional driving an expensive car imported from any country hostile to U.S. foreign policy; the mother of a large brood with the silver Honda mini-van, and so it goes.

The first car I owned was a maroon 1966 Pontiac Catalina station wagon with seating for 12 with more than 100,000 miles on the odometer which cost me all of $200. It got minus five miles to the gallon when gas was about 45 cents per for premium. The steering wheel was enormous and it took five turns from end to end. Bias ply tires. No shoulder belts.

Generally I associate my cars with whatever personal relationship may have predominated during my tenure with whichever car. There was my 1969 Pontiac Firebird in puke green with black vinyl top and no factory air conditioning that I drove from my senior year in high school through much of college. In high school I had two totally unrequited teenage crushes with two different Lisas, one who went to Woodmere Academy and one from sleep away camp. College was my time with Shelley from Staten Island who I met at an NYU orientation and Wendy from Brandeis University who I met on the beach in Martinique on a family winter vacation.

In the Fall of 1980 I bought a silver 1981 Ford Mustang GT with T-tops (remember those?). It cost something like $7,000 new. A real splurge. These were my University of Miami grad school years along with Alison from East Rockaway who I met at Boston’s in Delray Beach (FL) and then my first wife Cheryl who I met in the cafeteria at UM’s Mohoney-Pearson dorms. She was an R.A., so she had her own solo room, a real luxury in dorm terms. From there for a time I had a boring Pontiac Grand Am which was a company car. When that job ended I treated myself to a silver 1983 Datsun (now Nissan) 280ZX, silver with wicked black pin striping, T-tops, rear-window louvers and front headlight bubble covers. A five-speed manual, it flew like lightning. My first marriage having ended before buying this car, these were the days of my intense short relationship with Silvia who sold advertising for The Miami Herald and a multi-year long-distance relationship with Amy from Washington, D.C. who drove an old Mercedes she called “Mr. Benz.”

The “Z” got stolen right in front of my office (it was Miami, after all) and I replaced it with the ultimate flashy car, a used 1983 Maserati Bi-Turbo Coupe in forest green with so much wood, leather and suede inside that an entire forest and herd of cows probably sacrificed themselves for this vehicle. A great New Year’s with Jill from South Miami in this car. Alas, it was totaled after a mere three weeks of ownership by a woman with a suspended license, running a red light and barreling into me at 50 mph with an enormous 70’s-era Cadillac Sedan de Ville. The car was wrecked but I emerged thankfully unscathed. She was arrested. To replace the Italian job I went this time for a 1986 Toyota Celica Convertible, in white with black top and interior. When living in a place like Florida, what you drive is important and a part of the culture.

In 1990, I came back to New York and have been here ever since. For the first couple of years I didn’t have a car as I was living and working in Manhattan. Once I entered the wine business, I needed a car and the first one was a family hand-me-down, a small 1986 Cadillac Cimarron (also silver) that surprisingly was a very well-built car that I drove well past 120,000 miles with hardly a repair needed. As that car died, I went for a 1995 Chrysler Sebring coupe in some kind of turquoise blue that was a dealer car with 1,000 miles on it. These were the days I met my now ex-wife and spent nearly 15 years in various forms of togetherness. The Sebring (a horrible car) gave way to a used black Lexis sedan that was also stolen in Manhattan, after which we got a 2001 Chevy Blazer Xtreme (extremism in the pursuit of SUV’s in the last decade was no vice) in deep black. Moving to the suburbs came a succession of Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredos and as a second car, a used Toyota 4Runner.

As the Toyota was facing the end of its useful life, I procured my present set of wheels, a 2008 Mazda MX-5 Grand Touring with 18-inch alloy wheels, eight-speaker Bose sound system and retractable hard top. A real joy to drive, this is a fabulous car in every respect but for the fact that it’s somewhat haunted as my now ex split midway through my ownership of this car. I’m looking forward to driving something fresh and new, unencumbered by the ghosts of passengers past. Not in any relationship now, I’m hopeful that any new vehicle (and I’m dithering and tossed between four possible cars) will, as with prior cars, eventually come with a female co-pilot as standard equipment and not as an expensive option. With a few weeks to go, I’ll keep you posted on my ultimate choice of wheels, the co-pilot thing however may take a little longer.