About The Cowboy Hat

I know that a surprising number of you have clicked on the cowboy hat picture. You scamps. I feel like I should tell the whole story.

My mom started agitating sometime in 2006, saying that she didn’t have a good picture of me for the living room. My sister provides a regular supply of family photos with her kids (which is really cheating, because my nephews are beautiful and cherubic and have wonderful partially-toothy smiles). But if you don’t have kids, when do you go in and have actual pictures taken of yourself? Unless she wanted one of me hugging rando Amazing Race contestants, she was sort of out of luck. So when I asked what she wanted for her birthday, weeks ahead, she asked for a real picture. I assured her I would get one. “And I’m going to make this face in it,” I said. And then I made that face, from the cowboy hat picture. And because she kept laughing, I kept doing it: “Hey, Mom, don’t forget what I’m getting you for your birthday! [Face].” (Mom laughs; repeat until bored.)

When I actually went to get the pictures done, I was assisted by a really nice young woman who set me up with a variety of poses, including some that were wildly unflattering to me personally, but some of which were fine. I told her exactly what they were for, and at the end, I told her the story about tormenting my mother with the finger-guns threat. And she said, immediately, “OH MY GOD WE HAVE TO DO THAT.” She added the hat, she rolled down the backdrop, and I actually got myself to make that face in front of a stranger. I bought an 8×10 of that one as well as an 8×10 of the real one I was giving my mom, but the one I had them gift-wrap was the cowboy hat. Which I gave my mom at her birthday dinner. I think it took her about four seconds to realize this was undoubtedly not the real picture she was getting, but oh, they were such a good four seconds.

“Music” To My Ears

As it happens, I had to move offices with four days left at work (a perfect opportunity for the dismissive use of “whatever,” making me wish I’d used it more discriminatingly in the last few years so I’d have some usage left). Now, this has one big advantage, which was that I used to have my desk up against the wall next to the gym. This meant that periodically, Joe R and I would get to listen to an entire exercise class together. Remember the screeching instructor in that episode of 30 Rock? The one who said something like, “Don’t give up, you’re getting it, Glasses”? Okay, the instructors at the real NBC gym are actually several orders of magnitude (1) louder and (2) angrier than that. They sound like this:

“RUUUH! ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! GO! GO! GO! PICK IT UP! PUSH! GO! GO! GO!”

Only you have to assume that I am yelling these words six inches from your ear, and I am using the voice of R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket. You get the impression that this is not a put-on; these instructors are like this deep in their souls. They’re like this at Burger King, too: “WHOPPER! WHOPPER! NO LETTUCE, COME ON!” At any rate, they make a lot of really interesting music selections, not all of which seem like natural fits for workouts. Joe and I listened to a whole class one time that was something like “The Bad Prom Workout.” It included “Nobody Does It Better,” “Son Of A Preacher Man,” “I Ran,” and some big dance ballad that we no longer remember. At other times, they favor “You Spin Me Right Round (Like A Record)” as well as “Come On Eileen,” which are probably the two songs we heard most often.

But what really made it special was that at the end of each workout, people would put their exercise equipment away, which means in this case hurling it against a wall. I’m not sure what they were using, but the sound of the stuff slamming into the wall next to me, I think they were using bowling balls. Literally, the things on my desk would jump a half-inch into the air as things went “THUD!” into the wall.

Anyway, when I found out that we were moving, my favorite thing to do was to listen to an exercise class, and then yell, “So long, suckers!” in the middle of…whatever, the squat sequence or what have you. And then I learned that my new office looks out over the ice rink at Rockefeller Center.

Where they play the same Xtina and Bryan Adams tunes ten times a day, and that is ON TOP of the bells from the cathedral, which I have complained about bitterly since I started, assuring myself a special place in hell. The church-bell-hating section.

Two more days after today, ICE RINK. I hope you can live with yourself.