Weekend at Grossinger's

Grossinger’s Resort.

Grossinger’s Resort.

Grossinger’s Resort.

Did I mention -- GROSSINGER’S RESORT.

Those two words changed my blog.

For at least a day.

You see Sunday I wrote a blog about my recent trip to Cooperstown.

And in that blog I mentioned that my father and I went to Grossingers Resort in upstate New York when I was 12.

Then I made the smooth, almost seamless transition to the trip I took with my 12-year old son last week to Cooperstown.

In upstate New York.

Those are the types of segues that win Pulitzer Prizes people.

But what does this have to do with my blog.

Well, here’s what.

Monday night I was watching Goldmember in the basement with my kids.

At some point between Mike Myers costume changes I picked up my iPhone and clicked on sitemeter.com.

That’s the software that shows me who is reading my blog at that exact second.

(It’s so addicting.)

Well as soon as it loaded, I immediately noticed something abnormal.

The number of eyeballs on the blog had gone bonkers.

Now when I say bonkers, I’m not talking youtube bonkers.

Or even perezhilton bonkers.

Sir Bacon is still a local mom and pop operation.

But at 10:30pm ET on Monday night, I had dozens of readers on my website.

At a time when on some nights I don’t even have one.

Readers from Port Saint Lucie, Florida.

Amarillo, Texas.

Mattawa, Washington.

Bixby, Oklahoma.

Warrenton, Virginia.

And the Czech Republic.

And MANY others.

So I put on my Inspector Clouseau hat to get some answers.

That’s what journalists do.

Well it turns out every single one of those readers had found Sir Bacon from the same exact place.

The yahoo search engine.

By searching for the same exact words.

Grossinger’s.

and

Resort.

I hear Grossinger’s is huge in the Czech Republic.

I did some snooping to see if Grossinger’s was in the news last week.

Nothing.

My friend said maybe Howard Stern mentioned Grossinger’s on his show.

Nothing.

Maybe the return of Fear Factor is being shot at the Grossinger’s Resort.

Nothing.

Now the initial surge into sirbaconville certainly caught me off guard.

But what really blew me away was how it continued.

For the next day-and-a-half.

And during that time I had literally 20 times the amount of readers I usually get.

And 99% of the readers found me by searching for those same two magical words.

“Grossinger’s” and “Resort”.

Now the fact that hundreds of people -- from all over the world --were all searching for a resort in upstate New York at the same time is a little funny.

And the fact that they all stumbled across my blog by doing that search is a little bizarre.

But here’s where it gets flat out creepy.

Oliver Stoney if you will.

According to wikipedia, Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel closed its doors.

In 1986.

25 years ago!

(Cue the Halloween music.)

Now I’ve been writing this here blog for the last 18 months.

And I’ve been constantly blown away by how many people have found it.

And I thank every single one of you for doing so.

But it’s not like I’m advertising Sir Bacon on the Super Bowl.

This is a word of mouth thing.

And the fact that anybody has found me still blows me away.

But how is it that casually mentioning a hotel in my blog.

A hotel that closed its doors 25 years ago.

Can increase my audience by 20 times.

That makes no sense.

If it’s really that easy...

I’ll be writing a blog on Grossinger’s Resort every Monday.

The 1959 Edsel Ford every Tuesday.

My favorite M*A*S*H* episodes on Wednesdays.

I’ll have a million followers by Thursday, right?

Thank you Grossinger’s.

RIP.

F Bombs and Hand Grenades

Father of the Year 2011.

That’s me.

Recently I took a giant step in that direction.

There we were, surfin’ the net.

My seven-year old daughter and I.

We decided to stop by YouTube.

Actually, I decided to stop there.

And not by accident.

You see, she loves to sing.

Anything.

And recently she’s been belting out “Grenade” by Bruno Mars.

Every time she belts.

I record.

Yada yada yada.

There is a video of her singing “Grenade” on YouTube.

Moments after we arrived at YouTube, I clicked on her video.

Her smile extended from ear to ear.

We watched it once with the family.

Then we watched it again.

And again.

Loving it more and more with each click.

Eventually my eyes started wandering.

And I noticed, on the right side of our screen, a column that said...

...If you liked “that” video, you’ll love “these” videos.

Or something like that.

How could we pass that up?

The suggestion at the top of that list was the real Grenade video.

By the real Bruno Mars.

Whose real name is Peter Gene Hernandez.

So I clicked on it.

My daughter loved Bruno’s video.

As did I.

I’m guessing they had a wee bigger budget than us.

Just a guess.

But for my money, I'll still take Isabella.

Any day of the week.

And yes, that’s her real name.

Now if you’ve successfully found my little 'ole blog.

I’m guessing you’ve successfully stopped at YouTube before.

Once or many times.

So you probably have a pretty good idea of how addicting it can be.

You can really get lost in there.

Kinda like Ikea.

You go for one flimsy Swedish desk.

And you end up with that desk.

A new bookcase.

A computer stand.

An EKTORP Sofa.

And one overinflated credit card bill.

Well YouTube is no different.

Minus the credit card bill.

We went to see one video.

An hour later, we were still there.

There was some girl singing “I kissed a lobster and I liked it.”

She had like 13 billion hits.

They’ve got babies burping.

And movie trailers.

And kids playing Guitar Hero.

The place is amazing.

Actually, its a maze.   

No ing.

A maze you can never leave.

While we were watching Mr. Mars, I noticed the new suggestions on the right side had changed.

This time at the top was the OFFICIAL video for that great song by Cee Lo Green.

If you listen to Radio Disney, you know the song as “Forget You”.

If you listen to Satellite Radio, you know the song as “F.U.”.

Well, let’s just say the OFFICIAL name of that song is neither.

True, it begins with an F.

And it’s followed by three letters.

And it rhymes with Duck.

This is where the father of the year part comes in.

My daughter saw the suggestion nearly as quickly I did.

And she saw “that word.”

Now most responsible parents would have distracted their seven-year old.

Turned off the computer.

And sprinted directly into therapy.

Me?

Not so much.

You see, we both love music.

We both love that song.

And we both have heard “that word” a thousand times.

Actually, I’ve said it.

She’s heard it.

Sorry.

Hey, it’s not my fault.

My parents introduced me to “that word” at a very young age too.

In fact, my mom told me a story about the first time I used it in a sentence.

At age four.

Allegedly, I asked my parents what my father’s name was in Hebrew.

And they replied.

Yitzhak.

“Oh,” I said.

“Yitzhak... as in F---?”

Yep.

That’s allegedly what I said.

Minus the “---” part.

I was really good at vocabulary.

Hey, I turned out just fine.

So when this OFFICIAL Cee Lo Green song came up, I figured... hey, it’s art.

And art is good.

Right?

How much harm could a little music video do?

So Isabella and I watched it.

And we danced.

And she giggled.

A few times.

At the right times.

And at the end of the song.

She smirked.

She told me she loved the video, but she didn't like the words he used.

"I just don't get why people write songs that have bad words in them," she said.

"Are they just trying to get arrested?"

I asked her if it was bad that I showed it to her.

"I won't tell anybody," she said.

Then she locked her mouth with an imaginary key.

And threw the key away.

Where do I pick up my award?

(If you want to see Isabella's video CLICK HERE.)

Breakfast With The Beatles

My seven-year old daughter was sick yesterday.

So she stayed home from school.

Poor girl.

Lucky me.

I got to make her breakfast.

Something we call an Egg Surprise.

That’s when you cut a hole in a piece of bread.

Throw it in a pan.

Drop an egg inside the hole.

Egg white in this case.

And fry it up.

And when you bite the bread.

SURPRISE!

It tastes like an omelette.

Well kinda sorta.

After that we took a 90-minute nap together.

We read books together.

We laughed and sang together.

It was a perfect morning.

So perfect, that at one point, I just started mumbling the words to “I Feel Fine.”

By The Beatles.

It was the line, “I’m so glad, that she’s my little girl.”

That made her smile.

Which made me smile.

While my rendition of the song was pretty darn good, if I must say so myself.

It definitely wasn’t even better than the real thing.

So I went on youtube to show her what the song is really supposed to sound like.

I typed in... “I Feel Fine” and “The Beatles”.

And in half a second I found “about 4,180 results”.

About 4,180?

Either it is or it isn’t, right?

Anywhoo... we had more versions of that song than Microsoft has versions of Windows.

I had a live version from the classic Shea Stadium concert.

Another live one from Japan.

A piano cover.

A version by The Supremes.

A version without vocals.

And then with vocals.

A guitar lesson on how to play the song.

And about 4,174 others.

About.

God Bless youtube.

And God Bless The Beatles.

I certainly couldn’t stop there.

We listened to one of my all-time faves, Oh Darling.

Revolution.

Real Love.

And a handful of others.

Including “Here Comes The Sun.”

A song she recognized.

“Hey, that’s from The Bee Movie,” she said.

A movie released in 2007.

38 years after The Beatles released the original.

It was cool watching her play air guitar.

Better than I play the real guitar.

And air drums.

Not quite like Ringo.

One thing that was really neat about the youtube videos was all the old pictures of the Fab Four.

I got to tell her about Sgt. Pepper.

And Ed Sullivan.

And the album cover from Abbey Road.

Actually she knew that one.

“That picture is hanging in my teacher’s room.”

Cool teacher.

She wanted to know the four names of these lads.

So I told her.

And then quizzed her on who was who.

My version of home schooling.

She didn’t do so well.

I think the matching mop tops and ever-changing facial hair threw her off.

With all of the black and white photos, she asked if all four guys were still alive.

That’s when the conversation changed.

I explained that Paul and Ringo are still with us.

And that George died from smoking cigarettes.

Maybe not 100% accurate, but close enough for a seven-year old.

And another good home lesson.

Then came the story of John Lennon.

I shared the details with her.

Keeping it as simple as possible.

But she kept asking.

And I kept answering.

As simple as I could.

And in the same way it didn’t make sense to this 13-year old boy on December 8, 1980.

It didn’t make sense to his seven-year old daughter.

30 plus years later.

I was eventually able to change the subject.

By playing her some of John’s solo stuff.

Including a little ditty called “Beautiful Boy”.

A beautiful song John wrote for his son five-year old son Sean.

Within a few lines, my daughter started singing along.

It’s a simple song.

But very touching.

For the last verse, she changed the lyrics.

To Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful.... 

Beautiful Dad.

I’m so glad that she's my little girl.

Two Worlds Apart

I just completed a spur-of-the-moment week-long trip home to see my family.

Following the developments of last week, that’s where I needed to be.

And boy did I pick a good time to go.

Halloween.

I got plenty of hugs... and kisses... and Hershey Kisses... and Reese’s.

Lots of Reese’s.

My son must’ve collected at least 50 of the yummy peanut butter cups during his trick or treating.

Seriously.  At least 50.

So many Reese’s that it reminded me of the old commercial where the guy with the peanut runs into the girl with the chocolate.

Two great tastes in one candy bar.

It took my daughter about one second to find those commercials on youtube.

How did we ever live without youtube?

Well, the trip was incredible.

I was able to bring lunch to school for my kids.

And see choir practice.

And basketball practice.

And dance practice.

And we were able to practice being a family again.

My not-so-secret double life in New York City felt like a thousand miles away.

Actually, it was two thousand.

But it might as well have been a million.

Don’t get me wrong, I love... loved New York.

I loved pretty much every thing about it.

I even loved the people.

I wouldn’t say that I am an expert on analyzing New Yorkers, but over the last few months, I accumulated a pretty good sample to form an opinion.

Loyal.  Check.

Genuine.  Check.

Real.  Double check.

Cold.  Can be.

Like the Coolatta at Dunkin’ Donuts.

But you pretty much know where you stand.

I get the feeling that many people in New York don’t realize that there is another world outside of New York.

And when you are here, it’s pretty easy to believe that.

When I got back home to life with the family, I fell right back into my four-corner offense, taking things one moment at a time.

As soon as I got off the plane yesterday at LaGuardia, it was right back into the two-minute drill.

Or the New York Minute drill.

The noise, the pace, the excitement.

Nothing like it.

It took me about three New York blocks, even with it raining, to realize that this is where I want... wanted to be.

Of course, I don’t have a job in New York.

Anymore.

And not to mention that I don’t think that $1.049 million, one-bedroom, two-bathroom unit with 760 square feet in the West Village that I saw listed in the New York Post yesterday would be a good way to raise a family.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love where my family currently resides, but this is New York!

The Big Apple.

Gotham.

The Melting Pot.

The City that Never Sleeps.

Pick your nickname.

Even after being away for seven days, seven FANTASTIC days, Manhattan felt like home as soon as I got back.

As I write this note from the place where I will be spending the rest of the month, tying up loose ends, I can literally hear a series of sirens going off.

Wow, what a beautiful sound.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved... love where our home is too.

The people are great, the life is great, it is a perfect place to call home.

I went to go work out at the local gym there a few days ago.

As I walked to my car in the parking lot, the car next to me started backing up and probably came about ten feet away from hitting me.

At least ten feet.

Not exactly a dangerous situation.

But if was enough of a situation in my town where the driver of the other car felt obligated to stop.

Felt obligated to roll down his window.

Felt obligated to... apologize.

Apologize?

For going backwards at one mile per hour and not coming close to hitting me?

He’ll never make it in New York.

On Halloween night, we walked the kids through our local neighborhood taking candy from strangers.

I think that’s page 16 of the parent handbook.

We stopped at one house I had never been to before.

I didn’t know the people, but it was Halloween, so we stopped.

When we got there, they gave the kids candy... AND... they gave the adults Vodka Jello Shots.

Amen!

I gladly accepted it... and enjoyed it... without any hesitation.

Hey kids, don’t ever accept Vodka Jello Shots from a stranger!!!

Stupid on my part?

Perhaps.

But it was good.

And this was small town America, what could possibly go wrong?  

If you listen real closely, you can hear John Mellencamp playing in the background.

Now come on, would I have accepted a Vodka Jello Shot from a stranger in New York?

On the corner of 26th Street and 5th Avenue?

I don’t think so.

Addendum:   So my friend Phil is visiting me this weekend from LA.   I met him at Grand Central Station and we walked down Park Avenue.   

When we got to the corner of 33rd and Park, there were two men standing outside of a dark Pret A Manger Restaurant, which had just closed.   

One of the guys was holding a box filled with fresh cut fruit cups.   He said he was going to throw them away and asked if we wanted them.   

Yada yada yada.  

We now have breakfast.

So much for that theory.