2007

The simplest way I segment the stages of my life is in 3 parts:
1982-2003: I counted on myself (and my nuclear family) for just about everything
2003-2006: I sensed that my ego and impatience was eating away at some of my potential; I began to chill out, talk less, and listen more to try to learn what opportunities I'd been missing (or at least not fully appreciating)
2007- : I truly began to feel like a part of whatever environment I'm in (foreign or familiar, be it a room or an entire city)

Phase 3 began with my "New Life's Resolution" (see 1/27/07 entry) and the book that helped me realize what parts of my personality I (and everyone around me) could do without. As a result, I've had a very relaxing and rewarding year despite its many changes and challenges.

I kicked off 2007 in Maine, watching my father get a stem-cell transplant (the results of which are ambiguous at best and seemingly ineffective). I performed a demanding, high-profile job for 7 months, knowing all the while that it was last 7 months I'd probably ever do it. I solidified a second home for myself 2400 miles from where I began, a home filled with the very people that helped me transition from my second Phase into my third. That Key from the City of Las Cruces is the single most meaningful physical gift I've ever received. It is proof to me that I've come into a very healthy and productive place in my life, as well as a salute to all the friends I made down there. I simply would have had little desire to accomplish what I did without your love.

My Quote of 2007 encapsulates this sense of family among my Borderland friends. It may sound collegiate. But trust me, B-Rizz "said" much more than she said:

"We may run out of food. We may run out of blankets. But we will never-- never-- run out of booze."

* * * * *

A few toasts, darts, and racks later, I came home... Five months in, I still feel caught in a whirlwind of reunions. Living back at home has proved to me I never want to live outside driving distance from my parents. Reconnecting with my sister (who I haven't had a day-to-day relationship with since I graduated high school) has made this homecoming wholly worth it on its own. I saw 8 dear friends wed. And I truly believe this current job is taking me right where I'm trying to go. Don't bother asking... I have no idea where that is yet.

My defining moment of 2007 will remain the exchange I had with Dad when Colorado's Seth Smith stepped to the plate, shortly before Jonathan Papelbon struck him out to end the World Series:
Dad: "I'm glad you're here."
Me: "I'm glad you are, too."

I will never forget 2007. It was a year of extreme tests. But I am far stronger and more stable from it and I will always look back on it fondly. To half of you, thank you so much for having me. To the other half, thanks so much for having me back.

To '07. To '08.
L'Chayim...

This is a non-denominational tune...

If holidays are anything else besides convenient travel days to spend with family, they are blocks of times designated for pondering the subject at hand. So in the spirit of giving, please allow me to unwrap a bit of prose concerning one of our species' most influential figures:

* * * * *

I find the story of Jesus the most fascinating of all stories fact or fiction. Here, we have the story of wise and loving man who tried to perform a simple gesture: leave the world a better place than he found it. Instead, his legacy was left to those who made him the focus, rather than his deeds.

Whether this was a sincere attempt by his successors to add credibility to his lessons or not, it has led, I feel, to some schools of thought that view living as a means rather than an activity to be enjoyed.

I find it ironic, too, that the cast of characters following each respective religious school (be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, et cetera) want the same thing; one single, simple thing: Security. The feeling of waking up each day, walking outside to greet the sun and saying "We have food, we have friendly neighbors, my children can pursue their dreams here." Yet, the bishops, kings, and queens on the board have outlined such unobtainable criteria for achieving "security" that we, as a species, may never have it.

I'm not surprised by this; not one population of our species has ever been safe from attack. However, the fact that many still believe peace possible is endearing at best to me. And many find religious leaders who demand the conversion or annihilation of entire peoples as a path to this "peace" contradictory.

So let's follow these breadcrumbs back out of the rabbit hole... what would your message to the masses be on Christmas given that Jesus's lessons have been molded to fit countless (sometimes conflicting) agendas and that Peace on earth doesn't seem to be arriving anytime soon? A cynical question, perhaps, but one I think we need to address if this birthday celebration is to have any purpose beyond: "Here's to one who tried."

So... what would yours be?

Let it Snow

(Dedicated to my friends on the border... I'm sure you'll enjoy this one)
* * * * *

So my recent posts have all been rainbows and smiles... relishing in the life of one sentenced to a cubicle, doing humidity-induced sweat angels on the Commons, lauding the constant swearing and honking by the Newton tolls as the chorus to my favorite forgotten song...

Well, my old pal Snow thought it was time he came and shook my hand... and the very foundations of my mental stability.

Yes, it was only 4-6 inches of snow on Thursday afternoon. The snowologists were quick to point out this was not a big storm in terms of white stuff BUT that, due to the timing of the storm, it was one of the worst commutes they'd ever seen.

I got in my car in South Boston at 1:15. Trying for a short-cut on a back ramp with few signs, I accidentally missed the Pike and ended up on I-93. For those of you who "know" and see where this is going, I'll give you a second to laugh.

Done? Thankssss.

I dropped myself off at Government Center, which at 1:45 on Thursday was the driving equivalent of Eric Mangini dropping himself off at Cask 'n Flagon... I wasn't going anywhere fast. Now Gov't Center is north of my office, so imagine my morale level as I'm passing my office at 3:30... with an 1/8 of a tank left. Had my saint of a sister not rescued me from my storm-induced retardation and suggested I abandon the car in the nearest garage and take the train home, you could have added mine to the 728 cars towed off the highways by State Police later that night.

As I approach South Station with a film of slush on my head, a $35 garage ticket in my pocket, a glimmer of false hope that the trains are on schedule, and ready to punch out the first person that says "Boy, it's really comin' down, huh?" regardless of age or gender (I don't discriminate), a familiar sight started to bring me back to earth. It was the lady I see every day passing out free Boston Nows (I do the sedokus in the back). She smiled and said "it's good to see you." I told myself at that point that life truly does go on and all that matters is I'm on my way home.

As coincidence would have it, I saw my card buddies on the platform (oh that's right... for a month now, I've played a new card game on the 4:58 with this group of 7-8 that call themselves "Trainiacs"). Apparently everyone decided to grab the 4:10 and we had a nice, relaxing game home.

Emy was here when I got home at 6:15 (I left at 1:15, so you don't have to scroll up), so it was all 5 of us watching The Office in Dad's room. Plus, I needed my car in Boston on Friday anyway. So everything worked out and I escaped with some pretty valuable lessons I once learned, passed on, and apparently forgot while playing in the sand for 2 years:

a) don't let your tank slip below 1/4 between October 1 and March 31
b) top off your washer fluid every day on your lunch break during the same time period
c) there is no quick way out of Boston Monday-Friday in a snowstorm unless you live in Charlestown and have a kayak handy... and the bay hasn't frozen... which it has. So scratch that too.

I'm gonna go print c) and glue it to my steering wheel so I can read it to myself every time I utter the words: "Hey, I think I have an idea."

Today's mission: Snow tires for my winter monster, the Corolla, before Shitshow Part Deux slams the commonwealth tonight.

"Well, it doesn't show signs of stopping..."

~Rube

So Drink Your Gin & Tonikah

[From December 16, 2006... if you haven't seen it, it's new to you]

* * * * *

Few holidays capture the American spirit quite like Hanukkah.


Hanukkah is the story of an army outnumbered fighting against a world power on its adopted "home" turf to gain social and religious freedom. Sound familiar?

Sure, 80% of Americans may celebrate Christmas (US Census Bureau, 2001). But 100% of Americans aspire to live with the spirit of Hanukkah. We breathe free thanks to the sacrifices of our own "Maccabees" who traveled an ocean to escape oppression. And thousands every year flock to this country to share in their victory. Just like Israel has grown to more than 6 million people, 75% of which are "home"coming Jews.

Going back to Christmas. Ignorant people wonder (and intelligent people joke) that Hanukkah is the Jewish Christmas. Consider this: Had the Maccabees fallen to the Assyrians, might that have set monotheism back a few hundred years? I don't mean to suggest we'd be worse off as a species worshiping multiple deities, only to point out that we've all come this far partly due to "the great miracle that happened there."

* * * * *

And so, my fellow Americans, I propose a toast to true warriors of freedom, predecessors of the American spirit. L'Chayim.

Happy Hanukkah to all. And to all, a good week.

JaRube
-30-

My New Cyber Home + My Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, and welcome to my new Blogger blog.

I made the change so:
a) you don't have to join MySpace to view Blogs
b) my "Notes" don't get lost in the madness on your Facebook homepage
c) I could give my old ramblings new hotness

My old blogs are also posted here. The important ones, anyways.

While you're reading this... I might as well renew an old request for any topics you'd like my take on. Or you can always send me a "Guest Blog" if you'd like to share an experience, a stance, a thought, et cetera: jarubenstein@gmail.com

* * * * *
MY THANKSGIVING

...was perfect. For most of the day, it was just Mom, Dad, Emy, me, and Sammy splitting his time equally on all of our laps. We had no energy to cook and would have been perfectly content with tuna fish and cheese sandwiches and football, but Gramma and some friends stopped by with an entire Thanksgiving dinner.

I've reunited with a lot of old classmates and friends this weekend so far. I've fielded more than my share of "I'm sorry"s. And I returned each with a Thank You and my best reassuring smile. But I'll tell ya what... I have so much to be Thankful for today. When I think back someday on the 5 of us together, I will never picture holiday/event dinners. I'll see us all sitting in a room talking about just about everything, giving each other crap for this or that, while Mom's doing a mailing, Dad's lying down watching a game with me while Emy and I are on each other's laptops and Sammy's hopping from lap to lap. And that's exactly what we did today.

I am Whole. I am so glad to be Home.
Here's to what we have, and whatever comes...

Have a great weekend. Thanks -as always- for reading,
Rube

Update

For starters, I'm no longer playing cribbage on the train. Two weeks into our game, my card partner suggested we hang out some upcoming weekend. I gracefully turned him down, asking that we keep our arrangement to weekday card-playing. He replied that the other players all socialized off the clock and that he took my refusal as a personal insult. I wished him all the best and walked away.

While it's no skin off my back, I was slightly saddened that people throw out perfectly good relationships because they try to make them something they're not. Now I sit across from a nice girl my age. Half the ride, we discuss our days, our friends, and how it feels to stare up the company totem pole. The half, she reads and I do Sedoku. Six straight weeks of reading up on the current of the American public education system will cause one to take up Sedoku for at least a month. That means I have another 24 days of Sedoku. This is not a bad thing.

* * * * *

My father is not well. A virus put him in the hospital for a week or so. He's home now. But again, he's not well. It doesn't seem like the January procedure did it's job. We think it's because, while scleroderma can be contracted from the environment, it's in Dad's genetic code. So I guess we took scleroderma stem cells out and put them back in. What can you do? The doctors have no timetables, no chances of this or that. They're only certain of one thing: the scleroderma is taking its toll. So we're rolling with the punches and making the most of this time.

I constantly remind myself certain things: 1) We've truly done everything we can. 2) Our efforts to save Dad simultaneously brought together friends and strangers, spread such awareness about this disease, and raised a significant amount of money for the National Federation of Transplants. 3) We all gotta go somehow. Death is part of life... this is what we signed up for. And that's why I'm honestly at a loss for words when people say "I'm sorry." Sure, many of you have told me that, and I do appreciate the sentiment. I've said "I'm sorry" too. But think about it. You're sorry someone's dying? If everyone dies eventually, we should be glad they lived instead. You might say "Well, I'm sorry he's dying young." That implies that we should have enjoyed more years with someone. To that, I'd say that with 7 billion people on this earth, let's focus on being grateful that we met that person at all. No matter what life serves up, there are at least two ways of looking at it. I choose positive. This is not a front. It's a choice, my lifestyle. I humbly offer these ramblings as a suggestion for another perspective that I've found quite comforting.

To be clear, I don't know if Dad's got days or years left. That's just the point... I don't know. So I'm making the most of it.

Let's see, now... (looks down at checklist)
Job's great. Still single. Go Pats. I think that wraps it up for now...

Rube

Jayme's Mind, Making All Local Stops

DRIZZLE

I was greeted by a light rain and a steady wind upon leaving work one day last week. I kept my umbrella in my backpack upon deciding the wind was too stiff and the mist was refreshing to walk through after a long day indoors. Halfway to South Station, a gentleman walked towards me struggling with his umbrella. He had a raincoat on, no briefcase or newspaper to protect, only his (likely involuntary) desire to not get wet. Ten feet away from me, a Harbor breeze rushed up behind him, and turned his umbrella inside out. The distance between us was just enough for me to soak in his priceless look of shear defeat, stirred with a dash of lamentation for the five dollars he'd invested in avoiding this very situation.

Two men, equally as wet. Yet, their moods are polar opposites, as are the potential effects on the moods of the next 10 people they meet, based on a single decision. One man decided to bask in his surroundings while the other attempted to deny them.

FIFTEEN FOR TWO

I decided a long time ago that I would spend at least a few days of my "Golden Years" playing chess in a park. Even as a child, I remember being struck by the thought that two people could know nothing about each other save for their mutual respect for a board game-- and that that's enough for them to spend time together.

Last week, my intentions carried me onto the third car to the back of the 4:58 Express. I intended to put a sizable dent in a book I'm reading for work. But I was distracted by the pleasure sight of four men playing cribbage at the table next to mine. I envied their child-like (not childish) comradeship, their playful jabbing, the shear fact that they were holding playing cards and I was not. Plus, the silent, brewing stares of every other passenger with which I had nothing in common seemed to push me closer to the table. I said hello.

It turns out the loudest player, Randy, started the cribbage game 18 months ago, seemingly as an alternative to thinking about the 30 years he's spent converting spreadsheets to pdfs for a bank he doesn't respect. He'd rather talk about it and, since it's not overly negative, I'm honored to listen. The latest of Randy's rosters includes Dougie, Ray, and-- for the past 6 business days-- myself.
Now each weekday, on the third car to the back of the 4:58, I play out a fantasy of my Golden Years. And most of my life is still presumably ahead of me. It's a very satisfying thought.

COFFEE

When I graduated from Syracuse, I shipped off almost immediately to Las Cruces. A friend of mine soon headed out to Klamath Falls, Oregon. Over the next year or so, we both became wiser, more self-sufficient and, I think, much closer together. We didn't talk as often as I'd like, but each conversation refilled my confidence (and hers, I hope) as well as strengthened another connection I had with Home.
Two and a half years and 3,000 miles later, we work 3 buildings away from each other. She had a bad day Wednesday and called me at 3:30 for a Starbucks trip to break it up.

The words "this too shall pass" are so much better said face-to-face over a lunch wrap and a warm frappa- whatever the heck she ordered than said over the phone in the glow of a muted tv and a dinner for one.

BEING MANNY

When a reporter asked Manny what would happen if the Sox lose the ALCS, Manny replied: "If it doesn't happen, so who cares? There's always next year. It's not like it's the end of the world."

Cue: Red Sox Nation erupting with anger. For 24 straight hours after Manny's quote hit the web, strangers were grabbing each other on the streets screaming: "Manny doesn't care! Manny doesn't care!"

I felt like (and may well be) the only soul in Beantown defending him. I actually liked that Manny said that for two reasons. 1) I knew he'd be relaxed during Game 5 (in which he went 2-for-4 with an RBI) and 2) Manny proved to me once again that he's a true professional who understands that all you can do is your best. Sometimes it'll pan, other times not. We fans want players to think like us, never admitting that those who do can't win. If we want to feel closer with our players, maybe we should think more like them-- take in the moments, appreciate the fact that we're enjoying October baseball, revel in the drama, accept that defeat can make us feel just as alive as victory.

Consider the last time the Sox came back from 3-1 down in an ALCS. 1986. Don Baylor and Dave Henderson both hit 2-run homers off the Angels' Donnie Moore. Donnie Moore "cared." For Donnie Moore, it was "the end of the world." Donnie Moore killed himself three years after that game. Baring this in mind, I'm glad Manny's got a level head. I hope the rest of our team has put the next two games in a similar perspective. And it couldn't hurt if we all did the same.

Landmarks

Hi all,
Welcome to another installment of "Guest Blog." Today, it's my pleasure to introduce a member of my innermost core of friends, Jess Williams. To know him is to love him. Take it away, Jess:

* * * * *

There are some things for which you simply can't adequately prepare yourself. I am not a Civil War buff, but I'd imagine that seeing Gettysburg borders on a fall-to-your-knees religious experience. I'm just guessing, because it's a landmark.

Landmarks.

I drove to League City, Texas, yesterday to see friends made in the early 90s who have migrated here. I got here early enough, however, to drive down the side streets in search of a stranger from the late 70s: Me.

League City today is not remotely what it was in 1979 when a 20-year-old closet case from Las Cruces, N.M., got his first co-op job at Johnson Space Center in nearby Clear Lake City.

I came to Clear Lake an emotional mess -- a kid struggling with who he was and what it meant. In the back of some local rag (the likes of which no longer exists, so far as I can tell), I found a notice for the Texas Bay Area Gays, who were having a meeting at a not-close-by-but-within-driving-distance restaurant. Everyone Welcome. Their logo was a tea bag, the string hanging from the rim of a see-through cup, steam rising from the top.

It was an odd assortment of men, and the leader of the group was a man much older than me and quite unattractive physically, but he had a quick smile, an easy sense of humor and -- clearly -- the love and admiration of these other men and boys who were in attendance, all of whom welcomed me to their group and each of whom connected in some way to my story: "Confused Kid from Rural America Seeks Answers and Self Realization in the Big Fucking City." (Footnote: Confused Kid is Not Really 'Confused' At All; He Just Needs Permission to be Him.)

Permission granted.

I probably can't name them all after all these years, but some stand out: Erwin Felscher; Chris C; Greg C; Dougie Turner; Jerry Starkey; Peter G.

Erwin was the older fellow, and the leader of the pack. Every story started with, "After I met Erwin..." and Erwin would smile and fill in the gaps of the story as it was spun. At various ages and stages of crises, Erwin Felscher rescued gay men and boys from the Bay Area and gave them social opportunities and a place to crash and party. When the group was lagging in energy, a notice would be placed in one of the area rags and the T-BAGs would descend on some restaurant, and new blood would be welcomed to the group.

Erwin hit on everyone, but he also accepted rejection graciously. His house was the default gathering and party zone each evening and weekend. There were always people at Erwin's house. Frequently, the two spare bedrooms were occupied for extended periods. I include this fact not for shock value, but simply as a statement of what was real, and what I remember. For the record, I remember it fondly. There was no shame about it. Think about that.

For the two and a half years that I lived in and out of the Houston area, Erwin's house was always Home Base. Through alliances and dalliances and parties and self-discovery, Erwin's place was the epicenter of my Coming Out. He and the others taught me to be proud and unapologetic. They talked me through bad spots and celebrated successes in love, career and other areas of a life in process. In short order, I became One of Them, and I helped others as they came though the maelstrom of T-BAG, just as I had been helped.

This was in the years before AIDS, but JUST before. Just barely. I remember the first Saturday night that the group caravanned into Houston to hit the bars and bathhouses. I loved the bars, but the bathhouse left me cold. It was anonymous and dark and seedy and smelly. Even in the storm of my Coming Out, it wasn't for me.

All these years later, I am the only one of them left alive. Jerry was the first to succumb, then Dougie. The rest fell by in syncopated order as the years rolled by; and depression and distractions grabbed hold of me, and I lost touch. I heard years later that Erwin was gone. I have never forgiven myself for not having remained close to him in some way. I'm sure he knew, but I wish I'd made it crystal clear how much he meant to me. I hope he knew (and knows) that he saved my life.

Yesterday, I drove the back streets of old League City. Each time I started seeing brick houses and wide streets, I turned back and went along the narrow streets lined with the moldy clapboard houses that looked like Erwin's. For two hours, I drove. At some point, I saw an old woman at an antiques and second-hand store, and I stopped and asked her if she had been here in the late 70s and early 80s. She was. I asked if she remembered Erwin Felscher. She did not. She made some calls, but no one she knew remembered him, so she recommended I drive to the library downtown. On the way, it occurred to me that, Duh! Old Baptist women are not likely to remember Erwin Felscher! I had to smile.

But the library was a good idea, so I did as recommended, and ran into another old woman and asked her the same questions, and she was likewise unhelpful, but she suggested I could go next door to City Hall and research the tax records. On my way to the City Clerk's office, I saw an office with a sign that said, "Public Information Officer."

The young black woman inside listened to my VERY condensed story about trying to find that house. She had been on the job less than two weeks, but she made some phone calls and sent me back to the library. Before I left, I gave her my card and told her I could maybe help her if she ever needed advice about how to transition from Journalism to Public Information. She smiled and took the card, maybe a little suspiciously. I went back to the library.

Sheila was the reference librarian, and she said the best she could do was show me some old phone books. In the 1987 edition, I found him -- E A Felscher at 419 Clear Creek Ave. 337-3737. I recognized the phone number even before I read his name. Sheila pulled out some maps and we cross-checked the streets and found it. The house I was searching for was a block from the library. I drove to it in less than a minute.

I am not a Civil War buff, but I'd imagine that seeing Gettysburg borders on a fall-to-your-knees religious experience.

I wept looking at the front of 419 Clear Creek Ave. I wept for an old man I should have loved better, and for a young man who came alive inside those walls. I wept for friends who have gone Elsewhere, and for a time that was simpler to navigate. I took a picture of the place, with its two cars in the drive and anonymous tennis shoes on the porch. I reconfigured the house from memory as it stands behind those shaded windows. And I drove off in search of a glass of wine and a deep breath.

You can't recreate the past, but you can find landmarks. Landmarks matter, whether they are people or places or memories or ghosts -- or some combination of all four.

I doubt that the people inside that house today know it, but to a small army of gay men in the late 70s and early 80s, their home is hallowed ground. It is a landmark, and I feel lucky to have found it. Again.

High Fly. Deep to left.

If you've been following these blogs, you know I've been in a good mood. Well I'm happy to report that this has not changed.

This week, I knocked 467 off my list of things to do in life:

467. Say "I'm in Washington on business."

Jobs for the Future just hosted a 500-member conference: "Double the Numbers 2007." We gathered educators, school administrators, researchers, and policymakers including North Carolina Governor Mike Easley and U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) to discuss practices that are already helping to Double the Numbers of low-income and minority students graduating from American colleges and universities. I was thrilled to co-host such a huge conference so early in my nonprofit career and talk one-on-one with people who are helping enhance the futures of countless underrepresented students, not just dreaming about it. As if I needed a stronger sign that I'm heading up the right career path, I bonded with a fellow former journalist who now helps develop stronger schools in and around Detroit. How great to meet someone further up the path enjoying every step. Everyone needs models. We will certainly keep in touch.

By the way, for you superstitious Sox fans out there, I have good news. I watched Game 1 of the ALDS in D.C. The last time I did that... yeah, we... yeah. Ok. Just wanted to point that out.

Speaking of the Boston Red Sox, I just had a wonderful night. Let me paint a picture for you: Faneuil Hall. 200 "young professionals" packed on an upstairs dance floor in front of a local 80s-90s-00s rock cover band RIGHT NEXT TO the game, shown on a wall-sized projector screen. Bottom of the 9th. My best friend of 13 years, Jimmy, says "They just walked the best clutch hitter in baseball history... to face the best hitter in baseball history." Seconds later... Manny rips a page out of a book called "Dreams Jayme Would Like to See Come True" and launches a baseball so far over the Green Monster, the Cambridge Town Council has declared it an act of war. The band goes crazy. Strangers are pouring beer all over each other. And Jimmy puts his arm around me and says: "Welcome home."

That cover charge is the best $10 I've spent in my entire life.

Tomorrow, I plan to watch the Sox and Pats simultaneously on two different big screens. Rest assured, I will adequately top off my blood-sugar level. If the bases are loaded with 2 outs AND Brady's facing a 3rd-and-long at the same time, I could very well lose consciousness.

I guess my life can't get any bett... oh yeah. I forgot. SU Homecoming next weekend. This past 3 months has been a trip.

Hugs and kisses to the Borderland (and B-Rizz, rockin the ABQ)

Rube

And Jayme Said: It is Good

So you all know the supermarket scene near the end of Shawshank when Red asks to go to the bathroom? "Forty years I been askin' permission to piss," he says. "I can't a squeeze a drop with say-so."

Well, yesterday I had a Red moment. It was a beautiful day out. I'd been freshening up a policy paper for two-and-a-half hours. And darn it all-- I was gonna eat my lunch outside. I sent an email to my comm. team informing them I was stepping out (from 12:30 to 1:00) and attached my cell number in case they need to get a hold of me.

Suddenly, Jessica laughs in the next cubicle. "Jayme, you can just go," she said. "No one's gonna need you. Oh, yeah. And you can take an hour. If you run over, no one's timing you."

Compare, for a second, this shining revelation with a time when frantic strangers would get me out of bed at 6:30 a.m., I'd receive three urgent ETA-requests if I took a wrong turn somewhere, and I always kept a charged camera, black windbreaker and extra makeup in the car in case I ever drove up on a drunk-driving accident at 3 a.m. on a Sunday. Oh yeah... I did.

On Wednesday (my first day), HR was almost apologetic when they told me I have 11 paid holidays off. I kindly reminded them that I've worked every Christmas, Thanksgiving and Fourth of July since 2005.

Now I know this gig is going to get stressful (quickly, perhaps) and I'll form a new list of things that make me grind my teeth. But I've found the transition from one career to the next quite refreshing. I'm sure someone trapped in a cubicle like mine for a number of years would be equally enamored with the physical freedom my old job offers.

Since I never focus on an impending list of negative aspects, here's a list of things that make me very happy these days:

-my relaxing, hour-long reading session while the MBTA takes me to work each day
-being greeted with a sunrise each time I step onto Atlantic Ave.
-seeing the word "Atlantic"
-all the policemen and construction workers say "Hi" back
-the main Boston Fire Department building looks like it came out of a Superman movie
-at least a dozen high school and college friends work within walking distance
-buildings here do not impede the scenery; they are the scenery
-I can take an hour for lunch and no one can bother me
-I can eat my lunch in Quincy Market
-I have health insurance again!! (Diabetes + no coverage = expensive and scary... not gonna lie)
-each day at 5 o'clock, I'm greeted by a Harbor breeze I am inadequate to describe
-my day ends at 5 o'clock
-I don't come home to an empty house
-the Sox game is always televised
-I can go to Homecoming without sprinting the length of O'Hare airport in 11 minutes

I think Red said it best: I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.

And yes, the Atlantic is as blue as it was in my dreams.

Rube

Boston, You're My Home

Finally, the blog I couldn't wait to write (but had to for 6 weeks).

I have a job.

I'm the newest communications associate (a/k/a utility infielder) on the Comm. team at Jobs for the Future, a national non-profit group in Boston that helps create equal educational opportunities for our nation's disenfranchised youth and young adults. It's main goal is to see a degree or specialty certification beyond a HS diploma in the hands of every American by age 26. Talk about a mission I can invest my passion in. I start September 19th.

Check out our website: www.jff.org

So why non-profit communications? What's wrong with local news?

I believe Journalists serve an incredible purpose in this country. They have the power to give voice to the voiceless, hold our public officials accountable, warn us about a variety of dangers, empower us to act upon those warnings, encourage us to participate in social events that matter to us, and paint us a larger, fuller picture of our place and time than we could imagine on our own.

That said: it's not for me. I believe I work better with one mission and one set of goals. On the issue of America's education gap, I'm gaining a clearer perspective of where we are. And I know where I want us to be. A to B. Journalism is not an A-to-B industry. It's comprised of millions of tiny a-to-b stories, true. But the way I see it, Journalism's mission is without end-point: Tell. It is relentless; it is thankless. And anyone who takes up the cause for the right reasons has my utmost admiration and gratitude.

It's just not for me. And maybe this next job won't be either. But my likes and dislikes for it will undoubtedly guide me further up the road to my next attempt at creating positive and lasting changes in our society.

At least my hiatus is up. It absolutely sucked. I won't sprinkle any sugar on that. But I'm changing careers at 25. I wasn't expecting a red carpet and a job offer attached to every flashbulb. It's done. Let's move on.

Thank you all for your support. I hope you know you all have mine. Whenever, however you need it.

I'll end on a laugh, courtesy of my ol pal Fitzy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFfobQftP5k&watch_response

See you in Beantown.
Rube

Happy 10,000 Hits!

"Here I am... let's see if this proves to be any fun."

Those first words, typed on 2/26/06, proved to be quite the understatement.

I started this Blog at the loneliest point in my life. Nine months into my first big-boy job, I was still developing my big-boy skills and my earliest southwest friendships. I was still months away from meeting most of my dear Cruces crew. And a few weeks after that post, my landlord would compound my isolation by kicking me out (if you haven't heard that story, feel free to ask. It's rather entertaining). The point is: this blog allowed me feel closer with all of you, from El Paso, to Syracuse, to Boston... to Oslo, Norway (Heia, Crissy). And each of your views have inspired me to keep writing.

What's even better is that this blog has spawned other relationships. I know at least a dozen of you who have traded comments on one blog or another and, from there, have started regular conversations of your own.

I hope my writing continues to bring us closer, as well as encourage you all to share more of yourself with others. Be it through blogging, or poetry, pictures, music, dance, we all need outlets. And honestly, we all need feedback on those outlets to feel validated, feel valued... to just keep feeling.

And so on this day of my 10,000th BlogHit, I thank you for visiting my outlet from time to time... bringing us that much closer.

Keep reading. Keep commenting.

I intend to have some good job-related news for you, soon. In the meantime... it's time to go upstairs and iron my lucky Troy Brown jersey.

Til next time,
JaRube

Five Deep Breaths

Hello from Westborough, Massachusetts... home of me (for the first time in 6 years).

I'm taking a quick break from the job search to return to my electronic "Happy Place" and, in the process, entertaining all y'all with an overdue trip through my thoughts and ambitions:

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First off, today marks 3 weeks since my sign-off at KVIA. The trip home was therapeutic for me and my father, the sights of which will soon be documented on My Photos very soon. The trip since I've been home (the one back to Employment) has been spent mostly in the seclusion of my living room, scouting job site after job site for employers that will both farm my political passions and develop within me skill sets I'll need to reach the next step up. Oh yeah, and I need to be qualified for them, a minor inconvenience for anyone trying to start a brand new career at the age of 24. I have leads and I'll leave it at that. When the ink's dry, you my Faithful Readers will be among the first to know.

The trade-off for my focus and productivity has been my aforementioned seclusion. I've seen several dear friends only once or twice. Some I still haven't seen. I've declined invitations to a wedding for two dear friends and more than one bachelor party this summer. I'm not happy about it, but I'm damn-near broke and still maintaining mental and physical health. When you're playing Life without game pieces, you have to be disciplined enough to Lose a Turn more than once. I have not, and will not ask anyone for forgiveness... only patience and your best wishes, the same I'd give to any of you.

Being home has been fantastic. I'm thankful every day that I had a home to crash in, food in the fridge and laundry warm in the dryer without me putting it there. I'm glad to live again with my parents and the daily health-related challenges they're facing. It's great to yell at the Sox with them, but I don't know how much longer Mom can take watching a news story while I'm across the room screaming: "Stop walking at the camera. There's no reason to walk towards the... iris down, IRIS DOWN! Wow, THAT soundbyte was worthless. Thanks, old lady sitting in... whoa, jump cut there. He'll never work in THIS town again." But thanks to novelty, Mom seems to be keeping her patience. Speaking of novelty, my wonderful girlfriend isn't sick of me yet. So I got that goin for me... which is nice... I'll spare y'all an ode, but I will say this. I never dreamed I could come home to someone so fun, so independent, so genuinely caring as Kathleen. And to think we didn't even know each other existed 4 months ago. Kat and I are both toasting to you, KASF. Thank you.

Once the dust settles and Jayme's got a new business card, look forward to future blog topics ranging from "My Time in Dona Ana County" to "756: Why I Care That You Don't"

But that's all for now. Back to dumpyourresumeinthisblackhole.com and jobsyoudontwant.org.

Go Sox.
Go Pats.
And go to my LinkedIn profile. If you'd like to invite me into your network, my email is jarubenstein@gmail.com

Have a great weekend. JaRube.

Invasion of the Pink-Hat Yankee Haters

Time now for a real summertime treat, kids. This morning, my favorite guest columnist, ESPN's Resident Wicked Sox Fan, Bill Simmons, wrote a piece on Red Sox Nation, 3 years-sans-curse. If you're a Sox fan, read it. If you're not, but claim to care about me, read it-- because Bill Simmons IS me, just funnier and way more knowledgeable about pop culture than I ever wanna be. If you're a Yankee fan, read it feeling 90% eye-rolling digust BUT 10% satisfaction knowing you feel the same about us as we do... about the Indianapolis Colts.

Ladies and gentlemen, Bill Simmons:

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"Come on, admit it -- deep down, you miss the Curse a little."

A buddy e-mailed me that challenge last week. I knew what he was thinking.

In his mind, I had to miss following a tortured franchise, had to miss those life-or-death Octobers, had to miss the battle-scarred kinship with other diehards, had to miss dreaming about the big payoff that was probably never coming. He figured I was like Jack in that flash-forward episode of "Lost," wandering around LA with a bad beard as I bemoaned the fact that I'd been rescued. I had to miss the island.

It's not true. Real fans don't miss hearing the "1918" chants or McCarver and Buck mentioning Babe Ruth every five minutes, and we definitely don't miss having the lower hand with the Yankees. We don't miss living with a particular kind of sports mortality that most fans can't understand: the fear of potentially going an entire lifetime without seeing our favorite team prevail. It was a noose hanging around our collective neck. What's to miss about that?

Still, our life-or-death passion hasn't faded too much. Just ask J.D. Drew, Eric Gagne, Julio Lugo and Theo Epstein, all of whom have struggled this season and have been skewered by radio callers, bloggers and message boarders for it. No Sox fan can find total peace; we'll always dread the next meltdown or come-from-behind charge by the Yankees. These feelings are wired into our DNA, like Haddonfield citizens who will never again feel totally safe on Halloween. Maybe we shrug off day-to-day losses a bit easier, and maybe we don't spend our winters bemoaning fate and destiny, but we still give a crap. We want to keep winning. We don't want things to change.

And yet it's been surreal to watch the Sox evolve into a bandwagon superpower like the 1970s Cowboys, one of those successful ubercontenders that everyone in Boston has always despised. Home games have been overrun by pseudo fans, cute females and families in green jerseys and pink caps. Road games have been transformed by a swelling fan base -- partly because of the bandwagoners, partly because the Impossible Dream season in 1967 created three full generations (and counting) of Sox fans -- that provides a homefield advantage in many opposing parks. A recent USA Today cover story pointed to the team's startling road attendance figures, the highest in baseball, and decided, "Red Sox Nation has grown into its name."

I flew down to Tampa for last week's series and can report the following: Sox fans made up 70% of the crowd, overwhelming Devil Rays fans, most of whom were in the Matlock demographic, anyway. From a noise standpoint, if you closed your eyes, you would have thought you were in Fenway. (Well, until you opened them and saw the dome on the ghoulishly outdated Tropicana Field, or the brownish-red shag carpety stuff on the warning track that was pulled from Austin Powers' flat.) Three sights were especially shocking:

1. Entire families dressed in Sox gear, including some clans who traveled from New England for a vacation.
Before our team won it all this rarely happened, because few fathers wanted to subject their kids to merciless berating. Now there's a coming-out-of-the-closet feel to these road games: It's okay, you can wear your Manny jersey, honey. Nothing bad will happen.

2. Attractive females wearing Sox gear.
Even during the Pedro era, you were more likely to see a no-hitter than a cute woman in team colors. Now they're everywhere. And honestly, I just can't get over seeing a woman who isn't built like Doug Mirabelli wearing a Sox jersey.

3. The scores of post-2004 newbie fans.
Do these yahoos even know suffering? In Tampa, the guy behind me (a Sox "fan") and his girlfriend (a D-Rays fan) were doing the whole "giving each other crap" thing, which would have been fine if he hadn't returned with two beers during a Tampa rally and said, "Wow, you got the score to 5-7!" That's post-2004 Sox fans for you: They wear crisp new hats and think Wade Boggs was a country singer and that the score is 5-7.

Again, I'd rather be a Sox fan in 2007 than 2003. I just wasn't prepared to root for the Yankees, and as sad as this sounds, we've kinda sorta maybe turned into the Yankees. Like them, we spend more money than everyone else. Like them, we make expensive roster mistakes (Drew, Lugo, Matt Clement, Edgar Rentería, et al.) without any repercussions. Like them, we're detested by opposing fans because we invade their stadiums and taunt their teams. And like them, we're sucking in all the soulless bandwagon kids who pick their favorite teams in first grade based on winning percentages and superstars.

Although 2004 got the ball rolling, blame the shrewd owners (John Henry, Larry Lucchino and Tom Werner) for the recent parallels. Fenway could be a Disney mini park at this point; they're practically printing money there, and when you throw in the various merchandising windfalls (one little girl in Tampa was wearing a green Coco Crisp jersey) and the TV money from NESN, the Red Sox will probably make $10 trillion this season. Ironically, this was what we always wanted: caring owners who kept Fenway alive, moved the franchise into the 21st century and spent much of their profits on roster improvements. How could anyone complain? It's like following an unknown band through thick and thin, watching them blow up and sell out stadiums, then being angry because they hit the big time.

Of course, it's tough to ignore three-fourths of a crowd in Tampa screaming for "Yooooooooook" as the alleged Boston fan behind me asks, "Why are they booing?" Back in the old days, we used late-season collapses and crushing playoff defeats to weed out these fair-weather knuckleheads. Now they're multiplying like Body Snatcher pods.

During the lowest point of the 2004 playoffs (Game 3, ALCS), I wondered if I should even raise my first kid as a Sox fan. Was I willing to inflict lifelong pain on him or her? These days, it's one of the safest sports decisions a father can make, right up there with buying a Kevin Durant rookie card and bashing Michael Vick at a cocktail party. Jump on the Bosox bandwagon, and you get a 95-win team with a monster payroll and tens of thousands of fans in every city. We're a sure thing.

You also get a franchise without any real baggage, at least not at the moment. (Hold on -- I'm frantically knocking on wood.) When the Yankees made their recent surge and the parallels to 1978 started to pop up, for the first time I didn't quake in my boots. Three years ago, we came back from three-zip, chopped off their heads at the Stadium and buried 1918 in St. Louis. That altered the hammer/nail dynamic of our rivalry, even if Yankee fans will never admit it. Today, we're simply competing superpowers with bloated fan bases. We will always be in the other's way. Always. That's as far as it goes.

Maybe it's not the most compelling story line, but for Red Sox fans, it's infinitely more palatable than the previous one. Believe me, we don't miss being on that island. Even if it is a lot more crowded back home.

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Bill Simmons is a columnist for Page 2 and ESPN The Magazine. His book "Now I Can Die In Peace" is available in paperback.

A Moment Above the Fog

Many of you have asked about my Dad. If so, rest assured I've passed along your wishes. Here is his first update since April. We're now 7 months past his big procedure. We'll have many more answers after a year's time, but here's a sketch...

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This is the first time since the beginning of April that I have had any desire to contribute to my blog...
I awoke at 4:30am yesterday and felt as though I had more alertness than I have experienced in many weeks.
A lesson I've learned is that - difficult days are not the end of all good times, and good days are not the end of difficult times... If I can hold onto this moment of clarity long enough, I hope to be able to update my records... The most challenging task that I want to advance is to keep ideas and information flowing, regarding the affects of my whole experience. Although the number of readers of this blog is dwindling (down to about 5 a week, from nearly 100), I need to document the story... for anyone who might benefit. I still have a desire to help someone with this knowledge / ideas.
First - What is the state of my recovery?

Oi... is seems so daunting a task to try to summarize the last 3 months.

1) According to my latest Pulmonary Function Test (PFT), aka "breathing test", my lungs are performing nearly exactly the same as they were in December 2006. That means that for nearly 7 months they have maintained at the same level - which is the longest period of stability I have had since my diagnosis.

---"Is this the result of the stem cell transplant (SCT)?"---

It is too soon to say that. Most likely, this stabilization is related to the high dosage chemotherapy that was part of the total treatment process. Jane Erickson, my mentor, has told me that her lungs are improving. Her SCT was performed in August 2005. The medical studies, that track results of our procedure, tend to report only results that are at least 1 year beyond transplant date.

2) The condition of my skin has remained the same. Most people who have SCT report a great reduction in "skin involvement". I haven't. It hasn't gotten any worse either. The contracture of my fingers has increased, perhaps, very little - left hand is contracted about 35-40 degrees, and the right hand is at about 50-55 degrees. My mouth is restricted about the same. Compared to many people who have sever skin involvement, I'm not bad at all... I can eat, and type... life is good. My range of motion is decreased. Most days I have trouble washing my left arm pit. That is a new development... or should I say un-development?

3) General physical condition is slightly degraded, since last December. Although my breathing is generally the same, my weight is down to about 165. My appetite has fluctuated and generally is OK. I eat 2+ meals a day and snack several times. My GERD (gastric system involvement) has been managed fairly well with Nexum and other meds. My muscles have atrophied. It is kind of the 'chicken vs. the egg' / cause and effect issue - am I weak because I don't move as much, or I don't move as much because I'm weak and achy??? Everyone in my family has an opinion... My brother-in-law (whom I love dearly) thinks exercise is the cure to all ills... and most people tend to agree with him. Interestingly - none of them is experiencing a chronic condition, first hand. Robbi, on the other hand, lives by the "air out your ass" method. This method keeps me aware of myself in the "now"... not focused on the pain, but with an intention on doing "something". Sometimes that means walking to the mailbox, driving around to do errands, or simply going for a ride with Robbi to get an ice cream cone.The most important thing I do every day is to focus on being productive. Sure there are days when I feel like a mush-brain (who doesn't?). The key is to do "something"!

4) Each day, when I get up, I have to assess the latest circumstances. Yesterday I awoke very early, and very alert. I took my meds and started to do things around the house (more about that stuff later). Later, I ran some errands and after an hour I began to feel like I should be home rather than driving around. By mid-afternoon I was on the couch, reading. I spent time on the phone with Dr. Ann's next SCT patient (more about her, later). By 7pm I was mentally tired and just watched the Red Sox and talked with Robbi, Emily, and her boy friend. Asleep before 10pm...

5) Since coming home, I've been through various stages, or events. Although some of them were serious issues, and had the doctors running around and guessing, Robbi has continued to be the best manager of the overall situation. Many of my medications have been added to, increased/decreased, discontinued and restarted. For the most part, I take more meds now than before I went to Maine.

---"So what does all this mean, for me, now?"---
The overall process has been an experience that has changed my life in ways that I hadn't anticipated. --- How much of a cliché is THAT??? --- What I mean is this... I think I am a pragmatic person. I learned as much as I could about SCTs and have maintained the lead role (with Robbi) in managing my health care. Together, we have accomplished things that people told us we were crazy to even attempt. We continue to baffle the majority of people we deal with, in all aspects of our lives. With all of the information, all of the support from caring family, friends, and talented professionals, and our own chutzpah and intuitiveness - we are confronted -daily- with new situations that require new or upgraded skills to be addressed. "It's always something."

Barely 2 months after I arrived home, I made several attempts to get back to work - to be Desktop David. Protected with mask and gloves, I ventured into clients homes to troubleshoot and resolve issues. I had limited my commitments to just a handful of high-priority clients and situations. I was slow moving and very careful to limit my physical exertion. Then I was unable to keep up the work load. It knocked the shit out of me. There were days, after some assignments, when I would go to bed after supper, and I wasn't able to wake up before 11am the next morning. My doctors suggested that perhaps I was pushing my self too soon and too fast - YOU THINK????????
I shouldn't be too sarcastic. After all, I'm the one who thought I could defy medical science and recover from all that I went through in 1/4 the expected time.
---Sometimes you eat bear, and sometimes the bear beats the crap out of you!---

Here it is, mid-July, and I am rarely able to assist clients. Mostly, I've been able to provide telephone support and even then, in a limited capacity. For several months I relied on Robbi to handle a majority of household tasks. Of late, I am able to take care of many of them... or at least to assist her in doing them. The main focus of my efforts has been to take as much of the burden off of her as I can. The one burden that I am not able to assist with - and the one that is the source of greatest stress - is the financial burden.

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE?
When I have days like today, with some mental clarity, I think often about what I may do with all this information and experience. Jane Erickson has developed a web site and spends a lot of her time mentoring others (like she has done for me), to guide them onto the path of treatments. She is focused on informing people about the benefits of the protocol we both were treated with - vs. the SCOT Trial, and it's use of full-body irradiation.
Throughout the process, Robbi and I have faced many issues for which the best resolution was either (a) not yet standardized and easily available, or more disturbingly, (b) hidden from our sight.
It's expected that when you choose a new or experimental procedure that there will be many untested choices to make along the way. So you gather information and ask for assistance from professionals and others who have traveled that road before. What you need to be aware of is that (as always) everyone of those people has their own ideas / prejudgments / agendas - and will be motivated to recommend solutions to you based on those matters. Sometimes, upon reexamination of those recommendations, you may find that your best interests were in conflict with those you wanted to trust.
I am not trying to be cryptic... actually I can be quite specific: Medical advice is provided by professionals, who are themselves beholden to multiple masters - including insurance providers, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and professional associations. Anyone of these groups may (and will) influence the advice that you will receive.
Why have I rambled on with this dark view of the medical profession? Because there are ways to minimize the negative affects. Robbi and I were able to - but not without some difficulties. The lessons we learned may benefit others.
++++++NOTE++++++
This commentary on "medical professionals" is not to be taken as a criticism of any specific persons. If I have had any specific concern with any specific person, they already know of it. So if you are reading this passage and wondering, "Is he referring to me?" The answer is "No." I am referring to specific situations that Robbi and I faced and unless we brought a particular concern directly to you, then you may be assured that you are not indicted by my commentary.

On that note - and because I'm mentally tired from all this thinking today, I will end this posting.
At this time I expect to pick it up again within a day or so. As long as I can keep the cognitive processes flowing, I will continue to update. There are a lot of things that I began to discuss back in April that I may address again...


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To stay updated: www.desktopdavid.blogspot.com

He loves comments... he gets that from his son.

...I Ride East

I've kept my future plans private this year so I could focus on my job.
I've reached the point where my NEXT job is now the focus. So here goes...

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I'm getting out of journalism.
I'm going into public service.

My goal is to relocate in BOSTON or D.C. in the next month. I'm marketing my interpersonal and other communication skills to land a public affairs position or staff assistantship at a government-relations, lobbying or non-profit organization. I'm also considering opportunities in a few campaigns. But I'll spare the details, keeping my party affiliation private until I'm off the payroll at KVIA-TV.

I've been building my networks in both cities for a couple months now. If any of you can think of someone I should speak to, I'd really appreciate it!

* * * * *

While I'm advertising, I'm selling my condo. If any in the Borderland could use a two-year-old 1-bed/1-bath condo, fully furnished in a great neighborhood... message me back and we'll talk.

* * * * *

In the meantime, I've got one month left to soak up the benefits of a job I have truly enjoyed and a city I truly love.

Have a great weekend, y'all.

Rube

Switching to Manual

I was cleaning through every single paper I've compiled in the past 2 years yesterday. The "Trash" pile was much higher than the "Keep" pile. Then I came across a red binder. I had no idea what was inside. Opening it, I found line graphs I made to monitor my blood-sugar and a dozen pages itemizing every hour of exercise and piece of food I ate for 3 months... the scariest, most frustrating 3 months of my life.

If you're just joining us, I'm a Type-I diabetic. Doctors say my pancreas may have started suckin up 9 years back (for all you fellow Rangers, NOW we know why I graduated high school at 5'7" 109 lbs.). But it didn't catch up to me symptom-wise until November 2005. Since control is my source of comfort, I started that red binder the day I met my nutritionist. It's incredible looking back at that line graph start at 300 mg/dl... down to 65... 278... 110... 407... 205... and within 2 months settling into the 80-140 range until eventually, the markings stop mid-page. And the food diary goes from detailing every slice of cheese and every cracker to types of food... to round estimates of carbs... to checkmarks... and then stop. Mid-page.

And the binder closed. For 15 months. Out of sight. Out of mind. Until yesterday. As I scanned that line graph from left to right, emotions pop up as clear and distinct as the dots on the page. Blue means frustration. Red means panic. Green depends on the day. It's a sigh of relief. Or an eye-roll as I figure the next dot will be blue. Or confusion because I feel "red" but the number came out right.

If this isn't making much sense to you, it didn't make any sense to me. And all that confusion, all that patience... up to my triumphant final checkmark... it's all bound in that red binder. And I'd forgotten all about it... a testament itself to my successful journey back to Control.

There was never a sense of hopelessness. People ask me what diabetes is like. It's like driving a car. Most people drive automatics. They eat what they want and hit the gas. The car knows what shift to drive in. I've switched over to manual. The car can't do it on its own. You have to learn the clutch. Those who can't manage could stall out. But those who can usually get better gas-mileage. They have a greater respect for their cars and treat them right. Everyday. Every time they hit the road.

You all see Jayme, Freggin' Awesome Driver Dude. But everyone has to back into the lightpole in the high school parking lot a few times first. My dents and scratches are all there in my red binder.

One more for the "Keep" pile.

Roger, Over and Out

Take me out to the ballgame... take me out to the We interrupt this rousing rendition of drunk N'Yorkahs to inform you Jayme has returned to blogging about the Yankees.

But it may not be the blog you Dieha'ds are expecting.

Yes, Rocket Roger Clemens, the most dominate pitcher of my generation, is a New York Yankee... again.
It's true, they're paying him 28 million dollars for 5 months' work.
Yeah, this means that the Yankees starting rotation has made like a starfish and grown back 4 decent arms (Rocket, Wang, Moose and Petitte) in the past 2 weeks, giving them a shot at... let's face it, the Wildcard.

That's right. The Red Sox are winning the AL East. If anyone in the Nation doubts that, snap out of it (and if any of you Yank-rooters doubt that, you can tell it to my own personal Rocket). Seriously... the Sox pitching staff is disgusting. Schilling is throwing heat, Wake's knuckler is floating like it did when he first came over from Shitsburgh and even Dice-K's getting time to perfect his gyro-curve while a potent Sox offense forgives him for the 5.45 era he's rollin right now. Oh I almost forgot, Josh Beckett is so hot this spring, he could win the teddy bear at the bottom of the crane machine... with one quahdah!

As for the Shankees... enjoy 5-6 innings of promising heat from 4 injury-prone starters. Because that call to the bullpen is brought to you by Ambien-CR. One relief pitcher dissolves your lead quickly, so you completely forget you had one. The next two fill the bases slowly, so you have time to enjoy the sound of Babe Ruth rolling in his grave. To date, that bullpen has an ERA of 4.32 (Mariano "The Greatest Closer in Baseball History" Rivera's is close to 9). To translate, the Yankee firemen can't put out a match if you spot 'em a tailwind.

Feel better? Good. Moving on to the ETHICS of Roger Clemens' resurrection.

That's right, ethics. The talking heads on ESPN's Baseball Tonight are up in arms over Roger joining a team for one-plus million dollars a START with the option of flying out of NYC after each one to play with his kids. And as much as I'd love to jump on the hatewagon and call out New York for allowing this mid-life self-anointed savior to skip out on his teammates in the heart of a pennant race (assuming they're in it)... I can't.

Guess what Buster Olney... baseball is a business. A private business that plays by the same two rules as any other. Supply. And demand. Roger's no jackass; he's a damn fine capitalist. Some Yankee fans might boo (which I doubt). But they'll still buy tickets to come cheer his victories. Wal-Marts are still thriving because people are still shopping in them. And Yankee Stadium will continue to fill as long they put 10 all-stars on the field everyday. Love 'em, hate 'em, or truly f-in despise 'em... baseball is a business. And no one reminds us of that more often than the Damn Yankees.

Personally, I can't wait to beat The Rocket en route to our 12th pennant.

Go Sox.

One for the Pinky

Hiya folks,
Time to take a breather from reading my political analyses (Umm.. Jayme, we stopped reading those after the 2nd paragraph) I've had time to fully digest the double-shot of signing news that has utterly rocked the Boston Sports World. If you can't tell the title of this blog, I'm leading off with the newest Member of the Militia... Randy Moss. My next blog takes us to the Hated House. But for now: Over the past week, I've received lots of questions from y'all:

1. Did the Patriots offer to pay Randy's upcoming bail bonds?
2. Will Tom Brady play Officer Krupkee between Moss and Brandon Meriweather?
3. How does it feel to root for the New England Yankees?
4. Why haven't you blogged about this yet?

Well, I'm actually not going to. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you my 2nd GUEST BLOG, by my Blog-Hero and ESPN's own Bill Simmons. Everything I've thought about this, he said better. Enjoy. (And to my fellow Patriots and Patriettes... yeah... enjoy).



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APRIL 30, 2007

If Bill Belichick arrived at practice in a Ferrari Enzo one day, everyone would assume the Patriots coach was battling a severe midlife crisis. But seeing him trade a fourth-rounder for Randy Moss? Nobody knows how to react. Every Patriots fan I know was legitimately speechless after the trade. We'd heard the rumors for weeks but never believed this thing would, you know, happen.


Maybe Moss isn't a brand-new Enzo, but he's definitely a Ferrari -- one of those with about 75,000 miles on it that you'd buy from a rapper who's going bankrupt. You're not exactly sure what condition it's in. It might be more trouble than it's worth. You have to keep it covered almost all the time. The parts are expensive. At the same time, it's a Ferrari and you're getting it at a discount, right? If you have the money and you always wanted a car like that, you have to make the deal.


The case against a Moss trade: He's a potential cancer on a team that's always thrived on chemistry and character. He's a deep threat with hall of fame skills playing for a franchise that historically has terrible luck with deep threats with hall of fame skills. He's a polarizing African-American athlete playing in a city that usually has trouble being fair to polarizing African-American athletes. Everyone agrees that he lost a step over the past two seasons, although he may have just lost the will to live with Kerry Collins, Art Shell, Aaron Brooks and Norv Turner in his life. If he starts out slow, you can count on the MAWBM (Middle-Age White Boston Sports Media) ripping him to shreds at every turn. (To nobody's surprise, Dan Shaughnessy started early.) On paper, there hasn't been a Boston-related disaster this predictable since the Big Dig planners decided the tunnel would go right under the North End.


The case for a Moss trade: They only sacrificed a second-day pick for him and could cut the cord at the first hint of trouble. The team looks so loaded, they could probably win a fourth Super Bowl with or without him. (I'm even getting, "Congratulations, you guys are the new Yankees" e-mails, which is funny because there's a salary cap in football.) Going from Collins/Brooks and Turner/Shell to Brady/Belichick, it's hard to imagine a better candidate for the Juvenation Machine in recent sports history, especially if Moss reins himself in like Dennis Rodman did in Chicago. For football purposes, he's the ultimate luxury -- a home run threat at an expendable position, a potential gamebreaker who makes the 2007 Patriots effectively unbeatable. You could even say he's a 2004 Ferrari Enzo with 90,000 miles on it.


Five years ago, I don't think Bill Belichick makes a move like this. I really don't. So that leaves five possible explanations why it happened now.


Explanation No. 1: You could almost picture Tom Brady heading into the coach's office after last season and saying, "Um, I don't know if you realize this, but I turn 30 this season. You just wasted a year of my prime. I'm never getting it back. I took a little less to stay here, you promised to build a quality team around me, then you traded Deion Branch and stuck me with Reche Caldwell as my No. 1, so my season came down to a third-down play where I crossed signals with a 38-year-old guy who should have been coaching our receivers instead of trying to get open on THE BIGGEST EFFING PLAY OF THE SEASON!!!!!!!!!!!!! COULD YOU GET ME SOME HELP PLEASE! THERE'S A CHANCE MY EX-GIRLFRIEND PULLED THE GOALIE ON ME THIS WINTER, COULD YOU THROW ME ONE EFFING BONE HERE! JUST ONE! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK???"


This offseason has felt like a prolonged apology to Brady. Here, you wanted a real slot guy, right? We just traded for Wes Welker. You wanted a deep threat, right? How's Donte' Stallworth sound? You wanted a potential gamebreaker, right? How's Randy Moss sound? The only thing Belichick didn't do was to convince ABC to cancel "Six Degrees."


Explanation No. 2: This entire weekend was Belichick's "I'm Keith Hernandez!" moment. On the heels of the NFL instituting new character policies, Belichick drafted one of the most notorious players in the draft (Miami safety Brandon Meriweather) and traded for one of the most notorious players in the league (Moss). It's almost as if he decided, "I already won three titles with the three C's (character, coaching and chemistry) -- just for fun, I want to try to win one with a couple of lunatics. I'm Bill Belichick! I won three Super Bowls in four years! If anyone can pull this off, it's me, baby!


Explanation No. 3: Belichick believes the leadership and character on this season's team is solid enough that they can take chances on two shaky guys, almost like the family from "Seventh Heaven" deciding to adopt two troubled foster kids and turn their lives around. He did it with Corey Dillon a few years ago; now he's doing it with Moss and Meriweather. And if they end up winning the Super Bowl, he needs to raise the degree of difficulty bar by leaving the Patriots, taking over the Bengals and immediately trading for Terrell Owens.


Full disclosure: For years and years, I've been writing that any team can survive with one head case as long as it doesn't give him another head case to hang out with. For instance, Stephen Jackson is thriving as the Token Head Case in Golden State right now, just like Ron Artest thrived in Indiana for a couple years under that same role. You can always get away with one. But when Jackson and Artest landed on the same team? We ended up with the ugliest sports brawl in three decades. I'm not saying this will happen with Moss and Meriweather on the Patriots. At the same time, it's probably a good idea if they're not allowed to meet, interact or even use adjoining urinals at the same time.


(Please note that I was excited for the Meriweather selection when it happened, if only for my dad's verbatim defense of the pick: "Well, the stomping thing was pretty bad, but he did have a license for the gun." He was dead serious. The NFL draft ... it's FANNNNNNNNNN-tastic!)


Explanation No. 4: Just for the hell of it, Belichick decided to build this season's Patriots offense the same way I doctor my "Madden" roster every August by making as many shady Patriots-related trades as possible. I swear, I would have ended up making all three of those moves in four months, even if they hadn't happened.


I wonder if Miami will be dumb enough to trade me Wes Welker for a second-round pick? (Pause.) Wait ... the Dolphins agreed to the deal?


I wonder if Donte' Stallworth's agent will be dumb enough to sign a multi-year deal in which only the first year is guaranteed. (Pause.) Wait ... he said yes?


I wonder if the Raiders will accept a fourth rounder for Moss. Screw it, I'll make the offer. (Pause.) Wait, I just got Randy Moss?


You have to admit, at the very least, we have the greatest "Madden" offense in Patriots history: Brady, Maroney, Watson, Moss, Stallworth, Welker, Caldwell, Gaffney, Brown. I mean ... are you kidding me? Can I run a seven-receiver offense next year? Is that legal?


Explanation No. 5: Belichick really did have a midlife crisis ... but instead of buying a fancy sports car, he went out and traded for Randy Moss. Maybe the coach knew he didn't really need a sports car, knew the car might remain in the garage for long periods of time, knew his friends might make fun of him, knew his insurance might skyrocket, knew he'd probably regret it in the end ... and you know what? He did it, anyway.


"Screw it," he probably said to himself. "I've always wanted to drive one of those things."


So if this was true, it's safe to say that Patriots fans were like kids playing in the front yard when that 2004 Ferrari Enzo pulled into the driveway, followed by our midlife-crisis-suffering father climbing out of the driver's seat as the doors shot straight up into the air. We're walking around the car in shock. We don't know what to think. It's quite possible that dad just lost his mind.


And yet, we can't stop thinking about one thing ...


That's a pretty cool car, isn't it?

* * * * * *

http://sports.espn.go.com/keyword/search?searchString=bill_simmons

oh, and my pal Fitzy had this to say about Moss:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wofqt7dHsBg

...In Peace

"Gary, it began as a tragedy. Dragged on for nearly 4 years as a mystery. And finally today, the family and friends of [murdered NMSU student] Katie Sepich faced her killer for the first time and asked that he live and die in prison."

* * *

I've covered stories of this nature before.
Sure, it's more high-profile than most. I've probably updated this saga more than any other. But I have a job to do. I'm human, sure. But a human with a notepad that better have accurate timecodes in it.

So what planted this incredibly rare... lump... in my throat?

It wasn't Katie's mother asking "Did she want me? Did she want her daddy? While you were squeezing the life out of her? Hurting her?"

It wasn't Katie's roommate telling us "the world is less better off not getting to know all the wonderful things she would have become."

It was before that. It was seeing what she could have become. It was seeing it in a dear friend of mine, a dearer friend of hers sitting across the gallery. A person who embodies all the drive, humor and deep compassion Katie is said to have had. I wasn't searching for this analogy or a way to better relate to this unspeakable grief. You just... struck me as I watched you for a few seconds, staring straight ahead as the District Attorney read the cold, hard statement of facts. The thought of her striving to be what I think you have become stuck with me as I listened to Katie's mother. Her roommate. Her brother. Her father. My notepad weakened by that image, I was left strangely vulnerable to their words, wondering what kind of recoil it must cause to say them.

* * *

This was no more inhumane than other attacks I've covered. This killer is no more a killer than the others. But the usual suspects don't lead me face to face with the victim. Not a photograph, not a grieving relative. I consider that a strength and a necessary asset, given my professional duty: to introduce you all to the victim as best I can, not myself. But today, I saw her when I saw you. I apologize if that makes you uncomfortable. But know that I'm grateful.

* * *

May she rest in peace. May her family and friends rest a bit easier now that there is, at least, one less question.

* * *

http://kvia.com/Global/story.asp?S=6464820&nav=menu193_6

Here's to You, Mr. Robinson

April 15, 1947: Jackie Robinson put on a Brooklyn Dodger hat and changed the history of our pastime and our country.
April 15, 2007: Commentators and guests at tonight's Dodger game took this anniversary to ponder the "crisis" of Blacks disappearing from Baseball.

Is the writing on the wall? Black participation in Major League Baseball peaked in 1975 at 27 percent. In 1994, that number was down to 19 percent. It has stayed or gone down every year since. Today, it's 8-and-a-half. And that's just the players. Today there are 2 Black managers. There's only been 3 Black General Managers in MLB history.

The questions every commentator was asking tonight without directly asking them were: Is Jackie Robinson's Legacy in danger? Could Blacks become less and less visible in the pastime they had to fight tooth and nail to be a part of in the first place?

Around the horn... to Jayme Rubenstein.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I say No to the first, Yes to the second. I say these questions are NOT one and the same, as many at ESPN want us to think.

42's Legacy IS forever whether Blacks continue to play Major League Baseball or not. It took a brave and talented man to cross that "thin," "white" foul line. As much as I like to be color-blind and believe talent gets you through the door... no one can deny its Jackie's bat that unlocked that door for the Hammerin Hanks, the Say Hey Kids, the Big Hurts, the D-Trains of today and tomorrow. He will always be The First. No one can take that Legacy away.

So why are Blacks leaving baseball? My humble opinion: It's the economy, stupid.
a) Competition from other major sports. Blacks now make up roughly 75 percent of the NBA. Roughly 67 percent of the NFL.
b) Competition from other talent pools. Major League Baseball is farming and scouting a lot of talent in Central and South America. Latino participation has DOUBLED since 1990 (13 to 26 percent).

Advocates for more Black ballplayers still suggest a sort of indirect racism, saying Baseball has ignored the inner city; scouts purposely avoiding what they deem to be "bad neighborhoods" with "rough kids." That may be so. But it doesn't sound like anyone's being denied a contract because of their skin color... just maybe their geography. Baseball HAS shown an interest in urban areas through its 18-year program Reviving Baseball in the Inner-City (RBI) producing players like Carl Crawford, Dontrelle Willis, and Boston's own Coco Crisp. But Baseball did this for money... not morality.

Anyone who thinks that Jackie Robinson's Legacy gets chipped away every time a Black kid picks up a basketball instead of a glove is missing the point. Jackie's goal wasn't for Blacks to jump over a certain ratio. It was for them to jump over that foul line. They have. And while other factors may slow that traffic now, racism is not one of them.

We can all thank Number 42 for that.

* * *

That's my piece on players. As for so few managers and GMs of color, I won't even touch it. Some say it's racist. Some say it's just Good Ol Boys making sure their frat brothers and colleagues take their place. These are assumptions. I won't add to them.

You Can't Spell "Jayme" Without "Emy"

Yes, it's a survey. I haven't done one in a while. And this one's about, like, like your number one favoritest Myspace friend. Well, mine happens to kick some serious ass. So I thought I'd share her with you.


1) what's her name?
Emily Sam Rubenstein

2) What is her sexual orientation?
Bill (who I am a big fan of)

3) Where did you meet her?
In the driveway, under a sign hanging from the carport that read "Welcome Home!" Daddy helped :)

4) How old were you when you first met?
3 and a half

5) Is this person, one of your best friends?
My number one.

6) Say something that only makes sense to you and your friend?
TEDDY BEAR!!!!

7) Is this person older than you?
Sometimes.

8) When was the last time you saw this person?
I see her everyday.

9) Do you miss her?
Very much.

10) Are you related to this person?
As related as you can be.

11) Do you have nicknames for each other?
Em and Jay. Not many people call me Jay. It takes me home.

13) Do you think that person will repost this?
Yes. She's addicted to these.

14) Why is this person #1 on your top friends?
Maaashmelloowwwwss.

15) Have you seen this person cry?
Yes and visa versa.

16) Do you know this persons middle name?
Yes.

17) Do you tell her a lot about your life?
Everything. And visa versa.

18) Doing anything tonight?
Are you trying to pick me up via survey?

19) If yes, What:
If you mean with her... I'll probably call her from I-10. Keep your phone on!

20) Would you date this person?
Oreo date? Heck Yes!
Actually, before I marry someone, we have to double-date with Em. That's the true test.

21) Would they date you?
Um...

22) What's something the person is obsessed with?
Singing just like her brudder. I miss our car-duets.

23) Does this person make you laugh?
Until I can't breathe. She's the funniest person I know.
I still tell people your psychoanalysis of girls who wear pink Red Sox apparel.


I invite you to copy-n-paste your NumberOne Survey here. Let's start meeting some of our faithful readers. Have a great weekend!

Love you, Em.

What Is This Life...

A recent Washington Post article, courtesy of Mandy.
You can read it all at once... I took it in movements.

* * * * * * *


Pearls Before Breakfast
Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out.

By Gene Weingarten
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 8, 2007; Page W10

He emerged from the Metro at the L'Enfant Plaza Station and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.

It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.

Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?

On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities — as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

The musician did not play popular tunes whose familiarity alone might have drawn interest. That was not the test. These were masterpieces that have endured for centuries on their brilliance alone, soaring music befitting the grandeur of cathedrals and concert halls.

The acoustics proved surprisingly kind. Though the arcade is of utilitarian design, a buffer between the Metro escalator and the outdoors, it somehow caught the sound and bounced it back round and resonant. The violin is an instrument that is said to be much like the human voice, and in this musician's masterly hands, it sobbed and laughed and sang — ecstatic, sorrowful, importuning, adoring, flirtatious, castigating, playful, romancing, merry, triumphal, sumptuous.

So, what do you think happened?

Hang on, we'll get you some expert help.

Leonard Slatkin, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, was asked the same question. What did he think would occur, hypothetically, if one of the world's great violinists had performed incognito before a traveling rush-hour audience of 1,000-odd people?

"Let's assume," Slatkin said, "that he is not recognized and just taken for granted as a street musician … Still, I don't think that if he's really good, he's going to go unnoticed. He'd get a larger audience in Europe … but, okay, out of 1,000 people, my guess is there might be 35 or 40 who will recognize the quality for what it is. Maybe 75 to 100 will stop and spend some time listening."

So, a crowd would gather?

"Oh, yes."

And how much will he make?

"About $150."

Thanks, Maestro. As it happens, this is not hypothetical. It really happened.

"How'd I do?"

We'll tell you in a minute.

"Well, who was the musician?"

Joshua Bell.

"NO!!!"

A onetime child prodigy, at 39 Joshua Bell has arrived as an internationally acclaimed virtuoso. Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston's stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100. Two weeks later, at the Music Center at Strathmore, in North Bethesda, he would play to a standing-room-only audience so respectful of his artistry that they stifled their coughs until the silence between movements. But on that Friday in January, Joshua Bell was just another mendicant, competing for the attention of busy people on their way to work.

Bell was first pitched this idea shortly before Christmas, over coffee at a sandwich shop on Capitol Hill. A New Yorker, he was in town to perform at the Library of Congress and to visit the library's vaults to examine an unusual treasure: an 18th-century violin that once belonged to the great Austrian-born virtuoso and composer Fritz Kreisler. The curators invited Bell to play it; good sound, still.

"Here's what I'm thinking," Bell confided, as he sipped his coffee. "I'm thinking that I could do a tour where I'd play Kreisler's music …"

He smiled.

"… on Kreisler's violin."

It was a snazzy, sequined idea — part inspiration and part gimmick — and it was typical of Bell, who has unapologetically embraced showmanship even as his concert career has become more and more august. He's soloed with the finest orchestras here and abroad, but he's also appeared on "Sesame Street," done late-night talk TV and performed in feature films. That was Bell playing the soundtrack on the 1998 movie "The Red Violin." (He body-doubled, too, playing to a naked Greta Scacchi.) As composer John Corigliano accepted the Oscar for Best Original Dramatic Score, he credited Bell, who, he said, "plays like a god."

When Bell was asked if he'd be willing to don street clothes and perform at rush hour, he said:

"Uh, a stunt?"

Well, yes. A stunt. Would he think it … unseemly?

Bell drained his cup.

"Sounds like fun," he said.

Bell's a heartthrob. Tall and handsome, he's got a Donny Osmond-like dose of the cutes, and, onstage, cute elides into hott. When he performs, he is usually the only man under the lights who is not in white tie and tails — he walks out to a standing O, looking like Zorro, in black pants and an untucked black dress shirt, shirttail dangling. That cute Beatles-style mop top is also a strategic asset: Because his technique is full of body — athletic and passionate — he's almost dancing with the instrument, and his hair flies.

He's single and straight, a fact not lost on some of his fans. In Boston, as he performed Max Bruch's dour Violin Concerto in G Minor, the very few young women in the audience nearly disappeared in the deep sea of silver heads. But seemingly every single one of them — a distillate of the young and pretty — coalesced at the stage door after the performance, seeking an autograph. It's like that always, with Bell.

Bell's been accepting over-the-top accolades since puberty: Interview magazine once said his playing "does nothing less than tell human beings why they bother to live." He's learned to field these things graciously, with a bashful duck of the head and a modified "pshaw."

For this incognito performance, Bell had only one condition for participating. The event had been described to him as a test of whether, in an incongruous context, ordinary people would recognize genius. His condition: "I'm not comfortable if you call this genius." "Genius" is an overused word, he said: It can be applied to some of the composers whose work he plays, but not to him. His skills are largely interpretive, he said, and to imply otherwise would be unseemly and inaccurate.

It was an interesting request, and under the circumstances, one that will be honored. The word will not again appear in this article.

It would be breaking no rules, however, to note that the term in question, particularly as applied in the field of music, refers to a congenital brilliance — an elite, innate, preternatural ability that manifests itself early, and often in dramatic fashion.

One biographically intriguing fact about Bell is that he got his first music lessons when he was a 4-year-old in Bloomington, Ind. His parents, both psychologists, decided formal training might be a good idea after they saw that their son had strung rubber bands across his dresser drawers and was replicating classical tunes by ear, moving drawers in and out to vary the pitch.

To get to the Metro from his hotel, a distance of three blocks, Bell took a taxi. He's neither lame nor lazy: He did it for his violin.

Bell always performs on the same instrument, and he ruled out using another for this gig. Called the Gibson ex Huberman, it was handcrafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari during the Italian master's "golden period," toward the end of his career, when he had access to the finest spruce, maple and willow, and when his technique had been refined to perfection.

"Our knowledge of acoustics is still incomplete," Bell said, "but he, he just … knew."

Bell doesn't mention Stradivari by name. Just "he." When the violinist shows his Strad to people, he holds the instrument gingerly by its neck, resting it on a knee. "He made this to perfect thickness at all parts," Bell says, pivoting it. "If you shaved off a millimeter of wood at any point, it would totally imbalance the sound." No violins sound as wonderful as Strads from the 1710s, still.

The front of Bell's violin is in nearly perfect condition, with a deep, rich grain and luster. The back is a mess, its dark reddish finish bleeding away into a flatter, lighter shade and finally, in one section, to bare wood.

"This has never been refinished," Bell said. "That's his original varnish. People attribute aspects of the sound to the varnish. Each maker had his own secret formula." Stradivari is thought to have made his from an ingeniously balanced cocktail of honey, egg whites and gum arabic from sub-Saharan trees.

Like the instrument in "The Red Violin," this one has a past filled with mystery and malice. Twice, it was stolen from its illustrious prior owner, the Polish virtuoso Bronislaw Huberman. The first time, in 1919, it disappeared from Huberman's hotel room in Vienna but was quickly returned. The second time, nearly 20 years later, it was pinched from his dressing room in Carnegie Hall. He never got it back. It was not until 1985 that the thief — a minor New York violinist — made a deathbed confession to his wife, and produced the instrument.

Bell bought it a few years ago. He had to sell his own Strad and borrow much of the rest. The price tag was reported to be about $3.5 million.

All of which is a long explanation for why, in the early morning chill of a day in January, Josh Bell took a three-block cab ride to the Orange Line, and rode one stop to L'Enfant.

As Metro stations go, L'Enfant Plaza is more plebian than most. Even before you arrive, it gets no respect. Metro conductors never seem to get it right: "Leh-fahn." "Layfont." "El'phant."

At the top of the escalators are a shoeshine stand and a busy kiosk that sells newspapers, lottery tickets and a wallfull of magazines with titles such as Mammazons and Girls of Barely Legal. The skin mags move, but it's that lottery ticket dispenser that stays the busiest, with customers queuing up for Daily 6 lotto and Powerball and the ultimate suckers' bait, those pamphlets that sell random number combinations purporting to be "hot." They sell briskly. There's also a quick-check machine to slide in your lotto ticket, post-drawing, to see if you've won. Beneath it is a forlorn pile of crumpled slips.

On Friday, January 12, the people waiting in the lottery line looking for a long shot would get a lucky break — a free, close-up ticket to a concert by one of the world's most famous musicians — but only if they were of a mind to take note.

Bell decided to begin with "Chaconne" from Johann Sebastian Bach's Partita No. 2 in D Minor. Bell calls it "not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It's a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect. Plus, it was written for a solo violin, so I won't be cheating with some half-assed version."

Bell didn't say it, but Bach's "Chaconne" is also considered one of the most difficult violin pieces to master. Many try; few succeed. It's exhaustingly long — 14 minutes — and consists entirely of a single, succinct musical progression repeated in dozens of variations to create a dauntingly complex architecture of sound. Composed around 1720, on the eve of the European Enlightenment, it is said to be a celebration of the breadth of human possibility.

If Bell's encomium to "Chaconne" seems overly effusive, consider this from the 19th-century composer Johannes Brahms, in a letter to Clara Schumann: "On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind."

So, that's the piece Bell started with.

He'd clearly meant it when he promised not to cheap out this performance: He played with acrobatic enthusiasm, his body leaning into the music and arching on tiptoes at the high notes. The sound was nearly symphonic, carrying to all parts of the homely arcade as the pedestrian traffic filed past.

Three minutes went by before something happened. Sixty-three people had already passed when, finally, there was a breakthrough of sorts. A middle-age man altered his gait for a split second, turning his head to notice that there seemed to be some guy playing music. Yes, the man kept walking, but it was something.

A half-minute later, Bell got his first donation. A woman threw in a buck and scooted off. It was not until six minutes into the performance that someone actually stood against a wall, and listened.

Things never got much better. In the three-quarters of an hour that Joshua Bell played, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most of them on the run — for a total of $32 and change. That leaves the 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look.

No, Mr. Slatkin, there was never a crowd, not even for a second.

It was all videotaped by a hidden camera. You can play the recording once or 15 times, and it never gets any easier to watch. Try speeding it up, and it becomes one of those herky-jerky World War I-era silent newsreels. The people scurry by in comical little hops and starts, cups of coffee in their hands, cellphones at their ears, ID tags slapping at their bellies, a grim danse macabre to indifference, inertia and the dingy, gray rush of modernity.

Even at this accelerated pace, though, the fiddler's movements remain fluid and graceful; he seems so apart from his audience — unseen, unheard, otherworldly — that you find yourself thinking that he's not really there. A ghost.

Only then do you see it: He is the one who is real. They are the ghosts.

If a great musician plays great music but no one hears … was he really any good?

It's an old epistemological debate, older, actually, than the koan about the tree in the forest. Plato weighed in on it, and philosophers for two millennia afterward: What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried Leibniz), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)?

We'll go with Kant, because he's obviously right, and because he brings us pretty directly to Joshua Bell, sitting there in a hotel restaurant, picking at his breakfast, wryly trying to figure out what the hell had just happened back there at the Metro.

"At the beginning," Bell says, "I was just concentrating on playing the music. I wasn't really watching what was happening around me …"

Playing the violin looks all-consuming, mentally and physically, but Bell says that for him the mechanics of it are partly second nature, cemented by practice and muscle memory: It's like a juggler, he says, who can keep those balls in play while interacting with a crowd. What he's mostly thinking about as he plays, Bell says, is capturing emotion as a narrative: "When you play a violin piece, you are a storyteller, and you're telling a story."

With "Chaconne," the opening is filled with a building sense of awe. That kept him busy for a while. Eventually, though, he began to steal a sidelong glance.

"It was a strange feeling, that people were actually, ah …"

The word doesn't come easily.

"… ignoring me."

Bell is laughing. It's at himself.

"At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change." This is from a man whose talents can command $1,000 a minute.

Before he began, Bell hadn't known what to expect. What he does know is that, for some reason, he was nervous.

"It wasn't exactly stage fright, but there were butterflies," he says. "I was stressing a little."

Bell has played, literally, before crowned heads of Europe. Why the anxiety at the Washington Metro?

"When you play for ticket-holders," Bell explains, "you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I'm already accepted. Here, there was this thought: What if they don't like me? What if they resent my presence …"

He was, in short, art without a frame. Which, it turns out, may have a lot to do with what happened — or, more precisely, what didn't happen — on January 12.

Mark Leithauser has held in his hands more great works of art than any king or pope or Medici ever did. A senior curator at the National Gallery, he oversees the framing of the paintings. Leithauser thinks he has some idea of what happened at that Metro station.

"Let's say I took one of our more abstract masterpieces, say an Ellsworth Kelly, and removed it from its frame, marched it down the 52 steps that people walk up to get to the National Gallery, past the giant columns, and brought it into a restaurant. It's a $5 million painting. And it's one of those restaurants where there are pieces of original art for sale, by some industrious kids from the Corcoran School, and I hang that Kelly on the wall with a price tag of $150. No one is going to notice it. An art curator might look up and say: 'Hey, that looks a little like an Ellsworth Kelly. Please pass the salt.'"

Leithauser's point is that we shouldn't be too ready to label the Metro passersby unsophisticated boobs. Context matters.

Kant said the same thing. He took beauty seriously: In his Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, Kant argued that one's ability to appreciate beauty is related to one's ability to make moral judgments. But there was a caveat. Paul Guyer of the University of Pennsylvania, one of America's most prominent Kantian scholars, says the 18th-century German philosopher felt that to properly appreciate beauty, the viewing conditions must be optimal.

"Optimal," Guyer said, "doesn't mean heading to work, focusing on your report to the boss, maybe your shoes don't fit right."

So, if Kant had been at the Metro watching as Joshua Bell play to a thousand unimpressed passersby?

"He would have inferred about them," Guyer said, "absolutely nothing."

And that's that.

Except it isn't. To really understand what happened, you have to rewind that video and play it back from the beginning, from the moment Bell's bow first touched the strings.

White guy, khakis, leather jacket, briefcase. Early 30s. John David Mortensen is on the final leg of his daily bus-to-Metro commute from Reston. He's heading up the escalator. It's a long ride — 1 minute and 15 seconds if you don't walk. So, like most everyone who passes Bell this day, Mortensen gets a good earful of music before he has his first look at the musician. Like most of them, he notes that it sounds pretty good. But like very few of them, when he gets to the top, he doesn't race past as though Bell were some nuisance to be avoided. Mortensen is that first person to stop, that guy at the six-minute mark.

It's not that he has nothing else to do. He's a project manager for an international program at the Department of Energy; on this day, Mortensen has to participate in a monthly budget exercise, not the most exciting part of his job: "You review the past month's expenditures," he says, "forecast spending for the next month, if you have X dollars, where will it go, that sort of thing."

On the video, you can see Mortensen get off the escalator and look around. He locates the violinist, stops, walks away but then is drawn back. He checks the time on his cellphone — he's three minutes early for work — then settles against a wall to listen.

Mortensen doesn't know classical music at all; classic rock is as close as he comes. But there's something about what he's hearing that he really likes.

As it happens, he's arrived at the moment that Bell slides into the second section of "Chaconne." ("It's the point," Bell says, "where it moves from a darker, minor key into a major key. There's a religious, exalted feeling to it.") The violinist's bow begins to dance; the music becomes upbeat, playful, theatrical, big.

Mortensen doesn't know about major or minor keys: "Whatever it was," he says, "it made me feel at peace."

So, for the first time in his life, Mortensen lingers to listen to a street musician. He stays his allotted three minutes as 94 more people pass briskly by. When he leaves to help plan contingency budgets for the Department of Energy, there's another first. For the first time in his life, not quite knowing what had just happened but sensing it was special, John David Mortensen gives a street musician money.

There are six moments in the video that Bell finds particularly painful to relive: "The awkward times," he calls them. It's what happens right after each piece ends: nothing. The music stops. The same people who hadn't noticed him playing don't notice that he has finished. No applause, no acknowledgment. So Bell just saws out a small, nervous chord — the embarrassed musician's equivalent of, "Er, okay, moving right along …" — and begins the next piece.

After "Chaconne," it is Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria," which surprised some music critics when it debuted in 1825: Schubert seldom showed religious feeling in his compositions, yet "Ave Maria" is a breathtaking work of adoration of the Virgin Mary. What was with the sudden piety? Schubert dryly answered: "I think this is due to the fact that I never forced devotion in myself and never compose hymns or prayers of that kind unless it overcomes me unawares; but then it is usually the right and true devotion." This musical prayer became among the most familiar and enduring religious pieces in history.

A couple of minutes into it, something revealing happens. A woman and her preschooler emerge from the escalator. The woman is walking briskly and, therefore, so is the child. She's got his hand.

"I had a time crunch," recalls Sheron Parker, an IT director for a federal agency. "I had an 8:30 training class, and first I had to rush Evvie off to his teacher, then rush back to work, then to the training facility in the basement."

Evvie is her son, Evan. Evan is 3.

You can see Evan clearly on the video. He's the cute black kid in the parka who keeps twisting around to look at Joshua Bell, as he is being propelled toward the door.

"There was a musician," Parker says, "and my son was intrigued. He wanted to pull over and listen, but I was rushed for time."

So Parker does what she has to do. She deftly moves her body between Evan's and Bell's, cutting off her son's line of sight. As they exit the arcade, Evan can still be seen craning to look. When Parker is told what she walked out on, she laughs.

"Evan is very smart!"

The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother's heart is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us. It may be true with music, too.

There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.

If there was one person on that day who was too busy to pay attention to the violinist, it was George Tindley. Tindley wasn't hurrying to get to work. He was at work.

The glass doors through which most people exit the L'Enfant station lead into an indoor shopping mall, from which there are exits to the street and elevators to office buildings. The first store in the mall is an Au Bon Pain, the croissant and coffee shop where Tindley, in his 40s, works in a white uniform busing the tables, restocking the salt and pepper packets, taking out the garbage. Tindley labors under the watchful eye of his bosses, and he's supposed to be hopping, and he was.

But every minute or so, as though drawn by something not entirely within his control, Tindley would walk to the very edge of the Au Bon Pain property, keeping his toes inside the line, still on the job. Then he'd lean forward, as far out into the hallway as he could, watching the fiddler on the other side of the glass doors. The foot traffic was steady, so the doors were usually open. The sound came through pretty well.

"You could tell in one second that this guy was good, that he was clearly a professional," Tindley says. He plays the guitar, loves the sound of strings, and has no respect for a certain kind of musician.

"Most people, they play music; they don't feel it," Tindley says. "Well, that man was feeling it. That man was moving. Moving into the sound."

A hundred feet away, across the arcade, was the lottery line, sometimes five or six people long. They had a much better view of Bell than Tindley did, if they had just turned around. But no one did. Not in the entire 43 minutes. They just shuffled forward toward that machine spitting out numbers. Eyes on the prize.

J.T. Tillman was in that line. A computer specialist for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, he remembers every single number he played that day — 10 of them, $2 apiece, for a total of $20. He doesn't recall what the violinist was playing, though. He says it sounded like generic classical music, the kind the ship's band was playing in "Titanic," before the iceberg.

"I didn't think nothing of it," Tillman says, "just a guy trying to make a couple of bucks." Tillman would have given him one or two, he said, but he spent all his cash on lotto.

When he is told that he stiffed one of the best musicians in the world, he laughs.

"Is he ever going to play around here again?"

"Yeah, but you're going to have to pay a lot to hear him."

"Damn."

Tillman didn't win the lottery, either.

Bell ends "Ave Maria" to another thunderous silence, plays Manuel Ponce's sentimental "Estrellita," then a piece by Jules Massenet, and then begins a Bach gavotte, a joyful, frolicsome, lyrical dance. It's got an Old World delicacy to it; you can imagine it entertaining bewigged dancers at a Versailles ball, or — in a lute, fiddle and fife version — the boot-kicking peasants of a Pieter Bruegel painting.

Watching the video weeks later, Bell finds himself mystified by one thing only. He understands why he's not drawing a crowd, in the rush of a morning workday. But: "I'm surprised at the number of people who don't pay attention at all, as if I'm invisible. Because, you know what? I'm makin' a lot of noise!"

He is. You don't need to know music at all to appreciate the simple fact that there's a guy there, playing a violin that's throwing out a whole bucket of sound; at times, Bell's bowing is so intricate that you seem to be hearing two instruments playing in harmony. So those head-forward, quick-stepping passersby are a remarkable phenomenon.

Bell wonders whether their inattention may be deliberate: If you don't take visible note of the musician, you don't have to feel guilty about not forking over money; you're not complicit in a rip-off.

It may be true, but no one gave that explanation. People just said they were busy, had other things on their mind. Some who were on cellphones spoke louder as they passed Bell, to compete with that infernal racket.

And then there was Calvin Myint. Myint works for the General Services Administration. He got to the top of the escalator, turned right and headed out a door to the street. A few hours later, he had no memory that there had been a musician anywhere in sight.

"Where was he, in relation to me?"

"About four feet away."

"Oh."

There's nothing wrong with Myint's hearing. He had buds in his ear. He was listening to his iPod.

For many of us, the explosion in technology has perversely limited, not expanded, our exposure to new experiences. Increasingly, we get our news from sources that think as we already do. And with iPods, we hear what we already know; we program our own playlists.

The song that Calvin Myint was listening to was "Just Like Heaven," by the British rock band The Cure. It's a terrific song, actually. The meaning is a little opaque, and the Web is filled with earnest efforts to deconstruct it. Many are far-fetched, but some are right on point: It's about a tragic emotional disconnect. A man has found the woman of his dreams but can't express the depth of his feeling for her until she's gone. It's about failing to see the beauty of what's plainly in front of your eyes.

"Yes, I saw the violinist," Jackie Hessian says, "but nothing about him struck me as much of anything."

You couldn't tell that by watching her. Hessian was one of those people who gave Bell a long, hard look before walking on. It turns out that she wasn't noticing the music at all.

"I really didn't hear that much," she said. "I was just trying to figure out what he was doing there, how does this work for him, can he make much money, would it be better to start with some money in the case, or for it to be empty, so people feel sorry for you? I was analyzing it financially."

What do you do, Jackie?

"I'm a lawyer in labor relations with the United States Postal Service. I just negotiated a national contract."

The best seats in the house were upholstered. In the balcony, more or less. On that day, for $5, you'd get a lot more than just a nice shine on your shoes.

Only one person occupied one of those seats when Bell played. Terence Holmes is a consultant for the Department of Transportation, and he liked the music just fine, but it was really about a shoeshine: "My father told me never to wear a suit with your shoes not cleaned and shined."

Holmes wears suits often, so he is up in that perch a lot, and he's got a good relationship with the shoeshine lady. Holmes is a good tipper and a good talker, which is a skill that came in handy that day. The shoeshine lady was upset about something, and the music got her more upset. She complained, Holmes said, that the music was too loud, and he tried to calm her down.

Edna Souza is from Brazil. She's been shining shoes at L'Enfant Plaza for six years, and she's had her fill of street musicians there; when they play, she can't hear her customers, and that's bad for business. So she fights.

Souza points to the dividing line between the Metro property, at the top of the escalator, and the arcade, which is under control of the management company that runs the mall. Sometimes, Souza says, a musician will stand on the Metro side, sometimes on the mall side. Either way, she's got him. On her speed dial, she has phone numbers for both the mall cops and the Metro cops. The musicians seldom last long.

What about Joshua Bell?

He was too loud, too, Souza says. Then she looks down at her rag, sniffs. She hates to say anything positive about these damned musicians, but: "He was pretty good, that guy. It was the first time I didn't call the police."

Souza was surprised to learn he was a famous musician, but not that people rushed blindly by him. That, she said, was predictable. "If something like this happened in Brazil, everyone would stand around to see. Not here."

Souza nods sourly toward a spot near the top of the escalator: "Couple of years ago, a homeless guy died right there. He just lay down there and died. The police came, an ambulance came, and no one even stopped to see or slowed down to look.

"People walk up the escalator, they look straight ahead. Mind your own business, eyes forward. Everyone is stressed. Do you know what I mean?"

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
— from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies

Let's say Kant is right. Let's accept that we can't look at what happened on January 12 and make any judgment whatever about people's sophistication or their ability to appreciate beauty. But what about their ability to appreciate life?

We're busy. Americans have been busy, as a people, since at least 1831, when a young French sociologist named Alexis de Tocqueville visited the States and found himself impressed, bemused and slightly dismayed at the degree to which people were driven, to the exclusion of everything else, by hard work and the accumulation of wealth.

Not much has changed. Pop in a DVD of "Koyaanisqatsi," the wordless, darkly brilliant, avant-garde 1982 film about the frenetic speed of modern life. Backed by the minimalist music of Philip Glass, director Godfrey Reggio takes film clips of Americans going about their daily business, but speeds them up until they resemble assembly-line machines, robots marching lockstep to nowhere. Now look at the video from L'Enfant Plaza, in fast-forward. The Philip Glass soundtrack fits it perfectly.

"Koyaanisqatsi" is a Hopi word. It means "life out of balance."

In his 2003 book, Timeless Beauty: In the Arts and Everyday Life, British author John Lane writes about the loss of the appreciation for beauty in the modern world. The experiment at L'Enfant Plaza may be symptomatic of that, he said — not because people didn't have the capacity to understand beauty, but because it was irrelevant to them.

"This is about having the wrong priorities," Lane said.

If we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that — then what else are we missing?

That's what the Welsh poet W.H. Davies meant in 1911 when he published those two lines that begin this section. They made him famous. The thought was simple, even primitive, but somehow no one had put it quite that way before.

Of course, Davies had an advantage — an advantage of perception. He wasn't a tradesman or a laborer or a bureaucrat or a consultant or a policy analyst or a labor lawyer or a program manager. He was a hobo.

The cultural hero of the day arrived at L'Enfant Plaza pretty late, in the unprepossessing figure of one John Picarello, a smallish man with a baldish head.

Picarello hit the top of the escalator just after Bell began his final piece, a reprise of "Chaconne." In the video, you see Picarello stop dead in his tracks, locate the source of the music, and then retreat to the other end of the arcade. He takes up a position past the shoeshine stand, across from that lottery line, and he will not budge for the next nine minutes.

Like all the passersby interviewed for this article, Picarello was stopped by a reporter after he left the building, and was asked for his phone number. Like everyone, he was told only that this was to be an article about commuting. When he was called later in the day, like everyone else, he was first asked if anything unusual had happened to him on his trip into work. Of the more than 40 people contacted, Picarello was the only one who immediately mentioned the violinist.

"There was a musician playing at the top of the escalator at L'Enfant Plaza."

Haven't you seen musicians there before?

"Not like this one."

What do you mean?

"This was a superb violinist. I've never heard anyone of that caliber. He was technically proficient, with very good phrasing. He had a good fiddle, too, with a big, lush sound. I walked a distance away, to hear him. I didn't want to be intrusive on his space."

Really?

"Really. It was that kind of experience. It was a treat, just a brilliant, incredible way to start the day."

Picarello knows classical music. He is a fan of Joshua Bell but didn't recognize him; he hadn't seen a recent photo, and besides, for most of the time Picarello was pretty far away. But he knew this was not a run-of-the-mill guy out there, performing. On the video, you can see Picarello look around him now and then, almost bewildered.

"Yeah, other people just were not getting it. It just wasn't registering. That was baffling to me."

When Picarello was growing up in New York, he studied violin seriously, intending to be a concert musician. But he gave it up at 18, when he decided he'd never be good enough to make it pay. Life does that to you sometimes. Sometimes, you have to do the prudent thing. So he went into another line of work. He's a supervisor at the U.S. Postal Service. Doesn't play the violin much, anymore.

When he left, Picarello says, "I humbly threw in $5." It was humble: You can actually see that on the video. Picarello walks up, barely looking at Bell, and tosses in the money. Then, as if embarrassed, he quickly walks away from the man he once wanted to be.

Does he have regrets about how things worked out?

The postal supervisor considers this.

"No. If you love something but choose not to do it professionally, it's not a waste. Because, you know, you still have it. You have it forever."

Bell thinks he did his best work of the day in those final few moments, in the second "Chaconne." And that also was the first time more than one person at a time was listening. As Picarello stood in the back, Janice Olu arrived and took up a position a few feet away from Bell. Olu, a public trust officer with HUD, also played the violin as a kid. She didn't know the name of the piece she was hearing, but she knew the man playing it has a gift.

Olu was on a coffee break and stayed as long as she dared. As she turned to go, she whispered to the stranger next to her, "I really don't want to leave." The stranger standing next to her happened to be working for The Washington Post.

In preparing for this event, editors at The Post Magazine discussed how to deal with likely outcomes. The most widely held assumption was that there could well be a problem with crowd control: In a demographic as sophisticated as Washington, the thinking went, several people would surely recognize Bell. Nervous "what-if" scenarios abounded. As people gathered, what if others stopped just to see what the attraction was? Word would spread through the crowd. Cameras would flash. More people flock to the scene; rush-hour pedestrian traffic backs up; tempers flare; the National Guard is called; tear gas, rubber bullets, etc.

As it happens, exactly one person recognized Bell, and she didn't arrive until near the very end. For Stacy Furukawa, a demographer at the Commerce Department, there was no doubt. She doesn't know much about classical music, but she had been in the audience three weeks earlier, at Bell's free concert at the Library of Congress. And here he was, the international virtuoso, sawing away, begging for money. She had no idea what the heck was going on, but whatever it was, she wasn't about to miss it.

Furukawa positioned herself 10 feet away from Bell, front row, center. She had a huge grin on her face. The grin, and Furukawa, remained planted in that spot until the end.

"It was the most astonishing thing I've ever seen in Washington," Furukawa says. "Joshua Bell was standing there playing at rush hour, and people were not stopping, and not even looking, and some were flipping quarters at him! Quarters! I wouldn't do that to anybody. I was thinking, Omigosh, what kind of a city do I live in that this could happen?"

When it was over, Furukawa introduced herself to Bell, and tossed in a twenty. Not counting that — it was tainted by recognition — the final haul for his 43 minutes of playing was $32.17. Yes, some people gave pennies.

"Actually," Bell said with a laugh, "that's not so bad, considering. That's 40 bucks an hour. I could make an okay living doing this, and I wouldn't have to pay an agent."

These days, at L'Enfant Plaza, lotto ticket sales remain brisk. Musicians still show up from time to time, and they still tick off Edna Souza. Joshua Bell's latest album, "The Voice of the Violin," has received the usual critical acclaim. ("Delicate urgency." "Masterful intimacy." "Unfailingly exquisite." "A musical summit." "… will make your heart thump and weep at the same time.")

Bell headed off on a concert tour of European capitals. But he is back in the States this week. He has to be. On Tuesday, he will be accepting the Avery Fisher prize, recognizing the Flop of L'Enfant Plaza as the best classical musician in America.