The Turkish & Russian Bathhouse

I visited the Turkish Bathhouse on 10th st in the East Village a few years back when friends were in town. I thought it'd be nice way to kick off our Friday morning with a big homemade breakfast and a few bloodies before a visit to the sauna and steam rooms. The bathhouse is in an old, run-down tenement-width building where they ask you to surrender your wallet and phone to a dropbox on your way in. Then they hit you up for the special treatments, and the only one I remember is called the Platza. It was $30. I asked what it was and they guy said, "It's like Jewish acupuncture." Two things: 1. That has a sort of folksy racism to it that makes me uncomfortable, and 2. That does nothing to explain what it actually is. The explanation served to confuse me more than the name. Later, a guy we met in the sauna, which is of course the worst place to meet strangers, told us that a Platza is where they hit you with a tree branch soaked in saltwater and olive oil. Then he told us that he once met JFK Jr. in the same sauna where we were sitting. So, I was glad I didn't pay for the tree beating up front, and our new sauna friend was able to tell his JFK Jr. story. It worked out for all of us in the end.

Venus Flytrap

As a child I went through a strange period where I obsessed over carnivorous plants. I wrote book reports on the pitcher plant, cut photos of the honeydew plant out of botany magazines, and when I saw that the grocery store was selling Venus flytraps, I convinced my parents to buy one more me, I suppose on the grounds that it was educational. As my motor skills at that age (or any age, really) prevented me from catching live flies to release in its biome, I took the advice of the grocery sales clerk and fed it bits of hamburger. The plant would close around them just fine, but each plant I bought would die within days of eating. In hindsight, cow is a little high on the food chain for plants, and also, it's very odd that in spite of the exhaustive research I conducted on carnivorous plants, I still would have thought it okay to feed them burgers.

The Best Happy Hour

I saw Gothamist’s headline “The 14 Best Happy Hours in NYC” and felt anxiety creep up my spine and radiate through my body. I clicked on the link, breathless, and scrolled through the list of bar names. My favorite local spot wasn’t on the list. I let out a bark of a laugh and looked around with the glow of relief. The last thing I need is my favorite bar in the city (great beer, 20oz pints, all $3 before 8pm) overrun with a bunch people who read blogs (not you guys, don’t worry). I’m sure there are some greater implications regarding the degree to which I worry about my favorite bar begin overrun, but it’s not something any of us need to think about too much.

(Also, just between us here, the best happy hour in town is at Drop Off Service, Ave A btwen 14th and 13th.)

Boarding School

The place where we board our dog was closed on Memorial Day, and when we dropped him off they told us we'd have to wait until Tuesday morning to pick him up. On our way home from the airport we agreed we'd stop by on the off chance that someone would be out walking the dogs or we'd see someone in the storefront. The place was dark, but the protective metal gate was only pulled halfway down, so my wife called the number on the door. We couldn't hear the phone ringing inside but we could hear the dogs go crazy, and after about five rings someone picked up. My wife asked if anyone was there, and then said "This is Otis' parents. We need to get him. It's an emergency." This shift in our plan caught me off guard, and coming off friends' wedding weekend I was incapable of pivoting on the idea, and the best emergency I could come up with was that someone was sick and we had to head upstate for the week immediately. Then the guy unlocked the door and let our dog out, and my wife had so much joy at seeing our dog that if I'd told him someone in our families was sick he would have thought that she was really the sick one. So, instead I said sorry about 10 times, and then stood looking at him for what felt like five minutes wondering if I should give the guy $10 or if that would seem weird.

Memorial Day Mayhem

Know this: Social media marketers have no idea what to do with Memorial Day. When you look at brand posts on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll see there’s no good way to treat it. Talk about BBQs and sitting by the pool? You alienate the veterans. Say something like “Thank you for your service,” and you’ll find followers say things like “If I were president there’d be no need for memorial day” and then it devolves into an ugly Facebook battle where all the company’s trying to do is sell some product. So, you’ll notice most companies avoid saying anything. You have permission today to go on those Facebook pages that ignore it and say, “What, no thank you to our veterans!? Unfollow.”

Airplane Movies

You realize how loud planes are after you turn your headphones all the way up on your phone and you still can’t hear the movie you bought. So, I have a new tactic, I’m only downloading movies where I know every single line, and then I’ll be able to watch and laugh along without blowing out my eardrums. In way, my experience doing this is kind of like how old people sit in their rocking chairs talking and laughing to themselves all day. It comes across as disembodied and odd, but hey, good times. So, my movie on tap for today? Ghostbusters. I’m also excited about the possibility of recognizing some places in New York since I haven’t watched the film since I moved here six years ago.

Let This Stand As a Record

You: Enterprising reporter.
Me: At the bottom of an elevator shaft.
You: Working on a story for your newspaper about a bunch of people who died when an elevator crashed to the ground suddenly, combing through the deceaseds’ online footprints in the highly unlikely event that any of them ever said anything about their elevator at work.
Me: Writing an email: Let this stand as my record that if our elevator at work ever kills me, everyone knew it was a piece of junk, and we always knew it would kill someone. And, while I harbor an acute fear of flying, the last thing I probably thought was that instead of dying in a metal tube flying at 500 mph, I died in a metal tube at work. I hope I finished whatever book I was last reading.

On a side note, the SteepandCheap era is over. For years I’ve been posting whatever content I slotted in there here. It was easy, a place to share my inane stories and, perhaps, build up a bit of a following. Well, I have some news, we’re all on our own now. Continuing me email (blog, whatever) I feel a bit like Don West walking around in his Batman outfit after he’s been told not to. Then again this has more of a friendly, intimate feel to it. (Not that kind of intimate, please don’t send me any photos). Moving forward, I’m going to post here. Every. Single. Day. (Monday to Friday only.) The posts will go up at about 4am and will go out via email at the exact same time. I’m going to post through the weekend since this is my first time out.

So, thanks for signing up for the email, share it with your friends. Let’s have story time with our first cup of coffee in the a.m.

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For over 7 years I wrote every single Daily Dose email for SteepandCheap.com. (Except one, but that's another story.)

Here's my final post:

You're Welcome 

Whenever people leave a job and send an email to their entire company, they always lead off with "Thank You!" Instead I will lead off with "You're Welcome." I've very much enjoyed our daily email conversation over the last 7 or so years. It is, of course, one-sided in nature. I do most of the communicating in our relationship. Though, there have been more than a few people who have tracked me down and become, if not close friends, at least Internet friends, which is pretty great even though it sounds super creepy. It's touched me to hear that some of you read my short stories with your coffee every morning, and it's disgusted me to hear that some of you read it while on the toilet each morning. So, goodbye, and I'll leave you with one last story: A while back one company I work for bought another. There's always some necessary discomfort when this happens. Business decisions. People left behind. One guy who'd left during the transition went on our company Facebook page and advertised his new ventures. I thought that, even if it was a savvy business move to reach out to his former colleagues and followers, it was classless. So, in the spirit of having a shred of class, I will say so long, and I hope we meet in person one day.

(Actually, if SteepandCheap is cool with it, screw class! My blog's rockythompson.com and on Twitter I'm @rockythompson. So long, and best of luck to the next writers! Looking forward to seeing where you take it.)

That Kid's Back on the Snowmobile

This is my favorite Daily Dose story of all time, but I did a horrible job telling it.

Snowmobile Accidents
A friend of mine lives on a lake in Minnesota that has only one ice fishing shanty on it. A few years ago, he saw a snowmobile screaming across the frozen lake at night run into the ice shanty at top speed. Turns out it was some really accident-prone kid, and his goggles were all iced up.

If you'll permit me, I'll try to save the story because it deserves it. It's one of the two or three stories that will pop into my head out of nowhere once in a while and I will be unable to stop myself from laughing out loud. It goes like this:

That Kid's Back on the Snowmobile

My friend lived on a lake in Northern Minnesota with one or two other houses on it. It could be any one of thousands of lakes tucked away in the north woods. His neighbors had one kid, a teenage boy who liked to ice fish, canoe, cross country ski, and snowmobile. In the summer he required rescue after dumping his canoe while fishing the middle of the lake. And in the winter he once left his snowmobile idling next to the only ice fishing shanty on the lake, which was his, and it ran out of gas when it came time to leave. So, one cold winter evening my friend is looking out his window across the lake as night falls, and sees one snowmobile on the lake screaming across its frozen surface, the engine winding up, sound carrying in dry cold air, and then, BAM! The kid, driving the only snowmobile on the lake, smashed into the only ice shanty on the lake. Turns out his goggles had fogged up, and he must have thought that if he sped up the airflow would melt away the fog. And maybe it would have. Maybe he didn't hit the ice shanty so much as run out of lake before his goggles cleared.

Greatest Hits Week Rolls On

I'm selecting this story for the Greatest Hits list, not because if I failed to choose one this week that included my wife she would be upset, but because, if I had to choose one that encapsulates my life better than another other I've shared, this is it.

What Do You Want for Dinner?


My wife asks me what I want for dinner and I say, "Tacos." Then she says, "No...let's have soup." You see, when she says, "What do you want for dinner," what she means is, "Guess what I want for dinner." And Tacos was actually a pretty good guess. Taco ingredients are the only thing in our refrigerator besides soup.

The Long Goodbye

This is my last week filing my Daily Dose emails, so this is the week in retrospect. And this story hails from December 19, 2006. If anyone's been reading each email each day since then, then it's as if you and I have spent about two full days together (based on my back-of-the-envelope math). And, I'm sure you'll remember that this was the very first Daily Dose that had nothing to do with what was on sale on SteepandCheap. I thought my boss would complain, but I'm quite certain that she'd stopped reading them by then. (The parenthetical notes below are mine from today.)

It's Like Taking All the Pills in your Daily Dose at Once

The movie One Crazy Summer directed by Savage Steve Holland (still alive) was on TV today while I worked (What! Where was I working?! Probably a ski shop that's now out of business). I saw it when I was young, but without seeing Better Off Dead first, its significance was lost on me (that last line makes no sense). John Cusack plays Hoops McCann while Demi Moore fills out the female lead as a woman who needs to raise $3000 to save her grandpa's house (Hollywood would reuse this story once or twice). Cusack and Bobcat Goldthwait help her out, while a young Jeremy Piven is allied against her. Piven's role is the most interesting. Later in his career he plays a slacker who needs to raise money to save his frat house from a rival frat in PCU, and then in Old School (which I watched on TV two days ago) he comes full circle and plays the dean trying to close Luke Wilson's frat house. It's kind of like a young Mathew Broderick playing Ferris, and then returning to high school to play Ed Rooney to Reese Witherspoon in Election. Such is the circle of life.

Well, I'm Out of Ideas (Good Timing)

The posts I've been filing here every day for the last seven or so years have been content that I've used on a daily email for SteepandCheap.com. This Friday is my last day writing those emails.

So, this week I'm digging into the archives and picking some of my favorites. Today's hails from August 7, 2007. It might surprise you to know that the man in this story is still alive. And he's thriving, in his own way. He's moved back into a house next to the one where this took place. He's in college again. He has a bunch of 20-year-old roommates. Throws keggers. And we all make fun of him.

Squirrel Stash

My friend Rob once saw a squirrel break into his house. It must have climbed in through a screenless window or possibly a missing door knowing the state of that old house. He watched it climb onto the kitchen counter and grab an Oreo before dashing outside. Instead of shoring up the place it snuck out, he followed the little bastard. It ran through the neighborhood to someone's backyard where it dug a hole and stashed the Oreo. He waited until it left, then dug up the Oreo and took it back. I'm not sure if he ate the Oreo, but the extraordinary thing to me is that after digging it up, he also took the nuts it had in the same stash. That poor squirrel must have been really confused when it went back to its hiding place for the Oreo and mixed nuts.

Behind the Music

Every episode of VH1's Behind the Music was exactly the same: Meteoric rise to fame; alcohol! drugs! bad decisions!; car crash, broke, bankruptcy, divorce; and, for those still alive, redemption in the form of getting back on the road, back into music. I loved the formulaic way in which all rock stars came apart. And their redemptions were never real redemptions, but they all pretended that they loved playing trade shows and tiny venues. But I suppose we're all playing small venues in our own way, and washed up rockstars are probably just as happy as everyone else in the world. I have no idea whatever happened to VH1. I suppose it's still on somewhere. I look forward to the day I stream the episode of "Where Are They Now" and it's about VH1. So, so meta.

Recycling Gone Wrong

My parents' neighbor's home was billowing black smoke and a good samaritan ran in to rescue them. Turns out they were fine. Everyone was relieved. Then the neighbor told them that this always happens when he uses carpet samples in his fireplace. The EPA was called in. They took an air sample. The neighbor had been hitting up carpet shops and gathering samples thinking they'd be great to start a fire. And while the price was right, most humans would agree that it's unwise to burn carpet in your fireplace. All the chemicals and adhesive can't be good for you. Reminds me of the s'mores my friends used to toast over treated lumber.

This is a Bad Place for a Campfire

Last Sunday was rough. I was freezing. I'd packed light for the weekend: one sweater, one long-sleeve shirt, and one pair of jeans. Freezing temps in the evening meant that I had to wear all of that around the campfire both nights. It wasn't so bad being around strangers when I was with 14 other guys who also smelled like campfire, though one honest woman did tell us: "You guys suck. You're all married and you smell like $h!t." But after I left the the group for the flight home, I couldn't subject everyone around me to that foul smell. So I shivered in a T-shirt and thought about what panic would ensue if I put on my sweatshirt and everyone on the plane smelled the smoke.

Too Much Joy in Something So Petty

I called the hospital lab eight times, three times in one afternoon, pleading with them to transfer my test results to a new doctor. Receptionists sent me in endless loops of transfers. No one returned messages, and emails went unanswered. Then, a week ago, I received a call from a local number I didn't recognize. It was the hospital. It seems that their credit card machine was broken for the entire month, and they can't tell which transactions went through. They don't know if I paid. I assured them I'd check my records and get back to them right away. They left a voicemail two days ago. Today they called and I transferred them to hold for 10 minutes. This will go on.

That's Rather Inappropriate

Have you ever said something so horrible that people assumed it was a joke and laughed? I was at dinner the other night with friends. A dark, crowded space. Not expensive, but just overpriced enough to be annoying. Our server spoke too loud for the space, she stumbled over her words, and her timing was all off. She was quite drunk but promised to "hook us up" before staggering away from our table. Some food arrived late, but she made up for it by delivering other food early and spilling wine on the table. When she was bending over setting down a dish the fringes of her scarf caught on fire, but she worked on oblivious. I said, "Excuse me, you're on fire." She handled it with grace, waving her arm in a windmill-like motion and patting the fire out. As soon as she walked away from the table I said, "I should have let her burn." My friend Frank laughed really hard.

Move It Along Folks

I was standing in the grocery store contemplating a shelf of spices in identical packaging when a woman who'd crept up behind me said in an even tone, "MOVE." I looked at her and the heaped cart of plastic-wrapped meat and slunk out of the way. It reminded me of a story my friend who'd lived in England for a few years shared: She'd been in a similar grocery store daze and a woman who snuck up on her said, "What are you waiting for, the blast of a trumpet?" (You have to imagine that last part in an English accent.) I've never been to England, but her story endeared the country to me. They're pleasant even when being rude.

At Least We Can All Agree That Politics Are Awful

The presidential election is just around the corner. You know, they’re a couple years off, so we should plan on hearing a lot about it in the coming months. Regardless of what side you’re on or who you vote for, there isn’t anyone who likes it. All the wasted money, constant annoying TV ads, pestering phone calls, and 24-hour coverage on cable news. After enduring it for so long, it makes sense that we all enjoy seeing politicians make embarrassing gaffes. Seeing them squirm and realize they may have blown their chances is the only joy I am able to derive from politics anymore.

Getting Taken

I heard about this company in California that runs a program where you can pay to have them abduct yourself or one of your willing friends. Then they subject you to some form of mild psychological abuse so you can test yourself and see how you handle it. The whole thing sounds idiotic to me, but then again a lot of these weekend-long hellish adventure races through the desert sound idiotic to me, too. What’s going to happen soon is that someone who set up and paid for this service is going to be getting nabbed at the grocery store and then some police officer or vigilante will go after them. It would be such a difficult situation to explain at the police station, but it would also serve as a nice test for handling psychological abuse, so I wouldn’t expect to get your money back.

A Bad Car Accident Situation

During college my friend Nate was backing his white Ford Taurus up in an icy parking lot and bumped another vehicle. He got out to inspect the damage, and a rather large, young gentleman got out of the car he’d hit to take a look. It was bumper to bumper, at a very medium pace, and both cars soaked up the hit and there was no visible damage. Then four of the gentleman’s friends, who may have been the starting lineman for our college football team, also emerged from his car. The matter was settled with a few words and a handshake. And my friend Nate gave them $50. Also, I’m not sure if there was a handshake.

The Bachelor Party

I’m going to a bachelor party this weekend. It’s for my friend Chris, and the details of the party have been kept a secret from him. I haven’t spoken with him so I don’t know how he’s handling it, but if I were him I would be in terrified. The thing with bachelor parties is that they’re not really for the bachelor. The bachelor is a guy who’s been single for ages, so he’s enjoyed the freedom of his life up until now. Bachelor parties are for all of his friends. It’s the weekend their significant others take the kids, they don’t have to wake up at 5 a.m., and they get to behave like idiots for a few days. I found out last night that Chris is being picked up and will have to wear a sleep mask for “as long as he can stand it.” If it were me that’d be about half a second.

Here Comes the Chuckwagon

Is it my imagination or did there used to be a lot more dog food commercials? That Chuckwagon rolling through the kitchen, the happy and natural Purina dogs -- I don’t see them on TV anymore. The marketing for dog food is so on point that sometimes I want to eat it. And that makes sense. I mean, dogs eat dog food, but they don’t buy it. My friend told me that when he was a kid they convinced their mother to spend a bit more and buy a huge bag of that dog food that you’d add water to and it would turn into gravy. The beagle in the commercial loved it, but they didn’t show that beagle get explosive diarrhea like my friend’s dog.

Phone Readings

I go to a lot of weddings. In other words, my wife has a lot of friends. I enjoy them very much since most of the time everyone is in a good mood and they have an open bar. At the last two weddings I attended, people stood to do readings during the ceremony, and they read their passages off their phones. I'm so hard wired into seeing people stare at their phone while in the elevator or sitting at the bar, that when people look down at their smartphone I am incapable of listening to anything they say. It looked like the last guy was video chatting religious passages with a friend, except he was standing in front of a church full of people staring at him. When I see someone I'm with pull out their phone and start looking at it, my instinct is to go to mine and flip through Instagram. Since that would have been inappropriate sitting in a church, I pulled out my phone and pretended to take photos.

These Are The Donuts Days

One of my colleagues is this sweet, soft-spoken guy who never gets anything quite right. He files his taxes the day after they're due and once used a strainer as an ice bucket on his coffee table. He's one of those people you cheer for because you like him, but you always know in your heart that it's not going to end well. I hope he never quits his job to start his own business. The other day, on his way to work, he stopped and picked up four dozen Dunkin' donuts to share with everyone. Another of his selfless gestures. The day before had been a slow news day, and the prior evening the local news outlets all led with the same story: a citizen journalist had shot video of a rat running all of donuts at one particular Dunkin' donuts location. He must have been the only person in the office that hadn't seen that report. Poor guy. I ate one of his rat donuts because I felt so sorry for him.

The Con Artists

I have never met a human being who has been motivated by a motivational speaker. They all tell the same story: meteoric rise, collapse, redemption. You can get the same message watching any rerun of the VH1 television show Behind the Music. Besides, motivational speaking is not a very impressive redemption. It's more like a lateral move into conning people. When my time is done writing these daily SteepandCheap emails, I'm going to look into starting a motivational speaking ring.

Around The World Once and Back

My favorite bar is right next to my house. It's a lucky coincidence. They have 18 beers on tap that rotate with high frequency, most of them are American craft beers, and they're all $3 for 20oz pints until 8pm every day. My goal, before the next time I move, is to drink one of every beer down the line in one day. If I can be honest with you for a moment, I'll tell you that I'm not going to make it. But that's okay, it's just an excuse to spend all afternoon hanging out in a bar with friends drinking beer under the guise of a bucket-list must. It's the same reason that a lot of my friends are fans of the English Premier League.

This Student Council Lacks Real Power

It never occurred to me in middle or high school, but our student councils did nothing. They wielded no power. It was one more thing to put on your college applications to make yourself look like a go getter. You'd think that in the history of the U.S. there would have been one student council in one city that managed to exploit an old zoning ordinance and gain control of their school district and wreck havoc, or at the very least change their school's mascot to The Ghostbusters or Power Rangers, but it's not something I've ever come across in the news of the weird section of the newspaper.

Well, You're an Adult Now

Tattoo rule number one: Do not get a band's name tattooed anywhere on your body unless you are in that band, and even then, it's still a questionable choice. What if Dr. Dre had gotten a tattoo during his disco album days? He would have a hard time getting people to take him seriously as a soft-core gangster. I'm out of the age bracket danger zone for getting a tattoo I'll regret, which is to say that I will never get a tattoo. A friend of mine has an 18-year-old daughter who's getting her first tattoo soon, and he's supportive to the extent he has to be since there's nothing he can do to stop her and trying to would do nothing but cause problems. I'm sure that raising children is full of challenges like this, but from an outsider's perspective, the worst aspect of it I see is that you're never able to enjoy telling your kids, "I told you so."