Category: Uncategorized

My Favorite Pulitzer Prize Winners for Fiction

by doitalldadyear, posted in Uncategorized

Supposedly Fun

Like all prizes, the Pulitzers can be hit or miss. Luckily, there are some great books to be found on the winner list. Here are some of my favorites (in no particular order):

Less, by Andrew Sean Greer (2018)

This feels like a very refreshing choice because comic novels tend not to be taken seriously and because it does a deep dive into the life of a middle-aged gay man–which is something that can usually only operate on the perimeter of mainstream pop culture. Beyond that, it’s a very tender, heartfelt novel about love and life and art.

Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)

One thing I like about the Pulitzer Prize is that it gives short story collections a fair shake (in fact, a second short story collection was also a finalist for this year: Annie Proulx’s Close Range: Wyoming Stories). Lahiri’s writing is gorgeous…

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The Five Life Lessons Comedy Taught Me

by doitalldadyear, posted in Uncategorized

This is great from start to finish.

tonysbologna : Honest. Satirical. Observations

When you tell people you perform comedy, they all say the same thing:

Tell me a joke.

Well, here’s the joke. The best communicators in the world aren’t the techy CEOs with the lengthy LinkedIn posts and the best life coaches aren’t the internet gurus who ask for your email before they ask for your name.

The best are the comics who’d rather study a dick joke than study to be a doctor.

That’s the joke.

Great comedians are master communicators and teachers. Armed only with their wit, words, and performance, they concur the world one audience at a time. When the show is over, we adore them for giving us nature’s best medicine… ̶m̶o̶r̶p̶h̶i̶n̶e̶. Laughter.

After five years of standup and a lifetime of appreciating the weird and witty, I’m convinced that not only has comedy taught me how to communicate more effectively, but it also taught me how…

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The Shoe Salesman Son

by doitalldadyear, posted in Uncategorized

“I used to dress like you,” the dapper 17-year-old shoe salesman says at the Nordstrom located in The Westchester in White Plains, NY. Baby Boomer Grandpa replies, “Actually, that’s why I’m here.” I live in Scottsdale, Arizona now with my wife. I don’t mind the heat. Plus, everything is very causal in Arizona, so I never feel compelled to dress up anymore either, which includes my wife to. She didn’t even bother brushing her teeth the one time we had a whole year to get ready for our 1st Skype call with our granddaughter back east. I could literally see my wife’s Dunkin Donut’s breath fog up the screen during our chat. Me, I’m still sporting the same pair of ashy tennis slacks from 86 according to my 1st born. What’s the point in dressing up fancy anymore, unless we’re going out to dine out in Arizona for Italian and pretend the food is barely edible again, compared to our old haunt off the Grand Course in the Bronx, which served the best Veal stuffed with prosciutto in a white wine, mushroom sauce ever. Now, my wife insists she’ll let me die alone in the August Arizona sun if I don’t stop dressing like a baby boomer bum. It’s bad enough how my 1st born calls me a fake news hippie for never visiting the Grand Canyon after living in Arizona for 9 years, despite my Bob Dylan collection being more eclectic than most.”

The Nordstrom Shoe Salesman Son says, “I actually prefer Dylan’s later work on the Tempest, Soon After Midnight, Pay In Blood, Long and Wasted Years, Roll On John, forget about it, it deserved all 5 stars it got in Rolling Stone. Modern Times wasn’t chopped liver either, Working Man Blues chokes me up a little inside because it makes me think of my dear Dada every time. I never outgrew calling him Dada despite being 17 already. Baby Boomer Grandpa says, “My dad never bonded with me over Bob Dylan. He just called me an idiot for struggling with pre-calculus more than my brainer Jewish friends who attended Bronx Science.”

The Shoe Salesman Son says, “My Dada jammed all the Bob Dylan folklore down my throat ad- nauseum. Bob Dylan was a member of the Latin club in high school, he’s an amateur boxer who has a huge mural in his Malibu estate of Jerry Garcia to prove jam bands matter. The Grateful Dead did a killer version of Visions Of Johana in addition to refusing Bob Dylan’s offer to join the band. Allowing Dylan to tour with them as the opening act after recording an album called Dylan and The Dead wasn’t enough for Robert Zimmerman from Minnesota because baby boomer arrogance never dies, got it Dada.”

Baby Boomer Grandpa says, “I never got into the Grateful Dead personally, although seeing them perform with the Allman Brothers and The Band at Watkins Glen would’ve been worth the trip on bad acid for it.” Shoe Salesman Son says, “So tell me why your wife is a chronic pain in the ass again?” Refusing to dress up for her these days, makes me think, you’re trying to get back at her for hogging the blankets for the past 50 years or for playing slovenly favorites with your 2 kids, I’m assuming, you tell me. I just want to know why dressing up for your golden years, free of financial worry or any nagging subconscious desire to reconnect with your sons on a deeper, more meaningful level besides trying to convince your 1st born why Lebron is a greater player than Michael Jordan, despite King of the Persecution Complex never playing with a broken back like Larry Legend when he beat Magic’s Lakers, with mind melding behind the back passes and consistently clutch jump shots which were never looked like line drive chucks either.”

Baby Boomer Grandpa says, “It’s not as if my wife is spending hours getting lost at the local Sephora store to stock up on new makeup items either. But if I’m honest with myself, the real reason I’m not dressing up anymore these days is because I ‘m an old Jew who only got dressed up in the past for synagogue or work because I had to. Granted, wearing nice suits to work when I used to work as VP of sales for a packaging company in New Jersey, made me feel like hot shit, but that was the eighties before Steve Jobs started rocking the Grandma Jean, casual Friday look. I think the Beatles are vastly overrated to, especially compared to the Rolling Stones. Name one rocker by the Beatles, which would make your life feel complete if you got to hear the song in person in the sixties, assuming it never got loud enough for The Fab Four to hear their own voices singing.  Yeah, that’s what I thought, and Ferris Bueller singing Twist and Shout on a float in the Loop of downtown Chicago doesn’t count either.”

Shoe Salesman Son says, “My Dear Dada was always more of a John Lennon fan, Watching The Wheels and Working-Class Hero being his most liked songs by the Liverpool Lip, when he used to look after me during my younger stay at home pre-k years.”

Baby Boomer Grandpa says, “I never bonded over rock and roll with my dad. I did get my 1st born into Dylan though. He even bought us tickets to see Levon Helm, part time singer and drummer from The Band, at one of his midnight rambles in Woodstock once. Positive my son snuck off into the woods to puff a one hitter to. It’s better than doing more blow and only hearing last call from the bathroom stall like my youngest. Shoe Salesman Son says, “Have you gone to any rock concerts together with your 1st born  since?” Baby Boomer Grandpa says, “None, I took him to an Arizona Diamond Backs game in Phoenix once. He talked up a storm as usual with a long-haired lawyer next to us, who came from money, I think. I recall the lawyer going out of his way to tell me what an impressive brain my son had. And I thought my acid usage in college resulted in more synapse incineration deterioration than others. Starting that Bob Dylan record review club with my 1st born Joshua, wasn’t the worst idea he came up with either. I should call him now, don’t you think?”

Shoe Salesman Son says, “Sure, unless you want to die a distant father with an aching gash that feels like a corkscrew in your heart. Bob Dylan lives, holla, thank you very much. My Dada is no longer a stay-at-home dad but a big-time comedian now, that’s his catchphrase he uses on his Do It All Dad Year Podcast and on stage during his residency in Vegas now to. Dada told me if college doesn’t interest me, I could always stay home longer but get a job in sales job that offered commission, so I’d understand the empowering, momentous surge derived from incentivized performance-based jobs, which make you feel on top the world in charge again.”

Baby Boomer Grandpa says, “Give me 2 pairs of those Echo shoes, one in navy and one white, size 8. Those hipster kicks should tone done my wife’s bitching for a bit. Thanks for pressing me to reconnect with my 1st born on a deeper, long lasting level this time around. He’s still trying to make it as a writer. Who knows, maybe, we can write a book together called, “Bonding Through Writing Dylan Record Reviews With Dad.” What, only Bob Dylan is allowed to be a wordy Jew?”

Michael Kornbluth

Hot For Hummus

by doitalldadyear, posted in Uncategorized

Hummus is Chickpeas are great in Arabic. It’s the most popular dish in the Middle East among Egyptians, Jordanians, and Israeli offshoots of the Zohan tribe, 7 degrees separated from the golden Jew Adam Sandler. Actual unity is getting your Hummus resistor Jewish father from the Bronx to follow your 3 Koshertarian diet embracing children by joining the party to try your homemade Hummus made in his Arizona estate home for a pre-nosh nibble snack on top of toasted pita triangles with some diced up cherry tomatoes, fresh scattered parsley and vibrant looking, just grated carrots on top. I’m not betting the farm on my father to try my workshopped, perfected homemade Hummus over Thanksgiving break but as my father likes to rightfully point out, I don’t own a farm let alone a John Deer lawnmower or the personal property big enough to justify the expense because I’m still so broke, my Hebrew name is under judicial review.   Everyone can unify behind the depressingly dreary premise of a degenerate Jew like myself not being financially secure in life yet, who uses his fingers for basic arithmetic like a retarded version Dustin Hoffman at the Blackjack table at Talking Stick Casino.

Growing up in elementary school, all my Loan Officer mother ever made me was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, which didn’t help my blobby physique one bit at the time. Still, I never complained or requested anything different, urging my mother to make me Bento box lunches with Power Rangers stickers on the outside, with Cucumber and cream cheese Koshertarian rolls wrapped in seaweed and sticky rice within. Also, as a kid, I always preferred sesame bagels, for my egg and cheeses at the local Greek dinner, inhaling 2 in one sitting, after a night of drinking, with my old school high school buds, which is why my father called me the” human shovel” for a reason. So, I don’t need to be a math savant like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man to realize my love of nut based spreads like peanut butter would eventually lead to my developed steamy love for Tahani flavor in Hummus, which is where the oily, creamy, pulverized sesame seed spewing essence derives from. Hummus is basically, the more versatile, infinitely less tubby version of peanut butter, which also packs leaner blasts of less sticky mouth protein. So of course, I’m hot for hummus but only after I stared making my homemade versions to spice up my kid’s lunches, so I didn’t burn them out on peanut butter, ruining their capacity to ever savor a Reese Pieces Butter Cup, made at all the specialty chocolate chops like in Ridgefield CT again, which is an American shishy bitch rite as it gets.

If you never tried hummus, the famed sesame paste can be a turnoff, if you never sampled the primo goods before. On the surface, some store-bought hummus or homemade hummus can look like a sad plop mound of dried out earwax. That’s why you must add color and a dash of sophistication to your presentation. Pine nuts, who needs them. Chopped hardboiled eggs, gross, too overtly Israeli for my taste sorry. Pesto on top of hummus, is a blatantly unnecessary, awful idea, knowing Hummus when made right, requires no parm cheese garlic infusion to make it more swoon worthy than it already is. For me, I dress up my Hummus triangle creations with a menage a trois of radiant, lick it up color such as hot to trot, Little Red Corvette, cherry tomatoes and Arizona wild, desert bloom orange specked shredded carrots or some Polo Lounge conjuring green in the form of thick strands of Jalapeno on top to keep it extra steamy in the process.  

Just like it any relationship, you have to spice things up, incorporating needed color and variety to keep things interesting or you’ll lose sustained stiffage, which is the perpetual state of arousal necessary for any relationship to get excited for toppable tomorrows. The same rule applies to homemade loving infused creations versus the mass produced, manufactured kind, which lacks the length and depth of personalized pop compared to the real thing.  So invest in a Cuisinart to blend your Goya Chickpeas, add some store bought Tahini from your local Kosher butcher, add a garlic bulb or 2, throw in a generous heaping of sea, Himalayan, or Kosher salt, I don’t give a shit, before pouring in a steady steam of medium grade Olive oil, as the hummus magic swirls into scrumptious loving perfection before constructing your pita triangle pizzas with the steamy garnishes I mentioned prior and call it a day.  At the very least, your kids will love you more putting in the extra effort to tantalize and awaken their tastebuds to newer, fresher, yummier possibilities than ever before. Plus, your kids won’t become instantly tubby and resent your existence for it later. Last, your wife tasting like hummus won’t lure you into sucking face with her on the spot, but you’ll take whatever justified outs a 10-year marriage can give you.

Michael Kornbluth

Tofu The Terrible Slayer

by doitalldadyear, posted in Kids, Parenting, podcast, Uncategorized

Matilda, Singing Rose Kornbluth, was in no singing mood today. Every day, she’d wake up singing,” Good day sunshine” by the Beatles even if she got up at the crack of dawn again or decided to work in Norway away from her mom and dad throughout an entire darkened 5 month winter as a 9-year ski model for Northface, knowing in a post-corona universe, she was used to doing remote learning away from school anyway. But this drab Thanksgiving morning was different, because she had to act thankful for eating Tofurky Roast again, despite the spirit of Tofu The Terrible terrorizing her dreams since she described soy dogs in her school lunch cafeteria blog as “Rubber dog link nosh toys.”

But how could Matilda Singing Rose Kornbluth act grateful for eating a Tofurky Roast, since her 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Right, made it clear how the native American Indians weren’t responsible for teaching the Pilgrims how to turn soy milk into white blocks of semi-firm bricks of soy with higher levels of estrogen to feminize John Smith’s sturdy stock of sailors with. Also, Thanksgiving this year post-Corona wasn’t feeling particularly festive, knowing Matilda was suffering from PTSD from wearing all of those Corona masks to death. Matilda was now having nightmares of being terrorized by the masked man, Tofu The Terrible who ruined every favorite meal she’d dream of. For example, if Matilda had just won the Gold Medal in the Hardcore X Games for Equestrian Riders within the Under 10 Years age bracket, having to complete jumps through rings of fire with an occasional baby dragon on her tail. She’d normally celebrate with her best friend Shannon in her dream over their favorite treat Jellybeans for a sleepover party soon after. But now all that appeared in her dream were pasty, slimy soybeans in the place of jellybeans because Tofu The Terrible was punishing her for calling soy dogs on her cafeteria food blog, “Not good enough to pass for rubber dog toys.” And Matilda hated pet dogs because they ate dog food with minced horse meat inside. Matilda had always been a hardcore vegetarian loyalist, yet she greatly offended the spirt of Tofu The Terrible, a ferocious Chinese vegetarian warrior from the Ming Dynasty, who even got Genghis Khan into Mapo Tofu over Jasmine Rice, a fiery, dish loaded with super scary Sichuan spice. The smell from the grounded up Sichuan peppercorns would make most grown men cry, making their lips tremble in fear at the prospect of having to try one more bite, knowing Genghis Khan would be hoarding all the Sake rice wine for any temporary relief for themselves soon afterwards.

Matilda was convinced she’d never enjoy the food she loved in real life again such as her Dad’s fried Icelandic cod in a barbeque aioli without tasting anything but mushy, dog drool instead.  

Now, it was time for everyone at the table to give thanks for Thanksgiving, which Matilda had been dreading from the start, because she was consumed with nightmarish visions of Tofu The Terrible ruining all her favorite foods in her dreams and in real life, such as her Dad’s star side dish creation, caramelized cauliflower potato  gratin, combining cave aged Gruyere and Raclette cheese from the Swiss Alps, which  injected the dish with an extra scrumptious, creamy fresh finish.

Matilda’s Dad, a Stay At Home Comedian Author, Podcast Host and self-taught semi gourmand Chef could tell his daughter was dreading her turn to participate and says, “Matilda, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Is Tofu The Terrible ruining the taste of your Jellybeans again?” Matilda perks up, shaken out of her petrified, frozen comatose and says, “How did you know about Tofu The Terrible Daddy?” Matilda’s dad says, “I helped you launch your own lunch cafeteria blog on WordPress remember? Your last piece Tofu Brownie Blues, was about how Tofu The Terrible threated to shred everyone’s masks at school, unless the Brownie Girls started selling his special batch of Tofu Brownies at the next school bookfair instead.” Matilda says, “Do we have to eat the Tofurky Roast this year?” Dad says, “No, try this veggie Barbeque Pita instead.” Matilda takes a reluctant bite but is moved by her Dad’s gesture of goodwill. She says, “Yummy daddy. Her Dad says, “I fried up cubes of semi-firm soy inside that bad boy. The sautéed onions and peppers keep the memories of mushy dog toy food at bay. Tofu The Terrible was dead in Matilda’s head and she started singing again while giving thanks and praises at Thanksgiving, singing, “Soy Dogs still suck, Tofu The Terrible to, but you’re no longer so bad, since my daddy came to my rescue.”

The End

Michal Kornbluth