Sushi etiiquette and tips

Sushi bar etiquette is important.
-Do not take shoes off at sushi bar, even though Japanese custom is to take shoes off before entering home.
      your feet do not smell good
-Always bow or nod head and smile, even when you have no idea what the waitperson or sushi chef said.
-Never point chopsticks at the sushi chef. If you do you may find his knife pointed at you.
-When eating a bad piece of fish, never  blurt out "EWW".  just  casually spit it into  a napkin. Do not spit it out onto the floor.
- Do not eat sushi with a knife and fork.  It is OK to use chopsticks but it is traditional to use your hands to eat it.
-Please wash your hands before using your hands to eat sushi, especially if you just returned from the toilet.
-Never order your sushi  "well done"
- Never ask waitperson for bread with your meal ( like in italian restaurants)
-it is good manners to slurp hot soup
- it is bad manners to feed someone sushi from your chopsticks
- it is good to pour soy sauce or sake for  the person you are with
-it is retarded to pour it for the stranger next to you that you haven't spoken to at all yet
-never eat a piece of sushi from an order that is going to the people at a table. That is stealing.
- Buying sushi chef a beer or sake is very good to do. It will get you better service.
-Buying many alcoholic beverages for a sushi chef, can get you a finger in your tekkamaki
-Never text while eating sushi, rice makes the keys sticky
-After eating a piece of good sushi, smile bow and say OISHI to the sushi chef. ( it means it was good)
-Try not to eat sushi on  a Sunday or Monday, it's not as fresh
-Eat sushi at least once a week
-If you took your shoes off at the sushi bar, make sure you remember to put them back on before you leave

sayin hello

HELLO HELLO
So many different "hello" situations.
You go see an old friend, approaches with arms open ,looks like a hug is coming.
Yep , there's the  hug, whoa, the italian cheek kiss. I forgot about  that one.

Now ya see a younger guy you know  ,  you hadnt seen him in a few weeks, ,,, here we go, is it a handshake,  a high five,  a hug?  nope here we go the old shoulder bump hug type thing.

Now you see your cousin,  hug and a kiss,  that was easy.

Your walking down your street and  your neighbor says  hi, and  calls you buy name. You have no idea what her name is.  So  you give a big  " Hi, how you doin"

Then you got the same situation but your with a friend.  The neighbor says hi to you by name,  and your praying  you don't have to introduce your friend to your neighbor.. Hey,  how you doin , have a  great day, and you  push your friend to keep movin , fast.

Sometimes you see the maintenance  guys or the  mailman, or some neighbor you barely know.  you  look, you  say good morning . Maybe,, or you  just nod.

Sometimes your not sure if the person about to walk by you is gonna say hello. So you give the half nod, the one that  almost says hello, but you don't want to look stupid saying hello, so  you  give the half nod half smile, that can count as a hello.  You don't want to walk  by them ignoring them, so just in case they actually know you , you  give that half  nod smile.

The distance wave, and duck into your  house is  a good one, it's quick it's easy,

Usually i just do a few cartwheels , and  say hi, and make people really fell that i'm so happy to see them.

I was the counselor who got fired

It was 1967 I think, and I got a summer job as a camp counselor in a sleep away camp from the  "Y".
It was located  on Lake Stahahe .  Some nice counselors, I remember Rochelle, Ann and  JB from Grand St. who played guitar and  sang Spider and  the Fly. I was  a great  counselor, i could relate  well to  7 year olds.  I told them my turtle story ( see other my past blogs).  One kid saved his poop in a trunk the whole summer. It turns out he was afraid to go out to the latrine at night.  I knew something smelled funny in our cabin.  In general the kids were fun and  we  laughed and joked alot. Even went on salamander hunts.
      We did arts and crafts, and  I made a mosaic of an archer.  It was the first mosaic i ever made , and the last.  Another counselor and myself worked on it.  We had to  break  our own tiles with a hammer, to get  different shapes , and  we painted the tiles so we had different colors.  The mosaic came out  so good.  It was put up for auction and the camp kept the money, they claimed it was camp property.  Oh well.
   Anyway,  all counselors were directed to  play sports with the kids..  The kids watched  the counselor softball game,  and  me with real long hair  didn't appear to be an athlete.  I was  playing second base. In those days most  athletes had short hair.  I made the most incredible diving  catch   and  got a nice round of applause.  Now it was time to get the kids to play something.  So I figured, some kids are great at sports and others  aren't. The ones that aren't will be  made fun of or picked on.  So inspired by the  film "Blow Up"  and  Antonioni film, and  a fantastic film that  everyone should see,  I got an idea.  In Blow Up there is a scene of a tennis match and  there is no ball, you just hear it.  In my camp volley ball game, I decided not to have a volley ball.  The kids  lined up on both sides of the  net.  I showed them the  ball hitting technique, and  how to  jump and slam the ball. These kids were great at  my version of volleyball.  No ball, great shots, all the kids were stars.  We were having the greatest time.  That is, until the camp director, walked by and  stopped in his tracks.  The  "hippie' counselor has all these kids waving their hands  and hitting imaginary volley ball. The director  shook his head in disbelief..  He made us stop , and  then said to me,  " you are trouble, you are fired".   Gee,  the day before  "tip day", when the parents tipped the counselors. That really sucked.   So, I left, but I knew I was the coolest counselor they ever had.

no tomatoes please

I created this joke in a dream:

what do you call Pamela Anderson's cleavage??

Silicon Valley

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Hey!  stop throwing tomatoes at me

pool rooms of ENY

Back in the day,you had to be 16 years old to play pool aka pocket billiards in a pool room.  The majority of pool rooms only allowed men to enter. The exception was  Playboy Billiards located Downtown Brooklyn, and they had different colored pool tables. They say, women weren't allowed because there was only a men's toilet. In the pool room we frequented most, there were a couple of girls that did enter, no one seemed to mind. At 15 yrs old we had our fake ID's so we became regulars at Murray's pool room. Murray was located above the Biltmore Movie theater on New Lots Ave and Wyona St. There's a grocery store there now. The owner Murray aka Bilty would give us a free half hour to play if we brought the block of ice upstairs for the ice box that kept the soda cold. Murray was  the Jefferson HS  football coaches father by the way.  The pool room was always packed, with 2 billiard tables in the front.  There were a few great players there , Giff, Shotsy, Big Mel the Window Washer, Dave the Rave, and Manny.  Each had their own style, Some played amazing  position and never had to make a tough shot. Others made the most incredible shots.  I was  just an average player. The most balls i ever ran was like 14 balls.  Murrays was narrow and  if you had some shots where your cue would hit the wall , you had to use a  short cue stick They were old Atlantic tables and we kept with beads on an overhead wire.  The sound of balls cracking against each other and people yelling  "time off Bilty"  "time on Bilty"  was constant.  If we weren't playing straight pool, a 50 point game, we would play rotation.  In that game you had to hit the one ball first before you hit another ball. If the one was  sunk, then it would be the  2 ball that had to get hit first  or just sink the  2 if you had a clear shot.  The  5,8,10, and 15 balls were money balls.  You got  extra money if you sunk those. You needed  60 points to win the game and you got money for that. If you were 4 people, the players who made the  1 and  the  5 balls were on the same team. It was  a fun game.  There was  a guy who hung out there that  served 20 years in  Danamura prison for  murder, his name was Crazy Laser.  Their was  a  kinda retarded guy named  Izzy Knish who hung outside and sang and danced for  quarters.  Alot of wild people there.  Sometimes there were fights and the cue stick handle was  a  very good weapon.  Other neighborhood pool rooms were Joe's on New Lots  where mostly  New Lots Boys  hung out.  Then there was  Curly's on  Livonia and Alabama Ave.  The tables were filthy. Whenever we saw our friends with really dirty hands we knew they were at Curly's.  Curly's was  10 cents an hour cheaper than Murray's. It was  70 cents for an hour for the table.  In the back of Curly's was  a  Boxing ring and they would have amateur boxing matches that  people would bet on.  They had some long pool tables, called Snooker tables. A popular game  in Curly's was 9 ball. 9 ball had a diamond shaped rack. I don't remember the rules. Curly's was a more integrated crowd, White, Black, Asian and Hispanics.  Some friends of mine from the Puerto Rican Eltone gang and  from the  singing group johnny and the monnlights would hang out there.
  On occasion we would travel to Flatbush and play pool at  Joe Spinelli's, or we would go to Marian's on Eastern Parkway around Nostrand Ave.   That was a pretty tough neighborhood, I think it was  Bedford Stuyvesant,  right across from Crown Heights.  Pool was  the #1 past time, especially in the winter when it was too cold to play basketball.   Alot of people would steal the cue balls from the pool room because I think originally they  were made of ivory.  Now I want to shoot some pool.  "Time on Bilty"