The former presidents of Brazil and France have gone to jail for treason and corruption too.
But not here. Not in the USA. Not in a country where we say that all men are created equal. Nope. If you're a Donald Trump or one of his associates, you float above the law -- and the media and half of the public are okay with it.
You can engage in blatent corruption and violence and get away with it.
This is a shameful, dark chapter in American history that we're living through. One day I hope it might end.
I love history. Even though this is a blog about NYC, I'm obsessed with late 19th and early 20th century European history, the decades where the various rulers of the great empires in Europe made terrible decisions that led to war and revolution -- and shaped the world we live in today.
And in so many ways the lessons that can be learned from that time and place apply to our country and NYC today.
"It was hard to be Tsar." So begins the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore's book about the Romanov dynasty that ruled Russia for 300 years. Ruling an empire, a country, a region or a city is hard work. Well, it's hard if you take the job seriously, if you strive to do it well, if you try not to make mistakes, and if you truly care about the welfare and progress of your people and your land.
But if you don't take it seriously, or handle it badly, catastrophe ensues.
In the years leading up to World War I, three of Europe's biggest empires were ruled by people who were unfit to rule. In short, they were really bad at their jobs. They were incompetent, arrogant, delusional, prone to magical thinking, made huge mistakes, and it all ended in horror.
In Germany there was Kaiser Wilhelm II. An erratic, arrogant, narcissistic man-child, he engaged in building up a navy that Germany didn't need, just to piss of England (and his English relatives), tried to play different countries against each other, fired the best Chancellor that Germany ever had (Bismark), and finally plunged Germany into war in 1914 that forced it to fight on two fronts. Eventually Germany lost the war and Wilhelm fled the country -- leaving his country in ruin, eventually leading to the rise of the Nazis.
In Austria-Hungary, you had Emperor Franz Joseph, an amiable but unimaginable ruler who refused to give the 11 nationalities of his empire any real political sovereignty or respect. He was also vulnerable to demands of his army chiefs who yearned for war, any war, and eventually capitulated to their demands to attack Serbia -- that triggered World War I. Franz Joseph died in 1916, was succeeded by his very young nephew, and eventually Austria-Hungary lost the war, the empire broke up, and Franz Joseph's dynasty, the Habsburgs, lost power after 600 years.
And finally, in Russia, you had Tsar Nicholas II, the most staggeringly dumb man ever to rule a vast empire, who believed he'd be a great ruler because God wanted him to, who refused to make reforms until violence ensued, started wars (like the one with Japan) that Russia list in 1905, oversaw the massacre of Bloody Sunday, and finally plunged Russia into war in 1914 with an army that was totally unprepared to fight. This led to the fall of the Romanovs and the rise of Communism.
Disastrous rulers all -- and some of the people who worked for them were even more insane (like advisors who wanted wars or encouraged repression or ... Rasputin). It was rule by the unserious, rule by the mendacious, and it had very serious and cruel conseqences.
We see this in America today.
Today we are being ruled by reckless and unserious people who are dismantling our government, draining our country's power, condoning criminality and violence and repression, and destroying our nation's reputation. It's a horror show (unless you hate America, in which case it's a triumph).
Closer to home we have Mayor Eric Adams, perhaps the worst and most unpopular mayor this city has ever had, a criminal and a narcissist, a disaster. And he sure doesn't take his job seriously -- Adams has even said that his job, being mayor of the country's biggest city, isn't hard! It's like when Donald Trump told Bob Woodward that he didn't think that the COVID crises was a leadership challenge!
Well, if you don't really care about your job or your city or your country or your people or the challenges facing them ... then leadership is easy. Then it's easy to be the Tsar, or the president, or the mayor, or the whatever. Like school. If you don't care about doing your homework or taking tests or getting good grades, then school is a cinch! But if you do care, well, it's a little harder.
If someone tells you that something that is intrinsically hard is in fact easy, then that is not a serious person -- and that person should never be in a position of power or responsibility.
Last year I did a blog post about the kingdoms of NYC and I included links to a British mini-series from 1974 called Fall of Eagles. In 13 brilliant episodes it dramatizes the 70 years leading up to World War I and the fall of the German, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian empires in 1918. I can't praise this show enough -- it's massively entertaining and also shows how the warped personalities and priorities of these rulers and their minions created hell.
I strongly recommend you watch it and you can find all the episodes for free on YouTube here. The best episodes, in my opinion are: Episode 4 about the 1889 Mayerling tragedy; Episode 5 about the Nicholas II and Lenin (played by a very young Patrick Stewart); Episode 9 about the annexation of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary; and Episode 10 about the start of World War I.
These episodes most of all demonstrate the failures of people unfit to lead or who operate through delusion and lies. And it makes you look at the people leading America and NYC today and realize that what happened in the past sadly is happening again today here at home.
I thought Americans voted for lower grocery prices and the cost of living but really it was to free Greenland from 700 years of Danish oppression and turn Canada into the 51st state. And invading Panama.
And if you didn't realize that's what the election was all about, then it proves that you're just a part of the Globalist Transgender DEI Deep State Fake News Media!
Let Seth Meyers put this into perspective for you:
Greetings! I haven't been blogging for the last couple of weeks because I've been super busy and also traveling internationally -- more to come on that later.
And yes, the results of the election this month also deflated my desire to blog. But if you want to know more about how I feel about this country's descent into fascism, please read this column by Elie Mystal that perfectly sums up my views on it.
I'll just add: we are living in the upside down, through the looking-glass, in bizarro-world, a banana republic. The abnormal is normal, the unacceptable is accepted, the gross has been made palatable, sickness is considered healthy.
It's "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown" time -- the darkness is bigger and badder than we thought, and beyond our ability to defeat it. We simply have to find someway to survive in it, lighting a candle -- or many -- in order to see our way thru it.
Listen to this brilliant British guy -- and his funny impressions of an American accent -- talk about the 2024 election:
He confesses that there's a lot about the United States that he doesn't understand and wishes that some Americans would enlighten him about how half the country could support a felon/rapist/traitor.
Great cities don't just have beautiful buildings, fun neighborhoods, vibrant economies, wonderful culture, and diverse populations -- they also produce fascinating people.
New York City has produced so many such people over the centuries that it's impossible to fathom -- just look at this list and it'll blow your mind.
Recently I blogged about Marco Polo, the great Venetian explorer and chronicler. Venice is, obviously, one of the world's greatest cities -- a beautiful city of islands and business, just like NYC -- and not only did it produce history's most famous traveller, it also produced history's most famous lover -- Casanova.
And here's what's crazy to realize -- while Marco Polo lived in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, Casanova lived in the 18th century. That means there was a nearly five-hundred year difference between the lives of these two historic Venetians! And both men are my heroes because they did what any man would love to do -- travel the world, far and wide, and make love to numerous women.
What more could a man want in life?
So it made me happy to learn recently about another fascinating Venetian who lived between these two men -- and was a woman.
Veronica Franco was a 16th century poet and courtesan. She came from a modest, middle-class family in Venice, and into a world where the only thing expected of her was to get married. She did marry -- briefly -- and had several children, but she pursued a career as a high-class, intellectual courtesan in order to have her own money and control her own life. And while she was very beautiful, she was also so smart, so witty, and so intellectually vibrant that men not only paid for her sexual favors but also her company, her conversation, and her humor.
She also published books of poetry, including one called Familiar Letters to Various People, which was dedicated to the Franch King Henry III (with whom she shared a night of passion and who subsequently gave Venice ships to protect the city from invasion).
Franco was popular but also hated by puritan factions and was eventually put on trial for witchcraft -- but acquitted. She was a fascinating, self-made woman, a real feminist trailblazer.
The legend of Veronica Franco has persisted to the point where, in 1998, a movie about her life was made called Dangerous Beauty. She wasn't royalty, she wasn't rich, she didn't travel far and wide, but she was a one-of-a-kind original, a fearless advocate for herself and all women, as well as fierce patriot of her city, and that's why she's remembered so many centuries after her death.
P.S. If I had any playwrighting talent, I'd write one about Marco Polo, Veronica Franco, and Casanova meeting in heaven, discussing their amazing lives and life in Venice during their respective centuries. I'd call it the Venice Trio -- any playwright is free to take my bright idea and run with it (I just expect an invite to the premiere).
One of my heroes is the great 13th century traveller and chronicler Marco Polo.
A native of Venice, a man of his city, he ventured far away from his hometown, with his father and uncle in 1271, into the vast rich world of Asia. He travelled to China, served in the court of the great Kublai Khan, worked as a representative for him in modern day India and Vietnam and other places, accumulated wealth and myriad experiences, and then returned to Venice in 1295.
Marco subsequently dictated his story to a writer named Rustichello and soon after published history's first bestseller, The Travels of Marco Polo. This book changed history -- Europeans learned about the mindblowing civilizations of the East, their huge cities, their sophistications in money and printing, and so much more. Eventually it inspired other Europeans to travel far and wide -- including Christopher Columbus 200 years later.
Yours truly, Mr NYC, has actually read this book, probably one of the few people alive who has.
But first and last, Marco was a Venetian, and for hundreds of years before and after Marco Polo's life, it was the NYC of its time -- an exciting city of islands where "things happened" and fortunes were made -- Venice was the original Crossroads of the World. This BBC article makes the case plainly:
"Venice at the time was the New York of the world," explained historian Pieralvise Zorzi, whose family traces its roots back to Polo's time and beyond. It was an openminded and multicultural metropolis, a vibrant centre for trade between the East and the West, where the only true religion was business – and the Polo family excelled at it.
Marco Polo died in January, 1324, approximately 700 years ago. But his legend and his city persists. Today there are celebrations in Venice commerating one of their favorite sons. But the Venice of his time no longer exists. As this other article states:
As with all great centers of wealth like London and New York today, Venice glowed even as it slid into political and economic senescence; its residual riches continued to finance art, architecture, music and, though evanescent, a sense of authority and grandeur. Still, at the very end, Venice was becoming little more than a souvenir … the ghosts of the city persist — in Shakespeare’s Othello and The Merchant of Venice, in Thomas Mann’s novella [Death in Venice], J.M.W. Turner’s paintings, in the canals and piazzas clogged with tourists, each looking for a personal Venice.
And so it is today in NYC -- we are a great city of wealth and excitement, people travel here far and wide to find their NYCs, but we risk sliding into being a souvenoir if we don't keep this a city where people can afford to live and work.
This city must preserve what's great about it -- and not become its own legend.
Marco Polo remains one of my heroes because he experienced a great life, loved his city, and shared it with the world. That is what this blog, in many ways, is all about.
If you were a teenager in the early 1990s like moi, you remember the 1992 "classic" movie Encino Man. It was one of those very stupid movies about stupid people doing stupid things that were popular at the time, and all of them seemed to end with lots of people dancing en masse.
Anyway, thirty-one years later, two of its stars have just won Oscars, so it's a good time to remember one of its other big stars, the brilliant comedian Pauly Shore.
Obviously, I'm joking; Pauly Shore's "comedy" was less than brilliant -- then or now -- but, in the early 1990s, Shore had a movie career and his brand of creepy weirdo humor had a moment -- although today it would get you "cancelled" much like Shore's movie career has been since roughly 1996.
And what would REALLY get you cancelled today is this interview Pauly Shore gave with a now-defunct movie magazine in 1994, at the height of his brief stardom. I found it courtesy of previous Mr NYC interviewee Lebeau's Le Blog -- and some of the stuff Shore says in this interview makes you wonder why every women alive isn't a radical militant feminist who wants to kill all men. After reading this interview I wanted to become such a person!
Here are some of Mr Shore's lovely gems about the fairer gender in this interview:
“Girls, basically, run this town because they have the pussy. Especially the hot chicks."
“Now, at a club or something, you’re just gonna meet girls that you fuck … You give them your number, they come over late, they blow you. You fuck them. Whatever. Girls are not gonna be attracted to me necessarily by my looks, but because I’m smart, nice, and sensitive to them. Ninety-nine percent of guys are assholes who treat women very mean.”
“Every girl that I have gone out with has come from a very similar background: all from shitty homes, who don’t know what they want out of life. I keep ’em up, take care of ’em. Kind of a father figure, but these girls are so fucked up. And then, I’m stuck with this baggage on my shoulders.”
“See, guys just like to fuck and get sucked off by hot chicks.”
I told my wife about this and she, quite rightly, said that it was a shtick that was popular at the time (she's the same age as me) but that obviously doesn't hold up today. But for some reason, seeing two of Pauly Shore's co-stars triumph on Oscar night, I couldn't help wondering about their other former co-star who will probably never win an Oscar and what they'd think about his "comedy."
Thirty-years ago this month a little arthouse movie opened that portended a cultural revolution: Reservoir Dogs, the debut of director Quentin Tarantino, was a smart, violent, funny, thoughtful look at a bunch of professional criminals carrying out a jewelry heist that goes very wrong. It was a 1990s movie inspired by a 1970s grindhouse aesthetic, and a rare film where the storytelling and dialogue were as compelling as the action.
There are many memorable moments in Reservoir Dogs: the opening where "the dogs" sit around and talk casually about Madonna and tipping waitresses before going to commit a violent crime; the gruesome, infamous ear-slicing scene; the "commode story" sequence where one of the characters tells a tall tale, and an enormous amount of tension is built up, about something that actually never happened; the debate about how "black bitches", unlike "white bitches", don't tolerate abusive men, along with a reminiscences of 1970s show Get Christy Love (catchphrase: "You're under arrest, sugah'!"); the assignment of the characters names like Mr White, Mr Blue, Mr Orange, and Mr Pink ("'Cause you're a faggot alright!"). And, of course, the brutal ending.
For me, however, the best part is "K-Billy Super Sounds of the '70s", a radio show that plays throughout the movie and introduces the various songs we hear. K-Billy is voiced by a super-deadpanning Steven Wright, a flat monotone that contrasts with the hyper-violence and over-the-top behavior we see throughout the movie.
When this movie came out, I was in high school, and had fallen in love with the idea of being a "personality DJ", a voice that haunted the city and that gave resonance to the music being played. This was the time of Allison Steele and Scott Muni, and when Howard Stern was at his most outrageous self. This was before corporate-consolidation and voice-tracking and podcasts drained the life out of music radio -- the voice made the music, the music became something deeper, and it did so brilliantly in Reservoir Dogs.
There's a lot of buzz these days in the media (social and otherwise) about "cancel culture." I honestly don't know what it is and how it's precisely defined -- if it means people getting fired, blacklisted, smeared, or otherwise publicly shamed and made unemployable and friendless, possibly homeless and destitute, then it's nothing new. You can go back to the days of the Salem Witch Trials, or more recently McCarthyism, to see "cancel culture" and its variants in action.
What's past is present, and so on. I've even blogged about this before.
Lately, many people who have made names for themselves in the arts, politics, business or other high profile fields, are getting pilloried for failings in their personal lives. They're losing jobs, getting sued, even arrested, or just having their names turned into proverbial mud on the interwebs, their private shortcomings made public to all, for everyone's consumption, their reputations and lives shattered. This kind of gossip mongering used to be the province of tabloids -- in fact, that's why tabloids came into existence -- and this kind of highly private trash used to be considered tasteless to investigate and propagate to the public. Privacy used to be valued, respected, and even sometimes practiced.
No longer. Now private lives, everyone's life, is fair game. No one is safe.
You can delve into the private life of anyone -- famous or not, successful or not, whoever -- and find less than flattering, maybe even criminal, parts of their pasts. You can blare this into the public realm and create a vortex of hate for the person -- if that's your goal.
But why would you want it to be? What does it ultimately gain you or anyone else to invade and tear apart someone's private life? To paraphrase the great show Yes, Prime Minister, when you interfere in private squabbles you're on a very slippery slope.
And when you whip up hatred for somethings or someone, it can spill out of control -- as recent events have shown.
It's easy to destroy, it's easy ruin something or someone. All it takes is the will to do it. Otherwise, it's easier done than said. However ... creating, building, healing, producing something, anything, making things better, is hard -- it takes all your intelligence, skills, emotions, energy, and will to do it. It took years to build the World Trade Centers and only a couple of hours to knock them down.
That's what Cancel Culture is. Terrorism and ruin, the negation of life and those who choose to improve it.
And I'm worried that the practitioners of "cancel culture" are scaring away people who want to create, who want to build, who want to heal, who want to make the world a better place from doing so, that these people will instead retreat and stop. Why commit yourself to a career, to all this hard work, if some jealous or wounded person from your past is going to emerge from the ooze of time and wreck it?
That's not a world I think any of us want to live in.
But I try to take heart -- and so should you. Those who create and build and heal will always win over the nihilists. You can ruin people's reputation, try to negate their work, smear and suppress, but ultimately great work lives on, long after the creators and critics are dead, the former remembered, the latter forgotten as they deserve to be.
I think about my own family and how those in my family who built and created wonderful things and healed others are still remembered and loved, even years and years after their death.
Teddy Roosevelt said it best well over a hundred years ago:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Let's be in the arena together and not remove anyone from it. We'll all be removed from it eventually so let's leave as much great stuff behind in it as we can -- and not "cancel it."
The 21st century version of the Dark Ages. The last 20 years has been a non-stop series of body blows -- botched elections, terrorism, endless wars, economic collapse, massive natural disasters, the rise of fascism, and a pandemic (if I'm leaving anything out, please let me know).
And it seems that half of the United States is just fine with it!
When will it end? Well ...
... some history: the original Dark Ages lasted roughly 1,000 years, from around 500 A.D. (the collapse of the Roman Empire) until around 1500 A.D. (the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the discovery of the New World, the invention of the printing press, etc.).
Oh well, it was a great 500 years between 1500 A.D. to 2000 A.D. Had to end sometime. Now that we're in the second Dark Ages, we have about 980 years of this crap.
As the world drifts through this weird, new normal of COVID-19, we know that life "after this" (whenever that is) will be different -- some way, some how, at least for a while.
So we embrace the familiar. We embrace the things and people that we recognize, that give us comfort, that possess some kind of predictability and order in a world thrown into unpredictable chaos.
Like the virus, it's chaos we cannot see -- at least not on the streets of NYC. It exists behind closed doors and in the minds and souls of our citizens. The world's greatest place has turned into a ghost town, an empty shell, its scared residents hunkered down. Yet the city persists, its iron will stronger than anything holding up any of the city's eddifices. That strength can be seen -- literally -- in the hospitals treating those inflicted by this horror, and this profile of the city's first responders is both a scary and enouraging testimate to that strength. And while doctors, nurses, paramedics, and all "essential workers" are keeping our city going, we can also appreciate the people who bring us another kind of comfort -- laughter. Who's more New York, and more of a comedian, than Jerry Seinfeld? This lengthy interview with him about how the original funny guys who's "about nothing" is dealing, like all of us, with something very real and very serious -- call it "Jerry in Real Life." Oh, and he has a new Netflix special coming up -- something that we could all use right about now. But not only do our essential workers and entertainers give us comfort. Sometimes, at least for me at least, it's comforting to remember what made this afflicted city so fascinating in the first place. That's why I LOVED reading this wild story about the gorgeous building on Madison and 72nd Street built over 100 years ago to resemble a French Chateau and that the eccentric heiress who built it never actually lived in! It's this kind of history, this kind of New York Story, that makes me think about the longevity of this town -- and how the story of NYC is by no means finished yet.
After last night's historic impeachment vote of Donald Trump -- his greatest presidential achievement and the only thing he's ever really earned on his own -- many pundits are wondering about the political ramifications of it. Specifically, there seems to be a consensus, based on absolutely no evidence, that this will "backfire" on the Democrats and that Republicans will benefit in their efforts to keep him in office.
Yeah, sure, okay.
Obviously it's impossible to predict how impeachment will play politically leading up to next year's presidential election but, so far, the evidence is not side of this idiotic consensus. Last month there was elections for Governor in Kentucky and Louisiana, deeply Republican states, and the Democrats won. In Virginia, the Democrats won control of the statehouse for first time in thirty years. Democrats also swept local elections in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Missouri, all states Trump won in 2916, many of them for offices that Republicans had held for years and years. So, thus far, the evidence is that not only is Trump 100% guilty of impeachable offenses but also that he is hurting his Republican party badly at the ballot box.
But pundits don't let reality get in the way of a good "narrative", of a popular meme.
Here in New York, there are a few closely-watched congressional races that the pundits think might be affected by impeachment. What's so interesting about observations like this one, is the utter moral bankruptcy. There's no belief that doing the right thing, the noble thing, the courageous thing is good -- it's all about political positioning, etc.
And this is the greater evil that faces our country right now -- not just a bad, corrupt man in the Oval Office but a media and political class that has no decency, no sense of right and wrong, no sense of the great American experiment's Constitutional moral imperatives, just "Who's gonna win?" This corruption in the American power structure goes beyond this president or the next election and it won't end with the impeachment trial or the next election.
It will only end until we the people make the media and the political class pay with their jobs, their money, and their power. We have the power. Let's use it!
So a dancing proudly gay TV talk-show host named Ellen DeGeneres sat next to a former conservative Republican President named George W. Bush at a football game -- where they talked and yukked it up together, and declared that they are friends.
Isn't that great?
People on "both sides" can find "common ground" and "come together" and "be friends" and "respect each other" even if they don't always agree or share the same "beliefs."
But what if those beliefs kill people? What if those beliefs terrorize the weak, the poor, the marginalized -- denying them their humanity, robbing them of their dignity, making them suffer even more?
As Governor of Texas George W. Bush sent people to be executed.
As President, he lied about and started an endless and illegal war killing thousands, botched the response to Hurricane Katrina, scaled back environmental regulations, made it harder for women to exercise their reproductive freedom, exploded the deficit while grossly favoring the rich, worked hard to deny gay people their civil rights, and ran for a second term smearing the service of a war hero.
George W. Bush is a bad man -- and his actions as president were terrible. There's a reason he left office hated, there's a reason you don't see Republican candidates campaigning with him, there's a reason his failures and destruction as president left a leadership vacuum in his party to be taken over by a con-man like Trump. Just because he's been out of office for 10+ years, staying quiet and painting, and another Republican president is currently terrorizing the country doesn't lessen the horror show that were the Bush years.
So, sorry Ellen, your friendship with this man is sleazy and your plea that we should just "be kind" to each other is offensive to everyone he hurt.
This situation, sadly, is example of something bigger than politics -- it's about wealth, power, fame, and privilege. It's about a greater corruption, about how people, once they crack a certain glass wall, become immune to the vagaries of mean spirited policies, are protected from consequences.
Let's face it: these new highly restrictive abortion laws in Alabama, Missouri, and elsewhere are really based on one thing: hatred.
Hatred of women but also hatred of poor women and poor women of color. It's two-headed monsters of classcism and racism intertwined.
This isn't about "protecting life" or "protecting the unborn" -- it's intentional cruelty and punishing women and their families. Forcing women to have children they don't want, then limiting all the social welfare programs these women need to help raise these kids, is a form of social control. How can you progress in your education, your career, your finances, your life, if you are burdened with responsibilities you don't want and can't handle? These laws are about shattering lives and families that are already troubled and broken, making it infinitely harder to advance their socioeconomic well-being.
Wealthy women, especially wealthy white ladies, will still get their abortions, they don't have to worry. They won't be burdened by these laws -- and they know it. That's why so many white female politicians support these evil laws -- they know it won't apply to them, white privilege at its most vile.
So my message to the people in these states who support these awful laws: when you get angry and resentful that the rest of the country look on you as a bunch of uneducated, bigoted, slack jawed, repulsive racists and haters -- guess why? It's because of stuff like this!
Here in NYC, we have strong abortion protections and good social services so that's just one reason, amongst so many others, that we should be grateful we live here.
The following are my incredibly deep & brilliant thoughts on this whole college admissions scandal which is ballooning from a news story into a dialogue on socioeconomic inequities:
Basically, trying to get a kid into college is like trying to get laid, you have one of two options: 1) do it honestly by being, as they said on Seinfeld, "sponge worthy" i.e. woo the person, work hard to prove your physical and emotional attractiveness by fitting your l'object d'amour's idea of a good partner and hope you efforts are rewarded; or 2) demonstrate your power, your status, your strength, your awesomeness by buying him or her expensive gifts, taking them to fancy restaurants, sending bouquets and candy to their homes or places of business, introducing them to your big shot friends and co-workers, you know, showing what a "Mr Big" (or, to be PC, "Mrs Big") you are, and, again, hoping your efforts are rewarded.
The analogy to college admissions: 1) your kid gets in on their merit i.e. test scores, grades, recommendations, extracurriculars, essays, the whole merit-worthy package but the competition is fierce and admission is not guaranteed; or 2) you donate massive sums of money to the school over the course of years, making the school's decision to admit your kid a smart, logical, and relatively easy business decision.
What you don't do, in either case, is engage in a quid-pro-quo, a blatant "this-for-that" transaction. You don't directly buy your admission into either a college or another person's body. Society has deemed that illegal -- "getting in" via merit is legal and "getting in" via status is too, but putting an exact amount on it, turning it into just another things to buy, is not.
Perhaps this shouldn't be illegal or perhaps we should try to have 100% merit based "admissions" and status-driven "admissions" should be outlawed too -- but human beings are flawed and therefore our systems are too.
Okay, so here's the deal -- I really, really, really, really, really, really want you to follow @MrNYCBlog on Twitter.
I post links to all the blog posts on there as well as constantly re-Tweet interesting, funny, informative, and sometimes just downright strange stuff about NYC.
It's a real-time, non-stop New York City's junkie's delight! Make it part of your regular Twitter diet and you'll feel nourished.
So please follow Mr NYC on Twitter and help fill that bottomless pit of need within me.
Sometimes it feels like we're living in a highly bi-polar country.
On one side, things have never felt more scary and dire: a reality-show tabloid freak show from my childhood is now the President and his ruling party is openly fascistic, their government engaging in outright racism and cruelty, things I never imagined I'd ever see, especially in the 21st century. As a result of this, we're seeing literal BOMBS sent to their political rivals. It's spine-chilling, frightening stuff (not to mention that a hero from my childhood, Bill Cosby, is now a jailed convicted rapist).
And then on the other side ... things have neve been better! The activism we're seeing in response to all this evil stuff is truly inspiring to watch and, at least entertainment wise, things have never been better. Is it sad that I'm super excited that The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is coming back for a second season? It stuff like this -- political and social activism, an extremely rich culture -- that make me feel like, in some ways, we're living in the best of times.
F. Scott Fitzgerald talked about how a genius is someone who can hold two opposing thoughts in his or her head at the same time. Things in this country have never been worse -- or better. So both are true -- and let's hope that the bad stuff (i.e. the GOP in power) goes away soon).
