World Series 2009 Game 2

We won!

Yankees beat the Phillies 3-1 last night in da' Bronx! Now the series is tied 1-1.

Fingers crossed that the Yankees win it in five -- although the Phillies have proven to be one hell of a team and that won't be easy.

Today the Yanks roll into the City of Brotherly love and the series resumes tomorrow night.

When was the last time the World Series was played on Halloween night?

This has to be one of the longest baseball seasons in history.

World Series 2009 Game 1

Yankees lost 6-0 to Philly.

CC Sabathia had a bad night. Yankee hitting had a bad night.

Cliff Lee had a good night. Phillies hitting had a very good night.

Dammit.

Better luck next time Yankees.

General Election Endorsements

Next Tuesday we New Yorkers head to the polls for the final time this year to elect the officials who will run our city for the next four years.

It's almost pointless to care, and even more pointless to vote, since the results of this election season have been in the bag for months. Bloomberg will be re-elected to a shamefully acquired third term, John Liu and Bill De Blasio will be elected Comptroller and Public Advocate respectively, and almost all the Democratic nominees for City Council and Borough President will be either be elected or re-elected (to equally shameful third terms) -- except in Staten Island and parts of Queens where some Republicans are locks to win.

How depressing. This is the greatest city in the world and yet our elections have become dull exercises in pseudo-democracy where money and the political machines determine everything -- and not the people. All "we the people" do is re-affirm the power of money and the machine by voting for the same laughing-stocks again and again.

Dammit gimme Jimmy Walker! Now there was a cool Mayor.

But he's dead. We're not. We have to dance with them that's been brung us. So, even though it won't do a lick of a good or make any difference whatsoever, here are the first Mr NYC general election endorsements:

Mayor: Bill Thompson. This is a very reluctant endorsement since his campaign has been totally amateurish and his program for saving middle class New Yorkers is as clear as mud. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence about how good a mayor he'd be. But Bloomberg has become a monster, the Man Who's Bought New York, and he's drowning the city with his money while killing the middle class. How ridiculous has it gotten? In case you hadn't noticed, HE'S ADVERTISING ON MY BLOG EVEN THOUGH I'VE BEEN CONSISTENTLY BASHING HIM FOR THE LAST YEAR! He has spent so much money, he's even advertising on a blog that don't like him! Wuzzup wid dat? So vote for Thompson and, even though it won't feel great, when Bloomberg wins you can feel good that at least you didn't contribute to the bastardization of democracy.

Public Advocate: Bill De Blasio. I have almost no idea what the PA does, who Bill De Blasio is, and what he wants to accomplish. But Betsy Gotbaum has done nothing to hold Big Mike accountable over the last 8 years. Think a Republican in this job will? Hardly. So vote for Bill.

Comptroller: This is the only race that I'm even semi-excited about. John Liu has to be the hardest working man in NYC. He's been a great City Councilman, got cars out of Central Park during the summer, and has shown an aggressiveness to take on Bloomberg that we need in a good Comptroller. So vote for him -- and you actually will feel good about electing the first Asian to city-wide office.

I'm not getting into the Borough President or City Councilperson races, just sticking with the city-wide offices. However, if you live in Queens, please don't vote for BP Helen Marshall -- she's gunning for a third term and you know how I feel about that. And in Brooklyn, I'd even vote for a Republican over BP Marty Markowitz who is a blithering, annoying fool. He's also trying for a third term and seriously thinks he might be Mayor in 2013. PLEASE DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN. DO NOT VOTE FOR THIS MORON. PLEASE!!!!! In Manhattan, I guess voting for Scott Stringer makes sense -- don't know who's running against him. And in Staten Island, the BP is a guy named James Molinaro. I think he's a Republican or a Conservative or both but, whatever, does it really matter who the BP of Staten Island is?

Gotta Love New Yorkers

Standing on the subway platform, waiting for the train home. Man and woman walk by, wearing African garb.

Woman says to man, "Blacks are God's chosen people. All blacks."

Man grunts his approval.

I guess there was nothing more to say.

SOUPY SALES: Green Pieces of Paper

Last week a New York legend, comedian Soupy Sales, died at age 83. One of the last of the great comedians in the mold of Jack Benny and the precursor to younger comics like Jerry Seinfeld, Soupy was a one of the pioneers of observational humor, someone who could take any situation and make it hilarious.

Soupy gained the most fame for a children's show he hosted here in NYC during the 1960s. On that show, he performed a song called "The Mouse" that was a riff on songs like "The Twist" and silliness like that which was popular at the time.

Later on, Soupy Sales hosted a radio show here on the old WNBC 660 AM. He did the afternoon shift, right after Don Imus and right before Howard Stern. Can you imagine that?

In this bit from a few years ago, Soupy tells the infamous story of something he did on the air on New Year's Night 1965. This has gone down as one of the greatest moments in TV history.

RIP Soupy. You'll be missed.

This WOULD be a scandal ...

... if the Mayor of New York City was a Democrat or someone not named Mike Bloomberg.

Newark Mayor Backed Bloomberg, Then Got Funds

But when it comes to scandals, the press always give Big Mike a pass.

HERE!

Sorry for the lack of blogging these last few days, I was stalled by a lousy Internet connection and a even lousier service provider who took forever in fixing it. However, now all is well and I'm back. I know you all missed me so much. How ever did you survive?

Most annoying is that during my forced absence, the Yankees finally made it into the World Series and I was unable to comment about it at the time. Well, the first of the big games is tomorrow and we'll
be following it intently. Stay tuned.

Mike: Then and Now

When Michael Bloomberg became the 108th Mayor of the City of New York on January 1st, 2002, a lot of people wondered "Why?"

Why did this very private billionaire -- a man who had a built a global financial/media empire, a man with the ultimate jet-set lifestyle who had homes all over the world, who dated beautiful women and was the consummate social animal, who could retire and live like Louis the 14th -- want such a tough, thankless, unglamorous job?

Why would he want to deal with the NYC public school system, formulate trash policies, haggle over the budget, battle the unions, attend funerals of police officers and firefighters, and get his balls broke daily in the press -- all for the salary of one dollar a year?

Was this just a huge act of noblesse oblige? Was he just so generous that he wanted to donate his superior skills (if not his money) to the people of the city that made him rich? Was he just so bored that he thought he'd try this mayor thing out for a while as a lark?

Why?

In April of 2002, 100 days into his first term, New York magazine speculated on this very question. Michael Tomasky wrote, "Just why did he want to do this? Is he happy -- really, deep down -- to have the job?"

Tomasky speculated that maybe Bloomberg was regretting his recent career move, found the job a bore, couldn't run out the clock fast enough to January 1st, 2006 when he could be free and retreat back into his lush life.

This week New York magazine answered it's own question from 2002, coming to the conclusion that Bloomberg wants to "own" New York. But it's more than that.

Mike became mayor because he was bored. He wants to remain mayor because he's in love.

With power. With fame. With public adoration. With the idea that he will single-handily shape NYC for generations to come.

This job has become an obsession to this man. It's not really a job anymore. It's like a woman he's become infatuated with and cannot stand to let go. He believes that he and only he can and should govern NYC. Only he knows how to lead us to the bright dawn of morning.

New York City is at a crossroads. We're in uncharted territory. We've never had a mayor like Bloomberg before. Never in our history has the richest man in town also been the most powerful. We're almost like a 16th Century German principality or some southern state in the 1930s.

And now, after the voters twice approved term limits, Bloomberg muscled through an extension to snag a third term. His greatness needs to spread to over a decade. According to some, Bloomberg is the best mayor we've ever had and deserves a third term.

But third terms have generally been disastrous for mayors. La Guardia's bad third term beget the criminal O'Dwyer and a mobbed up city government, Wagner's the incompetent Lindsay, and the fiscal crises, Koch's the ineffective Dinkins and a booming crime rate.

And if Bloomberg gets a third term, well, who knows who will follow him ... and what our city will be in for.

Sleaze in the '70s in NYC

The popular imagination has it that NYC in the 1970s was a sleazy place full of hookers and porno theaters and creepy guys in leisure suits and women in Twiggy-like dresses, all with bad hair, dancing to bad music, playing around with oils and lotions, and having lots of gross, pre-AIDS sex on circular water beds.

People today believe, back then, that our fair town was a den of hedonism and perversity. Woody Allen even speculated that most Americans thought New Yorkers were "pornographers."

They were right.

Before the Internet, those peddling "erotic services" in NYC had only two real places to advertise: at the back of free newspapers like the Village Voice or on late-night cable TV. That's right, there were actually TV ads created for massage parlors, hookers, and porno theaters.

This compilation of ads is almost like a parody of what people today think the sexual life of NYC was like back in the 1970s. It has to be seen (and heard) to be believed.

The Most Recession Resistant 'Hood in NYC ...

... is Astoria! My very own neck o' da woods! At least according to Crain's New York Business it is. And I'm sure they know what they're talking about.

The proof? Lowest growth in unemployment (in this recession, that's something), fewest foreclosures (only 6 compared with over 1200 in Jamaica, Queens and almost 800 in Williamsburg), small businesses are opening and staying open (not closing), and reasonable rents have meant that people are moving in in, not out.

As someone who moved here just a few years ago, I can tell you that Astoria is one of the best neighborhoods in the whole city. It's a thriving, diverse, super-convenient place that is the quintessential New York neighborhood. Everything that's great about this town can be find right there.

And if there were a whole lot more Astorias in this town and in cities across the country, we'd be a lot better off.