As some of you may know, this Sunday marks the return of easily the best show on television -- AMC's "Mad Men." This is a show of such superlative quality, such amazing writing and acting, such beauty and depth, that it almost feels like you're stealing something great by getting to watch it for free (okay, you have to pay for cable -- basic cable -- but it's not like it's on premium).The show is set in a 1960s ad agency in New York City called Sterling Cooper, a place where the men run the office, the women live to serve them (in oh-so-many ways), people drink throughout the day in their offices, the sexism and racism are rampant, and the most important thing is how you appear, not how you treat others. The focus of the show is the ad whiz Don Draper who's only life is as artificial as anything he and his fellow mad men create. The greatness of this show is that for as much as we see and learn about each character, they are forever shrouded in mystery -- we know there's so much more to learn about them and desperately want to find out. And the central mystery of this show is who is Don Draper? What is he all about?And who, in the end, are any of us?"Mad Men" is also a great NYC, set in the city we all know and love but that is, in many ways, very different from today. Since this is "Mad Men" season four premiere week, the New York Times is running a week-long Mad Men City blog about what NYC was like in November, 1964 (when this new season begins). What was in the news? What movies were playing? What could you buy in the stores? What were the hot restaurants and clubs? What was going on in NYC back then? And yes, what was advertising like back in 1964?
If we were to time travel back to NYC at that time, I'm sure lots of it would be recognizable but other parts of it would make our fair city seem like an alien world. My mother was a young woman back then and she's told me stories of what NYC was like back in the early sixties -- and how true to life the sexism depicted in the show really is.
So there's a controversy raging in NYC over a proposed "interfaith cultural center" to be built near Ground Zero. This center will also include a mosque. Since it's just a few blocks from the site of the worst act of Islamic terrorism in US history, this has gotten some people a lil' upset.
Understandably.
I haven't commented on this broohahhah before (and don't plan to again) because it's one of those divisive subjects I pefer to avoid on this blog. But as a New Yorker who cares about what goes on in his city, I'll just add my two (or four) cents. First cent: the opponents of this center are calling it a mosque. This is inaccurate. It's actually, as I mentioned before, an "interfaith center" that includes a mosque. So the people screaming about this are distorting what the project really is. And it's not helpful to their cause to lie about it. When one side of a debate is fundamentally dishonest, then it simply torpedoes its credibility. Second cent: I can understand that some people think it would be innapporiate to put a building including a mosque there. Some people think this might be "insensitive" and, as a good liberal, I'm all about being sensitive. But isn't it interesting how these people (i.e. white people) are all of a sudden concerned with "sensitivity"? These same people aren't sensitive to blacks, Jews, gays, Hispanics, foreigners, or the poor but, when it comes to them, suddenly "sensitivity" is so important. Being PC is okay, I guess, in some cases. So I think this sensitivity argument is a bunch of hypocritical crap. Third cent: a lot of the opponents of this center (again, it is not primarily a mosque) are saying that this place has been funded by people linked to terrorism -- but they have provided no proof. Mayor Bloomberg and police commissioner Kelly have said they have no problem with this center being built and that investigating it is "un-American." Now, no one has been more critical of Mayor Mike than Mr NYC (read most of this blog) but I happen to agree with him here. Trying to shut down a place of worship that you don't like is about the most un-American thing I've ever heard of. What about religious freedom? That's the most American thing I can think of. It's also exactly what the terrorists on 9/11 were targeting -- and which we've been fighting for the last nine years to preserve. Preventing the building of a mosque, any mosque, would be like if a group of people wanted to tear down Catholic churches because so many priests have turned out to be child molesters. It might be understandable but would also be an attack on religious freedom and totally un-American. Fourth cent: this controversy has been inflamed by that genius of American politics Sarah Palin who injected herself into the debate with the following, gracefully written Tweet: "Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate." (In fairness, she then we re-wrote the message with "Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real.") I'll let you chuckle at her inventive uses of the English language yourself ("refudiate" is kinda brilliant although then comparing her new word to something Shakespeare would have done is chuzpah if I ever saw it). Point is, the former half-term Governor of Alaska clearly doesn't know what she's talking about -- she's repeating a lie. And again, Mz. Palin is only dividing America, trying to marginalize Muslims at a time when making them more mainstream in American society would only highlight just how whacked out those radical terrorists are. It's an example of bad leadership at its very worst. Every time this woman opens her month, I can only shudder at the idea that she might have been only a heartbeat away from the presidency. And if you think a mosque at Ground Zero is disturbing, the idea that some people think she should be president is even more disturbing. But New Yorkers and their fellow Americans are a lot smarter than that. New Yorkers reject the bigotry that accompanies the opposition to this mosque just like the American people rejected Sarah Palin for the vice-presidency in 2008. And hopefully the very freedom -- religious and otherwise -- that the terrorists on 9/11 tried to extinguish along with those 3000 lives will continue to thrive in NYC and America at large, long after we've killed the last terrorists and as well as the political careers of the likes of Sarah Palin.
Then you better be the son or daughter of someone very rich or very politically connected. The offspring of ordinary people have no shot at getting one of those coveted internships. Yes, that friend of the common man, that champion of the working stiffs, billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg does not want their offspring muddying the hallowed halls of his city hall. Instead, only the children of the rich and powerful are allowed to intern there. Now this isn't unusual. Very often the children of big contributors or personal friends of politicians get these internships. But supposedly Mayor Bloomberg is "above" politics, "above" the rotten quid-pro-quo of political dealmaking. He's the anti-politician, or so he likes to tell us. He doesn't do business as usual. What a fraud.
It most certainly is business as usual when it comes to this kind of thing. Internships are supposed to be merit-based honors that go to young people who want to learn more about how their government works. In turns out, of course, that they're a patronage mill for the children of people who already know how their government works (wink wink) so that these kids can grow up to become the exact same kind of people. And in Bloomberg land, in this case, that's just politics as usual.
Sigh.
In my previous posts, I have raved about the parks in NYC. They really are some of the best of the world. Thing is, they're usually very crowded, particularly in summer. What if you want to go find some green-space but with a minimum of people? Well, if you have a car and $5, you can head out to Long Island's Sands Point Preserve. Located on an old estate of the Guggenheim family, it is a beautiful, big space with lots of nature trails and ponds where you can get away from it all. Best of all: it has a beach. It's a small, pebble-strewn beach with lots of algea and muscles washed up on the shore but it has a beautiful view of the Sound and, unlike other beaches that are constantly bombarded by surf, it has none of these rip-tides so it's easy to swim in it (warning: there's no life-guard so swim at your own risk).Sands Point Preserve is a good place to check out if you want to escape the urban jungle and take a moment to repose.
In the 1980s, native New Yorker Ally Sheedy was something of a movie star -- her big hits were War Games and The Breakfast Club which have become cult classics (The Breakfast Club is probably the best movie about teenagers ever made; War Games was party responsible for President Reagan launching the SDI initiative, I kid you not). Her career slowed down after that although she was in a really good movie in the late 1990s called High Art. Now she's in a new movie called Life During Wartime by Todd Solondz, the guy who made Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness (two of the sickest, funniest movies I've ever seen). Hopefully this will be the start of an Ally Sheedy comeback. There's a profile of her in today's Daily News about her childhood and life in New York. She's one of these actors who not only lives in the city but is of the city. Very cool.
In NYC, real estate is power. With so little room and the demand for it insatiable, they who have great real estate here call the shots. In many ways, this city is like a medieval country -- how much land or property you have is your measure of status. More than the total number of your dollars in the bank, where you live, how much (or, better yet, how little) you pay for your property, and where in the city it's located is all that matters.There's a big story today about a family saga over a $4 million apartment on Central Park West. It's a psycho-drama if there ever was one and the story includes, of all things, a sex change operation. You must read this to believe it -- if it's even possible.And if you're interested in how real estate in NYC shapes lives and relationships, you must read the book or see the movie Slaves of New York -- the concept being that people who can't afford their own apartments and are forced to live with those who can become, in fact, their slaves.
Well I certainly didn't expect to be penning two Yankees obit posts back-to-back but God works in mysterious ways.The biggest news in town today -- and probably for the rest of this week -- is the death of Yankees owner and guru George Steinbrenner. The shipbuilder from Cleveland who bought the down on their baseball franchise in 1973 and turned it into a powerhouse died of a heart attack in Florida yesterday morning. He was 80 years old. It's hard to describe what impact George Steinbrenner's Yankees had on NYC. Many of us take for granted how good a team the Yankees are but it wasn't always the case and it wasn't necessarily destined to be so -- it took George's bullying grit and huge payroll to build up a phenomenal team. He owned it for 37 years and in that time the Yanks won 7 Word Series and 11 American League pennants. That's an amazing record -- for nearly a third of his reign, the Yankees were either in or winning the World Series. Wow.
The stories of what a tyrannical boss Steinbrenner was are legendary -- there probably isn't anyone who worked for him whose balls he didn't bust (and I'm including the women). In the 1990s, Steinbrenner was popularized in the American imagination in Seinfeld during the seasons where George Costanza worked for him and Larry David played him to hilarious effect. I'm sure working for him was hellish and he could probably be monumental mean and unfair ... but the team's results speak for themselves.
So an era in NYC's history ends. Today is the first day of the post-George Steinbrenner period (his sons are running the team but it won't quite be the same). I'm sure the Yankees will do well without him (he hasn't really run the team since 2007 and they did win the World Series last year) but his ghost and legacy will loom large over of them for many years to come.
The Voice of God has fallen silent. Veteran Yankees public announcer Bob Sheppard died yesterday in Long Island. He was 99 years old and had been the Yankees' PA guy from 1951-2007. Generations of Yankees fans were shuttled in and out of the stadium by his voice and listened to him announce the games with his pitch-perfect diction. In a town celebrated for tough accents and attitude, his was a refined, classy anti-dote that made fans behave themselves and instead concentrate on the game. You knew that however good or bad the game went or however rowdy the fans might get, this was a game that was going on under adult supervision and everything would be okay. If George Steinbrenner is the Yankees' daddy, then Bob Sheppard was it's respected grandfather.
During his reign -- and what can you call a 56 year run as anything else? -- Bob Sheppard saw all the great Yankees legends play (except, I guess, for Babe Ruth): Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, Mickey Mantle, Johnny Mize, Thurmond Muntson, Reggie Jackson, Derek Jeter, A-Rod -- the list goes on and on.
And while New York rose and fell and rose again during this era -- the glories of the fifies, followed by crises of the sixties and seventies, followed by the crime of the eighties, followed by recovery of the nineties, followed by 9/11 and the frustrations of the early 21st century -- Bob Sheppard remained a constant during this amazing time.
When he started his job, Vincent Impelilteri was mayor. When he retired, Michael Bloomberg was mayor. Wow.
He was a one of a kind and this town will never see the likes of him again.
