Bloomberg on Curb Your Enthusiasm

Mr NYC Looks Back

If you'd like a to look back at how 9/11 has been remembered or referenced on this blog, please click on this link and you'll find a variety of posts over the years. I hope they shed some light -- and boost our sorely sad spirits on this day.

National Sept. 11 Memorial: A Look Back

The Arrogance of Power

Mayor Bloomberg has managed to avoid most of the ugly, petty scandals that dog so many politicians. His money and popularity, for years, kept him above reproach. But his popularity has plummeted and his share of problems have increased (Cathie Black, the snowstorm, City Time, etc.). Now, for the first time in his decade in power, Bloomberg's has been revealed to be just another politician.

Last month, Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith resigned, allegedly because he wanted to go back into the private sector and because he was ill-suited for the job. He is widely blamed for screwing up the December snowstorm response and he seemed more interested in fancy ideas instead of the nuts and bolts of governing. So when he resigned it was shrugged off by Bloomberg and the press as, "Oh well, it seemed like a good idea at the time but it just didn't work out."

But that wasn't true. 

Turns out, Goldsmith resigned because he was arrested in DC in July for domestic violence. Now that's bad but what made it worse was that Bloomberg covered it up! He lied to the public at the time, said basically, "The guy's resigning because he's unhappy in the job and we don't like him anymore." Bloomberg NEVER revealed the real reason and it dribbled out in the most sleazy manor.

And what's Bloomberg's response now that scandal has been revealed? Total indifference. He basically says "Oh, I didn't want to embarrass the guy so that's why I didn't reveal it. But I liked him and would have kept him in the job anyway." Bloomberg flunked the basic lesson of Political Scandal 101: it's not the crime but the cover-up. Had he just said at the time the real reason why Goldsmith resigned, then there would be no scandal. It would be out he goes and that's the end of it. Shameful.

This shows you who Mike Bloomberg really is at his core. He is supremely arrogant man. And this is the arrogance of power in action: protecting your friends, and yourself by extension, by deceiving everyone else. It's wrong -- and our mayor should be ashamed of himself.    

Au Revoir NY Press

I'm a little late in blogging about this but a week ago today the last issue of the NY Press was published.

I'm sure your shrug of shoulders or your "What's the NY Press?" thought is one of the reasons why it's gone under. The era of free "alternative" weekly newspapers is so very twentieth century. In this media age, such papers are dinosaurs. That asteroid called the Internet came crashing down and eradicated its kind.

Boo-hoo.

Personally I'm not that sad. Actually, I'm kind of happy about it. I know on this blog that I rant about how depressed I am whenever anything in this city closes or disappears -- bits and pieces of old NYC going away -- but this case is an exception. First, the NY Press was not a great, or even a particularly good, newspaper. It was little better than a college newspaper and, compared to some college papers that I've read, even worse. So this is no great loss to the culture. Second,  I sent them an article several months ago, hoping they'd run it, but they never did. It wasn't any worse than most of the stuff they put out so I don't know why they chose never to run it, and I never got an explanation (not that this was any great loss to the culture either). So I'm glad that whoever chose not to run it is probably out of a job. Obviously it'll never run now but I wasn't holding my breath anyway.

However, putting my feelings aside, the NY Press did have a pretty good run (1988-2011). Twenty-three years for any publication to last ain't bad, particularly in an expensive and crazy media environment like NYC (it was around almost as long as The Phantom of the Opera). 

The newspaper began as a New Journalism-contrarian-conservative-mean spirited "alternative" to the  "alternative" Village Voice. No liberal pansies them -- oh no, they were "real Americans" giving it to NYC "straight." Needless to say, their glory years were the 1990s when Bill Clinton was president and they loved, loved, loved savaging the otherwise popular in NYC commander-in-chief. Like all good conservatives, the paper was also totally hypocritical too -- when they weren't screaming about liberals undermining "traditional values," they were publishing graphic articles on sex and running ads for escort agencies. 

Sadly for them, however, the 2000s brought tougher times. The presidency of their much beloved George W Bush turned into a disaster -- it was one thing to attack a president they hated but it was another thing to have to defend a president everyone else hated -- thus exposing the bankruptcy of the conservative ideology they had been peddling all those years (which I'm sure disillusioned their readers). Their best sex writers left. The economy sucked. The founder and owner Russ Smith eventually had to sell the paper and the new owners had no vision, no plan to keep it relevant in the Internet age. Worst of all, the NY Press was one of those papers under constant crises -- writers and editors were constantly coming and going, they had feuds with one another that went public; it got vicious. Then the money ran out.

And the rest is history. 

So au revoir NY Press. You're a victim of circumstance. You're not the first and certainly won't be the last to bear the brunt of these tough times. But I'll admit it -- the only thing that makes me sad about your closure is that you're not taking the New York Post with you. 

The 9/11 Decade

"There's nothing intelligent to say about a massacre." -- Kurt Vonnegut

Ain't that the truth. The proliferation of words, words, words -- to steal from Shakespeare -- eventually drench and make muddy whatever meaning they are meant to convey. 

The banality, senselessness, pure stupidity of great evil acts speak for themselves. 

So is the case with 9/11. In the years since the event that changed the world, billions of words have been written about what it meant then (tragedy, national unity), what it led to (war, divisiveness, neo-McCarthyism, etc.) and what it means now (who knows?). But who knows what any of it means?

That is why I applaud New York Magazine for it's 9/11 Encyclopedia. It takes the tragedy and breaks it down -- person by person, event by event, issue by issue, controversy by controversy -- and gives snippets about each while, at the same time, not bombarding the readers with psychologising. Instead, it's just the facts -- and it lets the readers find the meaning of 9/11 for themselves.

Kurt Vonnegut would be proud.

Classic Mr NYC

Remember Seinfeld?

Of course you do. Even more than a decade after it went off the air, you can still hear New Yorkers quote their favorite lines to one another. Its spirit will never die.

So it was more than appropriate that, back in 2007, one of this blog's first interviews was with Kenny Kramer, the real life man behind the legend.

You can read it here -- and one or two things that the real Kramer reveals will surprise you.  

Hurricane Irene in NYC

It's over

Hurricane Irene has come and gone. Now NYC goes through the process of assessing the damage, pumping out as much of the water as possible, and getting back to normal.

I don't know what it was like overnight but, from our vantage point, the storm didn't seem all that fierce. There were certainly some heavy winds and rain but nothing that seemed life threatening. I heard some reports about power outages and such, but apparently there was nothing massive.

Last night, around 9 PM, I went out in my neighborhood to see what was going on. It was raining and windy but nothing severe. However, you could feel a weird vibe in the air -- people were waiting, scared, nervous, even exciting -- everyone wondering what the impact of this hurricane would be. There were some people on the streets but not a lot, some businesses were closed but most that would be open at that hour were open -- bars, laundromats, even a burger place (that had a sign in the window that said "Don't be a bitch, Irene -- which I'm sure hurt the storm's feelings). By the time I got home I had a feeling that everything would be alright -- and, so far, it seems to have been.

Anyway, the great storm of 2011 has come and gone. We live to tell the tale. Sadly, however, mass transit is still suspended so many of us might be stuck into tomorrow. Go here to find out what the status of your subway and bus lines is. Hopefully, by tomorrow, everything will be back to normal.

Come on, Irene

Actually, please don't.

But it will anyway. Yes, Hurricane Irene has made landfall, currently battering North Carolina and Virginia and is, at this moment, headed towards NYC. Tropical storms will be beginning soon and, tomorrow morning, the hurricane itself hits the city. Yikes.

Millions of fingers are crossed around town that somehow this storm will be blow east at the last minute and spare us -- or, at least, spare us the worst of it. But at the moment that seems unlikely. Right now the wife and I are hunkered down, with food and flashlights and drinking water to spare.  Also, we have a good-old fashioned Walkman and emergency radio on hand. Let's hope we won't need any of this stuff. We shall see.

The state and city governments are, at the moment, currently going crazy trying to prepare the city and evacuate people for this thing. Sadly, some nudniks are staying put, insisting that the storm won't be that bad and that they'll just ride it out. Let's just hope they're right -- but I don't think so. 

Remember: only call 911 for emergencies. For any other stuff, call 311. 

Also, check the right-side of this blog for links to the state, city, and federal governments for more info. (I knew when I put them there four-plus years ago they'd come in handy one day. Go me.)

Obviously you should keep watching NY1 or listening to the radio for updates. Mayor Bloomberg and other officials are doing a good job keeping the city informed about what's going on. I'll try to jump on here as often as possible and, once the storm is over, I'll certainly blog again. In the meantime, stay safe, stay dry, stay sane; let's prepare for the best and hope for the best (or wait, for a moment I thought I was Georg W. Bush -- I mean ... you know ... you know what I mean).