The Art of the Bad Deal

Donald Trump touts himself as a great deal maker ("the art of the deal" and all that) and, when he ran for president, he promised to make "great deals" for the USA on a wide variety of issues, particularly on trade and in world affairs.

This has resulted in him alienating countries like Canada (Canada! How do you piss off Canada?) -- and blowing up the West alliance which won two world wars, the Cold War, and brought billions of people peace and prosperity for three-quarters of a century. 

Egads. 

And, after angering Canada, Trump when to have his "summit" with his new buddy, the Dear Leader of North Korea. The result of this summit? Nothing! They signed a meaningless agreement to maybe agree of things in the future. Some deal! 

This is nuts. But it's not surprising. Decades ago, Trump made a disastrous deal to buy the Plaza Hotel -- he paid over $400 million for it and then was forced to sell it years later for less than $350 million, taking a huge loss. It was an idiotic, embarrassing failure -- the art of the bad, really stupid, deal.

And now he's going to bring North Korea to heel? 

He truly is a conman -- and it's amazing that so many people in this country are falling for it. 

Robert De Niro @ The 2018 Tony's

Gotta Love New Yorkers

The news constantly reminds us about the worst of human nature -- and the recent suicides of  two prominent New Yorkers reminds us about the complexity and fragility of life. 

But people really are, on the whole, wonderful, and we should value the best of human nature when we encounter it.

If you doubt that, if your heart is hard, if your feelings are cynical, then you must real this amazing story. 

It's about the passing of a man who dubbed himself the "Mayor" of West 83rd Street, and it'll lift your spirits and make you cry the same time. The "mayor" was a real New York character (dare I say, he was an "only in New York" type?), a buoyant spirit who brought joy to many people and warmed their hearts. 

And, oh yes, he lived a lifestyle that was, shall we say, exotic. 

Then he passed away very suddenly, to the shock of everyone. But, in their sadness, his neighbors got together and paid him a lovely tribute

I've noticed in life that things that are sad are often beautiful at the same time. 

And, as it's been said before, grief is the price we pay for love. 

My Brief Anthony Bourdain Encounter

This morning I learned the shocking news that celebrity chef and TV star Anthony Bourdain died in France, allegedly from suicide but the complete facts of the matter are unclear at the moment. 

The point is, he's gone, suddenly and shockingly. The tributes are pouring in, social media is abuzz, and people are tying to make sense of the senseless. Sometimes things happen, and people do things, that defy the ability to comprehend. We have to leave it at that. 

I never read any of Bourdain's books but I loved his TV shows where he traveled the world ate exotic foods with fascinating people. At a time when so many people, in so many countries, are looking inward and trying to shut out the world, Anthony Bourdain literally showed us what a huge, amazing, complex, and tasty place the globe really is, and how lucky we all are to live in it. Not for nothing, many people, myself included, aspire to emulate his adventures.

And I met him once.

For a man who lived an exciting life, my extremely brief encounter with Anthony Bourdain has to be one of its most boring events.

Believe it or not, for a time, we both lived in the same building -- in fact, he and his first wife lived in the very building I grew up in. At the time I was running a small notary business, notarizing legal documents for people who lived in the building, and one night I got a call to come down and notarize legal documents for Anthony Bourdain and his wife. I went into their gorgeously decorated apartment, notarized one document for his wife, and then his wife roused Anthony so I could notarize another document. Bourdain stumbled out of his bedroom, looking more exhausted than I'd ever seen a person, and he collapsed onto his couch. (He had just returned from Asia and was seriously, seriously jet-lagged; this was around the time he was becoming mega-famous). He grunted, signed the document I prepared, and then stared at me with bloodshot eyes, clearly hoping that I'd clear out ASAP. I did, and I never saw him again but I remained a fan of his work over the years since.

I hope his family finds peace in this sad time. 

And I hope that his legacy -- his life of travel, food, people, and riches they bring to us -- will live forever.  

The Fairness Fight

Nearly 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in The Prince: “It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.”

This has been true in history, particularly in American political history, since the founding. And it's happening today in NYC.  

Mayor DeBlasio and his new Schools Chancellor recently announced a plan to change the admissions process to NYC's elite public schools (places like Stuy, Bronx Science, etc.). In short, this plan would phase out the "all-in-one" admissions test and instead expand something called the "Discovery" program that would increase enrollment of low-income (i.e. black and Hispanic students) to these schools. It would use a variety of criteria including state exams, grades, and formulas to determine admission (read the details here).

Needless to say, the folks who think their children would lose out under this plan, and the politicians who represent them, are violently opposed to it. They're demonstrating, rallying, and denouncing it with venom. The mayor and schools chancellor are promoting this plan, along with a few allies in the state legislature, but the NYC media, the governor, and many other politicians and special interest groups are either against it -- or punting ("Well, we'll see," "This might not be the right time", "I don't know if there's an appetite for it", "We still need to see the details", etc., etc., etc.).

This is why reform is hard. This is why things don't change for the better. People and politicians are scared of change because they feel they'll be disadvantaged, that they'll lose out, that someone "less worthy" (i.e. poor or brown) will benefit at their expense. 

But sometimes things do change. Sometimes reform is achieved. And what's funny is that, when history is written, the enemies of reform always end of up looking bad.

I hope that's the case here. 

SATC @ 20: True Confessions

Since today marks the 20th anniversary of the first SATC episode, the New York Times has done a massive story about the people who saw the show and were inspired by it enough to move to NYC to live out their fantasies of spending all their time not-working-brunching-yentering-drinking Cosmo-and-shtupping.

Some stayed, and some left. These are their stories.

And then, of course, there are those of us who were already here and saw how this show and the subsequent gentrification of NYC changed the city into something many of us don't recognize today. 

"Colossal Snoopy": 70 Years of NYC Photos

New York City, like the world itself, evolves over time. 

Year by year, street by street, building by building, it grows and changes. 

When you look at pictures of NYC over the years and decades, you see how the city  literally transforms itself, sometimes by erecting new structures or tearing down old ones, sometimes by rehabbing the old and making it new again -- and sometimes by keeping things just the way they are while everything else around it changes.

This amazing photo galleryfrom 1931 to 2000 shows the physical evolution of NYC.

Lots of stuff you'll recognize, lots of stuff you won't -- but it proves that the only thing constant in NYC is change.

P.S. Go thru it and you'll understand what "colossal Snoopy" is. 

Kate Spade, RIP

SATC & TV & NYC @ 20

Twenty years ago this week marked a key moment in the history of television.

And it happened on HBO. 

On May 31, 1998, the comedy The Larry Sanders Show aired its final episode. The creation of brilliant comedian Garry Shandling about a narcissistic talk show host, Larry Sanders was one of the great, defining shows if the 1990s. More than that, it looked more like what is on TV now than then: it broke down the barrier between reality and fiction, it was single camera, its humor had more "cringe" and less punchlines, it was funny but also dark, it was deeply human. Today, most comedies on TV are like this but, in a time when wild, hyper sitcoms like Seinfeld and Home Improvement were ruling the air, Larry Sanders was quietly revolutionary -- and influential. 

Then, on June 6, 1998, along came Sex and the City.

The show about four female NYC friends -- a sort of East Coast, female-centric Larry Sanders -- easily became one of the most popular shows about NYC but, more importantly, one of the first great "Golden Age of Television" cable shows. Six months later The Sopranos hit the air and the "Golden Age" had officially begun.

As this article indicates, without SATC, the culture as we know it today would be quite different.  

Think about everything that SATC influenced. There would have been no Girls, no Broad City, and a whole universe of shows and culture dedicated to the professional and romantic lives of women. It was a cultural trailblazer. Also, without SATC, there's be no Cynthia Nixon for Governor, no cupcake culture -- and, arguably, less gentrification in NYC. 

TV as we know it was largely shaped in that week back in the spring of 1998 -- and, today, we live in its wake -- as does NYC. 

Weegee Famous

For reasons that are forever mysterious, certain works of art become iconic, forever memorable. They become "more than the sum of their parts." They may not be intrinsically brilliant or great creations but they contain a magic that propels them into common memory. 

Think of the Mona Lisa: it's a simple portrait of a women giving a slight smile -- and it's the most famous painting in history.

Why? Who knows? 

Certain works of art just capture a je ne sais quoi that they achieve icon status. And that's true of this picture by the NYC photographer "Weegee" (nee Arthur Fellig) taken in 1943 outside the old Metropolitan Opera House:

It's two socialites being observed with disgust by a female hobo. That's it. But it neatly sums up economic inequality -- making this 75 year old photo more relevant today than ever.

So who was Weegee, the man who took it? And what's the story behind this picture?

Weegee was a photographer from the Lower East Side who basically invented the idea of "crime photography." His searing pictures of crime scenes become infamous in 1930s and 1940s  NYC newspapers. Then he turned his attention to street scenes, capturing poverty and economic displacement. That effort culminated in this photo that Time Magazine dubbed one of the Most Influential Photographs of All Time. 

And it's a fake -- Weegee was a bit of a rascal and he totally staged this picture. The hobo in the picture is someone he found on the Lower East Side, got completely drunk, and then positioned next to these two ladies outside the opera house. 

Needless to say, his gambit paid off: he got the picture, got it published, and it become famous.

And now there's a big new biography about him telling his whole life story -- just because he took (i.e. staged) this picture.

Goes to show, you never know how -- or if -- you'll be remembered, and what works of art will make their creators famous.

Je. Ne, Sais. Quoi.