Mrs Maisel Goes to the Emmys

The fun NYC-centric Amazon show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel just scored a bunch of Emmy nominations -- and they were richly deserved. 

It's a great show, very funny, beautifully written and acted.

And, of course, I especially love it since it takes place in the neighborhood I grew up in.

Good luck! 

Perils of Food Tech

I just read this piece about how farmer markets that serve low-income neighborhoods are set to stop accepting cash-free payments later this summer.

That's bad because SNAP benefits are now electronic, and recipients get credits when they buy healthy foods.

This is due, unfortunately, to nothing less than changes in technology and it will prevent people from buying the freshest, healthiest food, or make purchasing it harder (i.e. shlepping to supermarkets in "food deserts").

This is another example of how government needs to do more to help the neediest among us and not become too dependent on the private tech sector.  

The Bizarre 1980s Today

If you're a Netflix junkie like moi then you're familiar with the comedy show GLOW (about the bizarre 1980s female wrestling show), and Wild Wild Country (about the bizarre cult-commune in Oregon during the early 1980s). 

What's most bizarre is the fact that these shows exist at all. Why, after thirty-something years, are these otherwise completely forgotten 1980s phenomena back and more popular than ever? They were small relics, minor curiosities of a long-gone decade, and suddenly they're big-time today.  

The Internet -- specifically streaming services -- are really amazing things. They manage to dredge of parts of the past we didn't know still existed. But they're part of something broader, I think, an attempt to try to understand the past in order to understand our bizarre present. And the past, it turns out, was truly bizarre.

One such forgotten story now being resurrected (although not on Netflix, not yet) was the story of Bess Myerson -- the Bronx girl who became the first (and only) Jewish Miss America in 1945, then became a political and cultural doyenne of NYC in the 1960s and '70s until she became sleazy tabloid fodder in the late 1980s when she went on trial for trying to bribe a judge. Her case was, and the cast of "only in New York" characters were truly ... bizarre. 

And now her daughter, of all people, is mounting a play about her mother out in California, about their relationship and what it was like to be the daughter of a woman who was once admired, then admonished, by the world.

It's yet another once forgotten bizarre story from the 1980s now suddenly remembered again. 

NYC Comebacks

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that "there are no second acts in American lives" but that's not really true -- Americans love a good comeback.

So I'm very happy that two New Yorkers who looked like they were destined to be forgotten are reemerging.

First, Leonard Lopate, the brilliant radio interviewer who was bizarrely and unfairly fired from WNYC radio last year. Next week he'll be back on WBAI with a new show. I can't wait to hear it!   

Second, John Liu, the former City Comptroller who is challenging Trump Democrat State Senator Tony Avella in the September primary. Liu challenged him in 2014 and came close to beating him so, hopefully, this time he'll win. Avella was responsible for keeping the GOP in charge so he richly deserves defeat and Lie would be a great replacement.

What a great town this is! 

Migrant Children in NYC

The Paris Review Today

Growing up, always clustered on one of my parents' many bookshelves, were myriad copies of The Paris Review, the literary magazine founded in 1953 by the late George Plimpton.

Plimpton was a larger than life character, a bon vivant extrodinaire, whose parties were almost as famous as his magazine that published such luminaries as Samuel Becket, Jack Kerouac, and Philip Roth. Plimpton not only edited the magazine and hosted the parties but he also wrote books chronicling his one-shot experiences as a football player and a boxer, as well as his friendship with Robert Kennedy (with whom Plimpton was with when RFK was killed). Plimpton also died suddenly, in 2003, and since then the editorship of The Paris Review has passed through a few hands, sometimes with troubling results.

This year a young woman named Emily Nemens has become the editor and she is promising to make the ultimate good-'ol-boy, Old New York swinging literary journal into a fully "woke" #MeToo multi-media enterprise. How this will unfold remains to be seen but it's a tribute to the magazine and Plimpton's legacy that it has survived fifteen-years after his death, and that someone like Nemens, as different form Plimpton as one can be, can take the helm. 

And maybe she'll discover the 21st Century version of Jack Kerouac (who won't necessarily be a man). 

... you know it ain't easy

Challenging power isn't easy -- power, after all, is called power for a reason: it's the ability to direct or influence the behavior of others and the course of events. It's the ability "to do" vs. "to want." We all "want" but few of us can "do" because we lack the ability. 

To challenge that ability, to try and take that ability away from someone, is brutally difficult and often fails. Power armors itself, ready to defend and strike its challengers at all times -- but sometimes, just sometimes, challengers find a chink in that armor, then defeat and capture it.

Such is what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did last month. Such is what Elizabeth Holtzman did in 1972 (Ocasio-Cortez beat a twenty-year incumbent and Holtzman beat a fifty-year incumbent). Such is what Julia Salazar is trying to do in September. Finding the chink, defeating the power, taking it over -- power doesn't yield without a fight but it can be beaten ... sometimes. Cynthia Nixon is trying to do it to Andrew Cuomo but it'll hard.

And what are the results from who has power vs. who doesn't?

Take for example, the "arc tunnel" that Governor Christie killed back in 2010 and that President Trump is trying to kill today. They don't want it for political reasons and used and are using their power to stop it. They people who do want it don't have the power -- or not enough. And so nothing gets done (for now). 

Same with the "pied-a-terre" tax that would apply to rich people who own but don't live in their NYC real estate as their primary residence. This tax would generate massive revenue for the city to fund affordable housing. But rich people, powerful people, don't want it so it's not happening (not now, at least).

That's why it's very important for us not only to give power to people we believe in but also to people who have the ability (that buzz word again) to find the chink in the armor of those other powerful people who impede progress and the common good.

Power isn't just about winning elections -- it's about having the ability to see where you can find it or steal it and, most of all, use it. What else is power for?

Statue of Liberty Protestor

Public Servants

The problem with politics these days is that the media covers it like sports: who's "up", who's "down", who's "winning", who's "losing", who's raised the most money, who's this-that-or-the-other thing. It's always about the horse race, the fights, the personalities, the next election, etc. etc. etc. 

Political coverage is never really about policy -- or, just as importantly, service.

Politics is, ultimately, about getting and keeping power (i.e. winning elections and getting re-elected). But service is something else -- it's about helping people, whether in elected office or not.  For politicians, service is supposed to be their jobs, the thing they were elected to do, that stuff they're supposed to do between elections. Some politicians are great public servants (like Obama). Some politicians are horrible public servants (like Trump). Yet service is, ultimately, what the sorting process of politics is supposed to be all about. 

Unfortunately, for the media and many in politics today, they have no interest in service since the sorting process is all they care about. 

Service is something that my family has, for generations, engaged in. We believe in helping others -- full stop. None of them have ever served in public office -- instead, they've served in humanitarian organizations in counties in Africa and Asia and South America, they're doctors, teachers, counselors. No power, no money, no fame -- just the work. 

But some politicians are great public servants and deserve that recognition. They actually do the work -- and have committed their lives to it. 

Here in New York State we have two great examples: Charles Rangel, who served in the US House for 46 years, and Richard Gottfried who has served in the NYS Assembly for 48 years. It's easy to classify them as "lifetime politicians" but, when you look at their careers, as they do in these interviews, it's wonderful to see how much and for how long they have served their constituents, state, and country.

They are true public servants, and New York is lucky to have them -- and we may night ever see their king ever again. 

P.S. Here's another public servant who, until now, was totally unknown to the public and who we didn't even know existed -- the person who updates the MTA website and social media with announcements (often about delays). Talk about a thankless job -- and a real servant of the people. 

P.P.S. And talking more about public servants (this one hits close to home): did you know that right after World War I there was a hastily constructed "Arch of Triumph" in Madison Square Park (right across from the Flatiron building) that soldiers returning from the war marched under in 1919 (the war ended in November 1918, nearly 100 years ago)? The arch didn't last long and was never replaced. And it hits close to home because one of those soldiers was my grandfather. 

Families Belong Together