Where have you gone, Bloodgood Cutter?

Part of what makes NYC so great (besides, you know, everything) is that this is a city full of "characters" -- real life people who almost seem to have sprung from fiction. Teddy Roosevelt,  Jimmy Breslin, Woody Allen, Howard Stern, Ed Koch, John Gotti, Al Goldstein -- these are just some of the past and present "characters" who have defined the NYC sensibility (for better or worse).

But none of them were named Bloodgood Cutter -- and, if his name wasn't enough, he was a New York City character both in real life and fiction.   

Born in 1817, Bloodgood was something unimaginable in NYC today -- a "poet farmer". He came from a family of farmers on Long Island and eventually cultivated farmland in what today is Little Neck, the easternmost part of Queens. Very religious, he spent a lot of time in Queens, particularly in Flushing, where he would preach about living a virtuous life. And he loved poetry -- particularly his own -- and even self-published his own, apparently very bad, 500 page book of poems called "The Long Island Farmer's Poems." He was also ahead of his time -- apparently, he was very against smoking long before it was fashionable.

I'm sure if he was alive today, Bloodgood would have a lively social media presence.

But Bloodgood did have a "rendezvous with destiny" -- in 1876, he took a trip to the Middle East and one of his shipmates was a certain well-known writer named Mark Twain. The scribe of Huckleberry Finn became quite fond of Mr. Cutter and decided to base a character on him in his subsequent novel Innocents Abroad. And so the eccentric farmer-poet from Queens was enshrined in history.

Talking about being enshrined, Bloodgood Cutter's grave is quite a site to behold -- buried in Zion Episcopal Church in Douglaston, it's a fitting resting place for an NYC character in NYC.



By the way, talking about New York characters, there's currently a new documentary about the two great NYC reporters Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill now on HBO called "Deadline Artists."

Impressionist NYC

Some might call these blurry, but I call them "impressionist", views of NYC from the BQE on Saturday night. 

Polar Vortex Hits NYC

Fly Fliers Away!

Now that it's opening a massive new complex is NYC that threatens to increase the already spiraling COLA in this town, Amazon is trying to win over public opinion by going on a massive PR campaign.

It's not exactly working.

Oh, Amazon is making promises to hire low income workers, set up programs, etc. -- promises, promises that I'll be shocked if they ever keep.

But one thing they're doing is mailing fliers to just about every resident of NYC touting the benefits of this project. We've gotten more than one -- it feels like 1,000.

Memo to Amazon: you're not going to win "hearts and minds", you're not going to get people to approve of something they disapprove of by clogging their mailboxes with junk. Stop with the fliers!

This is NYC, we're not exactly un-sophisticated, and we know (not very good) propaganda when we see it. Save your money and a few forrests while you're at it. 

Changing Tastes

If you want a perfect snapshot of how NYC has become gentrified, look no further than two establishments in Chelsea.

One is a bar called The Half King that, for years, has been favorite watering hole for journalists. Its  good old fashioned "joint", a booze swilling tap house, and, of  course, it's closing -- its fortunes paralleling the profession so many of its patrons practiced. It's a classic case of rising rents (mainly due to the Highline that has changed the neighborhood) and changing tastes. 

Then, a few blocks away, there's Cote -- the extremely chic Korean BBQ restaurant that some friends and I went to this weekend. Oh man, it was good! And expensive. It's a restaurant inside a nightclub -- very dark, lots of techno music playing, you know, that whole thing -- but the food is outstanding, especially the array of meats that were cooked and served right at our table. The cocktails were, truth be told, a bit mediocre and served with copious amounts of ice but, if Korean BBQ is your thing, this is the place to go. It's also the kind of place that's taking over NYC -- high end, exclusive, expensive, and a bit pretentious -- but, at the same time, so, so good. It is, yes, tasty. 

Tastes change, for the better, for the worse, sometimes at the same time.  

Public Servants Make the NYC Go 'Round

The legendary Norman Goodman, the county clerk of Manhattan, whose name appeared on between 11 to 12 million jury duty notifications (I got a few back in the day), has died at age 95.  He had an amazing career, serving this city faithfully and diligently for 45 years. 

I remember one time at jury duty, the guy overseeing the pool said, "You are the thin line between civilization and anarchy" (getting a big laugh) -- and Norman Goodman kept that line in existence.

We should obviously appreciate guys like him today when, as I type these words, flights to and from LaGuardia are currently GROUNDED thanks to the government shutdown. The big orange menace in the White House is now making travel in this country impossible because he's shafting government employees like air traffic controllers over his big dumb wall that no one wants and won't work to keep illegal immigration down.

At this point, as Howard Stern said not long ago, I want the wall to get build so I can go and bash my head against it, this situation is just so dumb and frustration. Guys like Norman Goodman, and air traffic controllers, are real public servants -- sadly, their boss (at the moment) is not. 

Real Rebels

I love "rebels" but not the kind you might think -- I don't love trolls who exist to offend or traumatize others (like Trump and his vile MAGA brain dead army) nor do I like bullies or knee jerk contrarians.

A rebel for me is not someone who seeks to hurt or damage lives, or who exists to be different just to assuage their own vanity or insecurities -- I like people who look at a political/economic/social system, or at the culture, and say, "Okay, if it zigs this way, I'll zag it that way." I like people who say "What about this?" -- instead of "that." To be a rebel is someone who doesn't just fight the bad in the world but makes the world a bigger place.

Here's an example of a couple of NYC rebels who certainly made our city and our world a better place: James Baldwin, the pioneering black writer and critic, and the recently deceased Jonas Mekus, an experimental filmmaker and writer who founded the Anthology Film Archives and was a godfather of the avante-guarde. They rebelled, not by offending the society and culture they lived in, but by challenging its assumptions and showing how it could be better. They grew the world, not just fight it.

Real rebels.

Today, I don't know what it means to be a rebel but, here in NYC, if you dare not to be wealthy or gorgeous or super-careerist, you're something a rebel. If you hold onto that spirit of fun and espirit de corps you are going against the grain of greed and conspicuous consumption that rules in this city.

Currently, there are three shows on TV/streaming that are just about this kind of NYC rebel: the soon to end Broad City and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and High Maintenance. They're about people who struggle, who live lives defined not by their jobs or money but about what makes them happy in life. They are show about the kind of this city should be for -- and increasingly isn't. They challenge the consensus and make the city a bigger spirited place. 

Real rebels. 

History is 'a Happenin' in New York

This blog mainly focuses (obviously) on NYC but NYC is (again, obviously) in New York State -- and the state government wields enormous power over the 8.5 million-plus folks who live here.

For years, nay decades, the state government in Albany has been a basket-case of dysfunction. Specifically, the state legislature, the bi-cameral institution of the State Senate and State Assembly that could barely pass a budget on time let alone any laws that could bring this state into modern times.

Did you know, for example, that NYS was the last state in the entire country to pass an uncontested divorce law? Even the most conservative, Bible-thumpin' states had passed laws like this but, because of our dysfunctional legislature, this common-sense reform didn't happen until 2010. Gay marriage passed ... in 2011 ... and no reforms anywhere near that consequential happened after wards. 

The reasons were clear: the State Assembly was (and is) overwhelming controlled by Democrats. The State Senate was overwhelming controlled by Republicans -- and then by this evil thing called the IDC, a group of "breakaway" so-called Democratic state senators who voted to give the Republicans control of the State Senate in exchange for various perks (biggest staffs and office budgets, committee chairmanships that resulted in "lulus" i.e. extra salaries -- basically, legalized bribes). This kept the state legislature divided and any kind of progressive reform agenda was dead.

Until now.

In September 2018, almost all of the IDC state senators lost their primaries to real Democrats. In November 2018, the Democrats picked up several more state senate seats. Now the Democrats control the entire state government -- and they have gone on a legislative tear that's transforming this state for the better.

Voting reform. Banning "gay conversion" therapy. Strengthening reproductive rights. The DREAM act. And that's just the beginning! 

There's been more reform in NYS in the last two weeks than in the last ten years, and there's much more to come (including legal weed and ending cash bail and vacancy de-control). This is exciting, amazing stuff.

It's easy to be cynical and disgusted by politics, particularly when you look at the freak show of Trump's DC. In many ways, what's happening in DC now is what's been going in Albany forever -- but Albany is improving while DC is getting worse. The amazing reforms of this moment in our state shows that when good people vote for good people and good people get the power to do good -- good things happen! What's going on in Albany right now sprung from political activism and that activism has translated into power -- power in action and power with results that materially improve people's lives. It shows how toxic the legacy of GOP and IDC control of the State Senate was -- and what a great thing it is they've been defeated. 

Reform isn't happening in DC (and won't for a long, long time) but it's happening right now here in New York. 

"When you get caught between the blood moon and ..."

AOC Takes the Floor