Staten Island Silliness

One of the things I've noticed about the Republican Party is that, whenever they lose elections, they want to re-write the rules or re-shape the contours of the electorate. It's not enough for them just to accept defeat and try to win next time -- oh no, they shout "VOTER FRAUD!", try to rig the game, unlevel the playing field (cheat, basically) to gain a seemingly permanent advantage.

Hence the GOP has given us things like voter suppression laws and outrageous campaign finance regulations and extreme gerrymandering of political districts. I remember back in the early 1990s when the Democrats controlled Congress and most state legislatures, Republicans yelled and screamed about the virtue of term limits until they got control of Congress and most state legislatures and suddenly shut up about term limits. 

What a coincidence!

Being a Republican means being a full-time hypocrite and liar as well as conveniently forgetting things when they stop being useful (i.e. a Democratic President having an affair is bad but a Republican President paying hush money to an adult film star to cover up an affair is good). 

Locally this GOP-inspired silliness has led the only Republican dominated borough in NYC, Staten Island, to consider actually seceding from the city. They don't like living in a city dominated by Democrats, they're sick of losing and being out of power, so they want to set up shop on their own. I remember (also back in the early 1990s) the secession movement was such a big thing in Staten Island that there was actually a referendum vote to make it happen -- until it ran in to the teeth of the law. Then Rudy became mayor and the Staten Island secession movement died.

Now it's back! 

Republican members of the state legislature and city council are initiating "studies" and drafting laws that would make it possible for Staten Island to seceded and, in some cases, join into a bizarre, illogical, never-tried-before political alliance with upstate New York. These proposals will obviously go nowhere soon in Democratically-controlled New York but the fact that Republicans here are even toying with dumb ideas like this shows how they can't help themselves -- when they can't win the game they try to mess with the referrees, damage the equipment, litter the field. 

In a couple of days, over in the UK, there will be an election that will be about Brexit, the country's attempt to leave the European Union. This Brexit thing has been going on for three years, ever since the UK bumbled into this mess via a referendum with no plan, no vision, no idea of what Brexit would actually entail. It has convulsed the country and thrown the country into a complete nightmare -- worse, in many ways, than the nightmare of Trump in this country. Many people in the UK think this election will "Get Brexit Done", that it will resolve the crises they didn't realize would even be a crises to begin with -- but Brexit is such a massive legal and political divorce that it will never, ever end. It's yet another lie, another fantasy being sold by liars. 

And whether it's Trump or Brexit or the silliness of Staten Island secessionists, all of this reminds me of the scene you see in so many movies and TV shows where a married couple gets into a bad fight, one of the spouses quickly packs up a bag and storms out of the house --- only to discover he or she has nowhere to go. It's like the people who quit jobs out of frustration -- only to realize the financial and career abyss they've flung themselves into. It's all a lot of fashionable nihilism, a neat and totally false promise of "If we just leave, if we just quit, if we just overthrow the overlord happiness will ensue." 

It doesn't. It won't. It's all a lot of silliness, a totally false bill of goods.

Just like Staten Island secessionism.  

Best Movie of the Decade: "Inside Llewyn Davis"

As the second decade of the 21st century ticks to a close, lots of 10 Best of the Decade lists are being crafted (Top 10 Best movies, TV shows, albums, tech innovations, etc). And if you're following movies this holiday season, then there's one actor, one mug, you can't escape: Adam Driver, who first appeared on the great NYC-centered show Girls in 2012 and is now starring in one movie after the other (just this fall, he has The Report, Marriage Story, and the next Star Wars movie). 

But back in 2013, he still just "that guy from Girls", and one of his first movies was a small part in the brilliant Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis about a failed folk singer in 1961 Greenwich Village. (The titular character is played by Oscar Isaac who went on to reteam with Driver in the Star Wars flicks.)

I've blogged extensively about this movie, about how subversive and beautiful and dark it is, about how it's a great NYC movie but also how it also stands everything about American movie making on its head. According to many critics, it's one of the best movies of the entire decade -- and it's certainly mine.

There's one scene in the movie that makes it transcend from merely good to truly great (this critic even says its the best scene in any movie in the entire decade): when Llewyn auditions for the music producer Bud Grossman. Everything about the scene is perfect: Llweyn and Grossman sitting across from each other on the vast floor of a nightclub, resembling not a producer and an artist but an interrogator and a hostage or a jailer and a prisoner, chairs stacked on tables in the background, morning sunlight inappropriately sneaking in. There's a sense of foreboding and doom in the entire mise en scene, the darkness that is the folk singer's life drowning out any light of a better future. Hoping to get Grossman to represent and promote his career, Llewyn sings his heart out, giving a moving and deep performance, leaving his entire soul on the shiny and impersonal club floor. When he's done, a quiet moment ensues, Grossman looking at him tentatively, before delivering the devastating verdict, the career death sentence: "I don't see a lot of money here." Grossman gives Llewyn some unhelpful advice about staying out of the sun and joining a trio before Llewyn leaves, his hopes blown out casually and easily like the tiny flames of birthday candles. 

This scene shows the wafer thin line that exists between success and failure, between hope and devastation, between dreams and reality. It demonstrates the capriciousness of life, the chaos we all live in and try to escape. And it does it brutally and unsentimentally but also beautiful. Truly classic.

They Made Our City Better

Two obits this week about New Yorkers who made this city a better place.

First is Jay Kriegel who was a city government phenom before becoming a real estate developer and creator of multiple civic organization. While never an elected official, his list of accomplishments in bettering the life of this city is outstanding. He devoted his whole life to this city, a real NYC superhero.

The second is Rae Rubinstein who, in the 1970s, was a prolific photographer of the downtown arts and rock'n'roll scene -- Andy Warhol, Waylon Jennings, you name, she shot them. Her photos were fantastic and she lovingly recorded a great time in the city's history 

RIP

Did "Cats" Save Broadway?

Nearly 40 years after it debuted on Broadway, the movie version of the musical CATS is scheduled to open soon. The movie trailer debuted over the summer and it's hilariously bad and cheesy, social media having had an understandable field day with it.

But most people probably don't remember the ads for the Broadway CATS back in the '80s.

I remember seeing these commercials all the time as a kid. Whereas the movie trailer is just dopey, the Broadway ads scared the hell out of me. You saw these frightening looking people dressed less like cats and more like feral (I guess Jelickle) bigfoots running around while the Grand Daddy Bigfoot flew across overhead. Then you heard this music that sounded like God or the meshech himself was descending from heaven. It was freaky. Along with ads for Mount Airy Lodge, the Milford Plaza, and 1-800 chat lines, this ad seemed to be on a constant loop and always would be -- "now and forever", you might say.

Anyway, this article makes the case that CATS came along at an uncertain moment in Broadway history and basically saved musical theater as we know it. It was the start of the modern-day "rock operas", the audio/visual extravaganzas that would conquer the Great White Way for the rest of the 20th century (think Les Miz, Starlight Express, Miss Saigon, etc.). Without the mega-success of CATS, we may never had Hamilton. Interesting theory.

Chemical Reactions

I don't usual do a "Throwback Thursday" kind of thing but I guess here's my small contribution to the meme: my grandfather used to work at Chemical Bank. It was a big time bank in NYC and the whole country (in 1996 it was bought and subsumed into Chase Bank, thus vanishing into history).

Anyway, this is an old 1960s commercial for Chemical Bank and, if you ever doubted that the patriarchy exists or wonder why women are so angry, this was the commercial's slogan: "The New York woman. When her needs are financial, her reaction is ... chemical."

Wow! I can only imagine the Mad Men-like white guys with slicked back hair wearing tweed suits and glasses, sitting around a conference table trying to come up with a catchy slogan for this client, and one of the creeps saying, "Guys! Guys! Guys! I got it, I got it! How about this? 'The New York woman. When her needs are financial, her reaction is ... chemical ...'"

"Oh that's good!"

"Yeahhhhhh!"

"I like it!"

"Definately ..."

"I think we got it boys, I think we got it!" 

Now wonder Trump is President.

Met Steps

Recently the wife and I have been watching the true crime docu-series about the 1986 Central Park "preppy murder" of Jennifer Levin by the handsome psychopath Robert Chambers. Like OJ or Lorena Bobbitt, it's been fascinating for us to see a tabloid story from our youth (actually, more like our childhoods) revisited in-depth with a new, more "woke" perspective. 

My main takeaway is this: Jennifer Levin was a great lady whose only flaw was that she was attracted to a total and complete loser who only had his looks and literally nothing else going on his life. If he wasn't handsome, no one would have paid this guy one moment of attention. But he was "hot" and for this reason and no other, chicks dug him. Jennifer dug him. And for that she died. 

What's even scarier for me is that this murder happened just blocks away from where I went to elementary school at the time. And it happened right behind one of my favorite places in the who city -- the Met. 

So it was weird watching this series about this horrible crime that happened behind the Met while reading this cheery story about native New Yorkers and their love for the steps at the Met, a place where lots of New Yorkers and visitors like to hang out, make out, talk, and just generally congregate -- a sort of Washington Square Park North. It's a story of literal darkness and light, beauty and horror, the twin identities of NYC.

I've never spent a lot of time on the Met Steps myself but I used to skateboard around them as a kid -- and I remember my mom telling me once, "Oh, it's a big pick up area." 

Good thing I'm married. And not a handsome psychopath (more like an un-handsome neurotic).

Classic Mr NYC

Last year I did an interview with NYC columnist-novelist Amy Sohn about her career as a writer as well as her thoughts on the #MeToo movement and the evolution of NYC. She's very smart and funny, a real-life Carrie Bradshaw. 

Now Amy can add stand-up comedian to her resume as she wrote about recently in this heart-wrenching column for The New York Times. It appears that she's become a real-life Mrs. Maisel -- a newly single mom, finding a new life on stage. You should read both the interview and the column and learn from someone who's not afaid to face her fears. 

There are 637 Languages in NYC ...

There are 8 million (more like 8.6 million) stories in this city -- so it's probably not surprising that many different languages are spoken here. But it surprised even a supposedly jaded, sophisticated New Yorker like myself that there are over 630 languages spoken within the five boroughs -- more languages than there are countries on Earth.

But it's one thing to read that there are approximately 637 languages spoken in NYC but it's another thing to see where in NYC they are spoken.

And now you can! 

An organization called the Endangered Language Alliance recently published a map that shows exactly where in NYC these six-hundred-something languages are spoken -- over 1000 locations in all. It's a scannable, zoomable PDF map so you can really drill down into different boroughs and neighborhoods to see where these langauges -- some you've probably never heard of like Chavacano in Queens or Hausa in Brooklyn -- are spoken, probably right next door to you. 

Just another amazing fact about this amazing town!

The Scary Grease Jar Monster

Over the weekend, out in Jamaica, Queens, the basements of around 300 homes were flooded by sewage water. According to this report, these people woke up to a foul smell and discovered their basements were pools of wet foulness after several interconnected pipes in the neighborhood failed -- all because some schmuck poured cooking grease down a drain.

For shame! Didn't their mothers teach them anything?

Growing up, whenever my mom cooked anything that produced a lot of grease, she was always very careful to pour it out of the pan and into a big jar. She told me, quite clearly, that you never poured grease down a drain because it could clog up the pipes and create plumbing problems. Since then, I have always poured it into a jar. As we saw out in Queens, mama was right.

Mama taught me well!

That said, I can understand why people cheat and pour it down a drain instead of going the jar route. Once you pour the grease into the jar, especially after you pour several different batches of grease into the same jar, the grease takes on a life of its own. This ... thing ... actually starts to tell a story. Used more than once, the grease starts to form into different geologic layers, different shades of foulness. There's the turkey grease! There's the bacon grease! That was for the pork roast! And so on and for forth. The grease jar is the yucky legacy of several tasty and unhealthy meals, several heart attacks avoided. Still, the grease jar is scary! 

You want to avoid it by all means necessary! 

And as a kid, the grease jar in the kitchen gave me nightmares. I was grossed out but also fascinated by this jar of cooking grease nastiness that would sit in our kitchen like some kind dangerous lab animal. As a kid with a wild imagination who had probably watched too many cartoons, I always imagined that the grease would come to life, blast its way out of the jar, and then eat my family alive. After all, the grease was a menace, it was being imprisoned in this jar because of its threat to the plumbing system so imagine what other horrors it could inflict! If this grease was endangering a whole apartment building's pipes, imagine what neat work it could make of one little boy? The grease would just sit there, quietly mocking me, its threat obvious to me if no one else.

So that, in short, is probably why this moron out in Queens poured it down the drain -- like me, this person was probably afraid of The Scary Grease Jar Monster.

Midge is Back!