And the Pendulum Swings

Crowd on the corner of Wall and Nassau Streets, watching President Obama's inaugural address outside of the Stock Exchange.

I can't help seeing a parallel between our new president and our hero of last week, Captain Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger. The captain landed a plane that would most certainly have crashed and caused a terrible tragedy. He was exactly the right man for the job, and as luck would have it, he happened to be right where he was needed, at the moment he was needed.

Many of us feel our country is like that plane, in serous danger of a crash landing. Here's hoping that Barack Obama is indeed the right man for the job, as a lot of us think he truly is, and that he lands our plane heroically.

Note to Rush Limbaugh, who was quoted today saying he hopes President Obama fails: Shame on you. And you call yourself a patriot.

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Hey Kids, We've Got Video!

Video footage of the US Airways Airbus landing on the Hudson.

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"In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing..."

...you will be rescued by Circle Line!

Plane Crashes into Hudson River
Trela Media/Associated Press
Published: 2009.01.15
A US Airways plane that took off from La Guardia Airport Thursday afternoon landed in the Hudson River, but all the passengers and crew appeared to be safe. more...

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Burning Question

I thought sure that I would find the answer to this in either IMDb or Wikipedia, but to no avail.

I don't usually turn in to Letterman until Two and a Half Men is over, so I often miss his monologue and catch him just as he's about to do the top ten list. But every time I do see his show from the beginning, I see a curious thing:

Just before the announcer says, "Da-vid LETTERman!", Dave runs across the back of the stage, and then enters from stage left.

Why on earth doesn't he just enter from stage right?

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A Blast From My Past

This is a clip from a show I produced at University Settlement in New York the weekend before 9/11. That was when I fancied myself a dancer and spent all my hard-earned cash producing shows that I could choreograph and dance in. After 9/11, there was no more money for that.

"Dog Ears" was an instrumental piece that was included in the show with the dances. (None of my dancing will ever be posted on the internet while I'm still alive, not if I can help it.) The musician and composer is my friend Gary Fieldman, who also composed something we did dance to. The instruments, by the way, are found objects.

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A New York Moment

Uptown R train, Saturday afternoon. I had just left my friend D after some shopping at JnR. We got on the R, me uptown, him downtown. It wasn't too crowded, but then the first stop at Canal about 100 people boarded my car.

A man with a backpack, who at just boarded the train, took off his jeans, revealing a festive pair of Christmas boxers.

A lot of people on the train did not notice him. A lot of other people, like me, noticed him but did the New York thing of pretending not to notice him. I was expecting him to put on a different pair of jeans, or dress slacks, or something, but when he didn't, I couldn't help myself; I started to smile.

He exited the train at Prince Street and just stood there with a silly grin on his face.

"Must be a thing," I thought.

When I got out at 8th Street, there was a man wearing tight black briefs, a girl wearing a coat that just covered her butt with nothing covering her legs, and two other guys in boxers.

Definitely a thing.

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