More Flags, More...

Does anyone else want to slap the holy crap out of that guy that does the TV ads for Six Flags Great Adventure?

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Things That Make You Go, "Yikes!"

A used car dealer in Missouri offered buyers a choice of two sales incentives: $250 worth of gas, or a free semi-automatic handgun. 80% of the buyers chose the handgun. My negative reaction to this story has a lot to do with the fact that I live in New York. Imagine, if you will, if New Yorkers — let's say all New Yorkers — were armed. Think about the frustrated New Yorkers on the subways, the line at the Whole Foods, the traffic on the LIE, the Macy's fireworks, trying to walk down St Marks Place on a Saturday night. And now picture how often a frustrated New Yorker loses his or her cool and has a meltdown. Now imagine that person having a firearm.
Yikes, indeed.

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Rosie Comes to Town

Rosie Flores and "Men" sing Truck Drivers Blues at the Rodeo Bar, 6/19/08. Arthur Neilson on guitar with Rosie. As soon as I remember who everybody else is, I'll let you know. (to see this in high quality, click on the picture to go to the YouTube page and select "watch in high quality.")

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An IKEA Grows in Brooklyn

Played hookie on Wednesday to go to the opening of the new IKEA in Red Hook.

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Future Blog Topics

Why is Logic Never Even Tried?
Duly Noted
Sanity in an Insane World
Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3
Must Get Satan Out of Big White House
Too Free, Some Might Say
Perhaps I Should Have Read the Directions

I don't have anything to say on these topics -- yet -- but I'm sure I will.

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What's wrong with this picture?

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Ah... Spring?

I was asked out this afternoon.

His pick-up line was, for the record, "Do you like Mexican food?"

And then he said, "You must let me paint your apartment for you. I can make it nice."

Paint my apartment. Is that what they're calling it now?

Another sign of spring: Last week, most shows had their finales, and are gone until September. I am posting at 9:35 pm, and the only station that has had anything on that's scripted is CBS, and right now it's a pretty bad sitcom. I guess what's on the CW is scripted as well, but it's their usual twenty-somethings angst soapy opera stuff, One Tree Felicity Gossipy Hill. I thought, maybe, I might watch the dancers on Fox. So I tuned in, and there was this blonde bimbo doing interpretive dance -- badly, badly, oh lord, so very very badly, klutzy and she didn't complete her lines (can you tell I used to dance? throwing in that $40 comment there? cool, huh?) and there were these bizarre jumps for no reason and then these cheesy "reach for the stars, I'm emoting" kind of moves --and I thought sure the judges were going to trash her, but they loved it. Capital L loved it. Gushed about how much energy she had in her...get this..eyes, and they all agreed "She's got 'it.'" "Yes, you do, you've really got 'it.'" and I had to turn it off.

We all know people dance with their eyes, don't we? Yuck. By the way, apparently the guy just before her did a stepping dance of some sort, which I did not see... but I did see the part where they said no to him, even though they all said HE had "energy" -- He was wearing a mask, though, so they couldn't see if any energy was in his eyes, I guess. Next time he'll know to lose the mask.

Which brings me to wondering: What did we do to deserve Reality TV? That's rhetorical, I know the answer. We watched Cops and Real World too much and encouraged it, that's what we did. Well, not me, I didn't watch those shows, but enough of us did, or at least, enough of the Nielsen Families did and it has ruined television forever. It doesn't even matter if people stop watching these stupid shows...they are cheaper to produce, so as long as some people are still watching them who cares if most of the viewing public has turned off the set and are reading books?

Okay, I admit it, I'm in a mood.

On the other stations, we have the Bachelorette and an awards show for Movie Trailers (!!!!!) and a news magazine about a murder. At least that one involves a dead body.

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Ah, Spring

Another sign of Spring in New York is the arrival of critters. Not the year-round apartment invaders like roaches and mice, or the outside-your-window fire-escape regulars like pigeons or squirrels. This morning, there was a centipede in my tub.

And yes, I killed it.

Here is what Wikipedia says about the house centipede:

"Unlike its shorter-legged but much larger tropical cousins, the house centipede can live its entire life inside a building. Because they eat household pests, house centipedes are considered among the most beneficial creatures that inhabit human dwellings, but because of their alarming appearance, frightening speed, and painful bite, few homeowners are willing to share a home with them."

There was a moment, as I was dousing it with hot water, that I felt bad. Fact is, humans are the only animals that will kill something just because they don't want it crawling around in their bathtubs. I've now decided that the proper thing to do is simply keep the stopper over the drain. Voilá, no more centipedes in the bathtub; they can live on to eat cockroaches and ants and spiders and (shudder) bedbugs the way nature intended.

And a note to Mike: The air kiss was definitely NOT "one of those light and fluffy Latin lover air kisses." Not light and fluffy at all. Wet and sloppy, in fact.

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Please Be Patient

How many times a day does a New Yorker hear that from the MTA: "Please Be Patient"? It always makes me wonder what else, exactly, do they expect us to do? Scream and jump up and down? And what if we do loose our cool and make a scene? Does that disembodied voice on the intercom REALLY care if some of us go ahead and have a tantrum?

That being said, I had One of Those Commutes this morning on the 6 train.

The problem with being late EVERY morning is that when you finally have a legitimate excuse for it, it doesn't matter. You are late because you are Not a Morning Person: your 15-pound cat made herself comfortable on your chest just before your alarm went off and you can't bear to move her; you are having a bad case of adult ADD and you can't seem to focus enough to get yourself out the door; you've waited too long to take a shower and now there is no hot water and you have to wait for the boiler to catch up with the demand; you can't figure out what to wear so you change clothes five times; you can't find your keys/wallet/ID; because you are now running late the construction crew who are renovating the apartment next door has parked a Giant Thing outside of your door and you can't get down the stairs; or all of the above. And then, you have One of Those Commutes.

So I made it down my stairs, my cat fed and purring, my clothes Weather Appropriate, my hair smelling of Fructis Garnier conditioner, keys, wallet and ID present and accounted for, and a man sidles up to me and says, "Excuse me, Do you have any spare change?"

I said "no" and shook him off, but he kept smiling at me and then said, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Okay. Well, have a nice day." And then he leans in. "Have a nice night."

Springtime in New York. (see previous post)

He was grinning at me, and kept walking with me, so I crossed the street. Every time I looked over, there he was, smiling at me.

Okay, yes, I shouldn't have looked over. I stopped doing that.

I looped around out of my way until I saw him veer off in the other direction, and headed to my train. When I got down the stairs, there were a hundred people on the platform. This is never a good sign. Then there was an announcement:

"There is a southbound 6 train at 42nd Street." Six stops away. Why do they bother telling us?

There were policemen everywhere, and it occurred to me that Something must have Happened. Then came another announcement:

"Attention passengers. Due to a police action on Bleecker Street, there are train delays on the 4, 5 and 6 lines. Please be patient."

A group of twenty or so tourists picked that moment to enter the station. They huddled together in the center of the platform, right across from the turnstiles. (insert the snarky anti-tourist comment of your choice here.)

Twenty minutes later, a train arrived. The twenty tourists all filed into the same car of an already crowded train. (insert another snarky anti-tourist comment of your choice here as well.)

When the train finally left the station, it went about 6 feet, and stopped.

"Attention passengers. Due to a police action on Bleecker Street, there are train delays on the 4, 5 and 6 lines. Please be patient."

I suppose it was important for someone to say that at this juncture, because I'm pretty sure the riders in the next car were going to start sacrificing tourists.

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Springtime in New York

Okay, I have been chastised by my loyal fans (both of you) for failing to post anything new recently, so here I am, back again.

I was on a train to Connecticut and instead of taking my usual single don't-you-dare-sit-near-me seat, I thought I'd take a chance and spread out in one of those group of fivers that has a window, with the hope that not too many people would sit next to me.

By 125th Street, another woman sat down across from me, and by Stanford, there were three other people in this cluster of seats.

The first woman to invade my space, at least a decade or two younger than me, put on her iPod and opened a book. It wasn't until two more twenty-something women got on at Stamford and made us shift all the way over to the window that I became curious about the book she was reading. It was a thick paperback, and from the looks of the back cover it seemed it was not a novel: There was a photo of a man in a business suit, and although I never saw the exact title of the book, the back cover shouted "Find the perfect man online!"

Now I'm thinking... am I missing something here? This woman was not model pretty, but she was definitely pretty nonetheless, and not model-thin but who the hell wants to be model thin? So this woman who was maybe 33 at the oldest, is having trouble finding a boyfriend? Yikes! What the heck am I going to do, being dangerously close to completing my fifth decade?

As it often happens, New York City provided me with a tiny glimmer of hope as I was coming home late afternoon on Sunday on the subway. As we were approaching my stop, I stood to get ready to exit, and I felt somebody's eyes on me. I looked elsewhere, figuring that he was either a) looking at my blinged-out Grammy-Awards-50-years tee-shirt, or reading some ad behind my head. But as I was stepping off the train, he caught my eye and air-kissed me.

I haven't been air-kissed by a stranger in I don't know how long. Does that mean I still "got it"? (assuming, of course, I ever had it.) Not sure, but he wasn't a homeless person. He was Hispanic, possibly around my age, dark curly hair, gold chain, yellow and white tee shirt. It was absolutely inappropriate behavior and not actual flirting. But I haven't gotten inappropriate behavior of any kind thrown my way in quite a while.

Ah, Springtime in New York.

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Great Moments in Rock and Roll

My 10-year-old God daughter Catherine, sitting in the back seat of the car, listening to her mother's iPod:

"Mommy, what's a working class hero?"

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Florent

Florent is closing, so we went there last night.

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IRS Spam

I know that we are all getting pretty savvy about ridiculous phishing emails, but just as a public service, I am posting this recent one that apparently a lot of people fall for. I have to hand it to the authors, it's clever.


In case there is any confusion: This is not real. The IRS will never contact you via email, even if you e-file. And you don't have to fill out any forms to get your rebate (or your refund), other than filing your taxes.

Click here if you want to report some IRS spam of your own.

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Late 1970

My sister and I have been working on a project. What if the Beatles had not gotten a divorce in 1970? What if they still loved each other and got couples counseling instead? (just NOT Primal Therapy) What would those albums have sounded like?

This wasn't as easy as it sounds. While 1970 and 71 found our boys churning out music like a busy jukebox, later years found them further and further out of sync. The other problem is, even from the very start, the albums were produced very differently. Finding the right balance and transitions took some work.

There were logistical problems on our end as well. For one, in general. I'm not a big Paul fan, although when I do like something of his, I really love it. So this required my rethinking my feelings about his music and buying a bunch of his songs off iTunes. And speaking of iTunes, all of my George Harrison albums are on vinyl, so when  iTunes finally put his (and John's) catalogs up it was very helpful. Now, if they would just put Dark Horse and Extra Texture up, I could do a 1972 list.

Anyway, we decided we should put some thought into what the boys would allow each other to get away with. "Cold Turkey" did not make our list because this was a song Paul had rejected for a Beatles album. So I originally started this play list with Working Class Hero, until my sister pointed out that a Beatles album probably wouldn't start with a song that uses the F word... twice**.  Chances are John's lyrics might have been altered for a Beatles album--you know, couples counseling does encourage compromise--but not wanting to second guess the past too much, I changed the song order.

So here are the play lists we came up with for 1970 and 1971, for those of you who 1) care and 2) are familiar with at least some of these songs. This would have seen the boys putting out back to back double albums, but this whole thing requires us to extend our sense of disbelief, anyway.

1970 (Thinking it should be titled "Early 1970"..either that or something weird like Scrambled Eggs, or No We Don't Hate Each Other Vol. 1.)
It's So Hard
My Sweet Lord
Maybe I'm Amazed
Remember
What Is Life
Instant Karma!
Every Night
Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)
Mother
The Back Seat of My Car
I Found Out
Isn't It A Pity
That Would Be Something*
Working Class Hero**
Early 1970
Run Of The Mill
Isolation
Oo You
*my sister and I both agreed that this song, very pretty but very repetitive, might have benefited with some input from John

**The night John was murdered, WPIX FM, which was the "Lite" music station, played Working Class Hero in it's entirety, i.e, not censored. I always wondered if they just weren't familiar with the song, or hadn't heard it in so long they forgot, or, less likely, decided to take a chance that the FCC wouldn't bust them considering the circumstances. I kind of picture them scrambling to find a John Lennon album, finding "Plastic Ono Band" from their old library of albums (from when they were a real station), dusting it off, and throwing it on the turntable. "Oh, God, did he just say 'F*ck'? Oh GOD, did he just say it AGAIN?"

1971 (Another Dollar, or No We Don't Hate Each Other Vol. 2)
Imagine
Another Day
Apple Scruffs
Jealous Guy
Oh Woman, Oh Why
Let It Down
I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier Mama
It Don't Come Easy
Monkberry Moon Delight
Gimme Some Truth
Art Of Dying
Oh Yoko!
Dear Boy
Awaiting On You All
Too Many People
Crippled Inside
All Things Must Pass

Still working on 1972, 1973, 1974-76 (this is where things get quite a bit out of sync), then 1980-81. Will keep you all (excuse the blog pun) posted.

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Random Thoughts Day

1) A huge chunk of ice broke off of the Antarctica shelf yesterday. Scientifically, how big, exactly, is "huge"? 415 square kilometers. You can't get any more scientific than that: it's in kilometers. In layman's terms, for all of us laymen, that's 7 times the size of Manhattan.

2) A Texas man got a sentence of 25 years today for MICROWAVING A BABY. And no, the baby didn't die. (I know what some of you are thinking, and shame on you.)

3) On the lighter side, I received a check in the mail today for $3,985. It appears to be a real check, although I have no idea who these people are who sent it to me. Apparently, if I cash it, I will have agreed to be a secret shopper. While I know for a fact there really are secret shoppers, in this case part of this money is supposed to be used for a money gram. A $3,000 money gram. The whole thing is really fishy, and the check is going into the shredder. If I had a shredder.

4) When I got out of the train at Astor Place tonight, the kid in the Mud truck was playing John Lennon's "Mind Games." I decided I had to talk to him.

"Is that your CD?" I said.

"No," he says, "That's John Lennon."

I did not laugh out loud. "Yeah, I know, I meant, is that your music choice or was it forced on you?"

""Oh. Yeah. It's on my iPod."

"That's a great album," I said, as if he needed or even wanted my approval.

I walked away from the truck as "One Day at a Time" started. Sometimes your favorite music sounds even better when someone else has chosen to play it.

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Instant Botox

"You're really happy to see me, but you can't express it."

(Mr Angell's explanation of how to look botoxed.)

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The Ultimate Spam

Okay, the ultimate spam:

I had to change my password the other day because I got a spam email from....MYSELF.

Apparently I was trying to sell myself replica watches.

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Hawk Man

A sighting: From across the platform at the Brooklyn Bridge IRT station came the sound of...pigeons? Actually, it sounded like one very large pigeon. I looked over, and saw a man wearing a hat with a long feather protruding out of it. (stop giggling at the word "protruding.") It took me a minute, and then I recognized him: The Hawk Man of Lower Manhattan. Usually, he caws like a hawk. Today he was cooing. Then chirping. Then he growled like a lion, which confused me.

Eventually he starting cawing, and my world made sense again.

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More Pictures

For some reason we were fascinated by these clouds.
No, we were not high.

This was the hotel entrance.

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iGive

I sent this information out as an email, but recently I was reminded (read: chastized) for not posting for more than a week (horrors!), so I thought I should get back into posting mode by adding this information here on my blog. That's what blogs are for, right? Not just to rant randomly or post vacation pictures?

So here, in its entirety, was my email. Those of you who have read it before, just chill. There will be more photos soon and other silliness to entertain you:

Anyone who spends any time shopping online should know about iGive.com. Basically, any time you order something online from one of the participating stores, they give a percentage to the cause of your choice--any cause, and if it's not on their list, you can add it. It can be anything from the March of Dimes to a personal cause (the example in the link is someone's kids' dance school). And all you have to do to send the donation is go to the iGive site first and choose the store from there instead of going to it directly.

The list of stores who participate is really long, and includes the Apple Store (including iTunes), LLBean, 1-800-Flowers, and Banana Republic, to name just a couple. (Amazon is not a participant, unfortunately, but B & N is).

You can have more than one cause. (My charity is the Wild Animal Sanctuary. )

Here is the link for more info and to register:

http://www.igive.com/welcome/

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