Quote Contest Solution (and Note)

First, the answer: the quote is from Mark Twain, taken from The Mysterious Stranger. The character who speaks the line is a blond teenaged ("so young and beautiful") boy angel named Satan. I asked about the year it was written, and it seems like a range of 1896 up to Twain's death in 1910 would have to be sufficient.

I did a little digging on The Mysterious Stranger. Most academics today consider it an unfinished novel, Twain's last big project. The version I read was published posthumously in 1916, but is viewed with contempt by many Twain scholars nowadays due to the heavy editing and invention of characters by Albert Paine, the biographer who had sole control over Twain's manuscripts during that time.

Okay...it looks like there were three separate versions that are floating around, which were what occupied Twain's last decade-and-a-half. All three, as well as the Paine mis-mash, have as themes Twain's feelings about the hypocrisy of organized religion, the Moral Sense, and the "damned human race." What I read is a very serious social commentary.

One version is about an angel named Satan, a young teenage boy and nephew/namesake of the famous fallen angel, and his travels throughout a 1590 small village in Austria. Satan tries to enlighten the kids about the Moral Sense, the ridiculous way mankind treats mankind, etc. It ends abruptly with Satan entertaining in India, likely because Twain stashed it in a drawer to work on something else, probably another version. This was titled in his notes The Chronicles of Young Satan.

Another version, titled Schoolhouse Hill, starred Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and they're adventures with Satan. This is the shortest version.

The third version returns to medieval Austria, but Satan's name is now No. 44, and has No. 44 out to explain the futility of humanity to the watching kids. This version has Twain playing with his late-in-life ideas about a "waking self" and a "dreaming self," a duality of selves that interested him. In his notes this is called No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger: Being an Ancient Tale Found in a Jug and Freely Translated from the Jug.

The version I read, the one put together by Paine and published as a novella in 1916 as The Mysterious Stranger; a Romance, has as the bulk of the story The Young Chronicles of Satan (though heavily edited with the Astrologer character wholly added by Paine), with the ending of the No. 44... story hap-hazzardly slapped on in a weird precursor to ontological science fiction of later times.

I have to say I was heartened to see that the ending was from a different manuscript entirely, since I didn't think Twain would have so abruptly switched gears, going from a tale about an unfeeling and powerful angel to a philosophically dense ontological dilemma about one's self in the course of a half-page.

Get an idea of how Twain saw his fellow humans...check out the story.

Cult Movie Notes

In 1976, Steve Lisberger was inspired to make a sci-fi film, animated by his small animation company using both traditional hand-drawn cell work and trying to use some of the new-fangled toys offered up by the newly-becoming-affordable computer. He decided to book-end the animation with some live-action scenes.

Finding backers was difficult, but someone bit. When they realized they needed more money, they had put together a rough scene, and eventually convinced a major studio, who at that time was more interested in being daring than they are now.

The final film, from 1982, was only a modest box-office hit, earning about twice as much as it cost. It was received well by some critics, poorly by plenty more, but eventually found a cult following.

It revolutionized the way computers were approached by filmmakers, and developed a technique called Perlin noise, a way of making computer generated images look more realistic in perspective.

The major studio that took the risk was Disney, and the film was Tron (in case you hadn't guessed).

the only reason I mention any of this talk about a sci-fi film from the early eighties is because they're making a sequel, Tron Legacy.

I am curious to see how the project turns out. The original, along with King Kong and Starman, were the movies that made Jeff Bridges one of my childhood favorites. It looks like he's in the sequel as well.

White Lighter Superstition Exposed

This may not make a whole lot of sense to some of my readers, but I've come across an explanation for a maddening superstition I encountered in the dorms.

I never really shared this superstition, but many of my friends in the dorms never used white Bic lighters for anything. They wouldn't touch them, wouldn't take them from your hand, would casually curse anyone holding such a lighter...the only explanation I ever received as to why they acted so was things like "Bad things always happen when there's a white lighter around..." or "I don't know...it's just bad luck..."

Such a ridiculous superstition, I remember thinking, but also remember refraining from obtaining white lighters, mainly because of the hassle it would engender with my friends.

It turns out that the superstition goes back to a (verified?) claim that Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain all had white lighters in their possession when they died, all, rather randomly, at the age of 27.

Express Licensing: It (gasp) Works!

Wow, something resembling a clunky bureaucracy that actually works in the City? Who wouldv'e guessed...

My driver's license had been from California, and expired this past April, but since I never drive, nor get carded for much of anything, I hadn't ever gotten a NY license. Now, I feel like I wanted to change that, and since an out-of-state ID had to be expired more than two years to cost more (besides having to take the test...) I felt like now would be a good time.

Besides making some errors on my part, resulting in having to ride the subway home and back three separate times, I made it inside a thing calling itself "Express Licensing" at 3:40 pm. I had little confidence I'd get done that day, since they close at 4:30 (and shutter the front doors at 4), but after spending all day riding to midtown, then back out to Brooklyn, then back, etc, I was determined to test my luck.

In New York, or at least the City, the DMV is used for something besides renewing licenses and registrations, as this is done at these licensing express type places. I got a slip from one lady, who said, "Sign this and go over there for your picture." I signed it, and went for my picture, which took all of ninety seconds, as there was no line.

The picture lady made sure my documents were the necessary ones (my passport, my social security card, my old ID, and my application), then gave me a printed out number (A036) and told me to go sit down and wait to be called.

I waited the longest for that first call, and then waited some more as there was a lady who got to cut in front of me at the worker's discretion (which I understood, but wasn't so happy about). That employee scanned my stuff (passport, SSN card, old ID), drew an 'F' over the 'A' on my A036 number, and told me to sit again and wait for F036 to be called. Her work took about forty seconds.

I waited a little more, got called quickly, gave a new lady my stuff, she made me read a line of letters behind her, I gave her money, and I got a paper license that is valid for operating vehicles (but not as identification) to hold me over for the week or three it'll take to get me my new card. I was out by 4:07 pm.

I'm not upset about no longer having a photo ID of me when I was 16 years old, that's for sure.

Long Days Upstate

I spent a few days last week helping out on some delivery runs for Ronny Brook dairy farm, a farm that prides itself on being "beyond organic". They (and I with them) believe that how they farm is, while not adhering to one stipulation, better than organic farming, and the quality of their dairy shows as much. They bottle in glass quarts and pints on the farm; they've use the same basic family of cattle for the last sixty-plus years, having neither purchased nor sold a cow in that time; they feed the cattle organically grown grass; and they keep up a well trained staff of veterinarians on hand to make sure all the cattle are healthy.

Here's some of them checking me out while I take their picture:

My friend and I were getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning to get to the farm and find invoices, load the truck, and head out on tours of upstate New York, and eventually Connecticut and Massachusetts.

The area is beautiful and ancient. You get the feeling roaming through the green how the early settlers must have felt, witnessing the never-ending sprawl of timber and game, fruits and nuts there for the foraging.

On the second day, the early one/long one (I was up at quarter-to-three)(this is when we ventured out-of-state), we had a truck that had what I liked to call an NPR-only radio. Here's a picture:

The runs into Connecticut were quick and non-consecutive (we went into Conn through one road, doubled back to NY for a few more stops, and then back to Conn on a different road), and the terrain and villages were all pretty similar to those across the state line in NY. In Mass, the villages and terrain was again very similar, but there were more trees of a distinctly pine-variety.

One of our last deliveries was to somewhere called Stockdale, MA, to the Red Lion Inn. It was a pity, my friend said, that we couldn't spend more time there, since the Norman Rockwell Museum is in the vicinity. Wow, I said, I've been there before, in 2007, when my fam (on my mom's side) ventured in that direction for my grandfather's 80th birthday party. We spoke about the museum for a minute or two, and I noticed the name of the inn written on a pilar or sign on a corner that we were coming up to. We needed to cross in front of the place, then around the back, then weaving through a dense collection of buildings that made up different areas available for rent from the inn-keepers.

I had a strange feeling when we passed the front of the Red Lion Inn. Then it hit me: this is the establishment we ate at after the trip to the Rockwell Museum. I said as much, and my friend said, good for you, they serve some good grub. I agreed.

We made it back to his house by 2 pm or so, which left me about an hour to go before needing to be in Poughkeepsie to pick up the train to Yankee Stadium for the night's game, a make-up game between the Yanks and the A's. having been up for more than twelve hours already before the train showed up, I was quite delirious and dazed for the ride back to town.

I had to make a stink as well to leave the train at Yankee Stadium. I had a train ticket for the longest possible route along the particular commuter line I was dealing with; Grand Central (the beginning) and Poughkeepsie (the end). The Yankee Stadium stop is between the two, and I was planning to just get out there instead of going all the way into Manhattan, turning around and taking the subway back. The ticket cost more than the distance I was planning on riding, so I didn't foresee any problem. But...in the infinite wisdom of the New York Yankee Cash-Money Printing Machine, there is a special cost of using the Yankee Stadium terminal, one which I wasn't going to pay. I was cranky anyway, and hungry, and made a scene, and was able to leave without paying the extra charge.

Of course, it was pouring down rain, quite windy, and pretty much miserable all around. Corrie and I met up, entered the park, found our seats, got some food and refreshments, and tried to keep warm. Isn't this July?

We were getting pretty fed-up with the whole shenanigans of not calling the game a washout just to keep people hovering around the beer and hot-dog vendors...finally, close to 9 pm, almost two hours after the proposed start was scheduled, we decided to leave. It was Thursday, and Corrie had already in that week worked 47 hours at her office, and I'd been up since before 3 am. We got home and learned they'd just started, close to 10 pm, which meant they ended close to 1 am. I was bummed we missed the game, but we couldn't stay any longer. Yankee Stadium is not quite a cheap place to just chill and wait out some miserable weather. Here are some pictures:

The Solomon Dwek Operation

Solomon Dwek was the son of a Rabbi. He started a career as a Jersey real estate mogul, buying land and selling it to developers, while still in his teens. From there he became a money guy, and con-artist, fleecing hundreds of people out of millions of dollars.

He was finally caught by bouncing a $25 million check; he deposited the check into a night drop and tried to withdraw $23 million of it soon afterwards. He was caught, and in the courtroom that day in 2006 at his pre-trial arraignment, loud and angry victims overflowed into the hallways. He had disparaged his family's good name, and destroyed countless family's retirement plans.

Instead of prison, Dwek decided to help the FBI, and go undercover in an unprecedented sting operation. What he told the FBI he could give them was so outlandish that they were initially in disbelief, but he convinced them, and if any of my readers have seen the news coming out of Jersey and Brooklyn lately, he wasn't lying.

Dwek help lead the feds to arresting--all on the same day mind you--44 folks in jersey and Brooklyn, but these weren't your average thugs, gangsters, mafioso, shady dealers and the like. They nabbed three mayors of New Jersey cities, state senators and assembly-persons from New Jersey and New York, Rabbis from Jersey and Brooklyn, and may other bribe-taking folks in the building department of New Jersey.

The sting netted two basic categories of criminals. One was the bribe-taking corruption you find in almost any municipality. Inspectors being paid to clam up about mistakes; city council members being paid to push through permits; mayors being paid for green-lighting certain projects over others...the mayor of Hoboken was one of the mayors arrested. Hoboken lies directly across the Hudson from Greenwich Village, is a picturesque little burg, about 1 square mile in area, and had just elected the mayor two months ago in early June. Two months...and he's arrested for corruption. One quote taken from a smitten resident called this mayor "so young and handsome" at least three separate times, and she could hardly believe the allegations were true. Everyone who was arrested in the bribe/corruption can be heard on wiretap recordings bragging about their deals and status.

Wiretap recordings also nabbed the other category of criminal netted in the sting. This one was centered around Brooklyn, and run by one or two Rabbis. This is the organ-trafficking category, the made-for-pulp-fiction type stuff.

The way it seemed to work is that destitute folks from places like Moldavia and Israel would be flown into America with phony visas, have a kidney removed, be paid a few thousand dollars and be sent home, or be sent to work as cheap labor here. The organs would be sold on the black market for $160k and up, sold to waiting and willing customers. 

When they processed the 44 arrested through the federal court in New Jersey, they were doing it in groups to speed the process up and be able to finish it that day.

Solomon Dwek, con-man, FBI snitch, blows the lid off of a sordid level corruption barely seen this side of Italian politics...

Quick Ozzie Smith Note

Ozzie Smith was a shortstop in Major League Baseball, and was recently inducted into the Hall of Fame. He was a light hitting, slick fielding dynamo, short and skinny, former Mustang (Cal Poly, baby)...

His defensive wonders were highlight-reel worthy before Sports Center was around, but is there a way to measure his defensive prowess using statistics? Possibly...

This is something that appeals to the number-cruncher in me, so my apologies to those who find this lame and boring...

There are stats that tell us how many groundballs were hit to the shortstop during the season (actually, the stats cover every out of an entire season, but we're looking at shortstop only). From this, we can add up all the groundballs to short for every team, then divide by the number of teams to get an average number per team. If any team is substantially above the average, our conclusion is that their shortstop had good range, or was an excellent--at least above average--defensive shortstop.

One problem here is: what if a team with above average play at shortstop has inflated numbers due to groundball inducing pitchers, like sinker-ball throwing righties, or hard throwing lefties? This is a problem, and you can either accept it as part of the limitations of statistics, or not accept it, and claim all this as illusion or fraud.

However you feel about the limitations of stats, one thing that is shown is that Ozzie had substantially above average numbers almost every single year of his career, and, it turns out, is the only shortstop is pro-ball history to be at +500 plays relative to his teams' leagues and contexts...what that says is that Ozzie Smith got to 504 more grounders at shortstop than an average player playing in the same leagues and years as him, throughout his career...

You know what they say: "three types of lies; lies, damn lies, and statistics", but this only seems to reinforce our pre-conceived notions and memories of our slick fielding Wizard of Oz.

Quote Contest (Sort of)

I found a quote while reading that I thought was poignant and timely, and I'm going to transcribe it here. This isn't a contest in any real way, and I feel that by the end of the quote the writer will give themselves away, so the real trivia here is when the piece was written, or what is the piece's name...

Bonus points for naming the character who says the quote, as it is dialogue.

"

And now the whole nation--pulpit and all--will take up the war cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

"

I'll name the information in a few days, or sooner if somebody nails it quickly...

Something Minor: Picture 4000

I reached the 4000th picture with my camera last night, purposefully snapping away for 4 pictures of our apartment and the cat just to get to 4000. I can tell since my camera keeps a running tally, and each new picture is named sequentially from the start. In any case, I wanted to get a shot that meant something, like I did at Marc's fishing trip, forcing myself into the frame for picture 3000.

See, I'm off today to go north and help out in a dairy delivery capacity, helping out a friend for the next two days, and since we'll be off in the forests of Connecticut and Massachusetts, I'd like to bring my camera, and not blow the 4000th picture on an out-the-moving-window-of-a-truck blurry scene of bushes and trees.

Upon returning to the City, I'm meeting Corrie for the makeup Yankees/A's game, which will be her first game at the new Stadium.

Here's 4000...even got the ten-second timer involved...too bad Tux is trying to hide...

Brooklyn Wonders, Part 4: Fulton Landing

In Brooklyn an event from the Revolutionary War has taken on different meaning, or, in Brooklyn the perspective is different.

What gets usually treated as a footnote, most likely due to the overwhelming defeat of Washington, and goes by the title of the "Battle of Long Island", but is remembered more fondly in Brooklyn as the "Battle of Brooklyn", mainly due to the area under question is entirely enclosed within the County of Kings borders.

This "battle" took place in August of 1776, around the time things were starting to heat up. The British had around 20,000 troops marching through the forest and mountains of Brooklyn (if they saw it today...sheesh), trying to either 1) capture Washington's Continental Army of only 9,000 and force them to surrender, and hopefully work a way out of this minor rebellion with money and diplomacy; or, if that didn't work, 2) obliterate them, and definitely force an end to this damn rebellion.

Somehow Washington was able to keep up a faster pace (less men?) and stayed ahead of the British. When it seemed like the next day was gearing up for an imminent battle, with the mustering British just beyond the closest ridge, Washington decided to risk it, and contacted as many of the private fishermen he could he find. They turned out to be sympathetic to his aims, and ferried all 9,000 troops across the East River to the eastern shore of Manhattan to regroup and fight some other day. The maneuver took the entire night, and when the sun rose the next morning, Washington and the Continental Army had given up their holdings in Brooklyn, but were poised not to surrender.

The British had to work on a new strategy. The Revolutionary War almost ended before it had a chance to really start. Fulton Landing is the spot where the CA troops slipped across the river through the dark and fog that August night. Here's a view from the point nowadays.

If you turn around from that spot you can see, still standing if somewhat dilapidated, the old Fulton Landing Building, but I'm not sure what went on there...possibly a market for the fisherman, possibly a ferrying point to points west...I could probably look it up. Here it is.

So much history in this place...

A gentleman in we met in Rotterdam (he was naturally Dutch) gave us his perspective one evening: "Europe is old, but not really old. India and China are really old. The States are new, but not that new, compared with Australia, and even the countries like Italy and Germany. Granted, those places have long and storied histories, but the countries are rather new. Europe on the whole is like the younger old thing, while the States is the oldest new thing."

City Sol 2009

Corrie got involved in a green-builders non-profit organization called Solar 1 a few years ago, after moving to the City. Once a month the group organizes a thing they call "Green Drinks", an event that many of us like-minded folks can go to and meet others like us, conversing about our industries and our industries' fight to "go green" as it's called today.

Solar 1 also offers a series of free lectures, when in season I think it's every week, or every other week, around 7 in the evening at their location at 23rd Street and the East River. They occupy a tiny sustainable wooden hut of sorts, similar to a trailer used in elementary schools, but possibly smaller and more permanently built.

Each year they put together a free concert on their grounds and call it City Sol. I imagine the bands are donating their time...in this way most people who show up, whether they're musicians, volunteers, or fans will be of a similar attitude concerning environmental policy.

Corrie volunteered two years ago and worked the beer stall (maybe the musicians get a few points off the beer sales...) and made a tidy sum in tips, even though it was unexpected.

This year she volunteered again, and was helping out at the letter-writing table. One of the Solar 1 organizers had the idea that this year an attempt would be made to get lots of handwritten letters to respective state senators and assembly persons demanding that they vote for an initiative that's been introduced in NY State's legislative chambers. The initiative in question has to do with supporting a push to move to solar power.

How do you get a bunch of hipsters to sit and follow a carefully planned rubric and handwrite letters in a stiff wind? Easy answer on that one: Hand out free beer tickets. I wrote two letters, one to a County of Kings State Senator, and one to my Bed-Stuy Assembly-woman, and got two beers as a result.

Corrie also scored some swag for volunteering most of the afternoon. Solar 1 was offering for sale smallish balsa wood RC cars, that you make yourself, but have the novelty of being powered by a small photo-voltaic cell, a PV cell...no batteries necessary and all that. Pretty cool, and they gave Corrie two packets. We're thinking of giving one to the niece and nephew, so they can have some fun in the sun. Corrie wanted to make one herself.

Here's some pictures...in the first on the left side you'll see two strange arcing things...those house the PV cells for the laptops that are on the other side.

Proof of Relative Weirdness

The relative weirdness I'm speaking of is the fact, or sight, of Corrie and I living in, or better yet, inhabiting, the neighborhood we do.

Our skin color sets us apart immediately. The fact we're in our late twenties (or thirty) without kids is another less obvious, but obvious still, fact.

We take old plastic bags back to the bodegas and make sure they use them. We take canvas bags to the grocery stores. These things are definitely happening out here, just not in overwhelming proportions, as is the case in many places around the country (and world).

We grill on our stoop. 

Now, in our window taking up a nice swath of sunlight:

We've already eaten one, and it was fantastic. I was almost out of the market one Saturday, and Corrie reminded me to pick up a tomato plant, or plants, if it were possibly. We'd picked up some of the hanging-garden deals at Lowe's or Home Depot, the kind you hang from a porch or other outdoor area. Basically a two foot long tarp cylinder bag with a hole and washer at the bottom in which the plant would stick out and grow with the aid of gravity, you would fill the top half with dirt.

The smallest plant I could find was that one in the picture. It already had eight or twelve pieces of fruit, some quite large and green, and was too large to try to invert and hang in our front room, which now seems like a rather dangerous (in terms of cleanup) proposition. I knew it would be worth the money even if it didn't grow any more tomatoes.

I carried it on the crowded subway, bumping seated people in the knees and arms, and eventually making it to a bus (transferring trains on the weekend is lame).

So Corrie and I are the weird white people with no kids, a grill on the stoop, and tomatoes in the window sill.

Little Administrative Things...

Sorry, my few dear readers, for falling behind again, but I'm gearing up for some adventures over the next few days.

My friends' restaurant in Manhattan finally got their beer/wine license, which has been a three-month battle for them and their now-not-struggling-restaurant.

I got Corrie working on Vineland, and she's past half-way.

I also have some more proof of how weird Corrie and I are in our neighborhood, which I'll try to put up soon.

Also, does anyone think Cheney's explanation that an assassination group was the receiver of secret funds sounds fishy? Why would Congress be so upset by that, as he explained when he said why he'd kept it secret...sounds like a coverup...

Until later, thanks for keeping up. (I'm not at home right now, so it'll look different in font I'm afraid...)

Can Nerds be Sexy?

Not sure how I want to do this...

I came across a book review for Idiot America, a book about America's fall from intellectual grace, about ignorance becoming prized, about the rise of easy never-question-authority lives. This might sadden the "Founding Fathers", a group much ballyhooed by both political parties, most were both land and slave owners and, let's not forget, pretty damn smart (who knows, in 250 years us having owned cars could be nearly as looked down upon). They decided to sever ties with their colonial masters and form a country based on an idea, and wrote the document outlining a form of governance by the people, a document that we still used today with which to do it. Maybe, the writer of the book mused, the "FF" could already see how the struggle for power would play out as the population grew, play out to the point where it seems like it is now, with Fact being reduced to what enough people believe and Truth dissolving into how fervently they believe it.

One thing that caught my attention in the review is discussion of the Creation Museum in Kentucky, a place the writer went to to get an idea of what's going on in the country. He saw this:

He thought it was rather funny, quite hilarious actually, until he noticed that he was the only one. That made him angry, which then quickly turned to sadness.

Of course there's got to heaps of data to support this, right, this new discovery? And I found several websites discussing "a dinosaur saddle has been discovered" somewhere in Utah, and digging further I saw lots of very religious websites citing a particular story as their source. Weird, I thought, I try to keep up on scientific things, surely I would've come across something as historically significant as people and dinosaurs living together, right? Not only living together, but in fact humans having somewhat domesticated dinosaurs, to the point of riding them like horses? Pretty crazy news...then I found the source article. It took two minutes really, and of course me being a pretty good skeptic, I never bought the story for a second, but the source article came from the Avant News website. The Avant News is basically the same thing as The Onion. A fake satirical news outlet for humorous entertainment purposes.

Some of the more overzealous websites had this as corroborating evidence:

(Sigh) A painting as corroborating evidence? I'm sure "Jesus" kept pet dinos as toy-Chihuahua like adornments and rode around on Brontosauri.

Okay, let me say that "Science" is not a bogeyman with frizzy hair and white labcoat out to destroy people's beliefs. "Science" is a method by which you make a guess about something you don't fully understand, and then test to see if what you thought has any validity. 

As far as the period of Earth's history when dinosaur's roamed and ruled, there are thousands and thousands of pages of data that summarize the years and years of research that, when understood even a tiny bit, show that they existed a very, very long time ago, far before any Homo sapiens were walking around, or for that matter, before any Homo erectus and Homo neandertalis, the other two species of humans.

But wait--I did find a cave painting link that might add some support to the dinosaur saddle "debate".

Interesting Argument

I was having a conversation out here with someone who'd been to Sacramento, been there a few times, when I mentioned that I'd read somewhere that Sacramento was the most integrated large city in America.

"That makes sense," they said, "because there's so much white trash there."

I was incredulous at first, but then they went on to say that since white trash are a subset of poor white people, and poor people tend to live poorer communities rather than wealthier communities. Minorities, on the whole, may not get to enjoy such affluent lifestyles, or at least the percentage of affluent minorities compared to non-affluent minorities is smaller maybe than the percentage of affluent white people versus non-affluent white people. Maybe the ratios for white people and minorities are the same, but the sheer number of white people skews the view.

Whereas the Asian or Asian-American minorities might have the affluent/non-affluent ratios switched, black people, Latinos, and the Miwok and Maidu probably all conform to the ratio, and when you add in the large group of poor Russians and the white trash, you get melting pot areas of "high integration".

They assured me that my brother and his girl, and my "brother" and his wife, surely weren't trashy, and this is true, but they also said, "Have you ever been to Denio's? Ever walked around North Highlands?" 

Being shocked that they'd even heard of Denio's or the North Highlands neighborhood, I said I was from Citrus Heights, and they said, "Oh. So you know..."

Sounded almost like fighting words, but I'm not going to fight someone over insulting Sacramento. And, sadly, they're correct about the amount of white trash. It is almost something to marvel at if it weren't so sad and funny.

Union Troubles

In the winter of 1998, one of America's most powerful unions was celebrating a wonderful business year. They were enjoying unparalleled success and popularity. It was a good time to be a part of this organization.

Or was it?

There was a problem brewing. A member of the union stood up at their winter meetings and said, "There is a problem, a major problem, with what's going on in our organization." The problem was an exploitation of loopholes in their basic CBA that, while somewhat hazy legally, could undermine the public faith in their organization. The name of this maverick was Rick Helling.

Well, that loophole exploitation wasn't ever discussed by management, so they'd be damned if they brought it up in discussions with their opposition. This point wasn't lost on Helling even if he disagreed. "This problem is so prevalent that those who don't do it are feeling pressure to do it," he declared.

He was ignored.

The next year at these meetings, 1999, it was the same situation. He complained. They ignored. The same thing in 2000, and in 2001. He told them by not facing it and fixing it it would blow up in their face. He was right.

Rick Helling was a pitcher for the Texas Rangers, and the problem he spoke of was steroids. For four years nobody in his union listened. The Player's Association, still one of the most powerful unions in America, does not hold all the blame on the steroids issue, but it definitely dropped the ball on something that it could have used for its own benefit and moral high-ground in the long run.

Now, I am a union guy on the whole...a supporter of the Proletariat. I, though, do respect intelligence and far-reaching vision, and the Player's Association certainly had neither of those working those times. Doesn't the good of your members in the long-run benefit more from enhanced integrity that the turning-a-blind-eye-and-raking-in-cash approach used for too many years? 

Is this a fundamental characteristic of "American"?

Quick Where'sGeorge Note

I had a post yesterday about the wheresgeorge.com currency-tracking website. Today I found a single I'd received as change from a bar where Corrie's cousin's band was playing over the weekend. The bar is on the Lower East Side and called the Cake Factory, and this particular bill had stamps for the website, as well as the serial number and series declaration circled, but all in all had less stamps than the original bill I wrote about.

I entered it into the sight and learned that I was the third person to enter it. The bill I got information on last time had traveled only 1.5 miles from the original entry point (whether or not it traveled farther cannot be known).

This second bill, received in Manhattan instead of Bed-Stuy, was originally entered somewhere in north-western Connecticut. Seven months later is was entered in a small town north-west of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Eleven months later I entered it in Brooklyn.

Not quite a mad-tourist dollar, but it kinda got around in the last year-and-a-half.

Something New...

Yesterday I posted a bit of a rant about my landlords and their inaction concerning our apartment building. 

In New York, throughout the five boroughs, you can call the number 311 to make any sort of complaint (unsafe working conditions; unsanitary restaurant conditions; housing issues) as well as get tips or information regarding certain social ills (poor diet patterns; smoking; spousal abuse). Corrie often wonders how a city as ridiculously large as this, and as impossible to run as this one is, can really set up a hotline that's supposed to deal with as many disparate things as the 311 line is taking on, and be even remotely successful. But sometimes it does get results.

We've called them on our landlords probably four or five times since moving in, but mostly within the first six to eight months. We got some results. I mentioned in my post yesterday that the magnetic lock on the front door had been busted for nearly three weeks. After posting the post, I picked up my phone, called the number I have for our landlord, got through to a voicemail on the second try, and told them that they knew the situation, and if it wasn't fixed by this morning, I was calling 311 by 8:30 am.

The door was fixed when I checked this morning. Astonishing really...but of course it shouldn't be, since I'd hope that property owners who collect rent should be accountable for things like working front doors.

Just in the past few minutes, a pair of Housing Department guys came through, with a long list of everything we've ever called on, as well as everything everyone in the building has called on, going apartment to apartment checking on the progress of sometimes three year old complaints.

Maybe only in New York City can three year old complaints need to be checked for progress.

A Start...

Our slumlords, er, landlords, have finally started to make some necessary repairs around our building, by fixing some of the worst offending stairs in our staircase.

The stairs that were replaced were spongy, creaking, not attached to the walls, or all three. The two steps above the last fixed step in the picture are barely holding on, what with the nails no longer attached to the base of the railing side.

We're lucky to be on the first floor, so routinely coming and going along the stairs is kept to never. Sometimes we'll take guests to the roof, but since we've had less than six guest-trips to our apartment, it hasn't really been an issue.

We've complained many times to our landlords about a great many things...the stairs are a dangerous nuisance; the magnetic door-lock is easily breached; the mail-person has no access to the mailboxes and slides the mail under the door; hoodlums hang out in the foyer smoking pot (this was fixed by our super, a nice Latino gent who put a lock on the inside door (it was broken twice in the first night, but not since)); the magnetic lock has now been broken for two and a half weeks, with assurances that it'll be fixed coming third-hand.

We put an extra lock on our door before we took off for points south and west back in March, and charged it to our landlord, and got lectured by them for not simply calling them, because they can get a better deal from one of their own guys. Well, I lectured back, the phone number I have barely ever even gets to a voicemail, let alone a person, and even when I get a chance to leave a message, I have never had a single call returned. What makes me think, I told him, that if I called that any possible good would come from it. Your man probably would do it cheaper, but I'm not waiting in an unsafe situation for three months to go by before your guy will come over.

Our landlords don't know what a phone is unless the rent is late, or we're bringing heat on them by calling the authorities, which we've done a few times (no heat; no hot water; no mail; broken door), and they might call Corrie, or come over in person...

Chaos in Albany Part II

Maybe I should call it "The End of Chaos in Albany", but I'm too cynical to believe that the chaos is ultimately over...

Back in early June, I posted about the coup in NY State's Senate, and about how the balance of Dems and the GOP had gone from 32-30, D-R, to 30-32, D-R, with two Democrats being flipped.

Within a week one flipped back, making it a deadlocked stalemate for about three weeks--absolutely nothing was getting done. But, let's remember, this is New York State, so really, nothing getting done is pretty much par-for-course.

Well, since nobody could find a solution, Governor Paterson decided to get creative. David Paterson had been Lt. Governor and ascended to the throne when Spitzer stepped down...ahh, Elliot...but, he's been running the state without a Lt. Gov of his own.

One of the Lt. Gov's jobs, like the VP in the Executive branch of the federal government, is to be able to break stalemates within the (State) Senate. There is also an obscure rule that the Governor can appoint people to vacant offices, but there is a great debate going on here to see if that means they can appoint Lt. Governors. Well, Gov. Paterson appointed a Democrat as Lt. Governor, who looked ready to enter the deadlocked State Senatorial fracas and get something passed before lawsuits end his reign as Lt. Gov (as will probably happen anyway) when, low and behold, the other flipper flipped back.

Now it's back to where it was before the coup, 32 Ds-30 Rs.

Now that that's better, clear sailing from here on out, right?

Ghetto Currency

A few times in the past few years I've come across dollar bills with the "Where's George" stamp on them, with a website address. The idea is to go to the website, enter the serial number, series declaration, and then your current zipcode, and possibly an explanation about how you came to be owning the bill in question.

I'd had no luck entering the bills when we lived in San Luis, and over the three years we've lived in Brooklyn, I've pretty much ignored the stamps and website, that is, until last week.

I came across a bill with a "Where's George" stamp, with red-pen-circled serial number and series declaration, and with a stamp with instructions as well, like a defaced set of instructions disguised as trade-bait for beer. I went to the computer and logged in, entring the bill's information, and found that I was the first person to enter the particular bill. Now it had at least been entered...

A day or two later I received another bill with less graffiti, but the same "follow George at" stamp with the url stamped underneath. This time I entered it into the system and discovered that I was the second to look it up, effectively tracking it. 

This bill was initially entered into the system on February 5th of 2008, the Tuesday after Corrie's birthday and the Giants' Super Bowl victory. I entered it on July 9th of this year. In the seventeen months between when I entered it and its position was initially set, it had traveled a whopping one-and-a-half miles, possibly seven-thousand feet.

This doesn't surprise me. The cash reserves in this neighborhood, probably any neighborhood without high tourist traffic around the country, will stay in a sort of constant flux, like the surface of a deep body of water. The cash floats between bodegas, laundromats, Chinese food establishments and pizza places, and barber-shops. Maybe it makes it into a church collection plate, bundled into a wad and sent off to a bank, but since this is a low-income neighborhood (nee ghetto) there aren't too many banks, so when the Chinese restaurant or the bodega needs to get some more singles to do business, they'll invariably get the cash brought in by a church or other store-front that has made a deposit recently.

I should be even less surprised because of my own witnessing of this phenomena twice, the second time of which I specifically remembered, because it had happened once before. Occasionally a person can find a dollar bill that has a remarkable type of graffiti on it, or a memorable kind of wear and tear, or some other thing that strikes the visual cortex in your brain, making it stand out. There was either a Saturday or a Sunday that I got some juice, eggs, bread, and a newspaper from our local bodega, and received just such a single as I mention above.

As is the case with this kind of change, it comes home to sit on the bookshelf and wait to be needed. Corrie and I usually don't travel with cash on us, not for fear of being robbed, but cash is easier to spend freely, and free spending is not what we're about. So this bill sat on the bookshelf for maybe a week, when we decided to pick up some beer at the same bodega, and used it to pay. Maybe another week went by, and we got pizza (some of the best pizza I've eaten on consistency basis), and I received this certain dollar-bill again, as change, from the pizza place.

The first time this exchange took place, it was probably as change from the Chinese food store for the second "get", but I can't be sure.

The currency used on an everyday basis from this neighborhood is only removed when it needs to be destroyed.

Climate Change

I noticed in my weekly routine of checking up on the FaceBook world that there was a conversation by some people I knew in high school who were excited because the Sacramento weather wasn't up to its usual crushing-dry-heat self. I haven't been there since last August, so I have no firsthand knowledge, but these folks began questioning the validity of the phenomena of Global Warming. 

I just wanted to say that the way I understand the science behind Global Warming is that it doesn't always mean that every place will be getting hotter. The term "Global Warming" has more to do with the temperature of the atmosphere and the oceans, and not whether or not Carmichael is 110 for two weeks straight.

Slight changes in the temperature of the atmosphere and the oceans could wreak all kinds of havoc in all sorts of places. One noticeable thing is a shift in normal patterns for different locations. To that end, it makes sense that the summer in Northern California might not be as unbearably hot as in the past. This summer here in New York has been anything but normal. 

Last year, the week before we left for our Mexico wedding, the City was gripped by a heat wave; humidity was heavy and you couldn't get dry after taking a shower. It was all you could do to keep cool laying around in front of the fan. This year? We've had more rain than in previous summers, more high-temps being lower than average, and not a single day over 90. Some days and evenings have been gorgeous, but we're waiting for the real thing, the Summer, to finally hit.

I've heard it said that this year in Major League baseball there have been more rainouts than in any other season, and we just hit July.

A few years ago it was 72 in January. Two days later it snowed. This past winter was the wettest and snowiest since we moved here (which was appreciated by some). When we went to Europe in '05 it rained for six of the seven-and-a-half weeks we were there, making it the wettest summer in Europe in a century. 

The changing of the understanding of normal is just a symptom. It can't be denied that the atmosphere and the oceans are getting warmer. It can be, and routinely is, denied that we as humans have anything to do with it. Whether this is right or wrong (wrong) doesn't negate that human-induced carbon emissions are at least adding to the problem, and that, if we could do something to help slow the change, we should for posterity's sake.

Like I said in a earlier post, the technology is there for America to drastically reduce its amount of atmospheric carbon emissions...who's going to convince, or worse, try to force China and India to adopt the same standards that we can't even bring to turn in our land?

Something Weird and Basically Useless

This is going to be a note about sports...

The Detroit Pistons, an NBA franchise, began life as the Fort Wayne Pistons, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Savvy basketball fans might know this, and even savvier ones might know that among the NBA minor-league system, the D-League (for Developmental), there is a Ft Wayne franchise, the Mad Ants. I laughed when I saw that name for the first time...apparently the people of Fort Wayne picked that name through a contest, as I guess the ants are pretty crazy there.

But, by looking into the ridiculous name of the Ft Wayne minor-league team, I learned that Ft Wayne has been named the Best City for Minor Leagues in America. I was stunned to see that counting the Mad Ants, there were eight pro or semi-pro minor league teams playing in Ft Wayne. 

Eight? It simply boggles the mind that a city with just over 250k people, and a metro area just over 410k people could sustain eight minor-league teams.

There's the Ft Wayne Fever, a minor league soccer team, and the Ft Wayne Fever again, this time a minor league ladies soccer team. There's the Flash (women's football), the Freedom (indoor football), the Komets (hockey), the TinCaps (baseball), the Mad Ants (basketball), and the Indiana Cardinals, a men's football team in a small midwestern semi-pro football league.

Brooklyn Wonders, Part 3: Coney Island

I wonder how many people consider Coney Island a "wonder"? Maybe back in the late 19th century, before Atlantic City became a gambling resort and adult playground...

Coney Island is a sand-spit peninsula, possibly disconnected from the main body of Long Island by a small creek, and the most southern bit of the County of Kings--AKA Brooklyn. Named for a slang term the Dutch used for rabbits, Coney Island has projects, Astroland Park, the original Nathan's Hotdog Stand, Keyspan Park (a baseball stadium), and one of the nastiest beaches this side of Chernobyl. 

Astroland Park is home to an official New York City Landmark:

The wooden rollercoaster Cyclone has been around since 1927, and when it opened it cost only a quarter to ride. I've just learned that now it costs eight bucks. It's still worth it.

Astroland Park, (below: seen from the beach) is a collection of carnies and hucksters, rides and games...but now the barkers have hi-tech equipment like PA systems and microphones, where they complement your bathing suit or hair as you pass by, and try to get you to spend some money and win some useless wasteful crap. It is nice to win that crap, but we usually only bring enough money for the Cyclone and beer.

In the next picture, which I believe was taken from some ride I don't fully remember riding, shows the full spectrum of Astroland; the dense fair layout (virtually the same I imagine, outside of the pavement, from the look in twenties), one of the numerous elevated trains coming in, and housing projects in the distance.

However you feel about the scummy atmosphere, it can't be denied that in New York City, at the end of four separate subway lines, lies a beach, a boardwalk, and a carnival complete with a bitchin' rollercoaster. It takes about forty-five minutes to get there by subway from Manhattan.

The beach isn't really all that disgusting. I remember being at Long Beach in California and watching the sea-foam lap on the shore, visibly brown mixed with vomit-green, churning your stomach and making you question why you ever went swimming within fifty miles of the place. Coney Island's beach is mostly trashy, and the sand has more broken shells than anyplace I've ever seen (except Shell Beach, obviously, which has no sand, only crushed shells). There are typically people in the water, splashing around, but I would probably refrain from that. There are some City beaches that are fine and dandy for a dip (the Rockaways, Orchard Beach), but there are often advisories for either pollutants or riptides at Coney Island, so we pretty much stay out of the water.

The apparently World Famous hotdog eating contest is held annually on the 4th of July on a stage facing this view (basically) of the original Nathan's Frankfurters. The dogs aren't that bad, if you don't mind belching up the taste of nitrate-rich baloney flavor for a few hours. This year the white kid Chestnut(?) set a new record, and defended his upset victory from last year against the  Japanese-dog-gobblin'-machine, Kobayashi. It's funny what appears in the papers here (and on Sportscenter).

Coney Island is also home to the Brooklyn Open on the AVP Tour, or, the pro-volleyball circuit. Corrie and I made it to the first-ever Brooklyn open, in '07, and we ended up at the marquis event, the ladies-finals. We got to see the best team ever, Misty May and Kerri Walsh, win for the 84th time in a row (I think they made it to 86 before finally losing a match). The tour was back when we went to the baseball game, as was the circus. Barnum & Bailey and the Ringling Brother's were in town as well, all visible while walking to the stadium from the beach.

Keyspan Park is named after Keyspan, the NYC gas company that has since changed its name to NationalGrid. Here's a view of the scoreboard, which has a frieze shaped like the team's namesake, the Cyclone 'coaster, while, if you look close at the right side of the picture, just above the wall, you can see the top of the real rollercoaster.

The game we went to was great, a low scoring affair, won in the bottom of the ninth with a walk-off hit that missed being a homerun by a few inches. After the game we went back to the beach, got comfortable, and watched the fireworks. After the pyrotechnic show, we got on the subway, and went home. 

As unique a New York evening as there exists. That's probably the allure, the draw, of this scuzzy summer-fair, pricey beers and hotdogs, beach, baseball, the circus...the City has so much to offer and to do, but making it unique is the important part.

Just because something is a dive doesn't make it less memorable.

My One-Hundredth Post

I'm still figuring out how to make sure my posting font remains easy to view to older eyes. The first time I was able to get it large and serif-fonted was quite by accident. See, the font I write these in is different from how it previews (in the preview mode), and both are different to how it appears. So, accidently I learned that cutting and pasting twice yields the best look so far...cutting and pasting once gives us the last post, about Steve McNair, which is an okay font, but smaller than usual. 

In any case, I believe this is my 100th post. Woo-hoo. These few months of posting have made theses long days getting rejected by companies at least somewhat better. It compels me to write often, which has upsides and downsides. The upside is that by writing frequently I keep my brain ready for the overflow of fiction ideas to spill out onto paper--the act of creative creation otherwise waiting too long to occur. The downside being that this blog is all over the place, totally unfocused, and basically useless as a commercial device. It has politics (rarely), sports items, science items, recipes, and travelogues. Sometimes I insert a piece of biting observational truth, which has led to a few of my readers to compare me to Mark Twain...or a Twain type, anyway.

Speaking of wildly unfocussed entries, here is an existentialist post-about-the-nature-of-old-posts.

I have a list of ideas for the upcoming days, but that'll probably change with events from the outer world and other things.

I have a few scenes left I'm retooling for my first novel, the majority of which is done; I'm fleshing out some plans for another novel, focussing on small-towns, obsession, and a facsimile of SLO.

Thanks for keeping up with my brainal activity.

A Steve McNair Memory

Sitting in a bar on the 4th of July I noticed on one of the many television screens that the erstwhile quarterback Steve McNair had been found shot dead in a Nashville condominium. I was pretty shocked, as were most hardcore or casual football fans. I remember Steve Mcnair as a warrior, or at least an NFL-warrior. Now sordid details come out that he was most likely shot by his secret girlfriend...his longtime wife had no idea about the affair until he was found dead...

In any case, my clear memory from the McNair football era was the Music City Miracle, the one time the Tennessee Titans franchise (originally the Houston Oilers) made the Super Bowl. The team had been carried by Steve McNair and running-back Eddie George for most of the season. In the playoff game in question, the Titans were playing the Buffalo Bills, a team my brother had been rooting for (if I remember correctly) and who'd just taken a lead with mere seconds to go. They were celebrating on the sidelines, dunking their coach and all, since all they had to do was kickoff and tackle the guy, and they'd move on to the next round. 

I stood up on my bed and opened my window, hollered to Dan to let him know the Bills had just won. "Hey Dan," I called, and as he came sauntering to my window I'd looked over my shoulder back at my tv to see the kickoff. The Titans kick-returner caught the kickoff, then ran to one sideline, drawing the entire defense. He then lobbed a lateral clear to the other sideline. It traveled backwards about one yard, making it a legal backwards lateral (that much seemed clear when it happened in live action, and it was upheld when the officials were discussing it).

The Titan who caught it ran nearly untouched all the way to a touchdown, and playoff victory. By now Dan was at my window and I was jumping up and down on my bed, blabbing about "Oh man, you just...should have seen it..." and he came in to watch the replays. 

Besides Eli-to-Plaxico with thirty seconds left and my vested interest in that game, that Music City Miracle ranks as one of the more exciting games I remember watching live.

Happy Saturday

Today is a day of celebration across this land, a celebration of white land- and slave-owning men not wanting to pay taxes anymore. How do we, as Americans, celebrate this holiday? By blowing shit up, of course. For some reason that makes perfect sense.

I mentioned that a few times this morning while helping out at the market, usually in response to people saying "Happy Fourth", and got either raucous or nervous laughter. I guess leftist interpretations of history are fine when discussing Dubya, but bringing Independence Day into a cynical light seemed distasteful to some.

I'm not saying, of course, that skipping out on taxes was the sole purpose of the severance of the colonial way of life...but come on. Many people who purchase our dairy would have, had they not been staring at a glowing rectangle in an office or loft, marched with the millions against the invasion of Iraq. But linking our "Founding Fathers" and slavery, which is an accurate link, offends them. Whatever.

I apologize for being a lagger these past two weeks with entries...I'll be putting some pictures up of the Brooklyn Cyclones baseball game Corrie and I went to, along with the firework show afterward. The game was exciting, with a bases-loaded walk-off bash off the top of the wall. The last bastion of Brooklyn baseball, the Brooklyn Cyclones play out at Coney Island; behind right field is the beach, beyond center field is the world-famous wooden Cyclone rollercoaster (easily the best six-bucks in NYC)...the Cyclones are an affiliate of the Mets, play in the short-season level-A, whereas across the New York Bay the Staten Island Yankees are their main rivals, in the same league, a Yankee affiliate, and yesterday the Brooklyn fans booed like crazy when they merely mentioned the upcoming series against them (Corrie and I included).

I'll be paying more attention to this site next week for sure.