As my friend says... Update yo'self!

Hey everyone.

So I'm on the trail of tears from Blogger to Tumblr.

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Thanks.

A.

A $500 hammer from New Jersey

Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls and Independence Day, sheds some light on Spitzer's mind in today's Washington Post:

Before everything begins to unravel, Eliot confides to Rick that he's made a mess of things, betrayed everyone he loves, that he isn't even sure who he is anymore. But Rick will tell him not to be melodramatic. It's true he's made mistakes, big ones, Rick explains, but they aren't what Eliot thinks they are. Rick admits he's outraged that Eliot has spent $80,000 on prostitutes, because it shouldn't cost that much to get a little action in America. It's like one of those $500 Pentagon hammers. Downright wasteful. And why order a hammer from New Jersey and pay the shipping? There are perfectly good hammers in Washington -- it's a damned city of hammers when you think about it. Where on earth did Eliot get the idea that New Jersey hammers were superior? All he wanted to do was nail something, right?

I guess he wanted to nail a hammer from New Jersey?

probably my favorite moment from the last 8 seasons of The Bush Administration

the 40 million people who have watched this... can they be wrong?

how people dance in france

New 'Optical Illusions' - TV commercial

baby daft

love the tie dye.

Funny. I probably would have voted for Alan Alda.

Nice racket. Great town, New York.

From The New York Times:

In 2006, when Ms. Wall Spitzer showed a reporter around their apartment on Fifth Avenue, she proudly declared that as a rule, only artwork made by members of the immediate family was allowed to hang on the walls.

One multicolored drip painting, in a den that the family calls the Adirondack Room, had been signed “Spitzer Wall,” because the two of them had painted it together early in their courtship.

“Eliot and I had been to the Whitney and were looking at a Jackson Pollock, and he said, ‘I could do that,’ ” Ms. Wall Spitzer said, imitating her husband with a braggadocious tone. “So I said, ‘Let’s see you try,’ and then I helped him.”

That's how the article ends. It reminded me of this passage from Woody Allen's short story, "The Whore of Mensa":

A wall of books opened, and I walked like a lamb into that bustling pleasure palace known as Flossie's. Red flocked wallpaper and a Victorian decor set the tone. Pale, nervous girls with black-rimmed glasses and blunt-cut hair lolled around on sofas, riffling Penguin Classics provocatively. A blonde with a big smile winked at me, nodded toward a room upstairs, and said, "Wallace Stevens, eh?" But it wasn't just intellectual experiences. They were peddling emotional ones, too. For fifty bucks, I learned, you could "relate without getting close." For a hundred, a girl would lend you her Bartok records, have dinner, and then let you watch while she had an anxiety attack. For one-fifty, you could listen to FM radio with twins. For three bills, you got the works: A thin Jewish brunette would pretend to pick you up at the Museum of Modern Art, let you read her master's, get you involved in a screaming quarrel at Elaine's over Freud's conception of women, and then fake a suicide of your choosing - the perfect evening, for some guys. Nice racket. Great town, New York.

Gustavo Dudamel conducts Bernstein's "Mambo"

Jacks endorses Hillary

WENG WENG RAP

Brooklyn is expanding.

A few weeks ago, I went out to dinner with a friend of mine who lives in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. Before dinner, he invited me up to his apartment for a beer. As we chatted in his living room, he brought me over to the window and showed me the new building that was built over the last year behind his house.

“See that over there,” he asked. “That five story building replaced a lot that just sat there in waiting for the better part of the 20^th Century. "On Sunday mornings he used to pull the blinds all the way up so the sun would flood his apartment with warm natural light as he enjoyed his coffee and the Sunday New York Times.

Not any longer, he said. Now, the sunlight bounces off the side of the building, making his apartment significantly dimmer.

To have a new building where there used to be nothing, or next to nothing, is an increasingly common experience in Brooklyn. In all corners of the borough – from the bungalows of Brighton Beach to the train tracks at the Atlantic Yards – new developments are inching higher into the sky.

As someone whose family has been rooted in Brooklyn for over half a century, the scale and pace of development here is a relatively new thing. Whether you are in favor of development or are fiercely against it, what has been taking place for the past ten years (at least) rivals any of the borough’s great booms of the past.

Brooklyn’s historical architecture embodies its marvelous aspirations. Brooklynites are proud of landmarks such as Grand Army Plaza, the magnificent Brooklyn Museum, and the Parisian-style boulevard of Eastern Parkway. They exemplify the borough’s history as its own independent city that dreamed of a world class future.

At the same time, Brooklynites for the most part live in or around low-rise, low-density housing that gives their neighborhoods the feeling of being a small town in the heart of one of the world’s greatest cities.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that this duality has existed for about 100 years.

The reactions to new changes throughout the borough embody this longstanding historical tension - of a city with one foot planted in the past while the other tries to step towards its future.

On the one hand, we fear the loss of the quality of life we’ve known for decades. On the other hand, we hang our hopes on new developments that will carry us into the future.

In the case of my friend’s neighborhood, he told me that when the new building went up, the neighborhood became hysterical. People who had lived on his street for decades stood on each other’s stoops and shared their fears about parking spaces. With five new units on the nearby block, how much farther would they have to travel for a place to park their cars after a long day’s work?

This was a real concern. But the same neighborhood did not demonstrate the same kind of visceral reaction when a much larger real estate development, the Atlantic Yards, was announced. Perhaps it was because the quality of life wasn’t at risk of being inundated by new car traffic, or that its sunny streets weren't in jeopardy of falling under the shadows of the new towers.

Instead, he said, people were excited by new possibilities, like the prospect of Brooklyn having a new professional sports team or a famous architect introducing a new building style to the borough.

I don’t remark on this because I have an opinion one way or another about the Atlantic Yards development. I would be happy if it did not happen. But I say it because I think that there is something remarkably similar between these two reactions.

They both represent something about Brooklyn that perseveres throughout its changes, and that is the desire among Brooklynites to commune with one another. Whether you call it kvetching, bitching, hyping, or laughing, a style of architecture – neither a brownstone nor a skyscraper – will ever change the fact that Brooklynites cannot stop talking to each other about what is going on around them. The changes Brooklyn is going through now are experiences shared among people from many different backgrounds and they lay the foundation for the borough’s next generation, which will have to find its own ways of coping and coexisting.

As we left my friend’s apartment for the restaurant, he mentioned one of his favorite scenes from the Woody Allen movie “Annie Hall.”

“Remember that flashback to the doctor’s office where the boy has stopped doing his homework because he thinks the world is expanding and so doing homework is pointless? ‘The universe is not expanding!’ his mom says, ‘Brooklyn is not expanding!’”

Brooklyn is expanding, I thought, and it’s that very expansion that will hold it together.

Whatever it is, I'm against it.

Who's on first?

I Drink Your Milkshake!!!

Barack OBollywood

We Salute You

Henry Miller - "Master of Fuck"

Via Literary Outpost

The George W. Bush Plastic Ono Band

One, two, three... go.

Roger's Tell

THE WHO Keith Moon collapse at Cowgate 1973, Scott takes over

R.I.P. Rudy Giuliani, (1994-2000, 2001-2008)

From time to time, I write topical political opinion pieces for my boss. He gives me an assignment, I work it out, and then we go over it together for a final run through. They end up running in a variety of different publications, many of which do not have an online presence. But I'm proud of what I write and so I want to make sure that they live on someplace online.

Here is the latest piece: an attempt to make a little sense of the faltering of Rudy Giuliani's bid for the presidency. Many of you know my personal attitudes about Rudy, which I had to reign in to write this piece. To give you an idea of what the uncut version looked like, each paragraph ended up spiraling into a verbal tornado of expletive-laced rants. It's not rational, my loathing of him. So I consider this G-Rated assessment of the death of his political career - a spectacle no less beautiful than the light show of an imploding star - to be a feather in my cap as a writer, if not a human being.



R.I.P. Rudy Giuliani, (1994-2000, 2001-2008)

We are the party of freedom! We are the party of the people! And we’re a big party, we’re a big party, and we’re getting bigger… I’m even in this party! This is a BIG party!

These words, delivered by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as an impromptu aside in the middle of his concession speech after losing the Florida primary, were aimed directly at the hearts of Republicans desperate for a savior for their fractured national party.

At the time, the field of Republican candidates was crowded with the likes of Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, and, for at least the next 24 hours, Mr. Giuliani. Each was an imperfect candidate representing a different portion of the G.O.P. None of them was the traditional conservative archetype who could satisfy all.

By the time polls had closed that night, the press was already busy writing Rudy’s political obituary. He didn't even make it to New York, a place that defined Rudy as much as he defined it. Th moment was ripe for his self-deprecating digression.

Giuliani’s campaign faltered for countless reasons. You could attribute it to his campaign's quixotic and (some would say) naïve choice to bypass early primary states, which set him back significantly in the race for the Republican nomination. He paid a heavy price by bypassing Iowa and New Hampshire, partly because of G.O.P. rules that allocate delegates on a “winner take all” basis, in contrast with Democratic Party rules allocating delegates proportionally. You could also blame his flame-out on the resurgence of John McCain’s candidacy, which was seen as unlikely when the race began. McCain's positions on national security, as well as his strength of character, took a lot (read: all) of the wind from Giuliani’s sails. Or chalk it up to the Curse of City Hall, the superstition that keeps New York City’s Mayors – who might be some of this country's greatest leaders - from reaching higher office.

In spite of those mistakes, the truth is that Giuliani’s campaign failed because, put plainly, he ran up against the simple fact that when you run for the highest office in the land you will be judged on the entirety of your record.

For many months, Giuliani's campaign tried to sell his party the Courageous Leader the World Witnessed on September 11th. His critics were accustomed to mocking the frequency with which he mentioned this tragedy by spelling his name "9udy 11iuliani." But no matter how he exploited the nation's misery to bolster his reputation or cash out with lucrative speaking engagements and a powerful security consulting and lobbying firm, Rudy cannot be faulted for the admirable and enviable way he poured his inner strength into the vacuum left by the Bush Administration on a day of national emergency. Early polling reflected the support he received from Republican Party base for his patriotic service to our country. For upwards of ten months, he was considered the front runner, often holding a double-digit lead over his closest rivals.

But that was not enough. Neither Rudy's status as a national hero nor his record as the strongman who tamed the “ungovernable” city was sufficient to navigate his campaign through the Grand Old Party’s gauntlet of a nomination process. In spite of endorsements from conservative evangelical leaders like Pat Robertson, Giuliani still had to reconcile his public record for conservative voters on issues such as immigration and gay rights. Moreover, just one day after receiving Robertson’s blessing, Rudy's close associate and business partner Bernie Kerik was indicted on various federal corruption charges, highlighting the cumbersome relationships he continued to obscure and defend. All of this raised real doubts among Republican voters looking for an authentic leader to continue their party's control of the Executive Branch.

By the time it became clear that Giuliani wasn’t going to leave the Sunshine State victoriously, he needed to cut his losses. Why spend the money, time, and political capital on winning a few friendly states near home when it was clear that the nomination would elude him?

But beyond questions of practical matters such as winning delegates, raising funds, and spinning favorable (if ephemeral) storylines in the press, his decision to skip early contests did not come across as a strategic choice. Instead, it reminded us of the absence of leadership we remember in the early hours of September 11, 2001, and not the powerful images of valor and bravery.

Right before Rudy delivered his written remarks conceding Florida to McCain, a man in the audience called out: "It ain't over 'til it's over, Rudy!" The contender beamed his cap-toothed smile and, like a parent to his toddler, he turned the mistake of his campaign into a "teaching moment" and attributed those words to "the great philosopher" Yogi Berra. It was pleasing to see Rudy in such a lighthearted moment. But it revealed a Rudy who was perhaps more at home in the Baseball Hall of Fame than as the unwitting paladin of 9/11, or even in the halls of the Republican Party. He endorsed McCain the next day, but he didn't get around to completing Yogi's thought and publicly admit, is it over yet? Politicians never do. But it was a fitting end for the complicated Prince of New York, whose fall from grace was as vexing and profound as the pronouncements of baseball's great philosopher king.

"...our time for change has come"

Bob Dylan collecting my dog

Clap Clap Point Point

soy bomb!

john.he.is

Don't Call It A Blog

The New Yorker recently launched a new blog on their web site called "Goings On." I was about to hyperlink to it from Channel Alex, but when I realized that this blog has hijacked numerous entries from yours truly, I decided that I just couldn't give them the click thrus. So you're going to have to find it yourself. But to be honest, you are not missing much. Just a bunch of elitist hodge podge of things that are happening wherever the New Yorker wishes it was but here. (But I will link to this hilariously stupid and pretentious blog called I Hate The NYer, for your reading whatever.)

Sit, Ubu, Sit

Sorta Liveblogging Ridley Scott's 'Legend,' the most boring movie I've seen in a very, very long time

I don't know what Gawker is waiting for, but this Ridley Scott movie from 1986 with Tom Cruise and Mia Sara has some amazing lines that could be perfectly recontextualized into video clips of Cruise's descent into madness.

Here is a little though hilarious IMDB gaffe in the film's 'trivia' section:

Composer Jerry Goldsmith's original score was removed by the studio after the first round of test screenings. In an effort to appeal to "the kids", executives commissioned Tangerine Dream to create a replacement. Until 2002, Goldsmith's original score was heard only with the film's European release.

Click on that link. Who knew Tangerine Dream the pornstar gets precedence over Tangerine Dream the iconic 80s electronica act.

Now, for some more interesting trivia. It looks like Keith Richards wasn't only the inspiration for Captain Jack Sparrow. According to IMDB, his face was the source material for the Blix the Goblin. See the comparison?


Do I really need to finish watching this movie?

From the YouTube Guide to the Psychology of Learning and Behavior: The Whateva Baby

Hulk Hogan endorses Barack Obama for President

Notes from the Florida Primary...

Best line of Mitt Romney's concession speech: "We need a President who's actually had a job in the real economy."

First yiddish heard on the campaign trail: Chris Matthews calling Hillary Clinton's celebratory speech for winning exactly zero delegates in Florida "chutzpah."

Best metaphor for Clinton's celebration pseudo-event: Andrea Mitchell calling it "a Potemkin Village."

Pictured above: the Potemkin White House.

This should be One Continuous Loop

Liveblogging Jury Duty

Ok, so maybe I'm not really "liveblogging" Jury Duty. It would have been the perfect thing to liveblog, especially because the whole liveblog genre is exclusive to uncanny things that are both too horrible to watch and too horrible not to. (See: Moment of Truth, Basic Instinct 2, or the presidential debates.)

However, since serving on a jury is both an honor and a privilege, then it's an honor and a privilege to (probably illegally) tell you everything that happened in all its gritty detail. So here are some pre-recorded liveblogging-type field notes from the end of Day 1 of what could be at least two weeks in the belly of the beast.

• Do you know about that infamous dramatization/educational video of the history of human justice? Well don't expect it to work due to "technical difficulties." Seriously, I am sort of devastated that I didn't get to see this. I've only heard amazing stories about its depiction of the Middle Ages, with the burlap robes and the spooky dry ice atmosphere and Ed Bradlee walking out from behind a tree to narrate it with his bold, dead voice. But since I won't get called back to J.D. for at least another 8 years (or so they say), I may never have a chance to see this video myself. Youtube, where art thou when you need thou?
• When the presiding clerk asks you to turn off your cell phone because it interferes with the television sets, don't believe him. But don't question him either because you know he knows he's lying to you with his "magical" sense of how cell phones and TV sets work when they are in proximity of one another. He's just trying to keep the people under control.
  
• When you're informed that there's a computer room adjacent to the jurors' lounge, try to get one with a monitor and computer system. FYI The plug-ins haven't been updated since Windows 95, so don't expect to do anything relevant with them. Like liveblogging jury duty.
  
• You will hear somebody say a variation of the following countless times: "I know jury duty is inconvenient and painful, but..." followed by a simplistic argument that the whole world will fall apart if people stopped showing up for jury duty. Duh, really? This is nonsense, and characteristic of the lawyer's distinct ability to shift everything -- including Democracy -- from the system to you. What did Marx say? _____ is the opiate of the people? You can fill in the blank with whatever.
  
• Bring food and drink and try to find a seat close to the window and as far from the door as possible.
  
• You will be astounded by the number of non-English speakers who seem to slip through the cracks by just not saying a word to anybody. It's amazing to watch an attorney ask someone if they are OK with the fact that our system works on the fundamental principle of "innocent until proven guilty" only to be stared back at with a blank and vulnerable stare.
  
• You will also be astounded by both the number of people who assert that everything they need to know about the legal system comes from Law & Order, CSI, etc., and that they are incapable of sitting on a jury because they think that reality will never, ever be as good as TV. Seriously.
  

And that's pretty much it. I left in the middle of a somewhat esoteric argument with the judge on the nature of evidence. Can you get disqualified for being smart? We'll see where things go tomorrow morning.

Flea Market Montgomery - Long Version

just another youtube classic...

David Brooks goes ga-ga

It's no wonder the New York Times gave Bill Kristol a slot on the op/ed page. David Brooks has gone completely ga-ga for Obama.

After his callow youth, Kennedy came to realize that life would not give him the chance to be president. But life did ask him to be a senator, and he has embraced that role and served that institution with more distinction than anyone else now living — as any of his colleagues, Republican or Democrat, will tell you. And he could do it because culture really does have rhythms. The respect for institutions that was prevalent during the early ’60s is prevalent with the young again today. The earnest industriousness that was common then is back today. The awareness that we are not self-made individualists, free to be you and me, but emerge as parts of networks, webs and communities; that awareness is back again today.

'Maybe I should do a Judge Dredd sequel next...'

Somebody to Love

"...But the FCC rejected that, saying buttocks qualifies as both sexual and excretory."

From ABC's affiliate in Maine:

Bare Rear Could Cost ABC Stations $1.4M

The FCC defines indecent content as depicting or describing "sexual or excretory activities" in a "patently offensive way." ABC argued that "the buttocks are not a sexual organ." But the agency rejected that, saying buttocks qualifies as both sexual and excretory.

So basically, the FCC had to argue what?

Ladies and gentlemen, Bill Moyers on the man who knows everything an ass is meant to do because he is one, FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin.

"I began to sit back..."

What news looks like in Maine

Click here for more crazy Maine news.

How I like my politics

Changes - Presidential Candidates feat. Bowie

Via Shurpa Update

Rambo endorses former POW John McCain, reminds us that "reality is pretty brutal" like a certain action movie coming out this weekend

Watching 'Moment of Truth' so you don't have to...

Over at Channel Alex's brother blog Cosmodrome "Magazine" - listed on Channel Alex as one of the Top 10 News Outlets Influenced by Me for 2007 - we liveblogged the last 31 minutes of Fox's new scintillating reality series "Moment of Truth" for those of you who couldn't make it past the first 29 minutes, or those of you who couldn't be bothered to watch it tonight. Click here for the transcript.

UPDATE: Just to state the obvious, only now that I am single do I get to do great things like live blog TV shows like "Moment of Truth."

Rudy Giuliani's Porn Soundtrack

It gets really awesome at :14.

R.I.P. Heath Ledger

I know this video isn't of Heath Ledger, but the actor's death at age 28 marks - in my opinion - the most significant loss of a young actor since the great River Phoenix. With all due respect to Brad Renfro. And Jonathan Brandis.

Heath's death struck me deeply because I respected him immensely as an actor. Beyond gay cowboys, or Bob Dylan in my #1 movie of 2007 I'm Not There, or even his upcoming and highly anticipated role as the Joker in The Dark Knight, Heath will no doubt be remembered for his enormous ability to play complex and varied roles.

But beyond fandom, his death struck me on a personal note, and I will tell you why. It is particularly painful because for the past two years Heath has been integral to a small though complex lie that I've been telling a lot of people. His death compels me to come clean with it.

See, it was about two years ago when I was shopping in a trendy men's clothing store on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, just a few blocks from the brownstone in which Heath, his then-wife Michelle Williams, and their daughter Matilda were living. It wasn't uncommon to hear reports from neighborhood friends that they saw Heath at this place, or Michelle at that place. And while they were trying to keep a low profile with the paparazzi - searching for some semblance of normalcy by living outside the bustle of Manhattan - they made presence in the borough known by lending their names to a local fight against the construction of a stadium and highrise apartment development not far from where they lived.

The store I was shopping in was a tiny hole in the wall, but it had some great clothing -- antique-style working jackets and expensive handmade neckties. It was fall, and like many fellow Brooklynites, I was in the market for a sweater. The sweater I chose was a nice seafoam colored cardigan, and I found myself checking out my silhouette in the mirror, because, really, it might take you more than a few minutes to ultimately decide that you absolutely must have that seafoam colored cardigan. I digress; but the truth is that I was completely oblivious to the fact that Heath and Michelle were not only in the store with me, but they were the only other people in the store besides my shopping partner and the cashier, and they were standing right the fuck next to me and talking to each other in Australian accents. I must be blind and deaf or inordinately smitten by my own image, because I didn't realize this until I left the store with my seafoam cardigan and my then-shopping partner, who slapped my arm and asked me: "Did you notice Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams were in the store with us?"

No, I said.

If you had been there and seen my proximity to the couple, I assure you, you'd be silently judging me. "You must be either pleasantly jaded by celebrity or a raving fucking lunatic asshole narcissist not to to recognize Heath and Michelle on Atlantic Fucking Avenue in Boerum Fucking Hill in Brooklyn." I assure you, dear reader, it is certainly not a case of the former. And I just can't live with the fact that I might actually be a raving fucking lunatic asshole narcissist.

So herein lies the lie. After the encounter, what is referred to by air traffic controllers as a "near miss," I started telling everybody that not only did I see Heath, but that he complimented me on my seafoam cardigan and wanted to buy one for himself. Unfortunately for him, I was buying the store's last one. Mind you, that story also includes at least two other minor personal fantasies: (1) that I have taste envied by the stars, and (2) that Heath and I wear would wear the same size cardigan.

Well, Heath, I don't really wear my seafoam cardigan anymore. It's nice, but the color looked rather dull just one season later. Plus, I've probably gained a few pounds since I bought it, so the sweater sort of stretches around the torso in a moderately unflattering way. So I just wanted to let you know that if I could bring you back by giving you my seafoam cardigan, I totally would. You were great, and will be missed deeply by us all.

Classic British Humor Alert!

Take a look at these Customer Reviews of a Bic Crystal Ballpoint Pen. The comedy is so dry it makes me want to run out and buy some lubriderm because OY VEY my skin is cracking!

Yo! New Yawk!

Bill Moyers tells us like it is... again...

Never die, Bill. Never ever die.

A fantastic piece of journalism!

From the CBS interview with David Crosby, in which the journalist projects the reader's voice and imagines that the reader actually knows (1) who Melissa Etheridge's partner was and (2) that she is no longer Etheridge's partner.

And just when you think David Crosby's life can't be any more dramatic, you say, 'Wait a minute - wasn't he the guy who donated sperm so that Melissa Etheridge and her then-partner Julie Cypher could have children?' He was … and it was his wife's idea

"I didn't ask him first," Jan said.

"You offered him first?" Braver asked.

"I did, and you know in retrospect, I have to honestly say the moment was so pure that I didn't have to question it."

Crosby didn’t question it, either.

Zapp And Roger - I Wanna Be Your Man

Where Did I Go Wrong?

classic!

He should not have imitated Michael!

Uh-oh!!

Seinfeld Babies

this is how my mind works

Edgar Winter continues to blow minds

you really need to watch the whole thing!!

James Brown gives you dancing lessons

omg one of the best things on youtube!

my hardcore 3 year old brother

one of the greatest things i have ever seen on youtube!!!!