Showing posts with label NY F'in C. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NY F'in C. Show all posts
Friday, October 23, 2009
Fall Is Not a Time for Dan Brown
Fall reading spotted on the Brooklyn-bound F train: Meditations of Mind and Body, The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett, Introduction to Scholastic Process. (I myself am listening to a Yale Intro. Psychology courses courtesy iTunes U.) Conclusion: Fall is when our brains go back to school (if not necessarily our bodies.)
Sunday, November 30, 2008
On Becoming Older
Due to unlikely and shameful circumstances over which I will temporarily throw a veil, I found myself on an early-morning LIRR train from the Flatbush Ave. station in Brooklyn to the untamed wilds of central Long Island.
I rode in predictable silence on the sparsely populated 3:00 a.m. to Jamaica Center, where I was to connect to a Ronkonkoma-bound train coming from Penn Station in Manhattan. But when we pulled in to Jamaica, who should I find awaiting my train but hundreds - HUNDREDS - of drunken teenagers.
My first thought was, "what the fuck?" My next thought was, "is this a threat to my safety?," which it wasn't (cops by the door, many kids already passed out, my generally inconspicuous appearance, etc.) Then I settled in to my seat and got down to the serious and inevitable business of passing judgement on others.
Here were the facts I had to work with: this was the last train from Manhattan to Long Island for a few hours before or after. It was the night before Thanksgiving, which, in America, is traditionally when we as a people go home to our families, become desperate for a way to avoid them, and go out to get drunk with all our other friends who also live out of town and are also desperate for a way to avoid their families.
Between these two bits of information, I could conclude these were Long Island kids out for the night, inexplicably travelling together 600 at a time. Harmless fun, right?
Thing is, these 1) kids seemed too young for college, 2) they had that sort of over-privileged, white-bred look, clothes and nature that bugged me (example: the one Latino kid seemed to know everybody, which I'm guessing was at least partly because he was the only Latino in the school.) and 3), and this is the part that really bothered me, the couple across the aisle from me each did a bump of coke about half an hour outside of Jamaica.
Now I'll talk later about why, but my initial reaction was that this just made me furious. Then I went through a bunch of possible courses of action (take their photo and post it here? Tell the cops? Confiscate it?) before settling on my standard New Yorker response of sitting quietly and not saying anything.
Then I went through a run of second-guessing - would they really do that with the cops three rows away? Could this just be some sort of nose-administered decongestant? Could I really dissaprove this strongly of a little coke and give the obviously stoned kids that filled up maybe every third seat on the rest of the train?
Finally I let myself accept the fact that I had definitely seen these kids doing some coke, I certainly disapproved of it, and I absolutely felt that I was within my rights to do so.
Here's my problem with coke versus, say, pot: it's dangerously addictive. Here's my problem with these kids: they were way too young to be fucking with this shit. What's more, this was clearly not a one-time thing for them. You don't casually do a bump on a train in more or less the middle of a nap with cops five feet away unless snorting coke has become ritualized and routine.
But we're not here to talk about over-privileged kids from Long Island. We're here to talk about me. And my thing is, there was a time - indeed, a time in recent memory, when I would have seen these kids - or maybe the non-coke-sniffing versions of these kids - as peers.
Well, almost as peers - not enough to expect casual drug use, but enough that I could see them as distant, Yankee version of my own friends.
Instead I was looking at this half-dressed high school senior and future frat boy and just trying to figure out how I could keep my future kids from ending up like that.
I rode in predictable silence on the sparsely populated 3:00 a.m. to Jamaica Center, where I was to connect to a Ronkonkoma-bound train coming from Penn Station in Manhattan. But when we pulled in to Jamaica, who should I find awaiting my train but hundreds - HUNDREDS - of drunken teenagers.
My first thought was, "what the fuck?" My next thought was, "is this a threat to my safety?," which it wasn't (cops by the door, many kids already passed out, my generally inconspicuous appearance, etc.) Then I settled in to my seat and got down to the serious and inevitable business of passing judgement on others.
Here were the facts I had to work with: this was the last train from Manhattan to Long Island for a few hours before or after. It was the night before Thanksgiving, which, in America, is traditionally when we as a people go home to our families, become desperate for a way to avoid them, and go out to get drunk with all our other friends who also live out of town and are also desperate for a way to avoid their families.
Between these two bits of information, I could conclude these were Long Island kids out for the night, inexplicably travelling together 600 at a time. Harmless fun, right?
Thing is, these 1) kids seemed too young for college, 2) they had that sort of over-privileged, white-bred look, clothes and nature that bugged me (example: the one Latino kid seemed to know everybody, which I'm guessing was at least partly because he was the only Latino in the school.) and 3), and this is the part that really bothered me, the couple across the aisle from me each did a bump of coke about half an hour outside of Jamaica.
Now I'll talk later about why, but my initial reaction was that this just made me furious. Then I went through a bunch of possible courses of action (take their photo and post it here? Tell the cops? Confiscate it?) before settling on my standard New Yorker response of sitting quietly and not saying anything.
Then I went through a run of second-guessing - would they really do that with the cops three rows away? Could this just be some sort of nose-administered decongestant? Could I really dissaprove this strongly of a little coke and give the obviously stoned kids that filled up maybe every third seat on the rest of the train?
Finally I let myself accept the fact that I had definitely seen these kids doing some coke, I certainly disapproved of it, and I absolutely felt that I was within my rights to do so.
Here's my problem with coke versus, say, pot: it's dangerously addictive. Here's my problem with these kids: they were way too young to be fucking with this shit. What's more, this was clearly not a one-time thing for them. You don't casually do a bump on a train in more or less the middle of a nap with cops five feet away unless snorting coke has become ritualized and routine.
But we're not here to talk about over-privileged kids from Long Island. We're here to talk about me. And my thing is, there was a time - indeed, a time in recent memory, when I would have seen these kids - or maybe the non-coke-sniffing versions of these kids - as peers.
Well, almost as peers - not enough to expect casual drug use, but enough that I could see them as distant, Yankee version of my own friends.
Instead I was looking at this half-dressed high school senior and future frat boy and just trying to figure out how I could keep my future kids from ending up like that.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
A Very Short History of Me and Woody Allen
So I started watching Everyone Says I Love You Thursday night in the belief that I haven't seen it before, but it turns out that I have. I think I actually saw it when it first came out, 1996, which would make me around 15.
There is really no way to explain how important Woody Allen is to Jews from New York who are not in New York except to say that if you are a Jew from New York who is not in New York, you know what I'm talking about, and if you know what I'm talking about and you're not a Jew from New York, then either Judaism, New York or both are probably in your future.
I was born in the Bronx and lived for five years in Scarsdale before moving with my family to San Antonio, Tx. at age five. Now, I am not one of those people who thinks that everything developmentally significant that can happen to you happens by age five. But I do know that for the next eight years, from five to 13, I was really pissed off that we had moved out of New York.
Thing is, I didn't actually know anything about New York. I mean - I was five when we left! And what's more, I wasn't from New York City, I was from Scarsdale - the suburbs!
However, and I've mentioned this before, New York is one of two places I'm going to say ever that you can come to some sort of understanding of just by watching T.V. and going to the movies.
Just like Mad About You can teach you about true love, Woody Allen can teach you about being a New York Jew.
I loved Woody Allen growing up. I wore glasses because Woody Allen wore glasses. I cheated on girlfriends because Woody Allen cheated on girlfriends. I even played Woody Allen in a Woody Allen play. And first thing when I got of college? Moved to Brooklyn.
Okay, here's my final proof: I am visiting our New York-branch-of-the-family cousins in London in 1998 when Deconstructing Harry comes out (I remember it was Deconstructing Harry because of the snappy music in the opening credits) . We go to a movie theater. Suddenly I realize: every ex-pat New Yorker living in London in 1998 is in this theater.
Don't believe me? Go to a sort of arty theater in London next year the weekend Whatever Works comes out. You'll see.
There is really no way to explain how important Woody Allen is to Jews from New York who are not in New York except to say that if you are a Jew from New York who is not in New York, you know what I'm talking about, and if you know what I'm talking about and you're not a Jew from New York, then either Judaism, New York or both are probably in your future.
I was born in the Bronx and lived for five years in Scarsdale before moving with my family to San Antonio, Tx. at age five. Now, I am not one of those people who thinks that everything developmentally significant that can happen to you happens by age five. But I do know that for the next eight years, from five to 13, I was really pissed off that we had moved out of New York.
Thing is, I didn't actually know anything about New York. I mean - I was five when we left! And what's more, I wasn't from New York City, I was from Scarsdale - the suburbs!
However, and I've mentioned this before, New York is one of two places I'm going to say ever that you can come to some sort of understanding of just by watching T.V. and going to the movies.
Just like Mad About You can teach you about true love, Woody Allen can teach you about being a New York Jew.
I loved Woody Allen growing up. I wore glasses because Woody Allen wore glasses. I cheated on girlfriends because Woody Allen cheated on girlfriends. I even played Woody Allen in a Woody Allen play. And first thing when I got of college? Moved to Brooklyn.
Okay, here's my final proof: I am visiting our New York-branch-of-the-family cousins in London in 1998 when Deconstructing Harry comes out (I remember it was Deconstructing Harry because of the snappy music in the opening credits) . We go to a movie theater. Suddenly I realize: every ex-pat New Yorker living in London in 1998 is in this theater.
Don't believe me? Go to a sort of arty theater in London next year the weekend Whatever Works comes out. You'll see.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
How I Spent My Last Presidential Election Night
Four years ago Tuesday night, I was hanging out with My Friend The Kiwi at my place. The Kiwi and I had been hanging out a lot at my place even though she lived uptown because I had a TiVo and we were watching a lot of 24, and because I guess we didn't know a lot of people in the city at that point.
I was not following the EV and other important factors as closely then as I do now.
Also, we were drinking.
As a result, we started out very, very excited, and I remember as the night went on we just got more and more sober and depressed. Around the time Edwards came out and said "I'll guess we'll just have to wait until tomorrow, kthxbai," we just went to sleep.
Our feeling the next morning is represented in artistic form here, in the saddest cartoon of all time.
Post Script - Tuesday night's plans are here.
I was not following the EV and other important factors as closely then as I do now.
Also, we were drinking.
As a result, we started out very, very excited, and I remember as the night went on we just got more and more sober and depressed. Around the time Edwards came out and said "I'll guess we'll just have to wait until tomorrow, kthxbai," we just went to sleep.
Our feeling the next morning is represented in artistic form here, in the saddest cartoon of all time.
Post Script - Tuesday night's plans are here.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Windmill City
I am fascinated by the future of the New York City skyline. I love trying to imagine how the city will look 20 years from now. There's a lot of interesting, idealistic ideas out there right now - the 2nd Avenue subway line, the Orwellian-designated Freedom Tower, the Fulton Street Transit Center, Moynihan Station (named for the guy who didn't want us to knock down the old one in the first place), the Highline, Hudson Yards - I even got suckered in to proselytizing the Brooklyn Nets stadium complex before Ratzinger and the Bush recession made a liar out of me.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I-Here) gave a bit of a boost to all us budding architectural futurists last night when he announced a plan to create wind farms right here in New York City that would provide a tenth of the city's power. No small fête indeed, and my initial impression is that Bloomberg is getting set to mess up another major initiative in the exact same way as his last two.
In his first term, Bloomberg championed a new Manhattan arena in the Hudson Yards as part of his New York 2012 campaign to bring the Olympic Games to New York City. Bloomberg went wrong there by pushing too hard, announcing a major initiative without first negotiating the details with the people of the City and, more importantly, the big three power brokers in Albany - the Governor, Senate Majority Leader and Assembly Speaker.
New York real estate is very complicated, and this was no different. I wasn't the only one who was uncomfortable with the idea of such a large project with such relatively limited uses on such a large plot of land in an area of Manhattan that desperately needs a well-measured revival.
Even those that supported the initiative could not have been surprised that Bloomberg was just not able to push it through without Albany's approval. The stadium died, a lot of Bloomberg's political capital went wasted, the Hudson Yards went into the lengthy process of negotiation which was probably inevitable and the games went to London. Strike one.
Then came Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan. Now, unlike the Jets stadium, this one was something I supported. What people saw when congestion pricing went in to effect in London was that nobody was sure about it, and then it happened, and then everybody loved it.
Now, there's a lot to be said for making a city more pedestrian-friendly and more petrolium-unfriendly. Unfortunately, Bloomberg once again put himself in a position where he couldn't get around to saying it. In fact, Bloomberg failure to get the people on his side before trying to get the plan passed was just one of the tactical mistakes that he ended up making for the second time.
Once again, we were reading about interest groups with pretty understandable concerns who didn't feel like they'd had all their questions answered by the Bloomberg administration. This time, they were local Manhattan car owners who were used to parking on their own streets, advocacy groups concerned that the new fees would would be discriminatory against lower-income workers, and those living just outside the then-96th St. toll border wondering if this meant everyone would be parking in their neighborhood.
Just like the Hell Kitchen residents who would have been most affected by the Jets stadium, this group deserved to have their questions answered or at least discussed. So did Albany. But, once again, Bloomberg had forced the issue too soon.
In what was probably his biggest mistake, Bloomberg had timed the announcement of his initiative so that Albany would have to pass it to qualify for a $500 Million (!) dollar subsidy from the Federal goverment for Congestion Pricing to have any chance of really happening. Albany Democrats refused to put the proposal to vote, essentially giving it a pocket veto.
As congestion pricing was failing, Bloomberg's tactics and his troubles were starting too fell a little too familiar. Now, I like Bloomberg - I'd bet, for example, that we'll ultimately end up seeing his school programs as successful. And I don't think you need to like him to see how much the office of the mayor can change the character of this city. Guiliani proved New York could be a better place, and Bloomberg proved the mayor could make New York City a better place without being an asshole.
But, although Guiliani's arguably fascist style and Bloomberg's corporate CEO decision maker style have both proved to be, on balance, more effective then simply being a cog in the New York City Democratic machine, simply going ahead with something and assuming that everyone is going to agree with you, and agree with you on your schedule, will only get you so far. Specifically, it is not good enough to make you president of the United States. What's more, it hasn't worked out for Governors too well, either. To move up to bigger things, you've got to be able to compromise.
Now Bloomberg has a new initiative that sounds great, but is big and complicated and involves a lot of interest groups pulling in different directions. What's more, he once again hasn't quite left himself enough time to get it done, although this time in may not be his fault - Bloomberg's second and final term ends in less than a year and a half.
If there's one thing that makes me optimistic about Bloomberg's wind power proposal, it's that it is not front page news, it's front-of-section news. If Bloomberg isn't staking his future on this proposal like he has in the past, that means that there's room for all parties involved to compromise. It even seems from the Times article that Bloomberg is taking the complicated nature of these negotiations in to account, seeing himself as just getting the ball rolling.
Ultimately, though, alternative power farming is going to depend on the man himself. If Bloomberg's learned the lessons of the mistakes he's made in the past, he has the potential to leave an environmental legacy that New Yorkers can just make out off their beaches and on their skyscrapers and be proud of. Otherwise, we'll once again just have to wait for someone who knows both how to lead and how to listen.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I-Here) gave a bit of a boost to all us budding architectural futurists last night when he announced a plan to create wind farms right here in New York City that would provide a tenth of the city's power. No small fête indeed, and my initial impression is that Bloomberg is getting set to mess up another major initiative in the exact same way as his last two.
In his first term, Bloomberg championed a new Manhattan arena in the Hudson Yards as part of his New York 2012 campaign to bring the Olympic Games to New York City. Bloomberg went wrong there by pushing too hard, announcing a major initiative without first negotiating the details with the people of the City and, more importantly, the big three power brokers in Albany - the Governor, Senate Majority Leader and Assembly Speaker.
New York real estate is very complicated, and this was no different. I wasn't the only one who was uncomfortable with the idea of such a large project with such relatively limited uses on such a large plot of land in an area of Manhattan that desperately needs a well-measured revival.
Even those that supported the initiative could not have been surprised that Bloomberg was just not able to push it through without Albany's approval. The stadium died, a lot of Bloomberg's political capital went wasted, the Hudson Yards went into the lengthy process of negotiation which was probably inevitable and the games went to London. Strike one.
Then came Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan. Now, unlike the Jets stadium, this one was something I supported. What people saw when congestion pricing went in to effect in London was that nobody was sure about it, and then it happened, and then everybody loved it.
Now, there's a lot to be said for making a city more pedestrian-friendly and more petrolium-unfriendly. Unfortunately, Bloomberg once again put himself in a position where he couldn't get around to saying it. In fact, Bloomberg failure to get the people on his side before trying to get the plan passed was just one of the tactical mistakes that he ended up making for the second time.
Once again, we were reading about interest groups with pretty understandable concerns who didn't feel like they'd had all their questions answered by the Bloomberg administration. This time, they were local Manhattan car owners who were used to parking on their own streets, advocacy groups concerned that the new fees would would be discriminatory against lower-income workers, and those living just outside the then-96th St. toll border wondering if this meant everyone would be parking in their neighborhood.
Just like the Hell Kitchen residents who would have been most affected by the Jets stadium, this group deserved to have their questions answered or at least discussed. So did Albany. But, once again, Bloomberg had forced the issue too soon.
In what was probably his biggest mistake, Bloomberg had timed the announcement of his initiative so that Albany would have to pass it to qualify for a $500 Million (!) dollar subsidy from the Federal goverment for Congestion Pricing to have any chance of really happening. Albany Democrats refused to put the proposal to vote, essentially giving it a pocket veto.
As congestion pricing was failing, Bloomberg's tactics and his troubles were starting too fell a little too familiar. Now, I like Bloomberg - I'd bet, for example, that we'll ultimately end up seeing his school programs as successful. And I don't think you need to like him to see how much the office of the mayor can change the character of this city. Guiliani proved New York could be a better place, and Bloomberg proved the mayor could make New York City a better place without being an asshole.
But, although Guiliani's arguably fascist style and Bloomberg's corporate CEO decision maker style have both proved to be, on balance, more effective then simply being a cog in the New York City Democratic machine, simply going ahead with something and assuming that everyone is going to agree with you, and agree with you on your schedule, will only get you so far. Specifically, it is not good enough to make you president of the United States. What's more, it hasn't worked out for Governors too well, either. To move up to bigger things, you've got to be able to compromise.
Now Bloomberg has a new initiative that sounds great, but is big and complicated and involves a lot of interest groups pulling in different directions. What's more, he once again hasn't quite left himself enough time to get it done, although this time in may not be his fault - Bloomberg's second and final term ends in less than a year and a half.
If there's one thing that makes me optimistic about Bloomberg's wind power proposal, it's that it is not front page news, it's front-of-section news. If Bloomberg isn't staking his future on this proposal like he has in the past, that means that there's room for all parties involved to compromise. It even seems from the Times article that Bloomberg is taking the complicated nature of these negotiations in to account, seeing himself as just getting the ball rolling.
Ultimately, though, alternative power farming is going to depend on the man himself. If Bloomberg's learned the lessons of the mistakes he's made in the past, he has the potential to leave an environmental legacy that New Yorkers can just make out off their beaches and on their skyscrapers and be proud of. Otherwise, we'll once again just have to wait for someone who knows both how to lead and how to listen.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
What I Did Today
30th St. between 7th Avenue and 8th Avenue: Furriers
29th St. between 7th Avenue and 8th Avenue: The P.I.T.
28th St. between 7th Avenue and 8th Avenue: Floral and plant stores
27th St. between 7th Avenue and 8th Avenue: Toy wholesalers
26th St. between 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue: The place where I got my hair cut last time (finally!)
29th St. between 7th Avenue and 8th Avenue: The P.I.T.
28th St. between 7th Avenue and 8th Avenue: Floral and plant stores
27th St. between 7th Avenue and 8th Avenue: Toy wholesalers
26th St. between 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue: The place where I got my hair cut last time (finally!)
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Thursday, June 07, 2007
ribble's Nostalgia Quest
For about six months after this post, I went on a nostalgia quest. I've been watching the T.V. I loved as a kid to see if it's worth a damn. Here's my first installment of results, in handy alphabetical order.
Animaniacs
Better than I remember
Animaniacs was just a great cartoon when I was a kid - funny with a lot of great cartoony action. Now, I'm old enough to get a lot of the jokes (want to see what I mean? Check out the Animaniacs Cultural References Guide).
Seriously, this is a work of genius. Yakko's song containing the names of all the nations of the world (in rhyme!) would be enough for this show to be remembered with distinction in cartooning / children's programming history.
The Critic
Just as great as I remember
The critic was a great, animated show that got dicked around by network programmers who didn't understand it until it was cancelled before its time (obvious reference. I would go so far as to say that it was the part Jon Lovitz was born to play.
The Critic was also a great New York show - there are a number of running gags related to the UN school - that was funny both before and after I moved to New York.
Danger Mouse
Just as great as I remember
I remember watching this show growing up in Scarsdale, N.Y., which means I must have been watching it before I was six years old.
Over the course of my nostalgia quest, I ran in to a couple of things that would be great if I were a kid, but weren't quite built for DVD. Danger Mouse is one of these.
The show tends to be a bit formulaic, but it's funny, it's British, and the cartoon action is great. I'm looking forward to someday turning off whatever Saturday morning dribble my kids are watching and making them watch this instead.
Plus: one of the greatest theme songs ever.
Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist
Better than I remember
Dr. Katz, presented in Squigglevision, always had a funny framing story arc, but the meat of the show was Dr. Katz's sessions with his patients, played by whatever aspiring comedian Katz could get to come up to his studio in Boston to record their acts.
It's consistently funny and sometimes sweet, but I think what my Adult Swim-watching generation is going take away from Dr. Katz is a worship of H. Jon Benjamin.
Now that I'm older, I get to understand just how well this show was made, the jokes are funnier and I get hear the early material of a bunch of young comedian, like Dave Attell, who would later get their own shows.
Fraggle Rock
Better than I remember
I watched Fraggle Rock with my friend, codename Charlie, at her place until we were both half asleep on her couch. What a great show! There are great songs, great characters (Charlie identifies with Red, who gets in trouble by trying to be too self-reliant), and always multiple storylines because there's the action above ground and the action below, each with a lesson learned.
Quantum Leap
Not as good as I remember
Quantum Leap I remembered particularly for consistenly raising the stakes. Even as a kid, before I started writing, before I became the sophisticated television viewer standing here today, I was impressed by how the show would always start off with, say, someone's future on the line and end up with, say, the survival of the two main characters, the history of the world and the survival of the human species at stake.
Now, though, the show is too long and slow to get my interest, I feel like I know what's coming, and no one's actions seem as logical. Too bad.
Reboot
Not as good as I remember
Reboot has already earned a place in history as one of the first full computer animated t.v. shows. The animation is still okay in the context of the story, but the DVD I watched, from the last, unreleased straight-to-video season, had gotten all tangled up in its story lines and promptly lost my interest.
seaQuest DSV
Not as good as I remember
Back in late December, the SciFi channel showed a marathon of every episode of seaquest DSV, which I diligently TiVod. As a kid, this was a very inspiring show, especially Jonathan Brandis' character, Lucas.
seaQuest DSV is something best watched in private, with no threat of judgement by others on my childhood heros. So last year I waited until my roommate went away for spring break and watched the second season.
What I really like about seaquest is that it takes the sci-fi adventure show out of space and puts it where it belongs, back on Earth. No faster-than-light travel. No instant communications. Justifiable makes a big difference to me, and exploring "the last unexplored region on Earth" always appealed to me. A lot of the show was ridiculous (their in-ship transportation says "thank you for using mag-lev") but the power of that idea got me, especially the Lucas character.
Johnny explains Lucas as the Wesley Crusher of the deep, but actually Brandis comes off as a clever, cool guy who I probably would have hung out with freshman year of high school. Which was remarkable because the writers loved to have Lucas tell us how scared he was like he was some sort of teen Boxey.
But it turns out that 1993 was 13 years ago. Effects never age well, and seaquest was an effects-heavy show. The dialogue isn't great. The ship is derivative (big viewscreen in the front of the bridge, etc.). Plus, especially in the beginning of season one before the show hit its stride, seaQuest seems to be developing too many ideas at once.
seaQuest was good for maybe a total of one season out of the two and a half seasons it ran. It relied too much on sci-fi conventions, like the giant viewscreen and, eventually, aliens, without thinking those things through. It had some potential, but it never followed through.
Space Rangers
Not as good as I remember
Space Rangers fell farther in my estimation than anything else on this list.
It was only around for about six episodes, and looking back I think I only ever saw the first one, but I was really excited about Space Rangers when I was a kid. I think it was the gun turrets in the space ships. I drew a lot of space ships with gun turrets in them after that.
Predictably, it turns out this was not a very good show. Hokey, bad effects, the aliens look just like the alien in a particular eponymous Ridley Scott film, bad dialogue, unbelievable plots, hero with too much hair, etc. etc.
But man, and I think this goes to the power of nostalgia, writing these two paragraphs alone was enough to make me want to go draw some spaceships with gun turrets in them.
Animaniacs
Better than I remember
Animaniacs was just a great cartoon when I was a kid - funny with a lot of great cartoony action. Now, I'm old enough to get a lot of the jokes (want to see what I mean? Check out the Animaniacs Cultural References Guide).
Seriously, this is a work of genius. Yakko's song containing the names of all the nations of the world (in rhyme!) would be enough for this show to be remembered with distinction in cartooning / children's programming history.
The Critic
Just as great as I remember
The critic was a great, animated show that got dicked around by network programmers who didn't understand it until it was cancelled before its time (obvious reference. I would go so far as to say that it was the part Jon Lovitz was born to play.
The Critic was also a great New York show - there are a number of running gags related to the UN school - that was funny both before and after I moved to New York.
Danger Mouse
Just as great as I remember
I remember watching this show growing up in Scarsdale, N.Y., which means I must have been watching it before I was six years old.
Over the course of my nostalgia quest, I ran in to a couple of things that would be great if I were a kid, but weren't quite built for DVD. Danger Mouse is one of these.
The show tends to be a bit formulaic, but it's funny, it's British, and the cartoon action is great. I'm looking forward to someday turning off whatever Saturday morning dribble my kids are watching and making them watch this instead.
Plus: one of the greatest theme songs ever.
Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist
Better than I remember
Dr. Katz, presented in Squigglevision, always had a funny framing story arc, but the meat of the show was Dr. Katz's sessions with his patients, played by whatever aspiring comedian Katz could get to come up to his studio in Boston to record their acts.
It's consistently funny and sometimes sweet, but I think what my Adult Swim-watching generation is going take away from Dr. Katz is a worship of H. Jon Benjamin.
Now that I'm older, I get to understand just how well this show was made, the jokes are funnier and I get hear the early material of a bunch of young comedian, like Dave Attell, who would later get their own shows.
Fraggle Rock
Better than I remember
I watched Fraggle Rock with my friend, codename Charlie, at her place until we were both half asleep on her couch. What a great show! There are great songs, great characters (Charlie identifies with Red, who gets in trouble by trying to be too self-reliant), and always multiple storylines because there's the action above ground and the action below, each with a lesson learned.
Quantum Leap
Not as good as I remember
Quantum Leap I remembered particularly for consistenly raising the stakes. Even as a kid, before I started writing, before I became the sophisticated television viewer standing here today, I was impressed by how the show would always start off with, say, someone's future on the line and end up with, say, the survival of the two main characters, the history of the world and the survival of the human species at stake.
Now, though, the show is too long and slow to get my interest, I feel like I know what's coming, and no one's actions seem as logical. Too bad.
Reboot
Not as good as I remember
Reboot has already earned a place in history as one of the first full computer animated t.v. shows. The animation is still okay in the context of the story, but the DVD I watched, from the last, unreleased straight-to-video season, had gotten all tangled up in its story lines and promptly lost my interest.
seaQuest DSV
Not as good as I remember
Back in late December, the SciFi channel showed a marathon of every episode of seaquest DSV, which I diligently TiVod. As a kid, this was a very inspiring show, especially Jonathan Brandis' character, Lucas.
seaQuest DSV is something best watched in private, with no threat of judgement by others on my childhood heros. So last year I waited until my roommate went away for spring break and watched the second season.
What I really like about seaquest is that it takes the sci-fi adventure show out of space and puts it where it belongs, back on Earth. No faster-than-light travel. No instant communications. Justifiable makes a big difference to me, and exploring "the last unexplored region on Earth" always appealed to me. A lot of the show was ridiculous (their in-ship transportation says "thank you for using mag-lev") but the power of that idea got me, especially the Lucas character.
Johnny explains Lucas as the Wesley Crusher of the deep, but actually Brandis comes off as a clever, cool guy who I probably would have hung out with freshman year of high school. Which was remarkable because the writers loved to have Lucas tell us how scared he was like he was some sort of teen Boxey.
But it turns out that 1993 was 13 years ago. Effects never age well, and seaquest was an effects-heavy show. The dialogue isn't great. The ship is derivative (big viewscreen in the front of the bridge, etc.). Plus, especially in the beginning of season one before the show hit its stride, seaQuest seems to be developing too many ideas at once.
seaQuest was good for maybe a total of one season out of the two and a half seasons it ran. It relied too much on sci-fi conventions, like the giant viewscreen and, eventually, aliens, without thinking those things through. It had some potential, but it never followed through.
Space Rangers
Not as good as I remember
Space Rangers fell farther in my estimation than anything else on this list.
It was only around for about six episodes, and looking back I think I only ever saw the first one, but I was really excited about Space Rangers when I was a kid. I think it was the gun turrets in the space ships. I drew a lot of space ships with gun turrets in them after that.
Predictably, it turns out this was not a very good show. Hokey, bad effects, the aliens look just like the alien in a particular eponymous Ridley Scott film, bad dialogue, unbelievable plots, hero with too much hair, etc. etc.
But man, and I think this goes to the power of nostalgia, writing these two paragraphs alone was enough to make me want to go draw some spaceships with gun turrets in them.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
'Tis the Season
It's finally summer, and in New York, that means it's five different seasons at once.
First of all, it's the hot season.
In San Antonio, heat and humidity meet you like a wall as soon as you get out of the airport, and I will maintain every day until my dying day that the heat in Texas is a lot worse than the heat here.
But San Antonio has a cooling infrastructure (central air, ceiling fans) that for whatever reason doesn't exist in The City. There's just better internal air movement down there.
As a result, and I noticed this for the first time the other week while helping my cousin the revolutionary in to his new place, I no longer even notice when I'm pouring sweat.
Second, it's smell season.
It doesn't stink in Texas for the simple reason that there are no people walking around on the streets down there unless they are walking to their car. People mean waste and waste means smell.
I've never found the stench unbearable, but I know people, even people who grew up here (Vickyheart comes to mind) who just can't take it anymore and occasionally have to run off to live in New Jersey or something equally absurd.
Third, it is roach season.
Roaches freak me out a lot less than they did when I first move to the city, but they're definitely the worst of the five things listed here.
I crushed my first roach of the summer on a subway platform this morning. The worst I've seen was on a turkey leg outside the construction on the west side of the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
My last roommate would flee the room and sometimes the whole apartment if she thought she even heard a roach.
Roaches are a good reason to keep a clean place. Mice are more manageable. I'm sort of hoping they come back now that I have a cat, but so far they've been too smart.
Fourth, it's real estate season. Everyone but everyone, from the cute little red-haired girl who lived down the street to My Cousin the Revolutionary to my friend Gigi, who is overjoyed to finally be escaping Jersey.
New Yorkers love love love talking real estate. This Park Slope Reader guide to Park Slope blogs [PDF] has four categories: food, real estate, literary arts and kids. That's my neighborhoods priorities in a nutshell.
By the way, if you are interested in a two-bedroom in a small building in Prospect Heights for about $2000 a month, and you are cool, my email address is on the top right there.
Finally, it's tourist season. Even in Texas, people always assumed I was a New Yorker even when I wasn't, but it didn't take long for me to be able to spot the visitors on any subway platform, public park or street corner.
It takes maybe three months to understand comprehensively how to move in this city (layout, busses, rush hour, etc.), so the easiest spots to pick out tourists are sidewalks and subways.
They have to talk a lot about how to get where they're going, travel in groups that always look similar to each other, often seem travel weary because they don't tend to find the time to just sit down, and have a mildly annoying habit of just stopping in awkward places that make it difficult to walk around them.
Tourists also look different from New Yorkers, who are slimmer then most Americans just because we walk everywhere.
I don't want to sound anti-tourist because I know it's an important part of the city and brings in money, but if I am anti-tourist, I come by it honestly.
I grew up in the King William District of San Antonio, a big tourist destination for a big tourist city, and I lived in a front bedroom facing the street. Tour busses came by every hour or so. As I result, I spent my entire childhood paranoid behind closed bedroom shades.
I realize New York must sound pretty bad, infested as it is by heat, smells, roaches and tourists. The fact is, New York is always gorgeous as long as it's not obscenely cold. There is no place I'd rather be.
First of all, it's the hot season.
In San Antonio, heat and humidity meet you like a wall as soon as you get out of the airport, and I will maintain every day until my dying day that the heat in Texas is a lot worse than the heat here.
But San Antonio has a cooling infrastructure (central air, ceiling fans) that for whatever reason doesn't exist in The City. There's just better internal air movement down there.
As a result, and I noticed this for the first time the other week while helping my cousin the revolutionary in to his new place, I no longer even notice when I'm pouring sweat.
Second, it's smell season.
It doesn't stink in Texas for the simple reason that there are no people walking around on the streets down there unless they are walking to their car. People mean waste and waste means smell.
I've never found the stench unbearable, but I know people, even people who grew up here (Vickyheart comes to mind) who just can't take it anymore and occasionally have to run off to live in New Jersey or something equally absurd.
Third, it is roach season.
Roaches freak me out a lot less than they did when I first move to the city, but they're definitely the worst of the five things listed here.
I crushed my first roach of the summer on a subway platform this morning. The worst I've seen was on a turkey leg outside the construction on the west side of the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
My last roommate would flee the room and sometimes the whole apartment if she thought she even heard a roach.
Roaches are a good reason to keep a clean place. Mice are more manageable. I'm sort of hoping they come back now that I have a cat, but so far they've been too smart.
Fourth, it's real estate season. Everyone but everyone, from the cute little red-haired girl who lived down the street to My Cousin the Revolutionary to my friend Gigi, who is overjoyed to finally be escaping Jersey.
New Yorkers love love love talking real estate. This Park Slope Reader guide to Park Slope blogs [PDF] has four categories: food, real estate, literary arts and kids. That's my neighborhoods priorities in a nutshell.
By the way, if you are interested in a two-bedroom in a small building in Prospect Heights for about $2000 a month, and you are cool, my email address is on the top right there.
Finally, it's tourist season. Even in Texas, people always assumed I was a New Yorker even when I wasn't, but it didn't take long for me to be able to spot the visitors on any subway platform, public park or street corner.
It takes maybe three months to understand comprehensively how to move in this city (layout, busses, rush hour, etc.), so the easiest spots to pick out tourists are sidewalks and subways.
They have to talk a lot about how to get where they're going, travel in groups that always look similar to each other, often seem travel weary because they don't tend to find the time to just sit down, and have a mildly annoying habit of just stopping in awkward places that make it difficult to walk around them.
Tourists also look different from New Yorkers, who are slimmer then most Americans just because we walk everywhere.
I don't want to sound anti-tourist because I know it's an important part of the city and brings in money, but if I am anti-tourist, I come by it honestly.
I grew up in the King William District of San Antonio, a big tourist destination for a big tourist city, and I lived in a front bedroom facing the street. Tour busses came by every hour or so. As I result, I spent my entire childhood paranoid behind closed bedroom shades.
I realize New York must sound pretty bad, infested as it is by heat, smells, roaches and tourists. The fact is, New York is always gorgeous as long as it's not obscenely cold. There is no place I'd rather be.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
NY f'in T[imes]
I am a life-long reader of the New York Times, but I am starting to understand the inherent limits of a paper of record.
Last Thursday on the train, I was browsing the Metro section and I noticed that it was a particularly strong day for local news. I read about witnesses getting scared off murder cases because it reminded me of a major plot thread in The Wire (like many sheltered white guys, everything I know about drug-related violence, I learned from The Wire).
Then I read about pedicabs, because, seriously, who are those guys? Then I read about someone who's going around destroying street art, which reminded me of this thing that happened at school.
So I reach my destination, and as I'm leaving the train, I notice the front page of someone's New York Post. The headline is HOUSE OF PAIN: $3 Million Estate an 'S&M Lair'.
I think, "Oh, yeah. That's what I was supposed to be reading."
Last Thursday on the train, I was browsing the Metro section and I noticed that it was a particularly strong day for local news. I read about witnesses getting scared off murder cases because it reminded me of a major plot thread in The Wire (like many sheltered white guys, everything I know about drug-related violence, I learned from The Wire).
Then I read about pedicabs, because, seriously, who are those guys? Then I read about someone who's going around destroying street art, which reminded me of this thing that happened at school.
So I reach my destination, and as I'm leaving the train, I notice the front page of someone's New York Post. The headline is HOUSE OF PAIN: $3 Million Estate an 'S&M Lair'.
I think, "Oh, yeah. That's what I was supposed to be reading."
ribble's Weather
It is snowing again in New York City. Some lady told me it was Winter's last gasp, but I'm accustomed to Winter turning a last gasp in to a horrid downpour of freezing-cold pain.
I read yesterday about a Chicago janitor who wrote a 16,000 page book. He thought that the weather was God's domain and humanity had no business trying to predict it. He kept an extensive journal of yesterday's predictions matched against what the weather actually was.
Weather may be God's domain, but man is responsible for doing what he can to survive it.
Rain
I have written before about the weather in Wales. In summary, it is almost always raining, but not in any decisive way. It's more than a drizzle but nothing bold enough to be a downpour, which I always considered wishy-washy and annoying.
Rain in Wales was always accompanied by a deeply bitter wind that went though your clothes and skin and straight through to your soul. A section of my soul will always be frostbitten by my time in Wales.
I had a Welsh girlfriend at school, and she was the one who taught me how to be comfortable in the rain.
When it starts to rain and we are without an umbrella, most of us tend to hunch over and lift our shoulders, as if we are sheltering a baby strapped to the front of our chests, although we rarely are.
My Welsh girlfriend pointed out that this reflex was pointless. The rain will hit us at the same rate, and no particularly important body part is being sheltered.
By relaxing my shoulders and standing up straight, I found that, although I wasn't staying any drier, I at least felt better about my situation.
Heat and Humidity
Some people, often people from Southern states, think of Texas as having a dry heat. It does not; it's humid as all fuck. In San Antonio, I usually attribute this to a river running through the city, but the San Antonio River is a lot smaller than San Antonio - it doesn't seem like it could do all that on its own.
Another family member has a theory involving swimming pools.
The heat in Texas is awful. At some point, it becomes impossible to function. You cannot walk from your air-conditioned car to your air-conditioned big box store without sobbing in pain and exhaustion until you eventually give up.
Growing up in Texas, I learned two good strategies for dealing with the heat. Second, there is a particular way to stick to the shadows outdoors. Walk on the shady side of the street. Stand in the shadow of a street sign while you wait at the corner. Do anything to keep even a portion of the sun away.
But first, don't go outdoors in the first place. San Antonio has an excellent cooling infrastructure. It is where I developed my weaknesses for central air and ceiling fans. It is also where I developed my instinct for hiding inside whenever it gets pretty out.
Some people prefer heat, some cold. I will take heat over cold any day of the week. I mean, this city is all pavement, and it does get hot, but I cannot tell you the number of times that I've rolled out of bed already sweating, suffered many of the symptoms of heat exhaustion on the one-block walk to the subway, and ended up dehydrated and half dead in Hell's Kitchen and still said, quite truthfully, that it still wasn't as bad as the heat in Texas.
Cold and Snow
Once, in Wales, a friend recorded my reading a short piece about the cold in New York for a project she was doing on accents. I liked it so much, I gave her two readings - my standard, post-television American, and my best Brooklynese. My favorite line was "New Yorkers deal with the cold in two ways - they dress for it, and they talk about it."
Because it never snowed and rarely froze in San Antonio (once every three years when it does freeze, they have to shut down the whole city because everyone drives their trucks off the highway), I gained my first real experience with cold and snow at my high-pedigree college in the frozen North of these United States.
My school had long ago determined that the key to fighting a long winter was large, open spaces with lots of light. When I got to New York, I made a big deal about finding them.
I did okay, but I've still got a serious problem with the heat in my apartment. This is a deal-breaker: by next winter, I'm out of here. Or I'm buying a space heater.
One last thing: I realized when I started thinking about this as my "annual post about the weather" that my blog will be one year old in exactly one week.
I am not sure if it's improved.
I read yesterday about a Chicago janitor who wrote a 16,000 page book. He thought that the weather was God's domain and humanity had no business trying to predict it. He kept an extensive journal of yesterday's predictions matched against what the weather actually was.
Weather may be God's domain, but man is responsible for doing what he can to survive it.
Rain
I have written before about the weather in Wales. In summary, it is almost always raining, but not in any decisive way. It's more than a drizzle but nothing bold enough to be a downpour, which I always considered wishy-washy and annoying.
Rain in Wales was always accompanied by a deeply bitter wind that went though your clothes and skin and straight through to your soul. A section of my soul will always be frostbitten by my time in Wales.
I had a Welsh girlfriend at school, and she was the one who taught me how to be comfortable in the rain.
When it starts to rain and we are without an umbrella, most of us tend to hunch over and lift our shoulders, as if we are sheltering a baby strapped to the front of our chests, although we rarely are.
My Welsh girlfriend pointed out that this reflex was pointless. The rain will hit us at the same rate, and no particularly important body part is being sheltered.
By relaxing my shoulders and standing up straight, I found that, although I wasn't staying any drier, I at least felt better about my situation.
Heat and Humidity
Some people, often people from Southern states, think of Texas as having a dry heat. It does not; it's humid as all fuck. In San Antonio, I usually attribute this to a river running through the city, but the San Antonio River is a lot smaller than San Antonio - it doesn't seem like it could do all that on its own.
Another family member has a theory involving swimming pools.
The heat in Texas is awful. At some point, it becomes impossible to function. You cannot walk from your air-conditioned car to your air-conditioned big box store without sobbing in pain and exhaustion until you eventually give up.
Growing up in Texas, I learned two good strategies for dealing with the heat. Second, there is a particular way to stick to the shadows outdoors. Walk on the shady side of the street. Stand in the shadow of a street sign while you wait at the corner. Do anything to keep even a portion of the sun away.
But first, don't go outdoors in the first place. San Antonio has an excellent cooling infrastructure. It is where I developed my weaknesses for central air and ceiling fans. It is also where I developed my instinct for hiding inside whenever it gets pretty out.
Some people prefer heat, some cold. I will take heat over cold any day of the week. I mean, this city is all pavement, and it does get hot, but I cannot tell you the number of times that I've rolled out of bed already sweating, suffered many of the symptoms of heat exhaustion on the one-block walk to the subway, and ended up dehydrated and half dead in Hell's Kitchen and still said, quite truthfully, that it still wasn't as bad as the heat in Texas.
Cold and Snow
Once, in Wales, a friend recorded my reading a short piece about the cold in New York for a project she was doing on accents. I liked it so much, I gave her two readings - my standard, post-television American, and my best Brooklynese. My favorite line was "New Yorkers deal with the cold in two ways - they dress for it, and they talk about it."
Because it never snowed and rarely froze in San Antonio (once every three years when it does freeze, they have to shut down the whole city because everyone drives their trucks off the highway), I gained my first real experience with cold and snow at my high-pedigree college in the frozen North of these United States.
My school had long ago determined that the key to fighting a long winter was large, open spaces with lots of light. When I got to New York, I made a big deal about finding them.
I did okay, but I've still got a serious problem with the heat in my apartment. This is a deal-breaker: by next winter, I'm out of here. Or I'm buying a space heater.
One last thing: I realized when I started thinking about this as my "annual post about the weather" that my blog will be one year old in exactly one week.
I am not sure if it's improved.
Friday, February 23, 2007
ribble's Public New York City
New York is defrosting this week after a short but difficult winter.
When I first moved to New York, I regularly caught myself thinking that any moment someone would come up to me and say "I'm sorry, but you aren't allowed to be here. You need to move back to Texas. NOW."
Living in New York is a tremendous privilege, and one of the reasons why is that is has some of the best parks and public spaces in the world.
Walking around Manhattan yesterday in the first warm-ish weather of the year, I started thinking about what I thought about all the spots I've gotten to know in my time in New York. Here they are, in handy map form. Don't forget to scroll.
When I first moved to New York, I regularly caught myself thinking that any moment someone would come up to me and say "I'm sorry, but you aren't allowed to be here. You need to move back to Texas. NOW."
Living in New York is a tremendous privilege, and one of the reasons why is that is has some of the best parks and public spaces in the world.
Walking around Manhattan yesterday in the first warm-ish weather of the year, I started thinking about what I thought about all the spots I've gotten to know in my time in New York. Here they are, in handy map form. Don't forget to scroll.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
My G-G-G-G-G-
EEK asked me in a comment on the last post:
So if you're going to be the voice of our generation, what are you going to say?
The question is a little tongue in cheek, but I think it deserves a serious answer. Or, baring that, a serious exploration of the premise of the question.
I would never be so bold as to choose a single message I think everyone in my generation should hear, and in this inescapably post-modern era, there would really be no way to get a single message out to a generation anyway.
Besides, being the voice of your generation doesn't really work that way. It means that you reflect or embody the force, movement or personality that's somehow shared by everyone in your generation.
I read this wikipedia entry on Generation Y every six months or so. No one has reached even a wikipedia-worthy consensus on what our generation is about.
We know it has something to do with our generation being the first to grow up with (and so take for granted) computers and the internet, we think it has something to do with 9/11 and maybe even the new millenium, but at the moment, that's all we got.
Right now, the most famous people in our generation are actors, athletes and musicians, because those are the things that can make you famous while you're still young. Still, when the most famous person is Britney Spears, you know that there's a lot more substance still to come.
When will we be able to pick a true voice of generation? That depends on what a voice of our generation still means.
I think of voice-of-a-generation types generally as writers, maybe because I am thinking about Jack Kerouac, and I think of writers as starting to find their voice in their 30s.
Of course, if we're talking about a figure we can all unite behind, like a JFK, we may have to wait until we start electing public figures to high office, which wouldn't come until the 2020s at the earliest.
Then if we're talking about a common experience all of us can share, it would have to be something on t.v., the last way to experience a message that it's plausible an entire generation can share (for the record, t.v. viewing numbers make YouTube viewing numbers look silly).
However, t.v. audiences are getting spread over more channels and across more time as TiVo and YouTube allow culture to be random-accessed. Maybe the final time we were all united in a single experience has already happened, during 9/11, but then even 9/11 meant different things to different people.
We'd have to go back, way back, to find a single t.v. experience shared by each person in our generation in the same way. For my part, I'm betting on TMBG's early '90s appearance on Tiny Toons.
Maybe all this theorizing is futile. It's possible that there's no longer any way for a single person or experience to embody a generation.
Remember how you're the person of the year? (If you are reading this post three months from now or you were out of the country for that news cycle, you won't). Time thinks our diffusion of experience means only a diffusion of media can represent who we are.
I think if there's no way for a single person or voice to embody who we are, then that's the only message that makes sense for our generation. There's no longer any way to say the one thing that will unite everyone. The only thing we can do is try to present what's really happening with ourselves and what we see around us, and, if that reflects our generation's experience in some way, they'll find us.
I say, just like your ee, the trick to writing big is to think small. Call it the Tony Wilson model. I've identified one artistic movement, production company equivalents organizing informally and producing lots of content, and one location, New York City, where I think it's happening. I think that could be enough to hang my hat on.
So if you're going to be the voice of our generation, what are you going to say?
The question is a little tongue in cheek, but I think it deserves a serious answer. Or, baring that, a serious exploration of the premise of the question.
I would never be so bold as to choose a single message I think everyone in my generation should hear, and in this inescapably post-modern era, there would really be no way to get a single message out to a generation anyway.
Besides, being the voice of your generation doesn't really work that way. It means that you reflect or embody the force, movement or personality that's somehow shared by everyone in your generation.
I read this wikipedia entry on Generation Y every six months or so. No one has reached even a wikipedia-worthy consensus on what our generation is about.
We know it has something to do with our generation being the first to grow up with (and so take for granted) computers and the internet, we think it has something to do with 9/11 and maybe even the new millenium, but at the moment, that's all we got.
Right now, the most famous people in our generation are actors, athletes and musicians, because those are the things that can make you famous while you're still young. Still, when the most famous person is Britney Spears, you know that there's a lot more substance still to come.
When will we be able to pick a true voice of generation? That depends on what a voice of our generation still means.
I think of voice-of-a-generation types generally as writers, maybe because I am thinking about Jack Kerouac, and I think of writers as starting to find their voice in their 30s.
Of course, if we're talking about a figure we can all unite behind, like a JFK, we may have to wait until we start electing public figures to high office, which wouldn't come until the 2020s at the earliest.
Then if we're talking about a common experience all of us can share, it would have to be something on t.v., the last way to experience a message that it's plausible an entire generation can share (for the record, t.v. viewing numbers make YouTube viewing numbers look silly).
However, t.v. audiences are getting spread over more channels and across more time as TiVo and YouTube allow culture to be random-accessed. Maybe the final time we were all united in a single experience has already happened, during 9/11, but then even 9/11 meant different things to different people.
We'd have to go back, way back, to find a single t.v. experience shared by each person in our generation in the same way. For my part, I'm betting on TMBG's early '90s appearance on Tiny Toons.
Maybe all this theorizing is futile. It's possible that there's no longer any way for a single person or experience to embody a generation.
Remember how you're the person of the year? (If you are reading this post three months from now or you were out of the country for that news cycle, you won't). Time thinks our diffusion of experience means only a diffusion of media can represent who we are.
I think if there's no way for a single person or voice to embody who we are, then that's the only message that makes sense for our generation. There's no longer any way to say the one thing that will unite everyone. The only thing we can do is try to present what's really happening with ourselves and what we see around us, and, if that reflects our generation's experience in some way, they'll find us.
I say, just like your ee, the trick to writing big is to think small. Call it the Tony Wilson model. I've identified one artistic movement, production company equivalents organizing informally and producing lots of content, and one location, New York City, where I think it's happening. I think that could be enough to hang my hat on.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
ribble's Coffee
Coffee is my favorite beverage. It is the only widely available potable liquid with magical properties.
I first started drinking coffee with my mom, who drinks half-decaf, half-caffeinated coffee with sugar and lots of skim milk heated in a small pot on the stove, so that's how I took my coffee.
Then I went away to school in Wales, where the nearest grocery store was 20 minutes walk in the rain each way. Sugar and especially milk were often not available, so I got used to having my coffee black. Also, we had no coffee maker, so it was plunger coffee all the way.
When I went to college, I drank coffee at the local joint. I went through all the different brews and all the different drinks.
My favorite drink (to stay) was the cafe au lait, which at the Dirty Boy a little metal pot of strong, black coffee, and a little metal pot of warm milk. My favorite drink (to go) was the Jamaican Blue Mountain with a double shot of espresso - basically the strongest type of coffee that could be legally sold.
When I left school and got my own place, I bought a bed and then I bought a coffee pot. I got whole beans from one of the many spots around Park Slope and ground them myself. I had no consistent philosophy on milk and sugar, preferring them when faced with mediocre coffee but letting good coffee speak for itself.
Then I started working in media and drinking coffee with Speedrail. We drank either the really cheap coffee from the deli down the street or the really cheap coffee from the gas station at the corner. In either case, it was always large, light and sweet.
I lost that job and started working on film sets. Film means weird hours, stress and very little sleep. If it weren't for coffee, the film business would not exist. Because PAs never really got breaks and always had the least time for meals, I had time to pour in milk but no time to stir in sugar. (Although, on the one Bollywood film I worked, the craft service guys made a really strong instant with condensed milk and only served it at tea time. It was to die for.)
Now I'm a little bit between careers, and I haven't hit a new coffee philosophy. Will I be a writer, keeping the pot going all day and all night? A producer, forcing lackeys to buy me some very specific type of Starbucks? A film star, demanding only coffee made with organic beans and bottled water? Or maybe a film guerrilla, drinking deli coffee when I can get it?
I first started drinking coffee with my mom, who drinks half-decaf, half-caffeinated coffee with sugar and lots of skim milk heated in a small pot on the stove, so that's how I took my coffee.
Then I went away to school in Wales, where the nearest grocery store was 20 minutes walk in the rain each way. Sugar and especially milk were often not available, so I got used to having my coffee black. Also, we had no coffee maker, so it was plunger coffee all the way.
When I went to college, I drank coffee at the local joint. I went through all the different brews and all the different drinks.
My favorite drink (to stay) was the cafe au lait, which at the Dirty Boy a little metal pot of strong, black coffee, and a little metal pot of warm milk. My favorite drink (to go) was the Jamaican Blue Mountain with a double shot of espresso - basically the strongest type of coffee that could be legally sold.
When I left school and got my own place, I bought a bed and then I bought a coffee pot. I got whole beans from one of the many spots around Park Slope and ground them myself. I had no consistent philosophy on milk and sugar, preferring them when faced with mediocre coffee but letting good coffee speak for itself.
Then I started working in media and drinking coffee with Speedrail. We drank either the really cheap coffee from the deli down the street or the really cheap coffee from the gas station at the corner. In either case, it was always large, light and sweet.
I lost that job and started working on film sets. Film means weird hours, stress and very little sleep. If it weren't for coffee, the film business would not exist. Because PAs never really got breaks and always had the least time for meals, I had time to pour in milk but no time to stir in sugar. (Although, on the one Bollywood film I worked, the craft service guys made a really strong instant with condensed milk and only served it at tea time. It was to die for.)
Now I'm a little bit between careers, and I haven't hit a new coffee philosophy. Will I be a writer, keeping the pot going all day and all night? A producer, forcing lackeys to buy me some very specific type of Starbucks? A film star, demanding only coffee made with organic beans and bottled water? Or maybe a film guerrilla, drinking deli coffee when I can get it?
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
State of the Person
I'm at that spot where the production recovery daze wears off and I try to figure out where I stand.
Work
I am working, semi-guaranteed, three of the next four weekends. I need more work, but this is fine for right now, and I feel like I'll be able to get work no problem. I'm more qualified and more confident than I was four months ago.
Social
I need to catch up with everybody. Production, by definition, shuts down this part of my life.
Career
Now that I know I can grip and can make an educated guess I'll be decent at it within a few months, I'm starting to feel like I am capable of doing many other jobs in the film business. This is significant because the last job I was in charge of was not 100% satisfactory for the client and it scared me off being anything more important for a PA for a long time.
Now I am thinking about other projects I can do.
-I want to adapt this porn I wrote (long story) so it is a comedy starring puppets.
-I am starring in next month's First Sundays Film Festival "Wanna Be a Star" contest film.
-This post could be a short film (the '80s part).
-I want to get in on an indie feature film as an actor, electric, associate producer, key PA, anything. I want to be part of a project like that from start to finish again.
Also, I'm reading a textbook on how to be a production manager or coordinator, which will lay out the basics the production-side stuff I could do.
Residency
I asked Full Stealth (originally from Vermont) how long it takes to be a New Yorker. He said "six years, but you can subtract a year for every mugging."
Well, I've been here two years, but I am a New Yorker.
-I'm planning to stay here forever.
-When I was from Texas, everyone thought I was from New York anyway.
-I have been to many places in this city, and I haven't generally travelled there just to be there - I've had legitimate (like work and friends) reasons to be there.
-I have many memories in this city.
-I live in Brooklyn, not Manhattan. 'Cuz Manhattan is for tools.
Work
I am working, semi-guaranteed, three of the next four weekends. I need more work, but this is fine for right now, and I feel like I'll be able to get work no problem. I'm more qualified and more confident than I was four months ago.
Social
I need to catch up with everybody. Production, by definition, shuts down this part of my life.
Career
Now that I know I can grip and can make an educated guess I'll be decent at it within a few months, I'm starting to feel like I am capable of doing many other jobs in the film business. This is significant because the last job I was in charge of was not 100% satisfactory for the client and it scared me off being anything more important for a PA for a long time.
Now I am thinking about other projects I can do.
-I want to adapt this porn I wrote (long story) so it is a comedy starring puppets.
-I am starring in next month's First Sundays Film Festival "Wanna Be a Star" contest film.
-This post could be a short film (the '80s part).
-I want to get in on an indie feature film as an actor, electric, associate producer, key PA, anything. I want to be part of a project like that from start to finish again.
Also, I'm reading a textbook on how to be a production manager or coordinator, which will lay out the basics the production-side stuff I could do.
Residency
I asked Full Stealth (originally from Vermont) how long it takes to be a New Yorker. He said "six years, but you can subtract a year for every mugging."
Well, I've been here two years, but I am a New Yorker.
-I'm planning to stay here forever.
-When I was from Texas, everyone thought I was from New York anyway.
-I have been to many places in this city, and I haven't generally travelled there just to be there - I've had legitimate (like work and friends) reasons to be there.
-I have many memories in this city.
-I live in Brooklyn, not Manhattan. 'Cuz Manhattan is for tools.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
ribble's rainy day
It rained today in New York City and it reminded me of the day we went to Dinosaur Barbecue and it rained so hard the IRT was flooded out.
It was me, My Cousin the Revolutionary, Marmo, and another friend who I haven't decided whether to codename Beta or Charlie (your vote counts!) It took a little doing, but we managed to catch a cab, and as we headed down Broadway we passed hundreds of people on the street trying to hail our car.
"I feel like I'm in a zombie movie," I said.
"Whaddaya mean,"* said Marmo (not a fan of zombie movies).
"I feel like all these people are going to run at the cab going 'Gwar!'"
Then after the girls got out we agreed to share the cab with a very nice couple from Ohio.
* I'm paraphrasing here. Marmo is actually very well-dictioned.
It was me, My Cousin the Revolutionary, Marmo, and another friend who I haven't decided whether to codename Beta or Charlie (your vote counts!) It took a little doing, but we managed to catch a cab, and as we headed down Broadway we passed hundreds of people on the street trying to hail our car.
"I feel like I'm in a zombie movie," I said.
"Whaddaya mean,"* said Marmo (not a fan of zombie movies).
"I feel like all these people are going to run at the cab going 'Gwar!'"
Then after the girls got out we agreed to share the cab with a very nice couple from Ohio.
* I'm paraphrasing here. Marmo is actually very well-dictioned.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Monday, May 01, 2006
Speaking of food
This past Friday my friend Marmo took me to Dinosaur barbecue way, way up by 131 St. in between a highway and a bunch of warehouses.
Now, barbecue is as Texan as Tex-Mex, like how lasagna is as British as chicken tikka masala. I've never gone on a quest for good BBQ in New York for the same reason my friend Apple's mom told her never to buy a reuben West of the Mississippi - good barbecue outside of Texas, the South, and Cincinnati, Ohio (for pork ribs) just seemed like a contradiction in terms. I went in to this place with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Dino BBQ ended up blowing my weekend because nothing else I did could ever live up to it. Marmo and I split a full rack and did not speak from the moment the food arrived until the last rib bone, stripped of its meat like an ambitious model, was taken from our greasy fingers.
I described the feeling as better than sex, but Marmo pointed out that I'd said the same thing about finishing my script a week before. Maybe it just felt like coming home again. In any case, after that I didn't feel like leaving the house for three days.
My problem, then, was that my cousin the revolutionary is himself a Southerner, and I feel that he needs to experience Dinosaur BBQ as well. But I couldn't bring myself to go back there for another month - I mean, I've seen "The Itis".
Finally, MCTR and I decided that we would take our good friend Drew there upon his triumphant return from Ghana in June. Nothing says America like high fat, high cholesterol food.
Now, barbecue is as Texan as Tex-Mex, like how lasagna is as British as chicken tikka masala. I've never gone on a quest for good BBQ in New York for the same reason my friend Apple's mom told her never to buy a reuben West of the Mississippi - good barbecue outside of Texas, the South, and Cincinnati, Ohio (for pork ribs) just seemed like a contradiction in terms. I went in to this place with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Dino BBQ ended up blowing my weekend because nothing else I did could ever live up to it. Marmo and I split a full rack and did not speak from the moment the food arrived until the last rib bone, stripped of its meat like an ambitious model, was taken from our greasy fingers.
I described the feeling as better than sex, but Marmo pointed out that I'd said the same thing about finishing my script a week before. Maybe it just felt like coming home again. In any case, after that I didn't feel like leaving the house for three days.
My problem, then, was that my cousin the revolutionary is himself a Southerner, and I feel that he needs to experience Dinosaur BBQ as well. But I couldn't bring myself to go back there for another month - I mean, I've seen "The Itis".
Finally, MCTR and I decided that we would take our good friend Drew there upon his triumphant return from Ghana in June. Nothing says America like high fat, high cholesterol food.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Jury Duty
I went in for jury duty on Monday and was picked for a civil case starting Friday. I was selected quickly because I am kinda the perfect juror: willing to be there, not dumb or smart enough to make up my mind before the trial (those people were recused), consistently awake. I even wore a goddamn jacket.
Besides the existence of an orientation video starring Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer, the interesting thing about jury duty is the voir dire.
From the moment I got to the big juror holding room, it was clear there was a very diverse group of Brooklynites in attendence. All races and classes were represented - there was even a contingent of Hassidic Jews.
You can't escape the diversity of Brooklyn on a normal day, but the great thing about voir dire was getting to hear people speak with their own voices about themselves. It was like taking X-ray glasses on the train.
There was a retired guy who had been on a trial that dragged on for a month, a future law student, a guy in his mid-30s who thought the insurance company should just pay the victims off and be done with it, a pretty young woman who asked me if I worked for Americorps, a middle-aged woman who couldn't wrap her head around an accident without an eye-witness, and two women who didn't speak English. And that was only out of the first ten!
The only consistent thing about these people was that they had jury duty and were mildly annoyed by it. Makes me proud to be an American.
Update! (4/29/06) After two hours of waiting around, a cute woman bailiff lead me and the eleven other jurors to a small waiting room. I was planning to take the Rob Cesternino approach: hang back at first, then gradually form a working relationship with each of the other jurors over the next few days. Maybe even angle for jury foreman.
To make a short story short, we were called in to the court, told by the judge the case had been settled, dismissed and given letters that get us out of jury duty until 2012, when the universe is pretty much done for anyway. This is what's known as "lucking out."
Besides the existence of an orientation video starring Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer, the interesting thing about jury duty is the voir dire.
From the moment I got to the big juror holding room, it was clear there was a very diverse group of Brooklynites in attendence. All races and classes were represented - there was even a contingent of Hassidic Jews.
You can't escape the diversity of Brooklyn on a normal day, but the great thing about voir dire was getting to hear people speak with their own voices about themselves. It was like taking X-ray glasses on the train.
There was a retired guy who had been on a trial that dragged on for a month, a future law student, a guy in his mid-30s who thought the insurance company should just pay the victims off and be done with it, a pretty young woman who asked me if I worked for Americorps, a middle-aged woman who couldn't wrap her head around an accident without an eye-witness, and two women who didn't speak English. And that was only out of the first ten!
The only consistent thing about these people was that they had jury duty and were mildly annoyed by it. Makes me proud to be an American.
Update! (4/29/06) After two hours of waiting around, a cute woman bailiff lead me and the eleven other jurors to a small waiting room. I was planning to take the Rob Cesternino approach: hang back at first, then gradually form a working relationship with each of the other jurors over the next few days. Maybe even angle for jury foreman.
To make a short story short, we were called in to the court, told by the judge the case had been settled, dismissed and given letters that get us out of jury duty until 2012, when the universe is pretty much done for anyway. This is what's known as "lucking out."
Sunday, April 23, 2006
A New Age for Eavesdropping
The rise of the cell phone has changed my favorite New York activity in two ways.
First, when I see someone walking towards me on the street who appears to be talking to themselves, I have to decide if this person is talking on a cell phone or if it may be a good idea to cross the street.
This is surprisingly easy with practice.
Second, I get to eavesdrop on half of what would normally be a private conversation, just a little out of context, with little effort on my part.
Overheard today: "You'd look like, you'd look like, you'd basically be a freak in a sheet."
Huh.
First, when I see someone walking towards me on the street who appears to be talking to themselves, I have to decide if this person is talking on a cell phone or if it may be a good idea to cross the street.
This is surprisingly easy with practice.
Second, I get to eavesdrop on half of what would normally be a private conversation, just a little out of context, with little effort on my part.
Overheard today: "You'd look like, you'd look like, you'd basically be a freak in a sheet."
Huh.
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