i loved these ads! to promote monday night football this season, the nfl put these up all over the city. what’s the big deal? look closer…..
the ads are artificial turf spray painted with white lettering……just like a real(fake)football field!
here are some close ups of the blades of turf…….
and yes….they were promptly stolen from various locations in the city…ironically in the richer areas: soho, along broadway and other richie rich locales. but ironically, up where i am…..manhattan valley and morningside heights….they were still up! the people either respected the ads or liked having the ads up in the community or just didn’t bother. but i thought that was an interesting parable of right and wrong, rich and poor with multiple meanings and lessons.
the stolen turfs are probably lining some guy’s room in the city.
in their place, the nfl put up these traditional paper ads depicting a crime scene! the notice warns about bad karma and urges the theives to return the turf. i was slow to capture these on camera and had to ask my good buddy thom for this copy…..by the time i got to thinking about this post, both the turf ads and the crime scene ads were all gone! there maybe a few strays in the city. let me know if you find one.
a few weeks ago i went to my 20 year high school reunion. i would have posted earlier but i blinked and a few weeks passed. just like i blinked and it was 20 years.
this time passing quickly is mostly a good thing….i feel the richness and fullness of life….which makes time just fly. recently, chris rock joked that when you have(a good life)time passes quicker…when you have(a crappy life), time just crawls and you wind up playing the time game at work….begging for time to move. so time blowing by…..its a double edged blessing.
going to reunions can be a mind game…will anyone remember you? will you see people that you want to see? will it be a waste of money for a drink and some finger food? there are a lot of fears running through your head. especially after my 10 year reunion where there were a few folks i was excited to see but inexplicably did not recognize me. what a nightmare!
i wonder what mental obstacles stopped some of my classmates from coming.
i ate those fears and went with anticipation of seeing people especially people that i may not have seen in 20 years…..not since the 80’s!
most of the people i connected with were from this strange civic education program that i was part of at bronx science. it was a social experiment envisioned by lawrence kohlberg of moral development theory fame. the community had mixed results especially the day we learned that dr. kohlberg drowned himself but the upside were these deeper relationships because of the time spent together. my closer friends during my high school years came from c.e.p……many who i had hoped to see. no luck with the majority of those but i did connect with a few i saw from the 10 year and one dear friend from 20 years ago.
i think about 200 of my peers showed up…which is about 20%. that’s right, 20%…the rumor is that because we were the 50th anniversary class, they let in more students that year pushing the class from the usual 800 to the astounding 1000. in fact, when i was in college i met another student from nyc. i then found out that she also graduated from my high school. the same year i graduated! 1988! we were from the same school and the same year…and never met each other!
hoping to see some of my friends from the missing 800 at the 25, 30, 35 and 40 year reunions. 45 and 50 will likely be a crapshoot….just hoping to make it to those!
our boy at the clinton global initiative in new york city this week:
Bono commenting on the current financial crisis facing the United States: “I am not qualified to comment on what has happened in the last week where this city has changed shape, certainly psychologically, and in terms of some people’s wallets. And I’m not qualified to comment on the interventions that have been put forth. I presume these people know what they’re doing. But it is extraordinary to me that you can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can’t find $25 billion to save 25,000 children who die every day of preventable, treatable disease and hunger.”
i had a much longer u2hosiveography about 9/11 brewing to close the week…but it was just too hard to finish. so rather than put out a limp product, i’ll conclude this year by giving a preview for next year. or whenever my heart can put the pieces together. its still that hard to process the times, 7 years later.
u2 wrote the ultra prophetic song ‘please’ in 1997…about political and religious fanatics. they played in on tour to support pop in 97 to modest applause. the song was out of phase. but on 9/11, it came into its time and u2 brought an acoustic version for its post 9/11 elevation tour in the us.
a sample of the lyrics:
September, streets capsizing
Spilling over, down the drain
Shards of glass, splinters like rain
But you could only feel your own pain
October, talk getting nowhere
November, December
Remember, are we just starting again
Please, please, please
Get up off your knees
Please, please, please
Please
So love is big, it’s bigger than us
But love is not what you’re thinking of
It’s what lovers deal, it’s what lovers steal
You know I found it hard to recieve
‘Cause you, my love, I could never believe
the new york landmark that is saturday night live…has its critics, detractor, imitators, competition and people who continue to wait for its final burial. but its still around and no other late night show has impacted society and pop culture than snl. especially during the political season. below are an array from the current skirmishes with obama, hilary, mcain…and now, palin.
tickets are distributed via lottery each august. one in theory submits an email and receives tickets if chosen. in theory because i have yet to win. the process is very don’t call us, we’ll call you….but how do i know you received my request??? tickets also come by lining up the day off which in ny translates to the night before. i might have to wind up doing this to get in.
these were the debate sketches that brought to national light that the media coddles obama and harshly treats clinton:
here’s the second one.
here’s an nba promotion spoof depicting the obama/clinton rivalry. i wonder how much this confirmed suspicions of hilary’s entitlement.
i have always loved john mccain on snl. he is self deprecating, sarcastic and so real. he’s got great comedic instincts.
here tina fey passionately pleads hilary’s case. she did wind up winning the primaries that followed!
but here is tracey morgan’s response…..and we know the results for his choice.
and here’s what many think will actually take place next year:
finally, a bonus video with mike huckabee…..i always thought he was a comedian! i’ve been laughing at him since day 1. but here, he’s harmless!
what’s more new york than the f-word? its like the official word of the city! but there’s another f-word that is turning up in popular culture and in real life!
frak is growing into the other f-word. its work safe and it conveys the same meaning. it may even be church safe.
where is it from? its from that show that many have heard about but have not watched, my favorite….battlestar galactica.
here’s how to use it:
here is the history of the word from cnn:
Lee Goldberg thinks Glen A. Larson is a genius, and not because the prolific television writer and producer gave us “Knight Rider” and “B.J. and the Bear.”
It was Larson who first used the faux curse word “frak” in the original “Battlestar Galactica.” The word was mostly overlooked back in the ’70s series but is working its way into popular vocabulary as SciFi’s modern update winds down production.
“All joking aside, say what you will about what you might call the lowbrow nature of many of his shows, he did something truly amazing and subversive, up there with what Steven Bochco gets credit for, with ‘frak,’ ” Goldberg said.
There’s no question what the word stands for and it’s used gleefully, as many as 20 times in some episodes.
“And he was saying it 30 years ago in the original goofy, god-awful ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ ” said Goldberg, a television writer and novelist whose credits include “Monk” and “Diagnosis Murder.”
The word is showing up everywhere — on T-shirts, in sit-coms, best-selling novels and regular conversation.
“I have to start by saying that I’m drinking coffee out of a mug that says ‘frak off’ on the side of it, so much has it seeped into my life,” “Galactica” star Jamie Bamber said.
The word is insinuating its way into popular vocabulary for a simple reason.
You can’t get in trouble. It’s a made-up word.
“It may have been the great George Carlin who talked about these things so cleverly,” Larson said. “He’d say, ‘Mother would say shoot, but she meant … when she reached in and burned her fingers on the crocker.’ And the child says, ‘I know what you meant, Mom.’ ”
The word has slipped the bonds that tethered other pretenders like Mork’s “shazbot” in “Mork & Mindy” or Col. Sherman T. Potter’s “horse hockey” in “M*A*S*H.” Its usage has moved from the small but fervent group of “Galactica” fans into everyday language. It’s shown up in very mainstream shows like “The Office,” “Gossip Girl” and “Scrubs.” One YouTube posting has 2 minutes of sound bites that cover the gamut.
“I’m in my own little cocoon of science fictiondom, but it is certainly used around here and amongst the people I know,” said Irene Gallo, art director at the sci-fi imprint Tor Books, where employees held a “frak party” to watch the season premiere. “It’s sort of a way to be able to use a four-letter word without really getting into any kind of HR trouble or with people you’re really not quite comfortable being yourself with.”
The word has even appeared in the funny pages where Dilbert muttered a disconsolate “frack” — the original spelling before producers of the current show changed it to a four-letter word — after a particularly dumb order from his evil twit of a boss.
“Dilbert” creator Scott Adams calls the word “pure genius.”
“At first I thought ‘frak’ was too contrived and it bothered me to hear it,” Adams said. “Over time it merged in my mind with its coarser cousin and totally worked. The creators ingeniously found a way to make viewers curse in their own heads — you tend to translate the word — and yet the show is not profane.”
Best-selling novelist Robert Crais slips the word into the prologue of his latest Elvis Cole mystery, “Chasing Darkness.” He did it because “Galactica” is his favorite show, like calling out in the wilderness to his fellow fans. But he sees the word popping up everywhere, even among those who have never watched the show.
“It’s viral, it spreads like a virus,” Crais said. “That first wave of people who use it are all fans. They use it because they’re tickled by it and like me they’re paying an homage to the show. When they’re using it, they’re probably doing it with a sly wink. But as it gets heard and people use it, it spreads.”
The re-imagined “Battlestar Galactica” tells the story of the human survivors of a war with a robotic race known as the Cylons. Fewer than 40,000 humans remain in a ragtag fleet being pursued across space by the Cylons, who wiped out the 12 colonies in a surprise nuclear holocaust.
Their destination is the mythical planet Earth, a legend passed down in religious texts. Shooting wrapped in July and the final 10 episodes will appear beginning in January.
Larson, one of television’s most prolific and successful writers, doesn’t much care for the new series. He used “frack” and its cousin “feldergarb” as alternates for curse words because the original “Battlestar” was family friendly and appeared on Sunday nights. The words fit in with his philosophy that while the show was about humans, it shouldn’t have an Earthly feel.
In what he said was his first interview about the series, Larson says there were no red fire extinguishers on his Battlestar Galactica and characters wore original costumes, not suits and ties.
“Our point was to whenever possible make it a departure like you’re visiting somewhere else,” Larson said. “And we did coin certain phrases for use in expletive situations, but we tried to carry that over into a lot of other stuff, even push brooms and the coin of the realm.”
When new series producer Ron Moore first introduced “frak” in early scripts, Bamber said the actors were dubious. But as writers expanded its use, they caught on to the possibilities.
“I mean why are we not offended by ‘frak’ because it means exactly the same thing as the other thing?” said Bamber, who plays fighter pilot-turned-president Lee “Apollo” Adama. “So it raises questions about language and why certain words are offensive. Is it their meaning? … Clearly it’s not their meaning. Clearly it’s literally their sound.”
Co-executive producer and writer Michael Angeli, an Emmy nominee for the episode “Six of One,” said using the word in scripts is satisfying for anyone who’s been censored over the years.
“It’s a great way to do something naughty and get away with it,” Angeli said. “One of the things that television shows do constantly is they battle with Standards and Practices over what can be seen and what can’t be seen, what can be said and what can’t be said.
“A lot of our characters are soldiers. That whole sort of view and that subculture, that’s how they speak. They’re rough and tumble, and they’re bawdy and they swear.”
He said producers have gotten no complaints from SciFi owner NBC Universal or the Federal Communications Commission.
Goldberg believes Larson should get more credit for “frak” and has posted an appreciation on his Web site. He even sought out Larson to let him know how he feels: “I told him, ‘Frak is fraking brilliant, Glen.’ “
our annual family trip to a nyc tourist attraction on labor day…a tradition that we just started doing a few years ago and kept doing. we discovered that tourists evacuate the city so the spots empty out and you have these massive places to yourself. mostly.
this year, we brought along my parents. my mom had been bugging me to take her on a cruise….i told her…here it is! cruise! boat! a 10 minute ride over……
we booked online weeks ago as special tickets are needed to ascend into the lady. many a unprepared visitor is disappointed to get onto the island but not able to enter into the monument itself. you have to book these at least a week in advance and during high season, way earlier.
when we got to the ferry point, there were two lines…..prepared and unprepared. they called them reserved tickets and flex tickets. reserved, sold in advance, have a specific time given to board for security checks. flex are the tickets sold to people who walk up to the booth that day. the flex line was 4 times(at least)longer than the reserved line. and when they saw that my dad had a cane, they brought us right up to the front!
here, the nerds in the family take the obligatory audio tour to learn more about the island and the statue. i only paid for one but the lady gave us two….again, the end of the season….labor day visiting pays off! all the tourists are already at lga, jfk and ewr.
we bought food onto the island which you are discouraged to do. but we’re cheap and we bought breads, mcdonald’s chicken biscuits and my mom bought a ton of beef and pork jerky. we did purchase drinks at the monopoly on site.
i dunno why we do this every year. to affirm our love for the city? to affirm our love for each other? to affirm our calling to the city? to affirm our calling to each other? because its fun? because its silly and stupid? just because?
the traditions that we inherit, the traditions that we create and that we choose to carry on define us in conscious and subconscious ways. it might be all these reasons…and others that we have not brought to the surface yet.
normally, we go to the tourist site…..top of the rock, empire state building…..closer to dusk and watch the sunset. but visits to the island end before that. and climbing the statue herself ends at 4:45. a bummer……i think i insist on doing this to symbolically transition from the hot summer to the cool magical fall. having missed out on that, fall does not seem like its arrived yet. technically, we do have a few weeks of my least favorite season.
the original torch is on display as you ascend as are replicas of the statue. theresa likes to pick noses. my dad does his best shaq imitation(kobe, tell me!…..), my mom reaches for the skies and the girls play with her toes.
you used to be able to go up higher all the way to the crown but 9/11 stopped that. there are rumors that they will open up eventually. but there is no elevator up to the top so that’s a healthy walk for the view. i believe that we will one day return here if access is granted. who knows how long they will keep it open or before al qaeda decides to attack again?
we took multiple shots trying to catch us and ms. liberty and this is the best of the bunch. we’ve gotten pretty good at these self portraits.
our noses look perfect in this one. the key to my heart is a good nose.
my parents liked tagging along even though they had to sit and rest a lot. afterwards we had dinner and even walked home on the upper west side. my dad assured us that he would not have a stroke.
at some point, they realized that chinese dramas would be on cable and they walked even faster.
love of family, love of city and calling affirmed. thanks, tourists, for your loot and booty; especially you european tourists with your valuable cash reserves. you may leave now. see you again next year, somewhere in the city.
we close with the annual ancestor picture. unfortunately, theresa’s sneer is starting to look like her smile.
Sometime over the course of a person’s first year in New York, there usually comes that moment. It can happen in the first days or weeks, or after 10 months. It can happen repeatedly, or without people noticing, at least not at first. Newcomers suddenly realize either that the city is not working for them or that they are inexorably becoming part of it, or both.
so that first year is telling….whether this place is for you or not. here are my comments on the article with the ny times in bold and me in not bold….make sure to check out leonard’s thoughts on it as well.
(if you make it…)The subway begins to make sense. i forget how much of the system is intuitive. friends and tourists wind up in harlem all the time. its like the subway is alive….like parts of the amazon, designed to keep outsiders out. there is more to the trains than is advertised and posted. the racist but still funny phrase harder than chinese arithmetic comes to mind. by comparison, my friend and other dc transplant calls the washington metro something akin to fisher price’s my first public transportation. but once you get it….you get this city. a related skill is knowing whether walking, cabbing, busing or subway(ing) would be faster. while some are puzzled, nyk’rs know what i’m talking about.
“It can be lonely, very lonely, and I knew I would find it hard,” said Lisa Phin, 25, who moved to New York from Dallas in late May. “But if you can stick it out for one year, you’re home free.” this is not a friendly city when it comes to community. the city almost makes you earn it. it suspects that you are a poser and will be gone in two years tops(but you should have left after that first year)…so it doesn’t pay attention to you.but if you tough it out, there’s a niche here for everyone. the best part of the city is that you can believe anything, wear anything, be from anywhere, be anyone….and have a place and find companions. you just have to work a little….and wait for things to develop and fall into place. But sometime during her first year, she stopped trying so hard. “I just realized that I didn’t need to find ‘it,’ that my place in the city would fall into place,” she said. “Now I don’t make an effort; I roll with things. It’s not just the city, it’s yourself that you have to deal with as well.” as a side note, this can be a friendly city in everyday interactions. outsiders are surprised that people genuinely try to help when asked.
Mr. Ingersoll painstakingly saved $8,000 over a year and a half in Seattle, working three jobs to prepare for life in the city of his dreams. He burned through it in no time when he could not find full-time work. Nothing comes easily, even if one can get past the dauntingly high cost of living. the upside of living in this crazy priced metropolis is that everywhere theresa and i vacation in the rest of the states….seems cheap; and is cheap(er)! when we first got here, we didn’t buy certain items like juice because we couldn’t believe what they were charging. but, we’ve become jaded to the exorbitant prices in the city. so we shrug at $3000 a month for a one bedroom in our neighborhood. we’re not surprised at million dollar apartments that middle class people live in. we accept that lunch is $10-$20 and cheap eats sometimes means under $30. we make up for it with an $81 all you can ride subway pass and……visiting your town and eating there. wink.
There also usually comes a time, early on, when newcomers must accept that the city is a power greater than they are. i think this is the key reason so many teens, college students and young adults are so stunted in their development….they’ve never had a place that pushed them or tested them beyond who they are. the places they live in are not greater than them…..they’ve become the kings of their cul de sac’s….its like the arrogance of winning your thursday night poker game every week only to discover vegas. in nyc, you can get humbled at every turn…and often, you are. people don’t like that and look for a place to settle where they are not so exposed. but for those who stay, this place can transform you if you are willing to learn in the crucible. “Every day you encounter situations where you have to step out of your safety zone, and it’s really kind of a self-discovery experience,” she said. “I see myself fighting it, but I also I see myself, every day, becoming a New Yorker.”
in the book series, not so big house, the key to getting the most out of a small space are niches. even in big homes, what makes a home “homey” are the small little places that feel cozy and safe. where memories are made. so good architects, builders and home makers build little spots into a house or apt to make the space memorable and alive. i’ve been blessed to live in a few places with little nooks and spots that radiate with life.
we bought one of the not so big house books because we were moving from a 2400 sq/ft md house into a 1100 sq/ft nyc apartment. but it turns out the not so big homes in the not so big house books were not so not-so-big. they were huge places! we have different definitions of not so big house!
in these features, i’ll detail mundane little spots around our apartment…..the spots where we live…and life is made.
this is our bedroom…and where the magic happens. but not in the way you think. let me explain.
during one of our housewarmings, i gave the folks a tour of the place….lagging behind, ricky yu entered the room and saw the desk right next to our bed…he assumed that this is where i write my sermons. and while i was showing others the master bath, we heard ricky say behind us…”so…this is where the magic happens.” we turned to see ricky, a little embarrassed realizing that most in room thought he was noting the king sized bed.
but some “magic” does occur here….since space in nyc is a premium, many spaces double or triple in function…
in this space, as you can see by the piles of books and papers is where i sometimes meet with god in meditation, prayer, readings, connection with nature. these are the windows i look out of when i pray….
there is a collage of man and god that is in my mind as i pray. when i see the inner courtyard with old buildings and gut renovations, i am grounded in reality…..my head is not in the clouds filled with illusions and delusions. i am reminded of the fact that i still live on a broken earth with all kinds of people with real lives and real problems; sometimes too real and sometimes much realer than mine. even realer than the real thing. but in the midst of the grittiness, i still see the majesty and power of god surrounding, peeking through, illuminating, permeating……this is the backdrop that pray with.
i am blessed to have these windows and so much light in my apartment…..here’s a shot before we moved all our stuff in…you can see that they are pretty epic. yeah!….upper, upper west side.
when people come into the city, we are always surprised by where they want to visit or go eat. they are equally surprised that we do not frequent those places or want to go eat there. no. i do not want to eat at ruby tuesdays , bennigans or tgifridays in times square. then they ask where we go……so here are the places we like…not the best or the cheapest or whatever category….just where we go and go on a regular basis:
people ask where we go for chinese food…..this is one of the places…
…..one of theresa’s favorite, favorite restaurants period. maybe because they advertise one of their specialties as being chinese bibimbop. that’s the way to appeal to koreans. but the way to pack your place with actual chinese is to serve authentic stuff.
my mom used to pick stuff up from here and transport it on the chinatown bus all the way to maryland. the food was good warm but its best served piping, piping hot.
yummy noodles is located at the corner of bowery and this alley. no joke. this alley is home to many hole in the wall joints. it looks understandably scary to tourists…so the places attract many locals and tourists in the know. or those who are lost. sometimes its better to be lost than lucky. if you need a better cross street, its closest to bowery and canal.
there used to be a japanese toy store here in the 70’s that had power rangers and voltron figures way before america discovered them. i used to come and lust after these magical figures that were way too expensive for our middle class budget. but when the products became mainstream and i actually had cashflow of my own, i lost interest. lust sometimes is about wanting what you can’t have.
the place has standard chinese fare that is very tasty…a lot of regular chinese people come and dine which is a good sign…its THE sign for a chinese place. if you see too many outsiders, the place maybe closer to panda express than what real chinese eat.
another good sign: my uncle who is a filthy rich doctor channels his inner ghetto and comes down and eats in this moderately sanitary joint. that’s a compliment when the upper class come and hang with the masses because of the eats.
the prize specialty ironically is not a noodle dish but are these rice dishes cooked in clay pots at extreme heat. you can add chicken, pork, sausage, veggies, mushrooms, eggs….then its steamed to yummy perfection.
