Thursday, July 06, 2006
Further proof that the NY Post kills brain cells
I guess its possible that the AP wrote this headline:
AP WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Rush Limbaugh will not face state criminal charges for the bottle of Viagra found in his luggage that appeared to have been prescribed to someone else.
Monday, July 03, 2006
The Free Rider
It’s gotten so hot I’ve taken to walking around the local supermarket to cool off. The produce section is great, especially if they’re spraying water on the fruits and vegetables, then you get the cold air combined with the moisture particles in the air and it feels so refreshing. The dairy section is also pretty good because of the refrigeration but not as good as produce. The first few times I did this I really tried to look like I was shopping, looking intently at prices and the quality of pears, broccoli, lettuce and rutabagas; I pulled the different cheeses off the shelf and compared ingredients and prices. After about 20 minutes of cooling down err… shopping…I would leave. Now I just don’t care and I wonder if the Trade Fair employees are beginning to suspect that I’m stealing their AC when this big sweaty Asian guy is wandering the aisles not even looking at food. I guess it’s a public good so I’m not really reducing someone else’s enjoyment of air conditioning or increasing their costs of providing it (though as hot and sweaty I get…).
The first few times I did this I would sneak back out the entrance but the thing is they’re those motion-sensitive supermarket doors and to get back out you have to hover at the door and wait for someone to come in then rush out which is pretty embarrassing. The other option is to go out the register and just walk by the cashiers buying nothing, which is also pretty humiliating. Though I’ve noticed the far aisle is usually unmanned and if Trade Fair is crowded that I can duck out that aisle without anyone noticing. Of the two that seems like the less embarrassing option.
Or I guess I should just get an air conditioner for my room.
The first few times I did this I would sneak back out the entrance but the thing is they’re those motion-sensitive supermarket doors and to get back out you have to hover at the door and wait for someone to come in then rush out which is pretty embarrassing. The other option is to go out the register and just walk by the cashiers buying nothing, which is also pretty humiliating. Though I’ve noticed the far aisle is usually unmanned and if Trade Fair is crowded that I can duck out that aisle without anyone noticing. Of the two that seems like the less embarrassing option.
Or I guess I should just get an air conditioner for my room.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
In case you didn't see the lighthouse.
Tried to do the tip-to-tip walk of Manhattan, we didn't make it but it was fun. Saw some cool stuff that I didn't know was in the city. This was a pretty interesting structure-I think it was around the 150s....
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Tolerance
Ozzie Guillen, explaining to a reporter that he has nothing against gay people:
"Guillen also told Couch that he has gay friends, attends WNBA games, went to a Madonna concert and plans to go to the Gay Games in Chicago. "
...and he loves sex and the city...
"Guillen also told Couch that he has gay friends, attends WNBA games, went to a Madonna concert and plans to go to the Gay Games in Chicago. "
...and he loves sex and the city...
Monday, June 19, 2006
Monday, May 15, 2006
Giuliani Time Reviewed
Watch Giuliani Time. It closes this Thursday in New York and distribution will be limited nationally I'm sure.
I saw it last night and the director was there and answered questions and urged us to spread the word about the film. It hasn’t been getting a lot of love from the film festival circuit (dinged at Sundance and Tribeca but it did win a best-of-festival award at one in LA).
It got annoying when people started asking him dumb questions like “did you try calling Howard Dean and the Democratic Party about publicizing this film?” Or “how about Air America, you know Al Franken?”
I wanted to announce, “look people, he’s not a moron, he didn’t get funding to make a critical documentary of someone who’s considered somewhere between a saint and a demi-god without being media savvy. “
The movie lets the viewer connect a lot of the dots, which works. When it gets into workfare, the contradiction isn’t explicitly made clear that the welfare rolls were being cleared while there was little low-skilled work to be had and while Giuliani was mercilessly cracking down on street vendors left and right (not exactly an environment that promoted micro-enterprise). The film juxtaposes the two contradictory policies without spoon-feeding the viewer. You never want to underestimate the intelligence or the patience of your audience, an easy thing to do with work like this.
For all my anger at that administration, until I saw that film I had actually forgotten that workfare had actually been the ultimate hypocrisy of his administration. While he was attacking people on welfare and claiming that workfare was necessary to instill the basic discipline necessary to hold down a job, he was constantly putting street vendors out of business and creating more barriers to entry for potential vendors through licensing procedures. These are people who were seemingly the very embodiments of the work ethic he decried for welfare recipients for lacking. What kind of message did that send to people being cut off the rolls?
There are already not a lot of low-skilled jobs out there for you, we won’t prepare you for the ones that are out there (its more important that you pick up our trash), we the city certainly aren’t ever going to consider paying you a living wage for work you’re already doing for your welfare check and now we’ll make it even more difficult for you to start your own micro-venture because Disney and the big retailers don’t like the competition.
Shit like that made me want to wring his fucking neck.
One of (the many) absolutely ill moments of the film is when the city’s then-Commissioner of The Human Resources Administration is on a television news show responding to allegations that workfare was simply an exploitative form of indentured servitude.
“Did you have to get up to go to work?” he asks his interviewer.
“Yes.”
“Do you consider yourself a slave? No. We believe that work will set you free.”
I kid you not, this is what he said. I’m glad he clarified that the city wasn’t running a slave plantation by quoting the gates of Auschwitz.
The Ground Floor
While the film gets great quotes from heavy hitters in politics and policy its the frustration of a five-man work fare crew in a park that does the most make the case that Giuliani’s policies actually deepened poverty.
They saw themselves in an endless cycle of dependency on the city. The work they were doing was not preparing them for any meaningful employment; they were not receiving training or job readiness or any basic education remediation. The performance measure of reducing the rolls made them feel as if the slightest mistake would get them cut from their "benefits" and onto a quick path to homelessness. They knew they weren’t going to be hired by the city. “Why would the city pay us more to do the same work?” asks a guy who probably doesn't have a master’s degree in economics.
Yes, the argument that some, or many, people on welfare lack basic job readiness skills: commitment, follow-through, discipline, attendance, socialization skills etc., and yes in theory a workfare program might succeed in instilling those skills in people but common sense should tell you without an incentive (like a real job, education, new skills, a living wage) people are not likely to commit the kind of focus necessary and (justifiably) will see the program as the simple exploitation of a low-cost labor source.
What Are We Not Measuring?
The film’s focus is on how performance measures drove behavior at the ground level that harmed city residents, many poor and minority. Getting guns off the street is a laudable goal and so is reducing the welfare rolls but without balancing counter measures the pressure to perform led to some pretty disastrous outcomes.
Performance measures ultimately signals the priorities of an organization (what gets measured is what gets done blah blah). In my public policy class we talked about Deborah Stone who argues that performance measures that focus on numbers can become an incentive to alter one’s behavior and not necessarily for the better.
Performance measures drove a culture where there was enormous pressure to collect guns, constitutional rights be damned and to reduce the welfare rolls, the well-being of individuals of people once forced off the rolls be damned. However, there is limited data from that era in both of these areas: 1) police misconduct (amount of money the city is settling per cop etc.) and 2) the outcomes for people pushed off welfare rolls (job attainment and retention etc.).
An administration incredible committed to data measuring signaled its priorities quite clearly by what it chose to not measure just as surely by what it did.
Left Out…
The director himself said that there was tons of material left out and with Giuliani there is so much fucked-upness to include but I was still surprised at some of the things not mentioned in the film:
1. The police misconduct commission he formed then disbanded after the Abner Louima attack. It was one of the most cravenly political moves I’ve ever read about and he’s gotten a free pass on it his whole fucking career.
2. That perhaps the only reason we heard about Louima’s case was because a pair of heroic nurses at the hospital he was admitted to went to the press, Internal Affairs and Louima’s family instead of just taking the cops story of a homosexual encounter at face value.
3. The film alludes to this towards the end, but more time could have been spent on the fact that Mr. Pro-Cop Rudy was reluctant to increase officer salaries. In fact, one of the key recommendations of the afore-mentioned panel was to significantly increase the pay of beat cops to improve the quality of policing at street level. Giuliani mocked that recommendation.
4. We hear Anthony Baez’s mom at a rally but that’s about it. That was one of the first high-profile police brutality cases that signaled a different time under Giuliani.
5. His constant attacks on CUNY and increasing barriers to higher-ed access through decreased remediation, increased tuition and increased admissions testing. It’s difficult to contextualize the destructiveness of his workfare policies without paying attention to his concurrent attacks on one of the city’s most important routes out of poverty into the middle class.
All in all, it was a great film and a hell of a flashback. It’s amazing how much you forget. Please get out there and see it.
I saw it last night and the director was there and answered questions and urged us to spread the word about the film. It hasn’t been getting a lot of love from the film festival circuit (dinged at Sundance and Tribeca but it did win a best-of-festival award at one in LA).
It got annoying when people started asking him dumb questions like “did you try calling Howard Dean and the Democratic Party about publicizing this film?” Or “how about Air America, you know Al Franken?”
I wanted to announce, “look people, he’s not a moron, he didn’t get funding to make a critical documentary of someone who’s considered somewhere between a saint and a demi-god without being media savvy. “
The movie lets the viewer connect a lot of the dots, which works. When it gets into workfare, the contradiction isn’t explicitly made clear that the welfare rolls were being cleared while there was little low-skilled work to be had and while Giuliani was mercilessly cracking down on street vendors left and right (not exactly an environment that promoted micro-enterprise). The film juxtaposes the two contradictory policies without spoon-feeding the viewer. You never want to underestimate the intelligence or the patience of your audience, an easy thing to do with work like this.
For all my anger at that administration, until I saw that film I had actually forgotten that workfare had actually been the ultimate hypocrisy of his administration. While he was attacking people on welfare and claiming that workfare was necessary to instill the basic discipline necessary to hold down a job, he was constantly putting street vendors out of business and creating more barriers to entry for potential vendors through licensing procedures. These are people who were seemingly the very embodiments of the work ethic he decried for welfare recipients for lacking. What kind of message did that send to people being cut off the rolls?
There are already not a lot of low-skilled jobs out there for you, we won’t prepare you for the ones that are out there (its more important that you pick up our trash), we the city certainly aren’t ever going to consider paying you a living wage for work you’re already doing for your welfare check and now we’ll make it even more difficult for you to start your own micro-venture because Disney and the big retailers don’t like the competition.
Shit like that made me want to wring his fucking neck.
One of (the many) absolutely ill moments of the film is when the city’s then-Commissioner of The Human Resources Administration is on a television news show responding to allegations that workfare was simply an exploitative form of indentured servitude.
“Did you have to get up to go to work?” he asks his interviewer.
“Yes.”
“Do you consider yourself a slave? No. We believe that work will set you free.”
I kid you not, this is what he said. I’m glad he clarified that the city wasn’t running a slave plantation by quoting the gates of Auschwitz.
The Ground Floor
While the film gets great quotes from heavy hitters in politics and policy its the frustration of a five-man work fare crew in a park that does the most make the case that Giuliani’s policies actually deepened poverty.
They saw themselves in an endless cycle of dependency on the city. The work they were doing was not preparing them for any meaningful employment; they were not receiving training or job readiness or any basic education remediation. The performance measure of reducing the rolls made them feel as if the slightest mistake would get them cut from their "benefits" and onto a quick path to homelessness. They knew they weren’t going to be hired by the city. “Why would the city pay us more to do the same work?” asks a guy who probably doesn't have a master’s degree in economics.
Yes, the argument that some, or many, people on welfare lack basic job readiness skills: commitment, follow-through, discipline, attendance, socialization skills etc., and yes in theory a workfare program might succeed in instilling those skills in people but common sense should tell you without an incentive (like a real job, education, new skills, a living wage) people are not likely to commit the kind of focus necessary and (justifiably) will see the program as the simple exploitation of a low-cost labor source.
What Are We Not Measuring?
The film’s focus is on how performance measures drove behavior at the ground level that harmed city residents, many poor and minority. Getting guns off the street is a laudable goal and so is reducing the welfare rolls but without balancing counter measures the pressure to perform led to some pretty disastrous outcomes.
Performance measures ultimately signals the priorities of an organization (what gets measured is what gets done blah blah). In my public policy class we talked about Deborah Stone who argues that performance measures that focus on numbers can become an incentive to alter one’s behavior and not necessarily for the better.
Performance measures drove a culture where there was enormous pressure to collect guns, constitutional rights be damned and to reduce the welfare rolls, the well-being of individuals of people once forced off the rolls be damned. However, there is limited data from that era in both of these areas: 1) police misconduct (amount of money the city is settling per cop etc.) and 2) the outcomes for people pushed off welfare rolls (job attainment and retention etc.).
An administration incredible committed to data measuring signaled its priorities quite clearly by what it chose to not measure just as surely by what it did.
Left Out…
The director himself said that there was tons of material left out and with Giuliani there is so much fucked-upness to include but I was still surprised at some of the things not mentioned in the film:
1. The police misconduct commission he formed then disbanded after the Abner Louima attack. It was one of the most cravenly political moves I’ve ever read about and he’s gotten a free pass on it his whole fucking career.
2. That perhaps the only reason we heard about Louima’s case was because a pair of heroic nurses at the hospital he was admitted to went to the press, Internal Affairs and Louima’s family instead of just taking the cops story of a homosexual encounter at face value.
3. The film alludes to this towards the end, but more time could have been spent on the fact that Mr. Pro-Cop Rudy was reluctant to increase officer salaries. In fact, one of the key recommendations of the afore-mentioned panel was to significantly increase the pay of beat cops to improve the quality of policing at street level. Giuliani mocked that recommendation.
4. We hear Anthony Baez’s mom at a rally but that’s about it. That was one of the first high-profile police brutality cases that signaled a different time under Giuliani.
5. His constant attacks on CUNY and increasing barriers to higher-ed access through decreased remediation, increased tuition and increased admissions testing. It’s difficult to contextualize the destructiveness of his workfare policies without paying attention to his concurrent attacks on one of the city’s most important routes out of poverty into the middle class.
All in all, it was a great film and a hell of a flashback. It’s amazing how much you forget. Please get out there and see it.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Broken Windows....
I just watched the trailer for Giuliani Time and its crazy being brought back to another era. Its been almost ten years since the late 90s, since Diallo, Louima, Burgess, the Brooklyn Museum and all the bull shit we were going through dealing with him. I'm glad the movie is coming out especially now, because its like everyone (i.e. the mainstream media) seems to have forgotten what an ass he was. Michael Atkinson in his review in the voice makes the point very clearly that his career was a shell of itself when the Towers were hit. He had just pulled out of the race for Senator because of his cancer, a race he was not guaranteed to win, he was in the middle of a marital scandal basically keeping two women in Gracie Mansion (or had his wife moved out and Judith Nathan moved in? I don't remember) and he was limping to a weak finish of his last term. He didn't really have a future in politics after the mayoralty and likely would have faded from public view. Morbidly, 9/11 gave him the comeback of a lifetime. People seem to remember "heroic mayor" to "heroic national leader" forget that late 90s period through 2001 was a very vulnerable period for him. The shit was catching up with him, the callousness, the bullying, the subtle and not so subtle racism, the infringments on free speech, the scandals... people were beginning to see through him.
Then the towers were hit.
Here's a rather uncharacteristically partisan and politically post to the Wagner List Serve I wrote today. I don't think anyone will be offended unless there are Giuliani-era staffers getting their MPA. Oh well. fuck it.
"Giuliani Time" is premiering this weekend at the Sunshine Landmark Cinemas.
I urge you all to please support and spread the word about this film. As Rudy Giuliani continues to travel nationally gather support and funds for a run at the White House its important that we are able to counter the revisionist post 9-11 history that places him as the lone heroic savior of New York City and remember that 90's era New York City, while an economic and cultural renaissance in many ways, was also a very painful time for many New Yorkers, particularly the poor and people of color.
Personally, it was difficult being led by a man that did not seem to waste an opportunity to show many, communities of color especially, that he did not care about us. The press has alarmingly painted him as a “socially liberal” republican because he is pro-choice and pro-gay rights. That’s great but our next president should be something more than not-George W. Bush.
Wayne Barrett in his bio and the film go into better details about his policies but living in New York City in the 90s I will personally NEVER forget or forgive:
∑ his callous disbanding of a special commission on police brutality (one that he assembled in the wake of the Abner Louima assault), promptly after being re-elected to a second term, mocking their recommendations.
∑ His attempt to discredit posthumously Patrick Dorismond, a victim of a botched police buy-and-bust operation, by releasing his SEALED juvenile record of
∑ His repeated attacks on the CUNY system and access to higher education for the poor and working class; eliminating remedial education at the 4-year colleges and instituting ludicrous CUNY assessment standardized tests to students already ADMIITTED to 4-year colleges.
∑ His suggestion that the shooting of Anthony Burgess, a kid holding a candy bar by a Federal agent, was somehow the kid’s fault for being out so late.
∑ His attacks on artist vendors outside the Met (the only good artists are apparently dead ones, and ones that don’t offend his good taste-re: Chris Ofili)
Watch the film, tell other people about it. I’ve been horrified to watch this man become a national hero simply for being the mayor during the most horrific event in this city’s history.
Here is a link to the film:
http://www.giulianitime.com/
And a review in the Voice:
http://villagevoice.com/film/0619,atkinson,73162,20.html
Then the towers were hit.
Here's a rather uncharacteristically partisan and politically post to the Wagner List Serve I wrote today. I don't think anyone will be offended unless there are Giuliani-era staffers getting their MPA. Oh well. fuck it.
"Giuliani Time" is premiering this weekend at the Sunshine Landmark Cinemas.
I urge you all to please support and spread the word about this film. As Rudy Giuliani continues to travel nationally gather support and funds for a run at the White House its important that we are able to counter the revisionist post 9-11 history that places him as the lone heroic savior of New York City and remember that 90's era New York City, while an economic and cultural renaissance in many ways, was also a very painful time for many New Yorkers, particularly the poor and people of color.
Personally, it was difficult being led by a man that did not seem to waste an opportunity to show many, communities of color especially, that he did not care about us. The press has alarmingly painted him as a “socially liberal” republican because he is pro-choice and pro-gay rights. That’s great but our next president should be something more than not-George W. Bush.
Wayne Barrett in his bio and the film go into better details about his policies but living in New York City in the 90s I will personally NEVER forget or forgive:
∑ his callous disbanding of a special commission on police brutality (one that he assembled in the wake of the Abner Louima assault), promptly after being re-elected to a second term, mocking their recommendations.
∑ His attempt to discredit posthumously Patrick Dorismond, a victim of a botched police buy-and-bust operation, by releasing his SEALED juvenile record of
∑ His repeated attacks on the CUNY system and access to higher education for the poor and working class; eliminating remedial education at the 4-year colleges and instituting ludicrous CUNY assessment standardized tests to students already ADMIITTED to 4-year colleges.
∑ His suggestion that the shooting of Anthony Burgess, a kid holding a candy bar by a Federal agent, was somehow the kid’s fault for being out so late.
∑ His attacks on artist vendors outside the Met (the only good artists are apparently dead ones, and ones that don’t offend his good taste-re: Chris Ofili)
Watch the film, tell other people about it. I’ve been horrified to watch this man become a national hero simply for being the mayor during the most horrific event in this city’s history.
Here is a link to the film:
http://www.giulianitime.com/
And a review in the Voice:
http://villagevoice.com/film/0619,atkinson,73162,20.html
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Countdown...
Community Equity and Wealth Building Final Exam-check
Capstone Client presentation-check
Capstone Final Report turned in-check
Capstone "Fair"-tonight
Organizational Development Final Paper and Presentation-tonight
Financial Statement Analysis-tomorrow
Cashing in on a lucrative master's degree-hahaha
Capstone Client presentation-check
Capstone Final Report turned in-check
Capstone "Fair"-tonight
Organizational Development Final Paper and Presentation-tonight
Financial Statement Analysis-tomorrow
Cashing in on a lucrative master's degree-hahaha
Sunday, April 30, 2006
"Internment" Camps.."residences"
From last Monday's Democracy Now, this is part of an actual conversation between Amy Goodman, a resident of an emergency camp being run by FEMA for displaced victims of Hurrcane Katrina and a security guard working for Corporate Security Solutions the company contracted by FEMA to provide security at the residence. CSS,on its website, claims that its "experience in meeting diverse corporate security needs ensures the best possible protection for your employees, physical assets, and business processes."
SECURITY GUARD: Yes, you can be interviewed --
2. (This is a rhetorical question, I know why) Why the fuck does the guy need a FEMA representative with them to speak to the press on the property? Why does this guy have to make an appointment?
3. Why is security being provided by a corporate security solutions firm? The firm specializes in protecting company secrets and "businesses processes" (I'm assuming from competitors). Protecting information from external competitors makes sense for a corporation trying maintain a competitve advantage in a market place but what is FEMA trying to hide? Its incredible success and innovation at protecting and housing disaster victims? Talk about misplaced priorities, keeping information in and media out gets Federal investment. The woman they got to interview before talked about their meal benefits being cut off (months earlier than they had been told it would) and the lack of constructive programs on the facility for kids to participate in.
But I guess there will always be money for "corporate security".
I'm glad that getting rid of Mike Brown solved all our problems.
SECURITY GUARD: Turn it off.
AMY GOODMAN: We were going in the car, and he said, "Please interview me."
SECURITY GUARD: Yeah, he -- he can't. That’s not his privilege.
AMY GOODMAN: He’s not allowed to talk?
RENAISSANCE VILLAGE RESIDENT: What's wrong? What's wrong?
SECURITY GUARD: You can go -- get that -- you’ve known the deal since --
RENAISSANCE VILLAGE RESIDENT: No, I don't know the deal. Tell me. What is the deal?
SECURITY GUARD: You can go get interviewed as long as it’s off post. Otherwise, you, like I said, I can call the 800 FEMA number and have them come in --
AMY GOODMAN: You mean, he has to come off of the property?
.......SECURITY GUARD: Yes, you can be interviewed --
RENAISSANCE VILLAGE RESIDENT: Okay.
SECURITY GUARD: -- if they had a FEMA representative with them, but since they don’t and do not have an appointment --
RENAISSANCE VILLAGE RESIDENT: Oh, okay. ‘Cause I know they do it all the time.
SECURITY GUARD: Yes, they have the FEMA public relations officer with them.
RENAISSANCE VILLAGE RESIDENT: Okay, well, I didn't know.
1. I'm no constitutional scholar but isn't a Federal property or a Federally-funded property the one place that your constituitional rights should be guaranteed? Why does this guy have to leave a Federal facility to speak to the press?2. (This is a rhetorical question, I know why) Why the fuck does the guy need a FEMA representative with them to speak to the press on the property? Why does this guy have to make an appointment?
3. Why is security being provided by a corporate security solutions firm? The firm specializes in protecting company secrets and "businesses processes" (I'm assuming from competitors). Protecting information from external competitors makes sense for a corporation trying maintain a competitve advantage in a market place but what is FEMA trying to hide? Its incredible success and innovation at protecting and housing disaster victims? Talk about misplaced priorities, keeping information in and media out gets Federal investment. The woman they got to interview before talked about their meal benefits being cut off (months earlier than they had been told it would) and the lack of constructive programs on the facility for kids to participate in.
But I guess there will always be money for "corporate security".
I'm glad that getting rid of Mike Brown solved all our problems.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Me and my cheating ways…
“You cheat on your girl before you cheat on your barber.”
-a wise man or a damn fool
I had a barber I trusted, this Russian dude at Astor Cutters. He was the first barber I had ever deliberately sought out for a cut. It was a big step in becoming a man I thought, a choice of barber that was all mine. I had had other steady barbers before but they were just the Korean barbers in K-town or Flushing that my pops had taken me too and I had continued going to out of habit. This guy at Astor was nice though; clean, smooth fades, he seemed to understand my Asian hair. But he disappeared for a few years and I stopped going to Astor and returned to my neighborhood spot on Bowne Street. Early last year I went back and started bouncing around different barbers at Astor; giving it up to anyone who had a free chair and clippers. I would walk in, request a “tapered fade” and the fat man at the counter would turn and yell for someone, anyone, to take care of me. So began a series of brief dysfunctional relationships and unrewarding one-haircut encounters. There was the white homeboy who looked like a mini-Kevin Federline/Mark Whalberg/Eminem/(fill-in-your favorite black-man-trapped-in-white-man’s-body…), the old Latin guy who took hours because he was always on the phone and the severe-looking Arab (?) dude in the corner who always looked at me as if he wanted to kill me (I swear while he was fading me he was having visions of choking me with the power cord. Hopefully all his customers got the same look of disdain from him and it wasn’t just my innate pussiness). It was rough times for my hair as my beard, sideburns and fade went through every possible style on the display poster.
But one day, he was back, I thought he looked familiar and while he was cutting my hair, in a pretty forward move for me, I struck up a conversation with him. “Yo, did you work upstairs a few years ago before they closed it down?” He was like yeah but he left to work at a shop out in Brooklyn and had recently moved back. I told him that I remembered his fades from a few years ago and we reconnected to the point where I consistently went back to him alone at Astor. No more motley crew of random barbers, I had a stable hair-cutting relationship. Things were great until…one day…
I was home desperate for a cut-poor planning left me with not enough time to get downtown to Astor and back uptown for a performance. I had let my hair get too long and a cosmetic trimming wasn’t going to cut it. I fretted and fretted and finally said fuck it I’m going to the neighborhood spot around the corner from me in Astoria. I popped into the shop around the corner from me and shamefully slunk into the chair. It was like they knew what I was doing, cheating on my barber, “you from around here?” the lead barber asked.
“yeah, around the corner.”
“Where do you usually get your hair cut?”
“Manhattan” I said barely above a whisper looking at my shoes.
His non-response said it all that bitch knew he was playing home-wrecker and he was loving it, calling me to the dark side.
The fade was tight, I couldn’t complain though he could have trimmed my beard a little bit less instead of leaving me looking I just had a dirty chin. My original dude’s haircuts and trims were better but realistically, not enough to justify their cost (local dude was 10 bucks to Astor’s 15) and inconvenience (going downtown every damn time I needed a haircut was a real pain in the ass). So I didn’t look back and made the local guy my new regular spot. The relationship wasn’t the same but price and convenience were enough to convince me that it was ok.
A few months later, I’m waiting for the N at 8th street and someone calls to me and I look over-its fucking old dude. And my cheating ways were spelled out on the edges of my shape-up and the slope of my fade. “Whassup man, what’s going on?” He gave me a vigorous pound but I couldn’t even look him in the eye. He knew. There was someone else. I tried to look down, look away, I craned my neck in every direction but his but you can’t just hide a fucking haircut. I wanted to tell him my new guy sucked and that he was just cheaper and around the corner and sometimes it was hard to get to Astor and one time I had even gone to Astor and that he hadn’t been working his chair and I had been assed out of a hair cut and that I had tried to make it work and he was always my first priority and that it wasn’t all cold blooded and that I missed his fades and in a perfect world...
But the words got caught in a lump in my throat.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Today's wow
You mean Roger Clemens isn't a paragon of racial sensitivity?
I like that ESPN said it was a comment that "some might consider racially insensitive."
I like that ESPN said it was a comment that "some might consider racially insensitive."
Monday, April 03, 2006
Fat-Kid Memories
"I love you like a fat kid love cake..."
50 Cent
21 Questions
I don't think of 50 Cent as a great lyricist but this was a great line. I was talking about with this the office manager (a fellow former fat kid) at my job. Is there really any greater love than a fat kid’s love of cake? She hypothesized that maybe our moms might be the only thing us fat kids could love more. I got so amped whenever there was cake around it really was love like love for my mom…and actually cake never got mad at me or anything so actually…
How this all came up was a shipping catalogue she was looking through for boxes and she looked at these small white cardboard boxes with handles that looked kind of like mini-suitcases and it immediately reminded her of the chocolate candy bars that she used to sell when she was in parochial school. I went to Catholic school also [significant memories: 1) being spanked by the assistant principal 2) throwing up in front of the building after being spanked out of guilt 3) pining for communion bread 4) pleated skirts 5) spending three years of my life thinking I was going to hell (now I just know it) 5) pleated skirts and 6) pleated skirts] from grades K-2 before shipping out to a gifted program at a public school in Kensington. The most exciting time of the year was when we got those candy bar boxes. We both remembered how delicious those bars were, they were really chunky with lots of peanuts. They were better than any candy bar that were available in stores and I would always beg my mom to buy a bunch for us. Whaty made them so spoecial was that they were only available a few times a year when we had the sale. I mean they were probably the same as other commercial candy bars just with different wrapping looking back but they were a commodity back then to us. “Never get high on your own supply”-BIG’s wise words had not yet been written to teach me any restraint. Our argument was where the bars came from-she swore they were “World’s Finest” which sounds familiar to me but I always remember them having plain white wrappers with silver foil and a McDonald’s logo on them. But she said that McDonalds had simply purchased the bars from World’s Finest and stamped their logo on them, which actually sounds right. But what made this a real real eery fat kid communal memory was when I said my mom used to freeze the bars to keep me from eating them right away. They’d be hidden in the back and every now and then she would bust them out and the best tasting shit was biting into one of those rock hard candy bars months after the sale had ended and you didn’t think there any more of those bars left (what made them so special was they weren’t in stores) and her mom had done the same thing too. I didn’t think anyone else’s parents would have done that but I guess it was just a fat kid thing.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Really Bad Advice….
I went to this panel hosted by a non-profit aimed at providing “technical assistance (so you’re here to fix my air conditioner?)” and “capacity building (you build houses not capacity!)” to help organizations perform better and achieve their desired impact (POW!). God, I’m getting really sick of all this jargon.
This panel was on “Board Development” and strategically attracting people to be on your board based on your organizations strategic goals etc… common sense stuff but we got a few helpful tips and tricks. The most galling thing that happened at this event was a comment made by a woman from the Arts and Business Council, a non-profit that seeks to help arts organizations perform better by getting them to perform “more like businesses” she says. The way she said it was so full of self-importance and knowing confidence. I get irritated when people just assume that non-profits need to be more “business-like”-what the fuck does that mean? There are tons of shitty businesses that are poorly-organized, full of dead wood and that don’t generate shareholder or social value-just like many non-profits. They’re such broad categories its almost meaningless to say to be more “businesslike,” but it sounds good-we’ll make you more “businesslike”…what does this mean? Will you make us more Enron-like, Google-like or Apple-like? And when people say that shit, its usually some stereotyped notion of what they think a business is like and its usually just pivoting off a stereotyped of notion what they think a non-profit is not (efficient, ruthless, effective). It’s a nice word to throw around and it gets people really excited-yes, all we need to do to fix non-profits is get them to be more like “businesses.” The private sector has its own set of issues and in reality the two sectors can learn a lot from each other, not just in one direction.
So she raises her hand and mentions a study she has recently seen that and says that arts organizations really need to get better at fundraising. Her evidence? The study says that arts organizations make up this much of the non-profit sector (she puts her hand wide apart, nice and precise -real “business-like”) and then says that they only generate “this much” of the fundraising (she then narrows her hands for dramatic effect). Lets ignore the numerous logical leaps in her implication that this disparity must be the result of some fundraising failure and not other factors; what said next really took the cake: the reason that Universities and hospitals in particular raise much more than arts organizations must be because that they have give-or-get policies for their Boards and arts organizations often do not. This was like a flashback to my LSAT teaching days at Kaplan-it was such a leap in logic I almost broke my neck looking back at her in disbelief. Thankfully, the people in attendance didn’t let her get away with her it either and pointed out the numerous other possible explanations for the disparity and that hospitals and universities were very different (and typically LARGER) organizations with larger donor pools (past patients and alumni). She looked pretty sheepish under all the critiques.
I was pretty irritated and disturbed and it took me a good part of the day to figure out why. I mean, it was just a poorly thought out argument, was I so hateful and pompous that I was angry that she just said something dumb? Partially yes, but then I connected her comments to her assertion that arts orgs need to be more “business-like.” What really pissed me off was that there was this person who didn’t seem to have the critical thinking/analytical skills to identify obvious holes in a faulty claim working for an organization that claims to have the expertise to help non-profits be more “business-like.” How much damage is done to good people trying to do good work when they’re told by some ”expert” to implement some one-size-fits all policy based on incredibly poor interpretation of data (“you clearly need a give-or get policy-that’s why you’re underperforming…”)?
In the end, its people like her that makes me think that any moron can just throw some buzz words out there, make a business card and call themselves a “non-profit consultant,” its fucking scary.
Note to self: 7ARTS will never seek consulting from this group.
This panel was on “Board Development” and strategically attracting people to be on your board based on your organizations strategic goals etc… common sense stuff but we got a few helpful tips and tricks. The most galling thing that happened at this event was a comment made by a woman from the Arts and Business Council, a non-profit that seeks to help arts organizations perform better by getting them to perform “more like businesses” she says. The way she said it was so full of self-importance and knowing confidence. I get irritated when people just assume that non-profits need to be more “business-like”-what the fuck does that mean? There are tons of shitty businesses that are poorly-organized, full of dead wood and that don’t generate shareholder or social value-just like many non-profits. They’re such broad categories its almost meaningless to say to be more “businesslike,” but it sounds good-we’ll make you more “businesslike”…what does this mean? Will you make us more Enron-like, Google-like or Apple-like? And when people say that shit, its usually some stereotyped notion of what they think a business is like and its usually just pivoting off a stereotyped of notion what they think a non-profit is not (efficient, ruthless, effective). It’s a nice word to throw around and it gets people really excited-yes, all we need to do to fix non-profits is get them to be more like “businesses.” The private sector has its own set of issues and in reality the two sectors can learn a lot from each other, not just in one direction.
So she raises her hand and mentions a study she has recently seen that and says that arts organizations really need to get better at fundraising. Her evidence? The study says that arts organizations make up this much of the non-profit sector (she puts her hand wide apart, nice and precise -real “business-like”) and then says that they only generate “this much” of the fundraising (she then narrows her hands for dramatic effect). Lets ignore the numerous logical leaps in her implication that this disparity must be the result of some fundraising failure and not other factors; what said next really took the cake: the reason that Universities and hospitals in particular raise much more than arts organizations must be because that they have give-or-get policies for their Boards and arts organizations often do not. This was like a flashback to my LSAT teaching days at Kaplan-it was such a leap in logic I almost broke my neck looking back at her in disbelief. Thankfully, the people in attendance didn’t let her get away with her it either and pointed out the numerous other possible explanations for the disparity and that hospitals and universities were very different (and typically LARGER) organizations with larger donor pools (past patients and alumni). She looked pretty sheepish under all the critiques.
I was pretty irritated and disturbed and it took me a good part of the day to figure out why. I mean, it was just a poorly thought out argument, was I so hateful and pompous that I was angry that she just said something dumb? Partially yes, but then I connected her comments to her assertion that arts orgs need to be more “business-like.” What really pissed me off was that there was this person who didn’t seem to have the critical thinking/analytical skills to identify obvious holes in a faulty claim working for an organization that claims to have the expertise to help non-profits be more “business-like.” How much damage is done to good people trying to do good work when they’re told by some ”expert” to implement some one-size-fits all policy based on incredibly poor interpretation of data (“you clearly need a give-or get policy-that’s why you’re underperforming…”)?
In the end, its people like her that makes me think that any moron can just throw some buzz words out there, make a business card and call themselves a “non-profit consultant,” its fucking scary.
Note to self: 7ARTS will never seek consulting from this group.
Monday, March 27, 2006
Fucking Asians...
People of color UNITE!
unh...
This was posted by one of my classmates today on the Wagner Listserv:
On Saturday night (March 18th) I was studying on the sixth floor lounge of Bobst, over Washington Square Park with my close friend _________. My phone rang on vibrate and I immediately answered (whispering) and told my father that I could not talk. As soon as I put the phone down an Asian man 35-40 years of age approached me from the back
and said to me quietly "I didn't know Black people were so stupid and ignorant to use a phone in the library."
unh...
This was posted by one of my classmates today on the Wagner Listserv:
On Saturday night (March 18th) I was studying on the sixth floor lounge of Bobst, over Washington Square Park with my close friend _________. My phone rang on vibrate and I immediately answered (whispering) and told my father that I could not talk. As soon as I put the phone down an Asian man 35-40 years of age approached me from the back
and said to me quietly "I didn't know Black people were so stupid and ignorant to use a phone in the library."
Frustrating
I posted this on a Wagner listserv today after someone posted a recent article from the Times about schools slashing curriculum. I get frustrated when I see stuff like this because it shows how out-of-wack our incentive structure in education. Lets improve kids's reading ability by decreasing the amount of time in Science, Social Studies and Art. Because no reading happens in those subjects right? But if you're an administrator, teacher what-have-you you're responding to a very short-term measure and its going to affect your decision-making. It seems counter-intutive, but more time spent on drilling reading techniques and skills will yield only so much after awhile-what you really have to do is take that shit for a reading test-drive and content area texts give kids a chance to do that. Not to mention the joy you deprive students of when you limit those subjects.
Kim Marshall calls test-prep junk food, he also said something else interesting, that good readers simply have more "miles on the odomoter", they have the love of reading to put in those out-of-school hours and over the summer to make the jump in reading ability in those critical early years. A diversity of reading materials is more likely to allow that to happen.
I guess this is all an extension of that library grant I wrote last year-that a child should be immersed in literacy all throughout the school day but not just by the obvious and regressive strategy of extending reading block twice as much ("we'll be twice as effective with twice as many cooks in this small kitchen" unh...diminishing marginal returns...) unfortunately that seems to be the twisted logic that has taken hold. But by integrating literacy across diverse content areas and subject areas and reinforcing reading all day, a smart program is reinforcing literacy when you're reading primary texts in Social Studies, science reports and artist biographies, not just getting rid of them. I don't know, the research I did seemed to point to it all making so much sense, how a sound education can and should be an engaging one to be most effective.
Am I missing something?
"The intense focus on the two basic skills is a sea change in American instructional practice, with many schools that once offered rich curriculums now systematically trimming courses like social studies, science and art"-NY Times
The damn shame in all of this is that there is a significant amount of research that demonstrates that student immersion in these content areas (Science, Social Studies and the Arts), asides from simply making school less dreary for kids (a worthy goal), forces them to engage challenging non-fiction texts. One result of this is that students acquire new vocabulary incidentally rather than through drilling. Vocabulary acquisition, especially at a young age (through 4th grade), has a huge impact on a child's development of reading skills but a child can only learn so many words in a year through memorization. After that, marginal gains in vocabulary acquisition come from repeated incidental contact with words in context, typically in content-rich texts, the type of texts kids don't often see in their literacy block whether its 90 or 120 minutes.
So for short-term gain on these instruments we focus on what Kim Marshall calls the "junk food" of test prep but what we're cutting are the resources and curriculum that, when strategically used, provide students enduring gains in literacy skills.
Kim Marshall calls test-prep junk food, he also said something else interesting, that good readers simply have more "miles on the odomoter", they have the love of reading to put in those out-of-school hours and over the summer to make the jump in reading ability in those critical early years. A diversity of reading materials is more likely to allow that to happen.
I guess this is all an extension of that library grant I wrote last year-that a child should be immersed in literacy all throughout the school day but not just by the obvious and regressive strategy of extending reading block twice as much ("we'll be twice as effective with twice as many cooks in this small kitchen" unh...diminishing marginal returns...) unfortunately that seems to be the twisted logic that has taken hold. But by integrating literacy across diverse content areas and subject areas and reinforcing reading all day, a smart program is reinforcing literacy when you're reading primary texts in Social Studies, science reports and artist biographies, not just getting rid of them. I don't know, the research I did seemed to point to it all making so much sense, how a sound education can and should be an engaging one to be most effective.
Am I missing something?
"The intense focus on the two basic skills is a sea change in American instructional practice, with many schools that once offered rich curriculums now systematically trimming courses like social studies, science and art"-NY Times
The damn shame in all of this is that there is a significant amount of research that demonstrates that student immersion in these content areas (Science, Social Studies and the Arts), asides from simply making school less dreary for kids (a worthy goal), forces them to engage challenging non-fiction texts. One result of this is that students acquire new vocabulary incidentally rather than through drilling. Vocabulary acquisition, especially at a young age (through 4th grade), has a huge impact on a child's development of reading skills but a child can only learn so many words in a year through memorization. After that, marginal gains in vocabulary acquisition come from repeated incidental contact with words in context, typically in content-rich texts, the type of texts kids don't often see in their literacy block whether its 90 or 120 minutes.
So for short-term gain on these instruments we focus on what Kim Marshall calls the "junk food" of test prep but what we're cutting are the resources and curriculum that, when strategically used, provide students enduring gains in literacy skills.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
boogie down productions....
I started a new job in February...in the Bronx. One of two boroughs I know nothing about (Staten Island being the other). Its fascinating borough, I get to travel to different schools across the Bronx so today I walked smack through Arthur Ave, an old school Italian enclave smack in the middle of the Latino Bronx. It was so bizzare, this serene calm little Italian neighborhood of restaurants, cafes and tree-lined streets smack in the middle of the Bronx. I hear the food is good-I just walked around though and took some pics.
Two things I find facsinating about the Bronx is that its so hilly (maybe because they're on the mainland and aren't an island) and the architecture throughout the borough. Some of the row houses and old buildings are gorgeous.
Two things I find facsinating about the Bronx is that its so hilly (maybe because they're on the mainland and aren't an island) and the architecture throughout the borough. Some of the row houses and old buildings are gorgeous.
Powerful
I heard this today on a podcast and I almost cried:
So for me to say look how horrible what they did to my son certainly I'm entitled to revenge well there are people who can say the same thing because there are people over there in Iraq who lost their sons and daughters in that prison and there are a 100,000 people in Iraq dead and think of all the families there that think they're entitled to revenge.
I don't think revenge is justified under any circumstances.
Revenge is an endless cycle and it has to stop somewhere and it stops with me.
-Michael Berg, father of Nick Berg, the US contractor beheaded on video in Iraq
-Michael Berg, father of Nick Berg, the US contractor beheaded on video in Iraq
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The Universal Language of Sports
Japan is sending PlayStations...
Its been a minute since I posted for those of you religiously checking.
Anyone watching the WBC notice how racialized the commentary has been? I mean, its one thing to talk about how "disciplined" and "reserved" the Japanese team is but I think Joe Morgan took the cake last night when he said that the Japanese hitting approach was a direct result of their physical stature (oh those cute little yellow men). And Jayson Stark wrote that:
"The Japanese, on the other hand, often play the game like the men of science they are."
And that the Cubans "play baseball with a flair that separates them from every other country in the world" because of their African roots.
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