I just can't take this picture... The sleeves rolled up... Just a coupla fellas hangin out, havin a few brews... Just a few regular working-class bro's from way back... I can't... Mark my words Obama will never live down "The Beer Summit".

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"The Beer Summit"

I really don't know what to think about this "Beer Summit". Every time I hear or read about it I sort of twitch a bit and my right eye flutters like I have a sty. Bilateral sit-downs between Obama and a host of foreign leaders in recent months have gotten less attention than this fucking thing - taking place at a picnic table on the White House lawn. Is this the Twilight Zone? Is that a sign post I see up ahead?

"It started out as a casual suggestion: three guys working out their differences over a beer" so said the LA Times. Yea, but this is the President of the United States we're talking about, a cop and a Harvard professor and "race relations expert" crying "racial profiling" - not three college buds from Dartmouth talking about that time one of them made out with the other ones girlfriend.

The image of the president trying to use a beer-drinking session to mediate an ages-old, highly volatile dispute has given new definition to diplomatic mission. Or has it? Is meeting to discuss an ages-old, highly volatile dispute over a few brews on a picnic table downplaying the seriousness of the issue? I don't know. I just think it's fucking weird. It's sort of like when you say "No" and expect someone else to say "Yes" but instead they say "Apricot". I sort of get a little tick and I twitch a bit. Fact is Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor , was wrong. James Crowley, the police sergeant who controversially arrested Mr. Gates, was not racially profiling anyone. He arrived on scene having no idea if the subjects were black, white or green.

Now we're arguing over the choices of beers - no one picked an American lager and yadda, yadda, yadda. Red Stripe is brewed by London-based Diageo PLC. Blue Moon is sold by a joint venture in which London-based SABMiller has a majority stake. And Bud Light? America's beer is made by Anheuser-Busch which was bought last year by a giant Belgian-Brazilian company called InBev.

I don't know what to think, really. I'm at a loss. What's next a President with a mustache who smokes cigarettes openly?

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Did We Depose The Droid?!

Those of you familiar with this blog will know that for the past two years I have been trying to uncover the mystery of the underwriting announcer on WNYC (Out of towners note: WNYC is our cozy local NPR affiliate here in the tri-state area.)

I sent letters and wrote emails to various contacts and moles deep within the station and was completely stonewalled. Slowly but surely people began commenting on my post(s) and sure enough I soon realized I wasn't alone. Yes, there were others out there who were also annoyed by her robotic cadence and wanted to know who this mysterious voice belonged to. We became a rogue army; an undeniable clamor.

And on this 30th day of July in the year of our lord 2009 I hereby claim VICTORY! I think. Unconfirmed reports and earwitnesses (myself included) have noticed a new voice reading the underwriting announcements on WNYC. The robot is mysteriously absent.

Now I doubt we would ever get an answer from WNYC on what happened and why but one can only assume it was because of us. Sweet vindication at last! Although, I'd guess in a few months we'll begin to miss the old android for she gave us such fun, while at times maddening, highfalutin fodder and god knows, these days, we can use a new and interesting common enemy. I smell a documentary.

The people have spoken.

To be continued...

See where it all began in December of 2007: Foiled Again: NPR's Tweed Wall Of Silence

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Langen and McAlenney

After reviewing weeks of trial transcripts a rare and intimate portal opens. I step through the threshold and soon realize this is how life really happens, and how it gradually, almost unexpectedly, can veer out of control... Meanwhile, barbers oil their electric razors. Soldiers play cards. Modern day musicians check emails backstage. The pilot calls his wife. Angels spin their wheels. They were all just killing time and she was cognitive dissonance. Collective dissonance closed. No one went there anymore. The coffee sucked and was too expensive. Last of the last. Old whiskey and Port wine casks and all. Shelves were bare. Wallflower tucked in the corner. Here she comes now. What will she say when she stretches her gorgeous wingspan and opens her mouth to sing? We embrace in a cool room and in the mirror I'm staring at myself in the crook of her neck, smiling. Her eyes closed as I search her back for scars from where they removed the wings just before she landed by the second hand springs. On the way to the beach it was a monsoon and the sky never did recover. By then it was sunset and a knock at the door. City folk eyes wide inside the giant liquor suburban liquor store in a strip mall. I bought a Double Magnum of something German and white, crackers and some horseradish cheese. We were hanging with this famous family. They were notorious for squatting inside multi-million dollar mansions on the coast. I'd met the father in Paradise Waters with a baguette under his tanned arm and turquoise tennis shirt. They were busy exploiting an ancient property law loophole allowing them to live lavishly. We drove out to the Palace of the Brine. But by the time we got there they knew we were there due to serious imperfections in the phone taps. We were discussing ever so ardently the true concept of Spanish tapas. Something crisp and fried and usually for breakfast with garlic-fried rice and fried eggs, along with a chili-vinegar dip of some persuasion or sort. Served as a proper Spanish-style tapas with alcoholic drinks there is also a sweet variant of tapa, with the sugar added last so as to avoid a burnt taste. When we kissed her lips tasted like sweet calamansi and at last I understood the concept and it didn't mean anything. It was a concept for the sake of having a concept. A story; a history; a tale. These things don't just simply fall from the sky - but this one, this one did. I sat calmly listening to the judge carry on about four counts of securities fraud. Insider-trading cases reached an all-time high last year. Most of the cases have received scant notice, having been overwhelmed by the economic crisis. Even then, most defendants settle the cases long before they go to trial - so in the public eye it's almost as if they never happened. "As to the remaining counts, for Mr. Jones, Mr. Langen and Mr. McAlenney there are several substantial legal issues that we believe will result in a reversal of conviction on appeal," the attorney said. Mr. Jones held an important post at Graham & Bartelsman. Langen and McAlenney were nothing but also-rans in this story - Jones was the big fish and the judge knew it. He had a special book reserved to throw at Jones. See, Mr. Jones advised companies doing mergers about how to combine work forces and as a senior partner, he was privy to "flow" - code name for the secret dope about companies that swings billions of dollars of stock value in a day. Eventually Mr. Jones and his girlfriend settled into a comfortable day-to-day routine in their respective offices in New York and Havre de Grace, staring at the same Yahoo Finance screen. "Look honey, Honeywell looks like its almost making a heart today." She was sweet. What she was seeing was a V-shaped valley during mid-day trading. But this was modern day romance. Soon Mr. Jones' name began circulating on "watch lists" at the unromantic SEC, which compiles data about suspicious trading around merger deals. Months later as they lead him away in handcuffs he mouthed "I love you, angel" and the jury sighed maybe they had made a mistake. The two were obviously in love.

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One Reporter's Opinion # 45

Now I ain't one of these bleeding heart pinko commie hippies and if you're familiar with this blog you know 9 times out of 10 I side with the cops - even though I grew up listening to Black Flag and The Dead Kennedys - THAT SAID, what ever happened to a cop just shooting someone in the leg? Like the good old days.

"Authorities say police fatally shot a Jersey City woman after she attacked them with a kitchen knife. Jersey City spokesman Stan Eason says two officers were responding to reports of a domestic dispute Tuesday night when the woman attacked them with a kitchen knife. Eason says the officers told her several times to drop the knife and that she refused and came at them. He says one officer shot her and she later died from her injuries. The woman was not identified. Eason says the officers were treated for non-life-threatening injuries at Jersey City Medical Center."

You bring a gun to a gun fight, fine. It's kill or be killed. You lose. You shoot at a cop, he shoots back, aiming to kill. I'm all for it. But if someone charges at a cop with a kitchen knife (or anything besides another gun) couldn't the cop just shoot them in the knee, shut them up and sit them down? Y'know, like the good old days.

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In a familiar café we sat by the window and discussed moondust. Astronauts say it smells like sweet gunpowder. Fair enough. "Picture yourself in a desert," he says. "What do you smell? Nothing, until it rains. The air suddenly fills with sweet, peaty odors because water evaporating from the ground carries molecules to your nose that have been trapped in dry soil for months", the period on his statement was punctuated with a long and rather loud sip from his cartoon-sized beige coffee mug. Later on, the same day, I ran into this cat named Michael at a fundraiser on the Upper West Side. As I busied myself piling cantaloupe balls into my $5000 buffet plate he said: "Both of us must be suffering from the same unending aches". I didn't know what he meant and I told him so. He said he'd gone to see a magic woman who made medicine from rain. "Fair enough", I thought. I scanned the room for someone else to talk to. Just then a guy they called Silverfish walks in. He didn't walk so much as he crawled and he didn't crawl so much as he scaled the ceiling. He was known to eat glue, book bindings, paper, photos, sugar, salt and dust. Silverfish was notorious for hanging around the shower stalls of Turkish bath houses dining on shampoo and soap but I'd never seen him turn a ghostly white as much as when Scutigera Cleopatra walked in. She was the house centipede. 15 pairs of long legs. A real man killer. She came from the Mediterranean. She was an insectivore; meaning she ate guys like Silverfish alive, and he knew it; he knew it quite well. He trembled with his back against the wall; you could see the expensive complimentary champagne in his gold Lalique flute quivering. He started crawling backwards up the ceiling. Tuxedos in horror. Suddenly the music stopped and a man cried out: "Look! The house centipede is stalking a spider!" There was an audible sigh across the entire ballroom. Her legs were like jaws and at once the big band started playing dramatic music to score the cinematic scene. Suddenly I felt trapped within the pages of a still wet with ink comic book. I knew Cleo was nocturnal but despite her big eyes she seemed to mostly rely on her scissor-like legs when she did her dirty work during the daylight. This way she could lasso several small "insects" at the same time. She was cruel but she had her reasons. For WASPs, she retreated after applying the venom to give it time to take effect. When she was in danger of becoming prey herself, she could detach any legs that have been trapped at a moments notice. It was a wild fundraiser to say the least. I am looking forward to next year as the cantaloupe balls were exquisite.

Very Truly Yours,
Earwig

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Car phone circa 1964

real-estate mogul William Zeckendorf Sr. on the go in Manhattan.

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Warren Buffet, the Oracle of Omaha, killed Theresa and Jeremy? This is great.

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Radio nerd humor: I've been thinking: what would happen if you mixed ex-1010 WINS anchor Jessica Ettinger-Gottesman and WNYC's Amy Eddings? Lots of hyphons, for one.

Karma humor: I don't know about you but I absolutely LOVE when people are gored to death by the bulls in Pamplona every year.

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Bury the Rag

You can't glorify the gurney when its washed up like salt. If Taffy is melting tell her to just string it along. There's envelopes unopened; it could be a letter or a dream. Find me when you're lost and you'll know then what I mean. Now the dishes run on empty beneath a helicopter fan. The ceiling is pleading for the farmer's black & tan. His gold rings betray him for the city boy he once was as his heart pounds regardless for his country and his love. Walking backwards up the escalator past the old coffee café. Time flies by so slowly when you're searching for that needle in the hay. She had a crunchy brown bag full of lemons. A dark navy blue pea coat and a mermaid's smile. Underneath an umbrella in the rain. Holding hands down Minetta Lane. Past the rowhouses on West Houston. We kissed on Carmine looking north to Lady Pompeii and she smiled knowingly. Gelato poetry at Café Procope. Gelato in Italian literally means "frozen". She had a dog named Nocciola but everyone that knew her called the dog Bacio, the Italian word for "kiss" because this 100 pound Isabella Doberman would not leave you alone until he actually licked inside your nostrils. I must have listened to that record a thousand times. If you listened real close you could hear him nervously adjusting his gold chain during the quiet parts. His obsessive-compulsive disorder made it so that he couldn't sit still unless the clasp on his necklace was perfectly centered on the back of his neck.

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Check out my interview on Issue Oriented #44

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A Time to Laugh, A Time to Cry

This is a very sad and tragic day in world history. This is like 9/11 for fat people across the five boroughs; the Hindenburg for hefers. I'd heard about the strike and ongoing labor disputes but now I'm hearing Stella D'Oro has plans to close up shop for good as this week, Brynwood Partners, the owners of Stella D'oro, announced they will close the company's only factory in the Bronx within 90 days. Time to stock up on shtreimels!

Stella D'Oro closes, taking a piece of history with it {Wallet Pop}

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There Are No Words

Reverend Al and an unknown fan dance on stage (à la Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" video) as Spike Lee and Chubb Rock take pics. This has something to do with the death of Michael Jackson I believe.

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