Paul Smalera

This is the scene: My girlfriend and I walk over to KGB Bar to attend a forum featuring Ben Hedin author, Bob Levinson scholar, Mary Lee Kortes of Mary Lee's Corvette, Robert Polito scholar, David Remnick, New Yorker editor and Alex Ross, New Yorker music critic. They are there, we've read, to discuss the new Bob Dylan album, "as well as his place in American culture and myth."If I were David Remnick, I would never participate in a forum like this ever again. By the end of the abbreviated discussion, it was pretty clear that the night had been a failure and the "experts" for whatever reason, were unprepared or unable to discuss Dylan or the album in any meaningful way.

"People want to find a 'meaning' in everything and everyone. That's the disease of our age, an age that is anything but practical but believes itself to be more practical than any other age."
Pablo Picasso

In the tomato sauce colored bar, we were packed like sardines. After all, this night got alot of press and the panelists were certainly, on paper, qualified to be there. It's not often the Editor in Chief of The New Yorker makes a free roundtable appearance in a forum not directly related to his writing or magazine efforts. The panel was assembled by Bob Dylan anthology editor Ben Hedin. We're in good shape, no? No. By the end of the night, all we had, dear readers, was a mouthful of their titles to swallow, as the panelists, with small exceptions, gave us nothing else worth appreciating, yet plenty of hot air.

Apparently Hedin, who put this night together, did not bother to create an agenda or give any of the panel any sort of prompts or ideas on which they might have prepared themselves for discussions. After showing a movie (no introduction, no explanation of its point), they sat down, introduced themselves, and starting talking in obnoxious, overly reverential and superficial soundbites, exactly the sort of bullshit that makes talking about Dylan in any sort of worthwhile manner so difficult and usually worthless.

If assembling a half-dozen Dylan experts to analyze him was the sole point of the evening, the panel needed to find an intelligent, unpretentious way to explain and parse the effect that he's had on music and society. It's profound. It's worth talking about. Yet it's not something easily discussed, because it's wrapped up in a cult of personality problem. Talking about Dylan almost invariably sounds like "talking about Jesus." Discussions are full of circular logic, ad hominem arguments, and tautologies. Take, for instance, the bizarre ramblings of guys like AJ Weberman, who at various points cursed at Remnick, told the panel they knew nothing about Dylan, hypothesized every word in Dylan's lyrics really stands for another, secret word, and went on to illustrate his hypothesis by telling the assembled that Bob Dylan was out to get him for once throwing a birthday party on Dylan's front lawn, forcing Dylan to move. Whatever drugs Mr. Weberman has been on, it's obvious he's done far too many of them for far too long. And yet this voice carried above all others on the panel.

One of the writing professors turned into the A/V guy and almost got into a fight with the bartender (who seemed to be content in opening bottles and chuckling at our collective obnoxiousness) while attempting to cue up a few tracks for the crowd to listen to. Mitch Blank, the music archivist, brought along an old Bing Crosby track to compare to Dylan's new CD, but the explanation and logistics of comparing the two tracks were completely ignored, so the crowd instead sat in silence as the writing professor fumbled with the sound system. Then we listened to the wrong track and the bartender muttered to himself about 'fucking jerks who are trying to sound important.' 

If one person on the panel avoided fitting that description, it was David Remnick. His opening statement was a personal story of growing up in Jersey listening to Dylan on WNEW, which, when I was in high school, was still playing Dylan. (Oh how I miss the old 102.7.) Remnick tried to steer the discussion towards something meaningful: the personal impact of music on the listener. No one needs to hear, as other panelists decided to say, that Dylan is a force in music, a, truly great musician, a seminal artist, etc, ad nauseam. It's obvious we would not all be packed into a bar, collectively sucking in our stomachs, to talk about him if that were not the case. Tell us, panelists, what Dylan means to you. Or talk about these three topics, which I've bracketed to indicate they aren't part of the review but rather my own thoughts.

Tell us why Dylan named an album full of old timey arrangements "Modern Times." It seemed lost on everyone that maybe Modern Times referred not to our times, but the times of literary modernity, of Woolf and Eliot (and thankfully Remnick mentioned Eliot at one point, but no one parried with him to expound on why.) No one seemed to think it ironic and maybe a joke that "Modern Times" is a CD full of the antithesis of the bleak, surrealistic movements of art and literature and music from the period that Dylan is sampling here (the 20s-40s, some say 50s). It's CD of backroom populist numbers, no jazz or soaring orchestral arrangements. What's modern about these old sounds? 

From there, what about the musical omnivore Dylan has become? He rode in on folk, turned electric, went through the whole loop of guitar and now organ driven music, and is now mining the past, relentlessly looking to discover what he might've missed the first time around. It's amazing. Did anyone think, when listening to Blonde on Blonde in the 60s, that Dylan might ever put out anything that sounds like this?

How about the Jonathan Lethem article in Rolling Stone, the one where Dylan says the last twenty years of music are shit? How about how Springsteen and Pete Seeger might factor into that equation? How about Louis Menad's writeup on a new compedium of Dylan interviews in The New Yorker? How about something, damnit, other than self-importance and reputation standing in the place of thoughtful discussion?

The panel conversation ended 45 minutes early, (thankfully) because everyone on stage had run out of things to say. A bizarre final comment by Mary Lee Kortes had something to do with rape or women in rock or something, I can't even recall anymore because at that point the wasted opportunity of the evening had really draped over the entire room. No one was into it. As Hedin abandoned ship, everyone mingled, except Remnick, who understandably tried to get the hell out there as fast as he could. I should note I was expecting to see a Town Car idling outside, but didn't. Does he take the subway? 

The problem, in the end, was that this was treated as a lark by Hedin and most of the panelists. It's very easy, I admit, to sit at my laptop and criticize a free program from a remove. But just because it was free doesn't mean one shouldn't get some satisfaction from it. Just because it's free doesn't mean it's not worth doing a good job for. I write for free every day, and I try my best to make it substantive. The underlying problem was that Hedin and his panel really had no reason to do a good job. Quite frankly, I'd rather have seen 6 record store clerks up there.

Addenda: Beers were $5 and there were no bar snacks. Someone's knee was in my back for most the night, and crazy AJ Weberman was directly behind whoever owns that knee. The projector screen had a crinkle in it, so the anonymous Dylan movie we watched looked even artsier thanks to the rip and shadows. A couple of the panelists looked like mobsters. Hedin looked like he was trying really hard, but he was much younger than every other panelist and as such seemed like the wrong person to be in charge.

Something I wrote a while ago, which I submitted to Timothy Mcsweeney’s Internet Tendency was sadly, unfortunately, not right for that publication. John Warner, the editor there, actually gave me wonderful advice on tightening the piece up, for which I thank him. But it still didn’t make their site.

Enter The Rejection Show. I reviewed one of their live shows at Mo Pitkin’s right here in this very blog. (See if you can find it!) I submitted this piece, since it was rejected, to Jon Friedman, the founder of the show. It was accepted! By The Rejection Show! (Just for the blog, not the live show.) As you can tell, if you read my review, I have alot of respect for the talented people that perform and run the show. The fact that it’s based around rejection doesn’t really bother me; it was damn funny, and I’m happy to have them run my rejection. It feels less so like one now.

So, for your viewing pleasure: Ask a Struggling Freelance Writer, By Paul Smalera: The Rejection Show

And the reviews of this piece are already in:

“It was pretty entertaining, for something of yours.” - Andrew Smalera, my brother

HOW CAN YOU NOT WANT TO READ IT NOW? I ask you. How? Please enjoy my foray into the comedic arts.

This is my first music post. A quick note about it. I like to write about music, but I don’t plan to cover it obsessively. From time to time, I’m going to write about bands I like, new bands I’ve discovered, and music I think you (every single one of you) should check out. This will probably be the most subjective part of my site, but so be it. I like what I like. I hope you enjoy these posts.

I know I’m a little late to the party on this one, but after reading: brooklynvegan: The Shins played McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn, I had to jot down my remembrance of seeing their show in Washington, DC at the Black Cat, oh, maybe two years ago? I think it was before all the Garden State hype. They played a damn good show, and it’s too bad McCarren didn’t go as well.
The Black Cat, my home club for 8 years of my Washington based existence, has horrible acoustics, and is full of people who chatter endlessly. I’ve seen more than one band with frustrated looks on their faces after a night at the cat.

There are only three shows I remember being absolutely mesmerized with out of the dozens upon dozens I saw.

1. Denali: Their first show was in the backroom, so it doesn’t count for acoustics, but it was a hot-ass August night, sweat dripping down my legs, I could barely see, and it was amazing. Maura Davis, the lead singer, was classically trained to sing opera..but decided instead to ROCK OUT and form a band. She joined her bro, who played in Engine Down, and grabbed a few other people to put an indie-industrial dirty sound behind her haunting vocals. Denali was to play many more shows at the Black Cat before they ultimately broke up, but the first was.. it gives me shivers. Maura is apparently in a new band, ambulette, which I look forward to hearing.
2. Frank Black & The Catholics: Before there were any rumblings of the Pixies reuniting, FB had a pretty good thing going. They had one very tight album, and a few decent ones. I had tickets to see them the year before this show (maybe 2002?) but their van and equipment got stolen. It took them a whole year to get back, but it was worth it. They were really tight. Which leads me to…
   
   
3. The Shins: Before Garden State, the Shins were just a band from New Mexico. And since one of my roommates was from New Mexico, I had heard alot about them. At a sold out show, their sound was extremely tight– they hit all their cues, and the PA was the best I’d ever heard it. I later found out that they were staying with my friend’s sometime booty-call, another girl from New Mexico. They were on the outs at the time, otherwise I’m sure I would’ve had the chance to hang with the boys from Albuquerque.

I was sorry to read the reviews on Brookln Vegan. Although The Shins are victims of their own success, they are a good enough band to be able to build on their sound, once the backlash dies down. The McCarren pool incident sounds like an aberration to me. Bad sound guy, maybe some speakers blew, or they didn’t have a proper sound-check. I haven’t followed whether the sound quality at the other McCarren shows have been any good. Sadly, I haven’t made it out there. The free shows didn’t appeal enough to make the trek, and the $$$$$$ shows were too much damn $$$$, not to mention I’d already seen almost every band.

This is funny, in a tragic sort of way. I exert much energy daily to get my name and ideas in front of editors who might be interested in taking a chance on me and allowing me to write for them. This is hard. I only recently remembered that I have been rejected before. In college, for about two months, I had a weekly column in the independent student paper The Hatchet. (Get it? George Washington? Cherry Tree? Hatchet? Haw Haw. But seriously it wasn’t an awful paper.)

My problem, in writing this column, was that I was living far off campus, taking a full courseload, working almost full time (at a real job in web development, not one where I could study), and if I recall, moving to a new apartment. Full plate, anyone? While I tried my best to creative, I never gave myself the chance to be alone with my ideas. I just banged em out and hit send.

And, if I may be so indelicate, I never really had the support of the staff (being an outside commuter who knew no one and was never in the office.) That said, they gave me a shot, but just didn’t like what I had to say; they’re not to blame. After 3 or 4 tongue in cheek columns like the one below, I wrote 800 words (I still remember) about a guy named Ron Howard (not Opie), a GW administrator who had recently died. He was a really amazing guy who very few students knew about, since his role was working with alumni. Unfortunately, the remembrance didn’t go so well– the column was dropped, and it never ran. Oh well. Life goes on. Still, picking up that first issue, opening to page two and seeing my name and headshot–what a rush.

Column - Cola Wars come to campus - Opinions (September 18, 2000)

by Paul Smalera

When will Coca-Cola’s tyranny over GW end? All I see these days is the red cup glaring like a communist banner. There seems to be some revisionist history at work: a year ago, it was the faux-iced over Pepsi cup - albeit in a cooler blue - that dominated the GW landscape. Yet today, it seems that Pepsi cup never existed. I wonder if there are any photos of Pepsi cup-wielding students in the administration’s glossy publications. Have they been airbrushed to reflect our school’s new contract?

Don’t get me wrong; I think the Coke-Pepsi battles were great. Every candidate had to declare whether they were pro-Coke or anti-Coke. Some Student Association candidates ran their entire campaigns on the theme (and if elected, I promise to bomb Pepsi back into the Stone Age), but now that the war is over, what do we do?

If this were post-WWII America, the answer would be easy: build houses and breed like rabbits. But we are an urban college - no room for houses. And I doubt anyone wants to breed like rabbits around here, which is a good thing. Instead, we worry about other things like education and quality of life. Though cola still weighs heavily on my mind.

To keep our future SA candidates busy, I challenge them to run on a pro-Pepsi platform in the coming election. You know the SA wonks are already gearing up for the next one even though it’s in April; they live for this stuff.

Maybe it’s unrealistic to think GW will tear up its Coke contract after one year, but there is good reason to do so. Why not spend some cash on our own soda fountains and have Coke and Pepsi next to each other? Safeway sells Coke and Pepsi, and sometimes RC Cola, too! So why can’t the MC Store - or whatever they call it this week - sell Coke and Pepsi, too? It’s a buyer’s market, people!

Besides, can you imagine the Zen-like oneness that will follow from seeing the red and blue Coke and Pepsi logos side by side? It would be like seeing the sun and moon in the same sky every day! Perhaps in the era of two-party systems, of Democrats and Republicans, of Macs and PCs, of Coke and Pepsi, we also need a third party, to round out the choices. Maybe we need the Green Party, Linux, and yes, maybe we even need Royal Crown Cola.

Is there anything wrong with a little choice in our beverage selections? Truth be told, I usually head over to Au Bon Pain and buy an Orangina or an iced tea. I don’t even really like soda. But if I do decide on an icy, carbonated beverage, is it so wrong for me to walk to a soda fountain and pick the soft drink I prefer? I think not!

I wonder, too, what GW gains from signing one contract with a specific distributor rather than purchasing any brand it chooses at any time? Who is really benefiting from this arrangement? Surely not the students whose choices are limited by the decision to stock only one brand.

The cola companies and distributors are the ones who benefit. But no longer will we let them dictate our drink of choice. Let�s show them that we will drink whatever we damn well please and we will drink it wherever we want. Coke drinkers next to Pepsi drinkers next to RC Cola drinkers, all singing a happy song: Cola �round the world, baby, cola where I want to. Throw Surge in there, too - what the hell, I’m feeling generous.

Forget the Pepsi challenge I issued to any SA candidate this spring. Here’s a better idea: the unified cola ticket. Lets have a little more cola unity and a little less cola divisiveness.

This past Tuesday, I had the fortune to attend The Rejection Show, held (for the last time) at Mo Pitkin’s House of Satisfaction on Avenue A. The show has been going on for some time now, as the founder, Jon Friedman, has kept improving and promoting it. If you check his website, the amount of media he’s gotten is impressive (and his interviews are funny). Also, a little birdie told me you should search YouTube for Michael Winslow to see Friedman in action.
The concept of the show is to explore the problem of being rejected. I was about to write that rejection happens to those of us who put ourselves out there (like me, with my writing), but truthfully, it happens to us all, everywhere. Maybe the worst rejection is the unexpected one– the friend who suddenly drops you, or the job you get laid off from. For me, I’ve been trying, as best as I know how, to get little pieces of writing published. One of my problems is I cannot narrow my focus. I don’t want to be just a diet writer, or a food writer, or a music writer, or a satire writer. I kind of see myself as covering all those areas and more, but truthfully, I know this is not a good strategy. I need to pick a beat, and stick with it.

Anyway, back to rejection. Last night’s show was funny, touching, funny, poignant, funny, hilarious, funny, sad and funny fucking funny. From Desiree Burch, who shared a long list of every man she’s ever slept with that didn’t return her call (one guy was apparently short and hairy, and according to Desiree, sleeping with him was exactly what you’d expect from sleeping with someone who’s short and hairy), to Wendy Spero’s insane tale of a landlady who seems to treat her life as one long (long) legal brief, every performer had an incredible tale of dealing with the phenomenon of rejection.

I have to mention Carolita Johnson’s performance too. She did a monlogue complete with drawings (she’s a New Yorker cartoonist), about her experience transforming from an ugly duckling, picked on kid to an international fashion model. That’s like saying Moby Dick is a book about a whale. Her story had depth and was well executed. Nothing says revenge like drawing a zit faced cartoon of your grade school tormentor hurling invective (and including her full name, yes you, Karen Zipkowitz). I won’t give away the rest, because I hope many more people get a chance to see her show.

So, the good news is that the Rejection Show will be back on September 16th. The better news is that it will be in the Spiegeltent at the Seaport, which holds many more people. I highly recommend you mark it in the ol’ Daytimer.

This is a piece that was intended for Slate, in response to Sarah Hepola’s piece, linked below. After sitting on it for too long, it was no longer timely enough to pitch (nor, let’s face it, would it likely be accepted) so I’m posting it here. Enjoy.

Why even though I’m late to the party, I’m starting a blog. Again.

“You’re starting a blog? A blog? Now? Why now?” That’s what I hear in my head when I think about starting a blog in 2006. It feels to me something more like deciding to start a car manufacturing company, or a new bank, from scratch. Why bother? The big guns are doing the job better than I ever will, with better writing and expertly written coverage of the topics I’m interested in. And I don’t consider myself competition– more like a fly on a rhinocerous.

The blog world is not what is was in 2000, or even 2003. It’s cliche but truthful to say that things move fast online, and most of today’s popular blogs are mature websites with established writers at their helms. The cutting edge days of blogging are officially over when the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post all have bloggers on the front pages of their websites.

I should clarify what I mean by blog. If I wanted to write an online journal and tell all my friends what I did today, and how rad the new Dresden Dolls album is, and how Taylor totally got into a fight with his girlfriend right in front of everyone at the arcade, well, look. That may be a blog, but it’s not the kind of blog I’m talking about. I’m talking about blogs that are carefully written, are edited or at least self-edited and have some central conceit to them. Also, I mean blogs that are read by people who are interested in the topic without necessarily knowing, dating, previously dating, going to school with or working at the Dairy Queen with the author(s) of the blog.

There are dozens, maybe hundreds of blogs that fit my criteria, and they are heavily trafficked and updated daily. These blogs have thousands of readers. make a profit on advertising, bring muscle to political causes, shine lights on trees that the media can’t see for the forest. I don’t want to be the next Kos, the followup to Talking Points Memo, or the New Wonkette.
But I do want to write, in depth, about different topics that hold my interest. And for a young writer starting out, as I have recently learned, there is no better arena to be heard in than the blogosphere.

The goals for my blog should explain why I feel the need to start one. Like Sarah Hepola, who wrote the Slate essay that inspires this one, I am a freelance writer, except I have zero bylines to my credit. That’s right, I’m “just starting out.” I know, it’s precious.

For readers who are wondering how a writer without any credits to his name gets one, the answer is something like getting to Carnegie Hall, whatever that is (kidding): practice. Every day, knowing that the food reviews, music writing and other story ideas I’m working on will probably never be published, I pick up the pen (or sit at the keyboard) and write drafts. Then, I write pitches, trying to sell my ideas to editors. Although I’ve only been at it for for a few months, I’ve come up with a few pieces that I love, that I would pay to have published.

If I were an editor, I ask myself, would I go with the known quantity, or the unknown? Would I trust that the undiscovered band an unknown writer is pitching 800 words to me about is really that great, if I have no idea what his other tastes are? Would I listen to a restaurant review from a freelancer with whom I’ve never eaten lunch? While the pessimist in me wants to answer all these questions in the negative, a solid maybe is actually closer to the truth. Editors seek out and publish new writers all the time, but things really have to line up right for that to happen; it takes more than a hunch.

Maybe the most important factor in an editor’s decsion to offer a new writer a chance to write a story for him or her is having at least a guess at what the finished product will look like. For writers with articles to their credit, it’s easy to see that they have what it takes. For me though, right now, the best bet is to keep running this blog.

So what if every news media outlet in the tri-state area has already covered the re-opening of the Shake Shack, a new but already institutionalized part of any New York City eater’s pantheon of burger joints? [Note: This essay has been in cold-storage, written before the Shack's recent troubles.]

When I write about it at my blog, and file it under food reviews, I’ll write it as if The New York Times itself called me and asked if could cover for Frank Bruni this week.

When I put down a thousand words about the amazing band I’ve seen twice now, the one that sounds like James Brown, Franz Ferdinand and Willie Nelson got thrown into a remix machine, it won’t matter that they aren’t signed to a major label, or any label at all.

What will matter is if I do a good job writing the story, and if eventually, I can point to this blog, much like a writer can point to their clips folder, to convince an editor that I am capable of writing the story they need today.

I once had a blog, from July 2003 to February 2004. I haven’t looked at the archives since then, but I remember calling it the Wealthy Industrialist’s Quarterly once I tired of the original name, Hipster Cowgirls. And I used it for anything, like an online corkboard. I tacked up excerpts of short stories, observations about my life in Washington, DC, reviews of movies, and music and bands.

I had categories called beauty, politic and historical, and I have no idea what they contain, and no desire to poke through the old pages, saved on my laptop, to find out. Perhaps the reason so many people start, and then stop blogging isn’t writing too much, or writing merely to post and keep your blogdex ranking high, but not being sure what to write about in the first place.

I know what I want this blog to be. Let’s see what happens, let’s see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

“The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel [blog?], without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.” - Henry James

Here are some fun facts about August 16th.

• The New York Yankees broke ground on their new stadium, 2006.
• Kathie Lee Gifford announces to Regis and the world her retirement from Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, to surely pursue her justly deserved international fame and stardom, 2000.
• Kathie Lee, Frank Gifford, Madonna, Charles Bukowski, Robert Culp and Menachim Begin, in embryo form, all learn of my impending birth, and its predetermined date of August 16th. They adjust their fetal development accordingly, so that in the future, they may share my birthday, (various).
• Elvis Presley, learning of my impending arrival, chooses August 16th to hemorrhage on the toilet and die, knowing the world is only big enough for one of us to exist at once, 1977.
• Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ Manager, fires Pete Best, their first drummer, expecting to replace him with me, only to learn that I have not yet been born, 1963.
• Taco Shack, formerly a taco shack providing tasty and nutritious pan-Mexcian food on Avenue B, is set to re-open in storefront on 3rd street, around the corner, 2006

So, it finally happened today. After fits and starts, stadium plans in Manhattan and New Jersey, and more than a decade of bickering, an ailing Steinbrenner scooped a shovel full of ceremonial dirt to show that the new Yankee Stadium, meant to be a replica of the old, original one, will soon start to rise. Yankees Will Break Ground for Their New Stadium - New York Times

I have mixed feelings about this whole thing. As a kid, as a Yankees fan, it was indoctrinated into me that Yankee Stadium was living baseball history. In fact, when I was growing up, the Yankees went through some rather lean years. We had Donnie Baseball, but Reggie left, Thurman died, Billy Martin was fired, Billy Martin was fired, and did I mention that Billy Martin was fired? So yes, the Yankees were a historically great team, and I don’t expect anyone to shed tears for my fandom, but it’s not like they were hoisting pennants while I was a kid. All I had was other people’s memories, and that park in the Bronx.

Being a Jersey brat, with parents that thought baseball was for lazy Americans, I was left to my own devices to attend games. Luckily, a few of the churches in town sponsored bus trips to games once or twice a summer. For $10 (later $20) we got round trip bus service, bleacher tickets, (sometimes Tier Reserved), and a three block walk through the war-torn Bronx (that would be the drug war) to the safe haven of the maddening Stadium crowds milling about River Avenue. The rest of the time, it was up to Phil Rizzuto on Channel 9 to keep me up to date on the game, and uh, whatever else was on his mind.

Then Steinbrenner got banned. For 3 years, he couldn’t touch the team. Three years during which we didn’t trade away prospects named Rivera, Williams, Jeter, Posada for guys named Ken Phelps. We finally had a farm system that hadn’t been pillaged for the Aging Slugger’s Pension Fund. We had manager, Buck Showalter, who was kind of dictatorial and mean, who managed to get the best out of a bunch of pretty spoiled athletes, while also alienating everyone around. Little did we know your team could pre-order World Series rings the day he quit or got fired. In ‘96, with Mattingly retired too early (my heart still breaks for him), we promoted the kids, hired a nice guy manager, and the run started.

Many people have written better accounts of that period, from 96-9/10/01, when we were invincible. I won’t try to add to their brilliance. But the points is, Yankee Stadium was alive again.

Today, it died. The new Yankee Stadium plans look alot like the original, before the renovation in the 70’s, when the Yanks played at Shea for two years. That’s cool. It will be a modern ballpark in an antique shell. That’s cool. It will have 10,000 less seats. That’s not cool. More luxury boxes– again, not cool. Tickets will be more expensive. Not cool. Parkland will be destroyed. The replacement parkland, though greater in acreage, will be on top of parking garages and in nooks, not wide open space like the current Macombs Dam park. Not cool.

As far as personal experience, the current Stadium, and I say this as a fan and half-season ticket plan owner, is awful. The crowds are dense and the flow around the park is badly designed. A full half of the Stadium promenade is closed to the public, thanks to lack of underground parking for players, camera trucks and crew. That means 50,000 people are squeezed into a plaza that could maybe hold 10,000 comfortably, which in turns squeezes everyone out to River Ave. Entrances are badly designed, security tries to be efficient, but invariably you feel like a hog in a chute. It makes no sense that there are 15 ticket checkers for 5 or 6 screeners. Those numbers should be reversed, since the ticket guy is just holding a scanner, but screeners have to inspect each fan before they can pass. The halls around the seats are practically catacombs. Narrow, low ceilings, claustrophobic, even when you can see the field from the doorways. The ramps inside are all hairpin turns causing pile-ups after every game. The place is basically a deathtrap.

But, another renovation could make it a thing of beauty and preserve the parkland, and preserve the fact that Ruth, Gehrig, Dimaggio, Mantle, Munson, Berra, etc., played there, on that field, in that park. After this Stadium is gone, Wrigley and Fenway will be all that links us back to the turn of the century, back to the original shrines of baseball.

The renovations I’d like to see though, are too minor in scale. Take down the outside wall, expand halls and aisles. Get rid of the stupid floating yellow step that makes getting around the Tier a nightmare. Create a ticketed outdoor area and an underground tunnel to the player’s lot so the whole damn side of the park doesn’t have to be closed off. The problem is, none of this does anything for revenue.

The new park will have fewer seats, increasing scarcity and prices, and more luxury boxes, creating whole classes of fans who will never have to wait in line for a hot dog or even watch the game in front of them, if they’d rather sit in the back of the suite and watch on the plasma tv. We fans broke attendance records every year for the past 10 years so that Steinbrenner could build a new park with ten thousand less seats? Please George, pay someone to dig up dirt on Gary Sheffield. The guy is filthy, and it’s obvious we could use another ban, although I guess it’s too late. Anyway, at this point, Steinbrenner is the Queen Elizabeth team figurehead– his son in law, Steve Swindal [great name] is the Vaseline in this act of penetration.

Yankee Stadium needs an update. But slapping an old facade on a brand new Stadium that will cater to the wealthy is nothing short of despicable. For me, going to a basketball game is out. I can’t spend $100 to sit in the rafters and watch the Knicks suck. Hockey? Never heard of it. Baseball is the egalitarian sport of my youth. The sport where any kid, with a little luck, could at least hit one good home run ball, once, even if they weren’t a good athlete, and think, for a second, that they were Donnie Baseball, George Brett, Kirk Gibson, because they could pay $3 or $5 to see them in person. The danger of getting to Yankee Stadium as a kid made it all the more welcoming (in a really strange way) once you finally got there. Though I don’t miss the danger, I do wonder who the new Stadium will be welcoming once it’s open. Kids from Jersey, at least my town, can’t afford $80 bus trips to the Bronx.

Well, it’s nice to see I’m not too off base in my story pitches. Apparently, I’m thinking of publishable story ideas, it’s just that no one’s listening to me yet. After pitching the serious issues facing Avenue B to a local paper that features a certain ex-mayor as film critic, I received no response. But today, in Eater, the news breaks. Carne Vale, a popular Brazilian style churrascerria owned by the Jacob brothers, who also run Le Souk across the street, appears to be operating on an invalid or illegal liquor license.

In Eater: EaterWire: Avenue B Hellmouth Edition, my research on the restaurant/nightclub is confirmed, but a few other very tantalizing facts are left out of the story.

First, as Eater noted in an earlier coverage, The E.U.’s liquor license (a gastropub trying to open not 100 feet away) was repeatedly shot down by local activists. Well, Carthage Palace’s license application was also denied by Community Board 3. I am new to the E.Vil. (post 2005 Avenue B fire, which destroyed much of this block), but I could find no real records of a “Carthage Palace” restaurant ever even existing. No reviews, no mentions in local press, nothing.

Except for one.

Carthage Palace declared bankruptcy shortly after being granted their liquor license. Three creditors were listed. Two creditors were owed about $3,000 each: a check cashing outfit and a restaurant supply company. The third was James Atamanuk, owner of their building, 46 Avenue B, who was listed as a creditor for $1 million.

(PS- The building has faced repeated building code violations. From illegal conversion of a first floor apartment into kitchen storage, to fire escapes that let out into an enclosed wooden (!!) deck, to oh yes, the crown jewel, no Certificate of Occupancy, making the whole premesis basically illegal.)

After being vacant for over a year, Carne Vale was quietly born, operating under Carthage Palace’s license. Even though CB3 denied Carthage Palace, it was a pro forma denial, due to non-appearance. If they had known at the time, that Le Souk’s owners were behind Carthage Palace/Carne Vale, they might have chosen Carne Vale, rather than The E.U. to make their stand. Why?

CB3 has repeatedly tried to go after Le Souk, due to massive numbers of noise complaints (116 at last count), repeated offenses of serving liquor to minors, and repeated 311 and 911 calls for the general mayhem that happens outside every weekend night. (Double parked limos, drinking in public, fistfights, etc.) Maybe CB3 would’ve protested “Carthage Palace” a bit more strenuously, had they known it was actually being fronted by Le Souk.

Now the connection is obvious. Staff and managers regularly run back and forth across Avenue B between the two bars. Both adopt the grating style of keeping their hostess’ podiums on the sidewalk in warm weather, creating an obstruction. Both break out the velvet ropes around 10pm, and frustrate young males who didn’t know that both require a one girl:two guy ratio for admittance. Most recently, as Le Souk’s licenses have been marked “inactive”, parties and DJ nights are being transferred directly across the street to Carne Vale, negating the effect of the closure.

I guess the questions here are simple. Is the Carthage Palace license legal? What’s up with the bankruptcy that claimed Atamanuk was due $1 million (note Carthage Palace assets are listed as around $150k– so that’s the most Atamanuk could’ve received from the deal, theoretically.) Does anyone remember a Carthage Palace restaurant ever actually existing? What’s going to happen with Le Souk? It will be interesting to see what happens to the Jacob brothers’ Avenue B mini empire, if anything.

I have not read Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, but when I heard about Julie Powell's concept for the book, I thought it was a great idea, and sure, was a bit jealous I hadn't thought of it first. Powell cooks a year's worth of recipes from a classic Julia Child cookbook. As a gourmand, I love that. Get in there with the guts and braising and veal stock, and make kitchen magic, the old fashioned way. 

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