Paul Smalera

$2600 a seat is as ridiculous as this photo.

The Associated Press: Pricey seats at new Yankee Stadium a Bronx bomb.

All over Bangkok are massive skyscrapers that were literally abandoned and repossessed by banks when that country went through its own financial crisis, twelve years ago. Thailand waited four years to create a “bad bank,” to help salvage its banking system. In the meantime, the zombie banks of Thailand were unable to get lending started again. The result: these construction projects, into which so much time and resources had been sunk, were total losses. The US has dozens of projects that on hold right now for very much the same reason– lack of liquidity–though we did get here in a different way. Without a bad bank to help free up capital, our cities could soon look a little more like Bangkok. But Obama, Geithner and his team stalling on creating a bad bank. And whehn they talk about creating on, it’s a public private hyrid, which will limit its power to fix the crisis. Read about what happened in Bangkok, and how to avoid its happening to us, here:

Zombie Banks Build Ghost Towers | The Big Money.

One of the first things I wanted to write about when I made the leap was a little country/bluesy rock and roll band that a friend of mine introduced me to by taking me to see them in a dark, weird basement under a pizzeria in Soho.

When I met them there, I introduced myself as a writer, which is something I did once before, long ago, when I had hardly written anything. After that embarrassing moment, you’d think I’d have learned my lesson, but this time, I had dropped my entire old life and moved to a new city to BE a writer. And even if I wasn’t yet, damnit, I was at least gunning to be one, which was a definite improvement.

So, I talked to this red-haired larger-than-life, lead-singer-of-a-man names Sean, and told him I wanted to write about them. And I desperately wanted to, because they played a kind of music that I felt like I had been missing all my life. So I pitched a story about them relentlessly.

And

nothing

happened.

Fast forward two years. I have learned a ton about this business, and it seems Hoots and Hellmouth have learned a ton about theirs, having signed a record deal and released a professionally produced album, which is excellent. The fact that both of us made alot of progress in a relatively short time (which feels extremely long, I’m sure, to both of us), let me finally write a story about them for the New York Press. It was an extremely rewarding story to write, and I hope you’ll take a minute to listen to them, or maybe even buy the CD (also available here).

Congratulations boys! It was an honor to be able to write about you, and your month-long residency at Pete’s Candy Store. I caught their last show there last night, and they sounded and seemed better than ever. Keep spreading the good word.

For the last six months, after only two successful trips to the Daisy May’s cart that roams Midtown West roughly between 44th and 50th Streets, I’ve been dying for a pulled pork sandwich or some beef-tip chili, but DM pulled their carts off the street for the cold New York winter. I can understand that. Working a cart in the dead of cold must HURT, even if the cart operator has unlimited access to that chili.

But Daisy May’s, it’s MAY already. Time to either pull down this inane message about the carts not being back until spring or FESS UP, and tell us why you’re keeping us Midtown office drones pulled away from our pork. Don’t make me wait for Daisy Damned July to not have to venture to 11th Avenue for some pig. Or at least drop these guys a line so we all know what’s going on. Deal?

I’d like to briefly report something I just noticed. When I started this job in January, I went to the supply cabinet and got four pencils, four pens, and a highlighter. Through massive amounts of work in the period since then, I have yet to fully extinguish even one of my pencils. (I rotate them so they are all roughly even in length.) I even added two coveted Mirado Black Warrior Pencils, and two red copyediting pencils to the collection, but have yet to put them into the rotation. I’m waiting for a big assignment to do that.

I am a model of efficiency.

For those who read my post about The New York Times’ thoughts on the East Village, circa 1985 , I’ve found another gem from their archives, this time from 1997, closer to the time I was boppin’ around the Village, Soho, Chinatown, etc. The story chronicles the very start of a new building trend in my neighborhood: Along East 2d Street, New Market-Rate Apartments. Some quotes:

HISTORY has shown the East Village and the Lower East Side to be tough places to operate real estate. Most buildings are old and many tenants, among them many immigrants, are poor.

Jesus. Besides my landlord, there are at least another dozen or so that have become real estate barons based almost completely on picking up buildings in the East Village and Lower East Side at firesale prices, and sitting on them, until, well, now.

 Current market-rate rents for a one-bedroom apartment run from $900 to $1,400 a month and are usually between $1,100 to $1,200, said Robert T. Perl, president of Tower Brokerage on East 10th Street, which manages about 250 apartments in the area. But tenants who arrived about 15 years ago are paying anywhere from $300 to $600 for a similar-sized apartment — though at the time about half of them lacked a modern bathroom or kitchen, Mr. Perl said.

If my rent was $600 a month, I would gladly bathe with a bucket and sponge, and cook on a hot plate or camping stove.

Mr. Quillen, the son of Parker and Joan Quillen, antiques dealers based in Palm Beach, has been making all-cash deals for semi-distressed properties. Last year he bought a 20-unit building at 104 Suffolk Street, and in April he closed on the 26-unit 109-111 Ludlow Street, with a largely Chinese tenancy. The sale price, $905,000, was four times higher than what the seller had paid for the building six years ago, he said.

Something tells Mr. Whitney Quillen is doing pretty well for himself these days. Although, unless he is unscrupulous, he has to wait for those tenants to kick off, move out, or violate their lease before he can make those apartments market rate. I wonder if he managed to do so in these ten years. After all:

”Only the children can speak to me,” Mr. Quillen said.

And they very well may have grown up into LES hipsters who would rather throw away their Converse sneakers than give up a cheap apartment on Ludlow Street. Next time I walk by, I’ll try to gauge the building… Stay tuned…

Since I’m a writer, I often find myself looking for and reading books about the “art & craft” as we tend to reverentially call it. Whatever, I’m just trying to learn a few tricks. But one thing I definitely WON’T do for the first book is allow any use of stock photography whatsoever. Besides having a girlfriend who is an excellent photographer, my own background as a web designer taught me to be very careful when using stock. Clients never want to see photos on their sites used anywhere else, but are often unwilling to pay enough to secure exclusive rights for them. I had one photo of a curly haired man in a loud tie wearing glasses that I must’ve used a dozen times. I still see it crop up now and then in bank advertisements.

From everything I know about it, book publishing is mostly a low-margin industry.
A few big Harry Potters keep the midlist catalogs in print. But still, Francine Prose and Norman Mailer deserve better than to share the same dull clip art:

Oh, you don’t think it’s the same? Just very similar. Well, sure, there’s some Photoshop distortion going on. Mailer’s colors are deeper, befitting his Old Lion stature, and Prose’s brighter but still not exactly bright, befitting her matter of fact outlook on literature and its place in the world. But, dear reader, this is the same Photodisc image by Ryan McVey:

Poor Norman. Poor Francine. Such different books, such different writers, yet such generic (if regal) covers. I wonder what the book design bloggers have to say about this one….

The New York Times weighs in on the East Village, where I live, circa 1985:

Sometimes an area’s appearance differs markedly from its reality and that is true of the East Village. ”There are bohemians who live here who are only pretending to be bohemians,” said Alfred Marston, chairman of Community Board 3 at 137 Second Avenue. ”Actually, many of them are the most straight-laced of people who work days in the financial district and want to shed that prim, professional image at night and on weekends.” UNLIKE other areas of the city, said Mr. Marston, a financial consultant with a doctorate in economics, ”a lot of people who feel they have missed the boat in their private lives head for the East Village looking for a renewed lease on their youth and, obviously, some of them find it because more well educated, professional people keep coming.”

It’s reassuring to know that even 22 years ago people here were bitching about the yuppies with day jobs moving into the E.Vil and ruining it for the true artistes. However, not all has remained the same:

Quality-of-life problems abound. Residents complain that garbage remains uncollected for weeks, graffiti are endemic and the Fire Department says the East Village is among the most arson-prone areas in the city.

Granted, there is a personal irony in coming across this article today, as I Googled looking for a good Indian restaurant in the ‘hood, because I had my first semi-serious run-in with a totally crazed drugged out guy, probably about my age, looking for “80 cents to buy some vodka.” Perhaps he was stuck in 1985, because $.80 sure don’t buy any vodka I know about.

What really sticks out, when the article talks about prices for housing (buying and renting) is how little prices have actually gone up 22 years in terms of just the numbers themselves. ($500k for a two-bed, for instance). I don’t think though, that salaries are anywhere near as valuable, relatively speaking, as they were in 1985. Translation: even if we have more dollars in 2007, we can buy less with them.

Read the article if you have a second. I assure my out of town friends no one is swarming over vacant lots and abandoned buldings anymore, because there are none.

Many of you will recognize the still above as being from Office Space, the excellent movie about the dystopia all too many of us spend our waking lives contending with. But did you know the guy giving Jennifer Aniston a hard time about not having enough “flair” on her uniform is none other than Mike Judge, the creator of the movie, along with Beavis and Butthead and the universally lauded Idiocracy?

Wait, you don’t know about Idiocracy? It’s the movie set in 2505, when generations of, uhm, lesser minded folks, had exponentially way more kids than “smart” people who were waiting for the economy to be on the upswing before deciding to bring another life onto the Earth. Really, hadn’t heard of it?

Well, many others have catalogued how Judge got the shaft from Fox, his distributor. The movie, which I’ve seen on DVD, paints a pretty bleak picture of America, and especially the corporations that essentially run it. From Carl’s Jr. being able to remand children to the state, to the country’s irrigation needs being unsuccessfully attended to by Brawndo sports drink (”It’s what plants need!”), the picture is of dumb-ass people whose few needs (tv, food) are barely attended to by a failing nanny state. Politics, just as now, is essentially a meaningless contest of one-liners, except in more of a pro-wrestling atmosphere, and the president is a porn-star.

What’s crazy about Office Space and Idiocracy is that as much as you’d like to believe the premises aren’t possible, you know people who’ve lived through Office Space (OK, without the Superman III robbery aspect) and Idiocracy, well…

In the movie, Starbucks, has apparently decided coffee is just not cutting it anymore. They decide to offer, as a value add, handjobs. Crazy, right? Well, as Slashfood noted, Seattle, the home of Starbucks after all, is already well on its way. Actual quote:

“Espresso joints. . .have decided to spice up their images with sexy outfits and flirtatious female baristas to try and attract business away from competitors.

“If I’m going to pay $4 for a cup of coffee” said one male customer, “I’m not going to get served by a guy.”

Right on, dude! Just wait and see what your great-great-great-great grandson will get with his lattes! Provided that, you know, he doesn’t get any crazy ideas about how to pay for it.

Somehow this blog has neglected to comment much upon what Homer Simpson called "the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems: alcohol!" I think that's because I originally started it as a repository for clips and failed pitches, but as I've gotten a better feel for what kind of blogging I'd like to do, I've strayed a bit from that formula. So, it's time to talk about drinking.

When I was a sophomore in high school, a teacher advised me that if I ever had writer's block, the best way to unblock myself would be to take a swig of Wild Turkey, or better yet, just keep some by the desk. When I was legal, he added, five minutes later. Great guy.

Now that I'm well into the age of majority, I have to say that one Manhattan is a nice way to get the creative juices flowing. Two Manhattans, however, and while I'm probably charming at a bar, I'm useless on the page. This is all to say that I just discovered NPR : Great American Writers and Their Cocktails, and it's a damn fine compedium of what our great men and women of letters preferred to get soused on. 

Just remember, as F. Scott said, "first you take a drink, then the drink takes you." You've been warned. Now drink up!

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