What’s your name? (what’s your name?)
Who’s your Daddy? (who’s your Daddy?)
Is he rich? (Is he rich like me?)
Great 1960’s fashion show:
recorded at Abbey Road Studios August 1967
#3 on the Billboard Hot 100
1968
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Friday, June 12, 2015
whatever floats your boat!
Did you know the Bronx is the only borough
on the American mainland?
It’s true.
New York City is actually an archipelago of islands;
City Island, Manhattan, Governors, Roosevelt, Ellis,
Long Island, Hart and Staten Island all come to mind.
That also means a lot of water: 146 square miles of navigable water and 576 miles of waterfront to be exact.
And it’s the NYPD’s responsibility to secure it all.
The “Harbor Unit” was founded in 1858 with wooden rowboats,
but over the years has moved to steam and steel,
then gas and aluminum and finally diesel.
They patrol 24/7/365, even in the freezing dead of Winter.
Their responsibilities run the gamut from bridge fires, as in the pictures, to rescuing suicides and gathering aircrash victims from the water when Captain Sully landed US Air flight 1549 in the Hudson.
abcnews
No doubt this is hard and dangerous work.
But in Summer, it probably has its advantages.
Have a great weekend!
Thursday, June 11, 2015
why it’s called a head-line
“Vinnie” Musetto, 40 year headline editor for the New York Post died Tuesday in the Bronx, at New York Calvary Hospital.
archive
New York City in the 1980’s was a broken glass, graffiti’d hellhole, and Musetto had a knack for summing it all up in five words or less.
archive
He was a real character prone to standing on top of his desk, blowing a bugle in the newsroom and wearing signature red Converse All Stars with a tuxedo to the Grammy’s.
But it was his April 15, 1983 stroke of genius
that will always be his legacy.
True story, a guy named Charles Dingle had been drinking in a strip club in Queens when he shot the owner to death, took a couple women hostage, raped one and forced another to cut off the owner’s head.
nypost
archive
Ed Koch was Mayor and another real character--New York City was really something back then.
archive
Musetto also wrote several other memorable phrases;
KHADAFY GOES DAFFY,
500-POUND SEX MANIAC GOES FREE,
I SLEPT WITH A TRUMPET
and MAYHEM IN THE STREET,
which became part of SNL’s opening credits for awhile.
But he was most proud of
“GRANNY EXECUTED IN HER PINK PAJAMAS.”
V. A. Musetto was 74.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
on top of the world
It was inevitable, I guess.
Although 9/11 still lives inside us all,
I had to visit 1WorldTrade at some point.
It’s been great watching this building go up and I have posted about it several times.
But almost right away,
capitalism is everywhere and it made me feel uncomfortable.
The tickets are timed, so waiting lines are manageable.
At $32 minimum per head, the building had already grossed over $567,000 in just the first day and a half of visitors.
I thought the idea of entering through the bedrock was really smart and sensitive until we realized the rocks are fake and made of plastic.
It felt like Universal Studios. Or Disneyland.
The elevator took us up inside an historic animation.
We were let out on a mezzanine to an escalator leading down to the windows.
The views are familiar, but a lot of new buildings have sprung up in the past 14 years. You’ll be surprised.
Even the gift shop disturbed me a little.
It felt crass and as retail, it wasn't particularly well done.
Architect Frank Gehry has blocked part of the Brooklyn Bridge.
And then looking down, the gravity of this moment really hit me.
It was time to leave.
A quiet wander through the ground level memorial was as somber and elegant as the tower is vulgar and brash.
But it was said to me perhaps that’s the whole point.
The memorial expresses our sorrow for the people we have lost.
But the tower feels more an exuberant middle finger
to those who would dare try to slow us down.
jj
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