Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman
Given my relentless campaign to promote “the Q” (that’s the totally rad nickname that all the hipsters will soon be calling my neighborhood, Kew Gardens), I was delighted to find that Hollywood produces blocked off much of the intersection of Austin St. and Lefferts Blvd. this past weekend to shoot scenes for Spiderman 3 (there’s already a teaser trailer, even though the movie won’t be out until next summer).
Hopefully, Spidey will swing past the Kew Gardens Cinema slowly enough for viewers to admire the fine selection of independent and art house flicks being offered, grab a knosh from Baker’s Dozen (which Alan Amalgamated promotes as “Scrumptious Bagels” – oh, yeah, he’s on “the Q” team!) and land for a slice at Dani’s House of Pizza. That way, next summer, throngs of movie fans will swarm to “the Q,” and raise the property value of my own real estate empire. Muahahaha!
At the very least, the movie will be a slightly less unsavory claim to fame for Austin and Lefferts than being the spot where Kitty Genovese was murdered.
Left Field Day at Shea
Join the Socialist Party on Tuesday, September 13 at 7:00 for “Left Field Day at Shea.”
We’ve got a block of seats for the Mets vs. Nationals baseball game, so the New York Mets will welcome the Socialist Party on the scoreboard!
Tickets are only $5, and we’ll all be sitting together way out in the left field upper deck.
Despite a few bad games lately, the Mets are in a wild card race, so the game itself should be exciting, but we’ll also be taking the opportunity to protest the war in Iraq, public money stadium giveaways and corporate sponsorship stadium names.
Bring a sign. Bring a kazoo. Bring your wacky commie newspapers.
To sit with the Socialist Party, get in touch with me ASAP. There are a few tickets left.
The Soul of Street Art
It’s hard to decide which side is more annoying in the recent furor over subway graffiti, art and New York’s bad old days.
On the one side, you have Mark Echo, a former graffiti artist and current clothing designer and mini-mogul. Echo recently held a ‘graffiti party,’ in which a couple dozen artists tagged up a totally fake-looking cardboard facade of a subway car, in a supposed celebration of the street art and hip hop that sprang out of City Hall’s abandonment of black and latino neighborhoods during the fiscal crisis in the 70’s. In reality, Echo is repackaging and commodifying that old youth rebellion in order to relive a bit of his youth and, well, to sell a bunch of clothes and stuff. All youth rebellion eventually gets coopted, but it’s far worse when it is self-inflicted, even if delayed.
On the other side is Mayor Mike, and the city papers’ editorial writers who bray about Mark Echo glorifying New York’s bad old days, as if the graffiti in the 70’s caused the trains to break down, the subway fare to increase, the crime rate to rise, rather than simply bringing some much needed color and vitality to a grey and crumbling city. They sound like the bunch of puritanical middle class elitists that they are.
Today, subways and buses are completely covered by corporate advertisements. Why is this not viewed as ugly vandalism? It’s pervasive and distracting, but it pays the bills, so it’s okay, apparently.
I was riding the 7 train into Manhattan the other day, which I never do (I’m an E, F guy; J if I’m going to Brooklyn), and I was awestruck after 45 Courthouse Rd – just before entering the tunnel. There, for about two city blocks, is a glorious collage of colorful, funny, sad, inventive murals and tags. It’s all over the roof-tops, the sides of buildings, the alley ways and the streets themselves. It’s clearly the product of many competing artists vying for the eyes of 7 train rides. They are courting us, entertaining us, enlightening us. And, best of all, they’re not trying to sell us a fucking thing.
The Column That Never Was
The column that I was hired to write for a certain Queens weekly has been canceled before the first piece was even published. That piece, a critical look at the fall-out from Congressman Greg Meeks’ support for CAFTA, did not appear in this past Thursday’s issue, although an editorial lavishing praise on the Congressman for his championing of banks over people, was featured rather prominently.
I called to find out what happened, and was told the next day that Rep. Meeks had called the newspaper to complain about the previous post that appeared on this blarg. That’s all, she wrote.
The managing editor – who hired me – explained over and over that “integrity” is really important to the paper, and that I had really crossed a line by posting the Congressman’s voicemail message to me, without explaining that I had called him first. Of course, I explained that I hadn’t called him, and that that’s what made his personal phone call to me so noteworthy, and odd. She explained that she hadn’t actually read the piece so much as glanced at it over the shoulder of the publisher, who was livid about the whole affair. (The publisher, it should be noted, was hectoring me about how labor’s position on CAFTA was “illiberal” within seconds of my being hired and explaining my first column.) She also hadn’t read the actual submitted column itself.
Again explaining how “ethics” were so important to this paper, she asked me if I understood their position. I said, well, no, I didn’t, really, since nothing was misrepresented on my website or in the column (neither of which, again, she had read), to which she finally answered something along the lines of “well, I guess you’re just not a good fit for this paper.”
This, finally, was an answer I could accept. This is a paper that does not endorse candidates, that takes no strong positions on controversial matters (aside from that perennial controversy of curbing one’s dog). This is a paper that wants opinion writers who have no strong opinions. That’s me out, comrades.
I hold no ill will towards the paper, although I am annoyed at having been jerked around all summer. I would rather have been rejected from the start, so I could focus my energies on writing for a newspaper that has enough backbone to withstand an angry phone call from an amateurish Congressman, and genuinely wants to drive home to their readers three lanes of political traffic, instead of just the middle of the road.