Thursday, November 25, 2010

Black Friday, Mr. Wrong

Am I the only one who rejects the whole idea of Black Friday? Am I alone in thinking that it must have been concocted by the same folks who brought us mortgages with optional repayment? No, I think that there are plenty of you who feel the same way.


Have you ever found yourself falling for Ms/Mr Wrong, but you couldn't help yourself? You knew it was going to turn out all wrong for you in the end, but you do it anyway. Black Friday is Mr/Ms Big Wrongeddy-Wrong!

How has it come to this? How could just plain normally-warped people become so totally demented that they would rise at 4 a.m. and drive fifty miles to buy furniture made from genuine 100%  room-freshener? Could it possibly be because every online and analog media outlet in the land has been working us into a frenzy not seen since Soap on a Rope or the Pet Rock?


Have we seriously asked ourselves how Black Friday got here? We awoke one morning still feeling full from a Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe cousin Jack was still asleep on the couch. We gazed out the window on a boss-free Friday only to find Black Friday hanging in the sky like one of those huge Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons in the form of a turkey vulture.  "This is not my holiday!" David Byrne and his Talking Heads might have sung, and we should nod our heads in agreement, Pilgrims.

Suddenly, wherever you turn: TV, the car radio, a computer and phone some nitwit is ranting about bargains all over town. Black Friday. Does that sound like a day on which something really good is going to happen? 
Black Friday. How could so many have fallen for this insanity so fast? Please. It's not too late to call it off.

Thanksgiving  is still the nearly perfect holiday. We don't need to get in a frenzy about buying a book for our aunt that she'd never read or having to return yet another tie or pashmina that she gave us. We don't feel compelled to bring trees into the house or hang lights outside. We gather together to share a meal and accomplish the nearly impossible tasks of being cordial to questionable relatives and making a turkey taste delicious. 


More importantly, we focus on being grateful for what we have, instead of what we do not, and acknowledge a power higher than our ourselves. Why mess it up by going crazy the very next day?


Please, let's just wake up after Thanksgiving and give thanks that it's Good Old Friday, Mr/Ms Right, the way it was meant to be. 


Ed Note: Some loyal fans may notice that this is an edited version of a piece we produced last November. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Just Plain Friday. 
copyright©2010twmcdermott









Wednesday, November 24, 2010

This Just In: Holiday News Briefs

1) Not everyone is upset about the new TSA pat-down procedures. My friend Mulligan, who lives just down the lane, has taken to flying again. After going years without taking a trip, he is now planning weekly trips. "This is much easier than dating," he told me, "It's also a lot cheaper than buying drinks, dinner, and expensive French wine. Talk about a quickie; there's barely time for conversation. And, it's totally legal!" Only in America, Friends.

2) Many US citizens were upset about recent news reports saying that the senior Taliban agent who had been holding promising peace talks with Afghan President Karzai was an imposter. The guy walked away with a small fortune for just showing up, leading some to think he may at one time have been employed by the State of New York. But, President Karzai reportedly took it in stride. "After all, " he told advisors, "I am not really the President either, so he got hosed too." Only in Afghanistan.

Kashistan
3) NYC's mayor has been having trouble with his candidate to take over the city's public schools. She is a publishing exec who has never taught, did not attend public school and whose children did not attend them either. According to the mayor, she is qualified because, "She is tough as nails, has a ton of dough in the bank, wrote a book about herself, and they had to force her out of a job by promoting her. She's a lot like me, except taller, although I am, of course,  smarter and much richer." Only in New Singapore.


4) Americans were resting much easier this morning to learn that US and South Korean forces will hold "joint exercises" as a response to an actual N. Korean bomb attack on our southern ally. A secret source has told us that we also have a plan to hold a dance marathon with an ally (we're looking) in the event that Iran actually "lights up Rudolph's nose"(secret code) someday in Rock Center.
What hit me?


5) The NFL recently sent out 5,000 questionnaires to former players. They were asked to submit information regarding any violent helmet to helmet hits they might have experienced. It also asked them for info about any lingering effects from such hits. 80% of the responding players could not remember ever being hit at all. After  a thorough review, the league found that 60% of the ones who did remember violent hits were kickers, kick-holders, or reserves who had never actually played in a game. The League said that it would keep changing the questions until it received mostly the answers it wanted to hear from players.
    6) Apple announced that it will soon offer an online full-service bank to be known as ikaching. At the same time, Apple said that it will establish ATM's and branches in thousands of Starbuck's around the world, beginning in the US. Steve Jobs, Apple's chief remarked, "We asked people how they would feel about banking with a company that was not run by bank robbers, lent to those who could actually repay, and kept accurate records. We got an amazingly positive response." A Google spokesperson said that they had a comment, but it was a secret.

    Sunday, November 21, 2010

    Great Thanksgiving Ciao

    copyright©2010TWMcDermott Disclaimer: Any resemblance to living persons, including relatives, isn't.

    Joe The Turkey

    All the media pundits are debating the meaning of Thanks-giving, as one NPR brainiac pronounced it this week. Since ThirdGarage is a rapidly developing media power, I felt obligated to say something profound about this dubious debate, or, with luck, at least something profoundly silly.

    Frankly, I had no idea that Thanksgiving was really about the relative merits of Socialism and Capitalism. I just thought it was about relatives: both the regular and eccentric ones we usually invite to the house for T-dinner. I also thought it was about pretending that turkey actually tastes good, when it is clear from studying the world's great cuisines from France, Italy, China and NYC's Egyptian street-carts that it has nearly no taste at all.

    Turkey pot au feu? Non. Turkey bolognese? Ciao. Peking Turkey? Hold the Mao. And the day that my Egyptian friends on the Avenue of the Americas believe we'll gobble-up (sorry) their grilled turkey-dogs is the day we permanently move to the island of Saint James.

    The turkeys that the natives might have encouraged the Pilgrims to eat would have been wild turkeys, with a rich and pungently gamey flavor. Corn, cranberries, sweet potatoes, bay-scallop stuffing, and gravy, begun with last year's drippings, would have actually complimented and softened the taste of such a bird.

    Today, these accompanying dishes are required to make the farm-raised turkey seem edible. Not to mention the best white burgundy you can or can't afford.

    Real Turkey
    Gen X and Yers will find this hard to believe, but ordering a turkey sandwich for lunch at the local delis where I grew up was unthinkable. Bologna (baloney) reigned back then, and rightly so. We also had olive loaf, lean roast beef (with cole slaw and russian), pastrami, corned beef, and salami from which to chose.

    Turkey was for, well, it wasn't really for anyone until Thanksgiving, when you had to eat it in order to get to the pies and see some team crush the Lions for the umpteenth year in a row.

    According to today's newspaper, there really is a national argument raging about how the first Thanksgiving demonstrated the strengths of either native socialism or puritan capitalism. Or is it the other way around? Who cares. Let me be clear about one thing right now: never waste good food on a bad argument.

    Foraging For A Sabrett
    My wife, the DG, comes from a certified Pilgrim family, whose descendents arrived in Plymouth on the Anne in 1623*, missing the Mayflower and perhaps an embarrassing level of wealth by a dozen or so boats. One of their fore-fathers, Thomas Faunce, actually pointed out the Plymouth Rock, the family's first questionable involvement in local real estate.

    There is probably little truth to the rumor that they were banished inland for entertainment practices that closely resembled witchery. But the rumor serves to make them seem really interesting, slightly eccentric, or completely lovable, depending upon which history book you read.

    Personally, I love them all, especially the DG.

    This year, we decided to forego the possibility of having our guests enter into the current political debate at the table. We figured that guests of Puritan stock (strong socialist tendencies) and guests descended from more recent immigrants (to the right of the right field foul pole)) might have a more vibrant conversation if they could eat  something like boudin noir, pollo alla griglia, or Momofuku pork-belly dumplings.

    Great Ciao
    This year, the family, in a moment of rare unanimous brilliance, asked me to choose a NYC restaurant for our Thanksgiving dinner. Strange as it might seem (and very lucky), there are no Puritan restaurants in NYC: Albanian, Croatian, even Turkish, yes, but no Puritan restaurants.


    Where are we going, you ask? Zucchero e Pomodori, where they do serve the usual turkey and trimmings under duress, but also much, much more.

    Tanta Grazie!

    * Ed Note: You can find the passenger list for the Anne, including John & Manasseh Faunce, here:       http://www.packrat-pro.com/ships/anne.htm
    Leftover turkey is very edible if served in the following way: cold, on Pepperidge Farm white, with gobs of mayo, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, salt & pepper, accompanied by glass of 1% milk. A dieting aunt once skipped the bread, put the whole thing in a bowl, and heated it at 300' for 15 minutes. She is still living. Finally, for the uninitiated, DG is Darling Girl; her real name is not Manasseh.

    Thursday, November 18, 2010

    Walking Around:In The Heartland

    Williamsport, Lycoming County, PA

    Gertrude Stein once said of her native Oakland, "There's no there there." Oakland most likely didn't care. 

    I suspect that Stein and her companion Alice Toklas would not have liked Williamsport, PA much either, but, having recently made two trips there, I don't care. WPort, as I call it, has got plenty of there; you just have to pay attention.

    Once a thriving lumber town, Williamsport  has become better known in more recent years as the home of the Little League World Series. For a decade, it has been struggling to hold its population at around 30,000. But, that has not been an easy task despite a $300M  investment of tax and bond funds over the last ten years to enliven its downtown business district.

    Williamsport is supposedly poised for a renaissance due to a projected boom from Marcellus Shale. No, Marcellus is not the newest Eagles' or Steelers' cornerback ; it is an area containing a huge natural gas deposit.  Lycoming County, according to the WPort Sun Gazette has already seen an influx of 75 new gas-related companies, and more are sure to follow offering new, mostly skilled jobs.

    But, how many of those skilled jobs will go to current Williamsport residents, who sorely need good jobs? And, if they do, who will then work at the lower paying jobs they leave behind? I suppose that many cities would consider those to be very good issues to be facing given falling tax revenue, stingy state capitols, and more than enough deficits to go around. But, as they say, beware of what you wish for.

    The Bullfrog Brewery sits between the newly-refurbished Genetti Hotel/Convention Center, which began life as The Lycoming, and the Arts Center. Bullfrog gathers a good crowd on Jazz Wednesdays, and serves its own brews as well as some  fine ribs.

    The Bullfrog crowd is informal and mostly middle-aged. Except for a professor or two from Lycoming College, it looks like a native crowd.
    But, don't think it's not sophisticated. The jazz combo played a very credible Coltrane arrangement of My Favorite Things, sans horn, and a nice Bye-Bye-Blackbird, at my request. Take that, Gertrude.

    Glen Beck is "performing" at WPort Convention Center this week. I suppose he has a pretty good following here at the moment. He has an unusual capacity to make "just plain folks" think he's one of them; while pocketing millions and working for a huge corporation, News Corp. Somehow, I have a feeling that he would not like all that government spending downtown. But, appropriately, he's a guy who might know a great deal about gas.

    Can Williamsport successfully jump all the way from the Little League to the majors by using water from its creeks and rivers to obtain the rich gas? Probably.

    But, If the very capable folks who run Williamsport are smart, they'll invest any gas money in creating the best schools in the universe, therefore developing the best renewable natural resource any city has: young minds. The best minds will create the next generation of businesses and products, based on science,  technology, and imagination gained by studying the arts. And, they can build them in Williamsport.

    As I headed south to home on Rte.15, a large road-sign near the town of White Deer read:
    BUCKLE UP NEXT MILLION MILES. So true.

    Ed Note: Rory Stewart did not walk a million miles across Afghanistan, but he certainly had to buckle up for every step he did take. We recommend his The Places In Between, Harcourt.

    Walking Around: Riding The Global Local


    The former Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill, used to say that "All politics are local." At Thirdgarage, we would add, "and all local politics are now global." Fortunately for us, the best way to find out about these things is by eating as many local meals as possible.

    Last week I rode the mostly elevated Number 7 train from GCT (Grand Central Terminal for you bumpkins) into Queens. This is not your grandmother's #7 IRT line. Queens Plaza is beginning to look like Shanghai's Pudong area. The Rawson and Lowery stations have been spruced up with stained glass!

    But, nobody can change the slow curving path the #7 takes on the early part of its journey through Queens. The wheels still screech and the train leans into numerous curves, almost touching the buildings as it meanders generally eastward like a steel boat tacking in the wind.

    I hopped off at 74th & Roosevelt to walk to the next station, 82nd St. My grandfather took me to a shop somewhere near there to buy my first bicycle ( a 24"Bauer German racer). Today, it would be easier for us to buy a bici, find a notario, or obtain a divorcio.


    I consider this to be an excellent development, although I strongly suspect that my grandfather, who as Tax Commissioner knew every inch of this area, would not agree.

    I continued my journey on the #7 to Main St. Flushing, as eager as any tourist aboard the Paris metro or London underground. The Latino faces turned quickly into faces that could draw a map of Asia, particularly China. Arriving at Main St. & Roosevelt, I could have been in Hong Kong or Seoul, instead of Bogata' or Caracas. If Columbus had taken the #7, he could have discovered the Americas and reached the "Indies."

    Suggestion: grab your fork & chopsticks and go sample Main St.'s delicious kiosk and street-cart charcoaled lamb on a stick, large pork dumplings, thinny-thin noodles with hot sauce, and scallion pancakes, all for about a $1 each. Also, try a curious looking orange fruit (above left), which has the consistency of an apple and tastes like a sweet melon, 7 for a $1. Not to mention "purple" corn, also a buck.

    If you're in the mood for a massage, don't worry; you will receive many invitations to have one, and, who knows,  some of them may even really turn out to be a regular massage.

    Riding the #7 and walking the streets of Jackson Heights and Flushing, I had to ask myself once more: despite our current deep national funk, why do millions of immigrants still board boats/trains/trucksmake stunning sacrifices by leaving their native lands & families to get here? Why are they still willing to work hard at jobs which would cause many of us to faint at the thought of doing them?

    Why do people still flock to the land of deficits, dummies and dough-boys & girls?

    Happily, it's going to take many more train rides and strolls, not to mention dumplings and lamb sticks,  to find some reasonable answers to that question.

    Ed Note: As part of our Walking Around series, we recommend reading Matsuo Basho's Narrow Road To The Interior, Shambala Centaur Editions, translated by Sam Hamill. Basho, Japan's greatest haiku poet, wandered 17th Century Japan and left us one of the world's great travel books.









    Saturday, November 13, 2010

    Millennial Idiots' Guide to Boomer Parents™

    Copyright©2010TWMcDermott

    You may have wondered at times how it could possibly be that your boomer parents could not figure out how to play a DVD on the TV despite your incredibly patient lessons. Or, maybe you couldn't keep from LOL as they lamely tried to hunt and peck with their thumbs. You may have even been slightly revolted when they tried to friend you, or worse, friended your friends, who didn't know how to say no.

    We have an answer, or at least the beginning of an answer, in this first installment of our new guide. We may not be able to explain all of their odd behavior, but we will try to give you the context in which the behavior developed over the years. Settle into those back seats; it's going to be a long ride:

    1. They grew up in homes with one rotary-dial phone, one Made in America B&W TVset, and, if they were lucky, a "Hi-Fi" in the LR.

    2. "Mono" referred to the Hi-Fi in the living room and  not a disease, yet.

    3. "Partner" meant lawyer, accountant or the lady who played doubles with mom.

    4. Their parents' friends may have been doctors, dentists, relatively sober advertising execs; many of them worked at companies that made real stuff: Brylcream, candy, or cash registers.

    5. Woolworth did not refer to the yarn quality in a merino sweater; there were no merinos, only shetlands. Woolworth was a place where they could have a tuna salad sandwich on white toast and a chocolate milk shake for $.75 and do all of their Christmas shopping.

    6. Many of them, perhaps most, had one "family" car, instead of a family of cars parked in the driveway or on the street. The occasional second vehicle was a station wagon, which may have even been to a station. Sometimes they listened to music on AM. Really.

    7. Having a profession meant doctor, engineer or lawyer. "Business" school was for someone who could not get accepted to medical, engineering or law school, or for some who just had to "go away" for a while.

    8. Slide Rule was not the name of the latest rapper star from Brooklyn; it was a mechanical computer made with sticks that moved back and forth.

    9. A real computer was something that required an entire building to hold it. Server was the waiter. A router worked at the bus company.

    10. A web caught a spider's lunch, and World Wide Web might have been the name of a scruffy band whose annoying music their parents would not let them play on the Hi-fi in the LR or on the the AM dial in the family car.

    More on this soon.

    Thursday, November 11, 2010

    Far, Near

    Far:
    Anna Della Russo, of Japanese Vogue, is busy branding herself everywhere she goes, which is pretty much anywhere with a tapas bar. Marc Jacobs, the fashion designer, is taking over the West Village, which, like Poland, tends to get taken over a lot. One of his new shops is being "curated."

    If I had been branded, maybe I'd be a box of Cheerios or that cute Geico gekko: something of substance, I would hope: oats and insurance.

    Far:
    Former Senator Alan K. Simpson will not be curating anything soon. He used to represent the half-dozen people living in Wyoming or Montana, impossibly beautiful places until they got branded. Speaking of his commission's report on reducing the national debt, he said: "It's time to lay it out on the table and let the American people chew on it."

    Wrongeddy-Wrong, A.K. We've been chewing on that particular cud for so long it's beginning to taste like Chinese takeout. Or, is it takeover? I always get them mixed up.

    Near:
    Oh for the Days, when there were clear lines drawn between brands: republicans and democrats, Saks and Sears, Beatles-Stones. Now, we have so many choices, we cannot make decisions, and so we just buy them all. Ka-Ching!

    You don't believe me? Ask yourself how long it took you, really, to buy that plain old cranberry juice you wanted? I'll bet you got Cran-Grape by mistake. It's okay, so did I.

    Let's consider this: if we're not busy curating, does it mean we're being curated?

    Near: 
    Home Buyers come and Home Buyers go, but they're not speaking of Michelangelo .

    Funny thing, but, when ordinary people observe the extraordinary, they tend to still see ordinariness. Maybe they're waiting for someone to curate or brand for them, so they'll know what they're supposed to want.

    Fortunately, I've been spending more time lately with some of the extraordinary ones. They tend to see with different eyes, hear with different ears. For them:

    Noise! becomes Sounds, trains tooting "good-morning,"  "good night," and "home, safe."

    Work! becomes Care-Taking. Privilege, not entitlement.


    Old! becomes Wise, Seasoned, Dignified.

    Acreage! becomes Park, Fun, Family


    Traffic!  becomes the Lane kids walking through the gate together, into the village.


    There is no point in trying to curate or brand what is transcendent.

    Wednesday, November 10, 2010

    Walking Around: Soho

                                                                                                    
    Chair, Wooster St. Just put it out there.



                                          




    Jack Spade. Do what you're good at.



    Mentors sustain. CH#5. Brilliant Women.
    Read it like a book of stories.

    http://www.thecanalhouse.com/

    http://mcnallyjackson.com/


    Jack in spades.



    muji. keep it simple
    http://www.muji.us/




    GCT. Rules were meant to be....

          Union Sq. Dare to be different.                                                        



                                                        

    Do/Be the best that you can. Crosby St. Hotel:
    The Best Club in NYC, $16.                                          

    http://www.firmdale.com/index.php?page_id=31          





                                                                  

                                                                  
                                                      

                                                                                                                    







            

    Monday, November 1, 2010

    If You Experience An Election Lasting....

    Many of us will go to the polls tomorrow; perhaps we'd rather be going to the North or South poles or to Poland instead. Our phones are ringing today with dozens of "Out of Area" calls with last minute pleas to prevent "a dirt-bag slumlord,"  "do-nothing slut/sleaze", or "T (for Toxic)-Party nut-case" from being elected.

    I have heard several people rejoicing in advance that by Wednesday morning these incessant, idiotic campaign ads will be gone. They are meant to be insulting to opponents, but the result is that they are all insulting to potential voters, and may actually reduce overall turnout.

    Think again, Pilgrims.

    It's hard to bring myself to tell these people and others that by Wed a.m. the Poli-Media Industrial Complex will begin the 2012 Presidential campaign in earnest!  Overnight, Iowa and New Hampshire will see economic surges as consultants in $2000 suits begin to Tweet....to one another. Studies have shown that the majority of these people don't actually vote; they are far too busy making money and getting implants.

    Oh my, to think that we'll soon be looking upon Carl/Carly, a Boxer and a Wrestler, and What'sHerface in Delaware with fondness compared to what's ahead for us all too soon. Friends, these are the good old days.

    What can we do about this whole sorry mess? I've begun to think that it might be a good idea to allow children to vote, maybe lower the voting age to twelve or so. Would we need to then lower the age required to hold office as well? Maybe, but it might be worth a try. And, why not just have the elections by Tweets and/or Texts anyway?

    You see what I've been saying about Imagination being one way to improve everything?

    As the TV ads might declare, "If you experience an election lasting more than two years, you should call your doctor, minister, shrink and especially your travel agent, or just try something else."

    ©2010TWMcDermott