Red Rooster

Today, I figured I’d had the time to execute on a couple of desired purchases: I needed an iPod Shuffle for workout purposes, and I needed a Flip Ultra camera for video experimentation. (Both are modestly-priced items for their respective gadget categories, and I’m on a budget, so I really had to think about it) From the nearby intersection of Houston and Allen, the closest electronics store I’d trust is Best Buy on Broadway and Houston. So I walked there.

My experience at Best Buy went as follows: I found the Flip Ultra on display. I then looked around for a staff member to help me, since there were none available to simply pick up and purchase at the register. I waited. For 15 minutes. Someone finally told me, “I’ll be with you in a minute”, and then then did help me - they told me the Flip Ultra was sold out. Apparently, the BB on 45th/5th is the only store with it in stock. I was pissed for having to wait so long just to find that out. I then slided over to the section with the music players, saw that again I’d need sales help to even find out if they had what I wanted, and simply walked out of the store.

At the Apple Store Soho, a greeter pretty much did her job perfectly, engaging me with eye contact until my reticence to return the gesture completely dissipated and I answered her with a smile. Now, forget that the store is much brighter and nicer looking, and that the products are RIGHT THERE, and that there was enough sales help around to answer questions immediately and accurately. No, all you need to know is that they figured out within 60 seconds that they had what I wanted (a 2GB shuffle), that I could get the color I wanted (red, for PRODUCT(RED), portions go to charity), and I was already in line for checkout with it.  And it was $30 cheaper at the Apple Store than it was at Best Buy.

There’s an obvious Goofus-and-Gallant track to this story, but I’m not going to rub it in. However, I will say that if the Apple Store sold Flip cameras, they’d probably be another $180 richer. (Here’s where someone emails me to tell me that they carry them, and I walked right past one.)

Men Create More Housework for Women - Yahoo! News

Hah. Sure. This is breakfast table fodder for idiots. The short take is, cooperative living creates efficiencies when both (or all) adults act reasonably. And in the typical post-war suburban setup, men will resent the media for unappreciation of their breadwinner role and the implications that they are slovely (among other broad accusations), and women will resent the implication that they’re supposed to be chained to the stove and the vacuum - or worse, that men won’t pick up the slack if she wants some career time too. Guess what, it’s all lies. It all comes down to writers  and columnists applying a Ward and June Cleaver setup that works for some people and doesn’t for others. The entire thing falls apart upon application of critical thinking - something you are definitely supposed to stay FAR, FAR AWAY from in modern American culture.

Man turns out to have been arrested for nothing - Yahoo! News

I was originally disinclined to ever defend an idiot who packs explosive devices in his luggage, or even the parts necessary to do so, but… umm, he didn’t actually pack a working bomb, the luggage couldn’t explode (according to Air Jamaica, the airline), and he checked his luggage to be stored wayyyy out of his reach. Now, after knowing the details, I’m having a hard time believing he did anything illegal, unless being sketchy is suddenly illegal in the USA.

It is interesting that the most intense battle for civil liberties is taking place in the world of air travel, by far the most convenient form of transportation across long distances. I’m assuming you can get away with packing a WORKING pipe bomb in your luggage if you agree to sail on a boat or take a bus from here to wherever. It’s no less immoral or less legal to do so. (relevance: putting other people in danger without awareness of risk is immoral. Transporting an explosive device among consenting parties is perfectly legal, unless someone wants to quote me the section of US Code that says that no one can ever privately possess explosives - that rule simply isn’t there) The fact that we do not screen all bus, train, and boat passengers in this country for explosives or weapons has nothing to do with safety and has everything to do with economics. Airplanes do indeed have a much different risk profile as they are more fragile and potentially catastrophic form of transport; yet it is mind-boggling to witness the mass resignation and cognitive dissonance about civil liberties among American citizens when it comes to air travel. It is more threatening to me to have government virtually eliminate civil liberties in selective settings (and, eventually, anywhere they see fit) than it is to think about who wants to blow me up on a routine flight from New York to Orlando. The fact that many people have been screaming about this for six and a half years now, and that there’s been nothing but regression on the part of the TSA, makes me think that we are not a functioning democracy anymore.

Many years ago, I worked briefly with a rather infamous direct sales company whose primary line of business was cutlery. I don’t really work well as a cold-calling knife salesman but the experience wasn’t entirely useless. Among other useful tactics learned as a salesman (and I did move some product, though I had problems pulling down the “big fish” clients in the wealthier suburbs like my peers because I did not come from a wealthy suburb), I learned pretty much all there is to know about consumer cutlery products. One of the most useful things you can learn about kitchen knives, with an application to many things in life, is: “always use the right tool for the job.”

Nowadays I’m somewhat obsessed with cooking - it’s a hobby that I don’t practice as often as I’d like, but I’m pretty serious about it when I have the time - but more specifically obsessed with cutlery.

Kitchen gadgets overall do not impress me much, in part because my parents taught me indirectly that today’s trendy kitchen gadgets are tomorrow’s garage sale fodder. However, I insist upon having all of the basic kitchen items available in a proper kitchen; sadly, the average city dweller tends to know neither which items to have or when to use them. More accurately, most people have many kitchen tools, but all of them are cheap.

Plastic, flimsy things made in the cheap production country du jour, designed terribly, stored improperly, used poorly or abusively, and, tragically, in most cases, rarely used at all for the preceding reasons. It is amazing what people will spend money on, and then won’t spend money on regarding the same purpose. Sure, run on down to Broadway Panhandler for all the wine glasses you need, but skip the saucepans entirely! $45 for a proper medium sized saucepan is just too much money! (Note that if you use your wine glasses more than you use your saucepans, there are directly many things wrong with your lifestyle and it is a sign that you are a personal disaster) And what about a paring knife? Do you have one that you bought in Pathmark ten years ago? Was it $5? Is it dull? Is it dirty? Shame, shame, shame. Seriously, throw that disgusting fucking thing away and get yourself a serious paring knife. I’m literally afraid for my fingers when using it, but… if you’re not afraid of slicing your fingers off with the knife that you’re using, it turns out that there’s a greater chance that you’ll slice your fingers off while struggling with an everyday potato.

Several years ago, upon first moving to Manhattan and not really having any cash in the bank, I invested in a small set of professional kitchen knives. I got the best of the brand that I’d selected. (Ironically, they’re made by a direct competitor of the direct sales company above who trained us specifically to tell customers why their own brand was better than the more-familiar competitors. The result was that I now know which knife companies sell the best products, and my former employer isn’t one of them.) Since I was operating on a budget, I bought the most versatile knives at the highest quality point. A chef’s knife (only 8″, but I didn’t need a bigger one), a sandwich knife, and a paring knife. (The paring knife was a mistake. More on that some other time) I took them home, stored them carefully, and instructed my roommate that, if he wished to use them, he must operate, clean, and store them only in a particular way. I never have washed them in a dishwasher, I have washed and dried them by hand immediately after each use, I honed them almost every time I used them, and I sharpened them once a year at a professional knife-sharpening outfit. They have lasted more than three years like this. Paring knife aside, the two bigger knives are still incredibly useful and formidable kitchen tools that will see me efficiently through most kitchen jobs.

Well, except for carving.

I am a carnivore, and it is often required of me to slice through some sort of cooked meat product, whether it is a London Broil, a roast, or a plain old rotisserie chicken picked up on the way home. (Turns out that roasting a normal-size chicken is an expensive and time-consuming pain in the ass, and, hey, this smaller one that doesn’t create three pounds of leftovers costs only $8 and comes pre-cooked! SOLD!) I am very particular about carving up such meats, because I like them sliced very thin. And so I’d try to use my chef’s knife for the purpose, because it’s the one heavy-duty knife that I have that fits the task the best - except it really does a shitty job of carving because it is slightly unwieldy for such a task. Or maybe it’s difficult to use because I also lacked a carving fork, and holding that shit down with a tiny table fork right next to the carving edge of the meat with one hand, and using a long heavy chunk of sharp metal with the other hand to do the cutting, is an unwieldy and ridiculous experience. But, hey, I’m on a budget, and not everything can be easy when you are trying to save money.  I had problems, but I dealt with it. It could be worse. At least I’ve never tried carving meat with a common steak knife. (Another type of knife for which you should have a well-made set around when needed, and not the set that you bought in college as a supermarket special.)

So now here’s where I tell you how I solved my carving problem:

Recently, a friend of mine switched apartments and left a lot of old appliances and household items behind. I capitalized on this, and pretty much grabbed anything that would fit into a large sack plus available hands and arms. On a whim, I grabbed a full knife block, knowing that I had no need for half of what was in there and that the quality of the rest of it was probably terrible. I figured I might luck out with some semi-decent knives that would fill in some utility holes in my kitchen set.  I’m smart like that, because I indeed picked up at least three things I could use: kitchen scissors, a bread slicer, and a carving knife. The carving knife wasn’t all that useful at first - it was dreadfully dull, and even nicked a bit on several spots of the blade. I tried using it on a chicken last week, and it was miserable. I’d feared that, being so light and dull, the thing was made of cheap metal and was useless, despite signs to the contrary (full tang construction, a solid grip). I didn’t expect much after that, but I still planned to take the carving knife down the block to Bowery Kitchen East to see if it could be freshened up for good use.

I dropped by last Saturday afternoon. I presented my cutlery (I took everything in for sharpening at once) with full confidence that the man behind the counter knew his stuff and would give me the best service possible. It’s that kind of place. I presented him with the sad carving knife. He looked at it closely. He seemed to handle it as if it were an object that deserved appreciation. He tested the flexibility of the blade and was impressed by its range. His opinion was that it was a very good knife, certainly more useful for carving than my other non-carving knives, and that it would probably work very well after some sharpening. Trusting his opinion fully, I gave it to him for sharpening service. The other matter at hand, besides tending to the other knives (which he found each impressive and impressively maintained), was the carving fork - I am, after all, serious about having the right tools for the job. His recommendation was for me to purchase a straight fork instead of a curved fork. I initially could not decide, but he insisted that a straight fork would be more useful, even if marginally so. I took a chance and bought the straight fork. (and let me tell you - that motherfucker is SHARP! Those points on the end? I can barely touch them without feeling their prick. I think, if I was ever confronted by an armed burglar, I’d go for the fork before any of the knives.)

I took my newly sharpened knives and new carving fork home, and planned to test them out soon enough. Last night, I got my chance with a freshly-broiled top sirloin cut. These things usually KILL me because they’re so hard to cut, especially at the thinness which I enjoy them. I was actually a bit reluctant to even attempt using the carving knife on it, because I remember how much resistance it gave when it was dull, and I was thinking that I might be in for a struggle.

I positioned the carving fork on the top side of the beef and easily pierced through for a firm hold. I felt very comfortable in my stance because, for a change, I was using equally-distanced tools for both holding down the meat and slicing it. Now, to test the carving knife… I grimaced and tensed my arm muscles…

Uhh, what? It sliced with one stroke? The blade went right through like it was hot butter. I was in shock. Let’s try this again… *slice* right through. And again. And again. And again. Paper-thin cuts of beef as if I were using a deli slicer. Slice, slice, slice, slice, slice… and done.

My only regret was that I was finished so quickly with the carving. It was almost disappointing to eat afterward. Well, almost.

As often as several times a week… okay, let’s not lie, seven times… I bounce around to different social events greeting people and trying to pick brains. I sometimes horribly fail at this… let’s get into that in a second… but at least I try, and try often. My track record is excellent. However, it’s rarely an equal exchange. There’s a reason for this. While it is true that I am generous with opinions and observations (and sometimes, accidentally, personal feelings and insecurities… leading to aforementioned horrible failure), I rarely consciously volunteer my actual thoughts. I simply cannot do that. It’s hard to explain without sounding conceited, but I really think about many things. All the time. The weight of it all becomes unbearable if not displaced occasionally - it’s the stuff of headaches and oversharing and, eventually, poor decision making and burnout. I have methods of displacement, which usually involve… talking to you. And drinking with you. And other, um, stuff. (I am an expert at vices) Pretty much anything that clears the mind, even if it’s a fucking awesome turkey sandwich, is needed and needed constantly. So, if I wind up giving you a twenty-part answer as to why I stopped taking photos, it’s all bullshit and the primary reason is pretty simple - I cannot carry a coherent line of thinking more than 48 hours without flushing it, baby and bathwater alike, all down the drain in order to achieve mental clarity and placidity. The only thing that I can consistently achieve are daily repetitive tasks, because they’re stored in the the brainstem and that’s generally a safe place for memory and learned skill. Photography is not a daily repetitive task for me, it’s been phased out.  Anyway, I’m about to try an old-but-well-tested exercise in flushing the brain, right here on the old-but-well-tested personal blog.

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The Rank-Link Imbalance

“Every society produces its own distinct brand of social misfits, I suppose…” And here we begin an essay that rightfully and painfully flagellates the type-A overlords who have dominated our society in recent times. Please learn words like “Achievatron” and “globaloney”, because William Safire will be testing you later.

But then, gradually, some cruel cosmic joke gets played on them. They realize in middle age that their grandeur is not enough and that they are lonely. The ordinariness of their intimate lives is made more painful by the exhilaration of their public success. If they were used to limits in public life, maybe it would be easier to accept the everydayness of middle-aged passion. But, of course, they are not.

And so the crisis comes. Perhaps alpha male gorillas don’t wake up in the middle of the night feeling sorry for themselves because “nobody knows the real me.” But those of us in the business of covering the great and the powerful know that human leaders have an almost limitless capacity for self-pity.

Yes.

I am not afraid of any of this because I feel confident that my moral center has held all the way through all the good and the bad times. But the piece is definitely food-for-thought and it certainly makes me afraid of where my ambition is going to take me. My priorities are starting to reach a conflict point,  and perhaps not coincidentally I am entering my Saturn Return. Even on a day-to-day basis I’m finding it difficult to reconcile commitments among my close personal associates and my creative and political ambitions. (”political” used in the non-governmental sense) I cannot be there for the people I value the most - even myself - if I insist on being everywhere with anyone always. New York City feeds into this through it’s limitless potential and possibility.

Which segues to…

The Anxiety of the Middle Class New Yorker

Imagine my shock at finding an article from The L Magazine, of all places, to be incredibly poignant!  I am particularly afraid that my “middle-class anxiety”, seeing that I’m decisively middle-class and totally anxious about finances and life goals, will lead me to places where I don’t want to be. I can accept that I am single, I have no equity, I share an apartment with a non-relative and that I work at a job that provides very few benefits (at great expense). But that is conditional on the fact that I’m 28 years old. What about when I’m 40? That state of affairs is unacceptable no matter where I get to live.  Bonislawski speaks of the eventual outcome of the “hard-core bohemians”, and I am decidedly not one of them. I want children someday, and I would never bring a child into the world and willingly decide to provide a lifestyle inferior to the one in which I was raised, just so that I could meet my own material or emotional needs. I can leave New York for that. Instantly. No regrets. My concern in advance is that I’m already setting up myself for an inferior lifestyle (in which even leaving NYC is not enough to fix the problems I’ve created) and whether or not that is worth the possibility of meeting my own creative and political aspirations in life. My life, kids, NYC - pick two.

Causing even greater concern:

Rick Falkvinge: Why the US is collapsing

I get the feeling that this article comes from amateur hour on the world economy stage, but many of those figures - if not the assumptions about what they mean - are very real. I do not have a lot of faith in the American economy or government right now. (Not even Obamamania can save me!) To alleviate that concern, I’d have to move a lot farther afield of NYC than the Jersey suburbs! With my debts in dollars and my salary likewise, I’d like one to shrink and the other to grow, both in real value, rather than the other way around. Inflation definitely threatens my future lifestyle if my inflation-adjusted salary continues to drop like a rock.  Among all of this, inflation doesn’t count if they’re talking about energy prices or home prices or agriculture prices (!!!), and unemployment doesn’t count if you’re talking about someone unwillingly working below their competency level or prior salary levels, and the health or failure of my life doesn’t matter to anyone as long as I live in Manhattan and make less than eleventy trillion dollary a year… meh.

But what about possibility in the first place? Where did it go?

I might have lost hope.  I had a botched personal relationship in 2007, and the result was that I ended up in a dark place. I thought things that I didn’t want to think. I did things that I’m not proud of. I did everything to make myself functional again, and I did so successfully, but the damage is permanent. I’ve lost confidence in myself in a very big way. It’s not as clear-cut as it looks. I didn’t lose my self-esteem, the ability to converse without fear, or my sexual drive.  I still have all of that. What I lost was this: I once had some hope that I could have strong relationships with people without fear. I had problems with it (a lot of paranoia) because of past failings, but I didn’t fault myself and I had hope that I could have people around who would not betray me, who I could rely upon in both times of happiness and in times of pain, who at the very least would be able to recognize when things were not alright in my life and would reach-out a bit. The problem isn’t that I don’t have those people - because I do have family and close friends who are always here for me when I need them.  The problem is that I am constantly fearful that NO ONE wants to hear from me. I am constantly afraid that people whose relationships I value have cut me off, are doing something RIGHT NOW without me, don’t want me to know about it, and don’t want me to be present. I now have a completely irrational abandonment complex. I trust no one with my feelings, with punctuality, even with the mere idea of being reliable enough to be someplace when I need them there with months of advance notice. I have had nightmares where friends, family, even my charity touch football team all turned against me.

It might go away with time but, unlike the romantic and sexual needs and urges that dig at you soon after a breakup, this sort of thing does not take a few weeks to fade. It takes months and years to dissipate. I totally wish that I didn’t feel this way.  I know that I had hoped for and worked toward a better result, that I had an undependable partner, that at many points in the struggle I became uncontrollably depressed and desperate, that I don’t like the person I became as a result of all those dark feelings, and there is no explanation that reassures me that this isn’t an eventuality with all of my personal relationships. And since several people (including the original offender) have proven themselves unreliable again in recent months, I am freshly discouraged.
And, in that light, imagine trying to work toward having a wife and kids, with all the planning and sacrifice that comes with it. Suddenly being an old and single bohemian in NYC sounds much better, doesn’t it?

————————————————————-Without hope, I don’t know exactly why I’m here or what I’m working for. I’m certainly not where I want to be at the moment, and all of these problems seem incredibly urgent. A man cannot simply live “business as usual” like this. I can hardly focus on life while being afraid of ambition’s perversions, while wondering if NYC will eat me alive, while wondering if America will eat me alive, while wondering if my own friends and lovers will eat me alive.

But “business as usual” it will be. I miss having big ideas, I regret that I lose sight of them when I erase my neuroses. Though it takes only about two days for all of these fears and observations to accumulate and reach an overwhelming weight, I have my ways of simply wiping the slate clean and moving forward with habitual tasks. Take a shower, make a sandwich, commute to work, build a few websites, go to a party, say hi to everyone, meet some other people at a bar afterward, have some drinks, maybe sing a few songs at karaoke, go home, go to bed, repeat. There is refuge in the tedium.

 Facing Default, Some Walk Out on New Homes (NYTimes.com)

Since the Depression, American government policy has encouraged homeownership as an absolute good. It protects people from increases in rent and allows them to build equity as they pay off their mortgages. And it creates stability in communities, because owners are invested in their neighbors.

But new types of loans like interest-only mortgages and cash-out refinance loans mean buyers do not pay down their mortgages. And adjustable rate mortgages, which accounted for 39 percent of mortgages written in 2006, expose owners to rent-like rises in their housing costs.

The value of homeownership, then, has increasingly shifted to the home’s likelihood to rise in value, like any other investment. And when investments go bad, people tend to walk away.

This quite obviously implies that the new form of real estate greed leads to instability in communities. But hey, they’re probably wrong about that. Correct?

Last evening I had the opportunity to watch the 20th Democratic primary debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I don’t watch these sort of things often - the last time I saw one in this election cycle, there were more people at podiums than on a basketball court, which means the weak hadn’t been culled from the herd yet. Now it’s a horse race, except one horse is starting to look remarkably better than the other at this point - and for a lot of reasons.

I joke around that my position on Obama is “drinking the Kool-Aid”, a reference to Jim Jones’ suicide cult, as if I were gleefully following a dangerous man and didn’t know any better. I feel like, in this age of zero critical thinking, people like Obama because he’s the most likable candidate. He is indeed the most likable candidate. That is no reason to vote for him, of course. Why not write in George Clooney on the ballot? I enjoyed Ocean’s Eleven. Maybe I’ll like four years of Obama making widely televised speeches, too. Heck, we all would. Ultimately, though, it comes down to two things, both apparent in last night’s repetitive (in respect to prior occasions) debate.

First, as Obama said about himself, he believes that he is not just qualified for the job (I think so), but that he has unique qualities that will enable him to facilitate interest, change, and progress. Of course, that’s what he SAYS. Do any of us believe it? **gargle**

Second,  if you’re a Hillary supporter, you have to admit that her demeanor and her elocutionary skills have been strained in the past couple of weeks. Obama is not having this problem. It’s probably because Hillary is working too hard and not getting enough sleep. She’s being tested. And this is what we’re getting - a harried middle-aged person who is snippy and bitchy and defensive about any criticisms. It’s not a female thing at all, but regardless of the root causes, this is what we’re going to get with her in the Oval Office. It’s a little disconcerting. And despite whatever policy positions or leadership experience you’re seeking out, you have to admit that Obama has been running the same race and has remained a cool character throughout. Hell, even McCain is looking more serene than Hillary at this point - this is the same guy who was a POW for five years in Southeast Asia while Hillary was kickin’ back at Wellesley! Yikes! Which one do you think can handle pressure better at this point?

Quick note - In a conversation this morning, I mistook Tim Russert for Chris Matthews, and for such Medevedev-whatev level ignorance I apologize; this happened probably because I think both of them are assholes.

I have a great concern about today’s constant media barrage. And that is the business of death reporting.

Ever hear of the saying, “Things happen in threes?” And how that was often applied to the deaths of famous people, no matter how nonsensical that is? The deaths of famous people happened so rarely that one could keep track of them easily. That’s because not so many people used to be famous.  We were not personally acquainted with multitudes of celebrities, creative professionals, politicians, business leaders, and anyone else deserving of at least a footnote in the history of modern society. We also lacked 24/7 news reports and any sort of global network that could pass along news, good or bad, at the speed of light.

About 80 years ago, things changed. The number of feature-length motion pictures produced per year increased dramatically, music records and radio became popular, and the television was invented. Professional sports leagues not only became more popular, but the teams started increasing in number and gaining more media exposure. These circumstances not only created new classes of “famous” people, it also increased the amount of reporting about existing famous classes.  Starting in the 1930’s, even minimally famous people had more recognition in the national media landscape than the most powerful people from 2 decades before.

This has cumulatively built up over time. Television’s popularity lead to cable TV networks, and today both standard broadcast and cable stations collectively number in the hundreds, blaring out produced shows 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Thousands of movies, each starring or including dozens of actors, are now produced and released per year. Hundreds of albums come out per year as well, featuring both solo artists and bands. The media reports exhaustively on all the people involved in these endeavors, plus anyone who holds power, reaches a significant worldwide professional milestone, or merely is a granddaughter of Conrad Hilton who doesn’t wear panties to nightclubs.

While most people are worried about what the cult of celebrity has become, including the entire camera-armed hunting industry that has grown because of it, most people are not thinking about how media has an additional addiction in the cult of death. See, because there are more famous people than ever before, and with the media finding new ways each day to find a reason to make someone famous, there is necessarily a result of increased celebrity deaths. Everyone dies, and there are more celebrities around to reach that milestone.

Because no one is holding back on this (it makes for sensational news, and there’s nothing like a long obituary cribbed from a Wikipedia entry to fill column space across from the Macy’s ads), we’re now hearing about 3 deaths an hour. Keep in mind, it’s not even today’s celebrities that are dying - the number is up often for people who established themselves as famous in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. Younger people do die, but that’s rare and unexpected. (And, consequently, covered much more thoroughly when it happens)

So, if right now we’re hearing about an awful lot of people kicking the bucket, and it’s mostly the people who were famous two generations ago, then imagine when the reaper catches up to the current generation of fame! There are thousands of people who are famous for little or no reason! We have to get a death notice headline for each of them! Every B-movie star, Internet celebrity, former NBA star, reality show contestant - I mean, when someone who used to be on Road Rules dies, we hear about it! That’s hardly famous at all! I wouldn’t be able to pick most of those people out of a lineup. Why do I have to hear that they passed on? That’s tragic, sad news! I’ve got my own family, my own friends, my own coworkers, and all the people who know or are related to each of THOSE people. I will hear about people dying quite frequently from my own life. Why do I need to enter the grief cycle every time so-and-so who had that video on YouTube dies in his sleep? Yes, there are too many such people out there living their Warholian destiny, having gained their 15 minutes of fame but who will get another 5 when they’ve shuffled off this mortal coil. And because the world is increasingly obsessed with unlimited information - ahem, Wikipedia - pretty soon you’ll be able to fill entire newspapers with daily notices of deaths you should know about. They’ll have to extend the evening news by an hour so they can fit all the dead people info into the news broadcast. Pretty soon it’ll be death all the time, until there’s no longer time to make anyone famous again because people can barely catch up on finding out who died that day.

Restraint is in order. I think death notices should be one line for all people who are not the current President, Pope, or Tom Cruise. If someone dies and a media consumer is suddenly curious about their life’s history, they should go look it up themselves. It’s just not healthy for society to dedicate so much attention to people who often didn’t deserve that level of attention while alive, either.

NJ changes policy on illegal immigrants (Yahoo!/AP)

This is one instance where a couple of dead college students in the news actually causes some positive kneejerk change.

After many conversations with people about the topic of illegal immigration, pleading with people that there is no good in allowing a class of marginalized sub-citizens to exist among us and ghettoize themselves and their surroundings, that something needs to be done no matter what… and then being labeled an insane neocon unsympathetic dickwad…

Yeah, well, I TOLD YOU SO.

It brings me no joy to gloat. I’m really upset about these murders. It’s just by chance that some members of the absolutely pathetic “gang” that did this were adults who have no residency privileges here. (The fact that their partners were teenage Americans is just as tragic, and the most serious indictment to date of years of poor social conditions in Newark.) The circumstance simply shows that people in America who exist outside the bounds of our society - whether they were pushed out or they choose to live that way - can cause all kinds of trouble for everyone else. Depressed social and economic conditions are a direct path to crime and blight. Illegal residency is a depressed social condition. Something must be done about it. And though I would like it very much if a mass naturalization law were passed and that solved all problems, I have concerns that many illegal immigrants are here with immoral intentions and that additional steps need to be taken to ensure that all of these people - and I mean ALL of them - are not just citizens, but upright and upstanding citizens as well.

Some people take this as some sort of sign that I’m a racist or a person lacking compassion. Fair enough. Well, I have compassion, and plenty of it - for illegal immigrants, existing citizens and law enforcement officials who are stymied by this problem, some of whom live in direct danger of being violent crime victims because of this problem. Many people have already died because of this problem. “Leave ‘em alone” once seemed acceptable, but it doesn’t cut it for me anymore.

And what can you do to improve the situation? Educate and train these people to interact better with society, so that they have a better opportunity to become a part of it. Invest in programs that provide social naturalization and job training for immigrants. (Not the jobs themselves, of course; I do not disagree with job growth, but it’s been 70 years since there was a successful subsidized job program in America) Take away the social and educational barriers that prevent many immigrants, legal and illegal, from becoming functioning members of our society. (If this includes teaching them English, then, you know, MAYBE THEY SHOULD LEARN ENGLISH BECAUSE THE REST OF US SPEAK IT) And if some of them willfully want no part of that, that’s fine. They don’t have to do anything. We’ll leave them alone. They just have to leave the country, that’s all.

And again, this is all not because I want immigrants to suffer. It’s because we have a real social problem to fix, and this is the sensible way to fix it.

Despite my snickering at the demise of this worthless lair of foolishness, it’s not due to any ill will. I’ve simply moved on from the suburban corporate life that would have made a place like this an appealing destination. Yes, I used to be from Jersey, and places like this have big appeal to that sort of crowd. It’s in New York, and there’s a lot of action in it environs, but it wasn’t too snobbish and expensive - nor was it gritty and terrifying. Since I now frequent all the snob/$$$ and dirt/horror places as a resident New Yorker, and since surburban people are now generally exhausting in long doses, people like me simply have no use for places like Culture Club.

But places like these are popular. And very successful. And now in short supply. The rules of economics dictate that demand goes up as supply goes down. I mean, it’s not like Marquee started letting all the Culture Club people in. When you shut down an Avalon or a SoundFactory, or (now) a Culture Club + Nerveana, you tighten the B&T market, putting the squeeze on the patrons and increasing profit for the owners.

Since this has been happening for a while, in no small part due to Guiliani and his reign of terror, you’d think that B&T bars would be running things well enough to beat away bubble investors. Apparently, the bubble has gotten that big such that developers are convinced they can afford to buy out most of the nightclubs in a market of 30 million people (plus 44 million tourists) without so much as blinking. They paid $14 million dollars for a plot of land that requires a delicate expensive teardown (abuts a busy subway and is squeezed among a whole block of buildings), THEN the construction (costs running at all time highs), and this will take years to complete starting from a time when the national real estate market is already softening. The economy is doing well enough and the opportunity cost for sinking $30-$40 million in something other than equity investments is pretty high. So how does the math work on this? Poorly.

This is clearly a greedy and stupid move on behalf of the developers. I only hope that $14 million wasn’t a low price, because that would make the Culture Club owners stupid too.

Your homework: how soon will the new building crumble and fall apart? Obviously, when it comes time to build, they’ll “cut costs” in all the wrong places and cheap materials will be one of them. I’d be afraid to bump into a wall in that place.