Christmas at "the Summit"

I have never experienced December in Las Vegas. But let's perform a mind experiment and picture Frank, Dean and Sammy in the big room at Sands, 11 PM, December 23, 1961. The marquee outside says "Dean Martin - Maybe Frank, Maybe Sammy" and sure enough, the boys and their pals have all congregated, to share a few laughs, a little holiday cheer, a bit of Egg Nog (light on the egg), for the assembled crowds. Legend has it that in the late 50s, Russian premier Khruschcev, the USA's Ike and France's DeGaulle were planning a Summit Conference to discuss world affairs, and Frank came up with the idea of the boys having their own "Summit" conference.. The extended crowd, led by Pack Leader/Chairman of the Board Frank, with Dino, Sammy, Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford (until JFK banned Frank from the White House for his reputed mob ties), and honorary members Shirley Maclaine, Angie Dickinson and Norman Fell (yes, Norman Fell) would henceforth be known as "the Summit" or "the Clan" although to the public, they would always be "the Rat Pack" based on a comment by Lauren Bacall when she surveyed the wreckage of a party attended by Frank and another founding member, Humphrey Bogart, in Vegas and declared "You look like a goddamn rat pack."

But aside from the hard partying, pursuit of wine, women, song, and cool, the guys could still get warm, silly and even sentimental around the holidays. So let's order another bourbon and branch water, sit back and find a moment to enjoy the few days of general merriment leading up to the holidays, and more specifically the End-of-Another-Year when it is time to sing auld lang syne and roll up the sleeves for 2008.

Dean Martin & Frank Sinatra: "It's a Marshmallow World" :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV6OI6IBemA

Frank: "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E19PzsLRMNY

Coda to "The Wandering Stranger of Schermerhorn Street"

Well, it has been three days and he is gone. I am convinced the Wandering Stranger of Schermerhorn Street has moved on. Incredibly, since even before I first posted about his arrival on Thursday, September 20, 2007, he has been seated in just about the same spot, on the block outside the parking garage. His plastic trash bags filled with who knows what (cash ? trash ?) are still there for now, neatly piled, where he last left them, only now there are empty coffee cups and soda bottles stacked on them by passersby. Soon they will be gone.

He would be there every morning when I passed him on my way up to Court Street and every evening as I headed home. I wonder if the NYPD forced him to move to a shelter or a jail lockup for his own safety, when this most recent snow and cold snap started. Or did he just see that the weather was going from bad to worse and he picked himself up, scruffy and filthy, beyond ascetic, but always peaceful and reserved, and went---somewhere. Will he be back next year, when the construction of the latest coops and condos is completed, and when we will know who are the actual candidates for the U.S. Presidential election ?

I usually just passed him by as I hurried to and from my office but for some reason, maybe just his pathetic presence, maybe something in me, I was moved to let down my urban, life-long New Yorker shield, and so I gave him a couple of bucks when I passed him last week. He was eating something, he barely looked up but reached out a filthy hand to take my donation. I couldn't imagine anyone letting him into their store to buy anything. Maybe he lives on what he can buy from the hot dog carts on the street.

Although he seemed very inner-focused, I couldn't help but think that he was acutely aware of folks passing him on the street, as though he was attuned to the rhythm and regulars, like me, of Schermerhorn Street. But maybe to him, having staked out his spot, unmoving, it seemed that the world moved around him, and in this place he belonged and all the rest of us were the Wandering Strangers.

--Brooklyn Beat

ADVENTURES IN BLOGGING: Coda to "Dude, Where's My Anchor ?" Which Poses Interesting Questions

Earlier this week, quite out of the blue, I received an email regarding a post on DITHOB that I had written earlier this month . The post, and the email sent to me, concerned the departure from a major local cable news station of one of its more prominent staffers, ostensibly as a result of an on-air call that he had made to another call-in show on the station in which he discussed a former NYPD Commissioner's legal problems, but in making the call, the reporter used a fake name. My post also discussed certain lawsuits that had been discussed in the media last year that had been brought against the station by a woman who was a former reporter at the same station charging sexual harassment and which appeared to implicate the reporter/weekend part-time anchor.

What was eye-opening about the email that I received this week was that the writer indicated that he was the former NY1 reporter/weekend anchor in question, Gary Anthony Ramsay. To quote a character in Miller's Crossing, this posed "an in'eresting et'ical question" since it is difficult to verify the source of an email. The email included a lot of personal information about the call, as well as an explanation of how Mr. Ramsay was exonerated from the lawsuit (that it is directed at the NY1 General Manager). The email was frank, with a lot of information and detail, was extremely well written, exhibiting some frustration and anger, but with a degree of professionalism and restraint that suggested that it was the Real Thing. When I emailed the author of the email back to ask why he was responding to an humble, unknown blog like Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn instead of going more public, at first there was no reply. Maybe it was some kind of web hoax. But would it really matter ? Except for the occasional post picked up by more widely read sites, who reads my lonely little blog?

Nevertheless, I was still reluctant to post it, since I was unclear as to the identity of the author. I wanted to try to pursue some sense of authenticity and quasi-journalistic standard.

Later that evening, I happened to use a different computer to check my email. I usually don't IM on my PC. However, shortly after logging on to see if he had responded, "GAR" IM'd me and we discussed his email. He confirmed that it was indeed Gary Anthony Ramsay and that I was probably surprised to get his email. When I questioned him - Why share this with an humble blogger? , he suggested that he cared more about individuals than the mass (I guess, anonymous) audience, since that is how he viewed his work, tht it should be meaningful to the individual viewer.. When I asked why he wasn't taking his side public, he indicated that he would shortly. He also indicated that he was making a presentation this week at an area college. He also indicated that the original email that he had sent me was written "for the record" in reply to my email, but he did not send it with the intent for it to be posted. In my original post, I mentioned the accusations against him brought by the woman reporter, which I termed "Shenanigans." This seemed to have struck a particular chord in him, and also seems to have prompted the email to me, since he felt that he was being unfairly characterized in response to what he saw as a good deed, giving an upset and partied-out co-worker a ride home, which was then used against him for ulterior motives and reasons. I responded that if I only mentioned one side of the lawsuit, or mischaracterized his involvement in it (he was not involved) it was because that was all that had been reported in the media to date on this issue. Nothing was mentioned about the lawsuit in the any of the coverage of his departure from the station.

When I mentioned the quandry of not knowing 100% the identity of the sender of the email, he agreed that, from a journalistic point of view, it could be an issue, but that he wrote to me for the record; he did not intend for it to be reprinted. I decided to offer him the opportunity to write something that he found more acceptable for posting. Alternatively, I intended to write about it once he did "officially" go public. I subsequently received the "user friendly email below" as he characterized it, which he said was intended for publication. Hopefully, this will not prove to be a mistake on my part. But the email seems detailed, convincing and knowledgeable about goings on at the station. While Mr. Ramsay clearly committed a serious professional gaffe in contacting the show under a pseudonym to give political commentary, it seems unfortunate that he himself has become "a victim of the media" since it would appear that the full story has yet to be told and he, so far from his viewpoint, has been cast in a bad light for not only his own mistake but also for the other (alleged) sins of NY1 management.


Despite all of my quasi-journalistic travails with this issue, I am a writer with a web log, not a professional journalist, more of a 21st century-citizen-media person. I decided to share this because it seems to have the ring of truth and perhaps, having exchanged a number of emails and IMs now, I am more comfortable that the writer is who he says he is and that he has something to say to shed further light on the situation at the station that hasn't been previously heard. I think also, if the only information out there is incomplete, this additional information also needs to be known. If a retraction proves to be necessary, so be it. Interestingly, in our most recent exchange, when I inquired how his meeting at the area college went, Mr. Ramsay indicated that it was a charity event and it went very well, and that people have a way of cutting through to see what is behind the nonsense. Well, sooner or later, one of must know that I really did try to get closer to the story on this, since the media does not seem to be covering it. See what you think.


--Brooklyn Beat



-----Original Message-----
From: ----------- @aol.com
To: UPWARE@aol.com
Sent: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 8:01 pm
Subject: A user friendly version

First let's talk about the "incident".


I did not identify myself - a mistake. I did not because I did not want to be bothered with the questions I had to deal with anyway. But when called by John Schiumo 20 minutes later I told him the truth. I made no effort to disguise my voice. If you haven't heard the clip of my exchange with John. (and that HACK, Richard Huff at the Daily News, DID NOT)... You would know that it was not a "crank" call if you heard the clip of the show. Unless you describe a calm, ordered layout of facts already in the public domain as a prank.

I am a weary as a citizen journalist of misinformation being repeated and ranted so much and so loud that it becomes fact as well the non-action/failure of journalists or people who play them on TV to correct it.

My call was ill-advised But I was home after a long day of working on the story topic of the show all day. My first mistake was becoming one of maybe a dozen people who happened to be watching the show. As you know TW cable programs many boxes to make NY1, the first station to come on. I heard person after person come up with all these crazy notions about the topic: Bernard Kerik, the 16 count federal indictment he faced and IF that would affect the campaign of Rudy Giuliani. These comments were inaccurate and unchecked as I told the NY Times. So I picked up the phone.

I said that Mr. Kerik pled guilty to many of that same charges in State court so he has admitted some wrongdoing already. That is true not an opinion.

Yes, I used the word RIDICULOUS when describing the belief that the Hillary Clinton campaign organized this whole thing. To believe it you'd have to believe this scenario:

*So ten years ago Hillary persuaded Mr. Kerik to take gifts and favors from a construction company with suspected ties to the Mafia...to not report that as income* (a charge Mr. Kerik has admitted).

*Then Mrs. Clinton told Mr. Kerik to become homeland security secretary to embarrass Mr. Bush. *
*And finally he convinced Alberto Gonzales, the republican attorney general, who was run out of Washington for being to political, to pursue this investigation to make the front running republican candidate look bad*

If I said it was ridiculous to believe in the tooth fairy or in the notion that men can give birth in 2007, few would argue the use of the word.

I would have said the same thing if I were asked to join a panel discussion of reporters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/nyregion/18anchor.html?ref=nyregion

I used a fake name to tell the truth in a calm way and it was in no way a prank. You would have thought however, I hit someone while driving drunk or plagerized, Two things I have never done. (There is a network anchor in town who fabricated a story about being kidnapped in Haiti -- He just signed a contract for 8 Million a year) ---- but 15 years of doing a damn good job in this profession was swallowed in one bad news article. let's forget my Edward R. Murrow award, recognition from the AP, the NY Press Club and the National Association of Black Journalists. Let's not mention my dangerous trips to Kosovo, Haiti and Iraq in the tabloid TV piece that was moved to page 7 on a Saturday. Or make a real effort to get my side of the story.

Mr. Richard Huff took all of his info from a mean spirited mediocre producer who I dislikes me because he is mediocre and I have told him so. This person told the Daily News I was drunk and used profanity (two lies) knowing that Huff would not make much of an effort to dig out the truth. This producer also knows that Richard Huff HATES NY1 and uses any chance he gets to put it down. This former racecar reporter/stenographer doesn't even live in the city. Unfortunately, Mr. Huff got played and I got smeared. Oh well I know the drill.

Now on to my what was the word you used? shenanigans??.

I am NOT a defendant in the case of Sammarco Vs NY1. The GM is, the Managing editor is, as well as a former HR person. Again I AM NOT. What I am (or was) is a very high profile witness to her non-case. What you don't know is that Ms. Sammarco case was ruled "unfounded" by the federal agency that investigates those charges but this is America so ANYONE can sue. Ms. Sammarco in on her 3rd set of attorneys in 6 years since she raised the allegations. And lets take a look at her current attorney - Joe Tacopina - who represented cops in the Amadou Diallo shooting, the young man just arrested for murdering Natalie Holloway in Aruba and (in another twist of NY irony) Bernie Kerik. Right after our 2nd set of depositions in 6 years, Mr. Tacopina did his usual thing and planted the story in the NY Post. I was ordered to not repsond. Not in my nature but I did.

Ms. Sammarco wanted to be an anchor--a talent she DID NOT have. I had a job she coveted and said publically, the only reason I had it was because of race. Trust me, it was a job I had to fight for but that is another story. She drove the tech crews crazy asking them to re-tape minor stories over and over again. She and the gay male reporter who allegedly made that picture of her were the closest of friends. She and he once crashed a party of mine that she was not invited to. Sound like a person who was afraid and intimidated by the two of us? I once felt sorry for Adele after her long time fiance DUMPED her. We were leaving a good-bye celebration when she fell apart. I moved her away from the front door so our coworkers would not see her in the state she was in. On the night she speaks of in her lawsuit. She was drunk out of her mind at a Channel 47 party, in a room full of men she did not know. I took her home out of courtesy - My mistake.

If I had know she was looking for an opening in this long planned lawsuit against NY1 --- I would have left her there and read about what happened in the papers the next day. That is my philosophy now given the trouble it has caused. Do you know after the article in the paper about the lawsuit. My family received death threats from racist psychos and I had to have an armed guard with me THRU the holidays last year. Sound like fun (shenanigans) to you??

You are right about one thing -- NY1. It could be so much more than it is which is why I decided to leave there in July 06. They asked me to stay at the end of my contract. The guy who runs the station surrounds himself with substandard people so he can look like a brilliant guy. 2 reporters are golf buddies, another is a golf buddies wife. Two managers are in there positions because of "special relationships". One barely comes to work and the other is perhaps the dumbest person in NY TV news. This boss once embarrassed one of our BEST reporters by describing him as a "Ghetto Superstar" during the Republican National convention here in NYC. Now who was he trying to impress.

The reason you don't hear about this stuff is the same reason you hear about Government or Police corruption until its too late. When the gate keepers are the wrong doers who can you trust?

As you can tell there are frustration I too have with journalism. Its like loving a woman that doesn't love you back. But as many of my colleagues, relatives and friends would tell you, I gave it the very best I had and put my life on the line for it many times. That includes giving the best to you and your better half:who may have only seen it as wallpaper till you got to the weather.

But thanks to my one, minor but human error you don't have to be bothered with me on your set.

I know this is long but considering your extended indictment of me I thought I should get equal time.

Good Life and Good Luck

GAR

Futurama 4ever: It's Even Got Newkirk Plaza

I don't get Family Guy. South Park is obscenely funny but just not smart. The Simpsons remains a classic comedy but still, to my tastes, too much the Sit Com. So, the four seasons of Futurama remains Prime for me. We have been watching those four seasons from 1999 to 2003 over and over.. Finally, a new release -- straight to video, full length film, Bender's Big Score..callooo-callay !

Emmy Award-winning show created by Simpsons' creator Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox network. The series follows the adventures of a former New Yiork City pizza delivery boy, Philip J. Fry (voiced by Billy West) after he is accidentally cryogenically preserved at midnight, A.D. January 1, 2000 and is revived one thousand years in the future.

Futurama aired from March 28, 1999 to August 10, 2003 on Fox before going out of production. It has now returned as a full-length DVD release called Futurama: Bender's Big Score, which will be followed by three additional films: The Beast with a Billion Backs, Bender's Game, and The Wild Green Yonder. Comedy Central has entered into an agreement with 20th century Fox Television (aka "30th Century Fox" on the show) to syndicate the existing episodes and air the movies as new episodes in an episodic format.

In case you don't know, Bender is a robot who needs to drink alcohol to function (when he doesn't drink, he gets drunk); the series has owls replacing rats and pigeons as the vermin plaguing New New York; Leela (voiced by Katy Sagal) is Fry's generally disinterested love interest and general foil, as well as captain of the Planet Express Spaceship, and a one-eyed mutuant (originally mistaken as an alien) --she lives in "Apartment 1-I"; plus Professor Farnsworth (also voiced by Billy West) who is his great great etc nephew and who is basically a mad scientist, deranged, senile, who resides in "Hell's Laboratory, NYC".OK, I admit it, I guess it is a show for nerdy science and science fiction types.

Funny, profane, prophetic, and, in the words of recrurring character "25 star general" Zapp Brannigan-- "Verrry Sex-ay!" (picture the voice of Phil Hartman, who originally held the role, only voiced, again, by Billy West). Brannigan is also known for "Carpet Bombing Eden 7" ;
"Defeating the pacificsts of the Gandhi nebula" and "conquering the Retiree People of the Assisted Living Nebula".

Brooklyn Best: one episode had Fry returning to his old neighborhood in "New York" (as opposed to "New New York" of the 30th century) which is located near the Newkirk Plaza stop on the Q train.

Read it and Weep--"Brooklynites are Natural Born Hayseeds": George Washington Plunkitt

Read it and weep. Famed Tammany Hall Philosopher and Politican George Washington Plunkitt told all in his book "Plunkitt of Tammany Hall as Recorded by William L. Riordon"

Speaking from a couple of centuries back, in his magnum opus "Plunkitt of Tammany Hall A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics, Delivered by Ex-senator George Washington Plunkitt, the Tammany Philosopher, from His Rostrum-the New York County Court House Bootblack Stand as Recorded by William L. Riordon" (a lucky man -- truly I wonder if he was on the pad?). We know Tammany was a truly evil place, almost as evil as 110 Livingston Street, site of the former Board of Education, which Presidential Candidate Giuliani once said "Should be blown up" (would he have anti-terrorism on his tail now for that remark? ) but the BOE has now been moved from Brooklyn to what was once a central boondoggle of Tammany Life, the Tweed Courthouse so go figure..

Well, despite all of the Borough of Kings' contemporary grandeur of high rises, massive construction projects, and Brooklyn's continuing real estate boom, it appears that Plunkitt thought that he had all of us pegged. No matter what, whether of the manner born or fresh from Hong Kong, once a Brooklynite ALWAYS a Brooklynite. So, according to Plunkitt, best to get our rears in check and realize that we should shake the corn silk out of our hair and the hayseeds from between our buck teeth. We may put on airs because of our fancy Zagat-listed restaurants on SMith Street and our Oscar-nominated residents and multi-milliion dollar condos but hicks we shall ever remain. So, here is something to chew over along with that turkey leg (or slab of tofurkey). And as for its unforgiving tone regrading Brooklyn's Democrats, well peehaps Mr Markowitz can chime in...But for now you decide:

"Chapter 10. Brooklynites Natural-Born Hayseeds


SOME people are wonderin' why it is that the Brooklyn Democrats have been sidin' with David B. Hill and the upstate crowd. There's no cause for wonder. I have made a careful study of the Brooklynite, and I can tell you why. It's because a Brooklynite is a natural-born hay. seed, and can never become a real New Yorker. He can't be trained into it. Consolidation didn't make him a New Yorker, and nothin' on earth can. A man born in Germany can settle down and become a good New Yorker. So can an Irishman; in fact, the first word an Irish boy learns in the old country is "New York," and when he grows up and comes here, he is at home right away. Even a [person of Japanese or Chinese ancestry] can become a New Yorker, but a Brooklynite never can.


And why? Because Brooklyn don't seem to be like any other place on earth. Once let a man grow up amidst Brooklyn's cobblestones, with the odor of Newton Creek and Gowanus Canal ever in his nostrils, and there's no place in the world for him except Brooklyn. And even if he don't grow up there; if he is born there and lives there only in his boyhood and then moves away, he is still beyond redemption. In one of my speeches in the Legislature, I gave an example of this, and it's worth repeatin' now. Soon after I became a leader on the West Side, a quarter of a century ago, I came across a bright boy, about seven years old, who had just been brought over from Brooklyn by his parents. I took an interest in the boy, and when he grew up I brought him into politics. Finally, I sent him to the Assembly from my district Now remember that the boy was only seven years old when he left Brooklyn, and was twenty-three when he went to the Assembly. You'd think he had forgotten all about Brooklyn, wouldn't you? I did, but I was dead wrong. When that young fellow got into the Assembly he paid no attention to bills or debates about New York City. He didn't even show any interest in his own district. But just let Brooklyn be mentioned, or a bill be introduced about Gowanus Canal, or the Long Island Railroad, and he was all attention. Nothin' else on earth interested him.


The end came when I caught him-what do you think I caught him at? One mornin' I went over from the Senate to the Assembly chamber, and there I found my young man readin'-actually readin' a Brooklyn newspaper! When he saw me comm' he tried to hide the paper, but it was too late. I caught him dead to rights, and I said to him: "Jimmy, I'm afraid New York ain't fascinatin' enough for you. You had better move back to Brooklyn after your present term." And he did. I met him the other day crossin' the Brooklyn Bridge, carryin' a hobbyhorse under one arm, and a doll's carriage under the other, and lookin' perfectly happy.... "

[End of Reel...]

Yo, Dude, Where's My Anchor: NY 1 & The Jerky Boys

Don't get me wrong, I am forever a believer in the First Amendment and the importance of communication as a cornerstone of American society, so, anything that vaguely sounds like criticism of the news media is not something I would pursue lightly. That said, while I suppose one would not expect that NY1 would engage in any hard-hitting investigative journalism of its own Dirty Laundry, the departure of Gary Anthony Ramsay seems to show how effective the corporate media have become in their own controlling of the First Amendment. The story itself seemed to have been based on the November 9th call-in by Ramsay to "The Call" that rather peculiar call in show hosted by John Schiumo, which my blog-colleague http://www.gothamcityinsider.com/ describes as a "a topical call-in show but its basically Double A ball for prank callers to cut their teeth before moving on to the big leagues." The story was covered in the Daily News on Saturday and then picked up in the NY Times yesterday.

As Gotham City Insider reports in its own inimitable style:

"I have no idea why Ramsay admitted to it in the first place! The first rule of prank calls and being busted is Deny Everything! ...Super-journalist John Schiumo called Ramsay after the show and said he recognised his voice and Ramsay apologised instantly instead of just denying it and telling Schiumo he was an idiot.

"I guess Ramsay was home alone and frustrated because he had in fact applied for some other gig and got word that it was given to some other reporter so maybe he was on his way out of NY1 anyway and just said fuck it - let me call Schiumo's stupid show and bust his balls. Ramsay joined NY1 in 1992, when the station first went on the air, and covered a range of stories, including the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the war in Iraq. He is the president of the New York Association of Black Journalists, and has received numerous awards from industry groups, including the Radio and Television News Directors Association. I think he's up for The Jerky Boys Award as well."

To add my two cents as to why NY1 may need its own Viewer Ombudsman or Public Editor, like the NY Times, I couldn't help but wonder
why none of the recent reportage on Ramsay's shenanigans mentioned the sexual harassment suit againast NY1 that had been reported in the papers last year when Ramsay (allegedly) came onto another (women) reporter and she was subsequently fired, apparently after complaining about it, and after she complained about being the brunt of much frat-house-locker room humor. This story received some coverage and then seems to have died. When I mentioned the latest Ramsay issue to My Better Half , (showing why women are so politically superior to men), she immediately said "Isn't he the guy who was charged with sexual harassment or coming onto a woman reporter at NY 1?" Why did the NY Daily News and the NY Times omit this portion of the story?

As Gothamist.com reported last December:

from http://www.gothaminst.com/ December 11, 2006 ( http://gothamist.com/2006/12/11/ny1.php)

Former Reporter Sues NY1 Over Busty Betrayal
A lawsuit claiming a hostile work environment at NY1 makes the station sound more like a frat house and not the scrappy channel New Yorkers know and love! The Post reports that Adele Sammarco claims she was fired after numerous complaints about being harassed. Here's a rundown:
- Former reporter Jeff Simmons (now press secretary for William Thompson) "manipulated a picture of her by adding giant breasts, and the photo was then plastered all over the newsroom."- Gary Anthony Ramsay, the current weekend anchor, "attacked" Sammarco after driving her home from a party; she said Ramsay "held me down with one hand around my neck, crisscrossed my wrists with one of his hands and put his tongue down my throat"- "News assistants regularly referred to her by the acronym 'BBB' and later told her the nickname stood for 'Big Butt Booty.'"- She was secretly taped while she and a technician were "struggling with her stuck skirt zipper moments before she went on the air - making the innocent incident appear lurid and sexual. The tape was later edited into a bloopers reel that was to be shown to the entire company."- Vice President of Programming Steve Paulus had "a dozen news assistants rate who had 'bigger boobs' - Sammarco or another reporter. Sammarco won."- News Director Peter Landis once asked her to turn around in a dress she had on so he could "get a good look at it,"
We love that the Post made sure to take a picture of Sammarco with the photograph (we bet it's "exhibit A" in the lawsuit). Sammarco's lawyer says that ever since she filed the lawsuit in 2002, she's been blackballed. NY1 says the lawsuit is without merit and that Sammarco was fired because her work was "not good."

I guess Ms Sammarco has obtained some satisfaction. I guess because NY1, in our home, maybe in a lot of homes, is like wallpaper, an ongoing media background for adults, when you hear about stuff like this, you begin to think, is it a trusted news source, or is really something else? You realize how much is not being reported. Fires and government malfeasance are easy stories by comparison. Media covering itself -- not so easy. But don't they have an obligation to tackle even the tough stories that are close to home?

City Sidewalks

The chill is in the air. The 2007 Beaujolais Nouveau is in the stores. The holiday lights are going up all over Brooklyn. The 80+ foot fir tree is up in Rockefeller Center, waiting to be lit. There are strikes on both coasts, and two in New York City. The Democrats are arm-wrassling in Vegas, hopefully avoiding an implosion, and Karl Rove is in NYC to sign a book deal. Gridlock is here with a vengeance. It must be holiday time in New York City.

Starting a week from today, Friday, the end-of-the-year holiday hubub will be in full gear, as the Christmas shoppers, already out in force, will commence in earnest, approaching commercial escape velocity/meltdown a few short weeks after that. But for now, let's enjoy the gentle build up to America's mellowest civil holiday, Thanksgiving. We have until then to stock up on the wine and turkey (or tofurkey or turducken, depending upon your proclivities), pies and potatoes, and then mark some gentle time with our loved ones, culminating in the benevolence of the "Miracle on 34th Street" and the Thanksgiving Day Parade next week.

So, if your schedule permits, let's all enjoy this weekend, which is the calm before the calm before the storm.

--Brooklyn Beat

"Her Sweet Love or the Way That She Could Sing": I'm Not There by Todd Haynes

You might expect that the prospects of seeing the first dramatic film on Bob Dylan might lead to nothing less than 99% anticipation. And so it was, when the lights went down at the screening of I'm Not There by Todd Haynes , the audience excitement and anticipation was palpable. But the film itself is not Ray or The Cole Porter Story or Walk the Line. As much as fans would hope for something that would help unravel, or at least prepare a Unified Field Theory of Bob Dylan, one must remember that even his own two films, the 7os release, Renaldo & Clara, and Masked & Anonymous which he co-wrote with its director, Larry Charles, (who also directed Borat), merited "Turkey", "Bomb" or zero stars in the leading film review texts.

But taken on its own terms, I'm Not There is part appreciation, part riff, and all Bob, inasmuch as it is difficult, elusive and mysterious, just the way the artist himself appears to be. It takes awhile to get into the groove of this film. But persistence, patience and openness will pay off handsomely. Marcus Carl Franklin as Woody, the Young Romantic, Dylan from the late 50s and early 60s, and Christian Bale as the Prophet of the early 60s folk and protest scene set the stage for Cate Blanchett in a remarkable turn as Jude Quinn, the Innovator of 1966, who blew the lid off of the folk scene, injecting a different kind of roots music, the blues, with electricity and volume. It is Jude, who turns away from the expectations of the folk scene, and dares to emerge as a different kind of artist, on his own terms, as he challenges his audience to keep up with him. However, by the time his fans do catch up, he is on to Something Completely Different. There are a number of good performances in the film, Franklin and Bale, plus Heath Ledger as an actor-playing a Dylanesque character within the film, Richard Gere as Billy, the Lone Gun, who meshes Basement Era - Bob with the ever elusive Bob of the Endless Tour, and Ben Whishaw as Bob as Arthur Rimbaud, the Enigma, speaking to an unseen interrogator.

But Cate Blanchett pulls out all the stops here, in her tour-de-force performance as Jude, the Most Obscure, when Dylan escaped all bounds and scenes and expectations, and seemed to achieve escape velocity, until gravity, and perhaps freedom, betrayed him, and he fell to Earth, reinventing himself yet again.

For the first few minutes, Blanchett as Bob is a real challenge to one's assumptions. I remember thinking how Blanchett played Katherine Hepburn in the Aviator and pulled off that role remarkably well. But here we are talking about a gender bending role as one of the most recognized artists of the 20th century at the height of his celebrity and early performance powers. But damn, if she doesn't pull it off again. Todd Haynes, who directed the Velvet Goldmine, on the glam rock era of Bowie et al, seems to understand androgyny pretty well and manages to reach down deep, showing us that we really probably don't know much about the Real Man, and so we will never understand who Dylan is, what makes him the artist he is, what prompts the ongoing metamorphosis of his persona, and why is he so elusive a figure. It is Cate Blanchett, who reportedly stuck a pair of socks down her trousers to help with her swagger, who mines Bob circa '66 for all he/she/it is worth, and brings it all back home, especially in her dialogues with the British Journalist played by Bruce Greenwood, in another excellent performance. Blanchett's Jude struggles to remain free as the microscope and tweezers of celebrity and the media bear down on him.

The film is also filled with a number of fine musical cover performances from the Dylan catalog, most notably Jim James of My Morning Coat, singing "Goin' to Acapulco," as well as some songs performed by Dylan himself.

In a discussion after the film, Director Todd Haynes said that in contacting Dylan to get the OK to use his music, he was given many instructions by Dylan's son, Jesse, and his long time manager , Jeff Rosen on what not to say "Don't use the words 'genius' or 'prophet', don't refer to him as 'voice of his generation', and on and on..it sounds like Dylan has heard it all before and he doesn't like what he has heard...

"Who are you, Bob Dylan?" the French asked in '66. To paraphrase the song Bessie Smith by Dylan with the Band, 'is it who he is (or seems to be) or the way that he could sing ?' that makes him such a towering figure ?

I think that this film will not find the audience that it already seems to have found in Italy and France. David Schwartz, a curator at the Museum of Moving Image who moderated the discussion, noted that the film received a 20 minute ovation at Cannes. Here in NYC, there was sincere, but not sustained applause. The film answers no questions, connects no dots, nor does it close any circles. But it is a fascinating evocation of the life and work of a one of the most phenomenal musico-literary talents of the past half century. Bob Dylan remains elusive, but it is clear we will never really understand the mystery of who he is primarily because he has not wanted to be understood, and is skilled at obscuring the facts and truth of his life, and muddying his tracks as much as possible. But just why that mystery continues to remain so compelling is largely a fact of the continuing relevance of his work. But even more interesting is why the desire to uncover that persona, to pin down the man, still seems to remain something to be pursued, like finding Bigfoot, even as Bob Dylan approaches nearly five decades in the public eye. That alone seems to say something about Dylan, but more so something about us...

The official I'm Not There trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beHt8YaVtGs

The unofficial teaser, Dylan performing his unreleased "I'm Not There": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxO6m_yz8cE

Bob Dylan wikipedia post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan

Coda: Norman Mailer Dead at 84

Norman Mailer has died at age 84 of renal failure at Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC according to Michael Lennon, the author's literary executor.

Norman Mailer:Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize
New York State Author 1991-1993
National Book Award, Distinguished Lifetime Literary Contributions 2007

Perennial Candidate,
Nobel Prize for Literature

Born: January 21, 1923

Mailer on :
The '70s: "the decade in which image became preeminent because nothing deeper was going on."

Poetry: A "natural activity ... a poem comes to one," whereas prose required making "an appointment with one's mind to write a few thousand words."

Journalism: irresponsible. "You can't be too certain about what happened."

Technology: "insidious, debilitating and depressing," and nobody in politics had an answer to "its impact on our spiritual well-being."

Mailer's suspicion of technology was so deep that while most writers used typewriters or computers, he wrote with a pen, some 1,500 words a day, in what Newsweek's Sokolov called "an illegible and curving hand." When a stranger asked him on a Brooklyn street if he wrote on a computer, he replied, "No, I never learned that," then added, in a mischevious aside, "but my girl does."

In a 1971 magazine piece about the new women's liberation movement, Mailer equated the dehumanizing effect of technology with what he said was feminists' need to abolish the mystery, romance and "blind, goat-kicking lust" from sex.

I'm Not There: Bob Dylan X 6

We are going to a screening of "I'm Not There" the Bob Dylan bio-pic this weekend...

I pray I am not disappointed. What do you figure are the odds it will suck or transport ?

I am concerned it will turn out to be like "Across the Universe" which our daughters have seen; they split 50-50 on that one...

The film's conceit, several different actors portraying Dylan (Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, former Brooklynite Heath Ledger and Ben Whishaw), seems alternately avant-gardeish or too cute for words. The recent NY Times Magazine piece on the film and its director, Todd Haynes, suggested that the "Bob" played by Richard Gere, who has done some very interesting work recently, may have been destined for much trimming. Who knows. Having viewed/loved/been confused/fascinated by the films helmed by and starring Bob Himself, it sounds like "I'm Not There" could almost have been imagined by him, as well, although Dylan's work generally seems only autobiographical through a prism.

Well, I won't pre-judge. "I'm Not There" is scheduled to open for its regular run later this month. Until then, Most Likely You Go Your Way, I'll Go Mine:

http://www.sonybmg.com/musicbox/video/bobdylan/

CODA: CITYWIDE REPORT OF SCHOOL GRADES ---Now I Know My ABCs -- Schools Report Cards Released

UPDATE !

Here are some of the grades released for a number of Brooklyn schools. For further information on the grading process and what it represents, and to locate progress reports for other schools, visit: the link at http://schools.nyc.gov/ .

The DOE has added an awesome report of all schools and their scores that you can access at:

http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/B17D43AA-FD6E-4C11-ADEF-5ACE8E355783/0/Progress_Report_Results_2007.xls

Then enter the school name or number; when you arrive at the school location, select "Statistics" & then "Progress Reports. The complexity of the grading system, mixing standardized test scores, school environment factors and surveys of opinions will no doubt receive reactions of schadenfreude and disbelief from parents and school staff. How this will impact upon the kids remains to be seen: How does it feel to be an "A" student at a "D" school? Or vice versa ? It appears high school reports have not yet been released. Special education schools likewise also appear not yet to have been rated. Here are a selection of scores for some Brooklyn area schools. No doubt this will play out further among politicians, parents and educationists in the weeks ahead...

An extremely incomplete list of schools and their grades this first time out:

Brownstone Brooklyn

PS 321: B
PS 020: B
JHS 51: B
MS 443: A
PS 008: C
PS 154: D
PS 261: C
PS 10: C
JHS 088: A

Red Hook
PS 27: C

Flatbush:
PS 99: B
PS 217: B

Greenpoint/Williamsburgh:
PS 110: B
PS 84: D
PS 132: A
PS 250: B

Bed Stuy:
PS 21: B
PS 25: B
PS 81: A
PS 005: F

MAYOR, CHANCELLOR ISSUE "REPORT CARDS" FOR NYC SCHOOLS

The Department of Education issued reports cards today, called "Progress Reports" for 1,200+ schools through the City. The report cards give each school a letter grade—A, B, C, D, or F—based on the academic achievement and progress of students as well as the results of surveys taken by parents, students, and teachers last spring. "These Progress Reports are the centerpiece of the City’s effort to arm educators with the information and authority they need to lead their schools and to hold them accountable for student outcomes" said the DOE.

The reports also provide parents with detailed information about school performance, both to hold their schools accountable and to inform family decisions. Most Progress Reports issued are for Elementary and Middle/Junior High Schools. It appears Report Cards for high schools will be issued at a later time as they are still assessing data. Report cards for elementary and middle school will be distributed to parents shortly; Parent Teacher Conferences for elementary and middle schools will be held later this month. Parent Teacher Conferences for High schools were held last week. A meeting will be scheduled in the future to give parents a copy of their child's school's progress report and to discuss it further.

Media reports suggest that the ratings will have complex results, since desirable schools may receive a lower grade if some students in need (for example, minority, English Langauge Learners or special education students) are not advancing and making demonstrable progress as shown in test scores. However, as one expert commented, Would a parent not want to send their child to a specialized school like Stuyvesant, even if the school received a "C" or an "F" ?
Time will tell.

Information on school Progress Reports can be found by visiting the NYC schools link at http://schools.nyc.gov/ . Then enter the school name or number; when you arrive at the school location, select "Statistics" & then "Progress Reports."

Dia De Los Muertos -- Day of the Dead

Dia de los Muertos -- everything seems to come together, past and future, forward and backwards, Halloween, Thanksgiving, All Saints Day... although some may view celebration of the dead as a somewhat morbid or depressing topic, celebrants from Spanish and Latin cultures view it as a celebration in honor of the lives of the dead. It is a celebration of the continuation of life, that life is a stage of existence and being. Or perhaps, in a more Anglo, existencialista perspective, Life is short, so lets look ahead, look around, and maybe be a little hopeful.

The celebrations vary widely; families visit cemeteries with ofrendas, or offerings, for lost friends and relatives, and may erect small altars in their homes, with Christian and personal symbols, and bring gifts and tell stories about the deceased los angelitos, little angels for children, or booze and sugar skulls for friends and relatives. Candied pumpkin (sound familiar? ) and pan de muerto, or bread of the dead . In Mexico, schools and even government buildings acknowledge the day with altars, since it is an important tradition in the country's history.

Short poems called calaveras, meaning skulls, may be written, mocking friends or relatives or the famous, recounting their lives, their foibles and their humanity.

George "DNA" Bush: Oh poor skeleton, the face of a calavera who's had one too many. You want to turn the Arctic and the rain forest into toxic cemeteries. You think honor and integrity are transferred to you because your moribund opponent lacks them and levity. Your epitaph: "Here lies the Texas grim reaper, the moral and compassionate executioner."

The above sample from www.voznuestrra.com/Americas

Here is an interesting link on making Mexican sugar skulls: http://www.mexicansugarskull.com/mexicansugarskull/recipe.htm

A simpler recipe, for Pan De Muerto at Global Gourmet:

http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg1096/panmuert.html
Pan de Muerto, "Bread of the Dead"
In celebration of Mexico's Day of the Dead, this bread is often shaped into skulls or round loaves with strips of dough rolled out and attached to resemble bones.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
5 to 5-1/2 cups flour
2 packages dry yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon whole anise seed
1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs
In a saucepan over medium flame, heat the butter, milk and water until very warm but not boiling.
Meanwhile, measure out 1-1/2 cups flour and set the rest aside. In a large mixing bowl, combine the 1-1/2 cups flour, yeast, salt, anise seed and sugar. Beat in the warm liquid until well combined. Add the eggs and beat in another 1 cup of flour. Continue adding more flour until dough is soft but not sticky. Knead on lightly floured board for ten minutes until smooth and elastic.
Lightly grease a bowl and place dough in it, cover with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1-1/2 hours. Punch the dough down and shape into loaves resembling skulls, skeletons or round loaves with "bones" placed ornamentally around the top. Let these loaves rise for 1 hour.
Bake in a preheated 350 F degree oven for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and paint on glaze.
Glaze
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup fresh orange juice
2 tablespoons grated orange zest
Bring to a boil for 2 minutes, then apply to bread with a pastry brush.
If desired, sprinkle on colored sugar while glaze is still damp.
Days of the Dead

This page originally published as part of the electronic Gourmet Guide between 1994 and 1998.

Kensingston blog had a cool link with a nice graphic about a Day of the Dead show at SOBs tonite:

http://kensingtonbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2007/11/pistolera-day-of-dead-show-sobs.html

As Bob Dylan once commented somewhere, traditional music, and I guess by extension, traditional culture, recognizes that death is a fact, a mystery, but a fact, in a way that Modern Times may not...

Whatever you do, today is the Day of the Dead, remember how fleeting are the days...

--Brooklyn Beat

Coda: Look at Autumn, Look at Winter

We have an unwritten rule in our home. No holiday music before November. OK, we will exclude the occasional playing of "Winter Wonderland" in July, or watching "Holiday Inn" in early August with Der Bingle and Fred Astaire in mortal combat, hoofin' and singin' for the hand of Virginia Dare, but chalk those up to rampant irony. Especially if it is Winter Wonderland sung by one of the Rat Pack, or the Saturday Night Live 1975 performance with Lorraine Newman, Candace Bergen and Gilda Radner, with uptown contra-melodies by Garrett Morris and doo-wop backgrounds by Ackroyd, Chase and Belushi. But those are the only exceptions.

So, of course, after we concluded our Halloween rounds last night, taking part in the West Midwood Holiday Parade on Glenwood Road (that was me in the long black wig, looking like a cross between Joey Ramone and Howard Stern), we sat on our front steps with candles, giving away as many Ike and Mike's and KitKats that we could, and the conversation quickly turned to "Why Don't We Go See the Grinch Stole Christmas." Later, as we watched the Village Halloween Parade on NY1, that Certain Feeling of anticipation and excitement started to build... Still, I thought we could hold the annual Winter Onslaught at bay at least until the week before Thanksgiving.

But, this morning, as we walked to the car to drop them off at school, one of my daughters excused herself, went back into the house, and came back with the Rat Pack holiday CD, and treated us to multiple listenings of "It's a Marshmallow World" by Dino and Frank from the Dean Martin Christmas Special 12/21/67. I tried to put on Elvis (Costello or Presley) or John Cale's "Strange Times in Casablanca" but it didn't work. Chastened, I finally turned the Rat Pack music off as they got out of the car at their middle school on 6th avenue. We all hugged goodbye, and I waited for the school crossing guard to wave me through traffic as the girls disappered into the bodega across the street from their school. But as I cruised toward 5th avenue, before making my way into the traffic flow and boom, I slipped a CD in and started crooning, Garrett Morris-style, in contra-melody, "In the wi-nter we can build a snow-man, we'll pretend that he is Parson Browwwwn......"

Strange Times in Casablanca....

--Brooklyn Beat

A Real Brooklyn Ghost Story

Back in the day, well, sometime in the 1980s, when Reagan was as far-out and far-right a reaction to the Jimmy Carter years that the human mind could contemplate, you could still afford to rent your own apartment in Park Slope even though you were neither the employee nor scion of a hedge fund. Anyway, I lived on 7th street between 5th and 6th avenues. It wasn't a fancy hipster neighborhood, and as hard as it is to believe, we were were young once too and were probably the hippest things happening, but there was El Faro and Polly-O and Save on Fifth, and I was just leaving a public affairs and marketing writing job at local hospital (then known as the Park Slope Body Shop), and taking up freelancing for a number of film, engineering and trade mags, so I guess essentially life was good. I was living in the first floor of a brownstone; the owners, an older Italian American couple and their grown sons, lived in the upper floors. The husband of the couple grew his tomatoes and enjoyed his occasional chianti which reminded me alot of my maternal grandfather who had passed away shortly before I moved to this new place.

One day, after I was living in the building for a year or so, the elderly husband himself passed away rather suddenly. My girl friend at the time, the Art Director's Daughter, and I had spoken to the sons earlier in the day. It was the first night of the wake, the family left in the early afternoon and informed us that they would not be returning until much later in the evening. We were planning to pay our respects the following night. Anyway, at around 7:00 PM it started.

Footsteps. Nothing but footsteps, loud and clear, walking the length of the brownstone apartment above. A constant pacing that started near the front door, walked to the opposite end of the house, turned and walked back to the door. Slowly, methodically, but unmistakably. At first, I believe the radio was on, I could hear this strange pacing (they had no dogs or pets of any kind) only intermittently, until it finally made its way into our consciousness as the Art Director's Daughter and I made dinner. I turned off the radio. Then, when it was very quiet, a chill went up and down my spine as I listened to the mysterious, relentless pacing.Finally, I went upstairs to knock on the door, but of course no one answered. I could not see or hear anyone (or anything) through the door. Since it was clear no one was ransacking their apartment, there was nothing much else to be done. But when I returned downstairs, there it was again. We turned on some music. The Art Director's Daughter (who was a Red Diaper Baby) was a big fan of the Weavers and Pete Seeger, so we cranked up some of that beneficent, positive vibe, good time hammer and sickle music, and had another glass of wine.

I guess between the clomping, and the wine, and the Weavers, we distracted ourselves until it either stopped or we took less and less notice of it. A few hours later, when the family returned from the first night of the wake, we decided to throw caution to the wind and mention the strange noises, just in case someone had in fact broken in through a window.

The older son looked at us quizzically but went upstairs first to look around before his mom got out of the car. Nope. Everything was as it should be. "Maybe it was a sound from next door through the walls" he offered good naturedly. We apologized for bothering him, but he said, no, don't worry about it, I am glad that you let me know.

But, just as brownstone walls are thick, and floors in old houses can creak when you walk on them, I was sure that the old man had returned for a final visit, and was looking to see where his wife had hidden the chianti.

--Tony Napoli --- Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn