I Have No Idea How I Feel About This

I know, I could have called my entire blog, "I have no idea how I feel about this," but today Adolfo Carrión Jr. was picked to be the director of Urban Policy for like, the entire country. He is currently President of the Bronx, which is why I'm even searching my feelings on this and finding that I'm totally unsure how I feel about this because I'm not sure what he's done for us.

Yankee Stadium 2.0 was a waste of money and the original one is still not a park, urban gays are still going to be as screwed as the teenagers who are only being taught abstinence, the water filtration plant we're being over billed for is already outdated and neighborhoods have no grocery stores but robberies are up. I had no idea cell phones were edible, BTW. I'm guessing the kids going around holding people up didn't really support the economy when they got those guns, either, because there aren't any jobs to pay them what a proper gun license costs. Seriously, there's only so far you can go on the good feeling of volunteering to help others for free, and then its gets cold and the heat has to be rationed and it's all just so stupid I have no idea how to fix any of it other than making everyone else leave and then I can run all the remaining two stores and get five damn cents to rub together so I don't die of crazy.

I guess it could have been worse, our governor could have been picked to have more power.

Or even worse, they could have picked me, and I'd be all, "Stop putting money into crap that can kill you, stop making new crap when there's perfectly good old crap, quit whining, and just fix what you already have because the human race somehow managed to survive this far, even through that whole time where they only had caves to live in and gazelles to eat, and even a hundred years ago you'd only be earning half a potato anyway," but with way more swear words. Wait, that's not my urban policy, that's what I tell myself before I get out bed.

Tags: politics, New York, February 2009

I Have No Idea How I Feel About This

Nowhere Else On Earth That I Would Rather Be

Odds are that as this is being posted by the millions of little people who live in the tubes of the Internet, I'm off careening down some street swearing loudly at the maniacs who have someplace more important to be than the delightful back streets of Co-Op City. I can't blame them at all, I am most likely also looking to get as far from the road as I can, because it's like the Autobahn, but with traffic cameras.

It isn't a road I have to travel, it isn't a road I need to travel, it certainly isn't a road I want to travel. But I'm doing it because someone needs me to do it, which was the whole reason I got a driver's license in the first place.

If the lights are in my favor and give me a few seconds to think every now and then, I will lament not being home with my cats and dog, taking pictures and writing ridiculous stories. Even if the lights are not in my favor you can be sure that right now I'm wishing I was on any other road.

Nowhere Else On Earth That I Would Rather Be

Before and After

2001, this picture wasn't as creepy until three days later.


Seven years later, this wasn't as remarkable until that bird flew across the sky.

Before and After

News from Excitement Central.

Lightning hit a transformer near our house and there was a power outage at 10 o'clock, it lasted until 12:55. The fascinating part of this was that of the three-blocks-worth of houses in the dark, we seemed to be the only ones calling Con Ed. The woman we got on the phone said, "Don't tell me it's raining, I have to go to the Bronx later!"

Um, yeah, well, okay, lady. You be careful on the streets in the rain.

The next woman we got at about 12 told us our food going bad was the least of our worries. Maybe we really were in the dark. Maybe there be tripods in them thar streets.

To be fair, I agreed with her to the extent that the food wasn't going to go bad in a couple of hours or anything, that I was more likely to vomit all over the house from the flickering candles sooner than the milk in the fridge would turn room temperature, but who wants to hear that? Not you, I bet! HAHA. Vomit. Heh.

The power's back on now, it's not something I'd like to do often, but there it is. News. News that not one local news station covered. Pfft.

And yes, I turned the light switch on every time I walked into the room. What a dumbass.

News from Excitement Central.

Check out our beaver!

A beaver, the first to be seen on the banks of the Bronx River, has been named Jose after the politician who cleaned up some of the mess which prevented anything but mutants from wanting to go for a swim.

200 years after idiots took out the last beavers in the area for a hat, this brave--and possibly gay--beaver decided to forgive humanity and build some riverfront property. He has no girlfriends coming to visit and will probably end up having to date one of the delightful local rats.

Provided the taxes do not drive him away, look for a happy beaver population explosion started by this one trail-blazing dam builder.

Check out our beaver!

Christmas-land, NYC.

Nativity Scene 2
Originally uploaded by kptyson.

"A Bronx tradition. The Garabedians put on a lavish Christmas display that combines traditional Christian themes with Disney, Dali and a healthy dose of hallucinogens

The first story is the Disney/Dali level including this manequin showing some leg."

I really can't add anything to kptyson's description of the Garabedian house but...wow.

Christmas-land, NYC.

Repression...recession...it's all the same thing, man.

On many autumn days, I can be seen doing two things: wearing my insanely green hoodie, and raking leaves. I am a rebellious little punk. No, really.

England has banned people from wearing hoodies and baseball caps inside of stores in case of crime. A requirement to wear unique, bold numbers on all clothing is pending.

I don't hold up well under direct sunlight, as you may know, and I have a few hooded jackets that I wear. The most socially alarming one is of course the black UV-resistant cover-all that I wear during summer. I've been followed by security in Stop & Shop because of my jacket, which becomes really amusing if you know how I look in public and hold the image of me trying to perform "terrars" with a tissue wrapped around the handle of whatever weapon I smuggled in under one mesh armpit of the cover-all while my plummeting blood pressure keeps me from damaging anything more than a few floor tiles.

So my choice in jackets is dangerous, at least in the U.K. and Boston. Closer to home, however, I'm guilty of far worse.

The NY Department of Sanitation wants everyone to put their raked leaves in brown paper bags. This would not be a problem if there was a store in all of the area that carried brown paper leaf bags. Five free bags are available at our local leaf collection center, the location of which is a mystery, even to the Department of Sanitation. Judging by the map, it appears to be floating in the East River. I don't live near the East River, but I've heard it's pretty. The only route to the fabled land of leaf collection involves the Bruckner Expressway. I'm sure it's a delightful road, however I really want to waste gas on something more useful and exciting than five paper bags.

We bought a leaf eater years ago, but we also have respiratory systems, and I think I still have some gum tree leaf dust in my upper right sinus from 1998. This year, though, I think The Puppy came up with an excellent solution to our decaying leaves. She dug us a hole over the summer which expanded to roughly the size of a shallow grave. Not having any bodies to stash this season, we're stuffing the leaves in the hole. Every now and again we turn it, just like compost on TV, and little by little our worm buddies digest us some new soil.

So, New York cannot have my leaves, because I am a hippie gas-saving, hoodie wearing punk with a puppy who can tunnel faster than Roger Bushell on a sugar high. This autumn is gonna rock!

Repression...recession...it's all the same thing, man.

Last I checked this bloody well was New York.

Scissor Sisters is a band based in New York. They're huge...in the UK. Two stations here in NY--WFUV, the only station worth listening to anymore; and WLIR, which I can no longer hear--are playing them. Twist Radio (a syndicated show on WPLJ) plays them too, once in a while, but is it enough to get them noticed? Or have they been noticed, and the owners of the stations that use our airwaves just have no idea what music is supposed to sound like in New York?

Someone who I'm sure has highly refined musical tastes by his comment that he likes everything from Mozart to Morrison (Jim, Van, Fred? I'm confused.) wrote that no one buys Scissor Sisters because they--in his expert opinion--suck. I responded that I'd take Scissor Sisters over Justin Timberlake, the Black Eyed Peas, Nickelback, and all their sound-alikes put together. I would. Have you heard the shite on Top 40 radio? Scissor Sisters are too good for them.

The program director of a Top 40 station in San Franciso says their new song, I Don't Feel Like Dancin' (#4 on the UK charts) is too reminiscent of the '70s for soccer moms to relate to. I once was asked if I was a soccer mom when I told a DJ from Mix 102.7 here in NY--during their "music to pick you up" phase--that I'd rather hear Warm Leatherette than Dance With My Father any day.

This may very well be why I have no children. Any children I am around get exposed to Tom Waits within three days. And yes, of course I'm going to now make it my business to expose everyone to Scissor Sisters as well, not only because they're a great band who actually write original music and more than one-line lyrics, but because I'm a spiteful person who wants to see I Don't Feel Like Dancin' do very well and prove Top 40 PDs on the other bloody end of the country wrong.

Scissor Sisters will be appearing on Dancing With The Stars on the 27th. I'm hoping this gets them noticed like mad, being the show is rather high in the ratings.

Last I checked this bloody well was New York.

All the things I could go on about and I just write the first thing that comes to mind.

Bay Plaza sure looks different up close. Or rather, it looks a lot less cluttered from the other side of the Mini-Golf Driving Range.

I should come clean about something...I don't go out often, and I drive even less often. I used to, but the migraines--among other things--were more annoying than the outings were fun, so I stayed at home and had fun. Saved some money that way, too.

Sadly, the A&P up the road has closed due to a "shift to a non-union distributor" and so I now need to forage for food in another location. The next closest would be Stop & Shop, the other half of that legendary merger "Stop & P."

Keep in mind I stopped going out around the same time that I got my driver's license. I find this humorous now, so you can join me in a hearty laugh at the way things work. ha...ha...hmm.

There are entire malls that have been built in the time since I first said "Ya know, you all go on without me." I no longer know the way around my own neighborhood. There's basically two roads I know really well, and this is The Bronx, there are way more than two roads to anything in this area. I should be ashamed of myself, I know. However, I'm not, I'm kinda grateful I don't have to do a lot of the main roads with the buses and the various construction trucks, because I fear vehicles that are ten times larger than me.

I had thought to myself this morning that I was a wuss compared to say, the crew of Discovery. I mean, they could potentially explode at numerous points in their trip, and all I need to do is avoid buses and sunlight. So with that in mind I set off on my journey and didn't find out until later that the bleedin' shuttle didn't even go up today. Bah.

This entirely long lead-up ends with the news that I reached the parking lot of Stop & Shop, agreed with my mum that I now know how to get there, decided we don't need anything today, and went home. I only passed Bay Plaza, which is a serious traffic jam claiming to be a mall. I'd been to Bay Plaza a few times in the late '80s, when it was first built...I think I bought a Dogloo in the Rickel's there...in 1995...I saw The Phantom Menace there in '99...crikey, I really haven't been out much.

I'm happy to report that almost everyone in The Bronx owns really pretty color cars, though. I got to see several as I drove around asking "do I turn here?" like Sandra Bullock behind the wheel of a speeding bus.

No clue what's going in the A&P building yet, they better put something good in there.

(Many '80s songs played during the writing of this babble. Yay, Psych Furs!)

All the things I could go on about and I just write the first thing that comes to mind.

I see things...I see them with my eyes.

The news reported that a terrorist Kung-Fu master was arrested about 15 minutes away from where I live. For some reason that doesn't disturb me as much as the sight I saw during the commercials.

Kool-Aid Man now wears pants.

Kool-Aid Man, the giant pitcher that busts through walls and contains fruity goodness now has to wear kakhi big-boy pants. What is the world coming to?

(Oh yeah, Stevie Wonder's As is on the radio. Yay, Stevie!)

I see things...I see them with my eyes.