Random NYC pic: old glory

Posted on August 19, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

I was sitting in front of Rockefeller Center sipping a coffee and watching the big parade of humanity stroll by. I looked up and saw this interesting juxtaposition of sunlight running up the Simon & Schuster building. The left edge of this beam runs up the building in precise alignment with the edge of the windows. It forms a perfect straight line.

Upon closer examination I realized that the U.S. flag is in the middle of the beam, as if being illuminated by a stage lighting expert instead of Old Sol.

It pays to occasionally look up from your laptop. I should do it more often.

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Fun New York Fact: The “Simon” part of the Simon & Schuster publishing empire is Richard Simon, father of singer and mope-queen Carly Simon. Carly was raised in an upper-class, wealthy New York family and spent her life doing what she loves, as opposed to having a traditional job like the rest of us. Yet, she still managed to be miserable most of the time. Way to waste it, Carly.

Spider-man: Turn Off the Funding

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

I believe that certain shows should never see the light of day, regardless of their pedigree. A few years ago, they made a musical out of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. At that time, I was exchanging emails with Hornby (long story) and he confided that he wasn’t sure how it could work since Rob, the character in the book and, theoretically, the target audience for the show, was the type of guy who wouldn’t be caught dead attending a Broadway musical.

Sure enough, the show opened and closed in short order. Did the producers learn their lesson? It seems not.

Someone came up with the terrible idea of turning Spider-man into a Broadway musical. I’m not kidding. I read Spider-man comic books as a kid and I don’t want to see Spider-man singing on a Broadway stage! Criminy! The low point of Spider-man III was that ridiculous cabaret scene. WTF was that?

I don’t know how they did it but they somehow convinced Bono and The Edge to write the music and lyrics. U2 writing Broadway musicals?! That’s ANOTHER terrible idea! Further, they got Julie Taymor to direct. She directed Disney’s The Lion King, which is a spectacular display of costumes, puppetry and staging (although the Elton John/Tim Rice score is completely forgettable). Allan Cumming agreed to play the Green Goblin. Another great talent sucked in. The end result was suppose to be Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark.

I can’t imagine how they lured all this top-shelf talent into a project that, to me, seems doomed from the start. Cash?

But this post has a happy ending. Cooler heads have prevailed and work on this train wreck has been suspended due to an “unexpected cash flow problem.” Thank Jeebus. The critics can put down their knives and I don’t have to worry about Peter Parker singing a tender love ballad to Mary Jane and then grabbing a top hat and cane and breaking into a spider-dance. Shudder.

Malaria soup

Posted on August 16, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

I am a menace to the suburbs.

I changed our bank from Citibank to Chase because Citi reduced the reward points on our credit card and I think they’re a sinking ship and it made me nervous to keep our cash there. I had a full box of blank checks that I needed to dispose of. It would have taken too long to shred them, so I did what I did with an old diary of mine; I put it in a bucket and filled it with water. The next day the diary was pulp.

I put the checks in the bucket, filled it with water and promptly forgot about it. That was three weeks ago.

This evening I was grilling chicken and zucchini kabobs and wondered what the bucket was doing in the corner of the yard. I walked over and it was filled with water, paper pulp and mosquito larva. Millions of them. So many that there was barely any wiggle room. It was malaria soup.

Did you know that standing water = mosquito breeding ground? And people say the city is wild, gross and dangerous.

On & Off the Grid

Posted on August 15, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

For those of you who are in the city—especially if you work in midtown—I recommend you drop by the Lobby Gallery of the Durst Organization at 1155 6th Avenue (@ 45th St.) for Artisté Florenza’s show, On & Off the Grid. It’s a chance to see a nice representation of her work (25 paintings!) in a spacious, well-lit venue. It’s the largest showing of her work that I’ve seen and it’s nice to see so many of her pieces gathered in one space.

The Artisté has been kind enough to act a docent for 7-Year Old Daughter and I at MoMA and when I mentioned the show to Daughter she insisted on going, so I took her to the opening. It was her first! I didn’t allow her to sample the wine—just a few grapes and some cheese. She was VERY excited and felt a special thrill because she knows the artist personally.

Artisté Florenza loves architecture. Many of the buildings she has honored, especially some in Long Island City where her studio is located, have since been demolished. Developers all over Manhattan are begging her not to paint their buildings.

That’s a little joke.

Here, Daughter is studying a painting of the Metropolitan Life Building in Madison Square Park. A long time ago, I briefly worked for a design firm run by a crazy husband/wife team whose offices were in the crown of this building (the part bathed in yellow light).

Artisté Florenza has painted a series of buildings that are reflected in the glass of an adjacent building. The paintings are effective and a bit eerie.

The show runs through September 18th.

Gifts for her

Posted on August 14, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

Next month is our 10th wedding anniversary and I have begun the arduous task of shopping for a gift for Mrs. Wife. I say arduous because Mrs. Wife is very, very difficult to shop for. You see, Mrs. Wife doesn’t give a shit about material things. It’s pretty amazing, really. She believes that true, deep happiness doesn’t come with a designer label attached to it. An expensive car, an 8,000 square foot house and shoes as far as the eye can see are relatively meaningless to her. She is one of the most psychologically healthy people I have ever met.

While that makes married life a lot easier, it makes gift-giving nearly impossible. What do you get for the person who doesn’t really need much? She’s fine with a family hug and those are free.

I turned to my old friend the internet. I knew there were traditional gifts for each specific anniversary but I, being just a guy, had no idea what they were.

According the a number of different sites, there are now “traditional” gifts and “modern” gifts. Were you aware of that? The “traditional” 10-year anniversary gift is aluminum/tin. The “modern” gift is diamond.

Oh, really?

That’s a major upgrade. The “traditional” gift of a diamond doesn’t arrive until your 60th anniversary. Here’s what I think happened: A bunch of old hens were sitting around kvetching and decided that they deserved something more than just a piece of tin for putting up with his shit for 10 years, so they rewrote the rules and bumped diamond up 50 years. Does that sound plausible? Can you imagine a man or a group of men coming up with this?

[BTW, our anniversary is 9/11. Thanks, terrorists, for severely fucking up my city and putting a crimp in our anniversary. It’s like having your anniversary on Pearl Harbor Day or Kristallnacht.]