Asbury Park Libbruhl

2006-04-08T15:41:00.000-04:00

In most cities, the blasting of an architectural symbol into a pile of mangled steel would bring people out to have one last look at the old girl, to reminisce, to remind one another of good times long gone.

In this city, the implosion of C-8 now scheduled for April 29th will bring tears of relief and cries of "HALLELUJAH!!!"

Don't miss it.

2006-04-07T09:24:00.000-04:00

After years of willful and economically driven neglect, Asbury Partners has agreed to a $6 million deal to renovate boardwalk pavilions and structures. On the developer's 'To Do' list are:

* Paramount Theatre
* Convention Hall
* Casino
* 1st Avenue Pavilion
* 3rd Avenue Pavilion
* 4th Avenue Pavilion
* 5th Avenue Pavilion (includes Howard Johnson's)
* Sunset Avenue Pavilion
* Heating plant

The total preliminary cost of the condos and other buildings being constructed by Asbury Partners is $1.2 billion. I'm a writer so have no idea what percent $6 million is of that staggering amount ... but I know it's barely a drip in one of the many buckets in the Convention Hall's concourse that catch water leaking from its roof, not to mention the tsunamis that pour through and across and underneath the abandoned Casino.

Sad to say, this won't be pretty.

2006-04-05T11:34:00.000-04:00

Devastating column on the failures of the Bush administration, perfectly represented by the lingering hole in lower Manhattan:

Maybe we should leave Ground Zero as it is. The imagination can provide a fitting memorial to those who died. "We dig a grave in the breezes," Paul Celan wrote in his Holocaust poem "Death Fugue." We can dig ours as deep as the World Trade Center once was tall. The ugly emptiness will remind us always to be wary of the grand schemes of politicians. They can't build a building. They cannot capture a mass murderer. They cannot wage war in Iraq. This is their hole. It is, by dint of failure, George Bush's presidential library. His proper legacy is a void.

2006-03-21T18:03:00.000-05:00

At my dad and stepmom Louise's home along Florida's 'Treasure Coast', nursing a sunburn, getting ready for dinner on their outside patio. Don't know what it's like back in NJ ... don't care.

Surprised my dad with my arrival on Thursday. His birthday falls on St. Patrick's Day, meaning I got to enjoy Louise's miraculous corned beef and cabbage. Also got to see my uncle Bob and aunt Gloria before their return to New York. My dad, uncle Bob and I went to the nearby Mets spring training complex and caught a game against the Marlins on Sunday. Port Saint Lucie is the fastest growing city in the country, though just as many people 'leave' as move here (EMT sirens signal their departures several times a day). People ride personal scooters along major roadways. Palm Beach women of every age sport breast implants that shine like Perdue chickens. Big-bellied men bark in Brooklyn across the country club parking lot of my dad and Louise's 'active adult community'. Sitting beside the club's pool is like loitering outside an operating theater: surgical scars and near-death tales abound.

I return to NJ tomorrow on the world's cheapest airline, a bus-with-wings outfit called USA 3000. Life's a gamble. My odds drop at 8 pm ET tomorrow night out of Fort Lauderdale Airport.

2006-03-12T12:56:00.000-05:00

Spring-like weather yesterday left me little choice but to walk about this technicolor town. Down Summerfield a bi-racial couple revealed what may be cracks in their relationship ("You a lying witch!" "You a lazy prick!") before a young man on a beaten bicycle made sure I was "OK" ("Got everything you need, my man?"). Crossed over to a comparatively Disneyesque Cookman to stop in at Ruby to say hello to Janet and her DJ fiance, across the street to catch up with Bill "Mayor of Cookman Ave" Meisch at House of Modern Living, then to congratulate Doug at Rock Paper Scissors for a blistering response he had published in this week's tri City News to a silly diatribe bashing the lack of 'cool' along Cookman that ran in the previous week's issue. Smaller the community, more vicious the in-fighting. Here's a portion of Doug's masterpiece, which is directed towards the writer of the article and TCN's publisher:

First and foremost, on behalf of COOKMAN AVENUE, I just want to extend a hearty fuck you to both of you.

I would also like to invite you to open or buy an actual store on Cookman Avenue or anywhere downtown.

Then you can spend thousands of dollars a month in rent, utilities, marketing and associated expenses to maintain that store.

And then, and only then, can you possibly have the right to an opinion about property values, retail models, city planning and social issues.

You epitomize what this city does NOT need ... people devoid of culture, conscience, clarity and collaboration and people who are ultimately spoiled little cry babies.

Brilliant. The 25-year-old writer of the offending article has a record of moaning about the lack of 'cool art scene' in AP's downtown, and last year it was Ruby's Janet who wrote a scathing retort to his whinings about the closing of a bar called Oddfellows. Basically, the kid wants an 'edgy' place to drink where he can teeter on a bar stool and watch well-scrubbed yet provocatively tattooed women pour cheap beer and pretend to care. In AP, that place is now Asbury Lanes, whose twangy, deep-fried, hot-rod-punk vibe is the brainchild of a man named Mel Stultz, the creator of Oddfellows and a true visionary. Mel recently departed the Lanes, however, leaving the fate of the young writer's favorite watering hole in danger of -- GASP -- changing yet again.

The opinions of 20-somethings ... the mere idea brings mordant chuckles.

Anyway ... with my mind and spirit whipped up by Doug's business-owner-righteousness, I pursued the promise of soothing alcohol at Red Fusion, which occupies the former Harry's Roadhouse. Logically, this brought me to Red Fusion's bar area, which has seen at least 3 or 4 businesses come and go (including Stultz's Oddfellows). Harry's was owned by the Dorrian family, the same upstanding sophisticates whose establishments have been linked to the 'Preppie Murder' of the '80s and the recent gruesome murder of a grad student on the lower East Side. Thankfully, both the bar and restaurant are now owned by a family that's operated several businesses free of tabloid sordidness.

I had a few pints of Smithwick's and a dripping mess of a burger while talking to Sean the bartender. Sean's the older of two sons working with their dad at Red Fusion, an arrangement dating back to his teenage years. Sean's commitment appears genuine, as he and his brother (who books bands) have become AP residents by moving into loft apartments next door. The bar is big and airy and the restaurant now looks like a restaurant, instead of Harry's "hodgepodge of temporary tables" motif. Won't take long for word to get out and crowds to return, especially the sun-burned, lookin-to-get-laid hordes of summer.

When I left the bar it was dark and chilly. Hurried down quiet Cookman, past the mangled streetscape leading to the beach, along the see-sawed sidewalks of Grand Avenue, and over the Sunset Lake footbridge where a half-moon glowed on the necks of silent Canada geese. Only in Asbury Park .....

2006-03-12T12:25:00.000-05:00

Molly Ivins is a goddess:

Every Democrat I talk to is appalled at the sheer gutlessness and spinelessness of the Democratic performance. The party is still cringing at the thought of being called, ooh-ooh, “unpatriotic” by a bunch of rightwingers.

Take “unpatriotic” and shove it. How dare they do this to our country? “Unpatriotic”? These people have ruined the American military! Not to mention the economy, the middle class, and our reputation in the world. Everything they touch turns to dirt, including Medicare prescription drugs and hurricane relief.

2006-03-02T11:35:00.000-05:00

While I was away tending to family business in Tennessee, another Asbury Park landmark passed away. The Atlantic and Belmont hotels, however, died of natural causes. Fire.

Funny thing ... just before leaving for Tennessee, I took my daily walk down the boardwalk and instead of walking through the Casino into Ocean Grove, made a right at the carousel building. Wandered down past the site of the Palace, my feet sinking in mud where skee-ball games and dark rides and blinking bits of money-plundering machinery once overcame the senses of generations of Jersey Shore parents and kids. Cookman Ave. has been closed for many months now east of Grand Ave., as the developers have carte blanche to alter AP's road grid to better suit their condo cocoons. I crossed what used to be the street that beheld the twin grinning visages of the overhyped 'Tillie' and walked west on Asbury Ave. To my surprise, every building was empty and boarded up, all the way to Bond Ave. The first two buildings were the Atlantic and Belmont hotels. I made a note to return with my camera to capture the silent misery of the century-old structures. Too late.

UPDATE: Cops have arrested a 14-year-old boy and charged him with arson.

2006-03-02T11:20:00.000-05:00

Smartest words I've read on why we should impeach the Miserable Failure:

We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country's good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world's evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation's wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal -- known to be armed and shown to be dangerous.

Spoken by Harper's editor Lewis H. Lapham, who recently wrote "The Case for Impeachment: Why We Can No Longer Afford George W. Bush." Lapham was inspired to write it after reading a report compiled by the House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff, and commissioned by Rep. John Conyers Jr. on Michigan.

Asked why his panel would undertake an effort doomed to be dismissed as partisan sniping, Rep. Conyers responded with true patriotism: "To take away the excuse that we didn't know. So that two or four or ten years from now, if somebody should ask, 'Where were you, Conyers, and where was the United States Congress?' when the Bush Administration declared the Constitution inoperative and revoked the license of parliamentary government, none of the company now present can plead ignorance or temporary insanity, can say that 'somehow it escaped our notice' that the President was setting himself up as a supreme leader exempt from the rule of law."

Brilliant.

2006-02-19T09:27:00.000-05:00

I hope I'm still in Asbury Park on the glorious day that C-8 is imploded. Seems that day is coming soon.

2006-01-11T11:00:00.000-05:00

The older I get, the less I know.

But I do know this: A life well-lived must be

Lived.

I'm off to Australia. Be back in February.

2006-01-08T08:11:00.000-05:00

Via Tom Tomorrow, one of those revelations that should send every single American into indignant apoplexy:

A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor. Such armor has been available since 2003, but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.

Is there a greater sin than sending young men and women into battle without proper equipment? Can a country be allowed to shirk such responsibility? Since our timid press won't touch it and Fox News will create a straw man 'crisis' to draw attention from it, Americans will snuggle into their oversized couches for their oversized asses and let nacho cheese drizzle their chins in front of flat screen TVs and let the words of our piece-of-shit president mollify their snuffed consciences. Meanwhile, more soldiers will die, war supporters will guzzle gas in their SUVs, more soldiers will die, the right wing media will prop up the demonic Rumsfeld and Cheney and Rice, more soldiers will die, war supporters will kneel before their bonus checks and cheer our president's tax cut proposals, more soldiers will die ...

2006-01-06T10:13:00.000-05:00

Thanks to MB Wilson for sending me a link to an article in Salon about the pending demoliton of the old Upstage on Cookman Avenue. Not much new information, but the pictures -- especially those taken during the riots that occurred on the other side of Main Street from the Upstage -- capture a time intentionally glossed over by those espousing the pending return of AP's 'glory days'. 'Those', of course, being the waterfront developers with $$$ in their eyes.

Among several letters I've had published in the triCity News (their web site is useless) was one detailing the lost tourism potential of the Upstage. This was when the fate of the Stone Pony was the cause of much hand-wringing among out-of-town boomers lulled from their couches for a moment or two to consider the loss of a building they mostly associated with the history of Bruce Springsteen. The Pony has been much more than that, of course, but today is being managed into irrelevance by its current owners, those same waterfront developers who only want a hefty ROI on their years of investment. As do the owners of the Upstage property, where Springsteen, Southside, Steve Van Zandt, Danny Federici, Garry Tallent, Vini Lopez and others turned a thin, dark room into an incubation chamber for a sound that defined a place, a time, a mindset. By next year it will be condos. Condos! Farewell, Asbury Park ...

Speaking of mindsets ... Marah is playing the Pony next Friday but you wouldn't know it -- I walked by yesterday and saw no mention on the marquee, no poster, and found barely a mention on the Pony web site. Granted Marah has yet to break big, but they've got a strong Springsteen connection and a loyal Philly following, two marketing facts I guarantee no one within the Pony organization understands. As the title of Marah's latest release puts it, "If you didn't laugh, you'd cry."

2006-01-05T08:11:00.000-05:00

A woman has been charged with the New Year's Eve robbery and murder of the man on 7th Avenue, whose name was Saahron Jones, whose crime scene I came upon on New Year's Day.

2006-01-02T14:55:00.000-05:00

Asbury Park was made to be walked. Not just along the ocean, where broad boardwalks have lured decades of visitors to rides, arcades, sweet shops and souvenir huts, some of which are slowly -- s l o w l y -- returning. Every street in AP is girded by sidewalks, many wrenched and blistered by the molten bulk of shade trees that represent a time when city fathers could afford to be concerned with simple aesthetics. Still, every corner of town is accessible.

Accessibility, of course, does not equal desirability. AP offers pedestrians many terrains: Avenues of giant homes that shine and shame, side by side. Sidestreets battered by years of neglect and haunted by shuttered structures and shadowy characters. Could-be-bustling commercial thoroughfares like Cookman Avenue that suffer from the pot-luck business hours of too many boutiques. Hard-scrabble parks laid out long ago by urban planners influenced by European utopians. Even a footbridge over Sunset Lake, where sea gulls and terns stand their ground along rails streaked white with droppings.

Yesterday, the streets of Asbury Park delivered something new. Walking back from the Main Street convenience store where I buy the Sunday NY Times I came upon a side street along 7th Avenue adorned with yellow police tape. No cops, no onlookers, just police tape running up and down the block. Turns out a man was shot to death there at approximately 10 pm New Year's Eve. Just so happens I left my home at that time and walked along 8th Avenue toward the ocean -- in the opposite direction of the shooting -- on my way to the Stone Pony on New Year's Eve.

Police are investigating the shooting. Was it planned? Random? Did I miss walking into the shooter by two minutes? One minute? A few seconds? Could I have been Asbury Park's last homicide victim of 2005?

Happy new year.

2005-12-19T14:47:00.000-05:00

Season's greetings from Asbury Park:

Candy cane-clad street scenes worthy of a painting by Norman Rockwell. Festive, multicolored lights, punctuated by red and green illuminated stars stretching as far as the eye can see.

These are Cookman Avenue and Main Street in Asbury Park at Christmastime in the late 1940s.

Seventy-odd years into its existence, Asbury is a thriving town. World War II is over and Shore area residents, along with Americans everywhere, are optimistic.

New homes and cars, not made during the war years, are popping up everywhere. Innovative American manufacturers have switched from war to peacetime production. Store shelves spill over with unrationed consumer goods.

Asbury Park could be any fair-sized American city, except for what makes it special; the wide, white sandy beach and boardwalk, where everything is strangely hushed this time of year. The hotels — Kingsley Arms and the Berkeley-Carteret — are quiet. On deserted Wesley Lake, the swan boats have gone to wherever wooden swan boats go in the winter. Along the boardwalk, the Casino and Convention Hall, the Natatorium and Sodamat, Kohr's Frozen Custard and the Planter's Peanut Store, all are shuttered now. It's like a city at the end of the world.

Which, in fact, it is, with that vast, sparkling otherworld of water bordering its east, stretching off to the far horizon. But move inland a couple of blocks, past the empty Palace Amusements and the Caramel Shoppe, and carols begin to fill the air.

The Mayfair and St. James, two of Asbury's six operating theaters, lavishly advertise their "gala" holiday attractions. Snow begins to fall around Bill Green's Plantation Room. Approaching Freid-Neissen's and Dainty Apparel, the Coast Cities Coaches "Asbury Park, Deal and Grand Avenue" bus goes whining past, swaying as it turns down that church-lined boulevard, where houses of worship fill with poinsettias and, on Sundays, stylish gatherings.

Shoppers love Tepper's, and Steinbach's, with its holiday windows (and Santa Claus upstairs!). Issuing forth from the glass-block-fronted Salvation Army building next to the Press on Mattison Avenue, soldiers of Christ sit patiently in store fronts with their kettles and bells, collecting money for the poor, even as snow settles on their heads and shoulders.

Steam engines still chug into the old Asbury Train Station, with their attendant noise and smoke, and from the magnificent marble Post Office, overburdened mailmen, working 11-hour shifts and six day weeks, trudge out into the falling snow, while inside, besieged clerks process piles of parcels and cards.

Busiest of all are the five-and-dime cent stores. Four in a row on Cookman Avenue; H.L. Green's, Kresge's, J.J. Newberry's, and, the granddaddy of them all, Woolworth's. First the candy — then the toy counter greet you as you walk into Woolworth's. Off to the left is the meeting-place lunch counter.

Asbury Park in the late 1940s is rich in diversity. Anyone experiencing it will have their own personal reminiscences. Even so, how good to live again in memory these bygone Merry Christmases. How hopeful to feel that it will be that way again, in a Happy New Year!

2005-10-27T13:31:00.000-04:00

Here's something you can't say every day: Bruce Springsteen came to my workplace today.

2005-10-15T10:29:00.000-04:00

Sun shining brightly this Saturday morning. A minor observance? Not in my neighborhood. Came home last night to road barriers along every local street. Branches down everywhere. Water lapping at the front door of my building on Deal Lake Drive. Stood just outside the lobby door at 10:00 last night with Superintendent Bill, who'd been up since 3:00 am keeping the rising water from turning the lobby into a duck pond. Half dozen cars sat submerged on Deal Lake Drive, but it was a peaceful scene. The only traffic a family of geese exploring the expanded lakefront. Bill said some ducks had paddled up to the door earlier in the day. His girlfriend Elaine said it was "cute." Water has receded this morning, at least in front of our buidling. A good part of Deal Lake Drive is still underwater. Took a picture but can't post from home. Will do so on Monday.

Meanwhile, my building made the papers, only this time not because of mobsters living within. This article includes an insane quote from a resident who was reminded of Hurricane Katrina (what an idiot), and this one discusses flooding throughout NJ.

An article in yesterday's Star-Ledger included a gallery of photos taken in Loch Arbour -- which is on the other side of Deal Lake -- and Asbury Park. Sitting in my office in a midtown Manhattan high-rise after an insane workday (check back here for a description of how Sirius has paid me to write double entendres about male orgasms for 2 weeks now), I was able to see photos of people being evacuated by row boats in Loch Arbour and Deal Lake Drive innundated by its namesake. Nervous breakdown, anyone?

2005-10-07T11:28:00.000-04:00

Specific Threat term of the day in NYC, a pair of words rendered meaningless in an age of ghosts and remembered horror. On a week when an odd fog has enveloped most of the area, sticky as drying blood, the airwaves and tabloids are pushing another sort of fog -- a fog of fear. What does one do with an unspecific "specific threat"? Stay home? I took my train this morning to Penn Station and passed the same heavily armed soldiers I see every day. Sidewalks are full of the same distracted faces and buses and taxis and dirty white vans creeping along soiled midtown avenues and streets. Yes, cops are checking more bags on the subway, but inconvenience was long ago accepted as a trade-off for even the most unsatisfying sense of security. Terrorist cowards with deranged fantasies planted like corpses in their souls strap on backpacks and watch pretty girls walk by and breathe in the fear. If only they had the courage to announce themselves. I guarantee they'd be torn to bits by even the most passive of New Yawkas, who'd simply go about their business after disposing of such human trash.

UPDATE: What are we to fear? Bubbling green liquid, apparently, right in Penn Station ...

2005-09-30T09:04:00.000-04:00

Take a look at the book nitwit Karen Hughes is showing to Turkish children, Encyclopedia of the Presidents and Their Times. On its cover: George Washington, John Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln ... George W. Bush.

If that's not enough to make you spit coffee across your desk (or out your nose) I don't know what the hell is.

Can't necessarily pin this on the Bush myth-making/truth-shattering machine. It's a children's book that could intentionally feature the sitting president with each new edition. Even if that's the case, consider the terrifying depths to which this nation has sunk. Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy .... Bush. May God have mercy on us all.

2005-09-28T16:52:00.000-04:00

Read an enthralling book by Richard Ellis a few years back called Search for the Giant Squid, making today's published photos of a live 25-footer even more amazing.

2005-09-28T11:02:00.000-04:00

Woo-Hoo! C-8 will DIE.

2005-09-26T12:25:00.000-04:00

The modern news cycle doesn't tolerate lingering, much less revisiting. But stories out of New Orleans deserve outlets, the longer the better. Here's an excerpt from one of many chilling narratives, this one from a New Orleans cops who spent over a week at the calamitous Convention Center:

There were guys running through the crowd shooting at us and shooting at the crowd. And they would disappear back in the Convention Center. There wasn't much we could do. How about shooting into a crowd of 20,000 people to kill one person? At one point, there's a guy in a stolen Jeep Liberty who's shooting at us with an M16. It jammed on him--he didn't know what he was doing--and we were able to persuade him out of the vehicle the way I normally persuade people out of vehicles, and we were able to subdue him. We weren't technically the most polite in subduing him. We did this in front of 20,000 detainees. I call them detainees because the city sent them to a place where they could be detained, and that's all that happened, they were inconvenienced and detained. Anyway, we do this in front of the crowd and you hear this fucking roar from the crowd, this fucking standing ovation. We handed him over to the feds--who, by the way, are very good at making ID cards, and have really pretty uniforms.

2005-09-23T09:07:00.000-04:00

Tom Waits at a Hurricane Katrina benefit at Radio City Music Hall the other night: "I'm telling you right now, I wish New Orleans was dry and Washington was under water."

2005-09-23T09:04:00.000-04:00

EJ Dionne finds it necessary to defend his use of the word 'stupid' to describe Bush's fiscal policies, though I think 'criminal's is a more apt term:

Which brings us back to that word "stupid." My dictionary tells me it means not only "lacking in ordinary intelligence" but also "dazed" and "stupefied." The crowd running our government is dazed and stupefied by a theory that sees throwing ever-larger sums to the wealthy in the form of tax cuts as so good, right and important that all the ordinary rules of finance and economics can be thrown out the window. If it was already stupid to pursue more tax cuts once the country decided to wage a large war on terrorism, it is supremely stupid to stay on the same course now that Katrina has added to our fiscal burdens and Rita, God help us, threatens to add more.

Or maybe it's the rest of us who should be called stupid if we keep taking these guys at their word. Are we all so dazed that we'll keep believing them even after a hurricane has blown away their alibis?

2005-09-20T08:41:00.000-04:00

President Chimp has pimped his appearance at Ground Zero for 4 years now. Dennis Hamill in today's NY Daily News calls his 'bullhorn moment' what is is: Pure bullshit.

I'm amazed that anyone is amazed that it took George W. Bush three days to show up in New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

That's exactly how long it took him to show up at Ground Zero after 9/11.

So it mystifies me that the pundits and the cable gasbags keep telling us that George W. Bush missed his "bullhorn moment" in New Orleans.

No, he didn't.

Because his bullhorn moment in New York City was just as late and just as disgraceful as his fumbling handling of the Katrina carnage.

I wish I had a bullhorn to shout just how tired I am of hearing about how wonderful George W. Bush's "bullhorn moment" was.

It will go down as one of the worst moments in American history because when he stood on the smoldering ruins amid the dust of the dead it was through that bullhorn that Bush's Big Lie was first shouted to the world that the people who knocked down those buildings would soon be hearing from us.

It might have been a fairly good, better-late-than-never moment if all Bush had done was use that bullhorn to launch a war on Al Qaeda. It might have escalated into a great piece of historical stagecraft if we'd just gone into Afghanistan and stayed the course on a noble quest to kill Osama Bin Laden and all his Al Qaeda cowards who murdered our people.

But the words that echoed through Bush's bullhorn into the smoldering 16 acres of lower Manhattan, the words that resounded across the grieving outer boroughs and the sorrowful suburbs and the stunned globe, were but an orchestrated setup for a grander diabolical scheme.

Because we fast gave up the hunt for Bin Laden for a bait-and-switch war in Iraq that had nothing to do with the rubble upon which Bush stood at Ground Zero shouting bull through his bullhorn.

Bush has now declared that half-a-buck stops on his desk for Katrina.

But he doesn't ever mention that Osama Bin Laden is still out there roaming free and plotting more American murders. That stops on his desk, too.

Historians will refocus that bullhorn moment as the point of origin to exploit a terrible attack on America for a preconceived war in Iraq that had nothing to do with our dead.

Historians also will remember that directly after the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 2001, killing 2,749, our fearless leader, with all that Texas Air Guard combat training, hopped aboard Air Force One and lammed to, um, Omaha.

Talk about heroic.

And as real heroes dug in the rubble for signs of life, shortening their own lives in the toxic air, Bush hid out. Then three days later, when the coast was clear, he arrived to shoot a Karl Rove-inspired reelection commercial and to launch a war in Iraq.

The invasion of Baghdad started in New York in that "bullhorn moment" three days after Sept. 11.

That final battle of the war in Iraq was lost in New Orleans when Bush showed up three days after Katrina.

As bodies floated down the street, and tens of thousands were stranded without food, water and medical supplies in the convention center, the white flag in the war in Iraq was waved when Bush told Federal Emergency Management Agency boss Michael Brown, an incompetent crony, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Now, with Bush's approval rating at 40%, with more than 50% disapproving of his handling of Iraq, the Security Moms and NASCAR Dads for Bush are silent. Even the Swift Boat Vets can't save Bush from drowning in his own ineptitude.

For what the floods of Katrina revealed was just how out of his depth George W. Bush is as presidential stock.

I often ask successful conservative businessmen friends if they would let George W. Bush run their private businesses. They almost always smile and admit they wouldn't. And yet they voted for him torun the most powerful nation on the planet.

It would be funny except that almost 1,900 Americans troops have been killed to create an Islamic state that spirals toward a possible civil war in Iraq since Bush's wonderful "bullhorn moment."

2005-09-15T10:21:00.000-04:00

Mind-numbing recap of the complete breakdown of humanity at the New Orleans Convention Center. Bush has been appropriately criticized for his poor response (though expecting more from our our president seems as futile as screaming for a refund after plunking quarters into a soda machine clearly labeled 'OUT OF ORDER') but the predators who took advantage of stricken, vulnerable evacuees need to be rooted out of our society. Immediately, and without mercy.

2005-09-09T11:56:00.000-04:00

When I first started poking around Asbury Park in 1998 while living in a garage apartment in Avon, locals would regularly refer to a spooky 'Newark Mafia' calling the shots and wielding true power. It seemed more urban legend than an actual entity, but many FBI stings later, I was proven wrong. The shadowy Oz behind AP's curtain, Phiip Konvitz, just died. And with him goes 50 years of unvarnished AP history.

2005-09-08T09:49:00.000-04:00

I grew up in the softest place on earth: The American Suburbs, where resolve in the face of hardship isn't a requirement. It's a miracle.

So it's with sad disgust hearing people who grew up in identically cushy environs finding amusement in the plight of the poor people victimized by Hurricane Katrina. Like our president -- a weak-minded man made soft by a lifetime of entitlement (and in Bush's case, failure) -- they see images on television and sink into a delusion that they somehow would have performed better under such horrific conditions.

My opinion? They would have drowned in tears of self-pity long before flood waters. Can't you just see them? Stomping puddles like petulant children, hollering "This can't be happening to ME!" with hands on hips, bellowing to everyone their sorry plight, confusing discomfort with the deadly consequence of a natural disaster and an uncaring government. The poor of New Orleans experienced suffering and loss unimaginable to timid suburbanites. I couldn't begin to judge their actions.

Let's be clear: Lowlifes stealing TVs or shooting at rescuers have no soul. But mothers and fathers taking rotting food for their families, friends, pets and/or strangers are acting on survival instinct. An instinct long ago lost and unknown to those voluntarily cuccooned in the plushness of suburbia.

Read this and tell me you could survive.

2005-09-07T09:57:00.000-04:00

Amid the heroes on the ground in New Orleans, a mushroom cloud of shame rains upon our nation's leadership. I see little point anymore in raging against the repeated failures of the Bush administration -- after all, the citizens of the United States have grown seemingly inured to a president proven born to fail. Then again, Americans seem to have accepted the same institutional racism that runs through American domestic and foreign policy that exists at their dinner tables and neighborhood bars.

Dozens of brilliant essays and editorials (including another perfect Bob Herbert column) have captured the fall of our once great nation, but WAPO's Harold Meyerson sums up our president's philosophical mantra in two terrible words -- SHIT HAPPENS:

We're not number one. We're not even close.

By which measures, precisely, do we lead the world? Caring for our countrymen? You jest. A first-class physical infrastructure? Tell that to New Orleans. Throwing so much money at the rich that we've got nothing left over to promote the general welfare? Now you're talking.

<...snip...>

As a matter of social policy, the catastrophic lack of response in New Orleans is exceptional only in its scale and immediacy. When it comes to caring for our fellow countrymen, we all know that America has never ranked very high. We are, of course, the only democracy in the developed world that doesn't offer health care to its citizens as a matter of right. We rank 34th among nations in infant mortality rates, behind such rival superpowers as Cyprus, Andorra and Brunei.

But these are chronic conditions, and even many of us who argue for universal health coverage have grown inured to that distinctly American indifference to the common good, to our radical lack of solidarity with our fellow citizens. Besides, the poor generally have the decency to die discreetly, and discretely -- not conspicuously, not in droves. Come rain or come shine, we leave millions of beleaguered Americans to fend for themselves on a daily basis. It's just a lot more noticeable in a horrific rain, and when the ordinary lack of access to medical care is augmented by an extraordinary lack of access to emergency services.

<...snip...>

Even now, with bedraggled rescuers pulling decomposed bodies from the muck of New Orleans, Bill Frist, the moral cretin who runs the U.S. Senate, wanted its first order of business this week to be the permanent repeal of the estate tax, until the public outcry persuaded him to change course. The Republicans profess belief in trickle-down, but what they've given us is the Flood.

The world looks on in stunned amazement, unable to understand how a once great nation has grown so indifferent not just to its poor and its blacks but even to the most rudimentary self-preservation. Some of it is institutional racism, but the primary culprit is the economic libertarianism that the president still espouses whenever he sells his Social Security snake oil. It's that libertarianism, more than anything else, that has transformed a great city into an immense morgue.

But, hey -- stuff happens.

2005-08-15T08:57:00.000-04:00

While drinking myself to oblivion Friday night at Mix in Long Branch, a dull woman whose name I've happily forgotten challenged my "morals" for believing the war in Iraq was wrong. My memory is blank ... I have no idea how I responded, or even if I responded. If I had, I wish I'd done so with the panache of the Times' Frank Rich:

Such political imperatives are rapidly bringing about the war's end. That's inevitable for a war of choice, not necessity, that was conceived in politics from the start. Iraq was a Bush administration idée fixe before there was a 9/11. Within hours of that horrible trauma, according to Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies," Mr. Rumsfeld was proposing Iraq as a battlefield, not because the enemy that attacked America was there, but because it offered "better targets" than the shadowy terrorist redoubts of Afghanistan. It was easier to take out Saddam - and burnish Mr. Bush's credentials as a slam-dunk "war president," suitable for a "Top Gun" victory jig - than to shut down Al Qaeda and smoke out its leader "dead or alive."

But just as politics are a bad motive for choosing a war, so they can be a doomed engine for running a war. In an interview with Tim Russert early last year, Mr. Bush said, "The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me, as I look back, was it was a political war," adding that the "essential" lesson he learned from Vietnam was to not have "politicians making military decisions." But by then Mr. Bush had disastrously ignored that very lesson; he had let Mr. Rumsfeld publicly rebuke the Army's chief of staff, Eric Shinseki, after the general dared tell the truth: that several hundred thousand troops would be required to secure Iraq. To this day it's our failure to provide that security that has turned the country into the terrorist haven it hadn't been before 9/11 - "the central front in the war on terror," as Mr. Bush keeps reminding us, as if that might make us forget he's the one who recklessly created it.

2005-08-11T13:45:00.000-04:00

The Pyrrhic odyssey of one of DC's sleaziest wingnuts, Robert Novak.

2005-08-11T08:43:00.000-04:00

The rise of the Kansas Taliban: As teachers will now be given greater leeway to 'scrutinize' Darwinism in Kansas, I heard a man say on NPR this morning that when history looks back, Kansas will be seen as having been on the "cutting edge" of science by sanctioning the teaching of 'intelligent design'.

On a related note: One in three Nigerian women are beaten by their male partners. Maybe Kansas can cement its "cutting edge" status with the sanctioning of another antiquated and socially discarded practice. After all, you can't prove that wives and husbands are equal, right? It's just a theory. The bible teaches woman was created from man ... doesn't that give him the right to knock her on her ass every now and then?

2005-08-10T10:43:00.000-04:00

Good news for us coffee junkies ...

2005-08-09T08:32:00.000-04:00

Some days, I wish I were a cat. Actually ... most days.

[For those who don't know: This is Frodo, who introduced himself to me on Halloween, 2003 by jumping into my lap on 8th Avenue in AP. This photo was taken shortly afterwards. His mama points out that he's significantly pudgier now.]

2005-08-08T11:21:00.000-04:00

Another distressing sign o' the times ...

Cluster of TV news cameras are outside the swinging doors of my building right now. Reality show flavor of the hour? Pop starlet? Local politician? No. TV reporters and cameras are focused on ordinary looking men and women. Odd. A large, cheaply made sign, the kind you'd see in a business presentation, leans against a large planter. Across the top it reads "Urban Dispersion Program".

{sigh}

They're conducting one of the first field studies on urban air flow. In case (or is it "When"?) maniacs unleash chemical or biological weapons in the streets of NYC.

I really can't wait to get back to Australia ...

2005-08-08T09:56:00.000-04:00

Walking past the bodegas lining 7th Avenue is a daily bombardment of celebrity worship. Aniston, Jolie, Pitt, Simpson ... airbrushed faces beckoning from glossy covers like waxed fruit in plastic bowls. Who gives a fuck about the love lives of these people? Literally: WHO gives a fuck? You? Is it you? It ain't me.

Contrast their dinky dramas with the plight of soldiers returning from Iraq, as profiled by American Patriot Bob Herbert:

(Specialist Craig Peter Olander Jr.) is filled with guilt. Several of his friends have been killed, and he thinks he could have done something to save the gunner who died. "I felt it may have been my fault that it happened," he said. "Maybe I could have handled the situation differently."

He is also filled with turbulent emotions related to the insurgents that he killed. "I had no hesitation about pulling the trigger," he said. "But the aftermath is what hurt. Before I joined the military, I valued life very much, so taking it was hard. It's confusing trying to figure it out, you know, because sometimes I feel rage toward them.

"But then it becomes a very religious thing, because I wonder, you know, since I've taken these lives, if I'm going to be accepted into heaven. You know, have I done the right thing?"

A question never pondered by our self-righteous "leaders" or, apparently, the great masses ingesting celebrity mags like Skittles. May Specialist Olander live a long life and go to his grave a peaceful man. He pursued his Army career with the right intentions. He can't be held responsible for America's malice -- though he'll suffer the rest of his life because of it.

UPDATE: Steve Hart over at The Opinion Mill also references Mr. Herbert's column today. Steve writes a real blog ... puts my lazy ass to shame.

2005-07-31T17:08:00.000-04:00

I don't normally fire up the Mac while still salty from the beach but just experienced something that needs to be shared.

It was a glorious day on the 7th Avenue beach. Insomnia isn't so bad when you live near the ocean. Just get up and go to the beach, which I did after getting an egg and cheese on a hard roll from Frank's and a Sunday NY Times from Welsh Farms. Water was cold and clean and my only company were sea birds waiting for relics of my breakfast. Sun crossed the sky, bi-planes trailed ads, people of all shapes, sizes and colors flashed vast areas of flesh ... typical Jersey shore day.

Before leaving, I took a walk along the beach to the crumbling Casino, then headed back north along the boardwalk. Bought 2 t-shirts for AP-supporting-friends at a new beach shop adjacent to Howard Johnson's. After passing through the cool cave of the Convention Hall I spied 3 curly haired white kids, 16 or 17, walking about 20 feet ahead of me, reeking of privelege: Surf shop jams, hippy doo-dads tied around their necks and wrists, a swagger absorbed through afternoons with MTV on wide-screen home theaters. There was a time when soft kids like this would never be seen striding along the Asbury Park boardwalk, but the suburbanites have discovered AP, and brought with them their lazy ignorance.

Looking toward the ocean I noticed a pair of men sitting at the base of the 7th Avenue beach jetty. They were on the sand with their arms around the other's shoulders. Not an unusual sight in Asbury Park. Didn't think twice about it until I thought I heard a voice shout, "Homo." I now watched the 3 dullards ahead of me closely. They were all looking back at the men near the jetty, vibrating with glee, broad smiles of comraderie across their faces. The smallest of them lagged behind a few steps, cupped his hands before his mouth, and yelled, "QUEERS!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I said it before I could even think it.

For a half-second they all looked at me, then immediately lost their collective swaggers, put their heads down, and marched forward. Except for one, who looked back at me.

"YOU GOT A PROBLEM?!" Again, I wasn't thinking, just releasing anger. I'm no goon but my fury had only one outlet -- my voice. The coward lowered his head and kept up with his friends, who were all shooting quick looks back at me, like disciplined dogs daring to peek at their wild-eyed master.

"YOU'RE IN THE WRONG FUCKING TOWN!" This last one I did think about. Asbury Park is changing, but the day behavior like that is accepted by the people who live here -- straight, gay, white, black -- we should organize a 21st century riot and rain ruin on "progress." The shamed twerps continued up the boardwalk as I turned and walked down 7th Avenue, disgusted but not suprised.

2005-07-25T10:15:00.000-04:00

The view from my chair on the 7th Avenue beach yesterday ....

As I only have to walk 2 blocks to get to this spot, here's a pretty good peek at the habits of the marauding 'bennies' who disrupt the serenity of such scenes ...

2005-07-21T10:32:00.000-04:00

Nick Hornby interviews Springsteen in the Observer. Fans of Britpop -- like myself and certain other people I know -- will love this:

NH: What have you been listening to the past couple of years?

BS: I listen to all kinds of things, you know? Take your choice. [He reaches into a bag and pulls out a whole heap of home-made CDs.] I've made all this music for walking ... A lot of this is a little acoustic-oriented but I hear everything. I hear all the Britpop stuff, the Stone Roses and Oasis, and I go on to Suede and Pulp. I'm generally interested in almost everything.

Speaking of Suede ... I immerse myself in The Tears' new CD at least twice a day. The reunited Brett Anderson & Bernard Butler, Suede's long-separated super geniuses, still create a gorgeous sound. Here Come the Tears hasn't been released in the US -- I found it in the UK section of the Times Square Virgin Records store. Get it ...

2005-07-19T12:31:00.000-04:00

Dave Grohl talks about Cobain in a frank RS interview:

Kurt was so many different things. He was funny or shy or this outgoing, larger-than-life persona. He could be sweet or he could be fucking wicked. He could be intimidating. I thought I was a decent drummer, but I didn't know if I was good enough to be doing this thing, this big deal. I didn't imagine myself a world-class drummer. I was the same fucking drummer that was in Scream, or playing on my bed. All the pressure....

I can't think of one show that I ever played with that band where we walked offstage and said, "That was great." Never one. Only two times did I get any reassurance from Kurt. Once when I joined the band, in 1990, we were drunk at some disco in England, and Kurt came up and said, "I'm so glad you're in this band. I'm so glad you're down-to-earth." I was like, "Wow!" The next time was in late '93 or early '94 when I came home and turned on my message machine and had a message from Kurt that said, "Y'know, I was just sitting here listening to In Utero, and your drumming is so awesome. You did such a great job!" I was like, "Wow!" Those two things were spread out by about four years [laughs].

2005-07-18T16:45:00.000-04:00

Stepping onto 49th Street today is like slipping into a pot of simmering pudding. Breeze down Broadway feels like a steam cleaner. Heat leaps from the sidewalk, subway tiles, mailboxes, street vendors, police barracades, scaffolding, not to mention tropically dressed homo sapiens.

Comfort comes from knowing President Pinocchio is facing his own searing heat, courtesy of 'Gestapo', his puppeteer ....

2005-07-15T08:17:00.000-04:00

A drug raid Wednesday night netted 725 bags of heroin with a street value of $16,000 two blocks from my house. Bet a whole bunch of rich white kids from Middletown will read that and get, like, really bummed out and shit ...

UPDATE: More drug raids over the weekend.

2005-07-14T16:58:00.000-04:00

The gruesome -- and hilarious -- death of an office worker.

Can you relate?

2005-07-13T13:49:00.000-04:00

Smoking is a great equalizer, and not just because of its non-discriminatory poisoning of the addicted. Corporate America corrals smokers into cordoned areas, exposed to the elements, helpless, adrift. Returning from lunch today I watched '80s pop star Rick Springfield hustle to a designated smoking area in front of my building and frantically pat himself down in search of his cigarettes. I walked into my building before he found them, but am sure he'd lit one up before I hit the elevators.

2005-07-13T10:30:00.000-04:00

Too many villians, not enough heroes. Our worst-ever (yes, worst ever) president is about to unleash his moronic wrath on generations of Americans through the nomination of a right-wing radical to the Supreme Court. His right-hand henchman remains unpunished -- and will be presumably rewarded, as do all Bush administration failures and scoundrels -- for his now publicly acknowledged role in the 'outing' of a CIA operative.

So it's a good day to turn our national attention to the brave souls sitting on a launching pad in Florida, awaiting liftoff this afternoon. They give us hope. And courage. Unlike the incompetent, gutless liars steering our great nation into oblivion.

UPDATE: Today's launch has been scrubbed.

2005-07-12T08:59:00.000-04:00

Brilliant:

President Bush's misadventures with the dictionary are legendary, and they're the gift that keeps on giving. Perhaps my favorite classic came while Bush was trying to sell his Social Security program in Upstate New York, and he uttered this timeless sentence: "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

[...snip...]

George W., however, makes his father sound like Seneca. He hasn't received the same kind of ribbing from other world leaders, but maybe they're afraid they might provoke an invasion or something.

2005-07-05T10:58:00.000-04:00

A note to those, like me, who view their lives as existing in a tightly sealed environment, solitary and disconnected.

Take the time to visit family. You'll get more love in return than you ever imagined ... or think you deserve.

Thanks Dad & Louise. Aradhna and I had a wonderful time.

2005-06-29T12:30:00.000-04:00

Though I wouldn't hire George W. Bush to paint my house -- 'Bush' and 'honest day's work' are as incongruous as 'compassionate' and 'conservative' -- he continues to whitewash his lust to invade Iraq with the blood of those murdered on September 11, 2001. A day when not a single American, besides Looney Dick Cheney and Rambo Rumsfeld, thought of Saddam Hussein or Iraq. A day when humankind's evil brought Americans closer, brought the WORLD closer, until this administration decided to exploit tragedy for the sake of policy. Bush wanted Saddam out -- can even the most partisan Republican argue against that? Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Arabian? No WMDs? Saddam was a shrunken man living in a hole, working on a novel? No worries ... just invoke 9/11, and watch the poll numbers rise.

Yesterday's speech pimped the dead. Today's analysis in the media attempts to rationalize the diabolical. Like this:

Sept. 11 remains Bush's most reliable argument with the public when he faces political headwinds; it gave him the highest-rated moments of his presidency and helped sustain him through a difficult reelection campaign. Surprisingly, given how effectively he has used the collective emotion of that day in the past, Sept. 11 has been largely missing in the administration's discussions of Iraq this year.

His critics long have accused Bush of falsely drawing a connection between Iraq and Sept. 11 as a way to justify the original decision to launch the war in Iraq. That was not the point Bush made last night. Instead it was that Iraq has now become such a magnet for foreign terrorists that winning the current battle there is every bit as critical as was the fight to depose Saddam Hussein.

So after creating a breeding ground for terrorists in Saddam's formerly sovereign country, we must "win the current battle" there so as to eliminate terrorists? I'm not the brightest bulb in the box, but I know complete bullshit when I read it.

The delusional sub-humans who attacked our country on September 11 were mostly Saudi Arabian and considered Saddam Hussein an infidel. Instead of targeting Osama bin Laden (another Saudi Arabian) we've rushed headlong into a deadly quagmire in Iraq.

Invoking the lost souls of September 11 to justify an unnecessary war is shameful. We are a better country than that. Or at least we once were.

2005-06-24T12:53:00.000-04:00

While walking uptown to my office this morning I watched a man jaywalk at 40th Street and 7th Avenue. He strode with an almost royal sense of impugnity and a face that oozed smugness. But these things paled when compared to his t-shirt, which was emblazoned "I [heart] Party Girls." Though his overall countenance and demeanor suggested he was something less than a lady's man, I doubt it ever kept him from trying to make the message of his t-shirt bloom, and bloom regularly.

This combination of insecure hubris and sad machoism made me think of the verbal poison spewed by Bush puppet-master Karl Rove. I won't bother going into detail, but can now say this for sure: Rove is a poorly endowed man who makes up for his literal 'shortcomings' with bullshit posturing. Conservatives, according to Rove, got mad when the towers came down on September 11 while liberals wanted to provide therapy to the sub-humans who carried out the attacks.

Fuck you, Karl Rove. Fuck you and your fellow limp-dicked Republicans who spill the blood of brown-skinned people to bring yourselves the satisfaction that even Viagra cannot. Pull on your "I [heart] Party Girls" t-shirt and masturbate to CNN footage from Falluja and Baghdad while the rest of us liberals pray that no more American soldiers or innocent Iraqis have to die for your shriveled genitalia.

2005-06-24T09:38:00.000-04:00

American Patriot Paul Krugman takes the media to task for propping up our nation's shameful War President:

On one side, the people who sold this war, unable to face up to the fact that their fantasies of a splendid little war have led to disaster, are still peddling illusions: the insurgency is in its "last throes," says Dick Cheney. On the other, they still have moderates and even liberals intimidated: anyone who suggests that the United States will have to settle for something that falls far short of victory is accused of being unpatriotic.

We need to deprive these people of their ability to mislead and intimidate. And the best way to do that is to make it clear that the people who led us to war on false pretenses have no credibility, and no right to lecture the rest of us about patriotism.

2005-06-21T16:53:00.000-04:00

Mayhem in Iraq continues. Bob Herbert, as always, captures the false bravery of those who would send lesser priveleged men and women to die in a foolish war:

The home-front "warriors" who find it so easy to give the thumbs up to war endanger the truly valorous men and women who are actually willing to put on a uniform, pick up a weapon and place their lives on the line.

The president and these home-front warriors got us into this war and now they don't know how to get us out. Nor do they have a satisfactory answer to the important ethical question: how do you justify sending other people's children off to fight while keeping a cloak of protection around your own kids?

And check out this column by EJ Dionne that sadly asks: Did Cheney lie, or was he stupid enough to believe the crap he was peddling?

2005-06-21T16:36:00.000-04:00

The Star-Ledger ratchets up the hyperbole surrounding the 'rebirth' of AP with the atrociously titled "Blighted but Budding":

But for all of the very real signs of progress in Asbury Park since the city council and private developers embarked on a $1.25 billion redevelopment plan three years ago, the waterfront still looks today as much like an area strafed by mortar fire as it does a prosperous resort community.

Nonetheless, when the first group of new luxury waterfront condominiums hit the marketplace this month, they didn't last long. Buyers were willing to risk between $400,000 and $1.1 million on a project that, at this point, is no more than a vast hole in the sandy earth just west of the boardwalk because they believe there is a bona fide renaissance under way in the woebegone city once known as the "Jewel of the Jersey Shore."

Excuse me ... Y - A - W - N ... OK. "An area strafed by mortar fire"? BEAUTIFUL!!!!! Do you get the feeling Tom Feeney, the crack writer of this over-the-top claptrap, is a tad too delicate to scuff his loafers in a city like Asbury Park? Perhaps ol' Tom was busy taking horse riding lessons as a scamp and was able to preserve his gauzy sensibilities, or had his driver pull the backseat shades down as he was driven from his family's countryside compound.

What an ass.

2005-06-10T08:43:00.000-04:00

After 14 hours in the Prelude driving back from Tennessee last Saturday, Aradhna and I took a walk down the AP beach & boardwalk into Ocean Grove on Sunday. It was the day of the annual Gay Pride parade, meaning the town was only slightly more flamboyant than usual. What was striking -- other than the occasional pair of leather riding chaps in 90 degree weather -- was the newly re-opened Casino arcade. One strange day last summer it was possible to walk through the sadly neglected structure for the first time in decades, but the walkway was enclosed in a depressing cage that tainted the one-day-only experience. In Sunday's brilliant sunshine, it was remarkable to once again come upon a populated Casino from Ocean Grove, walk through its musty shadows, pass newly opened pavilions on the AP side (pizza shop, bike rentals and a game room), and see parents and kids, clusters of gay men and women, and over-exposed skin that ran white to brown to black to bright pink.

Tennessee never seemed so far away. It was good to be home.

2005-06-09T09:42:00.000-04:00

A kid surfing in Surf City gets bit by a shark on Sunday and the NY Post runs a story headlined "New Jersey Jaws" 4 days later. Exploitive, sensational, uninformed -- typical Post journalism. You've got a better chance of being struck by lightning than being bitten by a shark, but so what? "New Jersey Jaws" is so ... clever!

2005-06-09T09:29:00.000-04:00

Brilliant breakdown of the brouhaha over Howard Dean's latest bromides:

Does Dean really believe that no Republicans work for a living? Of course not. Does Dean believe Tom DeLay is facing an imminent jail sentence for his ethical problems? Of course not.

These are simple hyperboles that are commonplace in normal discussion. But we’re not having a normal conversation. Our national conversation is dominated by right wing talk show hosts who blow everything Democrats say out of proportion and completely ignore the real problems of America.

So, in this world, invading a country that didn’t attack us and posed absolutely no threat to us is no big deal. But Howard Dean overstating his distaste for Republicans is an enormous deal. In this world, lying about Saddam Hussein’s connections to 9/11, his WMD capabilities and misleading us into a highly destabilizing preemptive strike against another country is a tiny issue. What Howard Dean said last week is a giant issue. Tom DeLay’s ethical violations aren’t an issue, what Dean says about them is an issue.

C’mon, c’mon, c’mon. How many times are we going to fall into this conservative talking point trap? Democrats shouldn’t be backpedaling from aggressive comments, they should be attacking straight ahead. To paraphrase what are quickly becoming the immortal words of George Galloway – we should not come as the accused, but as the accuser!

The author of this piece, a man unfortunately named Cenk Uygur, lays out the 7-Step Plan for Media Domination and Opponent Destruction that right-wing forces have wielded since the Reagan years. Hilarious.

2005-06-08T15:35:00.000-04:00

One of the few upsides of personal and family concerns is how my brain immediately begins the reprioritization of information: Presidential blundering and partisan theatrics blessedly tumble to the bottom.

Now that I'm back in the Northeast, back in hot and muggy Manhattan, the hunger for irritation has returned. As WaPo's Dan Froomkin points out, Chef Bush and his crooked henchmen have cooked up a nauseating feast:

After six weeks in the political wilderness, the Downing Street Memo yesterday finally burst into the White House -- and into the headlines.

The memo, which dates back to 2002, conveys a British intelligence official's conclusion that President Bush was manipulating intelligence to build support for war with Iraq -- and that he was already set on invasion long before acknowledging as much in public. The Sunday Times of London first published a leaked version on May 1.

<...snip...>

But even if the memo doesn't detonate, there are suddenly several other potential scandals sputtering away in the press today to cause the White House worry.

· The New York Times is reporting that a White House official with ties to the oil industry repeatedly edited government climate reports to play down global warming issues.

· The Guardian reports on new State Department documents suggesting that Bush's decision not to sign the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil.

· The Texas Observer and the Associated Press are reporting that two Indian tribes working with Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist now under criminal and congressional investigation, paid $25,000 each to a conservative tax-exempt group to underwrite an event that got tribal leaders a private meeting with President Bush.

· And The Washington Post reports that senators are asking for more information about the involvement of White House officials in pushing for a $30 billion air-tanker deal now considered the most significant military contracting abuses in several decades.

2005-06-07T11:03:00.000-04:00

Check out this amazing online museum of the Palace.

2005-05-25T09:38:00.000-04:00

Clear blue sky and a cool, crisp breeze make this a perfect spring morning in Maryville, Tennessee. Why I'm sitting at a computer is a mystery ... especially since I'm not getting paid for it. Brought my mom home from the hospital yesterday. She had severe back surgery on Friday. Aradhna and I are here to help her out; more precisely, to keep her from straining and re-injuring herself.

Local news is usually a hoot, though this story is more sad than funny: A guy who seemingly wants to kill himself but keeps bailing after setting his car or house(s) on fire.

2005-05-17T16:31:00.000-04:00

Father Bob of The Center in Asbury Park generates a little press for a good cause: raising AIDS awareness.

2005-05-16T08:48:00.000-04:00

Disturbing others without care is an everyday occurrence in NYC. In Sweet Valley, I disturbed a mothering robin this weekend -- and felt bad for it. She was in a chin-high nest in an overgrown forsythia bush beside the outhouse where the lawn mower is stored. She'd sit on her eggs as long as she could before my presence -- or the sound of the mower -- would send her scurrying. In the quiet her impatient chirping was like a clock ticking out the seconds she was away from her nest. I snapped this photo with my camera phone before leaving her alone with her offspring-to-be.

2005-05-13T16:21:00.000-04:00

Maybe you're having a rough day. Maybe you're a little down on yourself and wondering how you ever could have let your life go down its current path. Maybe you're wondering just what kind of person you really are.

Well, here's something you're NOT: You're not a person who would set up a tent outside the Ziegfeld Theater on 54th Street to secure your place in line for the Star Wars film set to open ......... wait for it .......... 5 DAYS FROM NOW. I walked by these tents today and wanted to spray myself liberally with loser disinfectant.

2005-05-13T16:02:00.000-04:00

It's common knowledge the United States is governed by cowards. Men who stand behind podiums and give speeches about honor and sacrifice but who hid behind pillars of privilege when they were called upon to serve. Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz ... natural born cowards, all.

This was reinforced this week during the "attack" of a misdirected single-engine Cessna plane on Wednesday in Washingon, DC. Images of petrified government representatives and employees running through the streets filled the airwaves while newscasters assured Americans that our leaders were safely stored in "secure bunkers." Meanwhile, in Iraq, less-privileged Americans -- U.S. soldiers -- face much deadlier threats than single-engine Cessnas. They're at risk of being blown up almost every second of the day. They follow orders to go into dangerous places even when their instincts tell them to get the hell out. No one is directing them to "Run!", as DC police were telling our brave Congressmen and women. Our soldiers fight for nothing. And die for nothing.

2005-05-12T15:12:00.000-04:00

Even I cringe at writing about designer cats called Savannahs because it seems so trite. But ... what kind of colossal asshole spends $4,000 - $10,000 for a furry genetic cocktail while millions of beautiful and loving animals are put to death every year? Sure, everyone is entitled to do what they please with their money. But we're not talking luxury cars with walnut panelled door panels or 100-foot yachts. This involves the needless execution of animals whose only crime is being unwanted by frivolous humans.

One of the Savannahs' selling points? Genius "cat breeder" Joyce Sroufe of Ponca City, Okla. -- a "pioneering force" for the Savannahs -- says: "People are really in awe of the way the kitty behaves, much like a dog."

I write this in between glances of a picture of Frodo & Gus, two beloved cats with iffy fates before finding a comfortable home. You know what's so great about them? They behave like CATS. Not dogs. Joyce Sroufe, of Ponca City, Okla. ... may you be the ugly duckling of some designer litter in your next life. Or maybe you already are .........

2005-05-12T13:49:00.000-04:00

By the time my train pulls into Long Branch I've got a forest of abandoned newspapers to peruse. Last night I scanned the cancer of American democracy, the NY Post, and came across this little item of local interest:

Swishy B-52's singer Fred Schneider had a miserable time in high school ... "I grew up in Long Branch, the New Jersey town next door to Bruce Springsteen's Asbury Park, and it was a pretty blue-collar scene. I was teased mercilessly ... Finally, I hit one bully in the head with a log and that stopped it. It was so horrible that I want on my gravestone, 'I'd rather be here than back in high school.'"

Note the Post's use of the word "swishy" to describe Schneider. Classy, right?

2005-05-11T15:25:00.000-04:00

So Bruce, what's the hardest thing about being Bruce Springsteen?

I'll have to ask him. I'm not him that much. I'm him when I'm onstage. The minute my foot goes on the first step off the stage, there's a whole other world going on.

There's a rumor Bruce may be coming by the SIRIUS studios soon. I'll let you know if he walks by my office ...

2005-05-11T11:30:00.000-04:00

Stability is a word rarely used to describe Asbury Park politics -- until yesterday's City Council elections saw 4 of the current members get re-elected.

GOOD news:

Mayor Kevin Sanders, Deputy Mayor Jim Bruno and Councilmen John Loffredo and Ed Johnson are back.

Indicted, divisive and incompetent incumbent "Dr." John Hamilton is OUT.

BAD news:

Kate Mellina was unable to reclaim her seat on the council that she vacated due to personal reasons last year.

Only 25% of registered voters took part in this critical election.

The official tally, as reported by the City Clerk's office: Sanders, 952; Johnson, 841; Loffredo, 831; Bruno, 784; Keady, 578; Schneider, 544; Mellina, 488; Koperweis, 468; Hamilton, 463; Lamberton, 396; Singh, 394; Moore, 270; Suggs, 258; Murray, 207; Oates, 206; Anderson, 202; Cote, 202; Wise, 194; Eschner, 109.

Wonder how long it will take the candidates' to pick up all the campaign flyers, lawn signs and other unsightly trash left throughout town?

2005-05-06T09:43:00.000-04:00

A pair of columns from American Patriot Bob Herbert reflecting our military's lack of humanity toward Iraqi civilians and the American public's blind eye toward the horrors of war, perfectly summarized here:

There are pictures of children who were wounded and barely clinging to life, and some who appeared to be dead. There was a close-up of a soldier who was holding someone's severed leg. There were photos of Iraqis with the deathlike stare of shock, stunned by the fact that something previously unimaginable had just happened to them. There were photos of G.I.'s happily posing with the bodies of dead Iraqis.

This is what happens in war. It's the sickening reality that is seldom seen in the censored, sanitized version of the conflict that Americans typically get from the government and the media.

Americans' attitude toward war in general and this war in particular would change drastically if the censor's veil were lifted and the public got a sustained, close look at the agonizing bloodshed and other horrors that continue unabated in Iraq. If that happened, support for any war that wasn't an absolute necessity would plummet.

2005-05-06T09:37:00.000-04:00

From the "I May Be Of the Same Species, But I Sure As Hell Know I'm Better Than The Trailer Trash That Would Pay to See THAT" file:

Online casino Golden Palace has spilled $5,001 for Britney Spears' alleged home pregnancy test. "It's hard to put a price on Britney Spears' urine," Golden Palace spokesman Drew Black told The Associated Press Wednesday.

Golden Palace says it purchased the test from Ottawa radio station Hot 89.9, which insists the test was retrieved from the trash outside Spears' Los Angeles hotel room months ago. The station didn't leak news of the test until Spears and husband Kevin Federline revealed her pregnancy to the public last month.

"We don't know for certain, of course," said Black. "Obviously, it's her alleged pregnancy test. I wasn't there when she took the test."

Golden Palace saw some buzz potential in the baby-making analyzer.

"When we saw this particular item was up for grabs, we knew it was something we wanted to have to add to the collection of oddities we've amassed over the past several months," said Black.

Other off-the-wall items owned by Golden Palace include a sandwich resembling the Virgin Mary, a Doritos chip that looks like the Pope's hat and a haunted cane.

Black said Golden Palace is looking into going on tour with the out-of-the-ordinary objects.

2005-05-04T11:32:00.000-04:00

Poking fun at the Retarded Religious in this country is almost as cliched as the "God was watching us" horseshit that comes from the mouth of every moronic "survivor" of their own doing. Instead of asking, "How could I have been such an idiot to have let myself get into this situation," they imagine a gentle, benevolent God manning a 'Star Trek' like captain's chair and coming to their rescue at warp speed. Feast on the self-absorbed claptrap coming from this fortunate family:

"It was the first time I got mad at God in my life," Driscoll recalled Monday. "I asked 'Why me? What did I do to deserve this?'"

Then they saw a fishing boat on the horizon late Saturday. They were later rescued off the North Carolina coast, more than 100 miles from where they set out off South Carolina to fish.

Long, 17, left the Medical University of South Carolina Children’s Hospital late Monday. He had lost nearly 40 pounds. Driscoll, who suffered second-degree burns on his face and feet, was expected to remain two or three more days.

"I can honestly say I never gave up hope," Long said from his hospital bed Monday. "God had us in his hands the whole time."

<... snip ...>

Driscoll’s father, Tony, was first to get a call from the Coast Guard that the boys were all right.

"I screamed at the top of my lungs that they’ve got our boys," he recalled. "We never gave up hope. That’s the bottom line. God had his angels around those boys the whole time."

So we know where the Junior Driscoll gets it from ...

2005-04-28T11:11:00.000-04:00

Bolton, Delay, Tenet ... incompetent symbols of American hubris who holler "partisan politics" when their failures are scrutinized. Richard Cohen of WaPo nails it: We are living -- and soldiers are DYING because of it -- in a time of rewarded American WRONG-ness:

"That wrong" is a high standard indeed. It is the standard of George "Slam-Dunk" Tenet, the former CIA director who managed to tell the president precisely what he wanted to hear: that Iraq was awash with the most awful weapons of mass destruction, all of them so advanced and futuristic we still can't see them. It is the standard of Condi Rice, who made similar assurances to the nation, and, of course, of Colin Powell, who told the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons galore -- so many weapons in so many secret, mobile locations that had the expression not already been used, I would call it a slam-dunk.

Most important, it is the standard of Dick Cheney, who not only said Iraq had "reconstituted" its nuclear weapons program but insisted on it even after U.N. inspectors had concluded otherwise. Earlier, Cheney had said it was "pretty well confirmed" that Mohamed Atta, the lead Sept. 11 terrorist, had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence official. It has since been pretty well confirmed that no such meeting took place.

Bolton was hardly a departure from such smoke-blowing. He was wrong not only about Iraq but about Syria and Cuba as well -- a trifecta of bad judgment. In all these cases, he apparently -- or so goes the gravamen of the allegation -- goosed the intelligence data to fit his views, sometimes browbeating subordinates to go along. This, of course, is the mark of a juvenile personality who, when his way of thinking is rejected, simply raises his voice. He attempts to do with volume what he cannot do with reason.

In the Washington of the moment, this sort of behavior is considered both bizarre and rare. It is, however, nothing of the sort. The reason the administration nominated Bolton is that his method of operating -- the exaggeration, the bullying -- was commonplace. It was the music by which the Bush administration marched us all to war. More specifically, it was the tune played by Cheney, Bolton's chief champion. The vice president, it is both authoritatively and repeatedly said, is the one who pushed Bolton on a presumably reluctant Secretary of State Rice. (Her predecessor, Powell, refuses to endorse Bolton's nomination.)

Note that it was Cheney who belligerently told the two most important arms inspectors, the United Nations' Hans Blix and the International Atomic Energy Agency's Mohamed ElBaradei, that if the Bush administration found their judgment questionable, "we will not hesitate to discredit you" -- a Boltonesque piece of diplomacy if there ever was one. Note also that it was Cheney who applauded when he got intel he liked and growled when he was told something he didn't like.

Now, all these months later, it is Cheney who has been discredited. Just this week Charles A. Duelfer, the administration's chief Iraqi weapons hunter (head of the Iraq Survey Group), reported that U.N. sanctions and inspections had actually "dampened the regime's ability to retain its WMD expertise" -- just as Blix and ElBaradei had maintained. Oops.

But taking the nation to war for false reasons is not a minor blip. It is an unpardonable feat of hubris for which, on a daily basis, Americans die in Iraq. American voters, though, have been oddly forgiving (see the last election), and the Bush administration has neither apologized nor fired anyone for getting things so very, very wrong. The conclusion is inescapable: This was not a war for the wrong reason; this was a war for any reason.

2005-04-26T14:52:00.000-04:00

As right-wingers prepare to lazily chase balls across luxuriant, manicured fields and afterwards down tumblers of booze with fellow Upstanding Americans, unprotected soldiers and innocent civilians and children die in Iraq. By the dozens.

Here's an idea: If you voted for our Murderous Leader and his Henchmen, donate your tax refund to a Marine company that needs armor for their Humvee, or towards the care of an Iraqi infant left parentless by a "stray" American bomb that landed on his or her family's house.

Then go back to your golf game. And live it up.

2005-04-25T17:27:00.000-04:00

Springsteen interviewed at the Paramount, described by Jon Pareles of the Times as "the faded movie palace at the Asbury Park Convention Hall."

Finally ... somebody describes an aspect of AP correctly.

2005-04-22T09:45:00.000-04:00

John Bolton is the face of Despised America. Self-righteous, obstinate, bullying ... even that moustache reeks of a man used to hearing his uninterrupted voice sermonizing to overall-wearing good ol' boys at his local Elks Club.

If you were hiring for a position and Bolton was a candidate, whose word would you trust on his character? Bush or Colin Powell's?

Remember, our unmitigated failure of a president never considered it worth his time to travel outside the U.S. before he was annointed president. Aren't terrorists worldwide? Don't we need allies to fight terrorism? Wasn't that the theme of his re-election campaign? Oh ... but he's spent the past 2 months lobbying for the privatization of Social Security ... while the stock exchange tanks ...

Failure. Name the issue ... the Boy King has failed. Maintaining a liberal blog in the spring of 2005 seems superfluous. Feel too much like a man pointing at the ocean, screaming "Water!"

2005-04-22T09:04:00.000-04:00

All 19 of the current candidates for City Council spoke at a forum last night. With all the progress the city's seen after decades of mismanagement and neglect, now is not a time to see the Council overhauled. Except for clownish -- and currently indicted -- John Hamilton, the incumbents should be allowed to build upon the goodwill and relationships they've nurtured with the developers who, like it or not, hold the key to Asbury Park's next 20 years.

2005-04-15T17:20:00.000-04:00

Springsteen is again supporting Asbury Park by holding his pre-tour 'warmup' shows at the Paramount Theater:

Bruce Springsteen officially begins a solo acoustic tour April 25 in Detroit, but he has added two open-to-the-public “rehearsal shows” at Asbury Park’s 1,600-seat Paramount Theatre.

The shows take place April 21 at 7:30 p.m. and April 22 at 2 p.m. Tickets, $50, go on sale Monday at noon through Ticketmaster Charge-By-Phone only (201-507-8900). There is a two-ticket limit, and customers may buy for one show only.

The tour also comes to the Theater at Continental Airlines Arena on May 19. The venue has a flexible capacity, but it will be 5,000 that night. It took less than a minute for that show to sell out when tickets went on sale last week.

The announcement continues a Springsteen tradition of adding warmup shows in his home state before a tour's official start. He did that for his 1995-1997 acoustic tour; the 1999-2000 tour that reunited him with his E Street Band; and the 2001-2002 tour that followed the release of his last studio album, "The Rising".

2005-04-05T16:33:00.000-04:00

Received a kind email from Steve at The Opinion Mill, a NJ-based blog. Great site ... scroll down the page for a column by Florida-based Carl Hiassen's take on the Schiavo tragedy, which ends:

The whole thing was one of the most cynical charades in memory. From the Congress to the White House to the statehouse, they all got their piece of Terri Schiavo.

By the time this column appears, she might be gone, but you can be sure that the politicians and the zealots they're courting will never let this poor woman die.

Even when she's dead.

Of course, our celebrity-obsessed media dashed from the Sunshine State to the Vatican to provide round-the-clock, superficial coverage of Pope John Paul's death. WaPo's Richard Cohen bravely paints the whole picture of a man of unwavering, and sometimes deadly, faith.

2005-04-05T16:20:00.000-04:00

Just another day at Sirius: Jay Z, Debbie Boone, Andrea Bocelli, Robbie Knievel and Jane Fonda are all visitors on the 36th floor.

In today's Times, beside a 3-column picture of the pope being carried to St. Peter's Basilica, is a front-page, above-the-fold article on satellite radio. Strange juxtaposition of Howard Stern and the pope's well-dressed corpse.

Will 30 million Americans be paying for radio in 2010, as predicted? I won't be here that long ... hell, I won't be here for all of 2005 ... but I doubt it.

2005-04-05T08:25:00.000-04:00

Mary Beth Wilson was present for the taping of Springsteen's Storytellers performance in Red Bank last night. Here, completely without her permission, is her post-show reaction:

What can I say?
What can I say?

Just home from a truly spectacular night. If you ever thought Bruce would be the perfect artist for Storytellers, and we all have, I can assure you we were all right. I know some of it will fall to the cutting room floor, it's inevitable, but it is also a shame. Every one of us who follows this man around the globe, deserves to see that in its entirety.

It's a very strange feeling I have right now. I have so much in my head but it is really hard to try and articulate it.

I'll start with the venue. Small, very intimate theater. About 300 seats fanned out from the stage in a half circle. Folks in the front rows on the sides probably had their knees on the stage. I was in row D, stage left 3 seats from the end (not the center). There were about 60 people seated on the stage as well.

It was quite some time after entering the theater that it dawned on me that there was a piano on stage and what that meant. A rare site for a solo show. Hopefully a sign of things to come on the tour. Who knows.

There was some hubbub in the theater before the show, people chatting and milling about. About 8:10 Bill Flanagan of VH1 came out to introduce the show, talk about the format of Storytellers, etc. Once he did that you could hear a pin drop in the place. I think everyone was holding their breath.

It seemed like forever but was only about 5 minutes before I could see, behind a sheer curtain on the opposite side of the stage, the silhouette and gait of someone very familiar to me. Everyone leapt to their feet. Not surprisingly, I wept! And did so on and off throughout the night. Not out of sadness but pure joy, familiarity, pride, just a whole bunch of things.

Many years ago, Bruce made a blunder with Unplugged aka Plugged or whatever it was called. I think it was a blunder. Hey, face it, it was way more than we had gotten previously but it was not at all what that evening was supposed to be about. This night made up for it 1,000 fold. He was extremely generous with his music and his insight. For the most part he would perform a song and then go back to it, line by line, and interpret, explain, break it down, sing it in another voice to invoke another meaning. It was truly fascinating to watch.

He only performed 8 songs in all. A few were redone at his request or the request of VH1. Following the musical portion came the Q&A. The folks asking the questions were identified up front when they picked up their ticket. I didn't think any of them were THAT spectacular but there was one that stuck me funny... one guy told Bruce that he just couldn't get his wife to understand his devotion to Bruce and his music and he asked how Bruce would explain the music to a non-fan. We can all relate to that, can't we? Bruce's response was perfect. He said, "It's like sex. It's hard to explain, better to be experienced," or something close to that ;)

Not more what else I can say, really. I laughed, I cried, I clapped until my arms nearly fell off! It was a wonderful treat. Funny thing though... If I were any sort of normal person I would take a show like tonight a think, gee, how do you top that? Maybe I don't need to follow him around any more. And here's the funny part .. I don't feel that way at all. If anything it makes me want for 50 more nights with him .. and then some.

Bruce's last words were "I'll be seeing ya on the road, soon." I look forward to experiencing that with all of you.

2005-04-01T15:13:00.000-05:00

Who hasn't dreamed of publicly humiliating Moby? Envy, then, Kelefa Sennah of the Times for this overdue skewering of music's most preciously pretentious bald man.

2005-04-01T14:09:00.000-05:00

Took 2 and a half hours to go from Asbury Park to my office in Rockefeller Center this morning. So it's of little comfort to learn NYC clocks in with America's worst average commute.

2005-03-31T15:06:00.000-05:00

Meg Griffin played the new Springsteen song on SIRIUS Disorder earlier this afternoon. It's Springsteen at his artistic best, reflecting his core beliefs through sympathetic characters. The music of "Devils and Dust" is quiet but pulses with subtle percussion, while Springsteen's vocal delivery is typically grim and genuine. More than fresh meat for 'die-hards' to dissect, it's a musical answer to Springsteen's recent advocacy against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. There's no middle road. There's no running to buy a beer while Springsteen gives his 'public service announcement'. This is a protest song. Exactly what our slumbering nation needs.

Meg mentioned that several listening parties are being held around the country, including one in Asbury Park on April 5 at the Stone Pony (the same night the recently reformed Wonder Stuff are playing there -- a show I wanted to see). Very interesting is a contest sponsored by Backstreets to attend the taping of Springsteen's VH1 Storytellers special. Got a question you've always wanted to ask The Boss? Submit it before 6:00 pm tonight. It could win you a ticket to the taping.

Thanks to MB for submitting the contest link long before lazy ol' Meg started gabbing about it ....

2005-03-31T14:17:00.000-05:00

Somewhere overseas a woman is dying from a backroom abortion made necessary by right-wing U.S. insistence on 'asbstinence only' funding -- instead of contraception.

Somewhere a soldier lies legless, armless and/or psychogically ruined in a VA hospital bed, the victim of the first ever American invasion of a sovereign nation -- an invasion eagerly sought by right-wing zealots.

Somewhere an Iraqi parent sits crying over the body of their murdered child -- 'collateral damage' of a forced "democratization" by right-wing zealots.

Somewhere an elderly husband or wife is agonizing over whether to continue care for their grievously ill spouse because their health care benefits have been slashed to supplement an economic policy of tax cuts for the wealthy -- a policy written in large, block letters across the right-wing agenda.

Somewhere a man or woman is dying of AIDS -- a disease considered 'retribution' by right-wing zealots inebriated by their righteousness.

Somewhere in America a roomful of right wing zealots are beating their chests and yowling in pain at the merciful death of a brain dead woman who instructed her husband not to let her be kept alive artificially.

What is HAPPENING to this country?

2005-03-31T13:30:00.000-05:00

Many of us remember when a stroll along the Asbury Park boardwalk meant starting at the Casino and heading north, past Convention Hall, and passing ice cream shops, cheap amusement stalls, hot dog stands, pinball parlors and gift shops.

Leases are being signed for the latest boardwalk pavilions. Will the crisply rebuilt walkway and humming waterfront condo construction bring back white people who bemoan their lost childhoods? Nah ... they're still too scared.

Good.

2005-03-24T15:45:00.000-05:00

Maureen Dowd pens a perfect column on the continuing -- and tragic -- Schiavo follies in today's Times. A few standout stabs:

As the Bush White House desperately maneuvers in Iraq to prevent the new government from being run according to the dictates of religious fundamentalists, it desperately maneuvers here to pander to religious fundamentalists who want to dictate how the government should be run.

Maybe President Bush should spend less time preaching about spreading democracy around the world and more time worrying about our deteriorating democracy.

< ... snip ... >

Mr. DeLay moved yesterday to file a friend of the court brief with the Supreme Court asking that Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube be restored while the federal court is deciding what to do. But as he exploits this one sad case, Mr. DeLay has voted to slash Medicaid by $15 billion, denying money to care for poor people in nursing homes, some on feeding tubes.

Mr. DeLay made his personal stake clear at a conference last Friday organized by the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group. He said that God had brought Terri Schiavo's struggle to the forefront "to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America." He defined that as "attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others."

So it's not about her crisis at all. It's about his crisis.

2005-03-24T12:00:00.000-05:00

This story is so funny, on so many levels:

Long Branch police charged a 46-year-old High Street man with criminal mischief after he poured brown paint on a pickup truck that was parked outside his home Wednesday morning, authorities said.

The reason: Mark Grimaldi told police he was tired of people parking their vehicles in front of his home, Detective Lt. Bruce Johantgen said.

It all started when Ricardo Santos, 28, who lives nearby, parked a blue Ford pickup truck in front of Grimaldi's house on Tuesday night, he said.

At 5 a.m., when Santos was getting into the truck to go to work, he found the vehicle covered with brown paint.

Santos called police, and Officer John Evangelho arrived a few minutes later.

"John looks down, and he see drops of paint that lead to the house," said Johantgen, referring to Grimaldi's home. "He knocks on the door, and the owner lets him in. John then followed the paint trail all the way to the paint can."

It was after Evangelho found the paint can that Grimaldi told him about his problems with parking. Grimaldi was charged and issued a summons for criminal mischief, Johantgen said.

2005-03-22T11:30:00.000-05:00

Like brain-dead Terri Schiavo, basic principles of American democracy are dying a slow, public death. Today's Times nails the 2-faced phoniness of moist-eyed Republicans hoping to score political points with the zany far right:

The Bush administration and the current Congressional leadership like to wax eloquent about states' rights. But they dropped those principles in their rush to stampede over the Florida courts and Legislature. The new law doesn't miss a chance to trample on the state's autonomy and dignity. There are a variety of technical legal doctrines the federal courts use to show deference to state courts, like "abstention" and "exhaustion of remedies." The new law decrees that in Ms. Schiavo's case, these well-established doctrines simply will not apply.

Republicans have traditionally championed respect for the delicate balance the founders created. But in the Schiavo case, and in the battle to stop the Democratic filibusters of judicial nominations, President Bush and his Congressional allies have begun to enunciate a new principle: the rules of government are worth respecting only if they produce the result we want. It may be a formula for short-term political success, but it is no way to preserve and protect a great republic.

Wapo's Richard Cohen points out the clumsy politization of this poor women, referencing a video made in 2001 that politicians have used to 'prove' they're doing more than exploiting a family's pain:

What remains is a legal case that no longer is about Schiavo. Instead it's about the politics of abortion -- right to life -- and political opportunism. Terri Schiavo lives so that others, notably Frist, can run for higher office. I know that by watching the tape.

2005-03-21T15:53:00.000-05:00

After reading a dozen or so articles hailing the brilliance of HBO's Sometimes in April, I sat my ass down for 2 hours 15 minutes Saturday night and was moved to tears of sorrow and rage. See it if you can, without interruption. I found it a remarkable film about one of recent history's most shameful tragedies. Where were liberty's screeching minions then? Where were the throngs of armchair warriors decrying "Freedom for all nations!" while a million innocent men, women and children were being butchered in the streets?

Right. Sniffing for oil and moaning "national interest" into their silk pillows.

2005-03-18T16:07:00.000-05:00

Strange to hear your workplace being described as a home to "hot babes" as you begin your commute to that very place. That was my experience this morning as Stern and Co. discussed the receptionists here at Sirius. Only heard a few minutes of their conversation, as my drive to the Long Branch train station only lasts 10 minutes. Still. Odd. Sirius is building a massive studio for Stern, dislodging dozens of studios and offices on the 36th floor. Just passed Bill Walton in the downstairs lobby. Why do I always call out the names of celebrities as they pass me? Did that with Walton, who smiled a giant grin but who's incapable of flashing anything but a giant grin as he's a giant of a human being so he was probably thinking to himself, "What an ass."

2005-03-17T15:50:00.000-05:00

An unexpected benefit of my trip to Australia was an 11-day blackout of American media. Bush and Cheney could have eloped to Reno and I would have been blissfully unaware. Catching up on our country's continued slink backwards has been disheartening. We have a president who defends unconstitutional government propaganda. We have a bought-off Senate that just voted to allow the pillaging of one of America's last great wildernesses (and please, spare me the Republican rationalizing of more sensitive pillaging equipment). Social Security continues to be another Bush administration hoax.

The easiest way for me to break conversational ice and make quick friends in Australia was to say something like, "That George W. Bush is a real asshole." Never failed to generate a sigh of relief from whomever I was speaking with, as if they were biting their tongue in case I was one of the Brainwashed Ones (i.e., Americans who voted for our murderous leader). It was funny at first. It wasn't so funny after a while.

2005-03-17T15:01:00.000-05:00

I first began attending Asbury Park City Council meetings in 1998 while living in a TV-less winter rental in Avon-By-The-Sea. The meetings had everything: Buffoons, villians, tricksters, grifters ... and that was just the men and women of the council. From beneath his shiny, dented head, the eyes of James Condos would stare across gathered residents and cheap-suited developers, seemingly overmedicated, definitely understimulated, far, far away. Who knew where his mind was? Certainly nowhere near the municipal drudgery at hand. Condos, who in summers could be found romping with his grotesquely breast implanted girlfriend on 'my' Seventh Avenue beach, will be putting his simian stare to use in jail for the next 15 months.

2005-03-15T09:20:00.000-05:00

Reading an article about life's little annoyances on a NJ Transit train is like reading a pamphlet on indigestion while dining at White Castle. The online article features an ironic 'Advertiser's Link' that's -- guess what? -- just a little bit annoying.

2005-03-14T12:22:00.000-05:00

Cogent essay on the issue (such as it is) of including the details of one's personal life on a blog. Especially interesting to me as I've chosen not to delve into the upheavals of mine in this space. That someone chose to hack this blog -- I'm flattered to imagine the time and trouble it took -- and express their opinion about my personal life nearly provoked me to respond. But I'm just not interested. I'd rather live my life than argue with cowards.

Several blog entries were erased by this hacker, including those that referenced my recent trip to Australia.

In brief: Spent a sanguine 9 days in a place where everything is the same -- except radically different. Met many gracious people, most notably Aradhna's parents. Enjoyed late summer Australian weather, 85 and humid. Drove on the 'wrong' side of the road without incident. Spent an afternoon on Sydney's beautiful Bondi Beach. Was invited to sit on stage during the Indian wedding of Aradhna's sister Upa. Drove dark 'woop-woop land' roads after the following night's lovely 'white wedding'. Left Australia with a heavy heart. Hoping to return. Soon.

2005-03-13T20:42:00.000-05:00

On a weekend when Springsteen was rehearsing for his upcoming acoustic tour in town and the sun massaged away January snow on Cookman Avenue, NPR's "Sunday Edition" ran a story on Asbury Park this morning that demonstrated how even a premier news organization can get a story wrong. It was positive and upbeat -- how could it not, as Rico from Bistro Ole could be heard leading customers in an "OLE!" cheer -- but failed completely to capture the nuance of Asbury Park. This was a story about how gay men moved into a town full of "crack houses," nothing more. Could have been about any other rundown American city. A shame, because AP's story encompasses so much more than makeovers of dilapidated Victorians by men with good taste.

Listen here.

2005-03-09T11:13:00.000-05:00

Can't link to NY Daily News articles so I'll post this column by Michael Daly in its entirety. C'mon ... what's funnier than fast food joints espousing healthy eating and physical fitness?

Oh ... right ... SUV owners proclaiming their environmental sensibilities ... but I digress:

Up at New York Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, the surgeons had little red hearts stitched over the breast pocket of their white coats.

Down at the McDonald's on W. 42nd St., the business executives had little golden arches affixed to the lapels of their dark suit coats.

The surgeons were preparing for a news conference concerning Bill Clinton. The former President would be undergoing surgery to correct complications from a heart bypass that signaled the end of his tenure as the most famous fast food fan on the planet.

The business executives had assembled for the "McDonald's Balanced Active Lifestyles Global Launch Event." This was the start of a marketing campaign to make us forget the company still serves food that contributes to obesity and heart disease such as caused Clinton to go under the knife in the first place.

The executives no doubt would have been led by Jim Cantalupo, but the 60-year-old McDonald's CEO dropped dead from a heart attack last April.

Cantalupo was succeeded by 44-year-old Charlie Bell, who kicked off McDonald's last big marketing ploy, the "I'm lovin' it" campaign. He died from colorectal cancer in January.

The newest CEO is Jim Skinner, who sat on the Times Square franchise's second floor yesterday as workers below made ready to cook fries aglisten with transfat, a substance linked to both colorectal cancer and heart attacks.

McDonald's has yet to make good on its 2002 pledge to significantly reduce the transfat in its fries. The company has cut transfat in its chicken offerings, but says it has had difficulty developing an alternative cooking oil.

Meanwhile, McDonald's has developed a new, if not alternative, marketing strategy, the "it's what i eat and what i do ... i'm loving it" campaign launched yesterday morning.

As Skinner and three other top executives smiled from the sidelines, a man described as "Oprah Winfrey's personal trainer" led 20 grammar-school kids in some light exercise. The kids had been instructed by a McDonald's staffer to "go wild applauding and cheering."

Then, Skinner and three other executives took turns at the podium, invoking the importance of fruits and vegetables ("what i eat") and exercise ("what i do") as if McDonald's had become a kind of health spa.

Also on hand was the president of the International Olympic Committee, Dr. Jacques Rogge, along with past and present Olympians. This may well be the closest New York comes to hosting the Olympics, though apparently anything can happen if money is involved.

"Lunch is being served downstairs," a McDonald's executive then announced.

The grammar-school kids did not exactly clamor for produce. A delightful 9-year-old named Anisha Lockhart sat down with a chicken sandwich and fries. The big blast of transfat, saturated fat, cholesterol, salt and calories added up to a taste designed to please everyone from a preteen to a President.

"It's not just good, it's great!" Anisha said.

Anisha also had a small plastic bag containing pieces of apple. These were "Dippers," which come with "low fat caramel dip," containing "corn syrup, sweetened condensed milk, high fructose corn syrup, water, butter, sugar, salt, disodium phosphate, artificial flavors (ethyl vanillin, vanillin), caramel color, pectin, potassium sorbate."

"Is it good?" she was asked. "Yes!" she replied.

A block further west on 42nd St., none other than the Rev. Al Sharpton was holding a news conference of his own, calling on radio stations to suspend from the airwaves any rap stars who engage in actual gunplay. He looked almost svelte, having gone on a diet and acquired a personal trainer of his own.

"I feel good," Sharpton said. "I'm starving all the time, but I feel good."

Yet another news conference was about to get underway up at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, this by the doctors with the little hearts on their coats concerning the man who had been First Fan of Fast Food until his coronary arteries clogged. Sharpton said he had run into Clinton just the other day.

"He said, 'I lost my weight a little more dangerously than you lost yours,'" Sharpton said.

2005-03-08T17:21:00.000-05:00

I'd be stunned to know even a single soul still reads this blog.

So I'll keep this short.

Someone thought it would be cool to hack into my blog and make editorial comments about me. God bless ya, whoever you are ...

My life is my own.

And it's about to undergo enormous change.

Mister I ain't a boy
No I'm a man
And I believe in a promised land.

2005-01-21T13:12:00.000-05:00

"Freedom Isn't Free" reads a popular bumper sticker. As American Patriot Bob Herbert points out, freedom without sacrifice is the blatant motto in Bush World:

The disconnect between the over-the-top celebrations in Washington and the hideous reality of Iraq does not in any way surprise me. It's exactly what we should expect from the president and his supporters, who seem always to exist in a fantasy realm far removed from such ugly realities as war and suffering. In that realm you can start wars without having to deal with the consequences of them. You don't even have to pay for them. You can put them on a credit card.

2005-01-13T11:01:00.000-05:00

Nothing is as pandemic in Asbury Park as lost opportunity. So, less than a month after being gifted with the international spotlight of two Bruce Springsteen performances, Harry's Roadhouse has closed. Temporarily, say all parties ... but it's Asbury Park, where tragedy's roots run deep.

Thanks to MB for the link.

2005-01-12T13:43:00.000-05:00

Unlike the castrated mainstream American media, Bob Somerby pulls no punches when it comes to the Bush administration's Social Security hoax:

Has there ever been a bald-faced liar to match George W. Bush? At yesterday’s forum on Social Security, the president told a series of dumb, stupid jokes for an audience of perfectly decent Americans. And then he lied right in their faces. Incredibly, their president told them this:

BUSH (1/11/05): "As a matter of fact, by the time today's workers who are in their mid-20s begin to retire, the system will be bankrupt. So if you're 20 years old, in your mid-20s, and you're beginning to work, I want you to think about a Social Security system that will be flat bust, bankrupt, unless the United States Congress has got the willingness to act now."

"And that's what we're here to talk about, a system that will be bankrupt."

"As a matter of fact," Bush said, without irony, before he offered these bald-faced lies to the decent folks watching him speak.

What is wrong with Bush’s statement? Workers who are in their mid-20s will, by and large, begin to retire shortly after the year 2040. And will Social Security be "bankrupt—flat bust," as their joke-cracking president said? Sorry. According to the CBO, the system will still pay full scheduled benefits until the year 2052. After that, will SS be “flat bust?” No, it will not, as Bush knows. After 2052, the system will be able to pay 81 percent of scheduled benefits. Even adjusted for inflation, those benefits will be far more than SS recipients are getting today.

Read the rest and try not to lose your lunch. Another sign of life: WaPo columnist Harold Meyerson attacks Bush's addiction to misinformation and even correctly calls his use of propaganda undemocratic.

2005-01-12T11:45:00.000-05:00

Very belated Happy 2005.

It really feels like the bad guys are in charge and running unchecked.

In Falluja, we've turned what was one of Iraq's most modern cities and blown it back to the stone age. An Iraqi doctor, armed with a camera and a conscience, has documented his return to the ruined site in a film called City of Ghosts. Appalling.

2004-12-29T09:37:00.000-05:00

The ocean is what sets Asbury Park apart from other NJ 'urban renaissance' cities. All my life the heartbeat of waves, squawking seagulls, blue horizon, cold sand and sting of salt water have offered respite from whatever self-made ordnance I'd detonated. To read what the ocean has done to these coast dwellers in India is heartbreaking. Frightening, too, especially after reading this assessment in yesterday's Times:

The possibility of great landmasses falling into the ocean is always with us, and recently scientists found vertical fault lines through a volcano on La Palma, one of the smaller and more westward Canary Islands. The volcano has a crater about five miles wide and a half-mile high, and erupts about every 200 years. The last eruption was in 1948, but the newly discovered fault lines have convinced some scientists that eventually the huge crater will break apart and slide into the ocean, bringing more than a half-trillion tons of rock with it.

Since tsunamis are created in proportion to the amount of land that has fallen into the water, this event would likely create a wave mass never before known to written history, many times bigger than the wave at Lituya Bay. The wave would diminish a little as it crossed the Atlantic, but if it hit the Atlantic Seaboard it could be higher than the skyscrapers of Boston, New York, Washington and Miami. Scientists do not know if it will take one, four, or 10 eruptions to separate the landmass, only that the separation is inevitable.