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Reasons to be cheerful part 1
We are all feeling very mercury retrograde lately and down on our hoods and the suburbanization of Nooo Yawrk.... (me included) (see Wigstock/Howl section et al). Thought we needed to re-address it all and realize that things aren't THAT bad (as also Miss Understood reminded us)... it's only when you actually spend a day to two OUT of the city and in the suburbs that make your realize... so (in no order) here's my cheer up section to remind us of some of the fab things why we are still stuck here...

The food here is still the best and more diverse (Believe me each weekend when i am stuck as my f-buddies in the boonies in NJ...I a reminded how crap the restaurants are in the burbs).

You can live here without a car (rah rah rah)

I can get a ONE HOUR Tui Na massage on 14th at a Chinese Herbalists for only $40. Infact there are SO many lil massage places on every corner (try finding those in Levitt town)

There is still community - even though my greengrocers and fish mongers is gone... i still know my neighbours and enjoy running into folk on the street (yeah like that would ever happen in LA!)

Cultural Diversity.... Sat i took my 3yr old to the CHILDRENS West Indian Day Carnival which pissed all over a Julie Taymor performance... costumes, music, food and jolly-jolly...on Sunday he and I had dim sum in chinatown.

There are still places in the city to discover... I recently enjoyed feeding the turtles in the ponds in Central Park... and 'just' discovered the Angel Orensanz 'church/space' - every day you can discover smth new.

Love it that in NYC that me and it seems all my pals are using Andy Warhol stamps! Wonder how well they are selling in Idaho.

[This message was edited by Chi Chi on 09-02-03 at 06:39 PM.]
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...yeah but it ain't new orleans(just came back)....people are having a blast out there wherever and whenever.I couldn't move out there because there's no health food or gyms but I WILL be back often.
The first thing I noticed coming off the plane in new york was the drop in energy level and the MUGS on peoples faces.New york sucks...were getting screwed out of a good time!!!!
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The food!! I brought back a little taste of zappos potato chips,instant red beans and rice,hot nuts(no not some trannie's jewels),coffee
and pralines.The weirdest place I ate was at a fast food place called "Krystal" next to canal street.I wish they sold t-shirts that would of been a great one to get.
I also gogo danced at "the corner pocket" for an hour and made enough money to buy a good dinner and I'm hoping for more gigs other places.I can be a slut over there and know one here would know it...please keep that between us.
Ps. Do you have any of that band music(zydeco?) that those kids play in the street?What would you reccommend? I tried live 365 but they do alot of variations of styles some I'm into some I'm not.
So glad you had fun in our second home. There is no place on earth like NOLA - and besides the food and the music and the architecture and the bon temps roule, it is really about the people!

In answer to your question about all-Zydeco Internet staions, check this masterlist -

http://www.cajunradio.org/internet2.html

As mentioned in the Internet Radio topic, I love the Po Boy's Jambalaya Jam (there's a link there), which plays about 25% Zydeco, 25% Cajun, and the rest mixed Mardi Gras Indian, Second Line, Swamp, Delta Blues and genius bayou-inspired rock and pop. The reason why I prefer that to 100% Zydeco is they throw in alot of odd hybrids like Zydeco Klezmer..a hoot!

And yes, we have quite a bit of Zydeco, and Clifton Chenier in particular has made his way on to several Cabaret Magique soundtracks (this is after all, French!)

Ah, but that is NOLA, and this is NY!
Great inexpensive food, delivered!
The People!
The Energy! (Been to Chicago lately?)
The Empire State Building!
The New York Life Building!
That Other Insurance Building by Union Square!
The Chrysler Building! (I have a thing for long tall buildings)
My AUTOMATIC Dishwasher!
The Little Video Screen Where I Can See Who's At The Door!
The Muslims Being Called To Prayer! (Well, maybe not so much, but at least they don't believe in amplification)
My Garbage Chute! (It's the little things)
TednDi,Hattie,Chi Chi, Johnny, LAD, Helen Stratford, Amber Raye, Sabrina and if I left you out just FUGHIDABOUDIT.
And Finally, CULTCHUH!
I like the anonymity. And the home delivery service for, well, you know. And I like all the liberty criminals, they are the only hope for cultural change, and there are so many of us here.

I don't really love anything about NYC. It would have to become much much more anarchic for me to feel actual affection for the place.
Being able to meet rich, poor, all ages, all types, all nationalities... the influx of new people all the time. New York nightlife, lowlife and high... 24 hour restaurants and drugstores. I've tried to retire, move away, and found I just could not do without that fantastic moment of being all dressed up at midnight, hailing a taxi to go see my friends!

Seven, I've been hearing in Iraq there's a on-going ANARCHY, sponsored by our fellow Americans! Sign up as a secretary to the US Army, and you can live in one of Saddam's palaces with a legion of Catch-22 degenerate militaristas. They're all just waiting for the first payment of $20 billion to roll in, for the real debauchery to begin. Why stay on as a wage-slave in anxiety-ridden Manhattan, when you could be living it up in "enemy territory," and have a real engagement with the premier aristocrats of true social ANARCHY?

[This message was edited by S'tan on 12-09-03 at 10:00 PM.]
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Afraid of a little anarchy, are we dear?

Then howcome you feel so at home in this such civilized, warm, welcoming, sane, orderly, civil, rational looney bin with its child murderers, prison guard walk-outs, multi-vehicle accidents, politicians who will close down a few neighborhood parks, swimming pools, and train stations to save enough money to give themselves a pay hike, drug importing police commandantes, bored heiresses with rotwieler lovers, glitzeratie with 100% surgically rejuvinated faces, wall street brokerages running on minute to minute swindles and open cocaine pipelines, a homeless demographic more numerous than the local constabulary getting housed in condemed prisons, rapist school principals, prison convict movie stars, back pages of every publication in circulation comprised of endless lists of ads documenting the glut of heterosexual loneliness, cadres of 15 year-olds who will level a snubnose 38 packed with dumb-dumbs at your midsection while politely asking for your cash, mumbo jumbo goons hollering in their city council cells of routine abuse, banal trauma and the irrelevance of actually living, ( not to mention entire block long swaths of sidewalk obscured by four hundred pounds of dogshit ) -? Why then if so timid about anarchy does one stay here ensconced in the heart-chilling boredom of a sex industry career while trying to feel so insulated from the international show of nationalistically sponsored anarchy produced in foreign locales? Don't look now, the anarchy is in your own heart, no need to enlist or run away to state sponsored hooliganism, your blood cells are throwing bombs of compliance right through your own brain. LIVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

sigh- anarchy is so inspiring. I just love it. But anarchy is not a place.

[This message was edited by seven on 12-10-03 at 03:12 PM.]

[This message was edited by seven on 12-10-03 at 03:19 PM.]
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New Yorkers are still my favorite thing about New York.

I'm on jury duty at 111 Centre, which is a most quintessentially New York experience that thankfully only comes every 4-5 years.

And looking around the room, all that intelligence and worry and frenetic deal-making. which doesn't stop FOR AN INSTANT, the Staten Island-sounding realtor bellowing all day into her cellphone in the hall - 4 MILLION, NO IM STUCK HERE ON JURY DUTY..

New Yorkers. Gotta love 'em.
Empress, grand jury duty was so Khafka-meets- Nabakov. I wrote about my favorite personal cinematic moment from jury duty in the last Holiday Hang. A month watching 'drug perps' get sent to trial was such refined miserypleasure. The assistant DA's were worse than the arresting officers. Reality's TOTAL DEAD ZONE. Being a Citizen felt soooo .... Catholic?
Lex I saw you on the news last night....

Apr 23, 2004 6:31 am US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) (NEW YORK) Two gay lovers "” a man in a black dress and a boy in only a pair of shorts "” protested their families' lack of understanding for their relationship by climbing a Central Park tree on Thursday, stripping, performing lewd acts in front of onlookers and refusing to come down for hours.

ONLY IN NEW YORK kids!
I saw this bit on TV really early in the AM and they filmed them actually doing the dirty, one was apparently 'jumping' up and down behind the other...

The Vanilla Pepsi moment in the Daily News:

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/186668p-161666c.html

"I think they were just mentally distraught, fed up with how people were treating them," said Detective Steven Elter, who climbed up the tree to talk to the couple. "We just tried to talk to them and make them feel comfortable."

"At one point, the older of the couple broke off a branch and threatened to throw it at cops, before demanding a vanilla diet Pepsi.

When police handed up a regular old diet Pepsi, the 32-year-old hurled the can to the ground, screamed, "Vanilla!" and declared, "What I say goes!"

The couple also shouted complaints about the portrayal of transgender people in the media, and called for an apology on national TV."

The 'just transvestites' comment in the Post seems to have been from some passer-by. Nasty bit of editing to put that last.
HAD to revive this topic for this only-in-new-york vignette.

I usually take Casanova the wonder puppy to Union Square early afternoons. Besides a good romp in the dog run, we stop and watch the squirrels often - its like doggie television.

A few days ago, we had stopped and a man stopped next to us and started feeding the squirrels. He seemed oddly familiar. After a few minutes I realized it was Bernie Goetz, the famous "subway shooter". I asked some dog run people if they had ever seen him there and they said "Oh, all the time, he is the head of squirrel rescue for the park. When a squirrel is hurt or trapped in the run the park people call him."

So, here, even the squirrel rescue folks are celebrities. Only in New York, kids.
There are some great new discount programs in the city for foodies!

1. If you are someone who dines out often you might want to make your reservations via www.opentable.com It's a great (free) service and the more reservations you make the more rewards points you get.

2. www.seamlessweb.com a free fab online food order/delivery service for local restaurants. Great discounts too... some 20% off restaruant delivery orders.. which is worth it!!
Okay, totally different post for now, A Valentine to NEW YORKERS - real, pragmatic, warm-hearted-but-gruff lifers. Like these three, on one block of our dogwalk today in the ice and snow.

First, this guy slid and fell on 14th Street right in a lane of traffic. And a man and a woman rush forward to pick him up and stand there with him while everything is ground to a halt, just for a NY minute. And they walk him to the curb, where he (unhurt) says "thank God for the people."

This almost got me teary-eyed, and then a half-block later this blind guy with a cane is standing at the corner. He seems totally baffled where the curb is under all the grey snow and he's kind of paused there and then this messenger rushes out to help him. And I lost it for a minute.

Thank God for the people. New Yorkers rule.

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