Seriously New York Times, do you need the ad revenue so bad that you’ll run the hearts-and-minds BP full-page on the back of Section A while on the front you run the photo of the CEO, Tony Hawyard, getting grilled by the congressional comittee the day before?  Some of us know how much those cost and would much rather see that money go to a Gulf Coast business owner.

I thought last week was rough when you ran the same full-page ad in the middle of Section A.  That was before yesterday’s committee.  Before BP met with Obama and walked out $20billion lighter.  Before BP announced they would withhold dividend distribution for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd quarter of 2010.  Can’t you just run another auto or luxury goods brand’s ad instead?

Don’t get me wrong.  You are The Gray Lady and command respect.  As much as I am a proponent of digital I obviously read the paper.  In fact we have the weekender subscription at home.  If not so much to read it but rather to support the business.

Some context in case you are too cool to care about the news:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ7xVg5Pktw

I was having a conversation with someone last Friday about “getting it”.  Either myself not getting “it” or someone else.  ”It” was of course related to a topic but I will keep it vague now for the purpose of the overall point.  I was vague and had to back-pedal to defend my position because she gave me a great argument.

Wanda Landowska, a photograph from a Moscow newspaper published in 1907

She began to tell me how she is a classicaly trained musician.  After we shared our performance background past and present (not a the main topic of the conversation) she went into a little story about the masters Wanda Landowska and Pablo Casals.  Two artists with great histories that you should read about.  Arts, wars and politics.  She mentioned a classic line of her’s when she was arguing to Casals about how to play Bach.  Music that was mostly not written by Bach but by scribes.  Who is to say how Bach would have played it but those who have studied have their strong opinion.

You play Bach your way, and I’ll play him his way, she said.

This got me thinking about musicianship and furthermore on how to describe “it” when referring to seomthing.  Not to leave it hanging out there.  How do I explain to someone that I believe they do not “get it”.

To be followed up that night by going to Prospect Park to see Animal Collective.  I am not a fan of theirs but I was invited by two great people so it was worth it if not just for the company alone.  I tweeted that evening during the show “At Animal Collective in Prospect Park. Nice night, even better company but it’s another turntable act with an expensive set. Musicians?” What struck me was that I was at another packed show of at least 1,000 people to watch three guys with laptops and the occasional instrument.  And when said intrument was used it was minimalistic at best and washed through a variety of digital sampling and effects.  It got me thinking about all of the musicians I know that need to pay rent, mortgage and food on the table for their families.  All the members of the Local 802AFM which I am a part of.  They could be making some very good money if they were working with this act.  When I went to see Nine Inch Nails a few years back I went because I knew Trent now had a band with him.  He was supporting his new album which was more live instruments but he played some classic NIN synth numbers with a full band.  If I remember correctly (and a good friend of mine will correct me on this if he reads this article) that most synth-acts from the 90′s did tour play with full-band or at least more than just turntables and laptops.

Below is an excerpt from a July 1st, 2008 post titled The Internet as Performer’s Forum: A Look at the YouTube Piano Wars and Their Possible Implica by Ludim Pedroza from the Piano Pedagogy Forum. Pedroza is (or was at time of the article) an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of the Incarnate Word, in San Antonio, Texas, where she teaches music history and piano.  (I found it when I Googled Landowska’s famous rejoinder.)

It would be easy to attribute such dialogues to youthful hubris. On the other hand, we must not forget that contentious encounters among musicians and music lovers have never been lacking and musicians often maintain unwavering convictions about what they “believe” is “the truth” about music or musicianship. What I find interesting is that many of the attitudes and comments posted seem to come from an array of young or amateurish participants whose views echo those of pianists since the time of Franz Liszt and Clara Schumann. While many critics and musicians in the 19th century preferred the immediacy, drama, and self-oriented style of Liszt, many others were adamant that Clara Schumann’s more restrained, classicist, and composer-oriented approach was “superior.” Clara Schumann herself often criticized Liszt for providing “faulty” interpretations of certain composers. These arguments, which have been recycled for generations, are beautifully illustrated by that famous rejoinder of Wanda Landowska: “You play Bach your way and I will play ithis way.” Did she mean that there is one “correct” way of playing Bach, prescribed by Bach? Both the scholar and the performer in her knew this not to be so, yet the statement betrays her protectiveness of her own interpretations of Bach. Today we can hear the Bach not only of Landowska, but also of Tureck, of Gould, and many others. So we are fortunate to have inherited the legacies of Both Liszt and Clara. But the question remains, why do many musicians feel so strongly that there must be an absolute, irrevocable, and perennial truth about the meaning of music and musical works? Are these convictions rooted in the intense communion we forge with the instrument, the repertoire, the canon, and the heroes of pianism? How many of us freely and routinely talk with our students about the issue of music’s meaning, about its potential seriousness or lightness, and about the importance of keeping an open mind with respect to the musical experiences of peers and colleagues? The anonymity of the internet empowers “chat”-ers not only to voice their opinions, but to defend them through virtual aggression. Despite its potential negative aspects, then, the internet, as a forum for the discussion of aesthetic issues that are central to the experience of music, can perhaps teach us all something about our own attitudes towards music and musicians.

Her piece is worth reading and I look forward to comments from my audience of music lovers, working musicians and of course those that know that I love a great argument.

“What’s wrong with street meat?”Alexander asks most people when they see the classic styrofoam flip-top container and look at him with disgust.

Is it a NYC thing?  I’ve heard that many other countries have food on the street and some of them have questionable sanitary conditions.  These days you have the truck phenomenon craze from here to LA (Mud Coffee, Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, Wafels & Dinges, and the Dessert Truck are this author’s favorites).  Does food coming from a really slick truck with a Twitter feed improve the quality?  What’s wrong with the cart on the street?  When I was working at Radar Magazine (the second incarnation when it was next door to Home Depot on 23rd Street before Mort Zuckerman pulled the plug) I  would eat at the cart right outside almost daily. “Lamb, veggies and a little white sauce”.  It’s still there.  Now answer me this. Would a cart serving bad food still be at the same location for at least four years?

Learn more bout The Vendy's

I’m a fan of street-meat and the entire culture that has built up around street ready and available eats.  I have seen carts over the years that have lines of loyal customers blocks long.  Complete with ropes and stanchions.  When carts have to close down the news sometimes makes it to a NY1 segment.  There are even The Vendy Awards (aka The Vendy’s), an annual intense cook-off between the best sidewalks chefs in New York City for the Vendy Award trophy and the title of Vendy Award winner. A fundraiser to support the Street Vendor Project of the Urban Justice Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides a voice for the thousands of people who sell food and merchandise on the streets of our city.  The finalists are determined by a public nomination process and the “Citizen Judges” are chosen by a lottery of ticket holder’s prior to June 1st. This year The Vendy’s will take place on September 26th at the Queens Museum of Art.  Tickets and more details at their website. Follow on Twitter (@vendyawards) and Facebook.

This week there was an article in Slate that caught my attention that also cited an article from last month in the New York Times.  They both touch the under-policed cut-throat world of the street vendors and their society.  My detractors would cite these articles to argue their anti-street-vendor rhetoric but I am steadfast.

First, in Julia Moskin’s July 30th New York Times article “Turf War at the Hot Dog Cart” she writes about a couple setting up their cart in front of The Museum of Modern Art:

Elwood Smith for New York Times (click to go to NYT article)

In four weeks of business, the couple has been threatened at the depot where they park the truck; cursed by a gyro vendor who said that he would set their truck on fire; told to stay off every corner in Midtown by ice cream truck drivers; and approached by countless others with advice — both friendly and menacing — on how to get along on the streets…

…Turf wars are nothing new for carts selling kebabs and cheap coffee. But the makers of thumbprint cookies, chicken-Thai basil dumplings, and crème anglaise are not happy about the sharp elbows that are part of the city’s sidewalk economy, or the murky bureaucracy that oversees the issuing of permits. (Six people were arrested on Tuesday on fraud charges related to food vending permits.

And she highlights the new comers:

In the last two years, upscale food trucks have swarmed the streets, entrancing New Yorkers with everything from artisanal Earl Grey ice cream to vegan tacos. These highly visible trucks, their outspoken owners and their followers on Twitter, Facebook and food blogs, have broken the code of the streets that has long kept a relative peace among food vendors…

…These new culinary entrepreneurs, most of them with English as their first language and little fear of police or immigration authorities, say that they are on a mission to bring better street food to New Yorkers, and ready to bring dark corners of the business to light…

…The established vendors, on the other hand, see newcomers as competitors with an unfair advantage in a desperate economy. “They think they can come in with their big fancy truck and push into a spot where I’ve been for 18 years,” said Norman Sweeney, the jewelry vendor who tried to block the Street Sweets truck Monday. He said that the strain of holding down two jobs and sleeping in his truck had caused him to “snap.” “This spot is all I have left,” he said…

Second, this week in Meredith Simons August 12th Slate article “The Half-Million-Dollar Wiener” she delves into the business side:

A hot dog vendor was kicked from the curb outside New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art last week for failure to pay his monthly rent—of $53,558. Pasang Sherpa was under contract to pay the Parks Department $362,201 a year for a stand on the south side of the Met’s entrance and $280,500 for another on the north side. That’s a lot of hot dogs. With rent astronomically high, how much do New York City hot dog vendors actually make?

It’s hard to say. Neither the Parks Department nor the Health Department (which oversees food sales outside parks) requires vendors to report income. They don’t bother calculating expected sales, either—in part because rent is set at auction (with vendors battling it out) rather than by the city. What we do know is that even though Sherpa, a rookie, got in over his head, vendors have long been willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to push $2 dogs outside the Met. (The museum attracts 5 million visitors a year, and the hot dog stands are the only food outlets for blocks.) Last year’s occupant paid $415,000 a year for the Met stands plus at least $25,000 for supplies and labor, and didn’t go under—so we can assume he brought in significantly more than $440,000.

And further into more of the cut-throat side that ties in nicely with a link to the above NYT article:

Vendors on city streets (as opposed to outside park areas) don’t have to pay rent for specific spots; their only real estate expense is the cart permit the city requires them to buy. Theoretically, that’ll put you back just $200 a year. But since the city caps the number of food vendor permits at 3,100, far below demand, there’s an extensive black market. Some companies buy up the permits for dozens of carts and then lease them to individual vendors at highly inflated prices…

…Unlike the Parks Department, the city doesn’t regulate where vendors can set up shop, as long as they’re on streets where vending is allowed. The vendors largely police themselves. New salespeople who encroach on an established colleague’s territory will often get a verbal warning within 15 minutes of showing up at a new site. If the new guy doesn’t take off, anything can happen. The police may be called, the new vendor may be physically threatened, or he may just find his tires slashed.

Hot dog cart on a busy street in Austin during SXSW 2009

Both are great articles and reminded me of my devotion to the carts of the street and how some of the closest people in my life simply do not want to partake. One thing I have noticed of my detractors is that most of them are not from the city originally.  Is it a local thing?  Do they believe that because the cart is on the street that it can’t be as “good” or “healthy” as say the corner bodega?  The quality of meat products is most likely the same.  It can’t be because of cleanliness.  There have been many books published about dirty restaurant secrets and I’ve spent time first-hand in very “nice” restaurants and have seen things that would shut-down any street-cart in a New York minute.  I look forward to the comments I’ll hopefully receive on this article.

Beelzebun's Gourmet Street Food cart during SXSW 2009

I’ll admit to not being the most worldly traveled.  I have been accused of and will admit to being a provincial New Yorker.  I enjoy studying people in this city and their history.  And wherever I do travel I try to take it the local sounds and flavors.  I was in Austin TX for a week last March for the SXSW 2009 Interactive conference.  The festival draws thousands from around the world for not only the interactive but also the film and of course the famous music portion.  The main drags were lined with various street-eats like the two gems I have photos of here, a flashy hot dog cart and Beelzebun’s Gourmet Street Food.  The hot dog cart like anyone from NYC but Beelzebun’s was a real class act offering all-beef jumbo dogs, pulled pork,  hotlinks and spicy andouille sausage.  The locals and travelers seemed to have no problem partaking.

**UPDATE: Saturday, April 22 2009**

Look closely. There is a someone that looks like a Vet in the cart. Ashley Gilbertson for New York Times (click to go to NYT article)

Today in Simon Akims New York Times article “A Prominent Collection at the Met: Food Carts” he gets into trick of the trade.  (Note about the date.  Online it says that the article was published yesterday but I found it actually in the print version today.  The print version is fabulous to have on the weekends. You should get a subscription.  But that’s another post/rant/POV that I have to write.)

Outside of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a hot-spot for cart vendors, there is an increasing and alarming amount of carts setting up camp.  To the point where visitors to the museum (the main attraction after all) have to weave through the mobile land grabbers.  Now these mostly newcomers are claiming that they do not have to pay the city because their permits are owned by disabled Veterans.  Simon goes on to say:

The city once earned more than half a million dollars a year in vending rights from two hot dog carts in front of the museum. Then, two years ago, a third vendor, Dan Rossi, nosed his cart onto the property, saying that as a disabled veteran, he had the right to be there without paying the city a dime…

…Police officers handed out summonses last week, in most cases for being too far from the curb. Vendors said they were in a catch-22 situation: If they were near the curb they would be ticketed for obstructing the bus and taxi stops, and if they were farther out on the sidewalk they would be ticketed for being too far from the curb…

And he begins about the disabled Veteran angle:

Harold Dalton, who served in the Army from 1979 to 1983, holds the permit for Veterans Halal Food. “I found a guy that wanted to cooperate,” he said. “I hop up there every now and then, sling a frank or two.” (While pork is forbidden in Islamic tradition, and thus is not halal, these hot dogs are beef.)

It is a great article. Head over to the NYT and read it today.  And if you are near the Met.  Go buy a hot dog from one of the original vendors.

Now this might only apply to those that commute in New York City but there are are some rules that one should follow when riding a packed subway during rush hour.  Now these rules may differe form person to person and some might not pay attention to things like this or accept them as just “the way it is” but this kind of flagrant disregard for people around simply will not stand.

What would you do if you were carrying a large backpack?

When I am carrying any large bag I place the bag in front of me.  Why?  Because I do not want to bother the people behind me that I can not see because I was not gifted with eyes in the back of my head.  I don’t wear backpacks but I have a shoulder back slung messenger style.   I don’t think it is appropriate for people to be maneuvering through a crowd with what amounts to stegosaurus plates on their back.  Are these people self-aware?  How do they go through life?  The whole routine looks like a Three Stooges bit.  The classic move where one would be carrying a long piece of wood like a 2×4 and then look one way, turn, and not out the other behind him.

So this morning there is one of those completely aloof travlers adorned with some sort of explorer adventure pack.  A 21st century Sir William Edward Parry.  With all those belts and straps.  Like this is an urban Serengeti and we are all the local wild life.  They were all slouched over by the weight of their pack.  All the while us wildlife are trying to pass by them in an almost nearly impossible dance of skill.  Do they respond or react to the protrusion behind them.  The nearly human size mass attached to their back?  No.  They stand there looking around at the marvel of modern conveyances that they obviously do not have in the backwater they hail from.  They do have an REI there though it seems.

So let’s say you are not the world’s next Francisco Vázquez de Coronado.  You are one of us commuters on their way in on the greatest subway system ever built. The doors open and people are piling in the car.  You notice that there is room in the middle of the car but you are stuck to the pole by the door.  Do you move to the center of the car, thus allowing everyone to evely fill in or do you stand there and let everyone walk by you?  Unfortuantely, I’ve discovered that the later is the more common.  Why is that?  How are these people raised?  Are they that important that they feel that they do not have to move or be considerate?  Unfortunately when I ask them to move I’m so aggrevated that it is impossible for me to adjust my tone.  What I think should be a cordial suggestion comes out more like an order.  Somebody needs to do it because unfortunately these great tides of masses flow away from confrontation and I love nothing more than to go against the tide at times.

I’ve often considered publishing a book that should be handed out to every tourist when they board their flight to NYC for the first time.   The working title is “Walking with the Pack:  Rules for traveling on foot in NYC”.

My late Grandfather, was amongst many things (to be defined later but a volunteer firefighter was one of them) a barber. My late uncle was also, but in the West Village I think you would call a gay barber a hair stylist.  Below are photos of the tools the I most recently inherited.  Though the straight razor is sexy, I doubt I will be using it.

Here in DC the crew is fast underway on building out the inauguration structure in front of the Capital. With about one month and counting until one of the best celenrations this natiom has seen on my generation. Yes they can.

Is this some kind of conspiracy?  It has been recently discovered by yours truly that the PDF that you are sent by Rock The Vote does not print correctly from Mac OS 10.5.4 in either Preview OR Adobe Acrobat CS3 to a regular common HP laser printer.  Can you believe that?  Even in CS3, the very mother of all PDF applications!

I attribute this solely to the fact the the PDF is being automatically generated on their side.  A server-side script that it writing the PDF using some sort of typeface that simply is not translating on Mac.  Question is, how many others out there are in this situation?

There are two solutions.  One is to export the PDF as a rasterized image such as a JPG.  The quality will be poor and the text blocky but the information will be readable by the attendant entering you into the database.  The other solution is to try to print to a different printer if possible as all Postscript printers occasionally do not translate live type correctly.

Do not be discouraged!  Keep trying!