Okay, like, seriously?

There is nothing that pisses me off more than the way most of the Undead wander around The City all aloof and stupid-like. So, this here manifesto is a Call To Arms, so to speak. A sort of Commuter’s Guideline, if you will.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT FOR NYC COMMUTERS

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Good people of NYC - I bring to you today a terrible tale of office tomfoolery and very bad etiquette.

Needless to say, it is not for the squeamish, nor is it for the easily offended…

I had an odd situation arise at work the other afternoon.

There is this sales guy that works out of my facility, but we hardly ever see him. His office is up in the front part of the facility, out of the way of all the real work going on up in the joint. This cat works fucking banker’s hours - he rolls in around 11, and usually slinks out around 4. Which is good, because he’s a fucking idiot. I mean that, too. An idiot of the Highest Order, the kind of moron that refuses to come and do a little bot of production work, which would ultimately do nothing but help him sell our services to potential clients. Duh, right?

He also refuses to clean his office, which falls under the jurisdiction of SEAN IS KING KONG UP IN THIS PIECE, AND ALL Y’ALL MUST DO AS HE SAYS OR PAY A FUCKING PRICE. I sent the Director of Sales some phone pics of this fool’s sty of an office the other day, and needless to say, the DoS was not a happy man. Maybe twenty minutes later, I received an e-mail from the slovenly sales guy that said “Cleaning isn’t my forte, bro - I’m still a bachelor!”

Yeah. I bet you can imagine my response, right? Good.

His office is now as clean as it can possibly be, and he is not happy with the fact that I threw out his gym bag full of dirty clothes. He was also unhappy that I tossed out his stash of fuck-books he had under his desk. Whatever - I’m running a business here, it’s not like you’re staying with your weird Uncle Felix for the summer - we do work here. God forbid a client comes to the shop or something like that.

ANYWAY…

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Last week I went to the free concert put on by the New York Philharmonic in Central Park. There were approximately 60,000 people there according to the conductor’s announcement. I arrived just after 7pm to the great lawn filled with throngs of happy people spending the wonderful evening with their loved ones and picnic baskets. I maneuvered my way to my friends about 3/4 of the way back from the stage and partook in the mass quantities of food and drink. Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Hendrix were among the composers who’s music graced our ears. Wait, what? Hendrix? As in Jimi Hendrix? Yup, that’s right, they finished the evening with Purple Haze (which by the way, is about one of Hendrix’s favorite bars, NOT marijuana). My favorite was Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, mainly for sentimental reason as I used to flop around on the living room floor when I was 7 when the cannons would fire. I would highly recommend heading out to one of this summer’s free concerts. A list can be found here of the next few shows, including another on July 15th in Central Park at 8pm!

Photo from wikipedia.org

Tomorrow marks the 125th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge opening. When it opened in 1883, this monument was the longest suspension bridge in the world and its Gothic towers were the tallest structures in this hemisphere. Today it serves as a celebrated landmark - appreciated by locals and tourists alike.

Whenever I have friends coming into town, I like to take them for a walk across the bridge. The view of the city and the sight of so many people enjoying this monument (joggers, bikers, a wedding party I saw taking pictures there once) serves as a great NYC experience.

Birthday celebrations started last night with fireworks and a Brooklyn Philharmonic concert. The festivities continue throughout the weekend with free movies, lectures and walking tours. For details on this weekend’s Brooklyn Bridge events, click here.

If you compare the number of people that are homeless in NYC v. Mumbai, the latter wins by millions. If you compare the number of slums - like straight up slums with tin foil and cardboard for roofs, again, Mumbai is the winner. The same goes for the number of vehicles on the roads, the different types of pollution sources and the amount of public transportation available. Mumbai, if looked at from a straight up infrastructure and numbers basis, should be a thousand times dirtier than New York City.

But after landing at Sahara international airport on May 2nd this time around, I’ve found that Mumbai is much cleaner now than it ever was before. They have implemented several garbage cans along the roads for cleanups. I even saw a NYC-styled garbage truck which for some reason got me really happy and homesick for a brief second.

India’s cleaning up everywhere. Mumbai seems to be one of the primary cities taking this initiative personally. There are several hundreds of billboards around the city reminding Mumbaikers to keep their city clean. I actually partook in one of these projects today. My friend has a graphic design studio here and she uses old CD-Roms to write anti-littering campaigns. Then she sticks them on the back of rickshaw drivers’ seats so that each rider can have the message delivered. I posted one of these today. It was awesome.

Mumbai’s done an excellent job in cleaning up and the smell that I once associated with this heavily populated city is also leaving slowly. It seems as though it’s time to move here, but then again real estate in Mumbai is the 5th most expensive in the world.

My friend Sean sent me this copy of a letter he sent to an apartment broker’s company management about how his wife was yelled at and harassed by the broker when she tried to find an apartment. It’s a lovely, heart-warming tale of bullying, harassment, and attempted bribery right here in good ol’ Brooklyn. Enjoy! (All phone numbers and e-mail addresses have been redacted to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent, as the case may be. Warning: the language is not for the squeamish.)

To Whom It May Concern:

As you can clearly see from the text message I have forwarded below, one of your “representatives”, Seth (xxx.xxx.xxxx), has gone above and beyond his duties in representing your company.

Backstory:

My wife called Seth in regards to an ad posted on Craigslist for a 1 Bedroom Apartment for rent in Greenpoint. Upon making contact with Seth, my wife was asked the following:

“When do you need to move by?”

When my wife explained to him that we were flexible, as our current lease was month-to-month, Seth responded with the following (which is pretty similar to what he said to me in his text message):

“People like you will never rent the apartment, and if you want to see the apartment, you need to give me $1000.00.”

My wife asked if that was his broker’s fee, he said no, that the broker’s fee is one month’s rent, but the $1000.00 was to just “see the apartment”. My wife, shocked and upset, then tried to explain to him why we were moving (repeated break-ins in our building), but Seth decided he should scream at her, saying “show me the money, you fucking cunt”, and then he hung up on her.

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I tried out the Cloister Cafe for lunch today. Located in the East Village, this spot is kind of adorable. It has a lovely garden area with an outdoor bar (lined with a selection of hookahs). The garden feels very Mediterranean with a fountain, stone figures, and a pastoral landscape mural. I found the prices surprisingly reasonable, though the menu is not extensive. I ordered a mozzarella tomato sandwich, which was decent (though not anything particularly special). While the service and food were fairly mediocre, I’d definitely go back for the enjoyable atmosphere of that little garden. It would be a fun place for a summer brunch or an outdoor happy hour.

There has been more than one unprecedented move by the Holy Father during his visit to the US. As I write this, the Pontiff is on is way to the United Nations to speak, after landing at JFK. His acknowledgment of the sex scandal rocking the Catholic Church, and meeting with some victims, has been an earthshaking move, although demonstrators outside the UN are protesting that it wasn’t enough.

Later today, the Pope will visit Park East Synagogue. This will not be the first visit to a synagogue by a pontiff. This is the second time this pope has visited a house of Jewish worship, and the third visit overall [his predecessor was the first]. What is significant is that this is right before Passover when the pope will meet the Jewish leaders. And this German-born pontiff, who was a young man in the Nazi era, will come face-to-face with the Rabbi Arthur Schneier of Park East Synagogue, a survivor of the Holocaust.

And so I wish Pope Benedict XVI a Happy Passover!

Happy Easter. Brrrrrrr. Those Easter bonnets are going to have to be lined with wool. It’s colder and earlier than usual this year.

And it doesn’t coincide with Passover this year, which makes for difficulty with the school calendar. NYC students and school employees had a long weekend this time. The week-long Spring Break will be in April, a month from now. I have learned that most of the country, as well as Christian parochial and other private schools in our area, had Spring Break last week or this week, coinciding with Easter.

NYC still operates on a schedule conducive to giving time off for observance of Jewish holidays. But I wonder about twenty, or even ten, years down the road. The faces of NYC teachers are changing. What was traditionally a career for Jewish people, is opening up to more and more non-white college graduates. This is a result of a new generation of African-American and Hispanic college graduates who want to go into the education field, and it is a good thing. The faces of the students have been changing for a long time. White families have been leaving the city for the suburbs for decades, and the ones who stay typically send their children to private schools when possible. Even in the whitest neighborhoods, there are few secular Jewish students. There are pockets of exceptions — newly-arrived Jews from Russia former Soviet Republics in Brighton, Bensonhurst, or Rego Park for instance. Better yet, with increasing Muslim student enrollment, do we close NYC schools on those holidays as well?

It will be interesting to see, in the coming decades, how the DOE adjusts the school calendar to the changing needs of a new demographic.

As a kid growng up in Long Beach, Long Island, I dressed in green every March 17, and my name on classwork headings was Fern O’Cohen. My very Jewish mom made corned beef and cabbage for dinner every St. Patrick’s Day. Yes, everybody is a little Irish today!

After the big parade this morning down Fifth Avenue, the real hard-core partying begins. Irish neighborhoods from Riverdale to Woodside, Queens will be full of green beer, Irish music and Irish food.

So, to all my Irish neighbors and Irish wannabees like myself, I would like to wish everybody a very Happy St. Patricks Day!