Office Work

The Great Recession may have hurt a lot of people economically, but it doesn't seem that way when you see all the lights on in these midtown office buildings. The workers always stay late into the night toiling away inside of the huge skyscrapers. Or maybe it's just the cleaning people who are working late. Either way, there's no way they need to have all these lights on. What's the point? When is the energy crisis coming? I hope gas prices shoot up to $6 or $7 a gallon this summer.

This is a view of approximately the 30th to the 45th floors.

Night time in NYC

Sorry, for the typical Manhattan photo. Nothing too exciting or fascinating. Just a shot of the big city.

I really couldn't think of anything I wanted to post right now. I do have all these really good stories and some excellent photos of random things I've been thinking about and have seen around the city, but tonight I wasn't feeling especially creative. I've been a little distracted though so I probably should write something really controversial and I'll get some comments from those quiet people.

You look nice today

The tip jar at The Bean, a coffee & tea shop on 6th Avenue in the West Village. It's a good thing I got my haircut today. How good does that dessert look?

Giant Octopus

I like giant octopus. One of the most mysterious undersea creatures. I saw this one at a great, great Japanese bookstore called Kinokuniya. It's on 6th Avenue and 41st Street, right across from Bryant Park. They sell toys and videos and magazines, but mostly books. There was so much good stuff there. This is what I should have gotten for my birthday if you would have remembered. Oh well, it's not too late. I accept late birthday presents.

12:30am Construction

This is a prime example of why people don't sleep well in New York City. These four guys are out after midnight with jack hammers and bright lights digging up the street making an enormous racket. The good thing is that these construction workers (probably on city overtime) are close to Trump Tower so The Donald and Ivanka and the rest of the Trump clan have to deal with the noise.

Aren't you glad these guys aren't outside your house right now?

Confused

Sometimes everything is confusing. You can take a picture, but nothing really makes sense. It is good when you can slow down and ask questions because things are more in focus.

I'm excited that my movie airs on Sundance Channel Thursday night at 7pm! Set your Tivo.

The Gold Standard

One of these 100% irresistible fries is not like the other. Self-portrait as a McDonald's french fry.

500 Calories of golden delight on 6th Avenue near Radio City Music Hall.

Parking Ticket Roulette

Parking fines in NYC are so hard to figure out. Let's say for some strange reason you end up parking on the sidewalk. How would you know if you'll get a $25 fine or a $500 fine? That's such an arbitrary range. How do they determine who gets the $25 fine and who gets the $500 fine? It's probably a good thing if you do get a ticket because the alternative is that your car or truck is going to fall into the subway. This is the only time when it's better to get a ticket. Of course you could always go to traffic court and fight the ticket.

Urban Geometry

Various angles of one of the more futuristic looking buildings in Midtown. Though I guess that since it's been around for over 25 years it's not so modern. Late 20th century modern perhaps. In case you didn't know, the building in front is the Citicorp Center. It's 59 stories and is 915 feet tall. This midtown landmark building has 1.3 million square feet of office space where Citicorp desperately tries not to lose all your money. The top of the building has a distinctive triangle shape and was designed to be a massive solar panel, but that never happened.

The round/curved building in the background is the Lipstick Building, best known now as the building where Bernie Madoff had his offices.

Memorial Day, 2009

Sixth Avenue subway sunbathing.

Evol Blocked

Doesn't this guy realize that his knockoff handbag stand is pretty much right in the way of everyone's pictures? Fairly typical Manhattan attitude. Everyone for themselves.

Fried Chicken & Pizza

Don't you love Fried Chicken and Pizza for breakfast? I wonder if they serve it cold.

Walking and Smoking

A man on the Lower East Side out for an evening walk. I conveniently left out the dog.

I took a bunch of pictures, I should probably post more. Tomorrow.

Pink Party Boy

Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over

This single color outfit thing seems to be the style for May 2009. The sick pink checkered slip-on Vans straight out of Jeff Spicoli's Fast Times at Ridgemont High sneaker collection didn't go unnoticed either. Don't ask me why you might be walking around town wearing a party hat, but I can only guess it's a birthday party.

I missed this one too.

What I didn't miss is the latest single by Florence and the Machine (OK, I know they've been hot for a while so I'm a couple months late, but you haven't heard it either). They're selling out all over the UK. People are calling her the best vocalist discovered in the past year. Listen for yourself. Here you can even sing along...

Happiness hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with her drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming
So you better run

Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father
Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your loving, your loving behind
You cant carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses?
'Cause here they come

Undercover Rolls Up on Macy's

Alela Diane - The Pirate's Gospel

Here's an example of your typical undercover NYC police car stopping to harass a street vendor selling perfume or some other unnecessary street junk on 35th and Broadway, near Macy's. The guy in the backwards baseball cop is a police officer (all these guys look the same) and there's another one sitting in the back seat of their unmarked completely nondescript automobile. There's also a cop in uniform in the picture who rolled up on a 10-speed bicycle too.

These are the people keeping our city safe, one bottle of counterfeit perfume at a time.

Alela Diane is a singer/songwriter and part of the so-called New Weird America folk genre. She's a terrific lyricist and sure knows how to write a good song.

I figured I'd post the only cool pirate song I know on account of today's conviction of Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, the sole surviving accused pirate from the foiled bid to hijack the huge U.S. container ship, the Maersk Alabama off the coast of Somalia last month. Prosecutors said that he was the ring leader of the pirates or at least conducting himself that way and was the first to board the ship. It's pretty crazy that four or five pirates in a small boat can take over a massive ship. Apparently he is the first piracy conviction in the US in nearly 100 years or so. I think he was only doing this piracy thing because his parents couldn't afford braces. After all, his parents said he was only 15, but I don't think the court believed them for a second. I'm not convinced either way. They should have asked his Somalian orthodontist to testify. After looking at the picture (link above) I am sure you'll agree. He's facing a mandatory life sentence in prison. That may wipe the buck-toothed smile off his face.

Lullabies Help The Brain Grow

Tim Kerr was the guitarist in one of my favorite punk bands of all time, The Big Boys. The Big Boys were hands down the coolest, most fun band ever and were very influential in the hardcore punk scene of the early 1980's. I have all their records along with a Big Boys skateboard and a couple t-shirts, etc. They were all skaters which made them easy to relate to, but they also just totally rocked out and had a great time being in a band. They hailed from Austin, TX and my band BIU played a very memorable show with them at the Greenfield Grange in Western Massachusetts many, many years ago. They inspired us to form our band. One of their phrases, among many, was "Now go start your own band!"

I got to know a lot of great people from that time because as a teenager I would type letters to people from all over the world. Tim and I became great friends and we were pen pals for many years. We'd write letters back and forth and trade flyers and records and talk on the phone about records and music and skateboarding and other things that we thought were interesting. We lost touch after I went to college and moved to New York, but I've seen his name pop up over the years. He's a really great guy.

Tim did all the artwork for the Big Boys records and I always thought it was pretty terrific. Imagine my surprise when I was looking through some pictures I took last week and I found this one. This mural of Claudette Colvin appears on a wall on Elizabeth street and I was just sort of admiring it and noticed that my old friend Tim was the artist. You can see more of his art here. You can also watch a video of his studio here.

Here's one of there songs "We Got Your Money" from the 1980's time period. It reminds me of seeing them way back then, we had a really fun time. What a great show. Afterwards, the band gave us all a ride home in their tour van. It was pretty excellent.

Cherries and Grapes

Solid Gold - Get Over It

I finally found a music player that works seamlessly with a blog and doesn't have an annoying autoplay feature. If you want to play the song, you click the arrow. And if you don't, you don't. See if I care. It's your choice. It takes a couple extra seconds to load the page, but I think it's probably worth it.

After a little bit of Sunday afternoon messing around with this Yahoo Media Player, I think I finally figured it out. I found this player thanks to Diana Miller, the music booker for Carson Daly's talk show. (Is that show even still on the air?) She runs the totally great I Listen to Everything blog which basically covers any sort of music you can dream up from Afro Punk to Zombie Rock.

I stumbled across this song from Solid Gold on some other site. They're an unsigned band from Minneapolis. I can't stop listening to it either. I know at least one person who loves 80's music that will totally like this song. The kids love them.

Cleaning Day

A lot of blurry books.

I Wanna Be Sedated

I just don't think it's possible for her to carry any more stuff while walking down the avenue at a New York City street fair. The handbag, the drink, the fork, the plate of street food, and a couple of shopping bags are plenty to handle. What I especially love is the Dylan's Candy Bar bag, but her blue sunglasses are great too. Of course, what makes this whole look stand out is obviously the Ramones t-shirt. Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee, and Marky would be proud.

Gabba, gabba, hey!

Saturday Breakfast

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Purple Bagel Eater

Portrait of man in well-pressed purple outfit eating a bagel on the street.

Sprout

This guy sprouted up out of nowhere. It's Daniel Webster in Central Park just in case you were wondering.

Caught Between

Have you ever wondered what it's like to get stuck right between two buses in midtown traffic and they keep getting closer and closer together? You don't really have many options at that point. A lot of people have trouble making these kinds of decisions, but I think it's best to keep moving straight ahead as quickly as you can. There's always a good story when you actually decide to do something. That's what I think.

Afternoon Delight

And then there are those spring afternoons where you just put on your hat and your lipstick and just sit around reading the free newspaper. I saw Axl Rose walking by this exact same spot many years ago. While I don't think he was wearing any lipstick, it was at a time when he was way cooler than he is right now. But that was then and today she's got him beat by a long shot. She probably dances better too.

Wooden Escalator

Macy's may be known for many things, but I think that their original wooden escalators are one of the best things about the store. This enormous department store is located in the middle of the city and its kind of a let down when you go there for the first time or any old time really. It's huge (10 floors), but basically pretty crappy as far as department stores go. To me, it seems run down, tired and in need of some general overall refurbishment and upkeep. There are way better department stores in the city (Bergdorf Goodman or even Saks) or anywhere in the world (Harrod's, etc.). I like to think that Macy's management is huddled up in a conference room somewhere right now devising a plan to make their flagship store appear a lot more spectacular.

At least they are doing one thing right.

The absolute best part about visiting Macy's is taking a ride on the wooden escalators and visiting the McDonalds located on the 7th floor. It's a good place to go and get a Big Mac.

Matching Shoes

This is one example of the appropriate way to wear high heels while riding a bike on a Saturday afternoon across 5th Avenue and 22nd Street. Her shoes match the purse and flower headgear. I would seriously recommend she replace the flower with a helmet and chain that purse down in the basket.

I went and looked around at Restoration Hardware if you were wondering.

Work Hard, Fly Right

Do you think the giraffe helps? I pretty much never give these guys money, I think it just encourages them.

It was kind of a crazy week, but I think I'm finally back on track. There were a lot of twists and turns that had to be navigated plus a last minute trip to Madrid that was completely unplanned. I usually don't decide to travel overseas with 15 minutes notice, but that's what happened. It was a good trip, I took a lot of pictures of various things so I'll try to post some pictures soon.

Rainy Days

The forecast calls for rain until Sunday.

Audrey Tautou as Coco Chanel in Madrid

Audrey Tautou makes her way to the red carpet (actually it was black - see below).


The entrance for the regular people. We still got to walk on the black carpet, we just didn't sign too many autographs.


The chaotic scene of photographers waiting.


Audrey signed lots of autographs.


Some sexy Spanish ladies doing interviews.


A nice view of the black carpet. Awaiting celebrities.


The crowd was at capacity! Here is where we waited to get in.


Lots of madrilenos showed up for the premiere!


Audrey makes her way down the black Coco Chanel carpet.


Audrey signs some Amelie film collectable for a fan.

At the premiere for the new movie "Coco Avant Chanel" in Madrid, Spain on May 4, 2009.

The film stars Audrey Tautou (pictured above) as the legendary fashion designer who smoked 50 cigarettes a day. I think she is totally great. The film opens in the United States this fall. I can't wait to see it again. Here's a trailer for all of you who couldn't be with me tonight.