Wired women

The New York Times, typically, tip-toed around the question of who the other woman was in the Pirro love-boat-bugging triangle (while the Daily News had no such qualms, giving us pictures and practically the address of the hottie), preferring instead to put Pirro's plight in the light of her history with the husband-from-hell and linking it -- natch -- to the saga of that other Westchester wannabe, Tammy Wynette Clinton. (Unmentioned in all this is the specter of Geraldine Ferraro, who hovers over the scandal like one of those ghosts from Tony Soprano's dreams.)

But the Times should have looked a little closer to home -- like right there on the same front page, where former Hewlett-Packard chairwoman Patricia Dunn is pictured looking on stoically while a pair of identical bald lawyers whisper behind her as she testifies before a House panel. Like Pirro, Dunn (synonomous with finished) played with fire, or wire, when she bugged board members she suspected of leaking info to the press. Pirro simply talked to Bernie Kerik about bugging her husband's boat to confirm her suspicions regarding the other woman. When Kerik, captured on tape, said he couldn't find anyone to do the actual bugging, scared as they were of doing something extralegal for a former prosecutor and possible future attorney general, she asked, rhetorically I suppose, "What am I supposed to do, Bernie? Watch him fuck her every night?"

Yeah, baby.

Leaving aside the wisdom of seeking counsel from Kerik in this matter (this is a man who missed the chance to be director of Homeland Security when it was revealed that, among other things, he used a city-owned apartment to cheat on not just his wife but his mistress), Pirro and Dunn could have saved themselves a lot of time, not to mention a couple of pretty good jobs, if they had just assumed the worst. Yes, your husband is cheating on you, your board member has the Silicon Valley beat reporter on his speed dial -- all of your worst fears are confirmed. Now what? By trying to prove what you already knew you just screwed yourself, so to speak. Nixon, forever dangling in history in a spider web of wire and tape, bugged the Democrats in 1972 when they were already headed for a self-created defeat. He proved to himself that John Lennon hated the US government when he could have just bought an album. Assume the worst and you'll never be disappointed, someone said. Just have the upholstery cleaned before you get on that boat.

JUDGMENT DAY: To all you readers within the sound of my voice -- that is, my neighbors in downtown Brooklyn -- today is the last day to comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement created to give us an idea of what life will be like after the Atlantic Yards is built. If you like sunshine and being able to park, and think schools are quite crowded enough and traffic is plenty snarled already; if you love Brooklyn for its low-rise quality-of-life, your neighborhood for its neighborhood feel; if you think a community should have some say when an outside, Cleveland-born, Upper-East-Side residing developer decides to change the face of your city because he is well-connected and stands to make a billion dollars on the deal, speak now. Today. Before 5:30 pm. You can read up on the DEIS on the Develop Don't Destory Brooklyn website or (if you've heard quite enough) email atlanticyards@empire.state.ny.us and let your voice be heard. Someone actually reads these things, and as union members who live in other places and housing advocates who have been hoodwinked or paid to believe Ratner is going to build them a workers' paradise are sure to flood the zone with their own cookie-cutter responses, your concerned complaint will register. Go ahead, take five minutes. It's your community, too.

posted by Sean Elder @ 10:43 AM  0 comments

A cup of Jolie

I heard a story on the BBC World Service this morning about people in the UK borrowing more than their European counterparts and it was definitely of the been-there-borrowed-that sort to these American ears. There was the testimony of several debtors who complained they found themselves thousands of pounds in the hole thanks to the sort of zero-percent credit card offers with which we are regularly deluged. Capital One is probably crossing the pond as we speak.

Then for counterpoint there was a spokesman from the credit industry who took the hard line. You could not blame the banks for their spendthrift ways, he argued. Personal responsibility and all that. They only had themselves to blame.

It occurred to me that the same conservatives, here or there, who argue you can't blame banks for the growing number of debtors just because they make it ridiculously easy to borrow (just as you can't blame McDonald's for making people fat, or tobacco companies for giving people cancer) are the same people who love to blame Hollywood for encouraging wanton sexual behavior by giving us images of Brad Pitt shagging Angelina Jolie.

Banks and credit card companies have tried to deflect criticism by offering courses in getting out of debt and managing your finances, just as Philip Morris or whatever they're calling themselves now have a whole cottage industry devoted to keeping kids from smoking. (Goodbye, Joe Camel.) But Hollywood has yet to find a way to make us stop thinking about Angelina's lips.

I'd like to see them try.

posted by Sean Elder @ 10:41 PM  0 comments

Buggin' out

Fall must be lice season in New York because kids are being sent home in droves to have their heads checked and deloused in record numbers, it seems. Record since last year, anyway. My daughter was caught up in the latest purge and I tried to assure her she was not alone: our neighbor, my shrink, the man in the moon. All their kids were itchng and scratching.

So Franny and I paid a repeat visit to Abigail Rosenfeld, Brooklyn's premier nit-picker (for all those who have asked, her number is 718/435-2592). Abigail lives on an Orthodox block in Flatbush and I would say that she has so many children she doesn't know what to do, but that's not true. Clearly the answer is "have more" since there was a new baby since we saw her last fall (Shlamme? she translated it as "Sammy" and he was about the cutest thing either my daughter or I had ever seen) and another one on the way. She had been hit with so many requests in recent weeks that she was sending people down the block to other Orthodox moms who did the same thing.

Who knew? Turns out there is competition for this timeless, tiring, time-consuming job (you need a ocean of Pantene, a fine-tooth comb and endless patience) which revealed itself as she quizzed Franny about the people who had come to her school to help the nurse check heads. "Lice Advice?" she said. "I gave that woman her start. I was hoping another friend of mine would get that job." She wished her competitor no ill, she assured me. But clearly she had favorites.

Franny was clean, btw. A few nits. Now we're on to the endless washing and drying of everything in her room. I offered to do a Freaky-Friday role-reversal with my wife once -- I would run her magazine while she did the domestic scientist/writer/teacher bit -- and she passed. She couldn't handle the scene at Abby's, I bet, what with beleagured parents shlepping their kids in from Hastings and toddlers running amok on the floor (one of them asked me if I wanted to kiss the Torah, which smelled distinctly of Doritos). But she didn't get to see that baby.

posted by Sean Elder @ 6:43 PM  0 comments

Deep purple

I got a phone call from Susan Sarandon just before the primaries (date some women once and they never leave you alone) and I was disappointed to find it was just a recording. Turns out she was endorsing Jonathan Tasini over Hillary Clinton in the US Senate race because Hillary had supported the invasion of Iraq and still did not want to bring the soldiers home -- unlike Tasini who was ready to start loading the troop transports in Baghdad tomorrow.

I have a lot of reasons to distrust Hillary -- she seems only too willing to fudge or pull a complete reversal on any number of positions, from a woman's right to choose to a consumer's right to declare bankruptcy, if it's politically expedient or there is money for her future presidential race involved. And if nominated she will surely cost us the election again, given the Satan-like associations she has for many -- though the simple fact that so many hate her that she is doomed from the start does not seem to be enough to stop her from becoming her party's first presidential nominee, an honor she doubtless thinks of as her birthright.

But though I can't forgive her and the rest of the Senate their decision to give Bush a blank check going into Iraq, I believe she sincerely thought Saddam posed some kind of global risk. And as wrong as she and Colin Powell and Tony Blair and millions of others were on that score, and as much as I hope the Vulcans who drove this bus are punished in international courts if not eternal hellfire for their pursuit of this policy, I don't see how we can just pull out of Iraq. What do we say to the people whose nation we have destroyed? "Sorry about that"? Even if the idea of dividing Iraq into three sovereign states (Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurd) is a non-starter as many Iraq-watchers believe, the US has no choice but to stick around and do some nation rebuilding.

We cannot magically turn our soldiers into peace-keeping troops because there is no peace to keep. We cannot unscrew this pooch, even once the Vulcans are out of power. (And as they head for the exits, look for more blame to be shifted to past presidents, the press, anyone but the people who got us into this mess.) But we cannot walk away from a disaster of our creating. We have to reinvent our role in this war. Start by restoring electricity.

So sorry Susan et al. This position puts me deeply in the purple category in this very blue city -- but I always hated that division anyway. I lost a lot of friends on the left coast since 9.11, specifically in the uber-blue Bay Area, people so blue they think it's unfair to the other colors to characterize blue as liberal or Democratic, people who want to show solidarity with colors on the other end of the spectrum -- and who decided to make blue and red primary colors, anyway? Periwinke has rights, too. These were people who thought even going after Al Qaeda was unfair. (A typical comment before the Iraq war: "Who is this majority in the polls who support this invasion? I don't know a single person who is for the war!" Having not been outside of Alameda, Marin or SF county in 20 years...)

So don't look for me at the peace rally, shouting "Troops out now!" I'm going to take my purple crayon and write right here.

posted by Sean Elder @ 3:39 PM  0 comments

Baa, baa, baa

I was stuck in the house all day, working on the Rushing book and measuring the occasional showers. Before the sun set I thought it was sufficiently dry to take the dog for a walk. As we perambulated up Lafayette to Washington, over to DeKalb and down to Clermont, I was posed three questions, after having been asked nothing all day.

"What's Bonerama?" a man said, reading my T-shirt. (A New Orleans band composed of four trombones with a sousaphone for a bass, I told him, and he looked suitably amazed. You should hear their covers of "Crosstown Traffic" and "The Whiffenpoof Song.")

"A gas station attendant pushed me when I asked him for money and I punched him in the mouth," a homeless man told me. "Can I be arrested for that?" (If he walked away, I said, he probably won't press charges. But stay away from that gas station, just in case.)

"What's the desperation?" a man on DeKalb asked as a woman barrelled past, running for the bus. "If she is that desperate, why not take a cab?" (Maybe she doesn't have the money, I said. Besides, have you ever tried finding a cab on DeKalb?)

Glad to be of service, folks. Now it's back to work.

"Gentlemen songsters off on a spree/Doomed from here to eternity..."

posted by Sean Elder @ 6:59 PM  0 comments

Tivo your dreams

That was a plot device in Wim Wenders' 1991 film Until the End of the World, a rather amorphous future-noir in which a bunch of disciples of Max von Sydow's use a machine he has invented to record their dreams. Unfortunately this proves more habit formng than Tylenol PM, and soon no one is doing anything but sitting around watching instant replays of last night's circus of the subconscious, barely rousing themselves to sing a valedictorian version of "Days" at the creator's cremation...

I was reminded of that dream-recorder last night when I got around to watching a week's worth of shows I had recorded. I don't know about you but if it wasn't for Tivo I would probably not see anything but cable news ("Everywhere is war") and a few baseball games (subway series?). First I sampled the pilot of Studio 360 on the Sunset Strip (our friend David Handelman is on the roster of writers serving Aaron Sorkin) and found it as entertaining as advertised. Then I watched some short films that TCM had shown last week, including a couple early shorts by David Lynch.

It was great seeing TCM's genial host, Bob Osborne, who is more comfortable introducing films starring Gregory Peck or Grace Kelly, grimace his way through the Lynch set-up. He looked like he was selling gum surgery. And indeed "The Grandmother" (1970), the longer of the two films, was the most horrifying thing I've seen coming out of my Sony since Bush addressed the UN. If I hadn't been so tired I might have gotten up off the couch to get rid of the images of the vampirish little boy (half Brian Ferry, half Eddie Munster) who grows a monster grandmother to rescue him from the animal parents who alternately abuse and neglect him.

It wouldn't be quite fair to say I have never seen anything like it; it's a preview of coming Lynch attractions, most obviously Eraserhead. In the director's subconscious, so close to his film world, the birthing process is monstrous, children are monstrous and the only thing more monstrous is the world they are born into. Eraserhead was the first film of his I saw; it played at midnight at the Roxie in San Francisco for months. I remember being so impressed that I took a girl I was seeing at the time to a screening. It was the beginning of the end of our relationship.

I erased "The Grandmother" and the equally horrifying but shorter "Alphabet" from my Tivo but I can't delete them from my dreams.

posted by Sean Elder @ 9:46 AM  0 comments

Drip, drip, drip

Among the many hats I wear is that of what my friend Jessica Greenbaum would call "domestic scientist," her name for the person who stays home and tries to figure out, through tireless experimenting, the proper temperature at which to serve a roast, the best way to patch a screen door, how to interpret the mysteries of NY recycling (milk cartons go with glass bottles and cans, of course) and so on. A housewife, they used to call us, or in my case, househusband.

(Jess herself is a fine poet, as well as loving wife, mother of two beautiful girls, active community member and so on. And when I'm not being a domestic scientist I am teaching, writing two books -- with one hand! -- giving moral support and nourishment to my wife and children and trying to save Brooklyn and the world, not necessarily in that order.)

I don't think those who are not also domestic scientists realize just how much time and effort are involved in some of the most mundane but necessary tasks. Take my kitchen sink -- please. We remodeled our kitchen back when Saddam was still in his spidey hole and among the new hardware we installed was a Leonardo faucet with a sprayer attachment (the Davinci 970, for those playing at home) the architect loved. It has a cool little button on the sprayer itself -- push down for a shower effect, pull up for garden-hose stream -- which works great. Until it doesn't. Which turned out to be about three months after we bought it.

After several emails to architect and several calls to AF Supply, the Whitney Museum of plumbing products, I was offered a replacement. Which broke about six months later, as well. The button comes off with no way of putting it back on. Now I am in negotiations with AF for a different model, with phone calls being exchanged about once a week. Developing story. Meanwhile, Saddam's trial is dragging on and the judge has gone on record telling the defendant that he is not a dictator. This judge is becoming the Lance Ito of Iraq...

I guess I'll have to find another way to wash my spinach.

posted by Sean Elder @ 11:46 AM  2 comments

Come blow your horn

How unchecked is your ego? Most of us have moments where we like to think of ourselves as king of the forest (not queen, not duke, not prince) but generally we have reality to keep us in our place. Your parents can generally be counted on to keep you in line, not to mention your children. A good friend can deflate your head when it gets to Macy's Day proportions as well, providing you are wise enough to listen.

Some writers, like Page Six celebrities, make the mistake of buying their own press -- or taking that little voice too seriously, the one that is up late brushing up their Nobel Prize acceptance speech. (Most of us have enough daily humiliation dished up by the publishing trade that we don't need any extra deflation.) A writing program I am affiliated with recently circulated the bios of my fellows and they were filled with the usual thumbnail sketches, who had published what where, and what accolades, if any, they had collected. But one writer, who shall remain nameless, was identified as "among the most gifted and celebrated writers of our time."

Golly! If this were someone like, say, Joan Didion, who is in fact one of the most gifted and celebrated writers of our time, this might not seem so embarrassing. But this is merely a writer who writes a lot, and often not well, on a number of topics -- a name you are familiar with but not one that would make you buy a magazine just because the writer was in it. Worse, these sorts of bios are submitted by the writers themselves, like the actors CVs that appear in the back of a playbill. No hiding place down here.

Of course it's possible the writer's agent submitted this piece of puffery for their client, unbeknownst to them. It's not much of an excuse -- kind of like telling the kids at school that your mom made you wear those stupid shoes that have made you a figure of fun at recess. But it's better than admitting that you picked them out yourself. Most kids in those circumstances will go home to hide those shoes in the closet, never to be worn again.

It reminds me of a lunch I once had with the editor of a fashion magazine. We were discussing a writer who had made a career of sorts writing about his misadventures in dating. "This guy has dated every A-list woman in New York," she said, "including me!" Made me wonder about the writers who tackled all the B-list babes out there, and what they did with their castoffs.

posted by Sean Elder @ 8:47 PM  0 comments

The future is today

Before heading to the New School this morning I spent about an hour pamphleteering the late-shift commuters of Ft. Greene and Clinton Hill with a cheat sheet of candidates opposed to the Atlantic Yards Development, conveniently put together by the nice folks at No Land Grab. A few potential voters I assaulted seemed sick of the subject already, their tired looks all but shouting: "Don't you know it's Fashion Week? And I haven't even had my latte yet!"

But if Bruce Ratner has his way you'll be drinking your latte in Greenpoint, pal -- because there won't be anywhere to park here. And if you can find an outdoor cafe (one preferably run by a chain latte provider, like that Starbucks in the hideous Atlantic Center, another architectural gem we can thank the developer for) it will be in the shade, thanks to the 60-story apartment buildings that will ring the arena.

Primaries are boring, I know -- unless there are real issues on the table. By taking five minutes (and believe me, on slow days like this, that's all it will take) to cast a vote for those who have gone on record opposing this hideous project that threatens to turn our neighborhoods into a buffer zone for something that will look like the Javits Center on steroids -- Bill Batson for State Assembly in the 57th AD, Chris Owens in the 11th Congressional District, Charles Barron in the 10th, and Velmanette Mongomery in the 18th -- you are casting a vote for sunshine, fresh air and all that hippy shite.

In a typically lame front-of-the-book essay in the terminally boring New York Times Magazine Sunday, James Traub asked the always provocative question, "Whither Bohemia?" His thesis, such as it was, was that bohemia was now a state of mind (hey!) since every time cool people found a cool neighborhood (the Village, Williamsburg, Dumbo) uncool people came and made it unaffordable, and monochromatic. He posited the idea that Ft. Greene is that neighborhood now, a haven for interesting folks of all colors and establishments catering to them, but that our time was nigh thanks to the inexorable...Atlantic Yards Development! Yes, folks, there is no arguing with progress and a well-connected, racially divisive bilionaire. The fact that Ratner is building the Times next great edifice has nothing to with his argument, nor their editorial endorsing this fiasco.

Hit the polls, people. Don't let Ratner, Sulzberger, the mayor et al tell you what's inevitable. The fate of Brooklyn hangs on your chads.

posted by Sean Elder @ 4:01 PM  0 comments

No dark sarcasm in the classroom

Since reading in the New York Times this morning that the CIA tortured Al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah by playing the Red Hot Chili Peppers at ear-splitting volume, I've been thinking about what kind of music we could use to torture Dick Cheney with. I know, the vice president is not in charge of the CIA (a situation he plans on rectifying if he can just have a little more time to expand those executive powers) but the new torture-all-the-time atmosphere that has been stinking up the joint since 9.11 emanates from Cheney like those rays from the dark eye of Sauron.

I turned for inspiration to Meet the Press where Cheney was the guest this morning. Tim Russert opened with a softball, asking the VP if the war against terror was discouraging terrorists and then followed up by pointing to a poll that indicates over 50% of American believe it is creating more terrorists. Cheney used the old line about Osama et al wanting to establish a Caliphate across the Muslim world ("Sounds like an improvement to me," said my wife, who spent some time in the Middle East). Then Tim held up today's Washington Post and pointed to the headline "Bin Laden Trail 'Stone Cold.'" Bad intel, said the veep. And that terrain where he's hiding -- it's like the dark side of the moon.

Bingo! I bet Cheney would hate Pink Floyd, even though he once told Russert that in interrogating terrorists the US may need to go to "the dark side" -- though he'd probably dig that old Syd Barrett-era chestnut, "Be Careful With That Ax, Eugene." But the later, more pompous Floyd would probably drive him over the edge. Maybe we could make him watch The Wizard of Oz at the same time and stop the film and the CD endlessly to talk about the places we think they sync up.

Playing old video clips, as Russert did, of Cheney claiming that Saddam had WMD, or that he was pals with Al-Qaeda might be torture enough. The only person who believes in those canards now seems to be Cheney and his cabal (which includes, of course, the president) and they don't want to hear any facts to the contrary. We don't need no education, he sings to us. (To which we can reply, with that dopey chorus of kids, "We don't need no thought control.")

"I'm not sure what part of what I'm saying you don't understand," Cheney bristled at one point when the formerly docile Russert pursued the lack of connection between Saddam and Osama. Kicking your former Toto won't help. The man definitely needs a trip to the Wizard, since he is lacking the courage to say that he was wrong about pretty much everything; the brains to see that pursuing the same strategy is a roadmap to oblivion; or the heart to feel for the tens of thousands of lives wasted in this pointless war.

He does have a home, though. It's in Wyoming. May he find it soon.

posted by Sean Elder @ 10:27 AM  0 comments

Suri with a fringe on top

We can all breathe a little easier now. After months of rumors and wild speculation, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have chosen Vanity Fair as the organ that will carry the long awaited images of Suri, that fruit of their blessed union with the fruity name. The first glimpse of the cover, and the news that VF got the scoop, was broken last night on the CBS News debut of Katie Couric -- hey, two Katies? What are the chances of that?

Jane Sarkin of Vanity Fair appeared on Larry King Live this evening for a full showing -- every inch of the 22-page paean to most hyped baby picture since Shoah, or whatever the Brangelina brat is called -- and avowed repeatedly to the ancient mariner just how incredible the whole experience was. The bath picture? "This big movie star just invited us into his bathroom," Sarkin breathlessly informed him -- just her and Annie Leibovitz, a couple of regular gals, just kicking it for five days while Tomkat made them feel right at home.

"She's just an incredible mom," Sarkin shilled, "she runs the house and plans all the meals." Good thing there's someone there to cook them!

There were no conditions of the interview, she insisted, and when King asked if she had asked Holmes if she was a Scientologist, the hard-hitting journalist admitted it never came up. Why would it? And they didn't pay anything for the privelege of shooting them at home, either. Really. He doesn't need the money. Just the good press. And some people as gullible as King.

Nice head of hair on that baby, though.

posted by Sean Elder @ 9:08 PM  0 comments

The new racism

No, I don't mean the fear of Mexicans that permeates the Great Southwest. That's been going on for years though it has reached a fever pitch of late with all the anti-immigrant hysteria, and the likes of Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan rallying the yokels with their impression of "Trouble (Right Here in Riverside City)" -- "With a capital T and that rhymes with B and that stands for Beaner..."

No, I'm talking about Towelheads, Camel Jockeys, Ay-rabs, dammit. Yesterday we were greeted with the story of an American of Iraqi and Palestinian descent who was barred from boarding a Jet Blue flight from JFK to Oakland because he was wearing a T-shrit that said, in English and Arabic, "We Will Not Be Silenced." Oh, yes you will. According to one of the security people who stopped Reed Jarrar from flying, "Going to an airport with a T-shirt in Arabic script is like going to a bank in a T-shirt that says 'I'm a robber.'"

Or going to your TSA job in a shirt that says "I'm a moron."

And today I read of US Sen. Conrad Burns who said Americans confront a "faceless enemy" who "drive cabs in the daytime and kill at night." As a former cab driver, I resemble those remarks (though I used to do most of my killing in the daytime and drove by night, the better to partake of prostitution and drugs) but he does have a point: There are a lot of Arabs driving cabs. In New York. Not so much Montana, though you may want to hail a cab to get the hell away from people like Burns.

This atmosphere of know-nothing racism is encouraged in no small part by our commander in chief, who just yesterday told a VFW audience in Utah that "If we give up on the fight in the streets of Baghdad, we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities." Somehow those penniless unemployed Iraquis are going to fly to the US (wearing T-shirts with English-only messages touting Pepsi and Nike) and start killing us instead of each other if we don't vote against your local Democrat (rhymes with Arafat) this fall.

Is there a hole for me to get sick in?

posted by Sean Elder @ 11:17 AM  0 comments