The Icepick Cometh

As property continues to be eaten in Dutchess County, the sell-off continues. In my post-graduate (lower case) years, political and civic leaders used to gnash their teeth with worry about how to keep from exporting their "most precious commodity" — their children, who, seeing the double rising tide of the increasing costs of housing and the continued job drain in the aftermath of IBM's early ’90s purge, essentially left for college and never looked back.

What did they expect? The county sold out long ago and IBM's downsizing dovetailed quite nicely with my generation's high school and college graduations. But the Dutchess that has since arisen from those ashes more resembles an extension of Westchester — it is still unaffordable for their children, unless those children moved to New York and earned the means to move back, joining the march of downstaters who discovered their money went further upstate, either as commutable homes (in Southern Dutchess) or as second-homes and "estates" (in Nothern Dutchess).

What saddens me is the continued land rape that goes on in Dutchess. I saw it while visiting during the holidays, driving north on Route 9 in Hyde Park. It's to the point where there is no more land to violate south of the Route 44/55 arterial. And still, proud hard-working families can't afford more than an apartment, a condo with no yard, or a home without a basement, untethered to the earth.

The obvious suspects in this are the politicians and the land barrons feeding a frantic real-estate market. But I see an additional guilty party — the Poughkeepsie Journal. Where was the voice for those without one in the civic realm when the Great Land Sale was (and continues to be) underway? The Journal benefits greatly from the "new" money pouring into Dutchess. The Journal was happy to accept advertisers who benefited from new customers — no problem there, who wouldn't? But at the same time, the Journal essentially wrote off the long-time residents and those younger workers who had stuck around, toiling and waiting for their chance to buy a home when their time came.

Instead, the PoJo subtly updated its editorial policy to be more inclusive of newcomers, essentially dumbing down the already dumbed-down paper, all in the name of "context." There was a transparent push in publishing more stories on outlying communities, places where population had been low but was now booming with new residents. Nothing wrong with that, either, except their bread-and-butter communities of Poughkeepsie and the "older" suburbs were sacrificed — coverage there was greatly diminished. The issues that mattered to those who lived there the longest (or at least, longer than the newcomers) disappeared from the shrinking pages of the paper.

But the PoJournal was all too happy to line the pockets of their corporate masters in Virginia with this new money. With no real competition for local news, dedicated existing readers have had no where else to turn. In the meantime, downstate transplants are slow to give up on their old (and superior) papers from the city. And everyone in the newspaper industry still wonders why circulation is down.

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Watched, for some reason, the Kennedy Center Awards show on the TV after Christmas. I don't know what it is, but Baby Boomers love Baby Boomers soooo much; this was much in evidence. They did what they do best: celebrate themselves.

I really don't mean to denigrate the Botox Generation's artists (well, OK). They honored Scorsese, after all. Can't argue this, even if, in The Departed, he ripped off both himself and Japanese crime flicks. I still loved The Departed, despite the rat final shot and even though Goodfellas was 1,000 times better.

See, I can give credit (grudgingly) where credit is due. Good things the Boomers gave us: Scorsese, Coppola (for I & II), Spielberg (batting about .800), Lucas (pre-1982), The Stones, Dr. Thompson (for the most part), and the '70s Yankees. Probably have to give them credit for The Ramones, too, though I feel like they belong to a later generation. That's about it.

OK, Back to the award show. They honored Leon Fleischer. I don't know anything about him, but prodigees with a tragic story and a touch of a comeback work for me. And classical piano virtuosos seem to be exactly what this type of award show should honor (rather than the MTV-style preality awards and how-much-crap-can-we-stuff-in-someone's-cunt-vagina show typically splattered on the TV these days).

They honored Diana Ross. Well, OK I guess. Never saw Lady Sings the Blues, but The Wiz rocked and gave us hints of Michael's, well, changes, to come.

Then we got iffy. Steve Martin? I know he's done a lot of stuff since he had that ole arrow-through-the-head bit on SNL and The Jerk, but he's up there with a piano virtuoso and Scorsese.

But wait. Brian Wilson? From the Beach Boys? Um. For me, it was just a little too sad watching the decked out Botoxers in the audience rocking out and trying to avoid a few broken hips as Hootie & the Blowfish (perfect) played "California Girls." That was just before Lyle Lovett actually did a nice, bittersweet cover of "God Only Knows" — it was almost better than the original. (By the way, the original version is forever embedded in my mind as the song played near the end of Boogie Nights, when we catch up to all the characters, and Robert Ridgley is taking a beating in his prison cell from his roommate shouting "Shut Up, Colonel!" Good stuff.)

(And while we're digressing — What was better than the original was David Lee Roth's cover of "California Girls," though that's probably because I watched the video about 5,000 times as a 14-year-old.)

OK, back on topic. Even Pops was shocked that Brian Wilson was up in the balcony with Scorsese and the piano guy. Diana Ross kinda surprised him too. I think he missed Steve Martin entirely, but Pops was soon back to thinking about bowling.

The story of Wilson's later years, when he apparently battled depression, proved to be the most compelling part of his vignette. But that was hard to compete with the boomer-perfect child-of-the-suburbs backstory with Art Garfunkel droning on about Wilson as a young Church choir soprano merging his talents with Chuck Berry rock-n-roll — another thing the Boomers were happy to take credit for. And, of course, cash in.

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To quote McNulty in the preview for the new season of "The Wire" … "What the fuck is wrong with this city?"

Displaced tenants return to find Madison Avenue apartments burglarized

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Norman Mailer died last month. I have very little appreciation for him, maybe a little more after reading Kriegel's column. Assigned to read "Why Are We in Vietnam?" in college, I couldn't get past D.J. and the first chapter.

He also had some weird propensities linking sex to everything, and it sounds like that got weirder as he got older (check out this link to Gawker, which references the London Literary Review). Oh, he also stabbed one of his wives (she lives on).

But on Kriegel's recommendation, I picked up "The Fight" and "The Presidential Papers" (the latter I bought used on Amazon — it's out of print). "The Fight" has a great first chapter, and I skipped ahead to the boxing chapters, which are great. The lead-up stuff is worth reading, too. But, as Mailer is wont to do, he bogs his writing down in writing about himself. I can't stand the narcissism in print — it's why I'm skipping around.

Still, as Kriegel puts it, he was right-on about the press, even way back in 1963, in "Ten Thousand Words a Minute." And, from the same piece, even the master narcissist hits it on writing:

"Writing is of use to the psyche only if the writer discovers something he did not know in the act of writing. That is why a few men will go through hell in order to keep writing. … Being a writer can save one from insanity or cancer; being a bad writer can drive one smack into the center of the plague. Think of the poor reporter who does not have the leisure of the novelist or the poet to discover what he thinks. The unconscious gives up, buries itself, leaves the writer to his cliché, and saves the truth, or that part of it the reporter is yet privileged to find, for his colleagues and his friends. A good reporter is a man who must still tell you the truth privately; he has harsh bright eyes and can relate ten good stories in a row standing at a bar."

Does it make any sense or is more coils of excrement? I'd like to think part of it is True. But maybe it depends on the depth of your hangover.

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Ban these fucking leaf blowers. While we're at it, ban the lawn mowers, too. Trying to get some fucking peace and quiet with the wife and kid out of the house on Columbus Day (it's October already!) and these fuckers are interrupting my peace and quiet.

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We're going to address the top films over the course of this blog (when I get to it, that's when, dammit). But we're going to pay special attention to films that are about (or are "said" to be about) the American Dream. Goodfellas ranks high on my list (perhaps the highest), because it is the pure American Dream: rising up from your own particular circumstances and background to reach The Heights, often through hard-work and cunning. It just so happens that Henry Hill's hard work is in theft, beating, cheating, drug-dealing, point-shaving, murder (or at least being an accessory to murder).

Just as important, Goodfellas is also about what the American Dream has become (and may always have been) — greed, back-stabbing, paranoia. Just as one critic said Scorsese's use of The Sex Pistol's version of My Way as a "fuck-you" to any do-gooding American, Goodfella's I see as Scorsese's "fuck-you" to the American Dream; much as the same way as HBO's The Wire is an update and a "true" vision of the modern American Dream.

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Enter the Wu-Tang — You can't even argue this, not since this was declared a unanimous selection by me and Lord Jim on well-remembered midnight winter drive to a ski resort in a fart-filled P.O.S. (now that's redundant) Mitsubishi Precis. Revolutionary. Beats any of that shit by the Beatles.

Liquid Swords — OK, some might say it is overkill to put two albums by the Wu-Tang Clan as the top two on this list, but this goes deeper and may have more memorable lyrics; would probably be No. 1 if it was released before the ground-breaking "Enter the Wu-Tang."

G-Love and Special Sauce — Their self-titled album is their best-known and for a reason. G takes you back to hot summer fun in the mid-90s, and holds up long after then. Someone called it "timeless" on an I-Tunes review. Any debate? I thought not.

Let it Bleed — Sorry, the Stones, not the Beatles, are the rightful heirs of the ’60s rock. Put it another way, you don't see Scorsese cribbing from Abby Road or Sgt. Peppers in Goodfellas, Mean Streets or The Departed, do you?

Digression No. 1 — It would be criminal not to mention this one, in honor of the inspirational song that spawned a decade and a half of wild cookouts, beer, "philosophical" discussions, meat, beer, music, did I mention beer? And those are just the ones I know about.

Digression No. 2 — Don't know if it is where I was mentally in 1996, but that was like, Ground Zero for great albums. Along with the top three on this list, you had Fun Lovin' Criminals' Come Find Yourself, which I picked up recently and it took me back to parties in Poughkeepsie before it was Found.

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To be revised, but will include...

Eight Men Out — A tragic look at a baseball team, also showcasing the beginnings of America's sports-obsessed culture that continues to this day.

Major League — At the other end of the spectrum. Forget the cliched plot about the underdogs winning the pennant and the love story (despite the gorgeous Rene Russo) and enjoy how it fetishizes the culture and quirks of baseball.

Bang the Drum Slowly — Yes, the pacing of the film certainly reflects the title, but works because of the touching friendship between Michael Moriarity's Henry "Author" Wiggins and Robert DeNiro's dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks dying back-up catcher. Also looks like a piece of early '70s kitchz, which always gets a few extra points in my book.

Not on the list:

That Minor League Film with Kevin Costner as Crash Davis and Susan Sarandon — Overrated. I don't need Susan Sarandon telling me about the lyrical joys of baseball. Nor do I need Susan Sontag telling me the same fucking thing. About the only good thing about it is that it helped usher in the late 80s/early 90s boom of rediscovering Minor League Baseball, which unfortunately morphed into putting a ball team in Staten Island while abandoning classic Minor League towns like Pittsfield, Mass. (OK, that was the Coney Island team, but that gets a pass for simply being Coney Island.) The abandonment of Albany as a maket can be forgive, since it is such a shitty sports town unless you're Siena hoops, UAlbany hoops (only in a winning season) or a Saratoga pony for 6 weeks. By the way, why the fuck is Troy's minor league team playing on a college campus away from any downdown shit to do before or after a game, or at least in a quaint rural setting. And where the fuck is "Tri-City"? Another great fuck-up by the locals here. Figures.
OK, I digress...

The Natural — Looked at now as some sort of a classic, it was never beloved earlier. And can't be forgive for changing the ending to Hollywood-uplifting.

Field of Dreams — Never saw it. I put this in the same category as Forrest Gump — two late '80s/early '90s beloved films that surely must be overrated because everyone fucking loves them. Forget it. Though if you ever find yourself in Dyersville, Iowa, (we did, once) the Field of Dreams site is more than worth the visit. The chance to walk into cornfields directly from the outfield, and the farm house overlooking the field make it worth the visit to the two sites (yes, there are two sites, since the field actually straddles a property line, and thus, there are two visitor centers).

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I'm a mid 30s sometimes writer who grew up thinking politics was funny and cool based entirely on impressions formed by reading drug-addled Bill the Cat in the ’80s comic strip Bloom County. My first job out of college was for a small but respectable weekly where I had interned because the shitty liberal arts college I attended knew nothing about teaching journalism, to say nothing about their lack of help in placement or preparing you for a career in newspapers, but, like whatever. This led to an eventual job at a small, shrinking daily owned by a profitably cheap corporation, which I left (gasp) almost 10 years ago. I have since discovered the joy of blogging (golf clap). As in college, I am self- and peer-taught (and it probably shows). I live with my family in a city in the Northeast that retains much of its architectural and cultural beauty, though I wish some of our city leaders would see the beauty in this and other aspects of modern urban living and instead quit trying so hard to bring in yet another chain-store pharmacy with a drive-thru attached.

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There's always a quote saying that Generation Xers don't want to be labeled as such, to be pigeon-holed into a category and easily defined. But to me, that's what is appealing about the label of "Generation X" — that this generation is not easily defined, that it is vast and diverse and has only one overriding thing in common — its birth years.

There is no doubt that when you were born colors how you see the world, how you react to world events, and how others see you. A 13-year-old experienced very different feelings on 9/11 than a 33-year-old or a 63-year-old. It is the prism of experience and simply life-living. And while people of vastly different ages can, in fact, see many things in the same manner, there is no doubt how a certain age set will be called upon to tackle different things — and that, my friend, is a generation. Whether it is today's 18- to 25-year-olds fighting overseas, or the 30- to 40-year old set who will be called upon to pay the debts of the bloated and overspending Baby Boomers now entering retirement and a prolonged old-age en masse.

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Baby thought it would be fun to pick himself up against the couch, walk sideways, and then let go and fall onto the ground with a very solid thud. This was evidently hilarious to him. He giggled every time he did it. I'm not sure we got the joke.

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Can't wait for the "Bronx is Burning" miniseries on ESPN. Seriously, these are the real Yankees, not the Corporate Raiders these clean-cut Yanks have been ever since 1999 when Clemens first came to town. I can still remember doing laundry in the local strip-mall laundromat reading the Daily News coverage of the Wells trade. It was like when they traded Nettles because for some reason they picked up Toby Harrah in the 1983-84 off-season (Harrah's best attribute was that you could spell his last name backwards and forwards the same way).

I only hope they don't kill (no pun intended) Thurman Munson in this miniseries and make him out to be some sort of bad guy. I would think most of the old-time sportswriters hated him, but he is still St. Thurman in The Icepick household. Ask me about my framed picture of him that will go up in The Baby's room as soon as his moms isn't looking.

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