New York City – Page 6

Blograiser to Change New York History

I’m going to try and stop by. If you’re in New York, you should come too.

The details:

Raising New York with Eliot Spitzer
Feb 1 2007 – 6pm
Prey NYC
4 West 22nd Street
http://preynyc.com

Tickets are $50, but if you’re like me and don’t have $50, give what you can.

Everybody Poops

And for some reason, the fine folks at Charmin have decided that YOU deserve APPLAUSE for pooping!

They have a staff – who all stand in the middle of this tiled space. They are all wearing latex gloves, and they are all incredibly cheery. Like Mickey Mouse Club cheery. And the line slowly moves forward – and people come out of the bathrooms – and people go in … but here’s the worst part. Whenever anyone emerges from the bathroom – all of the staff goes nuts. Cheering, shouting, a cacophony of voices, “WHOOOOO!” So you, who have just pooped, have to stroll through that congratulatory mayhem, just trying to move on to make your matinee. I gotta give it to that staff. They were completely enthusiastic. But there was something so unbelievably fucked up about the entire thing. Oh – and each bathroom is “cleaned” after each patron. One person comes out of the bathroom and is greeted with cheers of congratulations from the Charmins staff. (And some of the people in line got into it and cheered as well. There was a group dynamic going on that was SO not what my bathroom-self needed. I go to the bathroom and it’s a private affair. I don’t need you to CHEER when I am successful in this particular venture. I’m fine, I know what I’m doing, I’ve got it down, thanks. Thanks. No, really, thanks. But there was no way out of the line. You could not escape.) So – then after one of the rooms is vacated, one of the staff goes in, shuts the door – does their little clean-up job (cleaning up the sprinkling, I would imagine – and flushing if the first flush was not complete) and then comes out, cheering and whooping that yet another bathroom is ready. I gotta hand it to those people. I would so have a hard time staring at shit streaks all day, and then be CHEERFUL about it.) So people would walk towards the vacant bathroom, surrounded by the staff whooping like wild Indians, embarrassed smiles on their faces. And when you emerge from the bathroom – it’s like you have walked out onto a stage. There is no privacy. You walk out of one of those doors – and the entire line is right there facing you – and 5 people are all jumping up and down, cheering your amazing accomplishment.

Seriously, read the whole thing. I’m going to have to go to this place just to experience it.

(Via)

For one easy payment of $29.95, you too can Never Forget

I wish this was a joke.

Yes, this 9/11 memorial coin contains “pure silver actually recovered beneath the ashes of Ground Zero.” It may be blatant war profiteering, but never fear — a whole $5 will be donated to a 9/11 fund.

Get yours now.

via Lauren.

Oh, Crap.

While looking around to see if any of the local news outlets had anything on the giant clouds of black smoke* rising up from near Grand Central (I could see where they’re coming from from my boss’s office — but my boss is in his office, and he’s so tetchy about people going in there), I ran across a headline about the New York City Board of Health’s approval of a ban on trans fats in NYC restaurants.**

Knowing that the Board of Health was also set to make a decision today about off-leash rules in city parks, I decided to see if the article mentioned that. And it did — the board unanimously approved off-leash hours. But then I noticed they rejected another proposed rule change:

Another measure that would have allowed transgender people to amend their birth certificates without having undergone surgery was voted down.

The board unanimously backed up the current policy that requires proof of sex reassignment surgery.

Transgender advocates say tens of thousands of New Yorkers face severe and pervasive discrimination as a result of their inability to obtain identification matching the gender in which they live.

They say simple things like entering buildings can be difficult because their ID’s don’t match their looks, and that many cannot afford the expensive surgical procedures needed. Advocates are vowing to continue their fight to change the policy.

It’s not clear from any of the articles I’ve seen what exactly was going on, but if the process was anything like what was going on with the dog rules, the board likely held a public hearing and had a period of public comment. I would imagine that the image of the transsexual in the public mind is of someone who’s been surgically altered. In any event, no bold step forward at this time.

_______
* A car fire, apparently. The sirens have stopped, at least.

** I’ll try to give this one a good going-over when more details come out.

Oddly enough, people here used to think I was from the midwest

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Northeast Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The Midland
The South
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Boy am I glad I don’t live in Seattle anymore

Because this does not sound pleasant. Today in New York City we’re expecting highs of 64. And it’s almost December.

Spreading the Creative Wealth

Amanda has a post up about the concentration of the “creative class” in hip urban cities, and how the not-quite-hip cities are struggling to attract younger people. Quite an argument has started up in the comments about how we define the “creative class” — Amanda asserts that the creative class is the degreed class, whereas many commenters argue that a degree isn’t necessary to be an artist, dancer, writer, etc.

But as someone who moved from one young, hip city (Seattle) to what’s possibly the quintessential hip city (New York), I have thoughts.

Holy Shit

Small plane strikes NYC apartment building.

Probably just a shitty pilot. Right?

… right?

9/11 Redux

I’m seriously 9/11’ed out. And for some reason, I really dislike the term “9/11.” Ditto for “Ground Zero.”

But I’ll put in my last two cents: It’s disgusting that September 11th has been turned into a platform for narcissism, pushing political agendas that have nothing to do with what happened on that day, and selling shit. So here are my suggestions, for anyone who wants them:

Remembering Sept. 11, 2001 In A Different Way

Self-loathing former slut Dawn Eden has decided to use the fifth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center to smear Planned Parenthood and do a little slut-shaming on the side:

Five years ago this week, I was standing outside the upper West Side headquarters of the American Red Cross of Greater New York, helping the organization manage the streams of would-be volunteers and blood donors who swarmed the building. It was both beautiful and heartbreaking to see how people of every age and background wanted so badly to do something for the survivors, the victims’ families, the city, and the country.

Something tells me that Dawn wasn’t actually a volunteer for the Red Cross, but enjoyed playing traffic cop. And now she gets to feel important by associating herself, Zelig-like, with the organization.