Bad Advertising on NY1 - The Grand Prospect Hall

The TV spot for The Grand Prospect Hall is really difficult to describe, which is really the only reason I haven't yet tackled it. And then it disappeared from the NY1 airwaves.

Well, it's been back with a vengeance this week, with a new version that's really just a "turd polish" (official industry term used by editors) of the version I grew to love. And thanks to YouTube, I can let it speak for itself (the version I first saw, that is).



It's great stuff. From the Klassy banquet hall to the Vivaldi music, from the poor production quality to the stiff-armed, monotone shouting at the end... I love everything about this ad.

And in my search for this version, I also came upon the classic (is it the original??) spot from 1986. They were so young! And just as Klassy...



I can't believe the missus and I didn't get hitched there. We're such idiots!

A Water Falls in Brooklyn

First the telectroscope and now the waterfalls. New York's on a public art kick. Look out!

Some Danish guy who likes making fake weather environments decided that New York City could use some waterfalls. So the Public Art Fund and a bunch of private donors (Look, conservatives! No tax money for art!) got together to spend seven-and-a-half bajillion dollars to execute Hamlet's vision: four waterfalls along the East River, all south of the Manhattan Bridge.

From the Brooklyn Bridge portion of my daily commute, I can see three of the four waterfalls (Governor's Island, Brooklyn Heights, and the Manhattan Bridge). Naturally, the one I can't see is the one at the Brooklyn Bridge because I walk right over it. I thought it might be cool to look at it through the slats on the walkway of the Bridge, but it was decidedly underwhelming.

Which, frankly, is how I feel about the whole endeavor. The rendering posted above for your reference is, after all, a rendering. Maybe if the real thing looked a little bit like that it'd be impressive. As it is, we've got some weak-ass waterfalls trickling over scaffolding in a few locations.

A few years back, Christo and Jean-Claude did their "Gates" project in Central Park. Orange fabric floating along the pathways of the Park. It sounded sort of stupid, but I checked it out. And it was great. It drew people in and built a community around public art. It was aesthetically satisfying, and the experience of being there with New Yorkers and tourists, children and adults, black and white and brown was largely the point of the whole project.

The waterfalls have to be observed from afar. I mean, you can get relatively close to them, but you're never really sharing the experience with other people. At least not where I've been. Yes, they're terrific engineering feats. But all they do is remind me that it's been a while since I've seen a good waterfall in nature.

And maybe that's part of the point. But ultimately the waterfalls leave me feeling unsatisfied, and if that's part of the point, then there's something a little short on the "public" side of this public art.

Which Borough is Gayest?

Happy Pride Week to my many LGBTQ readers! OK, are any of you actually lesbian, gay, bi, transgendered, or queer? Don't feel like you have to come out on B&E, dear readers, but know that this is a LGBTQ-friendly zone.

To honor Pride Week, NY1 is doing a series of gay features on gay subjects throughout the gay week. This morning, they did a little ditty (dare I say a musical number) on the lesbian enclave of Park Slope. I appreciate living in a city in which the local news channel doesn't fear the gay features.

Turns out, Brooklyn has officially become the gayest borough in New York City. In fact, Brooklyn is home to the fourth largest gay community in the United States, behind San Francisco, the bulk of Massachusetts, and Topeka, Kansas. (I totally just made that list up, in case you couldn't tell.)

Anyway, Brooklyn's the gay borough. But I take issue with that a little. I mean, maybe there are more gay people in Brooklyn, but it's Queens that's actually named after gay people.

Richie Was Having a Great Time

There's this art event happening in New York and London for the next few weeks, and I went to check it out this morning. It's the Telectroscope! If you want to know more about the Telectroscope and the myth the artist made up around it, you can follow the link.

What the Telectroscope does, in short, is allow Londoners to see New Yorkers, and New Yorkers Londoners. Just so you know you're really looking at London, New Yorkers get a view of the Tower Bridge in the background. Londoners get to see Lower Manhattan.

Because I'm a shallow simpleton, I tend to like gimmicky art. And I thought it would be fun to go check this sucker out and see if I could also catch a glimpse of a college friend now living in London. I went with another college friend (read her excellent review here), who pondered, "Wouldn't Skype be a lot easier and better since you can actually speak to each other?" "Yes," I said, "but this is art!"

When we got there, it was just us and a guy named Richie.

Our friend wasn't on the other side. We were a little early so we just sorta hung out for a while.

They had a whole system going on the London side. Giant crowds were being corralled a few at a time in front of the lens to spread their messages of good cheer or, more often, "What's your name?" written on the whiteboards provided. Richie wrote, "I'm Richie" probably about a dozen times in the ten minutes we were gawking at Londoners.

Meanwhile, I didn't know what to write (what do you want from me? I'm a writer), so I just sort of stood there awkwardly, somehow realizing that I was one-third of the people representing New York to the thousands of Londoners on the opposite side of this Telectroscope. Not only that, but we learned that the Londoners were being charged a pound to come up close to this thing, so I felt the pressure of giving them their money's worth. At least I was wearing my Mets cap, so I felt like a real New Yorker representing some real New York. A Yankees cap wearer in London didn't recognize the Mets logo. How does that work?

So you stand there with your whiteboards and try to communicate. Every two minutes or so, new Londoners were marched in front of the Telectroscope. Here's how they looked:

You can barely read the fucking whiteboards. But hey, look! The Tower Bridge!

Richie meanwhile was instructing the Londoners, through charades, how to hold their signs to make them legible. When you could finally read the goddamn things you learned some other stranger's name. Terrific. "Hi, Sophie, I'm Richie."

Because it was just the three of us, I felt bad leaving, but I really needed to get to work. So I wrote on my whiteboard, "We have to go to work. Bye." We got a hearty wave from the Londoners, and then we took off. The Londoners were left waving and writing to Richie, who was laughing in full merriment.

Later in the day, I heard from my friend in London who said there was a two-hour wait on her end, which totally blew our meeting time. Her four-year-old twins were disappointed, but forgot all about it when they got ice cream instead.

The unbridled enthusiasm for the project on the London side really made the New York side seem sad. Granted, it was 9:00 a.m. on a work day, and it's not like the Fulton Ferry Landing (the Telectroscope's location in New York) is easily accessible. But come on, man, there were three of us. From a city of nine million people, there were three of us. Oh, and a couple of workers. And one news guy who really couldn't have cared less. At one point, the Londoners got only a few of the news guy's ass. For two hours they waited just to see an arse. Poor bastards.

Still, my London-based friend and I may try again. Maybe Richie will still be there. At least he was saving me from terrible awkwardness.

A New York Tornado?

Apparently, a tornado warning has been issued for eastern Brooklyn and southern Queens. Look, National Weather Service, I grew up in Kansas, where tornadoes wipe out entire towns. So you'll forgive me, NY1, if I don't get all scared and panicky. I'm gonna make some coffee.

UPDATE (4:15 P.M.): Apparently a tornado actually touched down in Brooklyn for the first time in 100 years. I'm an asshole. My coffee was good, though.

Badass Tattoo Artist - Follow-up

Here's the full New York Times story about Duke's adventure that the City Blog promised yesterday. And yes, I would say that the video embedded in the article is worth the four minutes of your time.

Badass Tattoo Artist

So the missus got a new tattoo by a fella called Duke Riley. The outline was done prior to our trip to Sweden. Here's a picture of the work being done:


When we returned the missus had Duke fill in the outline with some shading (there's apparently still a bit to be done), and here's how it looks today:


I accept that all tattoo artists are badasses, especially in comparison to me, an un-inked, office worker with hardly a callous on his poor writer's hands. But if I thought Duke was a badass before, it was nothing compared to what I thought about his badassedness after what he did today.

Duke is an artist, who pays the bills with his tattooing. For his latest performance/installation, Duke built a replica of a Revolutionary War "submarine" called "The Turtle."


Duke's mission was to get his submarine as close as possible to the Queen Mary 2, a monstrosity of a cruise ship currently docked in Red Hook, Brooklyn. He got pretty close. Here's Duke getting busted and looking quite pleased about it:


I implore you, dear B&E readers, to read the NYTimes city blog about the event. Be sure to watch the photo slide show (from which those last two photos are borrowed), as well.

Nice work, Duke. On the tattoo and on the artistic mayhem.

Bald Street Marketing

bald bridge
Originally uploaded by dangunderman.

I loathe street marketing which, on top of being invasive in our everyday lives, is also getting all "viral" on our asses. "Look, hot guerilla marketing stranger, I don't care if the new mixed cocktail from Captain Morgan's Original Spiced Rum is the most refreshing drink of the summer. I want a seltzer with lime. And I want you to leave me the hell alone."

Recently I learned that my primary source of income would be drying up at the end of September, so I did what I usually do when I need work -- send out resumes, email former freelance contacts, tell all my friends I'm looking. Still, when I was forwarded a "street team needed" Craig's List posting, I recoiled in horror.

And yet I had that certain something they were looking for, and they promised a nice walk through New York City with like-headed individuals.

The company is Bald Guyz. The products are grooming/personal care items specifically for the bald man's needs.

Well, now, for obvious reasons, this is something I can get behind.

We met at 7am, put on our bright orange shirts, which had the Bald Guyz logo on the front while the back said, "Bald Guyz get better head," and made our way across the Brooklyn Bridge. The WB (soon-to-be CW)-11 and Fox-5 morning shows featured our walk from their choppers (the Fox-5 chopper was being piloted by two bald fellas). As the bald men walked, hot women wearing "Bald Guys are sexy" t-shirts handed out free head wipes and coupons to the baldies we passed.

We had great weather -- not too hot, not too humid -- and from the Brooklyn Bridge we headed uptown through Chinatown, Washington Square Park, Union Square, Herald Square, Rockefeller Center (the tourists loved us), and back down to Bryant Park, where we had lunch and ended our day.

All in all, it was probably about a six-mile walk. Decent exercise. It had been a long time since I'd gone on a long walk through the city, and it's nice to have the occasional reminder of how great New York is. I was walking with an amateur historian (and actor -- lots of actors do street marketing to supplement the acting incomes), and while that may sound boring and/or torturous, it was great, actually. We shared lots of tidbits about what we knew of the city, and how it's changed since we arrived in the early 90s.

There were a total of about twenty bald men. Three were older dudes, one of whom had a thick beard and kept referring to himself as the only "bear." I spent much of the day trying to figure out if the gay implications of his "bear" comments were intentional, but by the end of the day, I was no closer to an answer. I don't know if the Bald Guyz guys just took all the bald men who replied to the Craig's List ad or what (some of the dudes were funny looking), but I was impressed with the diversity of the group they found. Taking out the three or four older white dudes, the rest of the bald dudes were a pretty even split between white, black, and Latino. The hot women were pretty evenly split, too. Shortage on the Latinas, perhaps.

As was inevitable in New York, we passed a bald woman, who looked totally great. One of the rambunctious Latino dudes gave her a head wipe. She looked somewhere between amused and annoyed.

Bald men love their fellow bald men. Many of the baldies we passed would see our shirts, holler "BALD GUYS!" and give us all high fives, ask where they could get t-shirts, graciously accept their free product samples, etc. Then, of course, there was the inevitable bald guy who just wanted to be left alone as he was walking down the street. And on two or three occasions, a bald man approached didn't want to think of himself as bald. Denial won't protect your scalp, buddy!

We were particularly popular with cops. Three equestrian cops doffed their helmets to reveal the domes underneath. Lady cops got free samples for their husbands. Cops inside cop cars used our presence as an opportunity to bust the balls of their bald junior partners, who sat in the passenger seat, sheepishly accepting the coupon.

A homeless dude promised to shave his head if we got him a t-shirt, but I think he struck out. The t-shirts were already on their way back to the office.

And around East 4th Street, I ran into Hil, who'd seen the group but not me (until I shouted at her). She was just arriving at her office, and her first order of business was going to be to email me about the Bald Guyz. Alas, I was already one of them.

Where baldness is concerned, I tend to be a step ahead of others.

The Hipster Grind

grindext
Originally uploaded by dangunderman.

On Friday evening, I met a friend in laughably-hip Williamsburg, Brooklyn. (Before I continue my assault on Williamsburg and Williamsburgers, let me add a caveat for those who've lived there for years. They are, obviously, the exceptions or, dare I say as the marketers do, the "key influencers." As for the followers...) Almost everyone in Billyburg looks like an independent filmmaker, and yet I think perhaps they're all too concerned with cultivating their image to spend time writing, directing, and/or producing films.

On my way to Williamsburg, where I feel like telling the inhabitants that they don't really live in Brooklyn, I noticed balloons swinging in the breeze, marking the opening of The Grind, Sunnyside's first coffee-based cafe. I'm not much of a drinker, which can pose a problem in an Irish neighborhood, so I embrace a place I can linger with my caffeinated drug of choice, even though I think The Grind is a dumb name (not as dumb a name, however, as their specialty drink - The Bump and Grind - a cup of coffee with an added shot of espresso; it sounds good, but I will never utter the words "bump and grind" in a coffee context).

grindint
Originally uploaded by dangunderman.

Since moving to the neighborhood six years ago, I've lamented Sunnyside's lack of "the finer things." But it's a trade-off I've been willing to live with to keep our 'hood under the radar. I'll travel for French food, the annual massage, and attractive companions. We've always had good coffee beans in the neighborhood (the organic java at the Middle Eastern Baruir's is spectacular), but haven't had a place to linger and enjoy that coffee, beyond the confines of my sofa. So while I welcome The Grind and its fairly dumb name, I hold onto hope that Sunnyside won't become Williamsburg.

I was pleased to see a schlubby old dude eating a waffle at The Grind on Saturday morning. I don't want to drink coffee where a schlubby old dude doesn't feel comfortable. One thing I've always loved about Sunnyside is its diversity and the cheap cuisine that comes with it. It was a relief seeing the place peppered with our local Koreans, Latinos, and Irish, and not just the non-immigrant whiteys.

grindview
Originally uploaded by dangunderman.

But really, Sunnyside's transition to Hipsterville will continue to crawl at its current pace, I suspect, because of Queens Boulevard. You can put as many cute boutiques and art galleries as you want on the Boulevard of Death, and it will still be the same enormous thoroughfare that it is today. The elevated 7-train will dominate our landscape, preventing the street from turning into Bedford Avenue. Someday, I suppose, the masses could consider the wasteland of Queens Boulevard part of Sunnyside's charm. I sure do. Without Queens Boulevard, after all, we wouldn't have greasy spoons like the New Post (not to mention the murders that happen inside) or the late-night taco cart, two of Queens' finest institutions.

But I wait to see what happens on our cursed block. My prediction: Now that someone in the neighborhood has determined that we are hip enough to support a sit-and-linger coffee shop, when that new retail space opens up in its prime mid-neighborhood location, a Starbuck's will appear. Hopefully, the curse will doom the mighty Seattle chain and allow The Grind to thrive.

Hot Dog Eating Contest - Follow Up

Well, 7-train conductor Eric Booker fell short of taking the Mustard Yellow Belt away from the Japanese, as the 144-pound Takeru Kobayashi won for the fifth consecutive year, eating 49 hot dogs in 12 minutes. His own record of 53-and-a-half dogs in 12 minutes stands.

The runner-up was an even smaller competitor, a woman from Virginia known on the competitive eating circuit as "The Black Widow," who set an American record by eating 37 hot dogs, also in 12 minutes. She's weighs 105 pounds and is best known for eating 89 meatballs (about 6 pounds of meat) in 12 minutes in Atlantic City, and 38 lobsters in 12 minutes in Maine.

Twelve minutes is very significant in the world of competitive eating, sort of like how the number three is important in Christianity.

Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest

hotdogs
Originally uploaded by dangunderman.

I've been aware of the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island for some time now. I even know that the same diminutive Japanese guy has won four years in a row, defeating many men more than twice his size.

I also know that vying for the prize this year is Eric Booker, a 7-train conductor. He's 6'5" and 420 pounds, which makes him more than three times the weight of the current champ.

For me, though, the most unbelievable aspect of the contest is that it's sponsored by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. That there was a demand for such a federation baffles the mind. But I'm guessing the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest, held every July 4, is their Super Bowl.

Good luck, Conductor Booker. Do all of us 7-train riders proud.