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February 27, 2006
Shooting Lincoln, in a different sort of way
The house was visited today by Harvest Films, who created the famous Bud Light skydiver ad--the one where they throw the beers out of a plane and the pilot runs and jumps out after them. By 6.30AM this morning, it looked like the circus had come to Harlem. The block was filled end-to-end with at least 25 production guys, multiple tents, fake greenery, a buffet cart, giant lights, screens, three director chairs, two extra-long movie-star trailers, and two Lincoln Zephyr cars. Meanwhile it was about 20 degrees outside and the film crew left the front door hanging open.
Dolores, the owner of the houes, has built a good relationship with various film crews, who like the curved front stairs and the fact that she leaves the front parlour empty. Toyota filmed a commercial here a few years ago, and Third Watch filmed for 10 days on the lower level. Apparently they found her by going door-to-door in Harlem (itself a dangerous proposition) and asking if people have houses with no walls from front to back.
I didn't hang around for the Lincoln filming today, but apparently a couple of actors walked out of the house and into their waiting Lincoln Zephyr. In other words, it took a day to film a few seconds of footage. And it took at least 30 people to do it. No wonder it costs $200M to make a full-length movie.
Here's the scene looking down the street at 6.30AM after the circus arrived:
Notice that the car is missing a back door. That was left on the front steps. We'll have to wait for the commercial to air to figure out why they're advertising a car without a door.
Posted by adrianjo at 09:50 PM
The latest from Turd Blossom
This is why we pay Karl Rove.
Posted by adrianjo at 09:35 PM
February 23, 2006
More filming in Harlem
Film and TV groupies might be interested to visit my block on Monday, where some sort of filming will occur at the house where I live. Dolores, the owner of the house, doesn't even know what they're filming. She just knows that (1) "they're going to pay" her and (2) they're going to "take care" of her early-1990s-vintage Caddilac, which she drives maybe once a month and whose on-street parking spot she guards religiously. The last commercial filmed in the house was for Toyota, and (based on the signs warning the neighbors to expect disruption) I think this one is for Lincoln cars.
Posted by adrianjo at 12:06 PM
February 20, 2006
10 best posts
Here are my 10 favorite all-time posts on this blog, starting with the most recent:
- January 17, 2006: Europe 2006 pictures
- January 1, 2006: New Year’s Eve over Times Square
- Sept 22, 2005: Asia 2005 pictures
- July 5, 2005: Signage around the world
- May 25, 2005: Cheeseburger Challenge – Official Results
- May 17, 2005: Russia 2005 pictures
- May 12, 2005: McDonald’s Around the World
- March 23, 2005: Peru 2005 pictures
- January 1, 2005: Why I like Paris Hilton
- October 18, 2004: From Rome to Constantinople
(follow posts through to Constantinople)
Posted by adrianjo at 08:23 PM
February 19, 2006
I have ... doubt!
I found myself in Times Square yesterday at 3PM, when the TKTS discount theater ticket window opens. Ordinarily tourists queue for hours to get 50%-off tickets, but there is a little-known “sixth window” for plays that has no queue.
We ended-up at Doubt, the 2005 Tony winner for Best Play, along with three other Tonys. Columbia also gave Doubt a Pulitzer for Best Drama. Doubt is a four-person drama of an old-fashioned Bronx Catholic School principal/nun who suspects the Father who coaches basketball of indiscretions with an altar boy. I won’t even try to summarize the plot and the point of the show; Martin Denton has a fine review. Bottom line, though, is that Doubt is a hit for the right reasons: a witty script and excellent acting, not because of expensive special effects.
Theatre buffs will not like me for saying this, but it’s particularly enjoyable to see these big-name actors in person on the stage. Ron Eldard (Death of a Salesman, House of Sand and Fog) has a particularly memorable and captivating voice, much like seeing John Lithgow in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Tiffany immediately recognized Jena Malone, and I suppose I would have recognized Eileen Atkins if I had watched her star in Cold Mountain and Gosford Park. The most emotional performance, however, was the single scene involving Adriane Lenox, which won her a Tony. Lenox plays the mother of the African-American altar boy who confronts Eileen Atkins’s character, revealing a depth of the situation that went far beyond what we would have imagined.
In today's society, most everyone knows someone involved in sexual abuse of some sort. Eileen Atkins’s character almost reminded me of my own grandmother suspecting her parish priest, who was recently defrocked for improper sexual relationships. (Grandma didn’t have anything to do with the Father getting defrocked.) But Doubt is not about diddling priests. It is a question of the role of the emotion called doubt, of whether doubt can stop us from doing the right thing, or whether to listen to our doubts is to do the right thing.
By the way, Alex, for old times’ sake, we went and had a drink with the lounge lizards at the Living Room after the show. The regulars are wondering why you haven’t been there in such a long time.
N.B. The picture has Brían O'Byrne as “Father Flynn” and Cherry Jones as “Sister Aloysius”
Posted by adrianjo at 03:45 PM
February 18, 2006
Even France doesn't give these benefits
The bloggers I read swear that this Al-Qaeda charter, posted on the West Point website, is for real. It specifies the terrorist organization's org-structure and even such details as the benefits package employees receive. It includes the following:
A- Bachelors:
Authorize for them a basic monthly salary of 1,000 Rupees.
B- Married individuals:
1- Authorize for them a basic monthly salary of 6,500 Rupees.
2- The sum of 300 Rupees is added per child.
3- Add the sum of 700 Rupees per wife in case of multi-wives.
4- Approve a 10% annual increment of the basic salary for cost of living increase.
There's a lot more, including vacation time and who is responsible for torture. More here.
Posted by adrianjo at 01:07 PM
February 17, 2006
First good lawsuit I've seen in a while
More New Yorkers should sue the bastards at the Transit Workers Union:
A firefighter who was critically injured while bicycling to work during the December bus and subway strike has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the transit workers union, Bear Stearns and two private bus companies, his lawyer said yesterday....
McGrath said the charter bus was on its way to pick up workers from Bear Stearns and deliver them to the investment banking company's midtown offices during the illegal 60-hour strike.
...
[The plaintiff] was on his way to his job at the Fire Department's training academy on Randalls Island when the bus "suddenly and without warning violently made a right turn over multiple lanes" and struck the off-duty firefighter.
...
Transport Workers Union Local 100 was ultimately responsible for the accident by staging the job action, the suit says.
"The union put this entire thing into motion," McGrath said. "Whenever you engage in an illegal strike ... they have to understand that there are certain people that it's going to affect their safety, namely firefighters. These people have to get to work." [more]
Posted by adrianjo at 06:39 PM
February 15, 2006
Happy Feb 14
Maxine Clark, Founder and CEO of Build-a-Bear, came to speak at Retailing class last week. I did my best to get Tiffany out to hear Maxine, since I expected it would be a great talk. Tiffany had a number of lame excuses, and she ended up not coming.
Yesterday was, of course, St. Valentine's Day, where Tiffany gave me a Build-a-Bear. "While you were out hearing the Build-a-Bear CEO, I was at the Build-a-Bear making you this present," she explained. I won't ever again doubt a lame excuse.
Meanwhile, I remember spending Valentine's Day 2004 visiting Auschwitz, the death camp in Poland. I met a young woman from Wisconsin there, but nothing came of it. I thought it would be funny if our how-we-met story was, "we met on Valentine's Day... in Auschwitz death camp."
The previous year's Valentine's Day was in Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples' Democratic Republic. It was quite romantic for a communist country. Below is a view over the Mekong River.
Posted by adrianjo at 10:59 PM
February 12, 2006
Snow day: the biggest snowstorm in New York history
Around 4PM yesterday, it started snowing in New York. By the time we went out to the clubs last night, the velvet ropes were covered in an inch or so of snow. At 5.30 this morning, thunder sounded and (according to the New York Times), lightning lit up the sky. Now, 22 hours after it started, this storm is still going strong, and there is over 23" of snow on the ground in Central Park. It's the biggest blizzard in 50 years in Manhattan.
I went for a walk around Harlem around 11AM today. I was surprised at all the white folks out walking. We all looked a bit stupid. It reminded me of a comic we heard last weekend. His routine went something like this:
It's not that black folks don't like white folks. Black people just think white people are strange. Look at all the dumb stuff white folks do. White people pay taxes. White people don't talk in the theater. White people buy food at the theater, don't sneak in their own bucket.
Add to this: white people go walking around in the blizzard. Here's what I saw on my walk. Click the pictures to enlarge.
123rd St was pretty much impassible.
There weren't too many car services or cabbies out today. This cabbie has the right idea. Sit it out and watch the India-Pakistan cricket match.
The city commandeers garbage trucks to act as snow plows, which means that garbage won't be picked up for a few days.
I wish the front-end loader here would turn its attention to the boarded-up buildings behind it.
These grates over the subway stop always cause trouble when I'm with a girl in high-heels, but today they are a welcome sight.
Update: Officially, this is the worst blizzard in history: 26.9" in Central Park, beating 26.4" in 1947.
Posted by adrianjo at 01:47 PM
February 11, 2006
Another damn murderer at Penn
Penn has a wannabe murderer among its students, allege Philadelphia Police. It's quite a wierd story: the St. Elmo brother is said to have shot a guy at a deli on 52nd St back in January. St. Elmo's is known as a frat for blue-bloods, and no blue-blooded Penn student has been beyond 40th St since Donald Trump Jr. moved out of a place at 41st & Pine. Students don't go beyond 40th St because doing so gets you into trouble, as this incident shows.
Posted by adrianjo at 05:50 PM
February 10, 2006
Murder in Harlem
The guys at the office have a bet going over whether I'll be a victim of a violent crime whilst living in Harlem. There was recently a murder in broad daylight a little ways up Lenox:
[A] gunman entered the Dunkin' Donuts on 145th Street just west of Lenox Avenue in Harlem and demanded money, the police said.Before he fled empty-handed, having been unable to open the cash register, he killed the manager, Joy Kar, with three shots from a handgun.
Witnesses said the gunman had entered with his face covered by a bandanna and pointed his gun at Mr. Kar and another employee behind the counter.
As others in the restaurant fled to the street or to a neighboring Hess service station, the gunman shot Mr. Kar in the back after he refused the demand for cash.
The gunman shot two more times as Mr. Kar attempted to run away, the police said. [more]
Posted by adrianjo at 06:10 PM
February 08, 2006
Bye bye busking bucket boys
More news from Chicago, this time good news. One of the biggest annoyances of living along the Mag Mile, aside from the cars that tried to run me down on several occasions, were the south-side boys who drummed on buckets across the street. (In my building, a call to security was enough to get them booted, but nearby building owners were more accomodating.) The noise was ear-splitting on the ground and could be heard even where I lived, some 875 feet above Michigan Ave. Giant crowds of bumbling tourists would form around the buskers, forcing passers-by to fend for themselves against the busses and the cabs on the street.
Chicago's city council took the meek step today of banning buskers and other street performers along a four-block stretch of Michigan Ave, which will simply force them onto the narrower sidewalks adjacent to that four-block stretch. From the Trib:
"Bucket boys" who beat on makeshift drums, same-song saxophonists who blast their horns and even mimes who, by definition, don't make a sound will be banned from a stretch of tony North Michigan Avenue under an ordinance passed Wednesday by the City Council.Some aldermen contended that quality of life and safety concerns dictated the need for the street performer prohibition, which passed by a 42-4 vote. Opponents insisted that the entertainers help create a festive atmosphere on the Magnificent Mile.
...
The ban applies to the stretch of Michigan between Delaware Place and Superior Street. Performers also will be barred from the area around Millennium Park, at Michigan and Randolph Street, but only when concerts are in progress in the Pritzker Pavilion.
Violators will face fines of up to $500 and, for three violations in a year, 12-month suspensions of their street performer licenses.
Ald. Burton Natarus (42d), who represents the area, said that high-rise residents suffer the effects of "excruciating noise," amplified by the canyons created by the towers.
"They work hard all week, and they come home and they have the right to enjoy the peace and quiet of their apartment," the alderman said.
It's a nice start, but I doubt that it'll solve the problem.
Posted by adrianjo at 10:57 PM
Wanna buy a skyscraper?
One of Chicago's more appealing skyscrapers has fallen to 35% occupancy and is now on the block. The postmodern 190 S. LaSalle elegantly recalls Gothic and Romanesque cathedral architecture with massive gables atop and imposing lanterns below, with a three story barrel-vaulted lobby framed in pink granite.
When I worked in Sears Tower, I spent a lot of time in the Boardroom gazing out over the harbor and 190 S LaSalle, located a block away. Chicago, once known for its great architecture, has suffered from two decades of horribly bland development--the same sort of boring, square, formulaic glass, steel, and concrete that blots skylines from Hong Kong to Dusseldorf. 190 S. LaSalle is one of the rare exceptions.
From Real Estate Alert:
Insurers Show Chicago Office TowerA joint venture is shopping a prominent Chicago skyscraper
that lost its anchor tenant last year.The 800,000-square-foot building, at 190 South LaSalle
in the Central Loop submarket, is expected to trade for $80
million to $90 million, or up to $113/sf. Eastdil Secured is
believed to be marketing the property for a partnership
between Nippon Life and Metropolitan Life.Last year, the city’s largest law firm, Mayer Brown, moved
out of 190 South LaSalle, leaving the building roughly 35%
occupied. Class-A properties in the market have an average
occupancy rate of 85% and average rent of $25/sf.The buzz is that John Buck Co., which developed the 40-
story tower in 1987, might be interested in buying it back.The granite building, which is capped with two-story
copper gables, has a distinctive lobby, with arched and
bronze-framed entryways and a gold-leaf, barrel-vaulted
ceiling that is three stories high. The property includes a
restaurant, a health club, a tenant lounge and underground
parking.
By the way, these Mayer Brown guys look like a bunch of morons. They have a map of their offices with a note that "City locations on map are not meant to serve as exact geographical markers." What sort of moron would think they would? And why would I want to pay a firm $500/hr to advise me on such trivialities? If we're going to have 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean, can we start with Mayer Brown lawyers?
Posted by adrianjo at 03:43 PM
February 07, 2006
Update from the "Religion of Peace"
Michelle Malkin is doing an excellent job keeping abreast of the violence spreading throughout the Muslim world in reaction to the Danish cartoons. Among other things, a young Muslim radical was apprehended in the murder of a Catholic clergyman in Turkey today, and attempts to torch embassies continue. Crowds are chanting that "Every Muslim must kill a Dane, a Frenchman, or another Westerner." Meanwhile, the Iranians are sponsoring a cartoon contest to mock Holocaust victims. And American media outlets continue to make excuses for not reprinting the cartoons.
Posted by adrianjo at 06:44 PM
February 06, 2006
Democrats' Contract with Al Quada
Democrats' expectations are high that they will take back the Congress this year. There is a lot of talk about a new Contract with America, a la Newt Gingrich's 1994 Contract that resulted in over a decade (and counting) of Republican control. The Contract with America still today stands as perhaps the clearest, simplest, least-nuanced national platform in memory.
Making 2006 into a 1994 will be tall order for them Dems for several reasons. For one, Republicans never expected to take Congress in 1994. The plan was to take both Congress and the White House in 1996. Democrats have been long on electoral hope and short on actual results. More importantly, the Democrats don't have the issues needed to credibly replicate a contract. The 1994 contract had simple issues that appealed to large swaths of America: ending increases in welfare for having more kids, truth in sentencing, and no US troops under UN command.
The Democrats might try to produce a contract, but AJ Strata has done it for them. Read his version of the Democrats' contact here. [via Powerline]
Posted by adrianjo at 09:51 PM
February 05, 2006
Buy Danish
I served a Danish beer at my Super Bowl party today. I've joined the Buy Danish campaign in support of the Danes who published (back in September) the cartoons that asserted that some Muslims are violent people. Some Muslims responded by engaging in acts of violence: torching several embassies, calling for the cartoonists' murder, declaring a desire for another holocaust, and burning flags. All of which proves the cartoons' point.
So buy Danish stuff. Lots of it.
By the way, the funniest part of this whole series of violent outbursts was the group of idiots who burned a Swiss flag; they couldn't tell the difference. Or they just didn't care: as the Russian nihilists said, smash right, smash left, smash anything, smash everything.
Posted by adrianjo at 11:47 PM
February 03, 2006
Salman Rushdie, call your office
Below is the Danish cartoon that has so many radical Muslims' panties in a bunch:
That's Muhammad, whom Muslims consider a prophet, with his turban fashioned into a bomb. It "is not exactly complimentary, but hardly unfair, given the thousands of people who have been blown up by fervent Muslims purporting to act in Mohammed's name," says Powerline.
Wannabe murderers around the world have launched protests. The picture at left is from London. Is there any difference vs. the guy on the right?
Not a dime's worth of difference
I can't see much difference between the two. Both harbor intense hatred of certain groups and see nothing wrong with killing innocent civilians. But Muslim fanatics are far more dangerous than Klansmen. A group of Klansmen couldn't be able to kill more than a couple of people a night. A group of Muslim fanatics killed almost 3,000 people on a single day in 2001. Why do American liberals hate the KKK but want to appease radical Muslims?
By the way, I have changed the lanaguage of this site's dates to Danish.
Posted by adrianjo at 05:53 PM