A New Low In Obnoxious Advertising

One of those obnoxious ads in the waters off lower Manhattan

As anybody who knows me realizes, I have no patience for the desperate, loud, constant barrage of advertising.

It's possible to make advertising that is engaging, entertaining and makes you want to buy their products. That concept is rare, though, as most advertisers seem more intent on insulting us, rathern than engaging us.

Most advertisers seem to think the more you annoy us, the more likely we are to buy their wares. I have not gotten anyone to explain how that works, if it does.

A new low in advertising has come on the waters of the Hudson and East rivers surrounding the big lights of Manhattan.  Barges now ply those waters with obnoxious LED billboards. As the New York Daily News reports:

"The city filed a lawsuit Wednesday aimed at sinking the billboard-carrying barges that float on New York waterways.

City attorneys write that the company behind the LED advertisements, Ballyhoo Media, has brazenly disregarded requests to dock the barges because they are a public nuisance, distract drivers and violate zoning regulations."

I can see why New York City officials are exasperated with these barges. As New York City Councilman Justin Brannon said in the Daily News:  "At a time when every square inch of our world feels like it's covered in advertisements, visual pollution is a real thing, and our waterways should be off-limits. Drivers along the water don't need more distractions and when kids in Bay Ridge go to Shore Road Park, they don't need to be barraged by flashing lights advertising the latest video game."

True, a big city like New York has plenty of bright lights and advertising. It's turned Times Square into one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world.

But the advertising like that doesn't have to be everywhere. That's why Manhattan has both the dazzling advertising lights of Times Square, and the relative quiet and trees and lawns of Central Park.

However, plenty of advertisers and ad agencies think they must blind and deafen us constantly, because that way we'll buy, buy.  Ballyhoo Media, the company behind these obnoxious floating barge billboards is one of those.

The website for Ballyhoo Media was interestingly down for maintenance Wednesday and Thursday, which is interesting.

Infuriatingly, Ballyhoo Media might still get away this. The company pulled the same stunt in Miami Beach. The Florida city tried banning the advertising barges, but Ballyhoo successfully argued that Miami Beach doesn't have jurisdiction over the water, so their awful visual pollution remains.

Ballyhoo is likely to make the same argument in New York.

The Miami New Times said Adam Shapiro, owner of Ballyhoo, gave this spin on how supposedly great these floating advertising barges are. Shapiro said the barges are a quicker way to reach customers and make announcements. He pointed out there have always been advertisements at the beach.

Well, yeah. You can go up to the boardwalk and look at all the advertisements you want, or you could turn around and have an uncluttered view of the water. You have a choice. Ballyhoo Media wants to take away that choice.

Shapiro made the same argument, that his company is just wonderful, in response to the New York lawsuit. Talk about gall and gaslighting with this statement!

"We love the waterways and have developed this platform to be an asset to the community.....Ballyhoo has proven to provide unique, one-of-a-kind experiences that has been received with overwhelmingly positive community support. We are confident that New York City will see the value and excitement we bring to the waterfront."

I hate to break it to him, but the yelling and screaming Shapiro is hearing is not "positive community support," it's community rage.  But enjoy your delusions, sir.

Unfortunately, this will only get worse. We've probably been sentenced to dozens of these companies clogging beautiful waterways, along with lake and ocean front tourist spots with these outrageous LED ads.

Want to give up on the beaches because of this and stargaze instead? Looks like you're going to be out of luck there, too.

As Astronomy.com and other media outlets have reported, a Russian startup called StartRocket wants to put billboard advertising in space, because apparently, stars and planets are ugly but advertisements  in the sky for chicken wings and cola are majestic.

Astronomy.com describes this hellish idea: "Imagine this: you've just fled from the city to your nearest national park to gaze deeply into the infinite abysss of space and contemplate how your own existence fits into the curtain of the universe. Then out of the corner of your eye, you see brigh white letters spelling "KFC" spring across the horizon in a long arch."

Yeah, lovely.

It seems that advertising company executives are so full of themselves that they will believe any branding about themselves that they imagine. It can't even enter their mind that almost all of the rest of us think they're obnoxious. The guy with the ads in space idea, Valadilen Sitnikov says this: "It's human nature to advertise everything... Brands are a beautiful part of humankind."

Really?

I once read a short story where everybody in the nation was forced to view advertising every waking hour through some sort of hologram that everybody was required to operate.

It doesn't seem like we're that far from that horrible dystopian life.

Guy Clings To Free Housing At Parents House; Alex Jones Gets Him Out, DIscusses Nose Jobs

Michael Rotondo is being evicted from his parents' house, but
he is getting some help from some highly unlikely sources.

Talk about having no sense of personal pride!

As we learned in incessant news coverage this week, a 30-year-old guy in New York State really made a splash by refusing to leave his parents' house.

Mostly because it's free lodging and he really doesn't want to give up the great deal.  For the record, I moved out of my parents' house late - when I was 23 - but I did so with no prodding form my parents. I decided on my own.

Not like most adults who, you know, go out and get a job, find an apartment, pay the rent and otherwise support themselves like normal people.

I don't oppose people living with their parents if they do so for the right reasons.  Some adults live with their parents for years or decades. But most people who live with their parents assist them with health issues, or pay the bills, or generally stay helpful and productive. That's what normal people do.

Apparently, though, Michael Rotondo is not normal people.

Still,the great lengths he went to in attempts to prevent his parents from evicting him show a commitment to hard work. It just would have been easier, and more effective for him, to put that energy into finding an independent place to live.

Speaking of hard work, Rotondo's parents went through a lot of efforts get this bozo out of their house. It started in earnest in February, when Rodondo's parents wrote him this missive. (I guess face to face conversations weren't working.)

"After a discussion with your Mother, we have decided you must leave this house immediately. You have 14 days to vacate You will not be allowed to return. We will take whatever actions are necessary to enforce this decision."

First of all, when your parents write such a strongly worded note, it's past the time to move out.

However, the parents' note didn't work. So they gave their son another note on March 15, demanding he move out. No movement.

On March 20, the parents tried another tack: They offered him $1,100 to help with moving expenses, and also offered advice. The advice was sensible enough, in my opinion. It's what normal people would think of in this situation, but as I said, Rotondo doesn't seem very normal to me.

The advice included:

--- Organize the things you need for work and to manage an apartment.
--- A reminder that "there are jobs available for those with a poor work history like you Get one - you have to work!"
---  Also: "Sell the other things you have that have any significant value (e.g. stereo, some tools, etc.) This is especially true for any weapons you may have. You need the money and will have no place for the stuff."

Wait, what? Weapons? Yikes! I know little of this guy, but what little I know makes me a little nervous about him having weapons. But I guess that's another story.

It turns out the judge quickly decided with the parents, and Rotondo needs to move out, pronto. But our ever persistent protagonist says he will appeal the judge's decision.

On the bright side, the online cam site  CamSoda offered Rotondo a paying gig in its "LifeStream" program, TMZ reports.

As TMZ points out, CamSoda is apparently a site where porn stars to online camming, but to our great relief, Rotondo will remain clothed if he takes the gig. The job pays $1,000 a month for six months.

The whole thing got even more bizarre if you can believe it on Thursday, when Rotondo appeared on wacko conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' InfoWars show. Jones gave Rotondo a check for $3,000 to move out of his parents' house.

A high point in the Jones/Rotondo conversation is when Jones asks if he's going to use the $3,000 to get a nose job.

"I don't think so," Rotondo said. "I like my nose the way it is."

As Vice continues this story, Jones, obsessed with noses, apparently, tells Rotondo he like his "noble nose" and that his wife's nose is so big she gets mistaken for a Jew, but he he also likes her nose a lot, so much so that he'd divorce her if she ever got a nose job.

Jones apparently meant the $3,000 check and the interview as a pep talk to encouage Rotondo's independence, but the interview, as we would expect from Jones, stayed weird.

Jones worried that Rotondo came off as "autistic" in other TV interviews, and warned him that he should move out of his parents' house immediately or risk being taken control of by "globalists."

In the end, I have to agree with Vice that Jones, for once in his life, actually sounded sensible at times.

Jones told Rotondo: "I think you should go back, no matter what your parents have done to you, and say, 'Thank you for life and I appreciate you and I'm going to figure out how to make money and be a part of society.'....From then, if you can do those basics, the big ideas will come.'"

How about that? Decent fatherly advice from one of the world's biggest wackos!  Black is white  and day is night now, I guess.

Wacko Anti-Semitic Politician Scams Voters Who Hate Anti-Semites

Thomas Lopez-Pierre, a whack job running for New York
City Council, set up a fraudulent GoFundMe page
to raise money for his campaign

I have to agree with the New York Post: For an anti-Semite, Thomas Lopez-Pierre has a ton of chutzpah.

This idiot is running for New York City council. He doesn't have the slightest chance of winning, given he's running on a platform that calls for stopping "greedy Jewish landlord" from committing "ethnic cleansing" against blacks. 
 
Told you Lopez-Pierre is a whack job.

This guy is a Democrat. To nobody's surprise, Jewish groups and others are working to get Lopez-Pierre kicked out of the party.

A GoFundMe page called "Stop Thomas Lopez-Pierre Hate Campaign" popped up. According to the New York Post said the GoFundMe page raised $5,781.

Here's the chutzpah part. Says the New York Post:

"But anyone who donated hoping to actually stop Lopez-Pierre is going to be sorely disappointed. - because the page was created by the candidate himself to scam money from his foes.

'I call it bait and switch,' Lopez-Pierre actually bragged to The Post."

Yes, he's right. It's bait and switch all right. I wonder if he can also be brought up on fraud charges

On his campaign page, the candidate says he's a Christian "saved by God's grace."

Asked by CBS New York whether "grace should keep you from lying in such a flagrant way," he responded, "I'm a sinner."

He's right on that count, too.
 
Lopez-Pierre said he's going to use the money he fraudulently raised via GoFundMe for marketing expenses in his campaign.

Maybe not so fast. GoFundMe says it's frozen the account while it investigates, so this dude might not ever get the money.

As if anyone is going to vote for him.

Lopez-Pierre is trying to win a primary election for a seat in upper Manhattan.  An incumbent named Mark Levine, who happens to be Jewish, is extremely likely to win the seat.

Side By Side View Of A Drive Through Los Angeles

Glenn Close in the current Broadway run of "Sunset Boulevard"

I was in New York City this week to see some shows and be tourists.

My husband Jeff and I were lucky enough to score very good seats to see Glenn Close in the revival of "Sunset Boulevard."  (We were very lucky to time this right because "Sunset Boulevard" is there for only a limited 16-week run.)

We loved it, of course, and Glenn Close was absolutely terrific. I resisted the temptation to say out loud those famous lines from the play as Close spoke them.

"I am big. It's the pictures that got small."

"Alright, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my closeup."

During Sunset Boulevard scene changes and transitions, the show at the Palace Theater had a translucent screen that showed 1940s-era black and white flim clips of Hollywood and the glamorous actors who inhabited it. ("Sunset Boulevard," for those who don't know, takes place in 1940s Hollywood.)

Quite a world, back then.

Imagine my delight when I got home yesterday, opened up the BoingBoing web site, and found, with perfect timing, a video showing side by side view of the same drive through Los Angeles in the 1940s and today.

It's pretty fascinating to see how much things have changed.

Watch the video, which comes to us courtesy of the New Yorker:

Subway Passengers Armed With Hand Sanitizer Scrub Out Nazi Idiot

Armed with hand sanitizer and tissues, people scrub Nazi
graffiti away from inside a New York City subway car.

Some jerk got his or her Sharpie out and put swatikas and other Nazi images on just about every advertisement and window of a New York City subway car a few days ago.

People who boarded the subway were - surprise! -- not happy to see this stuff, but nobody knew what to do about it.

But in a Facebook post that has gone totally viral, a guy named Gregory Locke said one person spoke up and said, "Hand sanitizer gets rid of Sharpie. We need alcohol."

The guy also found some tissues to soak up the hand sanitizer and went to work.

The scene on the subway car quickly became remiscent of that old game show, "Let's Make A Deal" when host Monty Hall had people dig into their purses and wallets to find odd things to win prizes.

This time, though, everybody was digging into their backpacks and such to find hand sanitizer and tissues.

Within a few minutes, subway passengers, armed with such dangerous weapons as Purell and Kleenex, had purged the car of all Nazi symbolism.

One passenger, lamenting about the Nazi graffiti,  "I guess this is Trump's America."

Locke wrote in response: "No sir, it's not. Not tonight and not ever. Not as long as stubborn New Yorkers have anything to say about it."

Yes, yes, I know, Donald Trump is not a Nazi (at least I'm pretty sure.) But some of his supporters are white supremicists and they think they've got their big chance now that Donald Trump is president.

New York City resident Chelsea Clinton, (You might know her as Bill and Hillary's daughter) heard about this incident and tweeted, "We will not let hate win. And, another reason to carry hand sanitizer."

This is a small incident, granted. But there's a lot of forces of evil running amok in this nation right now and there's a lot of other people running around who will not stand for it. Stories like this make me feel just that much better about things.

I'm planning a brief visit to New York City in a couple weeks. I'd better pack some hand sanitizer for the subway rides, right?

Guy Reads Fake Trump Books For Our Amusement

One of the fake books in a viral video of a guy
reading inappropriate material on a subway. 

I know, I know, I've been harping on Donald  Trump much too much, and some of what I've been doing is NSFW, but I can't resist this one.  

Which, unfortunately for Trump fans, is a slam against him. Plus this post is also NSFW.

A guy named Scott Rogowsky has been taking books with fake titles on New York City subways and pretends to read them while documenting the amused reactions from those around him.

He's got a series of these videos, but the ones in this post are related to Donald Trump. Ad proceeds from this video are to be donated to the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, Rogowsky said.

Some of the book titles can't be repeated here, but here are some examples, all of them pretty inappropriate, which is the point of the jokes:

"How To Succeed in Business Without Paying Your Contractors" (With a new introduction by Chris Christie!)

"Prejudice And Prejudice," by Mike Pence.

"Fantastic Nukes And Where To Drop Them" by Newt Gingrich.

"Michele Obama In Her Own Words" By Melanie Trump.

And a Dr. Suess style illustrated book called "Horton Smears A Jew"  By Steve Bannon.

OK, all this isn't necessarily fair to the people involved, but it's still good for a laugh. Here's Rogowsky's video, but remember it is NSFW:

Attempts To Avoid Publicity Garner Publicity For This Drunken Driving Suspect

The mugshot that Joseph Talbot
of upstate New York did not
want you to see. 

Drunk driving is wrong, and also, less importantly, embarrassing.

If you're caught driving while intoxicated, chances are your local paper will pick up on this story and publish it. Especially if you live in a small town and/or you're fairly prominent.

Guess what? It gets even worse if you try to hide the news.

According to The Times of Wayne County, one guy learned this truism the hard way.

Police say a guy named Joseph Talbot, 43, of Newark in Wayne County, New York, was arrested recently because authorities said they saw him driving erratically on Route 31 in Palmyra, New York.

He failed several field sobriety tests, and was brought to a police station, where he refused to give a breath sample, let troopers take fingerprints or take a mug shot. (They ended up taking a mug shot anyway.)

Police said Talbot told them he was angry that the mug shot would end up in "that rag" (The Times of Wayne County) and that police were trying to ruin his family.  Police probably wouldn't have tried to "ruin" his family if this guy stayed sober while driving.

Talbot's lack of cooperation  prompted police to add a charge of obstructing governmental administration, in addition to the DUI charge, says The TImes of Wayne County.

The trooper had tried to explain to Talbot that his refusals would create an even bigger story in the newspaper.

It turns out the troopers were right. The big headline in the Times of Wayne County was "Bank VP/Palmyra Man Calls Trooper Asshole. Refused To Have Mugshot Taken."

The article with this headline helpfully included a mug shot of Talbot.

Talbot wasn't done yet. He was released on conditions, and went out to buy 900 to 1,000 copies of the local paper, The Times of Wayne County, from eight different stores.

Newsstand copies of the paper sell for $1.25 apiece, so this idiot might have spent as much as $1,250 on this escapade.

As is always the case with this type of thing, Talbot really made matters much worse for himself. First of all, there are no doubt subscribers to the paper that got home delivery, which Talbot could not stop.

When the stores reported that all the copies of the paper had been sold, The Times was nice enough to estocked the stores with fresh copies of the paper

Plus, as the paper notes, "Now the story has been picked up by several national news outlets."

Embarrassed yet, Mr. Talbot?

A Guy Named Carl Paladino Is New York's Biggest Jerk

The Jerk Of The Week Award Goes To
Carl Paladino. Congratulations! 

When given an opportunity to make a statement or a joke in public, don't be a gross jerk.

That nugget of advice might seem obvious to most of us, but not a guy named Carl Paladino who obviously didn't get the memo.

This all started when a western New York publication,  Buffalo ArtVoice, had one of those end-of-the-year easy features where they ask people in their community wishes for the new year.

Practically every news outlet does this,  and the answers are usually heartfelt wishes or a joke.

ArtVoice asked numerous prominent people around Bufflalo, "What would you most like to happen in 2017?" and "What would you like to see go away in 2017?"

None of the answers were particularly newsworthy except for  those by Carl Paladino, who is on the Buffalo School Board and was a New York co-chairman of Donald Trump's election campaign earlier this year. .

For 2017, Paladino wished that Barack Obama would contract mad cow disease and die after having sex with a Hereford.

Barrel of laughs right?

Paladino got even worse when he described what he'd like to see go away in 2017. He answered, "Michelle Obama. I'd like her to return to bein a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla."

Incredibly racist and crude right?

Not to old Carl here.

Paladino later confirmed to the Buffalo News that he made those statements. "Yeah, I'm not politically correct.....They asked what I want and I told them."

He later put out a statement that read in part, "Merry Christmas and tough luck if you don't like my answer."

To nobody's surprise, not many people do like his answer. Trump's transition team hated it, along with pretty much everybody in New York from the governor on down.

Even Paladino's own son, who now runs the real estate firm that Carl founded, posted a message on Facebook distancing him and his company from dad's stupidity.

The son, William, said in part, "We do not condone the statements made about the President of the United States and his wife. They were disrespectfu and absolutely unnecessary."

Fellow members of the Buffalo School Board, which serves a student population that has lots of racial minorities, are trying to find ways to kick Paladino off the board.

It's about time. Paladino has a long history of being a jerk, including in 2010 when he unsuccessfully (thank gawd) ran for governor of New York. At the start of and during that campaign, Paladino e-mailed racist and pornographic images that apparently somehow to his mind showed his intention to run for office.

Whatever.

Yeah, Paladino is an irrelevant jerk. Part of me was tempted to just ignore him.

But as I always say, it's good to shine a cleansing light on the most toxic of people and public figures like Paladino.

I still feel like I have to take a shower after writing about this idiot, though.

Kids Come To The Rescue Again After Trump-Inspired Park Vandalism

This ugly graffiti in New York was replaced by flowers, heart-
shaped art and peaceful messages brought there by kids.  

In one of dozens of attacks and crimes with the election of Trump, somebody painted swastikas and "Go Trump" slogans in Adam Yauch Park in Brooklyn, New York.

The park is named for Yauch, a founding member of the Beastie Boys who was, by the way, Jewish. Yauch died of cancer in 2012.

As a kid, he often played in that park, and that's one of the reasons the park is named after him.

Anyway, people everywhere were properly horrified by the vandalism, just like people are upset at similar vandalism elsewhere in the country.

Also, once again, it was kids to the rescue in the face of such hate.

New York sanitation workers cleaned up the graffiti hours after it was left in the park, but children who frequently play there decided to take things a step further.

According to NPR, children and their parents brought flowers, paper cut outs of hearts and messages of unity. One kid scrawled "Love Trumps Hate" in chalk on the sidewalk. Now that's my kind of graffiti!

Another person put a note on a toy train in the park that said the train is actually a machine that destroys facism.

These are small gestures, of course. But if we get millions of such small gestures, maybe things will brighten up a bit.

New York Post's War On Homeless Is Bizarre

The New York Post reported devoted up to 16 reporters
 to follow this mentally ill homeless person last summer.  

The New York Post has a weird obsession with homeless people.

They really, really want them to go away.

The obsession is particularly weird because they tend to zero in on one particular homeless person from time to time, splash them on the front pages of the tabloid, and humiliate them as thoroughly as possible.

It's unclear what they're trying to accomplish.

The latest case involved a homeless woman who dragged along a series of carts with her belongings in Hell's Kitchen.

The publicity prompted the NYPD to come in and throw many of the women's possessions out.

Homelessness, even one particular case, is rarely easy to solve. But I'm not sure what the benefit is of making one person's bad situation worse. Especially by highlighting them in a bad but widely read tabloid.

The woman in question might have been a hoarder, might have had other problems, and maybe someone should have helped her deal with all this. But apparently, the city just went in and threw her stuff out because of the bad publicity from the Post.

Now that they've done that, is anyone trying to help this woman? She's out of the headlines, so probably not. I'm sure there are people at the Post that now hope she just goes away and dies or something.

I think the goal of the New York Post is to make the homeless disappear. OK, but where do they go?

It seems every once in awhile, the Post singles out a homeless person because some editor finds that particular person annoying or something. Last summer, it was a homeless, mentally ill man who peed on a street that felt the front page wrath of the New York Post. 

The Post's editor,  Col Allan, apparently thought it was appropriate to devote 16 reporters to cover this homeless people, who annoyed this editor.

New York is one of the biggest, most exciting, newsiest cities in the world. You'd think something more important than some homeless guy peeing in a street happens on any given day in the Big Apple.

Maybe I can prompt the New York Post with some idea. Did any bigger crimes happen? Check with your friends at the NYPD.  What's Wall Street up to? The UN? Did Mayor DeBlasio say something you don't like? He often does.

Did any of the zillions of famous people living in the city do interesting in the city today?  Did the NYFD rescue a toddler from a dramatic fire in The Bronx?

Inquiring minds want to know, but not many of those inquring  want to know more about the Post editor's obsession with homeless people.

Do us all a favor, Col, and just work with whatever neighborhood association you deal with and shut the hell up. Go find some real news to cover.

New York Scammers Really Treat Tourists Roughly

Too bad Lady Liberty wasn't able to clonk these scammers
over the head with her torch.

You can easily get tickets to visit the Statue of Liberty from the National Parks Service.

That's presumably what William White and his wife Shellye of Arkansas thought when they were visiting New York City recently.

Which is why they blew off a couple of people - scammers - who were trying to illegally sell them tickets to Lady Liberty as the couple stood near the Staten Island Ferry terminal, says the New York Post. 

New York "entrepreneurs" apparently don't take kindly to being rebuffed, so one of the scammers smacked William White, knocking him out and giving him a fractured skull.

It looks like he will recover, eventually, but the scammers, perhaps not so much. The two were arrested by the NYPD shortly after the attack.

Robert Anderson, 25, of Brookly, who punched White, is charged with felony assault. His accomplice, Teresa Thorson, is charged with assault.

According to the Post, Thorson yelled while being led into a police precinct house, "The tourist attacked me!"

Well, if you consider declining an overpriced offer from a scammer, I guess he did.

The Whites said despite the attack on them, they'd consider returning to New York for another vacation. I might add that they would do that after perhaps after taking self defense lessons.

Scary! People Film Fatal Crane Collapse In NYC

The scene of a giant crane collapse in New York Friday
Photo by Stephanie Keith/New York Times. 

A crane collapsed during a snowstorm Friday morning in TriBeCa, Manhattan, killing one person and injuring three.

It's amazing more people weren't hurt, considering the collapsed came on a busy Manhattan street.

The construction crew was trying to lower the giant crane to secure it as winds increased during the storm. Something went wrong, and the whole thing collapsed.

A person in a nearby building captured the dramatic collapse. The people filming dropped a lot of F-bombs, which I would have done too if I'd witnessed this. (The swear words were bleeped out of the video you'll see below.)

Here it is

NYPD, Psych Ward Can't Believe Black Woman Could Be Bank Employee Who Drives BMW

This woman says she was locked in a psych ward for truthfully
saying she drove a BMW, worked at a bank and was
on President Obama's Twitter feed.  

There's a 32 year old black woman in New York City who works at a bank, drives a older model BMW and is one of a zillion people President Obama follows on his Twitter feed.

No offense to the lady, but to me, this brief profile of her doesn't strike me as particularly unusual.

To the New York Police Department and a psych ward at Harlem Hospital  this woman is implausable as a unicorn dancing on Pluto with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Trouble came to Kamilah Brock when last year in Harlem when she stopped at a red light while driving her 2003 BMW 325Ci.

She apparently liked the song on the radio because she was sort of moving around in her car and briefly had her hands off the steering wheel as she grooved to the music waiting for the light to change.

Brock said a NYPD officer saw this little dance, pulled her over and ordered her out of her car.

The cops arrested her and seized her car because they thought she was high on pot. She wasn't and no drugs were found in the car. They still comfiscated her car and took her into custody, says the web site Alternet. 

"After being detained at NYPD's 30th Precinct for a few hours, Brock was released without charges. When she asked for her car, officers told her to return the next day to claim it at a substation. Instead of giving Brock her car back the following day, NYPD cops refused to believe that she owned a BMW and placed her in handcuffs before calling an ambulance."

Brock was taken to Harlem Hospital's psych ward because everybody knows black women aren't rich enough to drive BMWs and they don't work at banks, is the apparent logic of NYPD. I mean, come on, every 32 year old black woman in New York is  crack whore, goes the logic.

Harlem Hospital held Brock for eight days, repeated knocking her out, or at least knocking her for a loop, by repeatedly being injected with sedatives and forced to take lorazepam and lithium because the jerks at the hospital misdiagnosed her as bipolar and delusional.

Alternet goes on:

"According to medical records, doctors also repeatedly attempted to coerce her into denying she owned a BMW, was a bank and has President Barack Obama as a follower on Twitter."

But Brock was in reality all of these things. She has worked at Citibank, Chase and Astoria Bank. The BMW in question is registered to her. Obama does follow Brock on Twitter. Although the Twitter account is administered by White House staffers. Obama doesn't contribute to it all that much.

Still. How hard would it have been to verify Brock's Twitter account. It's set to "public" so any bozo can look it up. Also, if Brock claimed to work at a bank, why not just call the bank to see if it was so. Pretty easy right?

After the eight days went by, Brock was released from the psych ward without explantion. She was then billed for $13,637.10 for the hospital stay, even though she never was misdiagnosed and held against her will.

I guess Harlem Hospital decided it needed a revenue boost, so they held a sane woman as crazy.

By the way, Brock has no history of mental illness. Unlike the cops that detained her and the jerks at the hospital, Brock is totally sane.

Now, Surprise! Brock is suing the city of New York for violating her constitutional rights.

This Is Why I Like Some Gruff, Tough New Yorkers

The gruff, tough talking bro on the left
side of this image turs out to be a real sweetheart.
The woman on the left is crying because of him,
but DEFINITELY not because the bro did anything mean.  

A viral video is circulating about an incident on a New York subway.

Nope. No weirdos. No crimes. No embarrassing people.

The video, uploaded two years ago but just now getting a lot of attention, shows us a tough talking New Yawker guy confronting a woman selling roses on the train. She's just trying to get by and make a few bucks.

She had to buy the roses from somewhere. If she doesn't sell most or all of them, chances are she'll lose money.

The tough young bro in the business suit with the untucked white shirt demands to know how much the roses cost. They're $1 per rose.

Our bro New Yawker next orders the woman selling the roses to tell him how many of them she has.   She's got 140 of them.

He then hands her $140, right on the spot and tells her in no uncertain terms that she must now give them away to passersby, as he has already paid for them. He wants no bullshit with this, either.

Which means our tough guy, not-born-yesterday New Yawk dude is a total sweetheart. Certainly helped the woman, and brightened the day of up to 140 people who got a free rose.

The woman sellling the roses is so take aback by the bro and so verklempt she just breaks down and cries. It takes her awhile to speak.

Through her tears, the woman with the roses finds her New Yawk tough talk voice. "For anybody who wants a rose, you can come get it."

This is totally a reason to love New York.

To get the whole effect, you gotta watch the video, even if it is improperly filmed with a vertical smart phone. It made my day:

Was Doorman Shown The Door For Being Too Nice?

This New York City apartment building doorman
said he was let go for being too helpful to tenants.  

Can an employee be fired for being too nice to the clients he supposed to be serving?

The answer, apparently is yes, and tenants of a luxury high rise in Queens aren't happy about it, says the New York Post.

Ralph Body was until recently the doorman at the ritzy digs where apartments go for the low, low price of $4,200 per month.

Body said he was told to stop working at the building by the apartment complex's management team, Heatherwood Communities, says the Post article.

According to the Post:

"He didn't just hold the door. He did anything and everything residents asked him to do -- check on pets, clean litter boxes, water plants,  hold packages, even show... apartments to new tenants if need be, he said. 

'Everything I did, somebody asked me to do, or there was a need for it,' Body said."

Of course, there might be other sides of the story we're not getting.

Body probably did do things in the building that weren't under his responsibility. The tenants said he went above and beyond while on the job, so technically he probably did things that weren't strictly authorized by building management.

I guess rules are rules.

The building's residents are rebelling. A petition circulating through the apartments says people want Body reinstated, though copies of the petition mysteriously disappeared from the lobby.

"Going above and beyond your work duties shouldn't be punished - it should be praised," says the petition. "Most tenants can attest to Ralph's kindness and eagerness to make people feel safe and welcome. In a transient city where most people are from other states and countries 27 on 27th was a unique building that truly felt like 'home' from the moment you stepped in the door."

A few of the residents said they would not renew their lease unless Body is reinstated.

Those apartments will be filled if the residents moved out. I'm sure there's a market for an aloof, cold, unhelpful doorman out there. Or maybe a doorman who's not too bright.

Perhaps Carlton the Doorman from the 1970s show "Rhoda" is available.

A Little Girl Dances On A Subway Platform, And Makes 1 Million+ People Happy

A little girl in pink and a gruff sounding musician
caused some magic on a New York subway platform
and the incident is now the subject of a happy viral video.  

Several days ago, a guy played a cover of the Grateful Dead song "Me & My Uncle" at the subway platform, Bedford Avenue Station, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.

A little girl in pink liked the music so much she started dancing. And started a mini-dance party in the process.

A dual called Coyote and Crow were responsible for the music. In this case, "Coyote" sang, and "Crow" video'd the proceedings.

The gleefulness in the girl wearing pink, and several others who started dancing is so infectious. No wonder the video has gone so viral.

Here is is, to make a gloomy winter Monday morning that much brighter:

We Think You're Being Sued for $2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

A guy in New York is basically suing everybody for more money that exists on the earth.

This won't be enough money to cover damages
if Anton Purisima wins his lawsuit.  

The amount he is seeking is two octillion gigadollars, which is a 2 followed by 36 zeros, says the Web site Lowering The Bar.   

Anton Purisima's lawsuit is hard to follow, but it seems to target everybody in the world, including you.

 But it appears to focus on the city of New York, a baker, two hospitals, Kmart and a "Latina" dog owner, according to the Huffington post. 

He is seeking damages for "civil rights violations, personal injury, discrimination on national origin, retailiation, harassment, fraud, attempted murder, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and conspiracy to defraud," says the New York Post. 

The Post says it's sort of unclear what the actions were that caused all these grievances, but it appears part of the problem is a dog nipped his finger, which drew a little blood, and a Chinese couple took an "unauthorized" photo of him.

So get ready to pay up! Just by reading about Purisima like you just did, you surely inflicted "emotional distress" on him.

Although somehow, I think the lawsuit will get thrown out by a judge.

"Too Many Zooz" A Totally Fun Band: An Introduction If You Haven't Gotten One Already

There's a three member band called "Too Many Zooz" that has been playing in New York's Union Station for awhile now.

Thanks to those good ole' viral videos, they're recording music now, so you can go out and buy it. 

Too Many Zooz are a lot of fun to listen to, and watch. They're music isn't quite like anything I've heard before.

Here's a video of them in the subway station, just to make your Thursday a little better:

Gorgeous Color Film of 1939 Manhattan Surfaces

A video appeared on YouTube about a week ago that shows a rare, gorgeous color view of Manhattan, taken in the summer of 1939.

According to the notes beneath the YouTube page the video is on, the film was done on 16 mm Kodachrome by Jean Vivier, a French tourist.

Maybe part of it is the score they've added to the film, but the images give such a romantic vision of New York.  It makes me wish I was there.

People sure dressed better in those days than they do now, don't they? I love the womens' hats in particular. And why can't we men find such gorgeous fedoras anymore?

Grand Central Lights

Grand Central Terminal is having its 100th birthday, so there's been a lot of cool celebrations.

One involved a bunch of people holding little LED lights, camera flashes and the like to create a nice show for commuters.

Here's how the organizers describe it:

"On the evening of Grand Central Terminal’s 100th birthday, 135 Improv Everywhere participants staged a surprise performance in the grand windows on the terminal’s west side. Equipped with a variety of LED flashlights and camera flashes, performers appeared suddenly and unannounced along three floors of windows, creating a shower of light for the commuters and tourists below."

By the way, many of us call the historic structure Grand Central Station, but we're told the proper terminology is Grand Central Terminal, just so you know.

Here's the fun video of the event, which includes lots of nice crowd reactions: Happy Birthday, Grand Central!