Once more unto the breech dear friends

Well now. It seems NBC is feeling a little touchy these days.
As you may have noticed, the video from yesterday's post is now "blocked".
So, here's another post of it, while it lasts.

My Own (un)Reality show

Sometimes, I get concerned about myself. I'm trying to consider whether or not I'm really beginning to lose my mind. Or maybe time is playing tricks on me for playing with it yesterday. It could be I've already had the breakdown and am sitting here in my ill-fitting but comfy green terrycloth robe in the common room at Shadey Rest instead of at home. That would explain the nurse with the 'Mildred Ratched' name tag who is approaching while prepping a needle.

When I woke up this morning, I was feeling all nice, warm and comfy snuggled all in with my 3 1/2 foot, white silk top hatted, teddy bear. Maybe there really is something to this "life is good" attitude. The top hat, by the way, was used in a Broadway show called "But Never Jam Today", a musical version of  'Alice in Wonderland'. Story for another day. Anyway, I made a quick trip to the bathroom and back, jumped under the covers, and thought how nice it would be to sleep, sleep my pretty, sleep. The clock displayed 7:06. I had woken up, so I knew everything was basically okay. I slowly got up, but doing so managed to be a significant victory for the day. I started the coffee making and moved on to the bathroom. I sat down and after a minute looked at the clock. It was 7:58. Wait. What? Where had almost an hour gone? Oh, no. No no no no no. That was yesterday. Was this a delayed reaction? Some trick? Was that the deja vu cat from the matrix?  Did I get abducted and returned? I didn't feel probed, psychologically or otherwise. A flash back to Blue Sunshine?? I know I didn't fall asleep. Where did the hour go?

About a half hour later, reading the online almanac: it turns out that today is Einstein's birthday, which I suppose is only really useful to know as an example of the synchronicity of events.

At any rate, time's been parsing in linear mode just now, and I see that my email account is suddenly getting a much better class of spammers. I think it started after I got those "Browse foreclosed homes in the area" notices. I don't know how they got the idea that I was going to suddenly move up in financial standing from the underclass to join the extreme poor and have a little spending money. Then I started getting email from Canterbury Who's Who to update my listing. Now, for the last couple of days, I've been seeing emails from Rachel Ray, Jessica Alba, Ellen DeGenerous (oh, I do hope so baby, I do hope so please send money) and now -just now - Salma Hayak! I delete them all without reading them, of course. It's not hard to figure out.

So I'm not sure what time zone or plane of relativity I'm on, but things are starting to get a lot more interesting in a fun sort of way. I think I can handle it.

Okay. I've been listening to the community radio, a jazz program called Soundscape, while web researchurfing. Just as 10am arrived and the morning news show was starting, the theme music morphed into something a little more familiar to the listeners of my own show (Recycled Radio - Sat's 6-8pm). It was the opening of "Uncle Sam Presents : I Sustain the Wings". The announcer then introduced Major Glenn Miller who started talking. Okay, its 1944 all over the airwaves and I'm at home doing other things. Something somewhere seems to be off kilter. You know, they do keep saying that the earthquake in Japan moved the Earth's Axis. But no one has discussed that little item any further. And to make everything worse, one of those "alert" words just got used : 'Axis'. I don't know what to think. Did one of my old radio show recordings somehow make it into the station's automation software MegaSeg? Had the producers of Free Speech Radio News used a clip from my show as their opening? I mean that would be been nice, and I'd really like to believe it, but I doubt it, ya know? Then the sound stopped. 1944 played again and stopped in the same place. Then there was a sound like a needle at the end bump of a record - for what seemed like 20 minutes. 11am arrived, the station switched to playing Chamber Music, but there were no WVEW 107.7 call letters, no public service spots. Now, could this all be some strange track in MegaSeg, or it could be that at long last I have finally lost my mind? Just now, as I was wondering why this couldn't have happened in my early 40's when it would have been a lot more fun, Maxwell Lawyer's voice suddenly greeted everyone and announced that the station would play more chamber music.

I just found out that somewhere between major network NBC and the Hulu site (of which they are part owner), someone seems to have censored the ending of Zac Galaifianakis' Saturday Night Live opening monologue. I'm not overly familiar with Mr. Galaifianakis and his sense of humour, so out of possible respect for a performer, and my dislike of riddiculous uses of censorship, I'm going to post the whole damn routine.



See, the way jokes, monologues, plot lines, and so forth used to be presented, there used to be a build up (exposition) and finale, joke, payoff, major tune in next year plot finale, et-cet-er-a. But you wouldn't get the payoff, the joke if you hadn't had the build up that set it up. That all changed with a tv show, "Laugh-In", which simply quick cut from punchline to punchline and/or finale. People still laughed. The set ups were all commonly known clues and the pattern for what was to come. But without them, those clues faded away from meaning and use. All you had was the laugh without reason, cut to the next line. And as sure as herd instinct gets everyone to the check out line at the same time, people still laughed, just without meaning. Action without understadning. By using the quick cut logic of if a,b, c (obvious pattern assumes cut right to) z, linear time changed slightly, or our perception of how we use it did. If those suseptible to it all mentally think a,b,c quick cut to z, then all have dropped maybe a billionth or two of a second in the mental process of perception. Where did that time go?  If you add it all up does it reach an hour twice a year? And if I missed something and am a billionth-millionth of a second off from the perception time of others, am I then in the world of the shadow people? Am I evolutionly superior or inferior? Maybe I'm just doin the Billy Pilgrim thing. I did answer that ad about becoming a time traveller several posts back. Oh, before I forget it, thanks and Happy Birthday Al.

On the need for coolant

It seems that the new "in" thing is to have a breakdown. I mean, look (or don't) at Charlie Sheen. The media coverage involved has been very much a part of regular news reporting. as though this were real news. The way the guy himself is running it, however, is as entertainment. I have no doubt that most of my country's citizenry knows more about Mr. Sheen's breakdown than about the nuclear reactor melting core breakdowns in Japan as a result of the earthquake and tsunami.

And then there's Christina Aguilera's breakdown, but from what I don't know. I was under the impression that  she hadn't done much the last couple of years other than be Christina Aguilera., which must get pretty taxing from what I gather.

Frank Rich is leaving the New York Times, which is a breakdown in the order of the editorial knowledge universe, but it is his right to move on. It's just that he is one of the few in this country who see politics through the lens of show business, and isn't afraid to tell you who's tinkering with the script, or having a hissy fit backstage. And the Times let him.

A few people at work had histrionic breakdowns over failing to adjust their alarmed linear time devices to the new order of things.

And I suppose I might as well go ahead and make Frank Rich's non pejorative abdication as the Times' voice of sanity a milepost marker for the approach of my own acute time-limited reactive stress, anxiety, and depression disorder.

Did you see last Sunday's Times editorial page? David Brooks, the paper's allegedly respected  conservative/libertarian wrote in an editorial entitled 'The New Order';
     "We’re going to be doing a lot of deficit cutting over the next several years. The country’s future greatness will be shaped by whether we cut wisely or stupidly. So we should probably come up with a few sensible principles to guide us as we cut. The first one, as I tried to argue last week, is: Make Everybody Hurt. The sacrifice should be spread widely and fairly. A second austerity principle is this: Trim from the old to invest in the young. We should adjust pension promises and reduce the amount of money spent on health care during the last months of life so we can preserve programs for those who are growing and learning the most."

Don't forget you can click to enlarge

Have I said this, yet? The war has already begun. What happened in Wisconsin is just a skirmish. The real battle target, by extension,  is the destruction and annihilation  of Social Security, Medicare, the 40 hour work week and so on via "cutting the budget". The next battles prepare while everyone else focuses on meltdowns at nuclear reactors in Japan, natural disasters, and the sudden heart warming emergence of "freedom" in the middle east... Let me see if I have this right, some nebbishy kid managed to tap into some big time computers, steal untold bazigabytes of confidential US documents, and is now facing the possibility of being put to death for treason. Meanwhile back at the truth ranch, an arrogant European nebbish guy published this material on his group's website, and' looks very much to be in the middle of a setup right out of cheap fiction as he extradites to a country which will render him here. In the meantime, the leaked documents haven't really revealed very much other than such dangerous things like calling a thief a thief. And from those leaked documents on the "real" Mideast, revolutions have sprung up out of the twitter blue, armed and almost ready. I can't quite remember the exact words anymore, but Charlie Chaplin wrote in his autobiography that in plot construction, an event being repeated once is co-incidence, twice convenience, and three times contrivance. I'll bet whomever is backing and directing this show never figured on teachers in Wisconsin, though. So now They know that We know. And, looking at the plotline, I'd have to say that they might be coming soon. The time left to arm and organize ourselves is fleeting before madness takes control.

Laugh if you want. You're next.






.

Moving forward

I knew it! I knew it! When I posted the news headline in my last post, I was going to open with : 'This story will disappear like a dog electrocuted on a NYC sidewalk', but thought better of it. Anyway, this kind of stuff happens all the time. Then again, time itself is a little wonky, you know? Sometimes I think that the shadow people simply exist in a slightly different tempo of time, but that's a story for another day. If time permits. For now, let it suffice to note that at 2AM tomorrow morning, time is going to fast forward an hour. It doesn't do this everywhere, check your local oracles.

And so it begins...

"CAIRO  (AP) — Eleven people died in overnight fighting between Christians and Muslims in the suburbs of Cairo... The clashes broke out during a protest by several hundred Christians over the burning of a church in the village of Soul last week ..."

It's a day off and the stew is slowly stewing, the coffee has just finished making, the laund'ry should be finished drying soon, and Dean Martin is singing on TV. I had forgotten daytime TV. I'm seeing it now as an accident of timing. Of course, like everything else that was once good and/or wonderful, you have to pay extra to get it even though it used to be free. Dewey Martin! Dewey Martin is in this movie! Wait. Dewey Martin in a suit and tie? That's sooo wrong. The wonderful thing about having this movie, whatever it is, running on tv is that it is in the proper frame ratio and has been excellently restored. Rich Technicolor colours. Most of the outdoor scenes seem to have been filmed on a sound stage. This was just an everyday picture. A little story (usually very little), a little romance, amazingly good looking people, an occasional song and dance. It is not special. I doubt that it won any accolades (including at the box office). Well now, those shots were definitely filmed outdoors in Rome. Yikes - that set is so tacky that it must have been borrowed from Universal. Sudden whoa! - Triumph of design and scene composition time. Sigh, you always could count on MGM.

Well, as it turns out, my clothes are still wet. I have to do another 2 hour drying cycle. Way my days go.

The thing about the movie on tv is that it is entertaining. And the star is an entertainer, not solely an actor. Which makes me wonder, where are the entertainers today? They seem to be few and far between. So much now is big bucks blow 'em up action adventure scifi fantasy (and gawd, how I love it) or low budget alleged reality. And in real reality, the Muslims and the Christians are at it again. In CinemaScope, Technicolor and Stereophonic Sound. Now That's Entertainment.

Carnevale Ashes

Carnevale ended yesterday.
Today, in Christian Rites, is Ash Wednesday - a day of fasting (or the start of 40 days of it for some), confession, penitence and/or repentance. As though we hadn't just been thru February.

Even in my  little world, the mask of yesterdays has had to come off. I have to be redeemed. I was "bad" at work again. I somehow ran the bill of two different customers together. (Customers often remove the divider between orders being processed via a "belt". When they do it, it is my fault for not catching it.) This incident was particularly embarrassing, as just two or three days earlier had been my annual "review". On all but two matters, I "meet expectations".  My attendance and not properly timed break time clock punches (you're bad if you're early, you're bad if you're late) "need work". And, I had called in sick a couple of times, not that catching colds is realted to management/ownsership not providing heat in winter. And, after being given work that just hit the border of my Orthopedists "no no" list, I had once gone home early in an  excelsius of pain: working 5 hours is too little to be considered a full day of work, so it counted as a sick day. I committed such sick day sin a total of 6 times within six months. I did not get the usual 6 written notices for this, all of which have to be signed. If not for two omissions, it would be 6-6-6. Not that that means anything. I'm just sayin'.

I was also found to "need work" on the handling of money. (Now I will have to watch a video before I can return to work.) I had been put on a "watch" list for a cash drawer which had been short of funds. I only found out when I noticed an audit and asked a bookkeeper about it. I was never informed via management. I was also one of several people who had been on that cash drawer that day - so we were all put on the watch list - except for the shift leaders who over assigned the drawer, that is.

And I sometimes don't give my full attention to the transaction finale - I forgot to give customers their stamps, or I didn't give them their coupons (which usually print out long after the customer has left), etc.

I protested having such nonsense in my file. I protested the use of such nonsense to restrict the amount of my raise - last year my raise was 14 cents "with their apologies ": due to the economy they couldn't afford more. Which made it rather silly of them to tell us in one of the news letters they send us how they turned a sizable profit last year.

It was also noted that my "rings per minute" were not up to company standard. My express line  rings were especially low. Of course, they send shopping carts well over half full to express now. There is no place to put everything, so one bags a customer's groceries as one goes. It takes time. And, of course, there was no mention that I am usually one of the fastest cashiers there on a month by month basis, and until work hours were cut back, I regularly handled more customers than anyone else.

So I protested the several items. I even noted that "I am a damn good cashier" at one point.

Oopsie.

When I total a customer's order, I always announce the amount. When the customer hands me money, I always announce how much. I always count back the change. Somehow, in spite of my careful procedures, I ran two orders together. Management watched the camera tapes which monitor us to confirm that it was my mistake. I do not get to see the tapes. The receipt was shown to me, but I couldn't do more than give it a quick once over while both a manager and an assistant manager stood on either side of me: both playing bad cop. I felt like a bright light was being shined in my face. So, since today is my day off, within the next 15 minutes as I write, I have to call the front end's assistant manager of customer relations to tell them if I want to continue working there or not. If I do abase myself in this manner, then my next few months will be under extreme scrutiny. And I will have to sign letters about that.

During the three and a half years I've been working there, at least 2 bookkeepers, as well as a number of shift leaders, have found themselves in such position of scrutiny. Strangely enough, they had all filed complaints against the the front end managers. They are also all gone. Ashes to ashes. Both of the bookkeepers were somehow missing $100 at the end of their next to last day of employment.  I should be clear, in case anyone from my place of employment should discover this post, that I am in no way accusing any level of the store's management of any skulduggery, display of dispassionatee ill will, or situational malfeasance in employee disappearances. I'm just sayin', is all, I'm just sayin'.

Welcome to the days of penitence and repentance.

And hey, if I really behave myself, maybe I can get into that new company housing being built out back where they tore down that homeless camp!

addendum

I clipped this out of the newspaper almost 40 years ago.
It's another "just because" for austanspace.

Click to enlarge

Just because

Every time I start to write in this blog, something happens. A long phone call. Writer's block. The antidepressants kick in. The antianxietals kick in. The computer starts spinning its hidden drives and refuses to do my bidding -  I wonder what it's up to; paranoia kicks in. I start falling asleep from exhaustion. Something - anything - distracts. I open a  window and am seduced by ephemera. My dear friend over at austanspace spends most of an oxycleaned post hooked on Led Zep. I stumble on the following image. Synchronicity of events. I start to post it, but something - anything - distracts. Just now it was a problem at the radio station. I renew my pledge to myself to dust... Oops. Gotta get ready for work... so here, then, for austanspace- just because.

Go ahead and click on it !



Thought from a day off

I have come to realize that I don't much like Februaries. At the age of 60, I've been through enough of them to have a somewhat informed opinion. It is not playing with a full deck of cards as far as days of the month go, now is it?  I wonder if it was simply shortchanged, or if the two days are missing due to some plot of the rich. Or the corporations. Or the Illuminati. Or the Gormagons. Some say that it's because both Julius Caesar and Augustus each took a day away to add to the months named for them in one of those "mine is bigger than yours" competitions (July and August, respectively)(sooo Italian). The root word involved is Februa, a Roman ceremony of  Ritual Purification (or Purging). Yep, that sure describes the month. Whatever the explanation, I say the month became evil in February of 1819 when the United States bought Florida from Spain. And if that isn't enough to make a case against the month, I will also note that in February of 1912, Arizona joined the union. At this point in the post I need a punchline or a great graphic, and I don't have either. I have to go do the laundry.

Happy Valentine's Day



The text reads: I hope I'm first to win your prize - Cross the line My Valentine



The Curse of Fred Astaire

Okay, look. When I was young and watching old movies and cartoons, the images were black and white. Color hadn't come along yet, but once it did, the images started to change. It took awhile for things to go color, you know. The black and whites had had such images. And style. So when I was young and dreaming along with the movies, a world of release and joy and sometimes intense emotional moments would engulf me, a world of singing and dancing where a callow youth could save and redeem himself with the right production number. You might say that I began to acquire a philosophy. The pinnacle of it all was a well to do guy in dinner tie and tails and nightclubs where the only light is a soft neon glow. Brash and charming, confident with a soupcon of a stylish high society thief. Fred Astaire, song and dance man, ruled the American Dream. For well to do folks at least. As the color musicals stared to air, there was another dancing man. Part gymnast, same charm, much more athletic. Occasionally a pompous fool in a sweet musical comedy sort of way. Earthier. Working class. But as much as I liked Gene Kelly (even with the pompous parts), the world I chose was one of glowing blacks and whites, where witty bon mots were conversation. Where every now and then, if you live your life right, one might step out onto the black onyx dance floor and experience one of those moments you hang on to forever, the ones that make life worth continuing.

Now, I could never be a Fred Astaire. Ungainly, one of those plain faces made from a not quite mashed potato, absolutely no co-ordination, I was and am a mess. I couldn't even stay on key when I was a kid. I've realized that I didn't want to be like him as much as I wanted to live in that world.

"The Curse of Fred Astaire" was an independent movie made in the early to mid 1980's. Obviously, the title resonated with possibilities. Friends in the industry loaned me a VHS tape, telling me , "Ya gotta see this." The story of an overweight theatre wanna be gypsy taking dance classes (with musical numbers, of course), it was easily one of the most hysterically funny things I have ever seen. For most of the first twenty minutes. You soon realise that it isn't a send up, it isn't satire, it isn't camp - it's serious. The remaining hour is the worst dreck I've ever seen, and I'll watch anything - except La Guerre Est Finie and Last Year at Marienbad. but that is another story. I am now prepared to admit that I couldn't watch it through to the end.

Just about every time I've tried to write n this blog during the last couple of weeks, I have had problems with my aging computer. More about that soon.

In the meantime, I feel a need to comment on one of those "trial balloons" floated just a day or two after my last post. It noted that "insiders" had been told by Newt Gingrich that he was running for president in 2012.

Newt Gingrich? The man who co-authored the Contract on America? The same Newt Gingrich who tried to hound and impeach Bill Clinton out of office for a sexual indiscretion - while he was having an extramarital affair with a House of Representatives staffer 23 years his junior?

Is this satire or is it serious?

The Big Red X

They are cutting down the trees in front of my building.



About 9 trees got the red x.
Click to enlarge-you can see the x better

 Red Xs appeared on them last autumn around the time of the Putney Road repaving project. My landlord wasn't very happy about it, but said that he was told the trees were not in good health. Which is interesting as they have been there for at least 20 years in my memory, through high winds, heavy snows, and ice storms with only the loss of a branch or two (about the size of one's arm) the last year or so. I'm not even sure who said they have to go - the power company  would have such a say, but then again there are no power lines on this side of Putney Road. In one of those weird synchronicity of events things, as I type the news on the radio (national - Free Speech Radio News) is discussing saving hemlock trees from some new disease. A guy I know named Bernie told me that the state can  order it done as Putney Road is Route 5 and, after all, they paid for the repaving. I've watched those Xs nervously, knowing something is wrong - kind'a like the pictures are gone.



Before: now you see two of three on the left

and now you don't - although if you click to enlarge, you do see one of the trees being moved by a crane.

I can't believe it's already January the 20th. But then again, New Year's seems like such a long time ago. The last week has been most stressful and annoying. If I had not called in sick last Friday (the cold that won't go away) I would have worked, as scheduled, seven straight days without a day off. It's nine days when I include going in on my day off last week.

Of course, calling in sick caused another "counselling session". It seems that I have called in sick a total of 6 days in the last 6 months (counted as rolling months, by the way). That includes two days when I left early - one due to my back, the other due to the flu or cold or whatever one is calling this torment from hell. If I call in sick (or go home sick) again, I could either get another counselling session, or be fired on the spot. No matter that for the previous two and a half years I never missed a day's work.

During the last week, we've been through two major snowstorms. The day before the storm is to hit, store business is like Thanksgiving and Christmas combined. And we had a 3 day weekend for the well off office workers and bosses in the form of Martin Luther King Day. Which means that ski hungry tourists descend like a swarm of flies on a dead horse. Maybe that should be locusts on a field of cabbages. Most are snide, rude, arrogant, obnoxious, self entitled, invidious nouveau riche on their way to deservedly becoming nouveau poor. (Isn't it kind of interesting that Martin Luther King spoke up time and again for the poor and the working poor, yet the holiday in his honor can only be enjoyed by fairly well to do and government workers? At least the three day weekend isn't used to promote massive sales of white sheets.)

My favorite customer this past weekend? One of those can't do anything for themselves where is my personal assistant types. I had to walk him through swiping his credit card through the machine to purchase his goods. He read a screen message out loud, "Do I want money back? No, I don't want money back. What do I do?" "Press the 'No' button." "Which one is 'no' ?".   Customers in line were all a twitter. After he left, I waited until he was about 20 feet away and I could hold it no longer and blurted out "The one that isn't 'Yes'."

This post was originally written on Thursday Jan 20th. It is now January 24th, a Monday. All it really needed was one - count 'em - one - graphic to be uploaded. Every time I have tried to get back here to push that "publish" button something has happened. Much of the problem has been my computer, which seems to have decided that it doesn't really want to work anymore. No viruses anywhere, 90% or more of the CPU available - with opening web pages as the highest priority for tasks, no other programs running - yet all it does is sit there and play with itself. It will sometimes take 20 minutes and more to complete opening a a web page! I'll be typing and suddenly the system will freeze (except for whatever it is really doing) for sometimes as much as an hour. (Right now everything seems to be working.)

Anyway, the dark chocolate brownies with raspberry creme cheese and chocolate drizzle are finished and calling my name. There is still so much to post, so much I had wanted to post and thought I still might -but my work schedule is once again devised to drain every ounce of energy I can give. The last couple of days have been exceptionally cold, and customers have added "Nasty" to their repertoire. As this morning's temperature was -19 Fahrenheit, about the only thing that really saved me from going berserk - - is that today was only a four hour day.

Meanwhile, the store's new health care provider raised my weekly payroll deduction to just under $60.00 a week, and topped that off by refusing access to the main antidepressant I take. So for most of a week, I was off my main antidepressant, the other antidepressant, the anti anxiety, the anti itch for the oozing skin condition and the other anti-anxiety pill - in short everything - for several days waiting for payday so I could afford to renew the other prescriptions. 

The next few days ought to be fun.

Juxtaposition

So the thing is, I'm sitting here, watching the President's speech at the memorial service for the victims of the madness out in Arizona, and my screensaver kicks in. Now, I have a file set up just for the screensaver program. The file has photos I found on the web that I thought interesting, some of my own pics, a couple of movie posters, friends, old advertising, etcetera. Just as the President changed from memorializing the fallen and moved into his speech segment, my computer reached its 25 or so minutes of idle mode and turned on the screensaver. First, the screen went black - that's what caught my attention. Slowly, this movie still faded in:

It's all just too much.

After staring at the screen for 20 minutes or so, I still don't know where to begin. It's all been too much. Up to 5,000 dead birds fell out of the sky in Arkansas just before midnight New Year's Eve - buried in the AP text of the story was a note, "similar events have occurred elsewhere". Say What? Well, the next day there were about 500 or so birds which fell out of the sky dead in Louisiana. And then there was the two million birds which fell out of the sky dead over Russia in 2007. Then there are the 500 or so that fell out of the sky dead over Stockholm recently,   As I write this, there are reports of thousands of birds falling out of the sky dead in Italy, and a previously unpublished report of birds falling dead out of the sky in Kentucky.

isn't this what you'd like to see ofter waking up some morning?

Then there's the millions of dead fish floating in the Chesapeake Bay on Tuesday, oh, and there were lots of dead fish in Arkansas too - about 100,000 of them about 100 miles away from where the birds fell.Then there's the 100 tons of croakers, sardines and catfish that have washed up on the beaches of Brazilian fishing villages since last Thursday, or the hundreds of snapper fish that washed up on New Zealand beaches a few days ago - with their eyes missing. And then there's the 10,000+ dead fish which washed up on two separate Atlantic Ocean beaches this past August. Then there's the 40,000 dead crabs which washed up on England's beaches in the past few days, as well as 150 tons of dead red tilapia in Vietnam.

There's also a two headed cow just born in Georgia (the Soviet one, not ours.) And it is not the only two header born recently.

To quote Anna Russell , "I'm not making this up, you know."

So what caused all this havoc? "The test results aren't in." "We're still collecting data." "We'll have to get back to you."

Then there's the mind numbing incident in New Mexico. Point blank shooting a U. S. Congresswoman - democrat, of course - because she voted for Health Care and against an Illegal Immigrants/Immigration law which violated several of the principles upon which this county was founded. Well, it sure was one hell of a way to encourage healthy and open debate. 2nd Amendment Clobbers 1st. There has been a small tiddly bit of discussion about the political atmosphere and outrageous statements and stunts which got us there. There's even been a bit of biography on the Judge who was killed. Falling right into the reporting trap was a child of 10, a child who was born on the 11th of September 2001 no less. (Why is it always worse when a child is involved instead of, say, a US Congresswoman or a Judge?) And, ummm, by the way somebody shot out the glass doors of her campaign headquarters last November, nothing to worry about it's happened to several other legislators, too. Say What?  How do we overcome this and restore balance, fairness, common good? "We're still collecting data". "We'll have to get back to you."

Meanwhile, I've now had a "counselling session" at work. Seems that since the beginning of November, I have violated the rules on breaks 3 times. One of the dates on the paperwork was 12/25. "Excuse me person who is making my work life torture and who can fire me at any time, but may I ever so humbly point out that the store was closed on Christmas?" "That means week ending." "I don't recall signing any paperwork about it" "You know we've talked about this" "I want to see he paperwork." "I have the two from December on my desk." "I'd like to see the paperwork." "You'll have to talk to (the personnel director) about it. Two days later, I saw (the personnel director) about it. Well, it was no longer on the computer - they changed to a new system January 1st. She did have the paperwork but it had just been put in a box which was now on the bottom of a shipping pallet. :Okay, Nevermind, I said in my best Eeyore voice. I found an envelope in my mail box and I packed to go home. it had three sheets showing the dates involved, as well as the violation. Good God! I had come back one minute early from the unpaid time they call "Lunch".  And two minutes late from a (paid) 15 minute break as required by law. I never did get the paper work that I'm supposed to have signed.  I got called aside the next day - during the last week of December I had come back early from lunch on two occasions! Then, while stretching to help with a very sore back, I did something bad. So bad I had to call in on Friday because the pain was still overwhelming. 

One day later, I came down with headache/fever/sweats/bad sore throat/coughs rip the throat apart/sneezing/achy/chills kind of thing. On top of that my skin condition has been oozing and scabbing again. Then there's my cable bill which somehow went up $50.00 a month (I got that taken care of), and my failing ten year old computer which can take 20 minutes for a web page to load, ten minutes for a typed sentence to appear, 5 minutes to delete each unwanted email (I get about 250 pieces of SPAM a day), then turn around and load an intensely visually packed web page quicker than one can blink an eye. Like the car which went last February, I just don't have the money to replace it. Oh, well. At least I didn't become homeless this month. So how am I doing? I'm still collecting data. I'll have to get back to you.

B. Altman & Company

In her reply to my last post, "Austan" noted memories of B. Altman, the escalator, and wood everywhere. All of which are also part of my memories of the place. Altman's was really was a memento of another time, when grace and civility mattered, when things were built to be beautiful as well as functional.

All of the store entrances had canopies like this one.

 If you'd ever seen it, you would never forget the view of the main floor and atrium from the escalators. Sad to say, I couldn't even find a picture of the main floor, except for this from the closeout sale.
 

The first floor interior was a warm polished wood. I can't imagine anyone painting it white as in the picture above. But then again... Altman's was sold in 1985 to a group of real estate investors. It was part of a leveraged buyout that failed. By 1989, Altman's was forced into bankruptcy and closed by a judge's order. The sell off of the store's remaining inventory and fixtures followed, and the doors were closed for good Dec 31st, 1989.

It was such a shame. The store had employed over 500 people. There was a seven bed hospital with a doctor and two nurses for the staff - and shoppers who would be treated on an emergency basis. There were classes for the employees teaching the three R's. There was even a large fancy dining room on one of the floors. It was called the "Charleston Garden".

  

One side of a postcard for the dining room.

The actual dining room.

The escalators weren't installed until late 1939-early 1940's. They had originally been used at the 1939 World's Fair. I can't swear to this, but in my memory the escalators were wooden. There are now only a handful wooden escalators left - 2 or 3 at Macy's, one in a Boston subway station, and one or two in Europe and Argentina.

One of the wooden escalators at Macy's Herald Square.

One of the staircases at B. Altman's.

I remember once going to Altman's to buy either a pair of pants or a shirt - I no longer remember which. What I do remember is that as soon as I took something off a rack, a short elderly gentleman appeared at my side. He asked if I wanted to have the item tailored to fit. It would only take a few minutes. In what seemed like seconds, his hands performed a routine of measurement that only a lifetime of practice could provide. Oh, for the days of tailored clothes.

An Altman's window display from the 1940's.

another Altman's 1940's window display

 

Altman's was the kind of store that would make available a hand made "Tiffany" automobile.

When Altman's 5th Avenue store opened in 1906 (there had been two previous stores) the environs were the home of the wealthy. In deference to the neighborhood, Altman's didn't put up a sign identifying the store for 25 years.

That's the kind of place it was.

A Life in Champagne

One of the problems with the Internet is that it is nearly impossible to find what you're looking for unless it concerns the modern consumer culture (and who owns what or sells what or withholds what). I include in that a number of sites selling ephemera and memorabilia of the past. When the net first got going, it was a great collection of people's  well - collections. Memories. Images related or just liked. This all has to do with trying to locate a good picture of the interior of the B. Altman's store on 5th Ave in NYC. Let me explain.



B. Altman's store covered the entire block of 5th Ave to Madison,
and from 34th to 35th street. Most of the 5th Ave side now houses the
City University of New York's Graduate Center. 

As New Year's Eve approached, I found myself (naturally enough) thinking about Champagne. When I was a lad I don't think you could have a picture of New Year's Eve that didn't have a glass of champagne in it.

'Course, those were the days of Lawrence Welk, tiny bubbles in the wine and all that. I was thinking that so few people seemed to be buying champagne the last couple of years. It was part of the sparkle of life.

Whenever I think of champagne, I think of one of those colorful 'characters' that used to populate New York City. People like Moondog who was blind and would sit on a balustrade on the 53rd Street side of the CBS building selling his poetry and music.




He insisted that he was a viking, and wore an appropriate viking all leather outfit - even in the swelter of summer. Or there was Marsha the skinny black transvestite who treated everyone and everything she saw as the audience for her own show.

The person I want to mention was a singer named Larry Chelsi. He was something of a bon-vivant and a raconteur. An opera singer and Broadway performer, he told me once that he quit his stage career when the mob muscled in on his record contract.

I remember Chelsi telling me about his audition for Cole Porter for "Out of This World". The show featured a couple of Greek gods trying to spend quality time with a beautiful human female.Chelsi had been told to wear something toga-ish - at the request of Mr. Porter, to see how his legs and knees would look in a toga or tunic.

After finding himself at Porter's city digs, Chelsi performed his audition while running around the piano trying to discourage Mr. Porter's more amorous intentions. There's only one problem though - by 1949-1950 when the show opened, Porter had already been long confined to a wheelchair. Porter, by the by, used to tell people that it was while he was waiting for the doctors after a horse rolled on his legs (breaking them into pieces, leaving him in extreme pain) that he composed "At Long Last Love".

Once, while visiting him in his apartment in Turtle Bay, Chelsi went to unbury some piece of memorabilia from his bedroom and told me if I wanted anything, to help myself. As I could have used a drink of water, I went over to the kitchen fridge and opened it. It was stuffed - every shelf, nook and cranny containing bottles of champagne piled one upon another. He did have style.

The last time I saw Chelsi, it was on the great wooden escalators at B. Altman's. As I was heading to the main floor I saw Chelsi on the up escalator. He'd been out of town performing in some show, saw me - and yoo hooed while shaking his arm and hand at me. That particular arm and hand was wearing layers upon layers of the largest  charm bracelet I'd ever seen. Even at that distance, I could make out charms shaped like champagne bottles. Considering the carriage trade conservative nature of Altman's, I would have been mortified if I could have stopped laughing.

I did a few google searches for him on New Year's Day, and found that he passed in October '09. I was prompted to the search by an Australian friend's note. (It's always tomorrow over there.) Dave mentioned that his New Year's Eve had "probably too much champagne". In mind's eye memory, I saw Chelsi looking horrified, and with booming voice say, "There is No Such Thing as too much champagne."

Oh, about the ad in my New Year's Day post - I am thinking of getting in contact with the writer. I'd love to give it a go.