What Are Those?!

When you go on Youtube and type: american express maxe you will come to three american express adverts featuring me.  What are they?  I have wanted to be a spokesperson for amex for the longest time.  I  believe in the company.  The CEO is a man of integrity, they really believe the customer comes first and they are without doubt in my mind- the best credit card company out there.  And I believe that they are missing the senior market.  I want to bring it to their attention.  I have a friend who is friends with said CEO and when I told him my idea, he said, “Make it and I’ll get it seen”.  So I engaged my wildly smart, fun, intellectual branding nephew.  He wrote the scripts, filmed, edited and placed them with me for delivery to amex.  I did.  Nothing happened.  Followed up and nothing happened again. So rather leave them in the proverbial ‘bottom left desk drawer’ decided to put them out there for the world to view, to see if there was a positive reaction to the idea.  So far so good. When the numbers reach something of significance, whatever that is…Will try again with amex.  Hey, I’ve had a card from amex since 1971!  That’s longer than any relationship in my entire life!  Bare none!!

Kitchen Garbage Disposals

Had heard and believed that such a kitchen appliance was illegal in the City.

But surprise, they are not.  This is a comment about the advertising of apartment amenities:

“In addition to large price tags, these listings have something else in common. They all puff out their chest to announce: This apartment has a garbage disposal.

This little appliance of convenience has been widely available in much of the country since the middle of the last century, but residential garbage disposals were, in fact, illegal in New York City until 1997. And although the laws have changed, many apartment buildings, especially older ones, continue to ban them, fearing for the health of aging pipes.

They do pop up now and again in apartment listings, especially in newer buildings. On Monday, 83 listings on the StreetEasy Web site considered this modest gadget, which typically costs less than $200, worth a mention, right alongside the gyms and the views, the pet wash rooms and the 24-hour doormen.

Nancy Albertson, director of leasing at Glenwood, a company that builds new rental buildings, many of which have included garbage disposals in recent years, said that when many New Yorkers saw them, they had the same reaction: “Isn’t that illegal?””

But the even better reason not to have one is the following”

“I just don’t happen to have enough room under my kitchen sink,” Mr. Kraus said, “or I’d be happy to have one.  Besides, the garbage can is right over there.”

Space, that says it all, every time!

What IF

the newspapers/media-of-all sorts did not:

  1. give credence to those persons that commit grievous acts of violence by printing their pictures, bios or comments
  2. did not give print or air-time to stupid comments
  3. did not encourage, for the sake of the ‘bottom line of ratings/profits/investors’, the absurd
  4. publish all the garbage put forth by folks seeking 15 minutes of fame
  5. push gossip.

and what if we as intelligent beings, refused to:  watch, listen, engage, purchase or give our time to the above.

what if we all agreed to a national black out of stupidity.

 

AwB

Yes!   Pick up the pieces!  Work!

These superb musical pieces banished yesterday’s thoughts.  This evening at the BB King Club the AwB [AverageWhiteBand] played and K went with!  What a fun fun fun evening of the best music.  The band is old now started in ’67 and they only had one session – I get that.  At the end when their encore was “pick up the pieces” they demanded the audience get to their feet and swing it out.  We had been dancing in our chairs all evening and were only too glad to oblige. In my youth, my eldest brother played an exquisite jazz piano – after years of classical training and this love for blues, jazz and soul music comes from him.  Tonight I reveled in it.

Tap and Thoughts About Life

Tonight went to the theatre to see Cagney.  First: it is a musical and I am not really fond of that form of theatre.  Secondly: I did not know any history of the person Cagney.  But an actor friend who knows I like tap, said “See it for the Tap”.  The result of going tonight? Ii would see it again for the tap alone.  It was historically accurate – checked during intermission on the facts of his life and the dance was right up or down my alley depending on the perspective.  On the way home, sitting in the bus I wondered what knowledge I  had learned as a young person, that took the place of going to the movies or taking tap lessons or reading literature.  Attending church, learning bible verses, reading bible stories, being cut off from the world was de rigueur of my environs.  But the question remains, what did I learn instead that I use today?

The Perry Street Fair

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Annually, around the date of Mother’s Day, the residents of multiple blocks of Perry Street close off one block and hold a fair.  And what a fair.  These Beautiful Brownstones have behind their facades residents who have lived there for many years and in some cases, decades.  They empty out the cupboards and closets and offer these items for sale.  I have witnessed 36 pieces of cut glass stemware [she at 70 said it belonged to her mother] selling for $80.  You can’t buy glasses at IKEA for that.  My first year, when my space was piled high with boxes, the first booth at the corner of Perry St. & Bleecker St. had a Makkuum plate about 12″ across, for $35.  That was a pure and simple steal.  However, I could not imagine bringing one more piece of anything into my new small space and so passed it up.  It is like that every year. There is some treasure that I let pass due to space.  But I love the search.  And it has such a neighborhood feel, because it is.