New York City

I can't get arrested in this town!

When Celebrity Arrest Syndrome goes international.

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“An ongoing New York protest against the police shooting of an unarmed street vendor got a dose of Hollywood support this week. Activist Susan Sarandon and 218 others were arrested Thursday …” — “Names & Faces,” Washington Post, March 27

Ronnie, hi, it’s — sorry honey, can you hold?

[Eight-minute pause.]

Hi, Ronnie, you’re a sweetheart, that was my homeopath, he’s impossible to actually get on the phone. So I called because the talk we had last week? About this is a transitional point in my career and we need to raise my profile and get me into quality projects? Well, I’m doing Pilates with the cable news on — it helps me clear my mind and get centered — and guess who I see? Susan Sarandon, on the television, prime time, getting arrested. Looking absolutely fucking drop-dead gorgeous, I could rip her throat out. Have you heard about this Amadou Diablo man in New York? Well, apparently the thing with this Diablo –

[Three-syllable pause.]

You see, Ronnie, this is exactly what I was talking about. The second-guessing and the corrections and the nit-picking. Do I have to remind you who could have jumped over to Ovitz when he came sniffing around? Fine, so this Di-OWL-o apparently had his rights violated by the New York police, really badly violated — yes, well, I’d call that “violated,” wouldn’t you?

[Brief, apologetic pause.]

My point is, they wrote Sarandon up like she’s Mother fucking Teresa. Blah blah blah chestnut-haired Oscar winner and activist. Blah blah blah commitment to social justice. Blah blah blah Tibet blah blah blah longtime actor-director companion. I don’t know what page it’s on. Laine found it on the Netscape and gave me the gist — you know what my homeopath said about having newsprint in the house.

My point is, we both know there’s room in this town for like three successful older actresses. After 40 I don’t care how much Stairmaster you do, how much surgery you have: You need stature. You need — Laine, what’s that word? — you need GRAVitas.

My point is, this Diablo thing is getting huge. Sarandon’s there this week, next week you bet it’ll be Alec Baldwin. After which Streisand, Tom and Nicole, pretty soon everybody’s jumping in and it’s over. We’ve got a narrow window. We need to get me arrested, Ronnie, and we need to get me arrested fast.

[Medium-length pause.]

[Long, icy responding pause.]

[Longer pause, with ample time for fumbling clarification.]

Oh and the Lifetime Original Movie was a good idea? “Torn Apart: A Surrogate Mother’s Story” with Gabrielle Carteris? Listen, Ronnie, I am not ready to disappear for 40 years until they flash me for five seconds in the Academy Awards death reel. I want my fucking halo now. I want to be the Stepmom. I want to be Sister Whatshername with Sean Penn. You want to continue representing me, you call Ed Sharpton’s agent, you call whoever you have to and you get my highly toned ass thrown in jail.

Ronnie, honey, it’s me. No, I’m at the Mercer — the planter of wheat grass in the room at W New York was like half-dead, I couldn’t deal with it. So are we all set with Sharpton’s people?

[Pause.]

They said what? I have to what?

[Pause.]

That isn’t going to work. Because it’s not, that’s why. Because I’m not standing on the asphalt in New York City in March, with the bird shit and rain and exhaust fumes and my multiple chemical sensitivity and God forbid I even breathed that to my homeopath, that’s why. Can’t the police just send somebody? Yes, yes, Ossie Davis, yes, Ruby Dee, I’m sorry but what else are they going to do all day? They make, what, one movie a decade?

[Pause.]

No, I can’t just issue a statement! Ronnie, a man basically died or whatever here. This is not just about getting me on television. This is about sending a message, which requires that I get on television, which if you think anyone’s sending cameras for a fucking press release you are seriously in the wrong line of work.

[Pause.]

Well, that’s your job. It’s national news, right? Aren’t they protesting in Los Angeles too?

[Really extremely brief pause.]

My God, what’s wrong with this country? Doesn’t anybody care about anything anymore?

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
-

No, Ronnie, everything is not OK. It took the Mobile Arrest Unit hours to show up, if I don’t have a chronic-fatigue relapse it’ll be a miracle, and the coverage! Don’t I pay you to manage this? “Tinseltown Gadfly and Elderly Rev in Paddy Wagon Fracas”? Civil-rights legend, my ass — the man’s a bigger camera hog than Jenny McCarthy. Anyway, that’s not why I’m calling. The Diablo thing was all wrong for me. I need something of my own, and I think I’ve found it. Did you know we’re bombing a tiny country? Well, Laine’s still working on that, but I’m pretty sure it’s near Albania –

[Brief, witty remark.]

Yes, with Bobby De Niro and Anne Heche, I was thinking exactly the same thing! And Ronnie, this is going to be way bigger than Diablo. They’re protesting at the American embassies all over the world, and, well — I know you like me to consult you in advance, but I had Laine set up a meeting with one of their people.

[Brief, flustered protest.]

That’s exactly what I thought, but this gentleman gave me some of the most fascinating literature, and Ronnie, the stories are all lies. The spite! The conspiracy! Apparently entire villages of people have staged their own mass murders just to smear the Serbians. And of course the media — well, it’s just like what they did to that poor fat man in Atlanta. Ronnie, mistreatment by the press? Who better than me to understand! This could be like George Clooney after Princess Diana –

[Brief, cautious venture.]

People are different these days, Ronnie. Sure, they ripped Vanessa Redgrave over that Palestinian business, but look, she just won the Globe for “Gods and Monsters.”

[Brief, tactful remark.]

Whatever, well, nobody else knows that either, but they gave her the Globe anyway, that’s exactly my point. And, better, this is Europe, which can only help my international box office, I mean I’m sorry but I bet they don’t have three cineplexes in Tibet. Now. Does America have an embassy in Los Angeles?

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
-

[Extended, shrill tone.]

Pick up, Ronnie. Ronnie, pick up. Fuck. Sorry about the connection, but apparently this country’s out of my cell area — it’s, like, out of all the cell areas. So since you obviously had issues with this project I had Laine go ahead and do the legwork, and, well, all the best demonstrations are in Eastern Europe. We’re in — Laine, honey, where are we? — I think it has some of those little dots in the name, you can have your assistant look it up. Meantime, look for me on CNN. I have to go, the organizers are passing out cocktails. I wish you could see — they have some type of little towel stuck in them. This is the most fascinating culture!

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
-

Well, Mr. Skeptic, eat your words. It was amazing: the stone-throwing, the police dogs — it was just like “Born on the Fourth of July.” No, not a scratch! Laine had a bit of an allergic reaction to the gas at the embassy while he was securing my oxygen mask, but fortunately he had his epinephrine. Afterward? Well, I guess you could call it a “jail,” the literal translation is “dungeon,” but — no! Of course not! They sent me on to the Hilton. Evidently “Lethal Menace” just made their theaters, and, well, not to brag, but I’m something of an icon here. It’s not the St. Regis, but this isn’t a vacation, right?

[Hopeful interjection.]

No, not quite yet, that’s what I’m calling about. I need you to make a teensy call to the State Department. One of the gendarmes is complaining of a stiletto-heel puncture — of course it’s mistaken identity! You think they don’t have Manolo here?

[Brief reassurance.]

Great. Now I want a press conference as soon as my plane gets in. Laine’s faxing you a fact sheet on Mr. Milosevic for handouts, and he’s checking if we can borrow a couple of Serbian children — but just in case, put in a call to Tad at ICM. See if we can get a piece in Us — no, somewhere serious — let’s try George. And … and … excuse me …

[Hushed, concerned inquiry.]

No, Ronnie, I’m sorry, it’s just the opposite. I’ve never felt better. Things are about to turn around for me. Can you feel it? I just — I feel my work right now is coming from a very real place. Oh, Ronnie. It means nothing to have a gift unless you use it for something important. Isn’t that why we were put on this earth? Isn’t that what this business is all about?

James Poniewozik is the editor of Salon Media. For more columns by Poniewozik, visit his column archive.

In the Middle: Episode 1 – Happily Ever After

Henriette and Kevin have been married for 27 years. Kevin recently moved down the street because he says he's gay.

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Jon Huntsman for New York City mayor?

Yes, please. It would be very funny to see him lose

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Jon Huntsman for New York City mayor?

Yes, Jon Huntsman should definitely run for mayor of New York, because I never tire of watching Jon Huntsman get rejected by voters. The best part of a Jon Huntsman campaign is when his well-heeled supporters very sincerely and tragically argue that the fact that no one wants to vote for Jon Huntsman is a sign that the Republic itself is in peril. They would get so sad and melodramatic when he got 10 percent of the vote.

Now, there is no evidence that Jon Huntsman is planning for run for mayor of New York City, but one of his annoying daughters tossed this one out there last night:

Why not? I mean sure he has never lived in New York and has no connection to the city, but why not?

Of course, now that this idea is floating around, very rich and well-connected morons just might set about trying very hard to make it a reality. Jon Huntsman is a creature of the sort of oblivious center-right rich folk who bankrolled the hilarious failed New York campaigns of Harold Ford Jr. and Reshma Saujani. They would like very much to see another one of their class be the mayor of their city, after Bloomberg ends his term (if he ends his term). The Republicans have essentially no candidate. (I still wouldn’t put it past Police Commissioner and professional harasser-of-minorities Ray Kelly to mount a run, but at the moment he’s sounding disinclined to.) And Jon Huntsman is the sort of nationally prominent “independent” candidate all three major New York newspapers would love (the Daily News would love him the most, obviously, but the Post would love him because he is secretly not actually that moderate).

Jon Huntsman — whose tax plan called for the complete elimination of taxes on capital gains and dividends, as well as the elimination of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Reagan-era tax benefit for poor people that used to be the sole form of welfare that conservatives supported, and who also wholeheartedly supported the Paul Ryan plan to fix the deficit by eliminating Medicare and not making rich people pay taxes — was of course beloved by the press and labeled a reasonable moderate when he ran for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. He was mistaken for a political moderate primarily because he does not believe that God created cavemen and dinosaurs at the same time, roughly 4,000 years ago. Huntsman, who supports the complete repeal of Dodd-Frank and is strictly antiabortion and anti-gay marriage and anti-healthcare reform and pro-gun, is now essentially a symbol of the dignity and sagacity of the “radical center,” even though he is a conservative Republican.

So obviously New Yorkers would be thrilled to vote for this guy. I endorse this.

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Alex Pareene

Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene

Michael Bloomberg plays the endorsement game again

The billionaire mayor meets with Mitt Romney as both campaigns practically beg him for his support

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Michael Bloomberg plays the endorsement game againMitt Romney, Michael Bloomberg and Barack Obama (Credit: AP)

Mitt Romney yesterday had a “private” (well-publicized) meeting with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg that was a pretty obvious attempt by Romney to win the for-some-reason “coveted” Bloomberg endorsement. Mayor Bloomberg is not actually the hugely popular and universally respected national figure that anti-partisanship zealot pundits think he is — only around 20 percent of Americans viewed him favorably in 2010, and a 2011 poll says he’d get a mere 10 percent of the vote in a three-way presidential race — but those anti-partisanship zealots represent an important constituency of “rich people who run the media,” so a Bloomberg endorsement would be a strong signal that Romney is moderate and wise and prudent and so on.

The Obama administration would also like the Bloomberg endorsement, and both campaigns are trying very hard to win the mayor’s support, as Michael Barbaro writes in the New York Times today.

But as his mayoral term winds down, he has told advisers that he is willing to back a candidate this time around, touching off an intense competition for his support in the general election.

“I’ll see down the road,” the mayor said coyly on Tuesday when asked about an endorsement. Describing his impressions of Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama, he made clear that he sees a wide gap between them. “They’re very different, and they give the public a real choice,” he said. “It’s hard to argue that you can’t tell the difference, if you will. They run the spectrum on lots of different issues.”

I would be surprised if Bloomberg ended up endorsing anyone. He loves the attention he receives as a potential endorser, but he cherishes his “non-partisan independent” label much more, and an endorsement of a major-party presidential candidate would sully his carefully maintained brand. He is leading both campaigns on, just as he did in 2008.

In 2007 and 2008, Obama tirelessly wooed Mayor Bloomberg, meeting with him multiple times and showering him with public praise, and he never received an endorsement. McCain also tried to win the mayor’s support to no avail. There was even (dumb) speculation about each campaign considering offering Bloomberg the running mate gig. Since Obama took office, he has continued attempting to win the mayor over, inviting him to golf and lunch at the White House and so on. When Bloomberg was running for his third term, in 2009, Obama did no campaigning for his Democratic opponent, Bill Thompson. (Though then-press secretary Robert Gibbs did allow, in a cagy response to a direct question, that the president “would support the Democratic nominee” in his position as “leader of the Democratic party.”) The mayor has returned the favor by repeatedly, quietly undermining Obama, dismissing him as arrogant to his good pal Rupert Murdoch and trashing Obama’s deficit reduction proposals as, you guessed it, class warfare.

The absurd thing is that there is, policy-wise, practically no daylight between Obama and Bloomberg. The president is a moderate Democrat who believes in the importance of deficit reduction and comprehensive tax reform. The mayor is a liberal Republican who believes the exact same thing. Both of them are “education reformers,” both want immigration reform, both support carbon emissions reduction, both are pro-choice, and the list goes on. They don’t agree on everything, of course. Bloomberg is more strictly anti-gun than the president, and openly supports gay marriage. You know, just like Mitt Romney.

The only reason Bloomberg would have, from a policy perspective, to back Romney over Obama would be over Dodd-Frank, which Bloomberg opposed, and Obama’s plan for a millionaire’s tax bracket, which Bloomberg thinks is a “silly” idea. But the mayor’s stated position is that all the Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire, which is the opposite of the Republican position. His other disagreements with the president are solely about rhetoric — the mayor finds any whiff of economic populism or Democratic partisanship distasteful — and personality. Not that Mayor Bloomberg, the wise technocrat who always carefully weighs the evidence before making his rational decisions, would support a candidate whose entire platform is wildly at odds with Bloomberg’s stated positions, simply because the candidate is nicer to billionaires like Mayor Bloomberg. That would be absurd!

The White House’s attempts to win Bloomberg over seem to me perpetually doomed to failure, though I imagine they’ll continue to embarrass themselves seeking his support, as he continues flirting with Romney.

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Alex Pareene

Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene

New York’s dying signs

A Brooklyn designer dedicated to saving local lettering talks about what we lose when corporate logos take over SLIDE SHOW

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New York's dying signs (Credit: Molly Woodward/Vernacular Typography)

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This originally appeared on Jeremiah Moss's blog, Jeremiah's Vanishing New York.

Vernacular Typography is the creation of graphic designer and Brooklyn native Molly Woodward, who has spent the past decade taking photos of the city’s “found lettering.” All over the city, and the world, local signage is disappearing and being replaced with mass-produced signs and the brands of global corporations. Molly is trying to preserve it–and she has a Kickstarter campaign to help do that.

I asked her a few questions about “endangered local signage.”

How are you defining “Vernacular Typography”?

I guess it should technically be Vernacular “Lettering,” but I define Vernacular Typography as the found lettering that exists in the built environment and surrounds us everyday. It doesn’t have to be pretty or use an existing typeface, it’s just any visual representation of language.

How do you think New York City’s vernacular typography differs from other cities around the country and the world?

New York’s vernacular typography is unmatched in terms of intensity and variety of signage. On any given block, you can see the city’s forgotten history through the layers of still-visible signage in basically any medium. The typescape is also much denser than in other places because the city evolves so rapidly and retail turnover is so high.

Which New York City typefaces are your current favorites?

I’m partial to the type and signs I grew up seeing every day, most of which have disappeared (Gertel’s Bakery) or whose surfaces seem to be slowly melting away (Ideal Hosiery).

I love any type that somehow still clings to life or relates directly to a time and place (Horn & Hardart Automat).

And of course, you can never go wrong with beautiful neon (Montero’s).

What do we lose when the vernacular typography of the city streets vanishes from sight?

A sense of the city’s history, and also a precious visual resource. Typography can you tell you a lot about local culture and urban communication and when we don’t see it, our sense of the city is diminished.

What do you think might be the psychological impact of living in a city where the native typography is replaced by homogeneous corporate signage?

I think there’s less of a personal connection to a specific place. With standardized corporate advertising, signs are no longer representative of a group of people or a neighborhood, just a business that could be anywhere in the world.

For natives, connections to the past are lost, so a sense of home or a memory of a place is devalued. And for visitors, there’s less of the unique experience you get from traveling someplace new.

Vernacular typography is such an incredible marker of regional identity, spatial orientation and even personal history. If we lose it altogether, we not only lose that individual and cultural connection, but also a physical map of the city, which is why documentation and preservation are so important.

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Jeremiah Moss is the pseudonymous author of the blog Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York. He has also written about the city for The New York Times.

NYPD must spy on all Muslims to protect us from Iranian photographers

New York City's own constitutionally iffy intelligence agency justifies itself with fear-mongering

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NYPD must spy on all Muslims to protect us from Iranian photographersRay Kelly (Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid)

The NYPD is less a “police department” than a secretive and unaccountable international intelligence-gathering organization with a large minority-frisking division and the firepower of a mid-sized army. Lately they have been facing a bit of criticism for their style of intelligence-gathering, which seems to be done with more gusto than concern for civil liberties or… accuracy. Sometimes the NYPD’s muscular-but-stupid approach to spying gets them in trouble with the FBI. And when the organization that fights terror by recruiting shady weirdos to try to trick random Muslims into saying “jihad” into tape recorders says your practices are counterproductive and out of line, they are probably pretty counterproductive and out of line.

But the NYPD’s “covertly follow every single Muslim in the tri-state area” approach to counter-terrorism has its defenders. Like Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who believes Americans Muslims have the right to worship wherever they see fit so long as they don’t pay any attention to the unmarked vans parked across the street.

And the department argues that it is allowed to carry out surveillance wherever it chooses, because there’s no law against just going around looking at things and taking some pictures, right? No, of course not, unless you look sort of Middle Eastern.

The NYPD earlier this week announced that they had totally caught some people who were almost definitely probably Iranian spies. These spies were caught red-handed spying all over the place!

Authorities have interviewed at least 13 people since 2005 with ties to Iran’s government who were seen taking pictures of New York City landmarks, a senior New York Police Department official said Wednesday.

The NYPD’s Mitchell Silber told Congress that Hezbollah and Iran definitely want to blow up New York, and the proof is three incidents of people “associated with the Iranian government” getting caught photographing things, in New York. (I am not much of a terrorist, but if you want pictures of New York City landmarks in order to figure out how best to blow them up why not try Flickr? There are hundreds of thousands of photos of every landmark in the city already online!)

While other so-called intelligence experts say ” there are no known or specific threats indicating Iranian plans to attack inside the U.S.,” Long Island-based Islamaphobe Republican Congressman Peter King and documented supporter of terrorism wants us all to be on high alert, because Hezbollah is everywhere:

Opening the hearing, King said, “We have a duty to prepare for the worst,” warning there may be hundreds of Hezbollah operatives in the United States, including 84 Iranian diplomats at the United Nations and in Washington who, “it must be presumed, are intelligence officers.”

Stop telling the NYPD not to spy on all the Muslims, everywhere! If they don’t keep tabs on all of them, the Iranians will get us!

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Alex Pareene

Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene

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