Hurricane Blue Balls Thanks to Irene

Our soggy city is both frustrated and thankful after the recent passing through town of a storm named Irene.

New York City was not thrown into a panic, but we were braced for a huge hurricane and got only a tropical storm. Rapid-fire announcements on Friday of closures and cancellations in preparation of the hurricane ruined most everyone’s weekend plans.

The biggest horror most New Yorkers will face is tomorrow morning, when several million people attempt to go to work with limited or no public transportation. After the disastrously slow and inept response to the early snow blizzard this past winter, the Bloomberg administration was eager not to get caught being unprepared again. If anything, authorities overreacted in shutting down mass transit to the extent that they did. And it wouldn’t surprise me to find they had some kind of ulterior motive for it, perhaps doing a system-wide security scan in preparation for the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

There were several things that New York City did right. It opened more shelters than it needed and helped the elderly and infirm get to them. It allowed drivers to use the bridges and tunnels that were open without paying tolls. Sandbags surrounded sensitive transit and power gratings in downtown Manhattan as early as Friday afternoon. The city identified and evacuated the most flood-prone areas quickly.

The Internet was alight with people’s criticism of Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s (dubbed “El Bloombergo”) speaking Spanish at his press conferences. I understand we have a large Spanish-speaking population here, but they have numerous media outlets where they can get information from people who speak the language fluently. And besides, he is the mayor of New York City, not Mexico City.

But New Yorkers are thankful that things were not worse. The storm claimed several lives on the East Coast. Friends of mine in New England are without power and may be without power for several days. And having an over-prepared mayor fumbling his way through pidgin Spanish is better than an unprepared city with a high death toll.

Graceland Too

I was the only sober being in a packed Chevy Suburban careening down the dark highway outside of Memphis, Tennessee. I maneuvered the Suburban through numerous highway construction sites to Holly Springs, Mississippi, where we stopped by a 24-hour service station before continuing on.

It was nearly two in the morning when we stopped by the service station for a much-needed restroom break. Several newspaper delivery workers were stuffing newspapers into plastic bags beside their cars, a few cops chatted in the snack area of the service station, and our rag-tag group made our way to the restroom before buying some snacks and leaving. It had rained recently, which had cooled everything off to where it was tolerable to stand outside for more than a few minutes.

Our group consisted of two punk rock bands—Blackout Shoppers (that’s mine) and Skum City—that had just played the Hi Tone Café in Memphis. Most of us had flown into Memphis from New York that morning. A sane group of people would have gone straight to bed, but Graceland Too was calling to us.

Graceland Too is an Elvis Presley museum that is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and is run by owner and Elvis fanatic Paul MacLeod. Everyone who had been described it to me as a very weird experience that words could not do justice, and they were right.

I first learned of a place called Graceland Too two years ago from The Beast, Blackout Shoppers’ drummer. He had been there twice and on this, his third visit, he would become a Lifetime Member, meaning he could visit Graceland Too any time without paying the $5 admittance fee. He was very much looking forward to attaining this membership.

With expert, smart-phone based navigation from guitar player Mike Moosehead, we got to Graceland Too at about 2 a.m. It is a two-story house pained blue with a blue fence surrounding the property, except for a higher chain-link fence that guards the driveway. In the driveway is a large pink Cadillac. Two lion statues, pained blue and ringed with barbed wire (also pained blue) stand guard before the stairs to the front door.

We banged on the front door and waited for quite a while. We paced outside the house looking for some signs of life or activity. Through a small window on the front door we could see that the foyer of the house was lighted, but no other activity was going on as far as we could see. We hoped we had not made our journey in vain.

All the windows of the house visible from the sidewalk have been either pained over or shuttered shut. When Skum City singer Marc Sucks jumped the fence along the side of the house, he saw proprietor Paul MacLeod through the one visible window. MacLeod was in his kitchen preparing for the tour he was about to give.

A few minutes later, MacLeod opened his front door and greeted us. He is an elderly man with white, slicked-back hair, loose dentures, and a wild-eyed demeanor. He was wearing a short-sleeve, button-up shirt, dark slacks and black sneakers. Since at least one of our party still held an open beer can in his hand, he reminded the group that no beverages were allowed inside. Our party quickly finished the last of their beers and we were welcomed inside.

The foyer of Graceland Too is a space completely covered in Elvis photos, cardboard cut-outs and press clippings. There are other cardboard cut-outs and photos as well, such as that of Marilyn Monroe, who MacLeod is quick to note had sex with Elvis. The staircase to the upstairs is unusable as all the stairs are covered with boxes of Christmas decorations and the top of the stairs are blocked off with a rack of clothes and more cardboard cut-outs and photos. A sign made from large, mailbox-type letters on the staircase reads “GRACELAND TOO - THIS IS ELVIS LAND.”

We all signed the guest book, paid our $5, and the tour began with MacLeod taking multiple key rings out of his pocket and claiming he had 35,000 keys as he searched for a key that would open a locked door there in the foyer. He also rattled off numerous media outlets that had come to visit his museum.

Each and every room is lined completely, floor and ceiling, with Elvis photos and memorabilia. There is no Elvis photo or mention too trivial to merit inclusion in Graceland Too. I learned, for example, that Elvis’ karate nickname was “Tiger” and that Elvis died while on the toilet reading about the Shroud of Turin.

While Graceland Too is a monument to Elvis Presley, it is more accurately a monument to Paul MacLeod’s obsession with Elvis and his own sacrifice. Various articles mention that his wife left him over his obsession with Elvis, and while MacLeod frequently mentioned his son as someone who helps him run Graceland Too, there seemed to be scant evidence of him around. A Salon article references the younger MacLeod helping give tours as recently as 1997. A USA Today article published last year said he moved to New York in the 1990s.

At one point he asked one of our group to pick up a three-ringed binder that sat nearby. Each laminated page in the binder documented a TV program’s mention of Elvis Presley, including the exact time and channel. He said he had several large storage containers filled with these binders that documented every mention of the King of Rock and Roll on television for more than a decade.

MacLeod’s mannerisms are bizarre and it often seems like his mouth can’t catch up with his mind. “Keep up with me now; I’ll drive you nuts,” he often said. He will frequently accentuate what he is about to say by pounding his fist on a nearby piece of furniture, tapping someone on the arm or shoulder three times or grabbing your arm in his strong grip. He made lots of claims involving large numbers. He claimed to have thousands of Elvis’ firearms and other items belonging to Elvis. He will go off on tangents with certain items, claiming to have received very large offers of money for them.

“I drink a lot of Coca-Cola, it makes me horny three times a day…”

“We were so poor growing up, we spelled ‘poor’ with 10 Os,” he said, showing the word ‘POOOOOOOOOOR’ spelled out on a large board that held other photos.

“You ask me how fast I was when I was younger,” he said, although I don’t think anyone had asked about how fast he was when he was younger. “I was faster than a black mamba snake, a rattle snake, a Colt .45 and Bruce Lee…”

We stopped by a large stereo and he sang some Elvis songs. He told us several times that he once found $10,000 in cash in a bag in the trunk of one of the cars in his driveway. He’s met with two U.S. presidents (or was it three) and three presidential daughters. He had photos of himself impersonating other celebrities. If he told you the story behind every photo and item in his place, you would never leave. He’s had tours that have lasted hours and hours.

He showed me a plastic zip-lock bag that contained tabs from at least two dozen soda cans. “This is what I drank just today before you got here,” he told me. It was nice to meet someone else who enjoyed drinking copious amounts of soft drinks. I thought about asking him his opinion of Andy Kaufman or eXtreme Elvis, but thought the better of it.

When The Beast was made a lifetime member, MacLeod photographed him in a black leather jacket, white belt and pink guitar that he had there. A hallway was lined with multiple photos not only of lifetime members but of groups that had visited. We posed for photos both on our own and with MacLeod, and were happy to know that at some point our photo would be on display for others to see.

“I shouldn’t tell you about all the crazy stuff they do out here. You better cover her ears,” he said, referring to the one female member of our group, Skum City bass player Xtene Moosehead. Since she’s written songs such as ‘Eat My Fuck’ and ‘Supercunt,’ no one covered her ears. “They’ve got cocksuckers, clit lickers and professional shit eaters, but that’s just Mickey Mouse shit!” exclaimed MacLeod, who went on to describe even more bizarre things that included someone drinking the contents of a sanitary napkin.

When we got to the final room of the tour, MacLeod unlocked the door he had tried to open at the start to reveal a room covered in records, mostly 45s, mostly Elvis. He asked me to lift a concrete statue of a frog using only my thumb; it was difficult. The frog is a reference to the Elvis song ‘Mississippi Bullfrog.’ He mentioned his collection of firearms again and pulled a two-shot Derringer out of his pocket. His finger wasn’t on the trigger but the business end of it was pointing at our friend Jon K, and it was quite unsettling. But the gun was quickly back in his pocket and we can’t blame him for carrying some protection, since he welcomes anyone who knocks on his door into his home at all hours of the day and night.

And no matter how strange or off color he was, MacLeod was genuinely grateful that people were there to visit and appreciate his work. You will not likely ever visit a museum or attraction that documents and celebrates your attendance as much as Graceland Too. MacLeod is sincerely happy to have you there and makes you feel welcome, even if it is in his own odd way. He thanked The Beast several times for bringing people to Graceland Too, and was very happy to receive a Blackout Shoppers t-shirt and CD from us.

We wished MacLeod all the best, vowed to return and went on our way back to Memphis and the rest of our tour, knowing that not much would be able to leave as big an impression on us as Graceland Too.

Good Riddance to Bad Frogs and Bogus Claims

After several months, New York’s District Attorney dropped rape charges against former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn. It would be a bigger hullabaloo today if there had not been an over-hyped earthquake on the East Coast today.

In my experiences in working for the immigration service at JFK, diplomats are the most arrogant and entitled people you will ever have the displeasure to meet. They can, in many cases, literally get away with murder and don’t mind letting you know how important and above the law they are at every opportunity. They treat everyone in front of them as if they are there to do nothing but serve and dote on them. Carrying their own passport is beneath some of them, really.

So it would not surprise me at all if the accuser’s account of being sexually assaulted by Strauss-Kahn was truthful. He apparently had tried to rape a young writer in France years ago. And by his diplomatic logic, any maid who enters his hotel room while he’s there must be there to give him a blow job.

But the case fell apart completely and it became evident over a month ago when prosecutors leaked information about there being trouble with the case that it would eventually be dropped. The problem wasn’t physical evidence or even diplomatic immunity, it was the accuser’s big gang rape lie, and it’s the fault of our country’s asylum and immigration system.

The accuser told prosecutors that she had been gang raped in her native Guinea. She provided graphic details over several interviews. When her lawyer convinced her to come clean, she admitted it had been a total fabrication and said she had memorized the story to help gain political asylum and stay in the U.S. The problem with that is that she failed to mention being gang raped in her asylum application. The fact that she was willing to repeatedly lie about a vicious rape left prosecutors with no case; it even left them vulnerable to being called as defense witnesses.

It had nothing to do with the wealth and powerful position of the defendant. Any decent defense attorney would have shredded the case based solely on the litany of lies told by the victim. Her very presence in the country is buoyed by a raft of untruths.

A recent article in The New Yorker follows the case of a young asylum seeker and documents how she rehearsed a false story about rape to help her case for winning asylum. Immigrants from many parts of the world know they can do an end-run around our clogged legal immigration system if they fabricate details of abuse and torture. Who gets asylum is often determined by the luck in getting a sympathetic or gullible asylum officer. It is a system rife with abuse, where many people come from places they have settled and were not in danger and many asylum seekers return to visit their countries once they receive a green card.

The government has to reform the asylum process and let it be known that people getting asylum will be the real thing or will be gone and that asylum is just that, and not a path to being a legal immigrant in the U.S. Until that happens, the people who continue to flock here with fabrications will find few reasons to tell the truth.

The New Yankee Stadium: A Concrete Cathedral of Greed

Last night marked my first visit to the new Yankee Stadium, and I’m sorry to say it is exactly the kind of soulless place I expected. It is a concrete cathedral of cupidity and a lousy place to see a baseball game unless you are a millionaire.

The new Yankee Stadium is not a ball park; it’s a large, expensive and poorly-designed imitation of a ball park where fans coming to see a baseball game are an inconvenient afterthought.

I went to the new Yankee Stadium with an open mind, since I was against its very existence. Friends who had been told me good things about it. The seats are bigger and it’s easier to get in and out of it. It’s new and isn’t falling apart.

I wanted to see the new stadium for myself and go to a game again, especially since my favorite Yankee, Jorge Posada, may not be back next year. I’m still glad I went to last night’s game. We lost, but Jorge Posada played well. And the spirit and camaraderie of Yankee fans is not broken. Also Nick Swisher impressed me as someone with good Yankee spirit, as his introduction video, which are staged and lame for most of the team, begins with him greeting the right field bleacher creatures. He played his heart out as well.

Leaving home early, I planned to explore the new place as much as I could and maybe visit Monument Park before the game. Two short subway rides got me to the new stadium in good time.

The new Yankee Stadium makes no pretenses about who it expects to attend games: people coming from out of the city or from other boroughs other than the Bronx. If you’re coming to the new stadium from one of the bars on River Avenue of from a part of the Bronx where people actually live, there is no entrance for you unless you are a police officer or food vendor. All the big gates where fans come in face the parking lots and public train stations. It is good that those entrances are there, but why not have other entrances? If you decide to visit Mullaly Park before going to the game, your view of the stadium is a fenced-in parking garage filled mostly with police vehicles.

Where the real Yankee Stadium used to be is a construction site surrounded by ugly fencing. The famous field that saw so many legendary moments is now at least three baseball diamonds. It’s called Heritage Field now.

Entering the stadium, it is large and roomy and the customer service there on the part of the staff is for the most part excellent. Buying concessions was easy and there were not mobbed bathrooms.

But the stadium is designed with the priority of keeping people from moving from one area to another, which is a part of the game understood by generations of fans (move down until the person with the ticket for that section arrives, then move along). Sections that were once different segments of the same level are now two different levels, and the area closes to home plate is surrounded by the infamous “moat,” a clearly visible barrier that shows the Yankee management’s contempt for the majority of fans.

Last night’s game was delayed by rain for about two hours, and fans got to see firsthand that the stadium has serious drainage issues. In the grandstand’s passage, there were big puddles of water that fans had to tiptoe around. I saw a plastic drain pipe emptying water out right on to the floor. The passageway is somewhat open-air, so if you stood at the concession counter, you were rained on and risked getting your expensive concessions drenched. Smooth concrete stair landings had inches of standing water on them. This is inexcusable in a multi-billion-dollar stadium.

And when you attend a baseball game, you should be able to see the entire field of play from every single seat. From the right field upper deck, one cannot see the right field wall where all of last night’s home runs went. The big screen is partially obstructed also by stairs and railings. Isn’t the entire purpose of going to a baseball game to watch the baseball game? Again, inexcusable in a stadium that is supposed to be state-of-the-art.

The big screen was filled with exciting “news” about the latest overpriced foods available at the stadium, and there was even a commercial for a Yankees-themed children’s cartoon called “Henry & Me,” which features voices of Yankee players as well as owner Hank Steinbrenner, and which I can only imagine is as unwatchable as its commercial. It marks a new low for Yankee management avarice.

It is good that you don’t miss an entire inning of baseball waiting to buy a hot dog, and that the person behind the counter isn’t also using the hot dog fork to pry open the cash register (yes I really saw that at the old Yankee Stadium). But as a place to watch a baseball game, the new Yankee Stadium is a big expensive failure.

The owners of the Yankees are not doing justice to the great heritage of the team. They are quick to hawk nostalgia and make reference to the litany of legendary players that have worn the pinstripes. But the new stadium is an insult to the Yankees’ storied past.

One can dream that if there’s an afterlife, the ghost of Yankee owner George Steinbrenner is being bludgeoned by Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, with Billy Martin standing ready to kick dirt and spit tobacco juice on him.

Baseball is America’s past time because baseball serves as a mirror to the condition of America as a whole, and our condition is not good.