Welcome 2009

Few people think that 2008 was a good year. The worst economic disaster in the lifetime of anyone under the age of 67 started this year, though it shouldn’t have surprised anyone to learn that our recession began last year. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continued to kill scores of Americans (U.S. death toll so far for the Iraq War: 4,221; for Afghanistan: 630). Several friends were laid off from work. Two people close to me passed away last year. I found one of their phone numbers still in my cell phone. I still haven’t deleted it. Good riddance, 2008.

I welcomed 2009 with a small group of friends. Like St. Patrick’s Day, New Year’s Eve becomes a giant amateur hour in New York’s bars. Prices and crowds go up and common sense bottoms out. I went to Connecticut and spent the night at the home of some high school friends, sitting by a fire and drinking in the wisdom of the great philosopher James B. Beam.

And like the start of every year, this year offers a new start, a new beginning. Things can be different, better, if we work hard enough for it.

Happy New Year.

A Yankee In New Orleans, Part I

My latest column is now up on the Kotori Magazine Web site. Go read it and post comments on it.

The column documents my trip to New Orleans in November. I had initially intended to write only one column about it, but there were too many things I thought I needed to include and so I will break up the story of my Louisiana adventures into two ore more installments.

Part I includes my travel to the city and my first few days there. One highlight was my tour of Lafayette Cemetery, which is located in the Garden District. I was staying with my good friend Voodoo Rue, who luckily lives in one of the nicer parts of the city.

One item I forgot to mention in my column was that for most of my stay in New Orleans, movie trailers were lined up along the street around much of the cemetery. I asked a security guard what was being filmed and was told that it was a made-for-TV film entitled Midnight Bayou. Jerry O’Connell and Faye Dunaway are rumored to be in the film. It is a period piece, and the actors I saw smoking cigarettes outside of their tiny trailers were in period costume from the late 1800s or early 1900s.

The Blackest of Fridays

Yesterday was Black Friday, the day when the Christmas shopping season officially begins. Traditionally, the television news is filled with images of mobbed stores, long lines and the occasional brawl.

Yesterday in Valley Stream, New York, just outside the city, Black Friday became a completely tragic disgrace as a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death by a mob of shoppers. Jdimytai Damour was a 34-year-old temporary worker who lost his life after being stepped on by dozens of what a witness accurately described as “savages.”

When asked to leave the store, people kept shopping. The store closed, but only temporarily. That someone was callously killed didn’t matter enough to the powers that be. Shopping needs to be done. Commerce is more important than human life.

If past and current economic crises have taught us anything, it’s that there are things that matter more than the almighty dollar. Capitalism, like society in general, only works when it’s tempered by morality and a sense of decency. If we lose that, we lose it all.

I Am Thankful

Thursday is Thanksgiving, an occasion for gluttony, but also to take stock in all that we have to be grateful for. You will hopefully be spending it with family or friends, but please commemorate it somehow. It requires no religious faith and is a uniquely American holiday.

I give thanks to whatever powers enabled my brother to get a plane ticket so he could fly to New York and spend time with family. I am thankful I’ll be feasting on turkey with the Sheahan clan come Thursday.

I’m thankful I have good friends, from all corners of the U.S.A. and the globe.

I am thankful that I still have a job, when many people more educated, knowledgeable and skilled than I have been put out of work. I am thankful I work with nice people and have a sympathetic boss who appreciates creativity. I am thankful for good music and the people who make it.

I am thankful that I have my health and a roof over my head, a cat who is less of a bitch every year, and a blog.

Captive Audience

The latest ‘Notes from a Polite New Yorker’ column is now up on the Kotori Web site. Please read it and leave comments.

The column concerns the multitudes of performers, paupers and preachers who take advantage of the fact that subway riders cannot easily or legally leave New York City subway cars while in transit. It lists the kinds of people you should never give money to on the subway and includes a few people you should be generous towards if you can afford it.

Soon we may pay more for the privealige of riding more crowded subway cars that will arrive less frequently. The MTA may increase the ride of a single fare to $3 from $2 and also increase the costs of the discounted Metrocards that many regular New York commuters use to get to work. New York State budget shortfalls promise steep spending cuts everywhere. So the MTA has proven that poor service is its most reliable attribute.