When the Boss Writes

On getting up in the morning my habit is to check the NYT for freshly posted obituaries. I do this online, because although the print edition lays delivered in the driveway, I'm not yet fully dressed. I'm in my skivvies.

I wouldn't do it anyway, but my wife has warned me about wandering out there in my underwear to anxiously pick up the paper. She tells me the Frank Barone character on Everybody Loves Raymond has done something similar, taking the chance of the neighbors seeing him his underwear.

I wouldn't do it not so much that I don't want to be compared to Frank, but there are way too many people with cell phone cameras out there who could easily take delight in an "I gotcha moment."

I remember some guys at work many, many years ago who liked to drink quite a bit. They liked it so much that they bought a bar in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. This was in the '70s, when the area was a heavy working class neighborhood where many Poles lived, who somehow were frequently window washers. There was a saying then that the cleanest windows in all the boroughs could be found in Greenpoint.

I remember hearing one of their friends describe a visit to the bar to see how his co-workers were doing. They basically came back and said "Jeez, what a dump. And the neighborhood! I saw a guy bringing the trash down from the stoop in his underwear." The image never left me. That's why I first look at the paper online.

And today, first up, I was treated to an obit written by he NYT obit boss, the editor William McDonald on the passing of a sports legend, Joan Joyce, perhaps the most gifted female athlete who has now passed away at 81.

Joan's prowess was softball, and apparently she was one for the ages. When I read that she started in Waterbury, Connecticut I quickly thought that Bill McDonald might have seen her play, since I knew him to come from somewhere in Connecticut.

Yep, the gut was right. Bill's Twitter feed this morning makes reference the obit he wrote, and tells us he saw Joan Joyce pitch on many occasions. If you're a regular NYT obit reader you know that Richard Goldstein usually gets the byline on sport figure obits. But when the boss writes the obit, it's personal. Move over Dick, I got this one.

McDonald's writing about a famous sports figure made me think about the witnessing of great sport figures, or other memorable moments in history. My father would tell me he saw Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium sometimes throw out slow-poke runners on a single to right field when they couldn't beat his arm to first.

My father, born in 1915, would tell me of having the day off from school (taken or given, I don't remember) to go down to lower Broadway to witness the ticker tape parade for Charles Lindbergh in 1927.

I just read in an obit that Judge Demakos was there at Yankee stadium when Lou Gehrig ended his career with his "luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech. There are events that you will remember for the rest of your life.

I'll narrow my memorable experiences to two sporting events. The first Ali-Frazier fight at MSG in 1971 when I had $20 seats in the  last row of the Blue seats, attending with my father and a friend from work. I had gotten the three tickets in the mail when I read about the upcoming fight. No Ticketron surcharge either. I just wrote to MSG with a $60 check. I later read three people were so excited at the start of the fight that they had heart attacks.

The other was witnessing Secretariat win the 1973 Belmont stakes in still track record time and become the first Triple Crown winner since Citation in 1948. My friend and I were at the track when the gates opened. We ran for the last section of seats that were not reserved in the clubhouse. We secured our claim to the seats with the then time-honored tradition of taping part of your newspaper to the seat. We did this so often when we went to the track that I used to carry a short pencil with a wad of masking tape spooled around it. My own tape dispenser. No that long ago I found that pencil with the now very dried out tape still attached.

If you've ever gone to Belmont you know that the sight lines stink. The stands are parallel to the racing surface, and if someone stands up anywhere to your left you're blocked from seeing the horses come down the stretch. Unless you stand on your seat.

Which is what my friend and I did as Secretariat was posting ungodly fractions on the telemeter and Turcotte took a peak at the board as he motored by. I still get goose pimples thinking about it. He was "a tremendous machine" that day.

I'm sure the passing of Joan Joyce flooded Bill's memories of growing up in Connecticut, much like when I think of that 1973 Belmont Stakes I think of the friend who is no longer with us, Fourstardave.

The Joan Joyce obit is a beaut. Better read online for the photos, but hopefully you still buy the print edition. The NYT may not need the money, but paper print is till my favorite medium. Just don't wander down the driveway to scoop it up in your skivvies. There are cameras everywhere these days.

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Drama in New York

Gramercy Park

Oh Chuck, say it ain't so. My Captain, My Captain lay wounded on the Senate floor.

In a stirring turn of events, the New York Attorney General, Charles (Chuck) Rhoades Jr. has been accused by the New York Governor of abuse of power. He faces a trial by the members of the New York Senate.

We finally get to see Chuck and governor Bob Sweeny in Albany, the capitol of New York, and where as elected officials of New York State they have never been seen to spend any time in. But the state capitol is now featured in all its architectural glory as the drama surrounding the removal of Chuck from power unfolds.

The road to this turning point has been building, as the feud between Chuck and Mike Prince and other people of extreme wealth has erupted like Vesuvius. Prince secured the Summer Olympics for NYC for 2028. Chuck is pissed. Chuck manages to torpedo the approval by letting it be known that Mike handed an under-the-table gratuity to Colin Drache, the lip-licking polished foreigner who helped Mike secure the bid. Dirty as hell.

Mike is shattered. Chuck gloats. He visits Mike in the now useless Olympic office space complete with a scale mock-up of Manhattan to offer condolences and a chance to sell the real estate to the NYS building fund.

Mike is in no mood to have Chuck gloat and plots revenge. Sacker outlines a plan to get Chuck out of office. Get 2/3s of the New York Senate to vote to move him for abuse of power. Chuck is on a crusade to stick it to rich people, and the latest one is to secure public access to a private park, camouflaged as Van something, but it's really Gramercy Park, a gated private park in Manhattan between 20th and 22nd Streets, between Third Avenue and Park Avenue South.

Many people have tried to break through to gain public access to that park, but it's withstood all attempts. The residents in the buildings that surround the park are entitled to a key, for an annual fee, that allows them access. They even need a separate key to unlock the gates to leave. In the center of the park is a statue of Edwin Booth, the Shakespearean actor and the older brother of John Wiles Booth, who assassinated President Lincoln.

The Players Club is a prominent building across the street from the park. Many of the town houses have been owned over the years by prominent New Yorkers, one being a mayor back in the late 1800s.

It's a pretty park, and I think was even featured at the end of Soylent Green, that dystopian movie about final days on Earth as being the sole place where there were trees. I remember an unfortunate scene in the movie where an aged Edward G. Robinson seems to be on an exercise bike. Jeez. Is this the end of Rico?

The family flower shop was near the park. I was never in it. Not that ago I worked for a company  located in the area where the managing director thought he had enough influence to allow the employees to gain access to the park to eat lunch.

I knew way more about the park than he did. I told him basically he's pissing up a rope. They're never going to allow a bunch of programmers access to the park, leaving wrappers from Subway sandwiches at lunch time. It never happened.

Chuck is relentless. He witnesses a young Spanish nanny pushing a baby carriage trying to get into the park behind a member who has just opened the gate. No go. She's refused admission.

Chuck strong arms his way to getting a list of the members who have keys. He files a lawsuit. The association that owns the park files a counter suit. The judge is pissed at Chuck for a frivolous suit and waylays Chuck's attempt to get the case in front of a jury. Chuck is making enemies, and tilting at windmills. He's going to have to settle for something that can take up to 7 years to comply with. Chuck loses.

Mike Prince in addition to being a billionaire and running the Michael Prince Fund (MPF) is also now trying to unseat Chuck. Kate Sacker is reluctant to tell Mike how, but later accedes when Mike promises to keep her efforts in the background.

Kate outlines how to get the 2/3s majority of the 63 Senate seats. Mike will need 42 senators to vote to unseat Chuck, then mission will be accomplished. 

Battle plans and a map are needed. Wags and Scooter are on it. There remains one upstate senator, Clay Tharpe, a Strom Thurmond of the New York Senate, who is an old friend who in no uncertain terms tells Mike that he'll not be part of anything to dislodge Chuck.

We finally get some Albany locales in this show. There's the requisite watering hole/restaurant where the powerful meet, Jack's, Oyster House, an authentic place near the Capitol on State Street that's been in business since 1913, run by the same family, now grandson Brad Rosenstein. 

There's a view of the capitol building, a magnificent pile of architectural design that is shown. I've often heard the inside of it is something to behold, and the producers Messrs. Levian, Koppleman and Ross Sorkin have outdone themselves by either recreating the Senate chamber, or gaining access to it to film in there. It's a stirring scene.

Anyone who has been watching Billions knows the writing is crisp and can be counted on having the characters utter "fuck" and "motherfucker" a minimum of times.  There are quick references that you have to be almost on the inside of the story to know what they're talking about.

One scene between Scooter, Wags and Kate makes reference to the Sky Masterson lesson from Guys and Dolls that you should never bet against a man who says he can squirt cider into your ear, because believe me, that man will find a way to squirt cider into your ear. Scooter knew the expression, but Kate had to explain it to Wags, of all people, who didn't know the patois of Guys and Dolls. Please don't tell me he doesn't know about, "I've got the horse right here."

Sometimes the dialogue is too sharp, and makes references to people and things that even stump me. I didn't know what Kate might be referring to when she said something about Mattie Ross, who it turns out is a character in the novel and movie Rooster Cogburn, that was made into True Grit starring John Wayne in 1969, sequeled in 1975, also starring John Wayne, and finally Jeff Bridges in a remake in 2010 titled Rooster Cogburn. Mattie loses an arm. Kate is making a metaphor for something.

New York State Senate Chamber

The 9th episode in Season 6 is titled Hindenburg, and refers to the speech Chuck makes to save his ass from being ousted. His lawyer Ira offers to get up and say the right things, but Chuck is Churchillian in eloquence when he compares their proposed actions to going down with the Hindenburg. We know Chuck admires history, Churchill in particular, since he had a signed set of Churchill's books that he briefly lost possession of, but regained in an episode a few seasons ago.

Of course, Mike Prince is incongruently sitting to the right side of Governor Sweeney as the Senate proceedings unfold. Only in Hollywood does the hedge fund guy get to sit with the governor.

Chuck is on fire. It's the kind of speech they'll use in classrooms for years to come. The senators applaud. Ira tells Chuck that never happens. The vote ticks its way down to Ayes and Nays. Clay Tharpe seems to be the one who will or won't tip the scales.

As much as he was adamant about not siding with Mike Prince, that was before they put the screws to him and waylaid downtown relief money for a rundown city in his district, to a Mike Prince project. Rock and a hard place as his name is called.

In true Howard Cosell fashion, "Down goes Chuck, Down goes Chuck. Wow! 

The governor appoints Chuck's second Daevisa Mahar (Dave) to be Acting Attorney General for the remainder of Chuck's term. (Dave is the nickname, but Daevisa is a woman.) Don Quixote's Sancho Panza gets the part.

Are the producers telling us something in having an Attorney General removed from office?  Are they giving us the playbook? Is this a metaphor for the removal of Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, who is quite unpopular in many quarters since on taking office he pretty much said be wasn't going to pay attention to a lot of crime, even felonies. Oh-oh.

In Bragg's case there would need to be a recall election, as has happened on the West Coast with trying to oust certain Progressive office holders. So far, none have been removed from office.

Senator Clay Tharpe weighed the choices, and "under normal circumstances" he would have helped keep Chuck in office. But not this time. "Aye" for the removal.

Exult O Shores, and ring the bells! 
      But I with mournful tread,
      Walk the deck my Captain lies,
      Fallen Cold and dead.

What will become of Chuck? We know they're not writing Paul Giamatti out of the show. One of the quick coming attraction scenes shows Dave pissed at Sacker, since she surely suspects she helped orchestra Chuck's removal.

Chuck's survived admitting to using a dominatrix's service and held office when he was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern New York District.. But he couldn't keep the ramparts from being scaled when he helped 86 the 2028 Olympics from NYC, and lobbied to get programmers into Gramercy Park on their lunch hour, leaving behind Subway sandwich wrappers. There's only so much the billionaire populace will stand for.

What does come to light in a quick flashback is that Chuck was out-Chucked. Wags is seen paying off the persona that staged the scenes that fueled Chuck's outrage that certain parts of the New York City world are cloistered from John Q. public, like sitting in the lobby of the Bates Club without a member (the NYAC was once like that), or a Spanish nanny trying to use Gramercy Park with her charge in a carriage.

It was all a ruse to get under Chuck's thin skin and get him to start flinging his weight around to invoke  personal vendettas. He was duped. He didn't see it coming.

Billions is must see TV if you're a New Yorker of any stripe.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Final Jeopardy

It may have occurred to even a part-time viewer of the game show Jeopardy to ask themselves, why is it that you never see a contestant who appears to be over 65 years old, and certainly not a septuagenarian, no matter how many marbles they might still possess? Being now a fairly regular viewer of the show I'll tell you why this is.

No one over the age of 65 can answer a Final Jeopardy clue—Disney Characters— that goes like yesterday's: 

In the source material from more than 3 centuries ago, her name was Badr Al-Budur, "Full moon of full moons." I knew it wasn't Tinkerbell, but after that, who?

Are they kidding me? My recall of Disney characters probably reaches as late as Old Yeller. The clue was completely unanswerable to me at the age of 73, but not to any of last night's three contestants who all correctly wrote "Jasmine" as their response. Those three who couldn't even apply for AARP membership, could probably name the movie, as well as hum the soundtrack.

Not all clues are titled toward those who are too young to run for president, despite what the constitution says about their eligibility. The other night "Tony Bennett" was the Final Jeopardy answer to the clue that asked about someone who was 95 who released an album of new material. Aced that one.

Two of the three for some completely unknown reason each answered Diana Ross, certainly to her publicity agent's and Ms. Ross's dismay, and probably to whomever she might be in a relationship with. The oldest of the three did answer Tony Bennett, and I think emerged as a one day champion. 

We don't know what world the contestant who got it right over the others lives in, but perhaps she visits dad more often and he's playing something when she visits.

When there's a category that I have absolutely no idea what the answer might be, for any dollar amount, it's usually about some pop culture that's occurred sometime after the emergence of a crotch-grabbing music video of Madonna singing "Like a Virgin."

Sure I've heard of Beyoncé, Adele and Taylor Swift, but other that Lady B's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It") I can't name a single tune they're known for. Rappers? Fuhgetaboutit.

Movies and actors? After The Godfather (I), a Jack Nicholson or Robert DeNiro movie, maybe a Michael Douglas thrown in there, I have no freaking idea who won what award when. The last time I watched the Academy Awards either Bob Hope or Johnny Carson were hosting them. Ever hear of them?

The demographic divide on Jeopardy can be very predictable. When the clue was looking for an answer that would be Greta Garbo the other night, no one even moved toward their buzzer.

I'm sure the 9 research people that Jeopardy employs to create categories and clues try for demographic balance. But how many codgers are on that staff? Someone snuck in a baseball clue that required someone to correctly answer Tinker (as in the double play combination Tinker to Evans to Chance) but again, the buzzers didn't buzz in. No takers. Do they get more pay if they devise a clue that no one can answer? Someone's keeping track, because someone is always keeping track of everything.

It is for all these reasons that I won't be taking the Jeopardy nationwide online audition quiz that's coming up again next week.

I don't stand a chance.

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The Four Apostrophes of the Apocalypse

The above photo is from a furniture store I believe to be in Australia, because @justjenking, an Australian journalist re-Tweeted it from @biglhist. No matter. The photo to me is the best proof that the apostrophe should be eliminated from grammatical usage when attempting to denote singular possessive and plural possessive. It is the most misused of all the punctuation marks, and does nothing for the pronunciation or the cadence of the words or sentence. 

Eliminate the misused apostrophes from the signage and nothing is pronounced differently. Add the apostrophe where is seems to be missing from Goodwyns name and you still say, Goodwyns, Sofas,  Chairs, Recliners, Beds, no?

By the tortuous rules in place, Goodwyns needs an apostrophe, and the rest of the signage doesn't. The poor schmuck who thought they were doing good just held themselves up to the grammar police for perpetual, trending ridicule.

The effect might just work in their favor, as elementary school teachers might just take the kids out for a field trip to give them an example of the misuse of the apostrophe. That way, the kids can go home, perhaps absorbing the lesson or not, but can tell their parent that today, "we went to Goodwyns." "Oh, that's nice. Dad and I need to go there for some furniture. There is no bad publicity.

In Lynne Truss's seminal book on punctuation, 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves', she devotes no less than 32! pages to unraveling the usage for the apostrophe. Being a grammar scholar she gives use the history of the apostrophe. Everything has a back story, and the apostrophe is no different.

Apparently, the word apostrophe comes from the Greek meaning "turning away." And hence "omission" or "elision" used to denote dropped letters. Oh, only if it stayed there in usage elementary school children would score better on their exams, only having to learn about contractions. "Its and "it's" mean  two different things. This was its use in the 16th century: denote a dropping of a letter.

But apparently well enough was not left alone. Printers in the 17th century started putting apostrophes before the "s" in possessive cases. Printers! Was this a typo? We have been made to suffer because someone long ago in a print shop thought they should do this? Who told them to do this? The apostrophe fairy?

That's bad enough, but forward to the 18th century and printers! again started placing the apostrophe after the "s" to denote plural possessive. Since no one is currently alive who was alive in the 17th century, we can't lead these printers to the gas chamber. It's too late.

The use of the apostrophe for reasons other than the omission of letters is what has the world walking around with their underwear in a bunch.  And it's why Ms. Truss and other grammar and punctuation experts need so many pages to tell us how to properly apply the apostrophe when there is a possessive word. The rules are diabolical.

Thus, we get people like the poor people who created Goodwyn's sign, think they were being erudite and applying what they surely didn't learn in school. Perhaps they were sick the day the teacher's lesson plan covered apostrophes. Perhaps it wasn't in their curriculum. Whatever the reason, their misuse is painful to look at.

I've said it before. How do you pronounce an apostrophe? Ms. Truss makes uses the movie title "Two Weeks Notice" as a jumping off point to try and impart correct usage of the detested apostrophe. Why not just say: Two Week Notice? I'm giving my "two week notice" in. Two is the adjective for week. Is any meaning lost?

We are stuck with the mark because of some printers hundreds of years ago. Ms. Truss is sympathetic when she tells us, "let us acknowledge the sobering wisdom of the Oxford Companion in English Literature" (once the word Oxford creeps in you know you're dealing with scholars):

Thee never was a golden age  in which the rules for the possessive apostrophe were clear-cut and known, understood and followed by the most educated people.

The Goodwyns in the Australian furniture store shouldn't feel so bad. Few get it for what passes for right these days.

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Lost Art of Communication

Any regular reader of these postings will remember the tirade I unleashed at the Wall Street Journal for what I thought would be the demise of the A-Hed piece, that lovely piece of puns and general interest that has adorned their front page for decades.

As the A-Hed piece seemed to keep disappearing day after day, I wrote letters to Rupert Murdoch, and Robert Thomson, owner and editor for News Service which publishes the WSJ regarding what I thought was wrong-headedness on their part. I even downgraded my print subscription to Saturday/Sunday only, thus depriving them of certifiable weekly readership and some revenue. 

No replies. I even gave the recipients the chance to email me. Nothing. No one seems able to reply to a printed and conventionally mailed letter. I used that approach because there were no email addresses, or Twitter handles for the mucky-mucks whose attention I was trying to get.

We already know that years down the road there will be no collection of letters from the famous that will make their way into biographies or collections of those letters. There might be emails if they can be retrieved from electronic accounts, but that approach will likely yield only an incomplete picture of someone's written thoughts. Hemingway's collected correspondence would not be correspondence if it were emails. 

I have no idea if my letters had any effect on the powerful, but I was happy to see that the A-Hed did start to reappear on a regular basis. I couldn't have been the only one to have been annoyed at its disappearance. Perhaps it was just easier to start it up again than try and respond to the disgruntled. We'll never know.

But happily, the resumption has given us some gems, none other than the one about the near 18! pound butt-ugly looking potato that was certified to be a gourd rather than a potato. The New Zealand farmer who plucked the ugly out of the ground was keeping it for a Guinness Book of World Record certification, then possibly turning it into designer vodka, a bottle or two.

Alas. Genetic testing revealed it is in the gourd family. But the WSJ can pat them selves on the back for seeing the interest in the story before the NYT later reported on the same behemoth and the genetic results in their Science section.

The "potato" as pictured above looks like some Henry Moore statue that's been toppled for some reason. Depicted slavery? No matter.

The March 17 A-Hed piece wasn't the first piece restored after my letter of March 3, 2022, but it reminded everyone what they were missing when the A-Hed went dark. The lede slyly opens:

"The record-breaking hopes for a contender vying to be the world's heaviest potato were just mashed."

Think of what we would have missed if the A-Hed piece disappeared forever. The "potato," if certified as such, would have shattered the Guinness world record of 10.9 pounds with its earth-shattering weight of 17.4 pounds. Could world-wide TV appearances have been far behind?

The WSJ is not the only source of play-on-words for the "potato". The Zealand farming couple Donna and Craig-Brown who unearthed the organic beast, referred to it as 'Dug the Dominator from Down Under." After the genetic testing revealed gourd roots, Mr. Colin-Brown's eldest son later suggested, "we should call him the 'Gourd That Thought He Could.'" Can a children's book and a Disney movie be far behind?

As the A-Hed absence started in late February and I was no longer getting the weekday print edition, I still looked at the Journal online to the extent I could and was surprised to see A-Hed pieces. I waited until they consistently appeared before I recommitted to expanding my subscription back to include weekday print edition.

The break in A-Hed appearance seems to have started when a piece on Ralph Nader was "designated" as an A-Hed piece, but wasn't so identified when it appeared way out place for an A-Hed, being buried deep inside the paper.

Since the renewal we've been treated to pieces on trombone players, Japanese Anime cartoons, late-night diners, the Queen Mary ocean liner as a scale model, the study of Taylor Swift as N.Y.U. curriculum and other gems.

I like to think I helped get the pieces back where they belong

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Maureen Dowd and Myron Cohen

Normally, my reaction to the weekly Maureen Dowd column is that I'd like to take her to the woodshed for being lazy for only churning out a once-a-week column. Not always, and not this time.

She starts Sunday's column with the dialogue from a Myron Cohen routine. Who? Precisely. Not many people are able to even know who he was, let alone recite one of his jokes.

And that's what a comedian of his era did—they told jokes as short stories. They didn't use blue language, and the topic of sex was perhaps how it was going with the wife. Always the wife.

YouTube is a gem of a repository for taking in some Myron. I didn't know prior to his frequent appearances on Sullivan's show he was on the Kate Smith show in the very early '50s. This is the absolute dawn of television. But there he is, sort of Dumbo ears, bald with Clarabell hair on the side of his head, thick Yiddish accent, suit and tie going through a routine of funny jokes, complete with all the facial expressions and shoulder shrugs you could count on from a Jewish comedian.

My memory of Myron comes from the reference Maureen makes to his appearances on the Ed Sullivan. Show. Maureen is younger than me, so she couldn't have seen Myron be introduced by Kate.

Myron was a silk salesman in New York City's garment district. Anyone who knows anything about the Garment District of the '50s and '60s knows it was basically on 7th Avenue in the 30s, and that it was dominated by Jews.

I remember walking through the area in the '60s and at lunch time there was an army of guys standing on the sidewalk, in their overcoats if it were cold out, smoking and just waiting to go back upstairs to what were really small offices scattered throughout small buildings. 

Myron Cohen apparently loved to tell stories. He must have had a lot the tell, because he was encouraged by his colleagues to pursue a career in telling jokes for a living. How he broke into show business I have no idea, but he became well known on the TV variety show circuit, the Ed Sullivan show in particular.

To this day I use one of his famous tag lines for a variety of situations: "Well, everybody's got to be someplace." In the joke, the line was uttered by the guy who was suddenly found by the husband who came home early, found his wife in bed clearly having just had sex, and suddenly flinging the armoire door open to reveal the naked Tom cat trying to cover his private parts with his hands and arms stammering to explain the situation. Surprises all around.

Maureen uses one of Cohen's jokes as a metaphor for the Goliath/shrimp comparison now emerging between Ukraine's Zelensky and Russia's Putin. The weak looking are performing mightily. 

Picture a skinny little guy, a shrimp, a nothing. He walks into a lumber camp looking for a job.

The foreman is skeptical, so the shrimp steps up and fells a towering oak in 90 seconds.

"Where'd you learn that?" says the foreman.

"In the Sahara Forest," replies the guy.

"You mean the Sahara desert," the foreman corrects.

"Sure, now" the guy says.

This is a typical Myron Cohen joke with a tag line twist like an O Henry story. He ate well off a lot of those jokes.

I am genuinely impressed Maureen knew one.

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Greek Influence

Growing up with a Greek-American heritage and a Greek baptismal meant two things: I wasn't going to be raised Catholic, and I wasn't going to have a Bar Mitzvah.

Neither of my parents were of a religious stripe. My father was naturally baptized in the  Greek Orthodox church, but was not an active church goer. My mother, the best we know, was Catholic, but never mentioned religion. Growing up I was sent to an Episcopal church a few blocks from the house, St. John's, for their Sunday school. I went to Sunday school there for several years, and attended services before class in the choir loft.

I liked Sunday school. The teacher took us to the circus once at the old Madison Square Garden on 8th Avenue. I liked the services, even if there seemed to be a lot of kneeling. I liked the music and singing. To this day I like that I'm a bit of a religious mutt.

New York City education was dominated by either the public, or Catholic schools. I had friends in Catholic school and was always envious of them because they got way more school holidays than we did. As I got older I learned my father had a grudge against the Catholics because he wasn't allowed to be the best man at his best friends wedding. He wasn't Catholic.

Decades later, I don't know if the irony ever dawned on my father when he filled in as the best man at the wedding for the Greek delivery boy when he got married. Steve's initial choice was someone more his age, but was turned down by the Greek church because they weren't Greek Orthodox.

When I married my Irish-American Catholic wife we had a civil ceremony in a judge's chambers. It was easier than creating family drama over getting married in a Catholic church. Our two girls however went to Catholic schools and received all the Catholic sacraments.  By then, I had long come to the awareness that anyone who wielded any influence in New York City was either Catholic or Jewish. A Greek Orthodox never created much of a ripple in the city's affairs.

The legend goes the midnight Christmas Eve mass at St. Patrick's was never started by the Cardinal until Mayor Koch, a Jewish mayor of NYC for 12 years was seated.

This is a long introduction to the reaction I had when I read the obituary for judge Thomas Demakos, 98, who recently passed away. Demakos was a lifelong New Yorker who still lived in Astoria when he passed away. Imagine, a retired judge still living in Astoria and not Boca Raton.

Mr. Demakos didn't come to a law career immediately.  After serving with the Marine Corps in WWII from 1943-1946, he earned a bachelor's degree in accounting and later a master's degree in business. Before all this he was even at the "luckiest man alive" speech by Lou Gehrig in 1939 at Yankee Stadium.

Tiring of accounting, he went to law school at N.Y.U., graduating in 1957. The obit writer Sam Roberts tells us, Demakos "was named an assistant prosecutor in 1962 after the Greek Orthodox Church flexed its political muscle for an appointment of a Greek-American to the district attorney's office. He was made chief assistant in 1975.

And here we have it, the first instance of my reading that a Greek-American attainted any position through political influence.

Mr. Roberts is a veteran reporter for the NYT, covering most things NYC for decades. I suspect he remembers when then the subway fare was 15¢. 

That the Greek Church was able to flex any muscle to me is worth including in any obituary. And if Mr. Roberts tell us that's what happened, then it happened.

The obit headline for Mr. Demakos makes reference to a landmark ruling he made as a judge in a marquee murder trial.

But long before the Michael Griffith murder trail where that ruling was made, Mr. Demakos presided as a prosecutor in one of the Alice Crimmins trials, the most sensational trial to ever hit Queens County. It was bigger than Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher by a country mile. The case involved a mother, Alice Crimmins being found guilty of murdering her 5-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter one July evening in 1965.

Ms. Crimmins even took the stand in her own defense in one trial. Talking over the case with my 82-year-old Saratoga buddy Johnny M. last night, he told me that he of course remembers the case well, and remembers that someone he knew who was an assistant prosecutor in Queens District Attorney Thomas Mackell's office at the time of the trial always commented that, "Alice was some cool customer."

There were two trials, appeals, convictions, re-instated convictions, and eventually a parole for Ms. Crimmins in 1977. At 82 she is still alive somewhere, living under an assumed name, and not giving anyone any interviews.

That Alice was an attractive, 1960s cocktail waitress who carried on openly with many men, made the trial tabloid fodder. Her estranged husband even wiretapped her bedroom so he could listen to her having sex. Whether in this era of better applied police techniques any doubt of her guilt or innocence might be better established doesn't matter. The court of public opinion and an all-male jury found her guilty. If she didn't do it, no one else has ever been found who did. The children are no less dead. It is a dead case.

But the marquee case and landmark ruling was the Michael Griffith trial, another Queens case involving three young men who were accused of causing the death of Michael Griffith in 1987 by chasing him one night as he continued to run toward the Belt Parkway, eventually running onto the parkway to avoid pursuit and getting killed by oncoming traffic.

There were obvious racial overtones. The three men who wandered into a pizza parlor in Howard Beach after their car broke down were Black, and the residents of Howard Beach were sensitive to having Blacks anywhere near hem, especially while eating pizza.

A group of white youths from the pizza parlor beat the three guys up, and one of the Black men, Michael Griffith tried to run away. It was then he ran into traffic and was killed.

I remember this case well too. There were comments that went, "well, what were the Black guys doing in their neighborhood anyway?" This elicited a response from a prosecutor, "what, did they need a passport to be there."

Three defendants were found guilty and sentenced to 30 years for manslaughter and assault. The defense tried an appeal based on Judge Demakos denying the defense team their claim that a fair trial wasn't attainted because they weren't allowed to reject jury members who weren't white.

And no less a sage of the era than the reporter Jimmy Breslin praised Judge Demakos that as a man who "had a background that made him seem so predictable  (a white man in his mid-60s, a former prosecutor and a product of the Queens Democratic machine), he read a decision that puts him in another place forever." Mr. Breslin added, "Tom Demakos put splendor on his record."

And true to what some would point to his unpredictability, Mr. Demakos, as a retired judge, passed away at his home in Astoria, and not somewhere in Florida.

http://www.onoffram.blogspot.com

Mom and Dad

You can usually count on a nugget embedded in a NYT tribute obituary that reveals the occupations of the deceased's mother and father. This is generally found in the paragraph on the subject's date and place of birth. I've been reading these obituaries for decades now and have only just thought of compiling the various occupations of the parents. For the most part, they do not lead you to expect that anything they did is what made the deceased famous. But not always. There are some apple/tree genetics at work.

Given that most of the deceased are over 70, their moms are generally described as being "homemakers." In the '40s and '50s most women did not have a job outside the home. That of course has changed greatly. Consider:

Ashley Bryan, 98, Who Brought Diversity to Children's Books. Ashley was an artist; his father was a greeting card printer. His mother was a housekeeper and dressmaker.

Connie Hogarth, 95, Tireless Activist Who Led a Social Justice Organization. Her father accompanied silent movies on piano and organ before becoming a film projectionist; her mother was a nurse.

Robert Hicks, 71, Author of Blockbuster and Savior of a Battlefield. Robert's father and mother ran a water-treatment company.

Joni James, 91, Top-Selling 'Queen of Hearts' on the 1950s. Her father sang operas and arias when he was a shepherd boy in Italy, had come to America at 18. (A-ha! A singer begat a singer!)

Ken Duberstein, Adviser Who Helped Reagan Get Second Wind, Dies at 77. His father was a fund-raiser for the Boy Scouts of America; his mother was a teacher.

Jerome Chazen 94, Dies; Original Partner in Liz Claiborne Empire. His father worked in commercial heating. His mother was a seamstress. (Ah! cloth to clothing.)

Jon Zazula, 69, Heavy Metal's Early Ally. His father was a shipping clerk; his mother was a recreational director at a nursing home.

Tony Walton, 87, Whose Distinct Stage and Screen Designs Won Awards. His father was an orthopedic surgeon; his mother was a homemaker.

Walter Mears, 87, Writer Immortalized as Reporter in 'Boys on the Bus' Book. His father was an executive at a chemical company; his mother was a homemaker.

Dennis Cunningham, 86 Civil Rights Lawyer. His father was an author, editor and health care policy consultant; his mother was a homemaker. Close. Apple/tree.

Maggy Hurchalla, 91, Formidable Florida Environmentalist. Her father was a police reporter for the Miami Herald; her mother was a features writer for the rival Miami News. She was destined to stir the drink.

Edmund Keely, 94, Writer and Scholarship Championed Modern Greek Culture. His father was a career American Diplomat; his mother was a homemaker. Undoubtedly brought up in an air of refinement.

Alice von Hildebrand, 98, Conservative Catholic Philosopher. Her father was a deeply religious man who owned a small business. He attended mass every day. Close. Apple/tree.

Lionel James, 59, a Small, Speedy Back Who Left N.F.L. Linemen Gasping for Air. His father was a master electrician; his mother was a high school physical education teacher. Close. Apple/tree.

Andrei Belgrader, 75, director of Future Stars, Dies. His father was an economist; his mother was  a translator.

Kent Waldrep, 67, Athlete Whose Injury Led to Advocacy, Dies. His father was a banker, his mother was a homemaker who later worked on at an airplane repair station owned by her husband.

Conrad Janis, 94, 'Mork and Mindy Actor Who Also Shone in Art and Jazz Worlds. His father and mother owned a shirt -making business early in their married life, which gave them the wherewithal to begin collecting art. His mother also wrote books with the jazz historian Rudi Blesh. Definitely apple/tree.

Annie Flanders, 82,Whose Magazine Ran In a Golden Era Dies. Her father was areal estate agent, an endeavor Ms. Flanders later went into after the magazine business. Apple/tree.

Thomas Demakos, 98; Made a Landmark Ruling in a Marquee Murder Trial. His father owned a restaurant; his mother was a homemaker.

You can go on and on. You get the idea.

http://oonofframp.blogspot.com

The New Yorker

The NYT has been running an obituary feature that is sort of a reparations for the accomplished women who have passed away in the past and have not gotten the treatment they would today with an informative, lengthy tribute obituary.

These retrospective obits can be of women from any era, and as such can be outside my time frame of memory. They are interesting from a historical viewpoint, but they do not ignite personal memories of their times on earth.

As I said, "can be," and there is the occasional one that firmly overlaps my memory of my own era, as well as that of my father's. Since he was born in Manhattan in 1915, I always feel I can relate to all events that have come after. And certainly the start of The New Yorker magazine fits inside those memory boundaries.

So when the NYT obituaries editor William McDonald recently filled a retrospective tribute slot with Barbara Shermund, 1899-1978, I was all in.

Ms. Shermund was a founding cartoonist for The New Yorker, an apparent woman about town in the 1920s who came to the attention of Harold Ross and Rea Irvin, the founding editors who fulfilled their vision for creating a cosmopolitan New York City magazine that lives to this day, no small achievement considering how many print publications have bit the dust.

The sub-heading to the obituary tells us Barbara was," a cartoonist who drew almost 600 cartoons for the New Yorker with sassy captions that had a fresh, feminist voice."  Her cartoons appeared in the 20s and 30s for the magazine, with 9 covers to her credit. She's is likely the one cartoonist few alive today can directly remember.

You're wasting your time. I'm a terrible
 housewife

The obit writer, Janaki Challa tells us,  "Caitlin A. McGuire wrote in 2020 for the Art Students League, "'Shermund's women spoke their minds about sex. marriage, and society; smoke cigarettes and drank; and poked fun at everything in an era when it was not common to see young women doing so.'" 

She showed a talent for drawing at a very young age, and her architect father and sculptor mother encouraged her artistic pursuits. She arrived in NYC while in her early 20s, coming from her native San Francisco. 

If you write and draw what you know, then Ms. Shermund clearly portrayed women who were not wall flowers; they were in the fast lane. I like to think it would have been a hoot to know her. She seems like the type of woman my father would have met in Pete's Tavern and then spent some time with at the Hotel Irving, a near flea-bag joint across the street from Gramercy Park on 20th Street. The hotel ran through the entire block. You could enter from 19th Street as well. It was part residential SRO occupancy as well as a discreet hot sheet place by the hour. I think it was the backdrop for a Woody Allen movie, Manhattan Murder Mystery.

Hotel Irving got its name from its proximity to Irving Place, a short north/south strip of street that runs between 20th  and 14th Streets, between 3rd and Park Avenue South (the old 4th Avenue). Pete's Tavern was and still is on Irving Place and 18th Street, as well as the old Washington Irving High School, an all-girls NYC high school. I think it's long closed now, but the building is still there. The 19th century writer Washington Irving was said to have lived in a house that later became a beauty parlor.

At the 14th Street end of Irving Place sat the Academy of Music, the building that once housed the Metropolitan Opera Company that is sometimes mentioned in the current miniseries 'The Gilded Age.' After the opera company moved to 39th and Broadway the pile was converted to a movie theater. The 14th Street area deteriorated a bit in the '60s. The Academy of Music was not a great destination. I distinctly remember going to see the movies M*A*S*H and Patton there as a double feature in the early '70s.

My father was not a serial adulterer—my mother not really being in the picture—but it was only much later in my life that I came to realize where he might have been when as a young boy growing up I was constantly being taken to the New York Ranger games at the Old Garden  on 8th Avenue by the flower shop's septuagenarian delivery man Owen Lennon, a true relative of the Lennon sisters who appeared on the Lawrence Welk show. (I kid you not.) My father would easily have declared Barbara, a "live wire," or, "quite a gal."

I once became aware of  someone he might have been involved with when suddenly a willowy model-type was hired to take over the second family shop we had at 324 Second Avenue, also between 18th and 19th Street on the East Side of the Avenue.

It was another one of my father's bright ideas that made no money. Although there was only a another florist on the avenue, Garnet Flowers on 22nd Street, my father reasoned that since the location was directly across the street from Manhattan General, near Beth-Israel and New York Eye and Ear hospitals, he didn't want another florist nearby to steal our hospital get well bouquet business. He had a Duane Reade drug store business plan before Duane Reade ever carpet bombed Manhattan with locations. Unfortunately it was a bad plan and only drained money, never making any.

It was a step down store that today would be classified as a pop up store. It was a bare bones place dominated by a large showcase refrigerator you could enter from the back to store flowers, a counter, and maybe a chair and table. 

I didn't know the young woman's name, but whenever I went there to restock the place with flowers there seemed to be a NYC Sanitation worker in uniform hanging around. At one point I know he took her out to dinner, and she eventually disappeared. My father lost one to a Sanitation man. Oh well. There were others, when he somehow mumbled later in life that he took many women to the Hotel Irving.

In the 1960s I was a fan of The New Yorker magazine. I loved the cartoons and the sly quips at the bottom of stories. I never read a poem I liked, but the covers were great. I never subscribed to the magazine, getting my fill in doctor waiting rooms. I remember reading James Thurber's biography of Harold Ross, 'My Years with Ross.' I think perhaps I imagined I would write something that would be published in the magazine. Never happened.

One thing I distinctly remember from Thurber's story was that Harold Ross kept a supply of loose change in his pocket. Half dollars, quarters, dimes and nickels. He jingled when he walked.

According to Thurber Ross did this because we once took a cab and went to pay for the cab ride with folding money, all he had. The cabby slyly told him he had no change. Ross went ballistic, envisioning that the tip he was going to give now just became larger. Ross was incensed. Ever since that ride, Ross carried enough loose change that would cover the meter, along with giving a small tip.

It is hard to believe you could take a taxi in Manhattan and pay for it with loose change, but that is precisely what my father did when we closed the shop at around 8:30 and he was tired and wanted a cab ride to Penn Station for the short ride home on the LIRR to Murray Hill on the Port Washington line, a near whistle-stop station that was carved out between Flushing Main Street and Broadway, all because there was a Mrs. Murray who was a wealthy resident who was someone connected to the founder of the LIRR. The stop remains, but is sometimes now skipped, since only four cars can take or discharge passengers. The Murray estate long ago became the Murray Hill Shopping Center.

My father would scoop some loose change out of the shop's register and we'd be off, barreling up Third Avenue to 33rd Street, when a left was made at Zwerling Brothers Haberdashery and we proceeded west to the old Penn Station, roaring down the ramp to the taxi "pit" and the LIRR. There was little traffic in the '60s and I believe the fare was always under $1.00, with tip.

The retrospective tribute obit for Barbara Shermund is a beaut. There are three photos, two of which are cartoons from The New Yorker and one of her, hugging herself in a mink coat, the ultimate trophy a woman could have in that era. Have you ever seen Liz Taylor in 'Butterfield 8'? Or listened to the lyrics from the Hot Box chorus girls in 'Guys and Dolls'..."take back your mink, what made you think I was one of those girls?"

Ms. Shermund sort of disappeared and with no immediate family; her ashes were unclaimed in a New Jersey funeral home for 35 years until they were claimed by a descendant in search of information about her.

I was smitten by the obit. Since I already have a rather large poster size copy of a 1938 New Yorker cover showing a chauffeur standing behind a young boy and girl who are clearly from a Manhattan private school as he supervises them pushing nickels through a dessert slot at an Automat, I had to look into what might be available from Ms. Shermund. I know such an Automat scene was possible because one of the two brothers I grew up with in the '60s lived on 55th Street in Manhattan and told me as an after-school "Group" activity from the church, they were sometimes taken to the Automat to do just that: buy a dessert through the window.

I remember my own nickel plunging days at the 14th Street Automat, just west of Irving Place, with a back entrance on Irving Place. There I would get a meal, or likewise shove nickels into the slot to get a piece of mince or lemon meringue pie, along with a cup of hot chocolate that poured into a stoneware cup after you inserted perhaps 2 nickels and turned the crank. Just the right about came out.

The stoneware was so thick and sturdy that I wonder if any ever broke. You could drop them on concrete and they would bounce back at you. 

You always used nickels at the Automat. If you needed change there was a kiosk in the center with a cashier who could dispense the right number of nickels blindfolded. Their thumb retreated back from the loose roll of nickels they gripped in their palm as they magically dropped 5 nickels on the granite counter after the presentation of your quarter. So many fingers had scooped up those nickels that the granite surface was dug out a little more than originally conceived, and was as smooth as a baby's bottom.

I figured the least I could do was look into getting a similar size framed poster of one of Ms. Shermund's covers. ART.com had a few to offer. And reasonably priced, even with framing. 

There is absolutely no wall space left in our house to hang another anything. That didn't deter me from considering an equally sized framed poster cover of a 1933 New York Cover by Ms. Shermund.

I chose one that I believed revealed her saucy side by portraying a woman who in her clinging, figure hugging nightie (dress?) is playing busy-body as she wanders out onto her terrace and tries to peek through the fence to see what he neighbors are up to.

You know it's one of those penthouse-type terraces from all the old movies that show rich people having breakfast out on and looking at the city below. Barbara I'm sure was wholly familiar with the setting. She was probably the one in the outfit playing peek-a-boo.

Pass away in 1978 in a New Jersey home pretty much anonymously is a shame for someone we can so enjoy today. The obit writer Janaki Challa tells us Caitlin McGurk, an associate curator and assistant professor at Ohio State University's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is planning on writing a book about Ms. Shermund. I hope I hear about it.

When Ms. Shermund passed away no publication printed anything about her passing. It was when her niece, Amanda Gormley, who when she decided to research some family history that she came across the life of Ms. Shermund. A GoFundMe page got Ms. Gromley the money it took to have Barbara's ashes flown to San Francisco to be buried with her mother.

By all accounts, she was "quite a gal."

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Entenmann's and Long Island

I'm not the only in the world for whom something always reminds themselves of something else. Dan Barry, a veteran reporter for the NYT was transported back to his growing up in Deer Park, NY when he read the obit for Charles Entenmann, the last of the three sons who ran their father's and their grandfather's bakery until it was sold in 1978 To Warner-Lambert, a drug company.

Mr. Barry is of a certain age and of such seniority at the NYT that I'm sure when he read of Charles Entenmann's passing and the connection the baked goods had to his growing up, that he became his own editor and assigned the story to himself.

I posted a blog about how difficult it was, and still is, to open a box of Entenmann's. Gorilla glue is holding the flaps in place. Mr. Barry's comments about Entenmann's are far more sentimental in that the blue and white box (no cellophane window now) brings him back to his kitchen table, Mom and Dad, horror movies, and coming home from the bar and glasses of milk. Food can do that to you. Invoke all sorts of memories.

Mr. Barry slyly notes in his Valentine to Entenmann's the piece in the obit that Charlie Entenmann lived to be 91, admitting that he wasn't a dessert man, and really didn't eat the product, and that then, considering the heart stopping, artery coagulating ingredients that go into it today, it's no wonder Charlie passed 90 years of age.

On Saturday our oil burner ceased to function. The repair technician who promptly came out from Slomin's quickly diagnosed the problem and set about the replace a "collection" piece of equipment. As he and talked a bit in the attached garage (Levitt homes have no basements, being built on slabs, a whole other story.) he mentioned he's been with Slomin's for 28 years, and knew of the grandfather, stating that he would have shot the grandsons who now who run the company. Maybe. 

But the remark,  like many things in my life, made me think of something else, and I mentioned Charles Entenmann's and the 14 acre plant in Bay Shore back in the day, how Entenmann's was sold, and is now being produced by Mexican outfit, Bimbo Bakeries, that also produces Arnolds, Thomas' muffins and Sara Lee products. Bimbo apparently is the largest commercial bakery in the world.

The repairman, clearly being raised on Long Island, remembers the 14 acre Bay Shore plant, and then commented on how the taste of the product is not the same. He made a face in fact, while also making mention of how small Fig Newtons had become. I agreed with him there. He said you used to need two bites to swallow one. I said, "yeah, now it's like taking an aspirin." He got a kick out of that.

He further told me that Entenmann's was sold so often that he once asked a driver "who are working for now?" only to be told the driver didn't really know who owned the company. Mr. Barry alludes to the ownership changes that took it to a from drug company to Bimbo Bakery. The company was sold often, "with no expiration date in sight."

Clearly Entenmann's meant way more to Mr. Barry growing up that it did to me. I might have an occasional memory of a box of Entenmann's coming through the door, but my memory is more of Ebinger's and Black Out cake. We weren't a desert family, so really, baked goods were not a staple in my home.

Ebinger's was a bakery in Brooklyn that I know distributed to supermarkets in Brooklyn and Queens. They went out of business once, then were resurrected by someone, but later went out again for good. Maybe they couldn't compete with a nationally produced Entenmann's.

Mr. Barry acknowledges the taste difference in the Entenmann's products, asking out loud if polysorbate 60 can be good for you. It certainly doesn't sound like it is, but that's probably given massive intake quantities in mice.

I disagreed with the repairman's assessment of the current Entenmann's taste. Maybe because I wasn't raised on it like he and Mr. Barry, my ability to detect ingredient changes is compromised. I mentioned in my prior posting that I can easily nearly put away an entire walnut, icing-glazed coffee cake. It's dangerous in front of me. If you want any for yourself, move fast.

Mr. Barry saw a box of Entenmann's coming through the door as a sign of financial prosperity. His family apparently also smartly shopped in the Entenmann's outlet store that dealt with recently date-expired products, but ones that were still edible without the use of a hacksaw. In Flushing, we had an Arnolds commissary near us, but were not in the habit of shopping there. 

Mr. Barry admits to still enjoying the Entenmann product in moderation, and since he's is somewhere in his middle 60s, he has every chance to make 90. Or maybe 80. Eighty is the new 70.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Billions and Billions 2022

It has occurred to me that I haven't been providing my episode-by-episode impressions of Billions, that New York-centric show where the Governor and Attorney general of New York State are never in Albany, the state capitol. The Albany skyline just isn't as dramatic as zooming in from a helicopter over Manhattan.

As inaccurate as that part is, the show has legs. It is now in its 6th season, and is filled with New York City references. It's a Showtime show, so I don't know what ratings it must have on the West Coast, but it is obviously durable.

Gone is Bobby Axelrod, the Steve Cohen hedge fund character who creates fortunes the old fashioned way: insider trading. Bobby, Damien Lewis, jetted to Switzerland at the end of last season to avoid arrest for a failed attempt at hiding laundered money. Chuck had him, until he didn't.

Enter Mike Price, Corey Stoller, who has taken over Axe Capital and turned it into MPC, Mike Prince Capital, Mike is just as devious as Bobby, but is slightly adverse to going over the line headed for indictments. He's no less wealthy than Bobby, and certainly an Alpha+ male who never shaves but never seems to grow a beard beyond rugged stubble. Open collar, this guy is a dude without dangling bling around his neck. He has swagger.

Mike Prince advocates he's going to do things differently. His fund is going to make the investor audition to get on the 'Prince List.' No funny money is going to come in. Mike and his minions will get to choose the investor beauty pageant winners. Despite what seems to be Mike's altruistic approach to wealth management, the New York Attorney General, in the role of Charles Rhoades Jr. (Chuck) is taking  a scorched earth approach to billionaires.

Chuck himself is from a wealthy family. His father made a fortune in New York real estate. Chuck went to private schools in the city; he learned Latin; he went to and Yale on a legacy admission with no loans needed; he went to Yale Law School; he lives in a brownstone that likely has an East address with a number lower than 50, indicating proximity to Central Park. He occupies the entire brownstone. No sub-letting there. His kids go to private school in Manhattan. Chuck is rich. But not billionaire rich.

So the major plot line is drawn for Season 6. Chuck against the one-tenth of the one-percenters, no matter what they advertise themselves as.

The opening episode pits Chuck's working man anger at a wealthy, eccentric neighbor who abuts the Rhoades upstate gentleman's farm who thinks there is nothing wrong in firing revolutionary war cannons each day, filling the countryside with thunder and smoke. You know they're Revolutionary War canons because the guy's name is Revere.

The show is so sharply written that I have to wonder if the now deceased, long-term Manhattan District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, who had a farm in Dutchess County, isn't somehow a model for Chuck. I don't know if Morgenthau ever felt the need to take on an upstate neighbor over noise. Little Hudson Valley news finds its way downstate. 

But if Robert did have a noise problem it would have to be a big noise problem, because I once read that Morgenthau was partially deaf from serving in the Navy during WW II and having his hearing impaired by the sound of battleship guns. The Morgenthau family was big in New York real estate. I once read that Robert's grandfather used his influence to get a subway line being built to have an express stop near where gran-père was developing apartments. Being near an express stop was meant to be a rental advantage. Morgenthau's father, Henry Morgenthau Jr. was FDR's Secretary of the Treasury ,and an architect of the New Deal.

The show's producers are a sharp lot. Dave Levian, Brian Koppleman and Andrew Ross Sorkin (also a financial reporter for the NYT) weave a tight rug. Chuck went to Yale Law school. Paul Giamatti's father was president of Yale, and then briefly the Major League Baseball Commissioner before passing away from a heart attack.

After the cannon guy, Chuck then embarks on getting doorman in upscale apartments that have doorman (you know, the guys with braid on their shoulder who look like Mexican generals) a better contract. After all, these guys  manned the buildings when all the tenants evacuated to the Hamptons when Covid was raging through the city. They didn't get to flee. They do all the subtle things, like hide the mistresses from the wife coming back from Pilates class.

For positions like Chuck's there is always a strong No. 2. For Chuck at the AG's office it was Kate Sacker, a statuesque woman who never loses a case. Mike knows where Samson's hair is, and aims to cut it off by poaching Kate from Chuck's staff.

Chuck has been promising help to Kate when she wants to run for Congress. Promises, promises. Kate wearies of the Chuck machinations and delays because he always needs her, and is open to Mike's offer. She shows up in knock-out designer clothing, because of course now she is making beaucoup bucks in the private sector and proceeds to keep Mike Prince on the straight and narrow ethically while showing off her clothes and figure when she sits down and crosses her legs. Kate the Great.

Back at the AG's office Chuck needs his own ego stroked with a big case win. He personally goes in as the lead prosecutor against a fishy fish company selling mis-labelled goods. His opposing counsel is a pit bull of a defense attorney who embarrasses Chuck in open court. Result: Chuck has fish on his face.

Not to be deterred, and now without Sacker, Chuck needs a strong No. 2.  Enter the counsel for the fish company, Daevisa Mahar, affectionately known as 'Dave' played by Sakina Jaffrey, a pitch perfect female Jewish lawyer from the lower East Side who knows New York City and has been a Legal Aid attorney, prosecutor and a white shoe defense attorney. She knows how to switch sides. And win. She succumbs to Chuck's entreaty, and comes to work for him. Or rather, the people of New York State.

At the outset of the new season we are introduced to Mike Price being attached to ropes, rock climbing. It seems his ex-wife Andy is a rock climbing expert who of course runs a rock-climbing school. Mike has plans for New York City. He's not the mayor or the governor, but he wants the city to host the 2028 Olympics. New York City has never hosted the Olympics, and Mike wants to put it in New York's backyard, with his ex-wife as the rock climbing coach.

I think rock climbing is slated to become an Olympic sport. The writers on Billions never miss a tie-in. I don't know if there is anything underway for a New York 2028 bid, but with Mayor Mike (Bloomberg) there was a concerted effort to land the 2012 Olympics that went to London.

Mayor Mike tried to sell the Olympic selection committee on the "internationalism" of New York. He paved the way for the artists Christo and his wife Jean-Claude to erect fabric "gates" throughout Central Park. The Gates They looked like slalom gates, or Brobdingagian orange underpants drying in the breeze.

Mayor Mike wanted to demonstrate New York had European culture. He wanted a West Side stadium to be built for the games, and later used by the Giant and Jet football teams.

Imagine a West Side stadium being used for tail-gating, such as space would allow. The Budweiser/bratwurst crowd meets the shrimp and white wine set. The fan dynamics would have been a treasure to behold.

Mike's pursuit of the Olympics for the city is relentless. Chuck's opposition to all things Prince is relentless. Mike is set to woo the city's female Black mayor, Tess Johnson, played by Gameela Wright, and Irish-American governor Bob Sweeny, played by Matt Servitto, with the largesse of a new subway system, the Olympic Express.

Mike tries everything. Buy the new subway cars that only need an engineer, and not a conductor as well. One-man trains. Advanced automation. European in design in every way. An upgraded signal system that will allow non-stop service to Olympic venues. (Where the rock climbing is going to take place is beyond me, unless it means scaling up the of sides of 432 Park Avenue, the tallest residential building in the hemisphere, and peeking in as the residents get ready for their day—or evening.)

Mike tries to donate the subway cars; tries to schmooze the MTA. The city is not for sale. The Governor and the Mayor have dug their heels in since Chuck embarrassed them with a bullhorn demonstration near a proposed venue site.

Prince and the writers need to advance this Olympic plot line, so Mike gets Machiavellian in his machinations. He donates money. His minions ruin the city's bond ratings so that the public bond funds will carry an onerous interest rate. Ergo, no borrowing for the upgrades and new cars without Mike's money.

Mike woos the Olympic selection committee with scholarships for students sponsored by the member of the committee. He jets the committee in and woos them with helicopters rides to Springsteen and Bob Jovi performing at Asbury Park's Stony Pony.

Wags arranges for more traditional wooing with escort entertainment at a place called the Palazzo, a floating venue of seduction and all things naughty. Things are looking good, but not great.

There is a fly in the ointment. This European consultant who brokers Olympic deals with prospective host cities, Colin Drache, played perfectly by Campbell Scott, who nails the haughty European accent, coiffed and tailored look, slimy deal-maker, who rules the world, needs to be overcome.

Colin, in what is expected to be a conference room announcement at MPC to Mike, Wags and Scooter, says that yes, indeed the city will get the Olympics, but ever so subtly adds, "there are still some parties that need to be...pause...pause ...pause...inspired."

Did that Teutonic SOB just solicit a bribe? You betcha. The thesaurus will not list "inspired" next to bribe, but that's just what that Continental extortionist has done. Mike was trying to get the Olympics without resorting to the expected glad-handing and outright bribery, but here it is, the "inspired" hurdle.

Mike clears the room and he and Colin go mano-mano off camera. Meanwhile, Dave and Chuck are trying to derail Prince getting the Olympics for the city. Chuck's conscience can't allow a guy like Prince to woo his way in. It's almost like it's the Gilded Age. Chuck represents old money and power by patrimony of having almost come ashore from Henry Hudson's ship The Half Moon. Prince is the nouveau rich interloper. White Hat vs. Black Hat.

Chuck puts his top gumshoe Carl on it and he comes back about the helicopter ride to Asbury Park. From there, Dave extracts from a bartender information that the entourage all left for someplace called The Palazzo afterward.

There is no doubt guessing what The Palazzo is, but there is the unknown as to where it is. It is apparently a newly established, permanent floating high-end brothel that flits around Manhattan. No one seems to know where it has now landed.

Chuck, as anyone who has watched this series from the beginning knows, was quite the submissive, seeing a dominatrix and even having Wendy role play the tough, leather girl. Chuck has changed, but still has contacts in the sex underworld. He tracks his old dominatrix down and asks about Palazzo, telling her he is only there on business, and not kinky business.

She can't resist inflicting a little pain by yanking hard on Chuck's ear, but does come forth with the information, and the password for the place.

Chuck, Dave and a gaggle of state police approach the address as Chuck tries to get in using the password. Nope, "members only tonight."

Chuck didn't come unprepared. He instructs the police to take the door, and they do, forcing it open with a pair of battering rams. And what do they find? Many tables spread out in a large room, four at a table, well dressed men and women playing bridge. Dave comments that she's never seen so many people under 25 playing bridge. They've obviously been tipped off. And it turns out Wags has been the source of the tip. Chuck and the posse leave empty handed.

Chuck is getting desperate. The Olympic bid announcement is but a day away and he's got nothing to derail Mike from an outstanding victory. More digging, and Dave comes up with wire transfers of millions to Colin Drache's off-shore account. Can't tell if any are from Mike Prince, but they are for $5 million a piece. Inspired.

Is this the bribe Chuck is after? Round up the state police posse again and arrest Drache at the announcement party at Mike's brownstone. Drache is seen on the top step with a triumphant Mike, taking in the fireworks and cheers from the public who have heard the good news: New York City will host the 2028 Olympics! But before you can fire a starter's pistol, Drache is gone. Where is he? As one online reviewer put it, he disappears like Keyser Soze.

Mike tries to celebrate with Andy, his champion rock climbing ex-wife. They've been trying to rekindle the magic. He reluctantly concedes he'll try harder to be around, not be all business. She seems satisfied, for now. Hugs and kisses and whatever follows, follows off camera.

Chuck and Wendy meanwhile might have been reignited. They've ben bamboozled into manning some carnival fund raising booth for the kids' school. Chuck wins a silent auction to have the world-famous chef Daniel Boulud personally prepare a meal for two.

Chuck tries to give the voucher to Wendy, but she has no one to use it with, and Chuck certainly doesn't either. It occurs to them that maybe they'll both use it back at Chuck's brownstone together. What the hell, right? They even nearly have phone sex going over the possible menu with each other.

Chef Boulud puts on a sumptuous spread, but no Chuck and Wendy. They can't make it? Huh? Chef and the nanny sit down to some obscenely delicious entrées. Chuck and Wendy were last seen watching the Brownstone staircase demonstration of Mike winning the bid for the city. Where did they do?

Episode 8 might tell us if we see Chuck sit up smiling in a sumptuous hotel bed with lots of pillows, and Wendy comes strolling out of the shower wrapped in one of those hotel towels you can't get from that pillow guy in Minnesota, smelling fresh from the hotel bath soap, and there isn't a piece of leather or a whip in sight.

You GOTTA stay tuned.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Try Open It

The NYT tribute obituary is a brief one, although there are two photos. Charles E. Entenmann 92 'Just a Baker' has passed away.

The 'just a baker' was how Charles introduced himself at his Bayshore, Long Island, NY high school's 50th reunion. He and his two brothers, along with his mother, ran a bakery that was started by his grandfather that became the nation's best-known producer of baked goods. A photo caption tells us the family sold the business in 1978! that was later sold in 2002 to Bimbo Bakeries, USA in 2002. Thank God they never used their name on the box. Who in the right mind would buy a product created by something called Bimbo Bakery?

The caption goes on to explain that although there was ownership change, unchanged was the quality of the product and the packaging of the white boxes with cellophane windows. The product has instant visual recognition.

What the caption doesn't say is how hard it is to open a box of Entenmann's baked goods. I once blogged Rosanne Cash after learning at a concert of hers at Zankel Hall that she was a New Yorker living in NYC for decades—and not Nashville—that by now she probably was able to open a box of Entenmann's without destroying the packaging.

Opening a box of Entenmann's is an art form. In fact, I know a very sturdy Irish-American fellow born  and raised in the Bronx who even briefly played semi-pro football with the NY Giants' taxi squad who freely admits to this day he can't open a box of Entenmann's without leaving the packaging damaged. The flaps must be secured with Gorilla glue. It takes patience and a safe cracker's touch.

Note:

Having written this posting and sharing it with my daughter Nancy, she in turn shared a photo of a shredded box of Entenmann's that granddaughter Olivia tried to open cleanly. It didn't work. Olivia got there, but remarked, "this is impossible to open."

The obit writer, James Barron, tells us "Bimbo Bakeries USA is a division of a Mexican company that says it is the largest commercial baker in the United States. Besides Entenmann's, Bimbo markets venerable bread and pastry brands like Arnold, Sara Lee and Thomas'". Who knew?

The baked goods are always top notch. Even if the product is now made nationally, it is so good. Mr. Barron tells us of Frank Sinatra having had the crumb coffee cake delivered to wherever he was. The pecan coffee cake with icing is so good that if it comes in the house I nearly devour that whole cake in one sitting. I keep taking slices until I've gone through 2/3s of the cake, and then force myself to stop. The chocolate frosted donuts are another item that is quickly made to disappear.

When I help my wife unload the groceries and see that she's sprung for Entenmann's I always comment how happy I am. She always replies, "It was on sale, That's why you're getting it."

You have to know that while I help my wife unload groceries, I never shop with her. I'm not allowed to. Nearing 47 years of marriage has not softened her attitude to having me accompany her anywhere in a supermarket. She'd rather have toothpicks driven under her finger nails than have me alongside her and a grocery cart.

Of course this doesn't mean I can't buy Entenmann's if I'm in the grocery store on my own. And I do. When it's on sale.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has gone ahead and done what to me is the unthinkable: they have eliminated their—dare I say—iconic A-Hed piece, the entertaining front page piece of puns and news that helped lighten the day.  

My reaction has been swift. After about five straight days of its absence, and no reply to any Tweets, I have downgraded my print subscription to the Saturday/Sunday print edition only.  Say it isn't so and I'll be back.

But reversing themselves is unlikely. A decision has been made, staff has been cut or reallocated, and tough if you don't like it. Consider some very recent A-Hed pieces that enlivened the front page before the tap was turned off.  Tell me in all honesty if we all weren't all better off after absorbing the text following titles like:

(After the 23rd, the A-Hed fell off the cliff.)

February 23, A Real-Life 'Queen's Gambit'—Maid Becomes a Chess Champ
February 22, Welcome to Gotham City. Or, Actually, Glasgow?
February 19/ 20, Moon, June Left Marooned: Pop Songs Embrace Imperfect Rhymes
February 18, Mystery of Italy's Crown Jewels Is Who Gets to Keep Them
February 17, Blast the Music, Turn Up the Heat—Time to Break WFH Rules

Keep going back and you get to an absolutely indispensable A-Hed piece:
January 11, Everyone's Playing Wordle. Here Come the Spreadsheets and Debates

And it's not as if the A-Hed piece disappeared from the print edition but remained online. It's gone. What is an A-Hed piece someone asked. 

It is a genially piece of journalism framed under a border that can be said to be in the shape of a very broad A. A Google link can enlighten those who are unfamiliar with it.

There was once a collection of A-Hed pieces bound in a hard copy edition that was titled "Floating off the Page." That I know of, it was only produced once, and I have a copy.

Print journalism has been in a death spiral for years now, and one might even say that's true of journalism in general. Both the NYT and the WSJ eliminated their New York City sections. In particular, sports is not covered by beat reporters. Professional teams in New York City do not get a post game writeup. Fuhgetaboutit.

The entire contents of the WSJ is continuously shrinking, as their weekday newsstand price goes from $3.00 to $4.00 to $5.00. Quickly. No small increments there. If I hadn't been getting a discount price for what turned out to be reliable home delivery, I wouldn't have been getting the paper.

My weekday cancellation because of the disappearance of the A-Hed piece will take me away from some parts of the paper that I will miss. The weekday book review is always in the same place, one page before the editorials in the A section. TV and movie reviews will be missed, as well as the little Salt and Pepper cartoon on the editorial page. Several of them are held by magnets to cabinets in my garage workshop. They can be priceless as well as timeless.

Sometime ago I once heard from Stephen Miller who used to do obituaries for the WSJ that the A-Hed pieces were edited by a long-term employee, an absolute treasure of a man. It's possible this person has passed away, or taken retirement, and took the job with them.

If so, they like the A-Hed piece, will be missed.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com