Racing In The Street

Why has the New Times butchered its annual Summer Times insert? Man, I remember when I used to run out and get extra copies to mail to relatives out-of-town. We used to use the guide throughout the summer. Don't know what I'm talking about? Check out the 1996 version of the Summer Times.

In addition to Onondaga County, there were separate sections on Skaneatleles, Auburn, Finger Lakes, Lake Ontario, Oneida Lake, Madison County, Mohawk Valley, Adirondacks, Thousand Islands & the Leatherstocking area. Each section had information on the best places to swim, fish, eat, hike, shop and party. The writers even included directions for a scenic drive through the area and a special "hidden treasure" feature.

Now check out Summer Times 2006. There are only features on Onondaga County, Finger Lakes, Rochester, Thousand Islands and Oswego/Lake Ontario. The write-ups have been seriously limited in length and in content. Each feature highlights the annual festivals in the area and some museums or other attraction. Almost nothing is included on outdoors activities. Gone are the swimming holes, the scenic drives and the sense of promoting the small, out-of-the-way uniqueness of upstate N.Y.

Is it the money? If so, to raise funds for the alternative press weekly, I suggest the New Times should cobble together the best of the archived Summer Times and publishing a Best Of Upstate NY travel guide. Get Spyder Rybaak back to write the outdoors stuff, Walt Shepperd on the Westcott Nation and Capt. 'Cuse on the cover. Play to their strengths.

I love the New Times and I have read it continuously since my high school days in the 1970's. I love the paper even though the only time I've been in the newspaper, the New Times chided SUN for being rude and disrespectful by protesting the Midland Sewage plant on Nick Pirro's front steps at 9 AM on a Saturday morning. Despite never getting a response to my letter of complaint, I remain a loyal reader. I just hope that the good New Times (their Destiny coverage and their smart-aleck editorial tone) continue to outweigh the bad (current Summer Times, dislike of SUN).

United States: my native home. Out after the first round, no victories, one moral victory tie.

Poland: my wife and in-laws native home. Out after the first round. One "for pride" victory over Costa Rica with big Polish crowd filing over the border.

Spain: Only European country I've visited. Advanced after great first round. Out after second round loss to France.

Mexico: only other country I've visited in World Cup. Loses in second round to Argentina.

New Yorkers are always talking about the upstate/downstate divide and how the interests of each group of residents diverge. Many politicians make a good living out of exploiting this divide (on both sides of the borders). The most recent example of this problem is the NYRI plan to transport "excess" electricity from upstate to downstaters by building a monstrous high-power trail of towers.

Well, every once in a while the interests of both upstaters and downstaters intersect and the powers that be actually do the right thing. NYC has developed a plan to subsidize upstate farmers, in order to protect the city's sources of drinking water.

The Watershed Agricultural Council is a city/state organization that works to protect the watershed in the Catskills, the city's largest source of water. The commercial development that has taken a large portion of the farmland in the Croton area (the city's secondary water source) has forced the city to invest over $1 BILLION to build a new water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. 10 acres of parkland has been lost to the new plant.

A similar filtration plant for Catskill water would likely cost upwards of $4 BILLION. The Watershed Agricultural Council instead works to preserve the commercial viability of area farms by helping local products reach NYC stores and restaurants. In addition, the organization helps to fund the capital improvements that farms need to be more ecologically sustainable and reduce runoff into the watershed. These two strategies will hopefully keep more farms in business and discourage the commercial development of more farmland in the watershed area.

"When Neil (Young) came to us with the songs, I said ' Are you asking me if I want to go out every night and sing "Let's Impeach The President?" Fuck, yes!' "


--David Crosby, on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young touring this summer
in support of Neil's new solo album "Living With War"

Rolling Stone June 29, 2006

Ever go to a Common Council meeting? My job has me going to many. They are dreadfully boring things, almost all votes are 9-0 affairs with little to no discussion--that having happened in study sessions and behind closed doors. This makes truly contentious votes cracking good entertainment! And I missed out on this one, as I watched a Wallace & Grommit video last night rather than go to the hearing or even watch on News 10 Now.

I was not expecting six councilors to show the backbone to vote against the DestiNY juggernaut. We must give major props to Councilors Callahan, DeFrancisco, Miner, Ryan, Seals and Simmons. These folks will be pilloried for the next few months as Congel threatens both lawsuits and an end to the project. Where will the DestiNY windbreaker crowd show up for their next photo-op? Dear Leader must be supported.

This is, of course, nowhere near over and I'm afraid the damn thing will be built. The key contention seems to be whether the city is guaranteed to receive payments from the project commensurate with the amount of tax money that's being forfeited by the city. The Mayor believes his negotiations have given the city the guarantees it needs. The Common Council is not so sure. The city will be giving up over $380 million in property taxes over the next 30 years--more if increases are required (and when have taxes stayed stable for 30 years?)

The current stumbling block is apparently the lawsuit by current Carousel Mall tenants challenging the seizure of their lease rights by the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency. The Council reads the current contract to read that if an event such as this lawsuit goes against Congel and that either nothing is built or nothing more than a larger Mall, Congel still gets the tax breaks. The city could be giving up over $500 million with no chance of recouping more than a fraction of this in increased sales tax revenues. The mayor believes the city would be covered.

Who's right? The public has no clue, not having access to any of the documents. So we fall back on our stereotypes: Congel is a crook, we don't trust him. The Council is a bunch of power-mad dunces whose hubris will ruin our regions' best chance at recovery. Despite the fact that I subscribe to the first stereotype, I'd still like some meat put on the bone of this debate. The public needs a tutorial with charts and graphs and spreadsheets. Until that happens we'll just be content to spew rhetoric (like my Dear Leader cracks at the North Korean-style DestiNY rallies).

Photo from Saratoga concert 6/19/06: Albany Times Union

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A fellow Bruce fan's license plate--Saratoga, NY 6/19/06

I've never seen anything like it: part tent revival, part political rally, part folk sing-a-long, part rockin' good time. Bruce Springsteen's performance at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center on Monday night was all that and more. I don't think the smile has left my face yet, even though I lost my car keys and had to cut short a mini-Saratoga vacation for more clot-boy medical tests today.

Bruce may have called this an "experiment" but it certainly seems to be working. I saw The Rising tour in Buffalo, but the energy, passion and musical gambles in the house last night put even the E-Street Band to shame. All but two songs from the new album were played last night and several Bruce originals were remarkably recast. Go play "Adam Raised A Cain" off the Darkness On The Edge of Town album, a hard edged rocker with Bruce practically screaming several verses. Now picture the song with the guitar riffs translated to banjo! Dig the sultry blues intro to Johnny 99, supplemented with gospel harmonies and pedal-steel guitar. The revamped version of Further On (Up The Road), going from a rock song on The Rising album to an Irish reel on this tour is astounding.

I thought the band's rendition of "My Oklahoma Home" gives a good insight into what this band and tour are about. The song, a dust-bowl anthem from the 1930's, started out as pure folk, with just Bruce's voice and an acoustic guitar. Then the fiddles and pedal steel guitar were brought in, creating a western Swing mood. Finally, the four person horn section checked in bringing New Orleans-style jazz and a much quickened tempo. That's what the Seeger Sessions band is, a 17 piece collection of fiddles, horns, accordion, pedal steel, piano, banjo, gospel harmonies--all barreling down the road and everyone wondering where they're going. But everyone is so busy singing along and dancing that we just hold on for the ride.

Not only is Bruce revisiting the many roots and offshoots that encompass the folk tradition, he also brings a serious dose of the political consciousness that has always been reflected in what is, after all, the people's music. These songs were written many years ago and are testimony to the lives and hard times of ordinary people, often struggling against forces beyond their control. The unfortunate subtext of these songs is that the economic hardship, government incompetence and the pain and loss of war in these old songs are still with us today. The folk tradition also encompasses the desire to speak truth to power. Bruce is speaking out as no other popular entertainer today.

Pearls Before Swine 6/15/06

I'll probably be writing more details about this over at my work blog SUN On The Rise, but we just got word that a grant application that I wrote netted SUN a $10,000 award for our work organizing residents to reduce crime in our neighborhoods.

If you work for non-profit organizations, you cut down forests of trees and use unknown quantities of bandwidth begging various foundations and government agencies for funding, only to repeatedly be given the bum's rush like a door-to-door salesman. It's satisfying to be on the right end of the equation for once.

Thanks to all the neighborhood residents who have come out to public meetings to hold officials accountable or sat in our office for hours drinking crummy coffee and devising strategies for our next project. One thing was a constant, thanks to the pressure of SUN members, the city of Syracuse has implemented a score of alternative programs that forge an alliance between our police, neighborhood residents, private businesses and non-profit agencies.

I'm like an addict waiting for my next fix--two weeks until the Bruce show at Saratoga. I usually avoid bootlegs and other tour tidbits before the show for which I have tickets, but I couldn't resist watching Bruce on Monday's Tonight Show.

The song he played (with the full 20 piece Seger Sessions Band) was How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live? As you can see from the hyperlink, it's been done many times since its original performance by Blind Alfred Reed in 1929. The version I had originally heard was the rockabilly-influenced stomp of the 1980's NYC band the Del-Lords. I still have it on vinyl down in my basement, I think I'll probably fire up the turntable tomorrow.

The version tonight by Bruce left me speechless--even on the lo-fi speakers of my TV (turned up loud against the protests of my long-suffering wife. ) However, even my wife was won over by the performance. The pedal-streel guitar solos were offset by the drive of the horn section barreling in on the chorus. Bruce dedicated the song to "our friends in New Orleans". The lyrics have been updated to reference Katrina ("there's bodies floating on Canal" ) and takes an open-handed swipe at Bush treating his visits to the Gulf Coast as photo-ops.

"Poor Man" isn't on the Seger Sessions album, one of only a few unrecorded songs Bruce is playing on the tour. The other two in regular rotation are the Pete Seger anti-Viet Nam War song "Bring Our Boys Home (If You Love Uncle Sam)" and the standard "When The Saints Go Marching In". Hopefully we'll find some way to get these songs on our iPods soon.