NYC Beachgoer Punctured by Needle – Eczema is Miraculously Cured

QUEENS, NY–Area man Larry Minacozzi received quite a shock on Sunday when he stepped on a syringe at Rockaway Beach and found that within minutes his chronic skin disease had been cured.

Minacozzi was following a seagull that had taken his sandwich along the crowded Queens shoreline when a sharp pain in his foot caused him to fall to the ground.

“I thought I’d stepped on broken glass or a switchblade,” the forty seven year-old plumber told reporters, citing that such waste is common in the area.

In his scramble to get back on his feet, Minacozzi found a dirty syringe filled with “thick yellow ooze” in the sand.  Shocked, he walked the syringe back to his beach towel a few yards away where his wife, Renee, noticed that her husband’s skin rash, which had covered virtually every inch of his body, was completely gone.

“I didn’t even recognize him,” she said.  “He looked like a new man.  Like someone who didn’t make me want to rip my own eyes out every time I saw his unclothed body.”

Four people on Staten Island and two at Rockaway Beach have also been pricked this summer, but none have experienced the same miraculous healing as Minacozzi.

“I’ve wasted thousands of dollars at the dermatologist over the years,” Minacozzi told reporters as he stared into a hand-held mirror.  “Who knew I only needed to get pricked with a dirty needle on a New York beach to cure a lifetime of excruciating eczema?  Am I the luckiest guy in New York or what?”

The Parks Department reports that it cleans beaches daily but that budget constraints allow for only so much sand maintenance.  “We figured that most people would just stay in the water anyway,” said Site Manager Jerry Salingas.

No plans are being made to increase beach cleanings; however, Minacozzi vows to patrol the NYC beach on his own time in search of other needles, hoping that they may somehow cure his high blood pressure, chronic hiccups and man boobs.

After several tests conducted by the EPA the chemical contents of the syringe remain unknown.

Manhattan’s Missing Its Stars

Sometimes the best way to see a place is to go outside of it and then look in. I’d say that principle has a much broader reach in our lives.  But, for now, let’s just go to Hoboken, NJ and take a look at Manhattan.

For New Yorkers, this is our mountain range.  These are our peaks.  We spend our days in the canyons, in the caves, exploring every interesting nook and every new artifact.  But, when you look upon the mountain range from afar you realize all you have, as well as all you’ve given up.

I always thought “light pollution” was a ridiculous term until I moved here. How much do we gain by living in a city where you can buy virtually anything anytime of night and day? And how much do we lose by not seeing the star-lit sky?  By not being able to tag along with Orion on his great hunt across the cosmos.  To read the fascinating stories of Perseus and Cassiopeia and so many others without being able to see the stars that inspired them?  Our connection to the Greek classics is reduced to two-dollar gyros on street carts.

It’s up to you to answer how much you lose or gain by living in Manhattan.  So we don’t have the stars.  But have you seen how beautiful all the lights reflecting off the water can be?  Have you seen the twinkling angels at Rockefeller Center during Christmas?  Maybe your inspiration comes from these man-made stars too. And trips from inside the mountain out can provide the balance to appreciate both.  What an adventurous journey that would be.

(By the way this shot was taken with a self timer, so that’s me on the railing.  Hi.)

NYC Named Least Manliest City by Combos (Combos named least manliest snack food by NYC.)

As of today, I am proclaiming a boycott of the salty snack Combos due to it’s naming of New York City in last place on a list of the manliest cities in the country. For those of you scoring at home, this is now my fifth boycott, added to Abercrombie & Fitch, Dunkin’ Donuts, Eden Farm Grocery on 20th and 3rd, and the ten dollar bill (Alexander Hamilton was a dueling madman).

Combos’ new website is called The Combos Man Zone: Home of the Combivore (are you kidding me?). It features tools for becoming a Combivore and a sweepstakes called “The Ultimate Mancation.”  And here I thought the cheese was only inside the snack.

The criteria for determining manliness is an interesting one: “using criteria such as number of professional major league sports teams, popularity of tools and hardware and frequency of monster truck rallies. Cities also lose ranking points for emasculating characteristics like the abundance of home furnishing stores, high minivan sales and subscription rates to beauty magazines.”

I’m going to throw out a wild guess here and say that the beauty magazine subscriptions are probably going to, oh, I don’t know, women. It’s just a guess though, I’m not the manliness expert.

Who came out on top of this rock-solid search for manliness? Nashville, Tennessee. Yes, Nashville, music city, home to uber-manly guys like these:

Rascal Flatts. They mow their own lawns.

Commonly perceived manly cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh didn’t even crack the top 25. And is Orlando, Florida really ranked 14th? Really guys? Were you counting all the tourists that come from Philly and Pittsburgh to see Disney World and then get the heck out of there?

Oklahoma City came in third thanks to it’s country-topping purchasers of salty snacks (like Combos). In an unrelated contest, Oklahoma City was recently named the Best City to Have Heart Failure In.

What really gets me, and I know will steam all New Yorkers, is that Los Angeles actually finished ahead of us on the manly meter. Los Angeles.

For New York itself, we might not have the abundance of Home Depots and no, there is no NASCAR track nearby, but you go to Harlem and tell a few guys that they live in the least manly city in the country. Tell the thousands of men not doing simple home repair, but working their asses off in the toxic subways and up on skyscrapers, doing things men in other cities wouldn’t dare dream, and see what you come back with. Tell the tens of thousands of men who may not have the “manliest” of jobs, but have to endure all hardships that this city throws at them.

Every summer I see tourists from the so-called “manly cities” losing their shit in 110-degree subway heat, their wives yelling at them because they can’t figure out how to get to F.A.O Schwartz.  Every Christmas they get run over by cars, yelled at by cabbies, bums and psychotic over-caffeinated Wall Street types.  Get up close to one and you can literally see the fear in their eyes.

So, my former friends at Combos, nice try.  But I think New York deserves it’s own place in your rankings of Manly Cities. It’s a different beast. One that eats spit-fired lamb (the guy said it was lamb) from a street cart, pastrami sandwiches the size of your arm, and a half a pepperoni pizza at 4 in the morning. And that’s just our women!

You can keep your pretzels Combos. We know what we have here, even if no one else understands.

Read the full Combos article here.

An Open Letter to Manhattan’s West Side Wind

Dear West Side Wind,

 

We’ve got to do something about your recent behavior.  What happened, man?  You were so nice this summer, blowing gently on warm days, taking the edge off when the temperature rose past comfortable. Remember September and October?  You were perfect. You made Midtown jealous and east village hipsters feel even more like the man was out to get them. We were tight, you and me.

 

But lately you’ve been out of control. There’s no other way to put it. Your blinding gusts are freezing faces and making the tiny West Village micro-breed dogs shiver their hypoallergenic fur off. It’s some harsh behavior, man. Especially when it’s this cold out already!

 

If this is a recognition thing, I know you think no one sees you, but we do. Every morning, as soon as I cross over Broadway I start to see the flags flapping a little harder. I see the gutter trash shifting. I see the cups rocking back and forth. I know you’re working.

 

There must be some sort of happy medium we can agree upon.  Because if you keep gusting so harshly on the west side someone eventually will put up a wall or more buildings or something to keep you from turning us into grimacing icecubes. Then where we all be? Remember, my friend, slow and steady wins the race.

 

Lastly, and then I’m done, do you remember last week on Christopher Street when you knocked that guy’s hat off his head? And I went to reach for it only to lose my balance and nearly fall on my face? Not cool, man. I looked like an idiot.

Comic Con and the Travel Show do Battle in NYC

Travel Show Takes One Visitor to Another Planet

By Marc Cappelletti

 

If you didn’t see the sign across the giant vestibule you’d think that the New York Times Travel Show had included some very far off destinations this year – far off like Krypton or Bronson Beta.  That’s because also sharing the Javits Center’s sea of square footage was Comic Con, the annual convention for all things comic book, gaming and nerdy.

The feeling upon entering was not unlike the famous scene in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker (me) and Hans Solo (oddly enough, my girlfriend, to fit the analogy) walk into the Mos Eisley Cantina located in a far off galaxy (34^th and 11^th) to find a room of aliens staring at them. In that world, the humans were the grotesque ones. And at the Javits Center on Saturday, the Travel Show people were alien.

            As a member of the earthly, not interstellar, travel industry, I took to the floor of the Travel Show to attend a few seminars, learn whatever I could about changes in the industry, and listen to how businesses were coping with the current – spoiler alert – economic downturn.  The room was an iStock photographer’s dream.  Industry men and women with quaffed hairdos buttoned up their crisp suit jackets, shook hands firmly and smiled incessantly.  They recalled previous conferences, discussions they’d had and promises they’d made to meet up at the hotel bar after the day was over.  They ran off cabin numbers, discounts and book-by dates like ticker-tape machines.  Meanwhile, those from the island nations danced and passed out shots of orange rum. 

The general public, those who paid to get in, were of a different species altogether.  With pale faces, like they hadn’t been out of the house in years, let alone the country, they roamed the floor with dead eyes, mindlessly swarming booth after booth. They signed up for whatever free giveaway was available and then moved on to devour free samples at the Asian culinary demonstration.  Free tickets to Tahiti here. A spa package for two over there.  The room provided endless hope for a people who seemed as if that was all they had. 

            If it is the job of the Travel Show to make one want to travel then I must offer my congratulations, because after three times around the room and a fourth time being walked into by persons who never apologized, I wanted to get the hell out of there and see the world.  Even repeatedly pronouncing foreign words like “Hurtigruten” a la Swedish Chef had lost its luster.  I left the incandescent lighting of the Travel Show in search of real entertainment.  I needed a fresh perspective on things.  And I knew just where to find it.

Comic Con.

             In the main vestibule, the Joker was sharing a slice of pepperoni pizza with Laura Croft, Tomb Raider while an overweight Asian girl in a Hello Kitty outfit stood for pictures with a fully-armed storm trooper.  In between Hello (Big) Kitty and the storm trooper was a twig of a teenager with oily skin, a packet of trading cards and a t-shirt that read, “iFanboy.”  As I soon found out, iFanboy is an entrepreneurial and overwhelmingly popular website created by a few comic book fans devoted to the discussion of everything comic book. The site has become so popular that its users identify themselves just as much with the site as they do the comic books they discuss.  Hence, the t-shirts.  Name me a travel site that’s accomplished that kind of brand awareness and I’ll sign you up for a chance at a vacation getaway.

             I quickly encountered characters from every conceivable planet and time period.  The Shadow, fairies, maidens, guys who dressed in plain clothes but just so happened to grab a four-foot gold plated Viking sword on their way out the door – everyone was there.  Even though I told my girlfriend that they were “ridiculous,” I occasionally watched as girls dressed like some secret sect of hooker hobbits from Lord of the Rings posed for a drooling photographer with a goatee and stonewashed jeans.  “I’ll make you a star! I swear!” he could have said.

            But what does one really do at Comic Con?

            For starters, it’s a collector’s heaven.  Even actors from sci-fi shows come to sign autographs and hopefully get a bump in royalties with a few extra DVD sales.  The only autograph signing going on at the Travel Show was from Rick Steves and Samantha Brown.  Great, now all I need is my Arthur Frommer and my collection will be complete!

            Comic Con has also become the arena to test out new games in the market place and hunt for limited editions being sold or simply displayed in collections – a sort of “my collection’s bigger than yours” situation.  Most of all, though, Comic Con is the place where like-minded people come together to share their love of comics, of stories, characters, and anything fantastical.  It’s a showcase of some unbelievably talented and creative people who have pushed their passions to the maximum.  Many have carved out a decent living for themselves.  Most simply find that it feels good to be with people who understand their interests.  That’s how it is at industry conventions.  You use up gallons of energy to become an expert in something and as soon as you meet another who has done the same it’s almost impossible to hold back.  You have to share your experiences.  You have to tell them of the road you’ve been down in the hopes that they’ve traveled the same path.  You long for vilification that your quest was not made in vain.

            The overarching theme this weekend was that if you follow your passion, you’ll go places.  That’s it.  And whether you end up on Aruba or Zeldon IV, you’ll be a member of something bigger than yourself.  You’ll find purpose.  And who knows, you could find yourself relaxing on a beach somewhere reading the tales of Green Lantern next to your girlfriend whose bikini also doubles as her Princess Laya slave girl costume.  You never know.  People have concocted far more outlandish stories only to be believed by millions.

Springsteen Goes to 82nd Street (2.2.09)

Walking to work this morning I got a nice surprise from my iPod random playlist. I was crossing fifth avenue when a classic Springsteen song came on. Granted, with my limited playlist the chances of hearing a Springsteen song is about as good as hearing a taxi honk its horn. The Boss is always welcomed. Taxis, shut up. (Did you see him at Halftime last night? It was one of the best halftime shows I’ve seen in a long, long time.)

The song that played for me was Does this Bus Stop at 82nd Street?, an oldie but goody. If you live in NYC, you have to check out the lyrics. It’s a snapshot of things seen on a typical bus ride, and how vivid and concise Springsteen’s imagery can be. Let me know what you think.

Does this Bus Stop at 82nd Street?

Hey bus driver keep the change, bless your children, give them names,
don’t trust men who walk with canes
drink this and you’ll grow wings on your feet
Broadway Mary, Joan Fontaine, advertiser on a downtown train
Christmas crier bustin’ cane, he’s in love again.

Where dock worker’s dreams mix with panther’s schemes to someday own the rodeo
Tainted women in Vistavision perform for out-of-state kids at the late show.

Wizard imps and sweat sock pimps, interstellar mongrel nymphs
Rex said that lady left him limp. Love’s like that (sure it is).
Queen of diamonds, ace of spades, newly discovered lovers of the everglades
They take out a full page ad in the trades to announce their arrival
And Mary Lou she found out how to cope, she rides to heaven on a gyroscope
The Daily News asks her for the dope
She says “Man, the dope’s that there’s still hope”.

Senorita, Spanish rose, wipes her eyes and blows her nose
Uptown in Harlem she throw a rose to some lucky, young matador.

John Grisham and Charlie Rose at B&N on 14th (1.27.09)

I am always surprised by what I find in New York. Whether it is something odd, like a cross-dressing man with a full beard hiking up his dress to urinate on a subway stairwell (true story), or walking in the Barnes and Noble to take some notes out of a Literary Agents book and finding Charlie Rose interviewing John Grisham.

You don’t get these surprises anywhere else. And the good or the bad, there’s value in each of them. Do you know what else has value? Anything written by John Grisham. The guy has sold 240 million books! Most writers would be happy with a 245 dollar paycheck. This guy has sold 400-page books 245 million times. Before this turns into an algebra equation I’ll just say it, that equals a shit load of money.

It was very interesting to hear Grisham acknowledge the critics who say that he doesn’t write characters very well. Paraphrasing, he said, “That’s not what I do. I write suspense. I write books in the hope that you’ll pick it up, read it all day and all night and then call into work sick the next day just to stay home and keep reading…if you want to read 15 pages about a character I’m not the guy.” 

If it’s a theme I’ve found in successful people across the spectrum, they don’t cater to critics. They don’t change what they know they do well. For Grisham, it’s his Ginsu-sharp sense of story. He distills down each of his books into a two sentence hook to share with his wife. If she says it’s a story he sticks with it.  For The Firm – A young, up and coming lawyer gets his dream job at a big firm only to find out that it’s run by the mafia. Now that’s a hell of a hook.

His story of how A Time to Kill came about was just as gripping. Terrible rape case in his town and he knew the family. He is in court on their side when the judge throws everyone out of the room to talk with the plaintiff, defendent, and their lawyers. Grisham said it was like nothing he had every seen before or has seen since, so he knew there was something to it but wasn’t a writer at that point. When they were done, he went out to his car but left a notebook behind. He went back into the courtroom and found that the defendent, the rapist, was still sitting there, handcuffed to the chair. No one else was in the room. When he walked past the guy there eyes met, and, in that moment, he knew that if he were the girl’s father there was no way in hell he couldn’t have killed the guy right there. That moment stuck with him and eventually turned into the “fiction” book we have today.

Grisham and Rose (sorry it's blurry)

http://www.jgrisham.com/ - Check it out along with his new book, The Associate. 

Change Your Mind (1.21.09)

This is actually my second post of the day. The first came in the early hours of the morning when the horrendous sounds of jackhammering were beating their way into my apartment. It was one in the morning, and then two in the morning and I was still awake. I wrote this post then went to outside to see who was doing the work and go to Lyric Diner to maybe clear my head.

It was the Department of Environmental Protection and they were working like crazy. How could I be mad at people that are working at all hours to protect our environment?  I walked two blocks to Lyric Diner and got a cup of decaf. I spoke with the head waiter, exchanging pleasantries and then sharing my story of the drilling taking place just a block and a half away.

“I work at night, so I have to deal with that everyday,” the man said. It turns out he’s worked the night shift at Lyric for the past four years and sleeps everyday with a pair of earplugs to deaden the sounds of your typical New York City day.

“Somedays it works,” he says, “Some days it doesn’t.”

I was thinking about this on my walk this morning. And when I passed a newsbox on 23rd and 6th to see President Obama on the cover it struck me that the change that will help America most in these times is in our thoughts, in our intentions.

Our forefathers didn’t sacrifice everything, accept the label of traitors, and build a country through the physical. It was the mental shift in thought that took them the distance.

I had to put up with one night of lost sleep. That’s nothing compared to 4 years. Maybe the last 8 years will be nothing compared to the next hundred. It’s all in how you look at it.

President Obama and Michelle

Early Morning (1.21.09)

It’s 12:44 in the morning as I write this. My commute to work is eight hours away. Why am I writing? Because someone it jackhammering on my block. Yes, jackhammering. The sound has been reverberating through my apartment for the last half hour. It woke me up and it will keep me awake, whether the noise continues or not, here I am, frustrated and far from sleep. If you don’t live in New York or if you grew up outside of the city can you imagine having to put up with jackhammering at what is now almost one in the morning?  Were people engaged in honking standoffs at three or four?

We cling to so much in our lives. Some of it is for a sense of security — a safety net to protect us from a perceived pain. This can feel good in the short term, but may be hindering our development as opposed to meeting that pain head on, assessing it, and teaching ourselves to move on.  Other times we cling to the stresses themselves, holding them and letting them fester in our minds even after they’re gone, as I’m sure to do with this godforsaken rattling of metal on concrete.

I don’t want to be thinking of this when I walk to work a few hours from now. I don’t want to wake up with a feeling of wanting to hurt the first construction worker I see. I know that there must be some reason for them doing this particular job now instead of sometime between 9 and 5. I want to walk with a free mind, maybe take the time to reflect more on this transitional and unprecedented time in our nation’s history. Now that’s something to wrap your mind around and cling to. As for the noise, it actually stopped a few minutes ago and by writing this I think I’m ready to move on.

Oh my God, it just started up again. I can’t believe it. It’s after one in the morning.  What a city. I can’t even say.

Plane Crash Floating By (1.16.09)

I couldn’t think of anything else walking to work today other than the US. Airways plane crash on the Hudson that happened yesterday. My office is on the Hudson. We knew something big had happened when we saw a mess of ferries and helicopters headed up river.

Then CNN.com reported of a plane crash and our hearts sank. We went to the roof to see what we could, but I think secretly we were trying to prepare ourselves for the news–what everyone expected to be tragic. If the crash didn’t do it, it was so bitterly cold along the river we knew only a few minutes in the water would be all a heart could take.

Slowly but surely the plane and all the boats floated right in front of our office. By this time, miraculously, all of the passengers had been brought to safety.

US Airways Crash Rescue Effort

US Airways Rescue

US Airways tail of crash

We were so thankful for the rescue effort, for the competence of the pilot, and for the safety of the passengers. If the plane had gone down just a few miles up river (less than a minute when flying), where it has iced over, the outcome would have been dramatically different. I can’t find any word better to describe it than a miracle.

Hoboken Burgers? (1.15.09)

On snowy days like this one, where the chill turns your fingers numb in mere minutes, or when I’m running late, I hop on the Path train at 23rd Street and head towards New Jersey. I get off at Christopher Street, the last stop in Manhattan, yet I feel a strong connection with “the dirty Jers.” Maybe it’s the proximity - just 6 minutes to Hoboken. Or maybe it’s the gum that I stepped in a while back, chewed possibly by a Harrison teen on her way to the Rockband Live concert at the Prudential Center.

This morning, however, I saw a poster that made me question the Path and New Jersey in general.

Path Sign

“And you haven’t had a beer and a burger until you’ve had one in Hoboken,” it reads.

Really, guys? Is that the case?  What is it about Hoboken that makes the beer taste better?  Where is one going to have these life-changing burgers?

Help me out here people of New Jersey.

A Note from the Dead (1.14.09)

There is a sign outside of St. Luke’s Chapel on Hudson Street in the West Village that I find fascinating. St. Lukes is New York City’s third oldest church (St. Paul’s and St. Mark’s in the Bowery are the oldest). The sign is very un-churchy and yet it transmits values and emotions in a very powerful way. The letters have faded.  Age has tarnished what was once clean. But if you the take the time to read it (uncover it more like it), the feeling is timeless, like the old citizens of New York are speaking to you.

 

St. Luke's Chapel

Here’s what it says: The Old Village Church of Greenwich Village, Built 1822.

Friends, this village church
Open stands for thee.
Thou mayest enter, think
Kneel and pray.
Remember whence thou art
And what must be.
Thine end. Remember us.
Then go thy way.

Ooh, I just caught a chill.

The Road to Victory (1.12.09)

I think my hands froze off somewhere around West 11th. My face lost the ability to move near the Mud Truck at Christopher Street. And by the time I sat down at my desk I found that even my ass was completely numb. In case you can’t tell, it’s freezing this morning in New York. Still, my half hour walk to work was a beautiful one. With every wind that blew I would simply think back to the two huge events that took place yesterday and it didn’t seem so cold.

First, the Eagles beat the Giants in a stressful, back and forth, smashmouth game. Seriously, after such a long season that was seemingly in the trash a few weeks ago, to see them persevere and make it to the NFC Championship game is a gift. Never mind the serious flack I got from Bed, Bath & Beyond employees when they noticed my Eagles hat and jersey, it’s a good time to be a Philly sports fan.

Second…Springsteen took home the Golden Globe! That’s right! Bruce Springsteen won the best original song for a movie (The Wrestler), which I saw last week. It’s an excellent movie that shows that sometimes, sadly, the self in self worth can screw things up for everyone. A must see, but be prepared to reflect on the characters and maybe not be so happy for the rest of the night.

See, I wrote this whole piece without thinking about my walk. Sometimes that happens.

Rain (1.7.09)

A few short weeks ago I wrote about how I prefer walking through New York City streets to sitting in my car, stuck in traffic, and never really engaging in my surroundings. Well, F it. The idealist view is so great until something goes wrong. And something always goes wrong. This is what the morning looked like:

Drains Overflowing

As I type this my pants are clinging to my calves, the material soaked through and through. Oh how nice would it be to have hopped in a car and driven to work, listening to the mellow tap of the rain against the wnidshield. But, to use an expression I absolutely hate, my commute is what it is. Next time it rains I’ll be prepared with a real umbrella:

Umbrella

New Year’s Eve (12.31.08)

I’m feeling the need to reflect, as everyone else is, on the passing of 2008.

Everyday, I see this at the outset of my morning commute through New York City:

22nd Street, NYC

It’s pretty much the one thing I’m certain to see. That, and my destination. The path I take is only as certain as each block is long. Then I come to another block and another decision of how to proceed.

Some days I’ll take a more direct route and get to work more speedily. But when I arrive maybe the person I needed to talk to isn’t there yet. Most days, 5 or 10 minutes (a new block or two to explore) doesn’t make any difference with my work schedule. I can make a few turns one wouldn’t normally make and see new things and get to work either on time or a few minutes later. For the consistency of the still sleepy office before 9:15, maybe it’s worth it for me to follow these diversions. Maybe I’ll learn something.

That’s the way I look at 2009. We know where we stand, and we know where we want to go. Our personal destination, while it comes in infinite packages, can be generalized as being content and feeling purpose in life. So why not take some turns you might not normally take along the way? You never know what might pop up. Now, if the route you’ve found provides you with all you need then more power to you. Avoid distraction.

But for most of us, this year is as good as any to take some new turns. Seek out another route while keeping your destination in focus. It could lead to a better way. Or even a new destination. Who knows?

Happy New Year!