Beautiful. . .

What a day! Up at 7:00 on a Sunday morning and off to Central Park one last time in 2007. Parking was a bitch and ended up parking 2nd avenue and then hiking over to the Park! Stopped in at the New York Road Runners Club (NYRR) to register and pick up my number and chip for the race. And finally at 9:30 or started the final race of the 2007, at least for me.

If I can trust the records of the NYRR, that is my ninth race for 2007 and that qualifies me for automatic entrance into the 2008 marathon. I wanted to get in this year but the loterry was once again not kind to me. So in 2008, I am guaranteed admittance provided I register on time, which I should be able to do.

So it is nice knowing that is done. Mission accomplished. On top of that it was simply a nice run. Nothing too demanding-a quiet jog thru Central Park with several thousand others! I wrapped it up in a little over an hour doing like 10 minute miles.

The icing on the cake was the folks they had watching the course and making sure us runners stay too the left and all. Usually it cranky old men and women-veterans of the racing community, a few volunteers. Basically all I recall of them generally is their instructions to stay left and share the raodway with the cyclers and skaters (to which many just kind of say f-you as there are several thousand of us on the roadway at the moment.)

Today, however, the folks keeping us too the eft were cute asian women-Indian, Chinese, just cute young ladies. I imagine it must have been a high school or college club. I do not know who brought them in but would like to thank he, she or them! In general the crowd is in shape, but it was just nice seeing these young ladies, smiling, attractive, every half mile or so encouraging us and at times reminding us to yes. . .stay to the left.

As the raced proceeded, and I began to notice the trend in our handlers, and just my general mood of satisfaction, I started humming the Banana Fish Zero song Beautiful. "They are all so beautiful, Beautiful to me." (Forgive me if the words are not perfect!)

Oh well it was just one of those moments were everything clicked, my race, the success of having nine races under my shoes and just taking in the whole scene. It is just so cool to witness several thousand people descend upon the park and take over the roadway, or at least the left side of it. And then this morning those lovely ladies just keeping all of us in line on our side of the road.

Bob Schaffer
December 11, 2007

Subscribe to The Wild West Blog by Email

Something completely different. . . again

Awhile back I quoted two folks regarding the music scene. There was Chris Rock's take on the current music scene and a recollection on the southern rock scene back in the seventies. Well, I am going to take a step further even and offer a bit of politics and economics here. I know, I am suppose to focus on rock and alternative, and NYC but hey, once in awhile we can go a little crazy-right?

Anyway, I did not write this, just read it and found it pretty amusing, and as Eminem said and I quite agree, much to my son's annoyance, alot of truth is said in jest. The article is from the NY Times and one of my favorite writers, Tom Freidman, who writes on globalization, economics, technology once in awhile, and foreign policy. Amazing how today they all fit together so nicely!

Enough said. . .

Intercepting Iran’s Take on America (From the Wednesday, December 5th 2007, New York Times)

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: December 5, 2007

There are two intelligence analyses that are relevant to the balance of power between the U.S. and Iran — one is the latest U.S. assessment of Iran, which certainly gave a much more complex view of what is happening there. The other is the Iranian National Intelligence Estimate of America, which — my guess — would read something like this:
Skip to next paragraph
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Thomas L. Friedman
Go to Columnist Page »

To: President Ahmadinejad

From: The Iranian Ministry of Intelligence

Subject: America

As you’ll recall, in the wake of 9/11, we were extremely concerned that the U.S. would develop a covert program to end its addiction to oil, which would be the greatest threat to Iranian national security. In fact, after Bush’s 2006 State of the Union, in which he decried America’s oil addiction, we had “high confidence” that a comprehensive U.S. clean energy policy would emerge. We were wrong.

Our fears that the U.S. was engaged in a covert “Manhattan Project” to achieve energy independence have been “assuaged.” America’s Manhattan Project turns out to be largely confined to the production of corn ethanol in Iowa, which, our analysts have confirmed from cellphone intercepts between lobbyists and Congressmen, is nothing more than a multibillion-dollar payoff to big Iowa farmers and agro-businesses.

True, thanks to Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. Congress decided to increase the miles per gallon required of U.S. car fleets by the year 2020 — which took us by surprise — but we nevertheless “strongly believe” this will not lead to any definitive breaking of America’s oil addiction, since none of the leading presidential candidates has offered an energy policy that would include a tax on oil or carbon that could trigger a truly transformational shift in America away from fossil fuels.

Therefore, it is “very likely” that Iran’s current level of high oil revenues will last for decades and insulate our regime from any decisive pressures from abroad or from our own people.

We have to note that obtaining open-source intelligence in America has become more difficult, because traditional news shows have become more comedic and more comedic news shows more authoritative.

For instance, CNN’s nightly business report is hosted by a man named “Dobbs.” Real journalists come on his show and present transparently propagandistic stories about immigration and trade and then he fulminates about them, much the way our ayatollahs used to do about “Satanic Americans” on late-night Iranian TV. So viewers have no real idea what’s happening in the U.S. economy.

Meanwhile, at 11 p.m., something called “The Daily Show,” which appears on Comedy Central, has fake journalists presenting what turns out to be the real news.

Yes, our last I.N.I.E. in 1990 concluded that after the collapse of communism, America was on track to become the world’s sole superpower and most compelling role model for Muslim youth — including our own. We were wrong. We now have “high confidence” that America is on a path of self-destruction, for three reasons:

First, 9/11 has made America afraid and therefore stupid. The “war on terrorism” is now so deeply imbedded in America’s psyche that we think it is “highly likely” that America will continue to export more fear than hope and will continue to defend things like torture and Guantánamo Bay prison and to favor politicians like Mr. Giuliani, who alienates the rest of the world.

Second, at a time when America’s bridges, roads, airports and Internet bandwidth have fallen behind other industrial powers, including China, we believe that the U.S. opposition to higher taxes — and the fact that the primary campaigns have focused largely on gay marriage, flag-burning and whether the Christian Bible is the literal truth — means it is “highly unlikely” that America will arrest its decline.

Third, all the U.S. presidential candidates are distancing themselves from the core values that made America such a great power and so different from us — in particular America’s long commitment to free trade, open immigration and a reverence for scientific enquiry wherever it leads. Our intel analysts are baffled that the leading Democrat, Mrs. Clinton, no longer believes in globalization and the leading Republican, Mr. Huckabee, never believed in evolution.

U.S. politicians seem determined to appeal either to the most nativist extremes in their respective parties — or to tell voters that something Americans call “the tooth fairy” will make their energy, budget, educational and Social Security deficits painlessly disappear.

Therefore, we conclude with “high confidence” that there is little likelihood that post-9/11 America will, as they say, “get its groove back” anytime soon.

Who needs nukes when you have this kind of America?

God is Great. Long Live the Iranian Revolution.

Subscribe to The Wild West Blog by Email

Disaster

All flyers must be removed from public property and poles immediately. This is a ticket offence. If you have any questions, please call 377-6895 - MaryAnn Halevy-Yonkers Code Enforcement Office

Posters or no Posters - the November 30th Show at the Haunt aka the Westchester Sports Bar was a disaster. Whatever was or was not done to prepare for last Friday's show, it can't happen again! In short, we had four great bands and no one there. We had four bands kicking ass in a huge empty venue. So much for music promotion!

The two handfuls of people who were there, including the owner, Tarik behind the sound board, and myself all agreed the bands rocked and were on the money, but who cares. No one knew they were there. Maybe a few folks knew of the show, but decided to go to the hardcore show up at Barney's. In general though, no one even knew these bands were there.

How does one get the word out? you can't poster. Put an ad in the paper? hmmm. . advertaise on the local radio station, And how does one convince folks might just want to check out bands they don't know? They might justbe pleasantly surprised regarding the bands the Wild West and Feast of Noise bring in-Really!

Well, I do not know what the answer is regarding how to convince people to trust us to finding some of the best bands and putting them together. The last few days though I have thought to myself more than a few times that I should just move on. I am a 44 year old dude with a good job, a family, a house needing attention, planning to do the NY marathon in 08, and the list continues. Who needs this music promoting shit.

Well I might ponder such questions, but as I do, I am making calls to UFO's management, emailing LA Guns' management and finally being introduced to the management of AntiProduct (An amazing band from the UK!). I might ponder packing it in, but it is not going to happen. So i can't stop. I might ponder stopping, but it is not going to happen. Instead I am calling James at Barney's to see if I can get a date there and exploring a new venue-Mister D's, again on Yonkers Avenue.

I guess in the end last Friday just tells me that posters do not do a whole lot. More important is we just need to keep selling, keep promoting, offering free downloads, handing out flyers, sending emails, writing articles and blogs, buying ad space and anything and everything else to get the word out. That is all we can do.

We ain't going no where, and hey, I do hope that MaryAnn Halevy of Yonkers Code Enforcement Office will come on down next time. Bring the whole office staff. They can hand out tickets to all!

Bob Schaffer
December 4th, 2007

Subscribe to The Wild West Blog by Email