How Much Can I NOT Save? An Example OF Stupid Advertising
The fact that Shop Rite Supermarket was selling fresh lemons last year at 4 for $1.99 was not surprising. Continue reading
Dumb Advertisement Sign Of The Day
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Category Archives: Commentary
Crazy Baseball All-Star Game Ticket Prices
$2.40 For An All-Star Game Box Seat?
$2.40 for a box seat is not the crazy price we are talking about. Those days are long gone.
The scene above is Fenway Park where the 1946 All-Star Game was played. As fans lined up for tickets the night before the game at the box office (what a novel idea), they had the choice of purchasing box seats for $2.40 or reserved seats for $1.80.
Please direct your attention to the kids, wearing suits no less, neatly lined up waiting for tickets. Yes, even kids could save up $1.80 by delivering newspapers, mowing lawns or doing chores in 1946.
The crazy prices we are talking about are for the current baseball All-Star game.
According to a May 9 Forbes Magazine story, the 2014 baseball All Star Game in Minneapolis is the second most expensive ticket in All-Star game history. The article points out that according to a ticket broker who owns hundreds of MLB All-Star tickets the average ticket price for the 2014 All-Star Game is significantly higher than the previous four All-Star games, with a current average ticket price of $1,096. Continue reading
Did Two Sections In A Book Store Ever Go Along Better?
As Seen In Housing Works Bookstore Cafe on Crosby Street
Whoever sets up the sections at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe on Crosby Street deserves a pat on the back for coming up with the shelving combination of Politics with True Crime.
The Top 10 Rude & Annoying Things People Do In New York City
Distracting Devices, Double Parked Trucks And Too Much Perfume
There are hundreds of things that are daily annoyances in New York. But to live in New York you have to be impervious to many of them. Bad behavior is avoidable, but many New Yorker’s think they are above everyone else and the rules of civility or the law do not apply to them.
Obviously the sort of behaviors described below are not confined to New York City, but seem to flourish here. Here are my top 10 stupid/rude/self-centered actions that get my blood pressure rising.
Tell me you haven’t seen this on the streets of New York?
1 – People Who Walk Around With Those Giant Golf Umbrellas (a.k.a the inconsiderate bastard umbrella)
Okay its raining, you don’t have to cover an area the size of Missouri with your ginormous umbrella which is more appropriate for the beach rather than city streets.
They are called golf umbrellas and unless you are playing a round at Augusta, they are too big for the city. EVERY time you pass a person with one of these monstrosities they always bump into your umbrella or nearly take out an eye. The people carrying them are unapologetic dunderheads.
2 – Women Who Douse Themselves In Perfume
Perfume is worse than farting
Let’s get one thing straight: 99 out of 100 people do not need perfume.
This is not 1789 Louis XVI France where people never bathe or modern France where they bathe twice per year.
Of course some women aspire to smell like strippers, but unless you are going for the pole-dancer scent you don’t need perfume or cologne to make you smell decent. Regular showering and soap use is quite enough.
If you are putting on more than the tiniest amount of perfume we can smell you and let me tell you – you STINK! No one else is going to tell you, so I will. You could kill an army with the amount of perfume you’re wearing and you don’t even realize it.
In a subway, bus, elevator, restaurant or other enclosed place you, Ms. Valentine Valentina Assoluto wearer, are more offensive than the stinkiest gas emission from your arse.
So let me reiterate- perfume is not sexy and no one likes your god-awful perfume except you. So stop wearing so much of it. By the way, this goes for men too.
3 – Those Who Text While Crossing the Street
New York City recently started a campaign where they have painted the word “L O O K” in big bold white letters on the ground at major intersections. Continue reading
Scorecard. Who Needs A Scorecard?
The Death Of The Scorecard At The Ballgame
Scorecard vendor at the Polo Grounds 1949 – photo William C. Greene
Recently I went to a baseball game at that imitation ballpark in the Bronx they call Yankee Stadium. After being gently frisked at the admission gates and going through the turnstiles, the thing that did not greet me was what you see above: a vendor selling scorecards.
You could buy a scorecard, but not for 10 cents as it was at the Polo Grounds in 1949. The archaic idea of a scorecard costs $10 at Yankee Stadium and is available at the souvenir shops spread throughout Yankee Mall Stadium. The scorecard is buried in some glossy souvenir publication which I did not purchase, nor did anyone else.
When I used to attend a lot of games in the 1970’s and 80’s buying a scorecard was a no-brainer. From anywhere from a reasonable 25 cents in the early 1970’s to two dollars in the late 80’s, filling out that scorecard and having a program was a nice memento of a game I went to. There is a certain enjoyment derived from scorekeeping and having a permanent record of a game you are attending.
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- Yankees program 1973 Murcer & Munson on cover
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- Yankees Scorecard September 6 1973 Yanks beat Brewers 8-6
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- 1973 Yankees program listing broadcasters / pitching rosters
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- 1973 Yankees program schedule with ticket prices
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- 1973 Yankees program cigarette ad and management team Steinbrenner, Paul, Houk Burke. McPhail
I just dug this program of my closet from a game I went to on Thursday evening September 6, 1973. The Yankees came back in the bottom of the eighth inning after trailing 6-5 on a three run home run from Mike Hegan to beat the Milwaukee Brewers 8-6. Bobby Murcer and Roy White also homered for the Yanks. The time of the game was 2:22.
In my childish way I merely recorded outs as fly outs, ground outs or line outs without denoting the fielders who made the play. As you can see my scorekeeping leaves a lot to be desired, but for a little kid I think I did a pretty good job. Eventually I learned to score correctly.
For 30 cents they packed a lot into 28 pages. Continue reading
Fastway – Eat Dog Eat – Album Review
Fastway – Eat Dog Eat (SPV/Steamhammer)
For those who wondered if Fast Eddie Clark and Fastway would ever put out another new album, the answer is, finally yes. It took more than twenty years, but Fastway, Clark’s post-Motörhead band, in April 2012 finally and quietly released in the U.S. Eat Dog Eat and it is a decidedly radio friendly rock album. That is if there were radio stations that still played new rock albums.
On internet streaming sites and satellite radio where hard rock seems to have retreated, I’m afraid this excellent effort was completely overlooked. In the past two years I never heard one new cut from Fastway.
In this seemingly temporary incarnation, Fastway is now a three-piece ensemble with former Little Angels front man Toby Jepson, producing the album and providing lead vocals, bass guitar and acoustic guitar. Fast Eddie plays lead guitar and Matt E.(?) is on drums. Continue reading
The Simplicity Of The First Federal Income Tax
The First Income Tax Form Of 1913 And How Much The IRS Collected
click to enlarge
It was 100 years ago that the 1040 individual tax form many Americans dread filling out was introduced.
One thing is for sure, it was a lot simpler to file taxes in 1914 than today.
Pictured above is the 1913 1040 tax form which was due March 1, 1914.
With only three short pages to complete and one page of instructions, for most people who had to file, the average time to complete their taxes would take about an hour.
Had to file is an important term here, because the first $2,500 or $3,333.33 of income in 1913 for single and married couples respectively, was exempt. After 1914 the rate was $3,000 and $4,000 respectively. Considering very few Americans made more than $1,000 per year in income, the vast majority of Americans were exempt from paying any tax.
According to the Department of Labor in 1913, the average family household income was $827. Continue reading
Graffiti As Vandalism, Not Art
Museum of The City Of New York Graffiti Exhibition Doesn’t Show What The Majority Of Graffiti Is – Unintelligible Scrawls By Vandals
I caught the newest exhibit at The Museum of the City of New York entitled “City as Canvas,” which glorifies the practitioners of graffiti and their “work” during the 1970’s and 1980’s in New York City.
For anyone who thinks that graffiti is something to be celebrated in a retrospective by an exhibition at an important cultural institution, here is some evidence to contradict that viewpoint.
Iouri Podladtchikov, Olympic half-pipe king visits the lower east side with typical graffiti defacing a grand old building. photo – Casey Kelbaugh for the New York Times
A typical display of current graffiti “art” as seen in this building covered by spray paint on the lower east side really is a better representation of the so called graffiti artist. It pains me to see old handcrafted stone buildings covered with paint. The beautiful Queensboro Bridge girders and stonework are always being cleaned and re-painted due to these miscreants who attack our public property with their spray cans, markers and etching knives.
Subway graffiti photo taken Feb 8, 1982
The onslaught of graffiti began in earnest in the subway system in the 1970’s where riding a train was a demoralizing prospect. Almost every single car was covered in dripping unintelligible paint and marker scrawls, which obliterated any blank spaces. Continue reading
Book Review – Yorkville Twins
Twins Grow Up In An Exciting, Post-WWII New York City
If there were more books like Yorkville Twins we would have a clearer picture and better understanding of what it was like for the everyday existence of ordinary people living in Manhattan in post-war New York City. Twins Joseph G. Gindele and John F. Gindele, weave funny, touching and poignant stories of growing up in Yorkville on the upper east side of Manhattan from 1944-1962 with their three siblings and immigrant parents.
Unlike many New York memoirs written by famous or infamous personages who lay their memories of privileged upbringings or Dickensian struggles in print, the Gindele’s recount the daily experiences of middle class family life in a New York that has now largely vanished. This is the New York of cobblestone paved streets where the milkman and the iceman made deliveries with horse drawn wagons. Pushcarts sold vegetables and kids played with erector and chemistry sets and took the time to cut out the backs of cereal boxes and redeem them in the mail for prizes. Continue reading
Vanishing America: An Old Fashioned Style Candy Store – Ojai, CA
Kingston’s Candy Company: A Candy Trip Down Memory Lane
If you are ever near Ojai, about 85 miles north of Los Angeles, Kingston’s Candy Co. is worth a visit, even if you don’t crave sweets.
When I first visited Ojai, California around five years ago I kept wanting to pronounce Ojai, “O.J.” as in O.J. Simpson. It is pronounced Oh Hi.
The reason for my initial visit to Ojai was Bart’s Books, a unique used book store that is mostly outdoors. Walking along East Ojai Avenue, the main street of Ojai’s small downtown area with its quaint shops and restaurants, you will eventually stumble upon Kingston’s Candy Co..
Walking into Kingston’s you will discover an unpretentious, real candy store, the kind that used to flourish in every neighborhood in every metropolitan city until the 1960’s.
The prices are about on par with supermarkets for the regular candy such as M&M’s, Kit Kat’s, Milky Way’s, and other standard fare. What makes Kingston’s unique is that it has a lot of older candy brands that were popular years ago and you thought might have vanished forever. Confections like Sugar Daddy, Whatchamacallit’s, Coconut Alice’s, Good n’ Plenty, Teaberry, Glee, Hubba Bubba and Gold Mine Chewing Gum, and dozens of other candy’s, gums and sugar based sweets line the small shop. Continue reading