Word Phrase of the Day.

YOLO -You Only Live Once.

Example: Hey man, YOLO!

FML

When deciding on careers it seems like a lot of websites have similar information. For instance:

CNBC and Huffington Post

This is part of the process I hate so much. It used to be looking disparagingly at the classifieds, kind of like this:

Civil Service... NYPD or FDNY?

Currently in the process of completing the questionaire portion of the NYPD hiring application. I took the test last year when I was 35 and recently was mailed a letter stating I have until mid-September to complete this section of the process. For a starting out a third of what I was being paid as a teacher, this section is elaborate.

In order to qualify for the FDNY the age limit is 30 at the time of the test. So I seems to have missed the cut. However, there is a backdoor promotion into the FDNY. If you can qualify and get hired as an EMT for the FDNY then you can either be promoted to become a paramedic or a uniformed FDNY firefighter. There is no age limit for the EMT, but
                                                  you still have to be hired by the FDNY. I should have taken these civil
                                                  service exams a long time ago, but then I thought I knew better.

Hello Again.

Spent the summer reading A Song of Ice and Fire Saga by George R.R. Martin and working at the beach. No it's not a real job.

Cover Art for Book 1: A Game of Thrones.

Internet pic of the Day.

Recently published in a local Queens newspaper.

Local Restaurants Join Together For A 'Taste Of Queens" 

The Queens Economic Development Corporation (QEDC) held its ninth annual "Queens: A Taste of the World," fundraising event on May 10 at Citi Field's Caesars Club. More than 40 Queens area restaurants, vendors, and QEDC Entrepreneur's Space clients were represented, each of whom competed for tasting awards. The host of the evert was WPIX Morning News Anchor Tamsen Fadal and this year's team of celebrity chefs included Marcus Samuelsson and Anita Lo chose the restaurant winners. Prior to the awards ceremony, guests were able to sample dishes from New York City's largest and most diverse borough. 

Queens Borough President Helen M. Marshall, QEDC Executive Director Seth Brornstein and George Fertitta of NYC & Company welcomed the guests before they presented the winning restaurants with a Taste of Queens Plaque. Marshall spoke about the success of this year's QEDC event in bringing together local restaurants to help further Queen's reputation for great food and a magnet destination for NYC tourism. 

"Wherever you come from in the world, Queens has a restaurant that serves your home cooking," Marshall said. Chef Marcus Samuelsson followed Marshall's comment saying, "The people of Queens are like their food, warm and diverse." 

Winners included Dazies of Sunnyside who received the Iconic Restaurant Award. 

Papazzio of Bayside won Best Appetizer, as did Pop Diner for its Plantano Relleno. 

Best Entree went to Strawberry's Sports Grill for its Chili. 

Bonne Fete won Best Dessert for its Filipino Date Cake. And Brooklyn's McClure's Pickles won Best Beverage Award (alcoholic) for its Pickled Juice infused Bloody Mary. 

Other participation restaurants were the two perennial favorites London Lennie's, which featured a raw bar, and Valentino's On The Green served Filet Mignon Carpaccio. The recently opened Astor Room dished out a delishous Short Rib Stroganoff and Youcake of the QEDC Entrepreneur Space dazzled guests with personalized photo cakes and cookies. 

Meanwhile....

In unrelated news Mr. Met issued a no comment when asked about the sorry state of a certain MLB franchise he may or may not be currently working for. Recent backpage.com postings by anonymous asking for 200 million roses for a stable of youthful "talent" on the sly has been denied by front office staff. A source deep inside the organization has issued a cryptic statement, "This team is so fucked." While a big shit eating grin has been seen on hedge fund manager David Einhorn, sources cannot corroborate if its from eating the Wilpons for lunch or just from making more in one day than you will in 10 years.

In related news, Omar Minaya is said to be still working in baseball as a bat boy for a team in the Dominican Republic, and Citi Field still remains a crime scene making only Islander fans simultaneously jealous and oddly nostalgic for the days of Mad Mike Milbury... stay tuned sports fans for exiting updates.

Beck and Burg's GIFs on Beck's From Me To You tumblr.

Click on the pictures. 

Tao in Film.

But Paul, Paul.....

The GOP scare tactics of using the budget crisis to pass policy reforms that benefit corporations seems to be hitting a wall as they become immobilized by the third rail of national political debate, entitlement programs that benefit the elderly. The video below was taken from a town hall meeting with Congressional Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, ironically as a teenager he was able to take advantage of a social security benefits after his father passed away from a heart attack to put himself though college. 

  

I'd like to ask a follow up question: Where are the jobs?

And now time for something completely different....

YES!

NO! 

Sandhogs in the 2nd Ave. Tunnel NYC.

GOP Ideology.

We have been hearing for sometime from the Milton Friedman Free Market crowd that tax cuts for the middle-class and wealthy will lead to economic prosperity, the so called Kudlow Creed. This ruse that is repeated every week day on CNBC is more about shrinking the size of government by cutting revenue, thereby limiting its power. This will, of course lead, to abuses as the power of corporations grow. The current economic downturn we are currently in is a primary example of why deregulation has been counter-productive to our economy.

The More News You Watch, The Less You Know.

Recently, I learned that I was not accepted to the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. I received a thin rejection letter in the mail about a month ago. Last week, I made an appointment with an admissions officer, and I had a pointless meeting about why my application was rejected. The admissions officer read my scores from the admission exam and then gave the admission committee's general opinion of my candidacy. According to her, I was a good candidate for the program with average to below average scores. The committee was also concerned with the duration of experience as an educator. I protested about some of my scores being low, current events in particular, and asked if there was any way of entering the program for this fall. To which she replied, "No."

She then encouraged me to apply for the 2012 year, gave me her business card, and told me that I could audit classes should I still be interested. The biggest problem of my application was the lack of publication - this blog being the sole source. I was not able to see my admission test or the scores.

"Of all the losses time is the most irrecuperable for it can never be redeemed." 

 - Johnathan Rhys Myers as King Henry VIII in Showtime's, The Tudors

Over the past 15 years two curious phenomena have developed symbiotically. The first is the proliferation of misinformation. The second is the death of consensus. The advent of the internet age was heralded as a democratization, to bastardize the term, of information, and indeed the beginning was a wild west shootout between new-old media partnerships, startups, teen-age hackers, and venture capitalists all fueled by Wall Street's funny money. But along the way the gate keepers of information began to lose control. Newspapers, issue magazines, and national televised news broadcasts began to wane in influence as their ad revenue was poached by free listings on Craigslist.org, cable news, and their content was posted on the web at cost to the publishing houses. On the opposite side of the spectrum some of the first successful news aggregators such as The Drudge Report began to exert a political tilt into the direction of the information flow. The Internet allowed anyone, such as myself, to publish whatever they wanted. And they did, and people published blogs about just about anything. As anonymity let loose any base desire or cruelty people like Mike Godwin humorously noted that as an online discussion grows in duration invariably someone will make a comparison equating someone else of being Hitler.

At the same time politics in this country has become more divisive. It has been easier to spread misinformation about just anything. From Birther's questioning President Obama's birth certificate, to the science of climate change, facts have never seemed to be be more insignificant as they are now. In fact they are only as important as they serve the interests of whoever they are subjected to. This death of consensus, playing fast and loose with the facts with no accountability, does not serve the public interest well and is only used in winning policy debates on a national level to whomever can trump the other party's message.

The reason for guilds during the medieval era was to control the labor market, much in the same way lawyers and doctors must pass years of school and rigours tests.  You wouldn't want some quack treating you for some life threatening illness so you shouldn't believe everything you read or more importantly, when it comes to television, you shouldn't believe everything you see.

In the meantime I plan on to keep on writing this blog. When I was told during the meeting how journalism was different that any other type of writing I kind of laughed.

April 15, 2011

What was your worst job ever? New post coming up about last summer and how I worked at a summer share house in Kismet L.I.

...2nd Verse

When I was a Child, I wanted to be like Jesus 

Or a dead Pharaoh I slept like in my bed

Friends, chains, one and the same 

Abandoned, Banished, Cast Away 

And hear, I Am 

You can't make me do that again 

There lies only Poverty in Self-Doubt 

The Sun never shone so bright in my head. 

A New Error

I missed the boat, was late for the train, the car I was riding in broke down on the highway. 

Peoples faces blur by, off to some other pace 

The days speed up, I slow down 

This seems to go on forever, a new hope, a misdirection 

Built to the Sun, tore down in the night. 

And still new faces blur by on my own time.

$10 Haircut.

Finding a reliable barber is difficult, and its one of the three important service professionals (Doctor and Dentist being the other two) that are not very easy to replace. I use to get my haircut by these two Italian guys and an Irish woman in the neighborhood (off of 30th. Ave). They charged $20. Now I go to this Chinese guy from Indonesia who charges $10 with a two dollar tip. Not bad. His name is Flex. Don't ask.

Plot Idea for a New Story.

A popular kid's practical joke goes disastrously awry. He is given a slap on the hand by the High School Dean, however a story is written up in the Student Newspaper about the incident and is posted online. His name gets black listed when he seeks a job and then when he realizes it may affect his college prospects. Faced with this fact he only has 6 months to correct his image and rehabilitate his name. To do this, he must perform good deeds in order to erase his defamed name from the Internet or not go to the College of his dreams.

Subplot #1- The HS Journalist who writes the article is a girl who hates what this kid (Johnny) has done. The victim also happens to be a in a circle of friends she runs with. However, she doesn't like him and kind of has a crush on Johnny. But for idealistic reasons won't give him a break by writing any good stories about him. Johnny finally realized that he needs to persuade her in order to make things right.

NYTimes article, "Erasing An Individuals Digital Past."

NYTimes Article, "How to Fix (0r Kill) Web Data About You."

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

...As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy....

.... A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you -- even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent -- and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear. (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm)

Need I say, Orwell is still relevant.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-march-28-2011/i-give-up---pay-anything---

Update and passing observations on The Entertainment.

Profound newsworthy events have taken up most of my attention for the past month. The story I am writing for this blog remains on the back burner while I read a book on physics to better understand these concepts. Currently,  I have a one day a week internship at NYC City Council 22. I was able to walk in this past St. Patrick Day's Parade. It was an experience. Mayor Bloomberg and Cardinal Egan where a few yards away from me at times, its surreal when you meet famous people for the first time. Bloomberg isn't a tall man.

I am not going to comment on the events in Japan, the Middle East or Wisconsin, Michigan, or Ohio. News travels so fast these days the minute you would write about the above mentioned events it's already stale. I have also recently found out that I will not be attending CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in the fall. However, I will post on this later probably. I want to mention the nature and role of entertainment in modern life. 

The author David Foster Wallace greatest achievement was writing a book called, "Infinite Jest." Its over, or close to 1,000 pages long with copious footnotes. I have tried to read this book three times and have failed at every attempt. When I first saw the book and pondered the title I thought it to be an important tome. Mike Judge's movie "Idiocracy" shares similar motifs on America's dystopic future.

The novel is a post-modern critique of modern society. However, it is set in the future, years are now sponsored by corporations (Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment), North America has become one nation, and the novels protagonists are the Incandenza family. Hal Incandenza, a tennis prodigy, who has at some point in the novel aquired some mysterious condition that makes him seem unintelligable in both speech and mind. Hal's father James Orin Incandenza Jr., who has by this time committed suicide by putting his head in the kitchen microwave, was the fonder of the tennis academy Hal attends, and a filmmaker. In the book one of James's accomplishments is a film referred to as the Samizdat or "The Entertainment" that the plot of the book revolves around. Like heroin once the film in viewed one becomes mesmerized and lifeless so the viewer's sole interest is watching the film (Wikipedia entry on Infinite Jest).  For more on the book click the link, http://io9.com/#!5049700/david-foster-wallace-rip

As we move on into the internet age I believe the amount of screen time a person has the less independent and more easily influenced they become. Be it video games, television or on the computer surfing the world wide web. The fact that the internet is always on can be a problem if you don't know how to turn it off or manage it.

If you start the this video at the 6 minute mark you can see an illustrated lecture that touches upon what I mean. That the brain becomes hardwired for stimulation that occurs only in mediated (digital) formats. The analog way of life has become obsolete. Usually when I am bored I turn on the television and scroll through the guide to locate the entertainment choices I want to select. Currently, I find myself clicking the mouse of my macbook sometimes mindlessly. I go from article to article in a somewhat engaged state looking for the next webpage that will stimulate my mind in someway. This is a pattern of behavior without purpose and one to avoid but at the same time is a great waste of time. Which brings me back to the previous point....

Juxtapositions

                                                                      


                       VS.                       

A Word On Internships

Around the end of December I took an Internship at a small New York City production company. One of my first tasks was to meet the director, who has directed a Hollywood feature film, at JFK in Queens and picked up luggage and film. They flew in from Austin from shooting some cooking show that was to broadcast on public television.

Prior to accepting this position when I interviewed with the office manager I thought I had agreed to something else. I thought I had accepted to work at their very small and extremely quiet mid-town office in return to work on post production. My goal was to learn Final Cut Pro and actually edit using this software in some capacity. I agreed to work and provide them with free labor if these were the terms of the deal. After working a third of the internship, the office manager made it clear to me that the terms were not negotiable, and the menial office office support help I likened to a Bounty paper towel job would be all I would be doing for them. Talk about a bait and switch.

This was my third choice of the internships I was considering. I took it somewhat reluctantly for reasons that are as follows:

1. The size of the office.
2. The presentation or apperience of the Office Manager. He looked frazzled, as if he had just emerged from the cellar right after a tornado strike or near miss.
3. It was unpaid.
4. I was unsure that I would be doing post-production work but I was given an assurance that this would be more than a mere possibility.

In the end I choose to pull the plug on the internship and study for the GRE's I took later in the week (I have applied to the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism since then). After working in Education and at a State Park for the past decade this experience, and another,  has been an eye opener. Always look after your own interests.

Basically, I was working at cost to myself for office experience. The tasks I were issued came from Steven haphazardly. Either while I was working on another project or while I was waiting for something to do. I have come to believe that Steven had unwittingly violated Federal Labor Laws.

In a recent NY Times article titled, "The Unpaid Intern, Legal or Not," Steven Greenhouse reports that, "many employers failed to pay even though their internships did not comply with the six federal legal criteria that must be satisfied for internships to be unpaid..."   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html  


These federal criteria are listed below: 

1. The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational instruction;  

2. The training is for the benefit of the trainees;  

3. The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation;  

4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded; 

5. The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period;   

6. The employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training. 

Example of a violation given by the DOL:

A worker who participates in a program at a retail store or restaurant and who assists customers or operates a cash register with little supervision may be an employee because the employer derives tangible benefit (i.e., productive work) from the worker’s activities).

Every three months new interns cycle into this and other production companies for various industries in New York City. What constitutes a proper internship is illustrated by the six points and example provided above. If these are not satisfied then the company is in violation of federal labor laws.


Ill chock this up to a learning experience. Always know your rights and trust your gut if you feel like you are getting a raw deal.

Recent CNNMoney.com/Fortune article on the subject, "Unpaid Jobs:The New Normal?"

A Short Story. Confirmation (Part 3)

"Lyra, when are your parents going to come over. The Confirmation starts in an hour." Planning for Franz had been complicated. Not many family members would be in attendance but some friends and colleagues from CERN were going to the ceremony at the Old Catholic Church and then dinner to celebrate. Josef k. was anxious that all would go well. He was worried about his reputation and the love of his family would somehow be at odds. Nevertheless being in Church just added to the pressure. It was religion that he minded but sitting through Mass that he found to be painful.

"Josef K. you always are so anxious, here hold my hands," Lyra said.

They had met at a friend's party. He was immediately attracted to her and had a hard time concealing those emotions. He remembered his jaw muscles flexing and pulsing, grinding his teeth. While Lyra just didn't understand why he kept polishing his glasses until someone joked about lenses were no longer important in conducing these experiments. That's when Bernie Falk stated he'd probably need four eyes to see a particle that could be in three separate places at the same time.

With a breath, a sigh, and a slight kiss, "Better now?" she said. "Oh look they are here." A spark remained in her eye as she left him to great her parents.

"Hello, hello." Her father greeted her. "Where is my grandson?  I have got some of his favorite and finest chocolates in the whole country to give to him. But don't tell him THAT yet."

"You're going to spoil him," Lyra said smiling

"What are grandparents for then huh?"

Grand-pere!" exclaimed Franz as they embraced.

"Ah, and a happy family. Sir, we don't want to be late." Josef K. stated. "Its good to see you again. We can all go in our car. It's a big American thing."

When they arrived at the Old Catholic Church, some of Josef K's colleagues were already there. They arranged themselves in the pews of the nave to begin the ceremony.

The church was packed with proud parents as they most often are for Confirmation. As Lyra welled up, Josef K. felt in his picket for a napkin and gave it to Lyra. Looking down she said, "What's the Cosmic Hour Glass Love?"

"Oh- I" Josef K. stammered, "...its something I am working on."

"Don't think I can use this then," she whispered, handing the Starbucks napkin back with his doodle.

It was at this pint the Priest began his sermon, "Matthew 17:20." He began and recited the rest from memory.

"It was because you do not have enough faith," answered Jesus. "I assure you that if you have faith as big as a mustard seed, you can say to this hill, "Go from here to there!" and it will go. You could do anything."

His words echoed through the halls. Occasionally someone coughed or cleared their throats.

"We come here to celebrated one of the Sacraments of our Church and welcome new members into religious life," the Priest continued. "But before I get into the meaning of today's sermon. I would like to welcome some of the finest minds in the world to our parish. The are delving into the secrets of the universe, may they receive the wisdom of the Lord so they may do what is right in His eyes. But I say to you," the Priest raising his voice, "some are concerned that your endeavors will bring about a new flood of time and space that will crush our world. May we offer up our blessings that you know what you are doing and that the good Lord will favor us with a deeper knowledge of his wonder. Come let us prey."

When the mass was over everyone began to take pictures of their sons and daughters. Josef K., his family and friends left and went to the restaurant to celebrate with food and drink where the sermon was mentioned but laughed off. The real discussion was about Yossarian. A man who's name they didn't even know.

A Short Story: The Boy who never knew that Rabbit was a Cat.

In Switzerland they have built one of the most elaborate technological instruments ever constructed. It is called the Large Hadron Collider. At 17 miles in diameter it extends into neighboring country of France. Its purpose is to seek knowledge of sub-sub-atomic particles by high velocity impacts of protons.

Turning the thing on caused lots of controversy. What's to say our universe wouldn't go out like it began, with a bang. And some people thought that the LHC was a real threat to our very existence. It is here that our principle, Josef K., an eminent quantum physicist, worked.

For many years he work helping to build the LHC, married and had a child named Franz. Josef K. loved his son very much and shared as much a father can with his son. One day they bought Franz a cat they named Rabbit. Anything was possible for them and Josef K. wanted Franz to know that.

While working Josef K. would always noticed a strange sound, like that of a distant highway, the rubber of many cars meeting and ripping away from the road. He would discuss this strange sound with his colleagues. However they did not listen. This is when one of the physicist he worked with gave him a book by Robert Wilson titled, The Universe Next Door. This was the beginning of an improbable idea. During the months that followed Josef K. began to formulate a new understanding of the universe.

     "What all existence took place in a giant hour glass," He dryly noted to a friend at a Starbucks in Geneva.

     "Josef, yes. It is very interesting, your elaborate notions of the world and our universe. But don't you know how my Peter is turning 8 and you all are invited to the celebration in New York," said Dr. Bernie Falk.
     "Thank you, I will have to inform my Wife if this is possible."
     "Always these possiblities with you, I want you to speak with certainty." Finishing his coffee and getting up to leave. Bernie left in saying, "It will be good to get away from CERN for a while while the project has gone offline." With that he nodded and left.

Staying for a while Josef K. asked for a piece of paper from the barista and reluctently accepted a napkin. Taking this he drew a large hour glass.

And titled it, Our Cosmic Hour glass. On the top bulb he labeled Matter, and the bottom Anti-Matter. Not even Bernie would listen to him about his notions of cosmic equilibrium. How crazy would he be if that Texas Cowboy wouldn't listen to him. Wilczek was getting death threats. It was even reported in Der Speigel and Bloomberg Businessweek. Perhaps a little time in New York with his wife Lyra and Franz would be beneficial. 


To be continued...

To Banksy,

I watched Exit Through The Gift Shop and it was a revelation. Thank you for being a true artist that has taken consumerism, politics, and art to the streets. To see something for the first time is a gift. You are one of a very, very few heros of mine. I am amazed at your at your ability- for street art in all of its manifestations (the phone booth, street art in palestine, in museums, elsewhere, and even printing your own money.). I am inspired to do such crazy shit, but don't have the ability. 

To borrow from Structuralism- modern day society exists in a prison house of language filled with symbol prompts of various corporations- its a wasteland that exists for profit. What happens when the consumers are commodified? This is Heiddegar's concept of entframing in his essay, The Question Concerning Technology. The answer is that man's Being itself becomes obscured. But then this is the challenge for Human Beings to reveal their true nature, this he uses a Greek word, alethia, that means truth or the state of not being hidden. (Simon Schama's Power of Art series, the one on Van Gogh is what I am thinking about, but they are all excellent). At 35, unemployed, with no real talents, except that of writing, your work is an inspiration to me. How does one acquire an ability similar to yours- that I may blow people's minds by revealing something unique to them they have never experienced. I doubt this will get to you. But if it does, read a blog that I am writing so you know I am not full of shit (nyisland.blogspot.com). Nom de guerre/plume is ElЯoy. 

186,282 miles per second

The 2011 Consumer Electrics Association trade show will be opening in Las Vagas tomorrow. The pace of technological change will speed up some as media and tech. companies witness the future of entertainment. In a recent article in the NY Times it was reported that Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), the two leading micro-chip manufactures, are changing their focus when designing their processors. Yesterday used to be about processor speed, while tomorrow is about integrating graphics into their products.

What does this mean? Computers designed with the newer processors, Intel's i3, i5, and i7 chips for example, will be able to process video much faster than the computer you bought last year. Some computers in the store today like the Toshiba Portege have a Push To TV button on the keypad. This enables you to broadcast, by wifi, what you are viewing on your computer to your flatscreen, internet friendly, television.

The last piece of the puzzle though is a website that broadcasts television. Over the Christmas break I had a discussion with my brother about this very subject. He is an international airline pilot for a major carrier, lives in Florida, and is an insane NY Giants fan. This poses a problem though. How does he watch Giant games in Florida or, for that matter, anywhere in the world? The answer is a website that broadcasts television ATDHE.net. You don't have to have the latest AMD or Intel processor to view the site, but it would probably be impractical. Just think of downloading information during the modem days of the internet- the byte rate was extremely slow before broadband and other technological advancements. Which of the major brands- Apple, Google, or Netflix- will offer Television over the internet now the future of entertainment is practically upon us? How you experience entertainment will change at the speed of light, or 186,282 miles per second, pot watchers excluded.