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Requiem for a messenger bag.

So where has that bag gone over the last five years? Hooo boy...where do I start? It was covered in dust from the World Trade Center on 9/11, which I suppose ties it to history in a very strange way. In other NYC history, I carried it from Times Square to Park Slope on the day of the blackout, and it has traveled from Brooklyn to the Bronx and Queens on numerous occasions, and to Manhattan more times than I'd care to calculate (okay fine...it's been at least 5 times a week for five years, which is around 1,300...but that doesn't even count the many other trips I make on a regular basis). It transported my engagement ring the day I bought it, and kept it hidden as I brought it home, a full month before proposing to Heather. While I didn't have it with me the night I got engaged, I had it with me the day of my bachelor party, our rehearsal dinner, and even the day of our wedding.

It traveled to Italy with Heather and me on our honeymoon, has been to five E3s, been to Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, California, Virginia, D.C., Maryland, Louisiana, Illinois, Niagara Falls (on the Canadian side) and I'm sure lots of other places I'm forgetting at the moment. It was checked at the coat check at the Metropolitan Opera, carried into countless movie theaters, and checked at one Tori Amos concert. In the eight months that I've been at my current job, it has traveled nearly 28,000 miles across the country and back. It's been through rain, snow and hail, had beer, water and soda spilled on it, and it even survived one cat-related incident.

I have carried that bag with me on practically every single day (certainly every weekday) for the past five years. During that time, it has carried every single issue of Y the Last Man, Batman: Gotham Knights, Gotham Central and Fables, and thousands of Superman comics (at least one every Wednesday).

And so I retire this bag. I'm not getting rid of it...it's far too useful and in such good shape that it would be a shame to get rid of it. But it won't be with me on a daily basis anymore...it will be missed.

The genius is in out.

So today I did just that. I walked on in, walked up the stairs to the Genius Bar, and saw...a really, really, really long queue to meet with an Apple-branded genius. I asked about making an appointment (as I was told one would be mandatory), and was told that the earliest I could make one would be tomorrow. Here, go ahead and check the queue at my local Apple Store. Fun, isn't it?

Well, I decided it wasn't really worth coming all the way back in tomorrow, so I did what any self-respecting New Yorker who knows squat about Apple computers: I went to Tekserve. I've used Tekserve a few times before, and just as they've been in the past, service was fast and friendly. I was in and out of there in a half-hour, and I wasn't charged for the time there, as it turned out that it was just the A/C adapter that needed to be replaced. Phew.

I wonder how much business Tekserve gets from fed up Apple Store customers. The Genius Bar is great in theory, but in practice it just doesn't work. It should be a Genius Room for high-traffic locations like the SoHo store, as five guys behind a bar just won't cut it on the weekends. In any event, I'm just happy my iBook is okay. The thought of traveling without it would give me nightmares for months to come.

How I got involved in the great CFD dispute of '94.

As I said, if you lived in New York at the time, there was a very good chance you were a CFD reader. That's because the pair were at every major comic book convention. And in those days there were a lot of them. Anyway, when the two went their separate ways in late '93, they still attended comic conventions, only they were at opposite ends of the convention center. I've been going through my old comics n' stuff today, and I turned up some interesting documents from that time. Read on for a story of how I got involved in their argument, complete with scans of the offending document.

Continue reading "How I got involved in the great CFD dispute of '94."

Cat not included.

I'm selling the entire collection off at a really low price, but requiring people to come and pick it up in person. I think that's a fair tradeoff. If there's no takers, I'm planning on either renting a truck or using many trips with a car service to sell my collection to Midtown Comics, but this is by far the easiest way to go. Hopefully someone will go for this, because I'd like to use the money to buy an HDTV if and when we move (which hopefully will be in the near future). Anyway, go check it out if you live in the area, or just feel like reading over a five-second summary of a lifetime of collecting comics.

Never forget.

Finally, a good downtown comic shop.

Continue reading "Finally, a good downtown comic shop."

This is totally nuts.

The city of the future...today!

I doubt NYC will actually get the games, but it sure would be cool if it happened. It would require enormous amounts of construction all over the city, but the money it would bring in, and the jobs it would create would just be fantastic.

Recommended reading.

These are couples who are willing to go the distance, to commit and connect, and who are eager to prove to themselves and the world that their love is something true and real and momentous, something that, in truth, can only serve to reignite and reunite our stagnant, fractured, contentious, 50 percent-divorce-rate nation. Hey, we need all the help we can get.

And one other thing was very apparent: It was a situation in which you simply could not imagine anyone hurling gobs of intolerant hate at it. It would have required a serious amount of nasty, inbred ignorance and appalling nerve to march up to any of the passionate and committed couples waiting patiently in line for their marriage ceremony and say, you know, God hates you for this, you immoral disgusting sodomites, and it's intolerable and unacceptable that you wish to love and honor each other till death do you part.

Our latest call for models.

We're looking for models who have extensive body art for a drawing session. This includes heavy tattooing, scarring, piercings, ritual markings, etc. These are clothed or costumed poses, so you should be able to show off your artwork without being completely nude (custom outfits/costumes are fine, and in fact are encouraged).

The drawing session is on thursdays from 6:30-9:30 and pay is $18 dollars an hour. If hired you would be needed for one session only, although if it goes well we may bring you back again in the future.

Poses range from 2 minutes to a half an hour. There are usually 4-10 artists at each session.

In your face, New Jersey!

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

This of course proves my long-standing theory that of the various pulp icons, only The Shadow was fully prepared for winter (lord knows that with his shirt always hanging open like that, Doc Savage would have frozen to death years ago). There's just something very sensible about a guy who knows how to keep himself bundled up like that. Although I'm willing to admit that only Tarzan is prepared for those impossibly hot global warming summers we've been having.

Worst store ever!

Good riddance. Now let the main store disappear too and I'll be happy.

I don't mean to be cruel, and I take no particular pleasure in the failure of a comics-related business...but St. Mark's just hasn't been a worthwhile place to shop for years. In the early 90's, St. Mark's was one of my favorite stores in the city, along with the original, big-size Forbidden Planet and the original pre-expansion, pre-reduction Jim Hanley's Universe. Back then, St. Mark's had the best collection of Eclipse paperbacks in the city, and me being the Miracleman/Zot/Clive Barker fiend that I was, this was a good thing.

But in the late 90's, the store really took a nose dive. Instead of being the welcoming alternative comics shop they should have evolved into following the mainstream comics crash, the store degenerated into a place where you would be belittled for your lack of knowledge about every alternative book under the sun. I went in there after reading about Ariel Schrag in the Village Voice, and was practically laughed at for the fact that I'd never heard of her before. And it wasn't the first time, either. St. Mark's really became the comics equivalent of those video stores where people judge you based on your renting habits. If you can imagine The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy as an alternative comics nut instead of a superhero fanatic, you've got the right idea.

That store is apparently relocating to Brooklyn. I hope their staff in the new location is less obnoxious than the staff at their East Village store. Either way, it doesn't affect me. I'll keep shopping at Midtown Comics, where they not only employ nice, helpful people, but they know how to run a successful retail store. If every other store in the tri-state area disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't shed a tear (especially not if Village Comics went away...that place has disgusted me for even longer than St. Mark's).

Yikes!

Gehry does Brooklyn.

The design of the complex itself is quite striking (see this slideshow at the NYTimes for more images). It contains not only the stadium, but also commercial spaces, and it features the same kind of titanium waves that Gehry has been so well known for (albeit in larger, more structured patterns). As radical as it may seem to some, I really hope this gets made. I still hold out that the Guggenheim Museum will be built on the waterfront in downtown manhattan (see images of that here), if only because it's tough not to be jealous of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Gehry's most celebrated work. Heck, even the new Disney Concert Hall is an impressive bit of architectural magic, and that's in Los Angeles! I'm not too thrilled with the current plans for the new World Trade Center (I don't hate the design, but it's not spectacular), so the more buildings we get from Gehry the better.

Save me from the wee snow!

Any travel is strongly discouraged. If you leave the safety of being indoors, you are putting your life at risk.

Attention NYC artists/art students

Attention NYC artists/art students

If you've ever wondered why there's no LNC on Thursdays, it's because I'm off drawing. I used to either take classes, sit in on classes, or just roam around the city drawing with a friend of mine, but starting in May, a few former SVA students and myself started a weekly drawing session.

Every week we meet up at a gallery in Chelsea and pay for a (clothed) model to pose for us for three hours. Because we get to pick the models, we've been able to get all kinds of people we would never see in a conventional art class. Last week we had a war reinactment guy come in with full WWI regalia (complete with grenade, pack, canteen, *everything*) and last night we had a guy come in who designed his own far out costumes and wore these things on his fingers that looked like metal claws. And that's just two of the people we've gotten...there are lots more, including fashion models, and people of all ages. One of our regulars is actually the waitress at a bar a few of us go to.

Anyway, the more artists we have, the less everyone pays, so the more the merrier. Lately we've been down to about five people, although at one point we had as many as 14.

If anyone's interested in coming, drop me a line either by shackmsg or at jason at shacknews dot com.

It doesn't matter how good you are. We've had all kinds of people come, from professional illustrators to art students to one person who had never drawn a line before in his life. I've taken art classes for years, but I've learned more in the last six months doing this than I have in any class.

All you need to have to participate is something to draw with/on and enough money for your share (we pay the model $54, which is split among however many people we have). I cannot overemphasize how much we've all gotten out of this. If you'd like to learn how to draw, or just feel like you could use the practice, I highly recommend coming along.

A strange encounter.

"Did you write a book?"

"Not that I know of," I replied.

"Oh," he said, noticeably disappointed, "you look like someone on the cover of a book."

And with that, he walked off.

Clearly he had mistaken my adonis-like physique and long, flowing hair for that of Fabio, the model, "I can't believe it's not butter" spokesperson and author. Or that's what I'm telling myself anyway, because most other authors don't really have the sort of look anyone would aspire to.

Regardless, that was a nice change of pace from my usual commute, as it seems like more often than not I find myself sitting next to the cast of Get Your War On. Which is entertaining the first couple of times, but after three days in a row you just want to fwap these people into submission.

Never forget.

At least it's not Mr. Pibb...

One of many reasons I love NYC.

Lawyers, doctors, day laborers, actors, psychotherapists: New York City has more able-bodied, non-licensed, car-phobic adults than anywhere in the United States. Seventy-three percent of Virginians have a license to drive. Sixty-nine percent in Maryland can get behind the wheel of a car. More than half of the District's residents are licensed drivers. In this city, approximately 25 percent of the inhabitants possess a driver's license.

Way to keep our cities safe!

Now this wouldn't be nearly as funny if seeing Army guys like this was common in Brooklyn. But it's not. In fact, this is probably the only time I've seen armed military men patrolling the streets of Brooklyn, let alone the fairly benign neighborhood in which I live. Who knows? Maybe there was some serious terror alert I know nothing about. Either that, or maybe they just couldn't pass up the opportunity to take advantage of Domino's $9.99 large pizza with one topping and free cheesy bread deal.

It's still bigger than my old dorm room.

This is really cool.

Here's a quick pic:

Actually, I hate to think of what they would do to the statue on Wall Street.

Verizon's Pointless WiFi Hotspots

All over Manhattan (they claim to have thousands), phone booth ads are popping up that delightfully inform you that "you're hot," meaning that you're standing within a Verizon WiFi Hotspot, which in theory offers free WiFi Internet access for one and all. Now ordinarily, I'd be the first to say this is great, and a wonderful idea...except you have to wonder what the heck Verizon was thinking when they placed some of these. While WiFi hotspots are wonderful, they're only useful if you're someplace where you can actually pull out a laptop to utilize it. This is what makes those T-Mobile hotspots at Starbucks so inviting. But having them on random street corners is downright pointless.

I mean, what am I going to do, stop in the middle of the street, plop down on the sidewalk and check my e-mail? I've seen a handful of these things already, and not one of them has been anywhere near a bench, table or chair of any kind. It kind of makes you wonder...what if these aren't really hotspots at all, but just ads that claim they are? After all, if you don't pull out a laptop or WiFi-enabled PDA to verify this, you're just taking their word on it.

Today's bit of idiocy.

Yay for fare hikes.

In truth, it's not as bad as it sounds. The monthly Metrocard, which is what most daily commuters buy (the smart ones do, anyway) has only gone up $7. Still, I'm glad I'm not in college now. Back then I had to dig deep to come up with $1.25 and then $1.50 for a single ride, and most of the time I just walked anyway.

Come to think of it, between the insane prices of cigarettes and the lack of places to smoke and the looming sales tax hikes, I'm pretty much thrilled that I'm not in college right now. With all those expenses, I can't imagine how I'd find the money for beer!

I am so glad I don't smoke anymore.

As someone who no longer smokes (I am not a non-smoker, thank you very much) I'm not completely outraged by this, but I'm not pleased, and I don't look forward to the kind of sterile bar atmosphere that exists in places like Los Angeles that have similar laws. I may not smoke, but I happen to like the smell, and besides, nobody goes to a bar for their health. If you want that, go to an oxygen bar, you weirdo.

Mostly, I'm curious about the sociological implications of all of this. Already, reports are coming in that bartenders are getting less tips, and there have been some very clever methods posted online for getting around the strict new laws. The craziest thing I've seen so far is this story about a restaurant whose menu now includes whole courses made with Tobacco. Yuck! And then there's the city's plan to wean people off smoking by giving away nicotine patches. Yeesh.

Since very few places are going to be installing the ridiculous walled-off non-smoking section (with specific requirements for ventilation), I think the scariest thing is going to be walking down the street and seeing packs of drunks standing outside bars smoking. That could prove to be a real hazard. Plus of course this whole thing could possibly blow up in Bloomberg's face. If he keeps pushing hard on the smokers, eventually more and more will give it up, and in the end that loss of tax revenue could be devastating for the already cash-strapped city.

No matter what, I'm just thrilled I don't smoke anymore. It really sucks to be a smoker in this city now.

A quiet New York moment.

As I walked past, I tapped him on the shoulder and said, "I know how you feel."

And having just walked 15 blocks without an umbrella myself, I did indeed.

More site tweaks and some photos.

As this blog evolves, I'm going to continually modify its appearance and various features, and I've gone and tweaked things again this afternoon. Since I'm starting to see more comments being posted (thanks guys, keep 'em coming!) I've added comments to the full posts XML feed, using a tip from the Haxie geniuses at Unsanity.org. So if you use a news aggregator like NetNewsWire, you'll see the latest comments whenever you refresh the feed. One thing this does however, is make older stories appear as new, and it can be a bit confusing at first. If that's a problem for you, I'd suggest switching to the summaries feed, or if enough people request it, I'll make a third feed with full posts, but no comments.

You may also notice that there's a third XML icon there, as I've made sure that my latest tweaks to the feed are RSS validated. Both feeds are, but there's just the one link. Oh, and there's also an RSD file for this site, but chances are nobody's going to manually be looking for that (if you are for some reason, here it is).

I briefly considered adding either a "Made on a Mac" button or a "Built with BBEdit" button, but decided against either, since I use so many different things to work on this site. Some posts are made with BBEdit (actually, most are), but some are made with Dreamweaver, but some of the site tweaks are made with either Joe or Pico, and of course most of this stuff is generated by Movable Type anyway, so I'd have to clutter that sidebar with buttons in order to be remotely accurate (and who wants to do that?). So I passed on that.

Anyway, it was snowing the other day in Manhattan, so I pulled out my trusty camera and took a few pictures around the periphery of Times Square. They're not nearly as pretty as the last ones I took, since the snow didn't really stick all that much, but here they are nonetheless:

Because we've no place to go...

As I sloshed my way to work this morning, I couldn't help but take out my digital camera and get a few shots of the snow-laden streets. Here are a handful of them, most from times square, although there are a pair from Brooklyn in there as well:

These were of course shot in color and enhanced with iPhoto.

And I feel fine.

I was sitting on the train on my way home from work this evening, when a nice, if slightly drunk man asked me for directions on getting to a G train. I told him, and he sat down next to me. I'm sitting there, trying to read my book, when he nudges me and points to the two children sitting across from us and explained that he couldn't understand what kind of a god would put innocent children into a world like this.

There wasn't much I could do at this point, so I politely nodded my head, and he continued his quiet diatribe. He explained that "it was all written" in Revelations, and that mankind was doomed. So what was the point? And he began to name other signs of our impending grizzly end, including Bin Laden ("who has a bomb ready to blow us all to Hell"), Bush, Saddam Hussein (odd that he chose that order) and that "little twerp" in North Korea with a massive army (he gestured to indicate the unimpressive stature of Kim Jong-il).

I could have explained to him that while his interpretation of the closing chapter of the New Testament is no less valid than anyone else's, Revelations isn't usually looked on as being the fiery end for all of mankind, but rather a portent of things to come for the wicked and a vision of glory for the righteous. And of course, I could have continued to explain that psychopaths, megalomaniacs, despots and all-around bad people are the price we pay for having free will and individual morality.

But I never did any of that, since his stop came up before I had a chance. So instead I got a few odd looks from the people sitting in the same car as me as he walked off, who clearly were surprised that I sat there listening to him in the first place.

On a much different note, yesterday I started doing something I've been meaning to do for a while now, namely bringing my digital camera with me wherever I go. One of the things I'd like to do with this blog is post the occasional photo from around the city. I live in the greatest city in the world, and if nothing else, I want this blog to reflect that. And so, here's a shot I took last night on my walk from my office down to Barnes & Noble. I took a lot of pictures of things I wanted to get shots of, but as usually happens when I try to do anything like this, the best one I shot was totally random. Once we hit spring I'll be able to take some really great pictures of the various city parks at dusk, but for now, here's a shot from 6th avenue that came out a whole lot better than I thought it would: