Looks like we can blame the Republicans

So, the bailout failed, the markets are absolutely tanking, and it is the Republicans' fault. I wasn't necessarily in favor of handing over, ahem, $700 billion to the Fed and big business, but if it had passed and it had worked, people would have just grumbled about a wasteful Democrat-led Congress.

Now, we've taken what seems like a bad road for the world economy, but (upshot!) a terrible road for Republicans. This will be pinned on them. And John McCain, who delivered 40% less votes than he promised.

Get a jump on Christmas shopping!

Okay, the global economy is heading straight down the golden shitter, John McCain is an unrepentant gambling addict and everybody's angry at everybody else, but hey, it's not too early to buy a little Christmas cheer!

Rite aid has got all kinds of Christmas crap for sale a full month before Halloween:

http://consumerist.com/5056261/merry-september-christmas-is-in-full-swing-at-rite-aid

Hey, I got a Gawker Commie

How much of a nerdy time waster am I? So much so that I snagged a commenter award on Gawker!

The prize: the opportunity to take a hard, long look at your life and wonder where it went off course.

The growing movement to make the rich pay for this mess

I know, I know, this is urgent! Something has to be done now to save the economy! Happily, nothing ever happens now in Washington, which is giving the brewing class war time to boil.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I know, at times irritating and ineffectual) actually has a brilliant grass-roots campaign to raise taxes on rich people to pay for the banking crisis.

He has posted this in the form of an online petition addressed to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, which is silly because only Congress can raise taxes, but I think you will be seeing something like this happening sooner or later.

Traditional Main Street Republicans are the maddest people of all over this. Finally, they are realizing that the true elitists in this country are Wall Street insiders and their political flacks, not people with liberal arts degrees. And they are mad as hell that they are being asked to pay for the super rich to keep their pools heated, while they can't afford gas, prescription drugs or mortgage payments.

Even if Congress pushes through some massive bill too quickly that ends up costing more money than it should (a likely scenario), the call for the top 1% who have had such a wonderful financial run for the last eight years to take the hit will not recede. This chorus will only grow louder and louder as people demand their money back and hopefully their country back too.

The Miss South Carolina/Sarah Palin mashup

Love it:

Times are changing

Alphabet City in the 70s

Walking up Avenue A the other day I did a mental tally of all of the places that have closed down recently. It's like watching the 90s in reverse.

Here's a partial list of Avenue A (and adjacent) restaurants that have closed recently:

• Two Boots Restaurant
• Esashi (the so-so sushi place)
• Mo Pitkins (that bar/performance space formerly co-owned by Jimmy Fallon)
• Via Delle Zoccolette (which was actually quite good and pleasant)
• Hopscotch (that irritating child-friendly but still hip and happenin' cafe)
• Oriental Grill (home of an excellent pu pu platter)
  

Mo Pitkins has been for sale for like a year now with no takers.

When I first moved to New York in 1988 you could count the number of non-bar businesses on Avenue A on one hand. In fact, I think that the only semi-upscale restaurant was Avenue A Sushi. Now even they are struggling and experimenting with various 1/2-off deals at different times.

Actually I see this as a good thing. There were very few legitimate businesses in Alphabet City in the old days, but we had a lot of fun. The night didn't really get going until the after hours places opened at 4. Maybe we'll get a little of that action back.

Ultimately, we aren't suffering some great downturn, though. We are just getting back to reality. I remember several years ago wondering at what point did every yahoo with a 2 bedroom split level in Bayonne become a millionaire? Well it turns out that everybody was just worth a million in prizes and now we return to a world of fewer fancy restaurants, cheaper happy hours and, hopefully, less hubris.

Sarah Palin explaining (at length) why everyone who lives in Alaska is a foreign policy expert

I would like to point out two things to Sarah Palin:

• Putin is no longer the president of Russia.
• New York is closer to Moscow than Anchorage is.
  

Something funny happened on the way to the global financial meltdown

So we are now in the throes of the final fuck you by Bush and Co. to the American people and the world. After destroying just about everything we used to associate with the United States, everyone thought they would go out with a literal bang in Iran or Russia or somewhere. But they had a smarter, more demonic plan: why not just blow up the economy?

You see, this way they can cry "crisis!" (like they did with Iraq) and the American people will hand over all their money to the Executive Branch and their rich friends.

Or will they?

People in this country support some really stupid ideas (laws against abortion, the drinking age, Sarah Palin), but when it hits their wallets they draw the line. As someone famous once said, "it's the economy, stupid."

So finally we have people on main street actually thinking and coming to the conclusion that it may not be a good idea for every American to donate money to the New York Rich Guys' Mansion Fund.

Bush and Co. have been remarkably successful correctly estimating the level of stupidity in this country so far. This time, it looks like they misfired. Because if there is one thing people in this country care about more than gays, guns and God, it's money.

NYFA whoring itself on Broadway

I have an ongoing hate/hate relationship with the New York Film Academy because this school/scam is located on the 2nd floor of the office building in which I currently work. Forget the fact that the school has no admission requirements (other than a high school diploma and an ability to speak English), allows students to drop in and drop out as they see fit, and advertises on the sides of payphones and buses. They have now lowered the bar even further.

Today I saw a woman in a tight NYFA tank top and short shorts rollerblading down the sidewalk on Broadway, handing out NYFA flyers. Really? Flyers? How can any of the students there even pretend they are going to a real school?

Just buy a friggin' video camera and a laptop, for chrissake!

Or just go to that reality TV school instead.

Enough with the threatening to leave the country!

So Barack Obama is doing better in the national polls today. Of course this doesn't really matter because in this country all that counts is what a handful of indecisive yahoos in flyover states think. But that's another matter.

I would like to put a moratorium on people telling me that if McCain wins they are leaving the country. Of course we heard a lot of this in 2000 and 2004, most notably from Alec Baldwin (although he denies it), but nobody actually left.

In the last month or so, I have heard no less than 6 liberal friends say something along the lines of "If McCain wins, I'm out of here." Way to fight for your rights, liberals! You never, ever hear conservatives say this (of course most of them don't have passports anyway, but still). Making false threats to pick up and leave all your friends for some mythic European country with no problems just reinforces stereotypes about liberals that we are unpatriotic elitists.

When things get bad in the USA, the job of fighting for our freedom becomes even more important. We live in the most powerful country in the world (for now, at least) and what happens here has a major impact on the world. Goddamit it's worth fighting for. Enough with the "I'm leaving"!