In a press briefing yesterday, Donald Rumsfeld said, "It (Iraq) certainly isn't like our Civil War."
TOP TEN THINGS IRAQIS IN 150 YEARS FROM NOW WILL MISS OUT ON BECAUSE THEIR CIVIL WAR ISN'T LIKE OURS
10. Guys in overalls driving pickup trucks with Sunni flags
9. Comparative phrase "like Zarqawi through Anbar"
8. Scene of Fallujah burning in "Gone With The Sand"
7. Jazz. But they probably will have some kind of Qanun-based variation of the Blues
6. Maliki's Birthday Holiday
5. Schoolchildren having to memorize the Abu Ghraib Address
4. Re-enactments of suicide bombings
3. "Uncle Mahmoud's Cabin"
2. The Ku Klux Kaliphate
And the number one thing Iraqis 150 years from now will miss out on because their Civil War is not like ours:
1. Reconstruction
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
LIBERTY CALL
In the continuing series, "iPod Comes Alive", my wife and I journeyed to Manhattan last Friday to see Edie Brickell and New Bohemians perform at SummerStage in Central Park. Since Edie was playing at 7 pm, we decided to make a day of it by reserving tickets to an afternoon viewing of the Statue of Liberty. Neither of us had ever been, and there's no telling when somebody with a Bin or an Al- in his name will force the authorities to close it down again.
We boarded the NJ Transit train at 30th Street Station (motto: "Tickets sold only in that machine over there with the long line.") at about 10 am, and arrived at Penn Station at about 1:00 pm. Our pass for the Statue was between 1:30 and 4:30, and we thought that meant that we had to get onto Liberty Island by 1:30, so we booked it to the 1 train to get down to Battery Park. When we got there, the ferry line snaked almost out of the park, and it looked like we would never make it on time. The will call booth was keeping our tickets, and the woman there said that as long we got to the Statue after 1:30 and before 4:30, we should be able to get in. That was the first time since we left the house that we felt like we hadn't screwed up by leaving too late, and we were finally able to relax a bit. On line for the ferry, I bought a "large" hot dog from a vendor, which now apparently means two hot dogs in one bun. New York, always innovating!
The ferry goes first to Liberty Island and then on to Ellis Island. I guess they want you to get into the spirit of the thing by packing the boat with every kind of foreigner imaginable, and they do a fine job. The weirdest part of the Statue experience are the GE scanners in the security tent that shoot you with puffs of air. At the time, I figured they were screening for ticklishness (I'm a positive). It turns out, the puffs are designed to dislodge minute parts of explosives, which are then analyzed. Apparently it can also screen through clothing. I'm glad I wore clean underwear.
Once inside the pedestal, you get the standard Park-Ranger-who-thinks-he's-a-comedian tour. You can see the original torch, and a copy of Lady Liberty's face and right foot in the original copper cast. You can take an elevator to the top of the pedestal, where more wacky, cut-up Park Rangers are waiting to tell you about the iron superstructure, which you can see through some heavy plexiglass on the ceiling. That's as far as you can go. I was disappointed, but not surprised.
We ate an horrendous fried-everything dinner on the island, and then went to hop a ferry back to Manhattan. Right at that moment, an angry-looking thunderstorm came up over Staten Island heading right for us. Appropriately enough, masses of tired, poor people huddled under the flimsy awning on the ferry dock, yearning merely to keep breathing at all as we watched the sky unleash its fury. Lady Liberty became the world's most spectacular lightning rod for a few minutes until the storm blew over. By the time we got back to Battery Park, the rain had stopped and the air could only be cut with a chainsaw. We found the Bowling Green subway station and took the mercifully air-conditioned 5 train up to Grand Central, and switched to the 6 to 68th Street and Lexington. Inside the park, we only had to negotiate one homeless guy under a bridge. My wife was in full panic mode about that time. Finally, we found the stage, and saw the line to get in. Somebody was doing a sound check, and they were holding us out until they finished. We found out later that the weather had postponed everything about a half-hour.
Inside the venue, there is no seating right in front of the stage, only a ratty astroturf rug. There are bleachers, but they are too far away to actually see anything. Even though I noticed that EVERYONE ELSE had brought a beach towel, or flattened cardboard box, or SOMETHING to sit on, I decided to just plunk down on the astroturf about 10 feet from the stage. That's when I felt the unmistakable feeling of moisture on my ass. Well, the underwear was still clean anyway, I guess. I got up, and my wife had to stifle herself not to convulse into laughter. I had a giant rust-colored wet stain on my shorts, which I had to try to cover up with my shirttail the ENTIRE REST OF THE NIGHT. Nice. I went and stood by the stage with my camera while my wife tried to stake out a bleacher seat. After what seemed like an eternity of me standing there with my wet ass facing the crowd while about 20 people futzed around on stage with cables, a 30-something African-American woman with a pot-belly wearing what can only be described as a genie costume came out and introduced the first act, a local band called Pablo. Pablo had won the Starbucks "Avant Grande" contest, whatever the hell that is. They looked like a bunch of Williamsburg hipsters, except that for some reason, somebody's dad was playing harmonica. The keyboard player stood waiting for his part of the song with a lit cigarette in his hand and a look of complete boredom. He got his comeuppance when his microphone started giving feedback every time he tried to sing into it. So much for the 20 guys futzing. They finished their set and the dozen or so people they invited to the gig cheered them off the stage.
Next, after more endless cable plugging and unplugging, came 17-year-old chanteuse Sonya Kitchell. She's been described as part Janis Joplin, part Joni Mitchell. That would actually make her Jani Jitchell, but I digress. Her band appeared to have only recently started shaving, but only their faces. She's a talented singer, but how much soul can you have at 17? More than Taylor Hicks, certainly, but that's not saying a lot. She did about a 45-minute set of advanced teen-angsty, atmospheric pop songs. I couldn't really follow the lyrics through all her low-pitched growling, and the continued poor performance of the sound system. Besides, I was still pre-occupied with the giant wet stain on my ass and the fact that I had been on my feet for the last two hours mostly watching Teamsters pull cables.
I left the front of the stage and located my wife, who was sitting near a tree on a dry sidewalk because the bleachers were also wet. We waited through another round of cable-pulling, and then the Afro-Genie lady came out to bring on Edie and the boys. With darkness decsending and the crescent moon rising just like on the cover art, they quickly reeled off three songs from their debut CD "Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars": "Keep Coming Back", "The Wheel", and "Nothing". Amazingly, the sound system had healed itself (maybe it was just the Indians and not the arrows), and they sounded FANTASTIC. Kenny Withrow on lead guitar is a genius, and Percussionist John Bush ("no relation", Edie said) was a madman, playing three kinds of bongos and a gong inside of a beer cooler. Edie, who was in marvelous voice, was a dervish, joyously writhing her still-skinny frame and flipping her long, frizzy mane all around her head. She even struck her familiar leaned-back, cross-legged pose made famous in the old videos. They mixed in a few songs from the new album, "Stranger Things", with "10,000 Angels" and "Strings Of Love" from "Ghost Of A Dog". The last song we heard was "Spanish Style Guitar", which is off "The Live Montauk Sessions" disc that they self-released. Edie herself even picked up an ax on that one.
Since it was 9:30, and we live in the suburbs of the "Sixth Borough", we regretfully had to be getting back. We walked out into the park with the band still playing in the background, trying to assiduously stay under the street lights and near the trotting horses of the hansom cabs, lest any wilding be on anyone's mind. I guess Giuliani got rid of the wilders, or maybe they are all investment bankers now. We only saw about three people walking in the park all the way out to 5th Avenue. We took the 5 train back to Grand Central, and switched to the Shuttle to Times Square, which is one of the most useless trains in history. I think only tourists ever ride it. I saw a lot of Yankees jerseys on there, probably being worn by upstaters making a day-trip to the Stadium. Finally, we made it back to Penn Station via the 1 train, where we lucked out and just caught the 10:40 NJ Transit train back to Trenton. We hit Boothwyn at about 1:30 am, and our long day was over. Man, was it ever good to take those shorts off.
We boarded the NJ Transit train at 30th Street Station (motto: "Tickets sold only in that machine over there with the long line.") at about 10 am, and arrived at Penn Station at about 1:00 pm. Our pass for the Statue was between 1:30 and 4:30, and we thought that meant that we had to get onto Liberty Island by 1:30, so we booked it to the 1 train to get down to Battery Park. When we got there, the ferry line snaked almost out of the park, and it looked like we would never make it on time. The will call booth was keeping our tickets, and the woman there said that as long we got to the Statue after 1:30 and before 4:30, we should be able to get in. That was the first time since we left the house that we felt like we hadn't screwed up by leaving too late, and we were finally able to relax a bit. On line for the ferry, I bought a "large" hot dog from a vendor, which now apparently means two hot dogs in one bun. New York, always innovating!
The ferry goes first to Liberty Island and then on to Ellis Island. I guess they want you to get into the spirit of the thing by packing the boat with every kind of foreigner imaginable, and they do a fine job. The weirdest part of the Statue experience are the GE scanners in the security tent that shoot you with puffs of air. At the time, I figured they were screening for ticklishness (I'm a positive). It turns out, the puffs are designed to dislodge minute parts of explosives, which are then analyzed. Apparently it can also screen through clothing. I'm glad I wore clean underwear.
Once inside the pedestal, you get the standard Park-Ranger-who-thinks-he's-a-comedian tour. You can see the original torch, and a copy of Lady Liberty's face and right foot in the original copper cast. You can take an elevator to the top of the pedestal, where more wacky, cut-up Park Rangers are waiting to tell you about the iron superstructure, which you can see through some heavy plexiglass on the ceiling. That's as far as you can go. I was disappointed, but not surprised.
 |  |  |
We ate an horrendous fried-everything dinner on the island, and then went to hop a ferry back to Manhattan. Right at that moment, an angry-looking thunderstorm came up over Staten Island heading right for us. Appropriately enough, masses of tired, poor people huddled under the flimsy awning on the ferry dock, yearning merely to keep breathing at all as we watched the sky unleash its fury. Lady Liberty became the world's most spectacular lightning rod for a few minutes until the storm blew over. By the time we got back to Battery Park, the rain had stopped and the air could only be cut with a chainsaw. We found the Bowling Green subway station and took the mercifully air-conditioned 5 train up to Grand Central, and switched to the 6 to 68th Street and Lexington. Inside the park, we only had to negotiate one homeless guy under a bridge. My wife was in full panic mode about that time. Finally, we found the stage, and saw the line to get in. Somebody was doing a sound check, and they were holding us out until they finished. We found out later that the weather had postponed everything about a half-hour.
Inside the venue, there is no seating right in front of the stage, only a ratty astroturf rug. There are bleachers, but they are too far away to actually see anything. Even though I noticed that EVERYONE ELSE had brought a beach towel, or flattened cardboard box, or SOMETHING to sit on, I decided to just plunk down on the astroturf about 10 feet from the stage. That's when I felt the unmistakable feeling of moisture on my ass. Well, the underwear was still clean anyway, I guess. I got up, and my wife had to stifle herself not to convulse into laughter. I had a giant rust-colored wet stain on my shorts, which I had to try to cover up with my shirttail the ENTIRE REST OF THE NIGHT. Nice. I went and stood by the stage with my camera while my wife tried to stake out a bleacher seat. After what seemed like an eternity of me standing there with my wet ass facing the crowd while about 20 people futzed around on stage with cables, a 30-something African-American woman with a pot-belly wearing what can only be described as a genie costume came out and introduced the first act, a local band called Pablo. Pablo had won the Starbucks "Avant Grande" contest, whatever the hell that is. They looked like a bunch of Williamsburg hipsters, except that for some reason, somebody's dad was playing harmonica. The keyboard player stood waiting for his part of the song with a lit cigarette in his hand and a look of complete boredom. He got his comeuppance when his microphone started giving feedback every time he tried to sing into it. So much for the 20 guys futzing. They finished their set and the dozen or so people they invited to the gig cheered them off the stage.
Next, after more endless cable plugging and unplugging, came 17-year-old chanteuse Sonya Kitchell. She's been described as part Janis Joplin, part Joni Mitchell. That would actually make her Jani Jitchell, but I digress. Her band appeared to have only recently started shaving, but only their faces. She's a talented singer, but how much soul can you have at 17? More than Taylor Hicks, certainly, but that's not saying a lot. She did about a 45-minute set of advanced teen-angsty, atmospheric pop songs. I couldn't really follow the lyrics through all her low-pitched growling, and the continued poor performance of the sound system. Besides, I was still pre-occupied with the giant wet stain on my ass and the fact that I had been on my feet for the last two hours mostly watching Teamsters pull cables.
I left the front of the stage and located my wife, who was sitting near a tree on a dry sidewalk because the bleachers were also wet. We waited through another round of cable-pulling, and then the Afro-Genie lady came out to bring on Edie and the boys. With darkness decsending and the crescent moon rising just like on the cover art, they quickly reeled off three songs from their debut CD "Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars": "Keep Coming Back", "The Wheel", and "Nothing". Amazingly, the sound system had healed itself (maybe it was just the Indians and not the arrows), and they sounded FANTASTIC. Kenny Withrow on lead guitar is a genius, and Percussionist John Bush ("no relation", Edie said) was a madman, playing three kinds of bongos and a gong inside of a beer cooler. Edie, who was in marvelous voice, was a dervish, joyously writhing her still-skinny frame and flipping her long, frizzy mane all around her head. She even struck her familiar leaned-back, cross-legged pose made famous in the old videos. They mixed in a few songs from the new album, "Stranger Things", with "10,000 Angels" and "Strings Of Love" from "Ghost Of A Dog". The last song we heard was "Spanish Style Guitar", which is off "The Live Montauk Sessions" disc that they self-released. Edie herself even picked up an ax on that one.
 |  |
Since it was 9:30, and we live in the suburbs of the "Sixth Borough", we regretfully had to be getting back. We walked out into the park with the band still playing in the background, trying to assiduously stay under the street lights and near the trotting horses of the hansom cabs, lest any wilding be on anyone's mind. I guess Giuliani got rid of the wilders, or maybe they are all investment bankers now. We only saw about three people walking in the park all the way out to 5th Avenue. We took the 5 train back to Grand Central, and switched to the Shuttle to Times Square, which is one of the most useless trains in history. I think only tourists ever ride it. I saw a lot of Yankees jerseys on there, probably being worn by upstaters making a day-trip to the Stadium. Finally, we made it back to Penn Station via the 1 train, where we lucked out and just caught the 10:40 NJ Transit train back to Trenton. We hit Boothwyn at about 1:30 am, and our long day was over. Man, was it ever good to take those shorts off.
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