Just got back from a week in Nova Scotia, a couple of days in Halifax and the rest deep in the woods. I like Canada, it's like the white parts of the U.S. if Jimmy Carter was still president. Didn't find too many records (a Soul Stirrers album I didn't have, a Sister Rosetta Tharpe LP, and a copy of Jackie Wilson's
Baby Workout LP to replace the one I traded away a couple of months ago), but our rent a car soon grew a huge library of cheap used books. I returned to find NYC (and much of the world for that matter) teetering on the edge of economic collapse. I predicted this all two years ago, ask my wife. How is it a brain dead deadbeat like me knew this and the people who run everything didn't? Not a good sign, not at all. We can safely say the worst people are running everything. It's hard not to feel a touch of schadenfreude seeing these Wall Street morons walking around with their tails between their legs. Which brings us to my favorite
Woody Guthrie song. Let's face it, New York worked better when the Mafia ran things. As one old timer told me-- "Frank Costello was the best mayor this town ever had". I concur. I'll try and post more tomorrow or Thursday of this week. And on a more interesting subject.
This last week, the Woody Guthrie song I've been thinking about is "The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd" and the line about the robbers, one with a gun, the other with a fountain pen. (Although I believe Woody's idea of a good and fair place was Stalin's Russia.)
ReplyDeleteAnd I've been thinking, "I wish I had a mate with deep roots in Canada or Denmark... Someplace other than here..."
Hound you are one lucky dog.
Living a half-hour north of Utica, I hear from any old timer that the city ran like clockwork when the mob was in control. Today, in the hands of our beloved elected officials? A mess, with no hope of improvement.
At least w/the mob/democrat club house system the small guy had somebody who could represent them (get the cops to quit harrassing their biz w/tickets, get their kid a job or out of jail, etc.). In the current atmosphere big biz is coddled, given tax breaks, etc. while the mom and pops are run out of business. And now we're looking at four more years of Bloomberg.
ReplyDeleteSince he became mayor 221 Dunkin' Donuts have opened in Manhattan alone, and every one has replaced a mom and pop store. They've made this city into a mall, and they spend tens of thousands studing why the city is dying culturely. Every art movement of the 20th Century from abstract expressionism to punk started in bars, and as a bar owner I get 2-3 tickets a night! Pray for that lone mad man w/a gun.
"...Every art movement of the 20th Century from abstract expressionism to punk started in bars..."
ReplyDeleteGood point.
I should start drinking again.
PS: I hate politicians. Don't vote. It only encourages them.