Uncategorized | Bryan Joiner

March 11, 2010

High Tide in Brooklyn

I couldn’t wait five minutes. I was walking to the subway from work and called a friend who was in a conversation: He’d call back in five. I stood next to the stairwell, pacing, flipping my phone open to see if the numbers had changed. 4:51. Then, after an hour: 4:52. I couldn’t make it. Tourists flooded past me, men handed out newspapers: 4:53. What would I do when I got home? 4:54. Read a book, I suppose. 4:55. Now I could see 9 p.m., and it looked like my living room, with the TV on and a book in my hands. And by the time my phone flashed 4:56, I was through the turnstile and headed to my sixth home in eight years.

My superintendent got the boot last week; the management company fired him without remorse or much warning, it appears. He’s lived here for 39 years and they sent him a letter giving him two weeks to get out. People in the building were outraged, and took to the building’s e-mail list to register their outrage and arrange for him to see tenant lawyers. They even put a signup sheet downstairs to pledge support, which I missed — by the time I got there, the list had been removed and it was just an exhortation and a pen on a stick. Presumably those names were passed along to the people who deliver my rent statements. I have to suspect my landlords know it’s coming. They’ve done this before, and they’ve dealt with this before. It’s really hard to get someone out of their apartment in this city if they’re willing and able to fight back and whether they have rights that have been broken or not. This is part of it.

On the bright side, I’ve never been the target of something like this. I’ve been forced to move twice. Both times I lived on the second floor of a house in Queens, both times the owner sold the house, and both times were between 2004 and 2007 — not surprising, in restrospect. The amount of money poured into real estate then was staggering. In Woodhaven, Queens, a cluttered, low-lying and middle-class-at-best neighborhood, there were full attached condominiums going up that started at $650,000 by the middle of 2004. I didn’t know much about real estate at the time, and I knew jack about subprime mortgages, but I knew something was off. When the bubble burst, it took a few months for me to connect the dots. I took it for granted: to live in a city was to be transient.

That’s not how things are in my building now. Here, there’s permanence. When I moved in the person vacating the apartment told me of two local species: the “lifers” and the “steppers.” Lifers are self-explanatory. Steppers stayed 5-7 years. I was 31, and he was 37: MATH. It’s amazing that in Brooklyn, where everyone fancies themselves special, I became another puzzle piece. I was probably one before, too, but I was off the beaten path and that was its own reward. There’s an emptiness from having left Queens to move someplace so rigidly spectacular. I’ve seen this place plenty in movie sets, in sepia-toned photographs you can buy off the street. This place evokes the forties, or the twenties. White, tree-lined, beautiful when it snows. It won’t be much different in 20 years; its about slow changes, and slow movements in and out like my own.

Queens? Queens will be different. Queens is a place in motion, a place where the world constantly doubles back on itself, like the remains a giant wave following gravity back into the ocean and the teeth of another one. It’s not like that here, and so when there is something to overcome — like an unseemly eviction — the people become riled. There’s no denying the goodness of their quest. But having been where the heavy waves crash, time after time after time, I know it never stops. Just as Long Island has its turbulent Atlantic shore and its placid North Shore, Queens (tubulent) and yuppie Brooklyn (placid) express this idea — even if in doing so they inversely geographically situated to the actual tides, a funny little note. What’s not funny is a man who’s lived somewhere for 39 years being cast away from his home at a moment’s notice. For him, the years probably went by like minutes: 1971… 1972… 1973… 2009… 2010. And now, in a manner of seconds, he needs a new home.

I bet I know where he lands.

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November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving

Note the “Holiday, fools!” category.

I may have more later. Going to turkey out in the olde towne Queens.

Below is a clip of meta-absurdity and joy. It involves the parade. I went to the parade once when I was around 11. We lived in a D.C. suburb with my mom at the time and she drove us up to the Vince Lombardi rest area to give us to our dad, who was living in Connecticut. I remember the cold, gray day, with something more than a mist threatening at every second in a cold, wet wind. He must have driven us in, but I have no recollection of where we parked. All I know is that we didn’t take the subway, and we got there early enough to snag a spot at 63rd or so and Central Park West. I think it was around 6 a.m., or maybe a little later. They hadn’t roped off the street yet, and traffic was long cut off, so my father and I threw a football around in the roadway. I remember just the thrill of it all, being around so many people and loving it, and getting to do something I loved with my dad, who I rarely saw but was, at all times, ready to stop and throw a football, which is probably why his three boys did the same. And now here we were, in front of everybody, and we were doing it, and I think we were equally enchanted, even if for different reasons. As we walked off, he said it to me, “Son, let me tell you something. That is the only time you’ll ever play catch on Central Park West.” But the thing was, and this was obvious at the time, this was so obviously about him that it was infecting in its own way. We rarely got to see each other, but when we did this really was the high point of his week or his month, and we were both on a voyage of discovery. Thirty years of school and work, and he never had the chance. We were taking this trip together.

Wow, I did not realize we were going there. How about that. That’s the power of the fresh air, I guess.

I almost can’t post the video now, because it’s too ridiculous for this post. But my solution, and you may already know this, is to click here.

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September 25, 2009

The Art of Tweeting Gracefully

I’m on Twitter. Sue me. Just make sure to Tweet about it 43 times too.

The last time an Internet phenomenon spread this quickly, it was YouTube. Between the moment I first heard about it and the moment one year removed from that, it had grown from a wisp of an idea to a full-fledged powerhouse. YouTube was the place for Internet video, period, end of story. It served a niche that hadn’t been filled, and did it so well, that it became the brand name for online video. “YouTube” is to video what “Kleenex” and “Band-Aid” are to their markets.

Twitter did the same thing. It’s the blog for people who are too fussy, too important, or too busy blogging to blog. You can find virtually anyone on Twitter, which is what makes it different than blogs. People, and their 140-character thoughts, are easily turned up, making your tweets available to anyone who wants them, and not just in the Wild West internet way: in a controlled, stable environment.

It seems great, right? Well it isn’t.

The problem is that not all Tweets are created equal, or, to be more precise, not all Twitterers are created equal. I care more about what my friends have to say, though I’m careful to mind Twitter as a supplement to, and not a replacement for, our actual relationship. But how am I supposed to find them when CBS Radio’s Mark Knoller Tweets every five minutes, all day? I have (albeit briefly) worked on the White House Unit of a major news operation, so I understand the amount of news created and the importance of every piece of it. Right now, though, it’s 9:26 in the morning and Knoller has tweeted 21 times today. 21 times!

He is far from the worst abuser (and as far as overtweeting goes, you’re not going to find a more informed, more important stream. He’s still clogging my inbox); according to most sources, Tila Tequila tweets about as often as she breathes. In light of a recent lawsuit she’s filed against her NFL-playing boyfriend, her Tweets are “protected,” which means I can’t see them without sending a request that would certainly be accepted. That won’t happen. But “Tequila”‘s Tweets get to the heart of what Twitter really is: the greatest marketing device ever invented. You can connect with brands, people, imaginery characters and they will talk to you — sometimes directly.

Here’s an illustration: the other day, Major League Baseball was giving away a jersey for the 500th person who Tweeted the slogan for their recent advertisement, which was “Beyond Determination.” I tried, twice, but wasn’t number 500. For the contest, you had to go to MLB.com to view the commercial. When I was there, I noticed a repeated spelling error, and I snarkily Tweeted about it. Within 90 seconds, MLB had sent me a direct message — which came ONTO MY PHONE — thanking me for catching the error and attributing it to an third-party company. I immediately felt bad about being snarky, but felt “closer” to MLB as a company — hey, someone was reading! — than I had before.

Contrast that with last night, when I was doing today’s New York Times Crossword Puzzle early. (I’m something of an addict) When I realized the phrase “Don’t Tase Me Bro” appeared in the grid, I jumped for joy — and lunged for my computer to Tweet “Rex Parker,” who runs a great NYT crossword blog. My elation was diffused within minutes, when he responded to my “I’ve been waiting two years for this” Tweet with a zinger of his own: “Good 2 yrs ago when Onion did it 1st.” Now, since I had apparently missed one instance of it two years earlier in a crossword I don’t do, was I not supposed to be excited? I’m not sure that helped.

In short, the rules of Twittering can be summed up with a Tweet-length primer: Be nice, be interesting, and may your tweets be sparing in number. I’m just the messenger. Don’t tase me.

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September 24, 2009

Around the bases Thursday

Lidge_Owned

1. FIRST BASE: BAD BRAD Are the Phillies in trouble? They’re going to make the playoffs, but Brad Lidge blew his 11th save last night, painting a scary picture for their possible first-round matchup with the Rockies. After last year’s perfect-for-the-season performance, Lidge’s woes look prohibitive heading into October, but should they?

Absolutely. Often, saves are a misleading window into a player’s skill level; take Brad Lidge, last year. Was he a great closer? Yes. Was he lucky to save all of his games? Absolutely. The “perfect” season was a mirage, but his numbers backed up the performance of a great pitcher. This year, it’s not that the bounces have gone the wrong way, it’s that the bounces have gone almost exactly as expected. He’s striking far fewer people out, walking more, and, most alarmingly, giving up home runs at a prodigious rate. There’s no mirage here. This is bad.

2. SECOND BASE: BAD BRADLEY Milton Bradley has been suspended by the Cubs for the season, giving credence to everyone, everywhere who said this would work out poorly. The oft-maligned Bradley has been something of a lightning rod for stat-conscious pundits and baseball men for years; he is, without question, a talented baseball player. Former Dodgers GM Paul DePodesta once said that if he could have nine Milton Bradleys, he’d take them—saying something like that would show why DePodesta, one of the sharpest analytical minds in the game, no longer has that job. Milton Bradley is where the stats and reality meet, and very rarely does it work out well for him. He’s just good enough to get passed around to people who think they can either keep him under control or let him blosssom, and it never works out. Playing in the interactive Wrigley Field, with a firecracker manager in Lou Piniella, was one of those situations that was too bad to be true from the very beginning. Turns out that one Milton Bradley is often too many.

3. THIRD BASE: WELKS BACK Wes Welker will apparently play this week versus the Falcons, which is good news for the Patriots. While they were helped by Some Dude Named Julian Edelman in their loss to the Jets, Welker needs to be on the field for the Pats’ offense to run at full steam, or as close to it as it can go at the moment. Tom Brady recently said “it’s not called mid-season form for nothing;” which was, all in all, refreshing. Two years ago, the Patriots came out determined to beat the snot out of the Jets thanks to the Mangini departure scandal; SpyGate erupted as a result of that very game, and then they were determined to crush everybody. They were possibly the best football team in history for the first nine games, but from Week 10 until the Super Bowl, they were a very good, very tired football team. It’s a balancing act to grow into the team you’re going to become, but it is a process to be minded. They didn’t mind it in 2007 so much as they ignored it, and they almost got away with it. One might say karma got them, or bad luck, or that they were simply the worse team by the time the Super Bowl ran around. What’s for certain is that there was no talk of rounding into mid-season form after Week 2. It has to happen quick, but it’s a healthy attitude. No need to panic yeat.

4. HOME: NFL STUFF COMING LATER The NFL Week 2.5 report comes out later today with a look at courage. Be courageous, and return.

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September 18, 2009

Just being Corny

Some colorful little scamp posted an essay on another blog, and wouldn’t you know it, his whole name isn’t on it? That’s odd.

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September 18, 2009

Top o’ the Morning

Good morning, folks. It’s Friday. The Red Sox lose for once, The Office is back on the air, and would a tax on soda really cost you anything? Let’s get to it.

1. SOX GO DOWN The Red Sox’ seven-game winning streak ended last night at the hands of the Angels, who now lead the season series 5-4. These teams will almost certainly meet in the first round of the playoffs for he fifth times, and the Red Sox have won all previous four. The question is: does that matter? And the answer is probably “no.” But the Yankees probably like it nonetheless, given their history against the Angels in the 2000’s (did we ever decide what to call this decade?). They’re 0-2 in the playoffs against the Halos and any Yankees fan will tell you something along the lines of “The Angels own us.” That may or may not be true, but either way, I’m not sure a Yankees/Tigers series would work out well for humanity. Then again, anything can happen.

Of course, the best possible result is that the Red Sox and Yankees meet again, and the Red Sox simply blow them out of the water, despite a weaker team and weaker record. For all the talk of the Red Sox having the “upper hand” in the rivalry after the glorious events of 2004, they’ve never stepped on the Yankees from start to finish, which, Clemens/Pedro aside, the Yankees did to the Sox in 1999. That happens, and Yankees fans will really go crazy.

2. SOME THING We may have just realized the downside to having the blog under one’s full name when one works in certain industries, and will keep you posted if we “read” anything somewhere else.

3. THAT’S IT I’ve been pulled into other things at the moment.

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September 17, 2009

Back on the Grind

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here with any regularity, but that’s going to change.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about giving blogging a chance again — I mean real blogging, not the here-and-there type. To that end I tried it for a couple weeks over at The Great Baseball Blog, but it was a little constricting to try to fit everythign in with baseball. (Especially when it’s no longer the most interesting sport to write about) I kicked around other blog idea names, and as many of you know I love starting blogs. (And there are more)

I used my inability to find a blog name as a crutch to put it off, so I’m going to go with the one name that’ll never change — my own, and I’ll just bring you posts from here. I’ve got a lot to say, and you people need to know these things. It’s a moral imperitive.

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June 1, 2009

Greatest YouTube find of my life

This is the first video I’ve ever “found” on YouTube all by my lonesome. I won’t get into how I found it, but it involved presidents, not a foray into the Los Angeles contraceptives scene. The whole thing is dynamite with some really-next level comic timing. “I love you.” Of the 195 views, I think probably 40 of them are from me