Manhattan Hillbilly

Yankees Begin Humiliating Red Sox Early

Boston was celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Fenway Park Friday night by hosting the Yankees. Needless to say it didn't end well, with the Yanks handing their AL East rivals a 6-2 loss. 

I'm not a Yankees fan, and I'm certainly not a fan of Rupert Murdock's style of journalism. But spectacular, classic Ford-To-City-Drop-Dead headlines? I'm all over that. Here you go:

Who wouldn't pay 50 cents for this newspaper?

I mean really. How can you not buy a copy with a headline like "Deadly Voodoo Sex Romp?"

So do you tawk like a New Yawker?

Ah, accents. The verbal business card of first impressions.

As a Southerner, I can just see the look come over the faces of people as I engage them in business conversations: You're not from around here.

Let's start off by disclosing that my accent is not as pronounced as a South Georgia peanut farmer, a backwoods West Virginian, or a lowcountry South Carolinian. Tennessee accents are a bit more smooth with less drawl and ya'll, but they're still clearly Southern. So when I say "hello" and "ya'll go ahead," people here instantly know I'm not from Queens.

I'm not self-conscious about the accent. I like having a charming Southern lilt. Northern women especially tend to like it -- hey, one of them even married me. But up until now, I didn't think New Yorkers were in the least self-conscious about their strong distinctive accents.

Until now. Over the weekend, The New York Times -- which for my money is still the best-written newspaper in the country -- had a fascinating article about New Yorkers paying for speech coaches to lose their distinctive Bronx or Brooklyn or Queens accents.

In my office, I have folks with very distinctive NYC accents. Some are much more subtle. I must confess I have yet to master the difference between a Bronx, Brooklyn, Jersey, Queens or Staten Island accent. I'm told they're as distinctive and unique, but right now it's all the same to me. And it doesn't seem to me anything they should be self-conscious about either. They're just ingredients in the verbal soup that makes up this fascinating city.

 

 

50 Reasons to be glad you live in New York

The Village Voice came up with "50 Reasons to Be Pretty Damn Euphoric You Live in New York City." While I agree with most, and the article's certainly worth a full read, I thought I'd share a few that stood out:

49. Drinking coffee four times a day, every day, isn't the exception, it's the rule.

44. The epic feeling you get running to catch a train and succeeding...just before the doors close.

40. That horrified look on our parents' friends' faces when we tell them we live in "Hell's Kitchen."

35. By the time the rest of the nation has bedbugs, we'll have figured out how to get rid of them. In the meantime, we'll mock them by dressing our dogs up as bedbugs for Halloween. Laugh in the face of fear, New Yorker!

26. Smart people are the norm, not the exception. (Which doesn't mean they're sane, but at least no one's boring.)

24. When you fly back into the city after a vacation or business trip, no matter how long you've lived here, you get that butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling.

22. How easy it is to find doughnuts, pizza, Chinese food, or any other snack your drunken self desires at 4 a.m. Or to continue to drink. Responsibly!

9. Jaywalking is an art form.

2. There is absolutely no reason to ever drink and drive. Added bonus: Spontaneous, fascinating conversations with cab drivers.

There are things to hate about New York, but all in all, my transition to date from the South to NYC has been relatively easy. Of course, I haven't gotten through my first winter here yet ...

I seen Paris, I seen France, I seen law students in their underpants?

I've seen Paris. I've seen France. I've seen Brooklyn law students cavorting in their underpants?

In one of those tawdry stories that make tabloid editors at the New York Daily News and New York Post believe there's a God, clothing maker Diesel has created a firestorm of controversy here.

Apparently, they conned the Brooklyn Law School into letting them use their digs for a fashion photo shoot, only they ended up shooting pics of models cavorting in their underwear -- in some rather suggestive poses. This led to a weekend of jokes about "legal briefs" and "rigid rulings," etc.

Apparently, today we learned they also pulled the same stunt at the New York Transit Museum. More pictures to make your turnstile jam.

Warning, pics aren't NSFW, but they're as close as you can get.

All the news that fits, we print

Well the newspapers here in New York aren't printing the farm report, so I have no idea what soybeans are going for right now. I do know, however:

• That you can't wear a shirt with the f-word on it to jury duty,
• That people raising money for the homeless often aren't, and
• That despite what Loretta Lynn sings, love is not where you find it, after the fire is gone.

These fancified tabloid-style newspapers apparently have a tradition of printing eye-grabbing headlines. Here are some of my favorites:

 

 

 

And my all-time favorite, run the day after it was announced that the 9-11 suspect from Guantanamo would be shipped to New York City for trial: