Manhattan Hillbilly

New York in the "Mad Men" Era

AMC's Mad Men returns to TV Sunday night. The New York Daily News has a great photo archive of what it was like to live in New York City during the early '60s. It's worth checking out. (Warning: Slide Show)

Helpful hint: Don't run through Lincoln Tunnel in rush hour. In camos.

There's stupid, and then there's industrial-strength stupid.

An infestation worse than bedbugs

I haven't become one of those New Yorkers that hate tourists, but I do wish these two would leave. Quickly.

 

 

 

Mo Rocca says hi

For you CBS Sunday Morning and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me fans, Mo Rocca says hi. He was filming a spot in front of my office last week. Was actually the second time I've met him (the missus and I went to a WWDTM taping in Chicago two years ago). Mo checks in as my first celebrity sighting since moving to the city in August.

A battle you hope both sides lose

Whenever Florida plays Alabama, or the Yankees meet the Mets, I always wish there was a way for both sides to lose.

That’s how a lot of New Yorkers feel about the current tiff between one of the area’s two major cable TV companies, Cablevision, and Rupert Murdoch and his greedbags at NewsCorp, which runs Fox News, Fox Business, the NY Fox affiliate, etc.

Rupert’s people decided that Cablevision paying $70 million for the crap NewsCorp shovels wasn’t enough, so they’re trying to hold them up for a whopping $150 million. (Imagine if your cable bill shot up 214% from $80 a month to $172 a month!)

When Cablevision didn’t pay up, and neither side was willing to budge at the negotiating table, NewsCorp decided to pull the plug on its programming – coincidentally right before the NL playoff game and the Giants football game were played last weekend.

Those who hate Fox see this as a win-win, as the average IQ score for New Yorkers is suddenly rising now that they aren’t listening to Sean Hannity anymore. But just like the baseball strike was a battle between whiny millionaires (players) and whiny billionaires (owners), this battle really has no good guys.

So now the government’s getting involved. Because goodness forbid we can’t get our weekly Glee fix in New York. I mean if the government really wants to do some good, why doesn’t it investigate the lack of quality grits in the Northeast. Fixing that would be change we could believe in.

Wondered what all the shouting and hair-pulling was about

Just missed the taping of Jerry Springer's 20th Anniversary show in Times Square yesterday. Dang.

Welcome to 31st Century New York

 
Here's one architect's vision of what New York will look like.

You can check out the link for more images, but as a Futurama fan, I already know what New York will look like in 1,990 years:

 

Letterman seems like a good 'ol boy

Went to the taping of the David Letterman Show yesterday. It's an interesting process, and although my brush with greatness was brief, Letterman and his team were all business, pushing through the taping of the show in just 60 minutes. It was entertaining, but at times seemed more like a high-speed assembly line than a comedy show taping. Here's the backstory:

Getting the tickets -With a mess a young'uns a fixin' to descend on us over the next couple of weeks, we were looking for ways to entertain them without spending a ton of money. We found out about signing up for ticket lotteries for various TV shows -- Letterman, SNL, Jimmy Fallon -- and decided to try our luck. You can even put your name in the drawing for random tickets to watch The View, but if I wanted to watch five hens fight I'd go to my Uncle Frank's chicken coop. Low and behold, they called us with tickets for Tuesday, two days before the kids got here. We had to answer a simple trivia question to get the tickets.

Picking up the tickets - Picking up the tickets was easy. We waited briefly on line and then gave our names and showed our ID's. I brought the Missus (I'm the king of the cheap dates) and we were able to enjoy a nice 60 minute cafe lunch while we waited to return for the taping.

Inside the Ed Sullivan Theater - It's pretty heady to sit in the same theater The Beatles and Elvis made famous, but while I was told it was a big theater, it's nowhere near as big as the Fox Theatre in Atlanta or the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville. Once inside, we got a nice warmup comedian and some coaching in how to applaud (loudly and often) how to laugh (as loud as you want, as often as you want, the more the better) and what not to do (no "whoo-hoos" or catcalls). Needless to say as a hillbilly, the restrictions were like asking a sign language interpreter to sit on their hands.

Final Warmup -After the comedic warmup, we were treated to several songs by Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra -- which is a darned good band. Then Dave came out and told a couple of jokes. He was clearly sizing up the audience and testing how well and how loudly they were going to respond to jokes. At first, I took it as a sign of insecurity, but in retrospect it was the work of a professional. He was sizing up the crowd to anticipate how good jokes and bad jokes were going to play, so he could time his responses perfectly. One quick audience question (Question: "I live in Iowa and what happened to the 'home office in Sioux City, Iowa?" Answer: "We burned it down for the insurance money.") and we were off with the intro music playing.

Taping - Our hands were sore from the applauding thus far, but we did a pretty good job as an audience clapping and laughing at the monologue. The Top 10 list had a special guest: Ellen Degeneres, who was much smaller in person than she looks on TV. First guest Katie Holmes (Mrs. Tom Cruise) was nice, but you could feel Letterman was going through the motions. He was much more interested in the second guest, Rick Harrison of the TV show "Pawn Stars."

Commercial Breaks - The most interesting part of the experience was what went on during the commercial breaks. Scores of producers and writers would surround Letterman's desk. You couldn't hear what they were talking about as Paul Shaffer's band played hard, but clearly they were reviewing what worked and what didn't in the previous segment, as well as discussing what would happen after they came out of commercial break.

Done and gone -Once the final segment was done, there was "goodnight" and the band played the out music. Then -- bam -- you're done. Ushers are gesturing for you to stand up and herding you quickly out of the theater. You look at your watch. Wow. Sixty minutes and done. Very efficient, almost a comedy-production machine. Letterman seems like a good 'ol boy, doing his work, wasting no time and gettin' everyone out the door. You might feel a little cheated -- until you realize you didn't pay anything for your seat. And with Wicked around the corner charging up to $300 a seat, you recognize you have nothing to complain about!

 

 



On line to watch today's Letterman taping

Blog posted here.

They're your guidos; no, they're YOUR guidos

Apparently, no one wants to claim credit for any of the cast members of Jersey Shore, including the state's governor. He say's they're all New Yorkers.

I've never watched the show, but apparently I'll need to start Tivo-ing the program as part of my education for living in Yankee-land.

I'm sure they're all fine young folk, likely to just hang out down by the general store and have a grape Nehi occasionally. Right?

Bonus question: Is "guido" the same as "hillbilly," but with better hair?