Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Friday, December 16, 2005
NEWS FLASH: Big Apple faces subway strike, giant ape
Bracing for a strike...
Lots of talk about a subway strike here in NYC. As of this writing, no agreement yet. The main issue is the city’s imposing of a two-tiered system in which newer transit workers would get reduced (or no) benefits.
Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote an essay when another transit strike seemed unavoidable. Here’s an excerpt:
Like my hirsute ancestors, I spend far too much time inside dank, filthy caves with other melancholy members of my species. We each possess a physiology that evolved to negotiate the Stone Age. Unfortunately, we live in the Space Age. There’s the rub. We are urban cavemen—overmatched in our daily battle to navigate an artificial reality.
The prehistoric subway system of New York City was obviously designed well before anyone could have ever have dreamed of millions of riders each day. Still, in general, that imposing amount of straphangers could theoretically fit without much fuss if humanity was further along in its glacially gradual evolutionary process. However, since you and I are stuck in the primitive confines of the early twenty-first century, illogic reigns supreme and the trains are a daily—but unfunny—replay of the infamous (and over-rated) stateroom scene in the Marx Brothers’ classic 1936 film, A Night At The Opera. I say “over-rated,” because the Marxsters did infinitely more comical work but somehow, it is the so-so stateroom nonsense that has become synonymous with their genius thanks to myriad film critics who are afraid to buck the system and be original.
To read the complete essay, please click here:
http://tinyurl.com/d6bxf
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Speaking of movies and New York...
...Michele and I saw King Kong last night. It was not what I expected. Whether it was meant to be or not, Kong is a heartbreaking metaphor about man’s mistreatment of all things natural in the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. Michele cried through half the movie and I was choked up as the big ape “said” his goodbyes to his dream girl atop the Empire State Building. A sad, sad movie about a sad, sad world.
For a different kind of movie about animals, click here to watch a cat massage a dog:
http://www.guzer.com/videos/cat_massage.php
On that note…
...I’m outta here.
Copyright © 2005-2007 Mickey Z.
