NYC: It Runs on Spite

Another day from hell in NYC. That's probably redundant, since NYC is itself the closest thing that I can imagine to hell on earth.

Feeling under the weather and generally burnt out, I left work earlier than usual today. After wading through a few thousand people on my way across midtown in the humidity of the urban hellhole that is New York City in July, I finally arrived at the bus station to find it thoroughly jammed with the bodies of commuters and tourists fighting their way through aluminum framed doors and poorly-lit stairwells to their respective terminals in a slow motion battle of maneuvering. I fell into line with the rest of the lemmings dragging their way up the escalator in route to our respective Jersey-bound buses as stale air blew down on me from above from the blackened ventilation system.

As I reached the top of the escalator, it dumped me into a small waiting area cramped with passengers waiting to get on their buses. This room is usually packed to capacity with bodies, and today, during rush hour, it was especially crammed. As I stepped off the escalator and into the crowd, the guy behind me in line exclaimed irritably to my back -- or to the backs of anyone who would listen -- "You have to keep moving...people are getting off the escalator!" Without turning around, I resignedly raised my arms in a gesture that I hoped said "what do you want me to do? There is a wall of humanity in front of me and I am shuffling through it as best I can." Not deterred, the would-be rat race champion proceeded to shove me aside and step ahead of me. I raised my voice and said "EXCUSE me" loudly and clearly to let him know that I didn't approve of his line jumping or his attitude. He stopped briefly and replied cursorily "well, you have to push them out of the way and keep moving." At that point, I looked hard at the guy, a diminutive, graying 40-something wearing a yellow golf shirt and wire rimmed glasses. He was not the picture of a threatening man. This realization coincided with my rising anger as I stepped directly into his path, placed my face very close to his, and said, "I don't push anyone. Until they push me. And then I push back." Apparently I looked just crazy enough to be taken seriously because the guy effectively fled after that. I'm not confident that he even got onto a bus.

What's remarkable about this is not that I, weighing in at a mere buck fifty-five (wet), so intimidated the guy with such a silly line that he ran away from me, but rather the fact that the encounter happened at all.

I liken New York to a large amplifier emitting pervasive waves of rage. If you stand close enough to it for very long, it penetrates you, conquers the light inside you, and turns something in your blood to a viscous, vicious black filth. The city is filled with people who are filled with anger toward one another, a collection of concentrated bitterness and spite in an unending I've-got-mine contest for supremacy in the everyday little things.

I've been here 2 years 10 months and 6 days, and I can fill the sludge beginning to fill my veins.

Rattus Picketus Inflatius

It's never a good sign when your favorite neighborhood Indian restaurant has a giant inflatable rat parked out front.

I'll restrain myself from commenting on the potential trademark issues inherent in the suspiciously McDonald's-like 'M' on the awning in the photo and I will try to focus on the rat. As it happens, Sr. Rata is a hot item in New York these days. No, not just in front of ethnic restaurants of dubious culinary standards. Rather (just when you thought you knew where this post was going), Rattus picketus is a favorite inflatable metaphor propped up by striking workers to protest those who cross their picket lines. In fact, "rat" is apparently a multinational term used to refer to those who frustrate the cause of said workers -- even in India:

हड़तालभंजकहड़तालभंजक् (noun): rat; someone who works (or provides workers) during a strike.*

In New York City, strikes are the topic de jour (or perhaps I should say de jure). I haven't forgotten the New York City transit strike (i.e. subway strike) back in December 2005, which crippled traffic and purportedly resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue among Manhattan businesses during the height of the holiday shopping/tourism season. Of course, the strike also forced many of the seven million New Yorkers who ride the subway to find other more environmentally-friendly means of getting to work. Faced with the glut of increased automobile traffic in NYC, the police even closed several major Manhattan streets to motor vehicles to allow emergency vehicles and displaced subway riders an open route through the city. I experienced the joy of riding my mountain bike down the middle of 5th Avenue on a weekday afternoon, as the NYPD gave cyclists like me the all-clear rather than dirty looks for a change. I suppose that every cloud has a silver lining.

But I digress.

Massive strikes are hard on the public. In premise, the union vs. employer conflict makes sense: it positions two powerful bodies against one another in order to level the playing field and protect the interests of the otherwise somewhat-powerless common man. This is the very same principle that our bi-partisan political system is built around. It's the two-sharks-in-a-tank analogy: if the sharks are busy circling around one another, the common man is less likely to be victimized, as the sharks keep one another in check. And this nearly works in our government model -- candidates and elected officials alike in opposing parties and on opposite sides of sensitive issues have to answer to one another. But this system is also imperfect and subject to manipulation. In particular, the inherent protections of this premise collapse when the public at large becomes a tool of leverage rather than the real party at interest.

None of this is rocket science and certainly it has been addressed by pundits wiser than me, but the impact bothers me enough to rant about it, particularly since my arrival in New York a few years ago. New York City's sheer population and volume of commerce make it a target for this kind of impact.

Now Amtrak is threatening to strike, which will effectively cripple New Jersey Transit, since New Jersey Transit is one of Amtrak's tenants on several of its key rail lines and the major carrier of New Jersey commuters who work in New York City. If this happens, it will almost certainly result in a massive increase in the quantity of vehicles attempting to commute between New York and New Jersey. The impact felt by Amtrak will be far less than the cost -- both economically and environmentally -- to the public.

Meanwhile, the Writers Guild of America strike rambles on in its twelfth week. Yes, the WGA strike costs its opponents (the film and television producers) millions of dollars, but those producers can arguably afford it. The real impact is being felt by those who are peripherally affected. This ripple extends to everyone from the actors and crew who work on TV and film productions (e.g. soap operas) to the businesses who have come to rely on patrons of those productions.

It seems to me that while massive strikes like the New York transit strike and the looming Amtrak strike may protect the interests of the workers, they typically do so by using the public at large as a pawn in their negotiations. And while the potential detriment to the public and resulting backlash may be the sharpest arrow in a union's quiver, it is one that I don't think should ever be nocked.

As to the rats, I think that some perspective is in order. I believe that I hear scurrying on both sides.

UPDATE: As it happens, the rat in front of the Indian restaurant (which has been there all week) really IS there to protest the conditions at the restaurant. The protesters' pamphlet cites vermin, cockroaches, and a variety of other things, but the fine print also mentions that the workers are underpaid, which I'm guessing is the real story.

* Your browser might not be able to view the Hindi characters here, so you'll just have to trust me on this one.

Lemmings

I always chuckle when I think of Lyle Lovett in the 1992 film The Player, methodically chanting the phrase "One of us. One of us. One of us" in perfect deadpan monotone. Lovett plays a detective who delivers the line as an homage to the arguably more obscure 1932 film Freaks. In Freaks, the same line is chanted by a group of "freaks" as they accept an outsider. The line was predictably campy in the original, but beautifully spooky when uttered by the expressionless Lovett. One of us. One of us. One of us. I can still hear it.

Not to veer wildly off on an irreversible tangent (too late), but according to the Wiki article, Freaks "took the exceptional step of casting real people with deformities as the eponymous sideshow "freaks," rather than using costumes and makeup." Wow. Let that sink in for a moment... and then let's move on.

Some time after seeing Lovett's performance, I silently adopted his little chant. Whenever I witness some behavior that suggests blatant conformity, I hear Lyle Lovett in my head chanting "One of Us. One of Use. One of us." It would be creepy if it wasn't so funny.

I'm neither anarchist nor advocate, but I hope that I have mostly blazed my own trail in life. Occasionally I am struck by the number of people who simply follow the norms set out for them by family, religion, and the media. It's difficult to imagine that people display such disdain -- whether through fear or apathy or simple ignorance -- for the greatest gift that we possess in a free society: the freedom to make choices about our paths in life.

I'm not blind to the fact that for every non-conformist looking down from his lofty tower, there's someone slightly more radical looking down at him. But I'm not talking about living on the fringe or dropping out of society or making decisions that are self-destructive. I'm talking about taking a hard look at the "norms" and stepping outside of them for a moment to determine what makes sense for the you.

I saw the following click-through advertisement today on one of the most frequently-visited websites on the Internet (viewed by millions) and I was simply floored:

An alternate title might be: "YOU ARE A FAILURE WITHOUT A BABY!" In case you hadn't guessed, I'm really bothered by this ad. It is the perpetuation of an idea which is practically hard-wired into the minds of young adults. It infers that the proper formula is: (1) date; (2) get a job; (3) get married; (4) make babies; and (5) achieve happiness. Perfection assured.

For many people, the real version would probably go more like this: (1) complete all of the above-listed steps as quickly as possible; (2) run out of steps to follow; (3) have a mid-life crisis; (4) get divorced; and (5) die. OK, so maybe that's a bit harsh (and maybe it isn't, considering the divorce rate and number of mid-lifers in therapy), but the point is clear: the formula is not right for everyone. It might not even be right for anyone. Yet, despite our freedom to carve our own paths -- to shape our futures -- so many of us simply fall into the lemming line and are surprised when we pull our whiskers up from the ground (or out of the ass of the lemming in front of us) long enough to see the edge of the cliff looming ahead. But following the lemming line feels good. The line is right. Practically all of the other lemmings are in the same line. How could the line lead us to failure?

I am particularly bothered by the media's perpetuation of this artifice. The website on the other end of the click-through advertisement shown above states that the service is for you, if "you are 25 or older, a sophisticated, college-educated professional, and are seeking a mate." But while such sites style themselves as guideposts to those who are seeking the path to this promised Shangri-La, there is a fine line between accommodation and perpetuation. The Internet is rife with websites designed to assist daters, brides-to-be, mothers-to-be, and empty-nesters, all of which are hocking wares under the pretense of providing services to the willing. But I argue that such sites do far more to perpetuate these hard-wired stereotypes than to actually serve anyone.

In the end, it's a perpetual motion machine of outdated ideas -- a system of beliefs that feeds back into itself because it is recycled by the media, by politicians, and by religious dogmatists -- all of whom almost certainly have ulterior motives for doing so, albeit cloaked in enticing promises of bucolic dreams. And the impact of this is to discourage independent, creative thinking. That's a recipe for personal unhappiness and eventually, I think, societal degradation. But what do I know? I still catch a glimpse of that cliff edge once in a while myself. Maybe I'm a lemming too.

Cookie on the Run

I must vent. I can't help it. Someone is infringing the Eat 'N Park smiley cookie trademark. This is not cool. The "Clever Cookie Company," a New York-based company that sells kosher goods via the Internet, has begun producing cookies that are nearly identical to my beloved smiley cookies. If only I was the one representing Eat 'N Park. I would let loose the virtual wrath of generations of angry, hungry steel workers on those clever bakers in Long Island. Clever Cookie Company indeed. Don't mess with my Smiley Cookie.®

What really leaves crumbs in my covers, though, is the public and press ignorance of the trademark law issues here. I've been reading a multitude of statements from reporters and from the public at large who happily display a near-complete lack of understanding of trademark law. It genuinely bothers me. Not because I feel that they should have a better understanding of trademark law (that's my job, not theirs), but because I feel that they should have a better understanding of trademark law before they offer their opinions on the subject. Here is what some of the locals are saying:

"As far as I know the law - all you need to do is change a product 20%, and there is no copyright infringement." - misguided layperson #1 (note: this is a trademark matter, not a copyright matter)

"Surely that smiley face must be in the public domain by now. Everyone uses it. There would be lawsuits galore!" - misguided layperson #2 (note: trademark rights, unlike copyrights, can exist in perpetuity)

"Does that mean Eat 'N Park will be suing everyone who uses emoticons?" - misguided layperson #3 (note: Eat 'N Park owns trademark rights for smiley faces ON COOKIES,* not on all things in the universe)

"If Eat 'N Park somehow prevails, Kings never has to sweat Denny's introduction of Malevolent muffins or Scowling scones." - completely useless reporter who sets forth his own erroneous legal analysis, displaying an almost perfect ignorance of the most fundamental tenants of trademark law.

Eat 'N Park has a legitimate case here. Fortunately, they are well-represented by the Webb Firm in Pittsburgh. I hope that they get a fair shake in court. And I pray that the Clever Cookie Co. does not retain my firm to represent them. I could not in my heart defend them. As you can see from the photo, I am loyal to just one cookie.

* and pancakes too, actually

Remembering Flight 427

Recently I was asked to recount the "single most interesting thing that ever happened to me." Even if I included all of the things that would qualify as too obscene to print (ha!), one event made a greater impression on me than all of the others combined, though it is now some thirteen years in the past. Since it's not the sort of thing that typically makes for good cocktail party conversation, I figured I might as well memorialize it here.

In September 1994, I was a third year dental student at the University of Pittsburgh when USAir Flight 427 dropped inexplicably out of the evening sky and crashed into a wooded region a few miles outside of Pittsburgh, killing all 132 passengers and crew. The Pennsylvania Dental Association’s Dental Identification Team (PADIT) was called to take part in the massive effort to identify the remains of those who lost their lives in the crash. A few days after the recovery efforts began, PADIT put out a call to dental students to assist in the daunting task.

I cancelled my afternoon patients and along with two friends/classmates, reported to the U.S. Air Force hanger which had been established as a disaster recovery center. We joined Pittsburgh’s chief forensic odontologist in examining crash victim remains as part of a highly-organized team of pathologists, forensic anthropologists, FBI officials, and others. My friends and I were all grateful and a little awestruck to be included and even treated as respected members of such a highly-qualified team.

Ultimately, the substantial majority of those who lost their lives in the tragedy were identified through dental records. It was a rare and unforgettable experience for my friends and for me. All three of us would later train to become maxillofacial surgeons, although after some years I left that calling to pursue a career in the law.

Even now, I am frequently reminded of the experience, though I have since moved away from Pittsburgh and I haven't seen those friends in quite a few years. I think that we all looked at it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, though a tragically sad one at that. I am left with a lasting, profound sense of the significance of the event.

Comets: Marking Time for All of Us?

The Holmes Comet recently appeared in the night sky, surprising astronomers with its unusual and unexpected intensity. That got me thinking about comets for the first time in a while. One of the most famous comets is Halley's Comet. It's cyclical 76-year appearance has been recorded at least as far back as 240 BC. It last appeared in 1986 and will next appear in 2061. When it appeared in 1986, it was the least favorable viewing for earth observers in recorded history -- it was barely visible to the naked eye.

I was in boarding school in 1986 and a member of my school's proudly geeky "Astronomical Army." We observed Halley's Comet through the telescope in our permanent observatory atop the cross country hill. Even with our powerful scope and reasonably light pollution-free surroundings, the comet looked like little more than a blurry streak.

If I make it to 2061, I will be 92 years old when Halley's next appears. I realized today just how old I'm getting when I thought to myself "Halley's will appear in less than 54 years. That's not that long." Then I remembered that I'm now 38, so another 58 years will account for most if not all of my remaining days on earth. Wow.

Still, when Halley's comes round again, I hope to see it in the sky with my blurry, teary, cataracted 92-year old eyes and I hope that this time it will be brilliant.

The Curious Lives of Pittsburgers

The June 2006 list of new words added to the Oxford English Dictionary officially includes the term (drum roll, please...) "Pittsburgher." You know what? It's about time. Pittsburghers love their city, and they share a unique identity with it. I'm amazed that this has been overlooked for so long by the Oxford folks, who are clearly a bunch of stuffy, mustached Englishmen sitting around in rich, leather drawing room chairs, puffing on pipes filled with Prince Albert, and debating whether such terms should make the cut. OK, I can't actually validate any of that.

I recently visited Pittsburgh to run the IKEA half-marathon and catch up with some friends. During the race, I had a brief conversation with another runner that made me laugh and reflect upon the unity that comes from being a sizable city with a familiar, small-town mentality.

Somewhere near the fourth mile, I noticed that the young woman running beside me was wearing the same racing shoes that I was. I race in yellow/black/white Brooks T-Racers, which are lightweight racing flats with good medial support for pronators like me. Seeing someone in the same shoes was not really a surprise; the T-Racer is a popular flat and not a few have been sold. However, there was also an element of déjà vu in this case. Almost exactly two years ago, while running a half-marathon in Erie, PA, the very same thing happened: somewhere near the fourth mile I noticed that the woman running next to me was wearing the same shoes. On that occasion, I remarked "nice shoes," and struck up a conversation with her. The two of us ultimately paced one another to personal best times.

This time around, I was once again aiming for a new personal best time, so I remarked to the girl next to me, "nice shoes," hoping that good luck would strike twice. She glanced at my feet and replied with a perceptible grin, "You can't go wrong..." and then she paused to take a breath. Mentally, I finished the thought for her: "You can't go wrong with the Brooks T-Racer!" But I was wrong. She caught me completely off-guard when she continued a moment later, "with the Black and Gold!"

Touché, Pittsburgher.