Writing feature stories: I’ve done it before, though perhaps not very well. But now I’m starting to look more seriously at the process. It begins with this article, which won the Pulitzer for feature writing in 2008.
Written by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post, it follows Scott Bell,
a heartthrob. Tall and handsome, he’s got a Donny Osmond-like dose of the cutes, and, onstage, cute elides into hott. When he performs, he is usually the only man under the lights who is not in white tie and tails — he walks out to a standing O, looking like Zorro, in black pants and an untucked black dress shirt, shirttail dangling. That cute Beatles-style mop top is also a strategic asset: Because his technique is full of body — athletic and passionate — he’s almost dancing with the instrument, and his hair flies.
Normally–let’s be honest–I wouldn’t blog about something I have to read for class. But this isn’t a chore, by any means. It’s about music, and music in the subways, and subways in the morning, and people and lifestyles and moments. And how horrible we are at appreciating them.
The Brooklyn Flea moved inside a former bank in Fort Greene for the winter. Three of my favo(u)rite things! (Flea markets, former banks and being inside during the winter.) That said, it was a pretty lovely day to explore the streets of Fort Greene, where I’ll be one of ten CUNY students helping run the New York Times Local blog there beginning this month.
Street artist Felix Morelo draws faces in Union Square. This evening, as I was interviewing two musicians for Songs from the Subway, Morelo asked me to take his photo.
Growing up in Long Island, food blogger Jeff Orlick wasn’t impressed with his culinary options. But since he moved to Jackson Heights, he has had the world of food at his fingertips. Orlick, who often travels by bicycle so he can experience the city in a more intimate way, doesn’t understand why many New Yorkers don’t have more adventurous taste buds.
That was one of the reasons he organized the Roosevelt Avenue Taco Crawl, a 30-block adventure that began near his apartment in Jackson Heights and ended with an after-party on 103rd Street in Corona.
If you want a good view at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, get there early. We got to 59th Street around 9 a.m., about the same time the parade was getting started on the Upper West Side. As you can tell, we didn’t have a great view. But here’s what we did see.
It’s Thanksgiving Eve, and on the Upper West Side, that means one thing: balloons.
The pre-parade balloon inflation party is a tradition, it seems – one that causes gridlock and rage among those over the age of seven. But for balloon lovers who aren’t willing to stand in line in the drizzle for a couple of hours (read: me) it means taking photos of everything but the balloons.
I don’t know how long the inflation party has been going on, but I do know the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade itself kicked off in 1924. These days it runs for three hours, starting tomorrow at 9 a.m. (9 a.m.? Really?)
This woman looks perplexed, probably because Santa’s entourage seems to have expanded to include Shrek. (A little girl on the crosstown bus informed me ogres don’t have fur. I’d never really thought about it before, but I think she’s right.)
No matter how much things have changed since 1924, Santa Claus is still Santa Claus. And here, he’s the only one not in a hurry.
Although he tears up when he sees clips of his comedy sketches, Stanley Kaufman admits that his son, Andy Kaufman, was difficult to handle growing up. He ran away from home. He didn’t do well in school. His hair was “down to his hips.”
But one day, he gave his father a copy of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. “That moment was my awakening as to who Andy was and what he was trying to say,” Kaufman said Tuesday night at Caroline’s Comedy Club midtown Manhattan, where amateur comedian Blaine Kneece received the fifth annual Andy Kaufman Award and $2,500.
The competition—named for the New York-born comedian, who died 25 years ago—featured six finalists, each given eight minutes to woo the judges. But a few acts were interrupted by the show’s chain-smoking emcee, Tony Clifton, who was eventually asked to leave. A lounge-singing character created by Kaufman and known for outrageous outbursts, Clifton was often played by other people even when Kaufman was alive.
Some audience members questioned whether the scene, which included a shouting match and the emptying of a glass, was scripted.
But Kaufman’s daughter, Maria Colonna, compared her father’s work to that of Sacha Baron Cohen, another actor known for bringing controversial characters to life.
She said her father would be honored to know there’s a comedy award in his name. “But at the same time,” she said, “I’m sure he’d play some little trick on us.”
Al Parinello, executive director of The Andy Kaufman Award ceremony, was a good friend to the comedian. In college, Parinello paid Kaufman $5 to perform in a coffee house. Like most of Kaufman’s work that followed, the performance shocked the audience. But as alternative comedy has taken center stage, work like Kaufman’s—known to make audiences uncomfortable—has gained in popularity. Every week, 125,000 YouTube viewers request an Andy Kaufman video, Parinello said.
Parinello and Kaufman’s brother, Michael Kaufman, spent two months pouring over 100 videos submitted by amateur comedians from 15 states. They narrowed their selection to 25 contestants, who performed Monday night. Six were chosen for Tuesday’s finale, where judges included Flight of the Conchords actress and Kaufman Award winner Kristen Schaal; Kaufman’s manager, George Shapiro; and Michael Kaufman.
“We look for people who will take risks—unprecedented risks in some cases,” Parinello said, giving a nod to comics who incorporate costumes and technology into their performance. Tuesday’s winner, Kneece, used iPods and video. Another finalist, Eric Davis, wore a red, spandex jumpsuit filled with inflated objects.
Before the comedians performed, the audience watched a video featuring some of Kaufman’s more memorable moments: among them, a conga drum skit, an Elvis impersonation and his curse-laden appearance on the David Letterman Show.
“Looking at this video, I’m even amazed at how much Andy created in the short time he was with us,” said Michael Kaufman. “It’s given people freedom to do things they might not have otherwise done.”
George Shapiro, Kaufman’s manager and a producer of the award-winning television series Seinfeld, said the first time he saw him perform, the audience seemed uncomfortable.
“He’s the most original—not only performer, but I think the most original person I ever met in my life,” Shapiro said. “My only concern was, as a manager, am I dealing with someone totally insane?”
After the finalists performed, Carol Kaufman-Kerman introduced a song her brother performed at the end of many skits: Friendly, Friendly World. Her brother’s routines were out-of-the-box, she said—but at the end, he usually tied the knots.
“No matter how far he brought you,” she said with a smile, “he always brought you back to that safe place at the end.”
Phillies fan Sonny Forriest, Jr. performs a pro-Phillies anthem outside Yankee Stadium in the Bronx Wednesday night.
In 1950, Victor Maggitti was a senior with perfect attendance at his West Philadelphia high school. Every Sunday, he went to the city’s Shibe Park to catch a ball game. When the Philadelphia Phillies made it to the World Series that year, Maggitti, a diehard Phillies fan, sent for tickets.
“To get to the World Series, believe it or not, all you had to do was write to the newspaper,” he said. But when the tickets arrived, his mom wouldn’t let him skip school for the game.
“Now, 60 years later, I’m going to every game to make up for it,” the Philadelphia resident said outside Yankee Stadium Wednesday night. Maggiti and his fiancée, a Manhattan-based New York Yankees fan, were there to watch Game One of the Major League Baseball World Series—the first since 1950 to bring the Yankees and the Phillies head-to-head.
“We got tickets for the first two games here and I have a suite at the Phillies,” Maggitti said, adding he also saw his team play in 2008 against the Tampa Bay Rays. “When they come to Philadelphia we’re going to wipe them out. Philadelphia fans are more loud—and we are rough.”
But in the Bronx before Wednesday’s game, most Phillies fans—their red gear splattered in a sea of blue pinstripes—were confident in Yankee territory. And after nine innings, the Phillies took the Yankees 6-1.
Dan Chervanick, who lives in New York but grew up in Philadelphia, called the Yankees-Phillies relationship “playful.”
“Nothing bad,” he said of Yankees fans before the game. “They were telling us to get off at the wrong subway stop.”
Dave Schwind, who traveled to New York from Philadelphia, got a ticket from a Yankees-loving friend.
“We hate each other to begin with, so this is just adding to it,” he joked. “I have to be kind of nice because he got the tickets.”
And Julie Develin, who grew up cheering for the Phillies in Pennsylvania, went to the game with her best friend, another Yankees supporter.
“The Yankee fans have been nice to me so far,” said Develin, who also has tickets for Saturday’s game in Philadelphia. “I was booed on the subway and that’s it.”
But she said she made sure to avoid the rain-soaked Yankees pep rally hosted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in Times Square Wednesday afternoon.
Phillies fans also steered clear of CupcakeStop, a roaming cupcake vendor parked at 47th Street and Third Avenue on Wednesday. As he handed out “A. Rod” cupcakes, Rob Fessenden said the truck sold 300 New York Yankees cupcakes by 1 p.m.
“The Yankee ones are going real fast today,” Fessenden said, adding no Phillies fans requested cupcakes.
But Phillies support was cooking a few blocks away, where Evan Stein prepared some Philadelphia-inspired treats at Shorty’s, his 42nd Street bar. Beginning at 4 p.m., Shorty’s staff served between 500 and 750 free Philly cheesesteaks as part of a promotion sponsored by the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp.
“You just can’t duplicate Philly bread,” Stein said, adding the Zagat Survey, which rates New York restaurants, recently called the bar’s cheesesteaks the city’s best.
Shorty’s Manager Dan Sullivan, a staunch Yankees fan, admitted his love for cheesesteaks. Still, he didn’t plan to hide his Yankee pride.
“I will definitely be extra boisterous if the Yankees win,” said Sullivan, who was clad in Yankees pinstripes. “I have an easy exit.”
Back at Yankee Stadium, Phillies fan Sonny Forriest, Jr. prepared to listen to the game from outside as the pre-game ceremonies began. Although Forriest came to New York sporting a white Phillies jacket and a red ball cap, he and his friends didn’t have tickets.
“They say if you buy one from a scalper, you get locked up,” said Forriest, a handicapped veteran. “We’re just going to sit around and listen like everybody else.”
While ticket-holders trickled inside the stadium and those without gathered outside in Babe Ruth Plaza, Forriest pulled out a microphone and performed a pro-Phillies anthem.
“Love is just like a baseball game—three strikes you’re out,” he crooned as a pair of Yankees fans nearby shook their heads. “We’re gonna win the World Series.”
