Robert Muraine is the coolest mime ever

It's like if Marcel Marceau could dance. Skip the intro on the first video and go straight to the good stuff at the 1:00 mark.

Follow Your Heart

This was spotted on a gritty street in Oakland. The sidewalks must be trying to tell us something.

Sydney Pollack Dead at 73

From the Bloomberg obit:

The connection between man and woman is "a metaphor for everything else in life," he told Newsweek in 1985. In a 1990 interview with the Los Angeles Times, he said he was drawn to "love stories in which the obstacle is too great to finally be overcome."

Here's an interview with Pollack about one of his best films, "Jeremiah Johnson."

Big Booty Benefit

Some good news for people with big butts: it might help prevent diabetes.

Weather Molester

Check out the chyron. Let's hope that's a typo.

Stand Here

Screw the airlines. Just stop by the northbound R, W subway station at Prince Street.

An Amazing Mind

Definition of black

From Morehouse's first white valedictorian: "I've been here for four years and yet, I cannot give you the definition of black. I cannot tell you what a black man is. I really learned to look much deeper. It takes a lot of effort to know people."

Bowling is officially not a sport

Regardless, a blind man bowling a 300 is still a pretty cool story.

Kill Your TV

Sling.com is starting a blog about TV. Check it out here.

If you're not familiar with Sling, it is the company that invented the Slingbox.

If you're not familiar with a Slingbox, click this link. Buy one or two or three or four or five or six or seven or eight. Or nine. (Ten?) You won't regret it.

Forgotten but not gone

I didn't realize that the old Tiger Stadium has been abandoned for nearly a decade. I just assumed they tore it down, as Yankee Stadium will be when the new one is built.

Public Art

Terry Richardson is the artist behind the camera for this Belvedere vodka ad, and Vincent Gallo is allegedly the artist behind the belt buckle in this spectacular public art collaboration.

Richards' photograph forces the viewer to contemplate the causal relationship of Belvedere vodka and BJs in nightclubs. His master stroke, however, is the look of surprise on her face, which hints at the ever-increasing likelihood that the paparazzi will catch you in the act, leading to your own reality show.

But Richardson is asking a fundamental question here, as well. He's challenging the viewer of his art with what is unsaid: Were the pants just pulled up or is the buckle about to be undone? Richardson's lines here aren't as clearly drawn, demanding that the viewers to fill in that space for themselves.

Compared to other art campaigns Richardson has done, the suggestiveness is more subtle, more introspective.

Gallo is restrained in his performance here, as well, to which anyone who saw Chloe Sevigny oblige him in "The Brown Bunny" can attest.

That this gift of public art is being bestowed upon the straphangers at Broadway and Lafayette speaks to the generosity of them both. More people will pass it in a day than will attend most gallery shows in a month.

Bravo.

I miss the South

I never thought I'd say it, but I miss the South. Especially after a friend sent me this video, in which a young lady in Atlanta spits some Soulja Girl rhymes and threatens to kill an elderly woman.

Stuff like this happens in New York, no doubt, but it just has a delectable, deep-fried, smack-your-lips flava below the Mason-Dixon. Too bad the video doesn't have subtitles. She speaks a dialect known as Imbecile, which I haven't studied since high school.

The first minute is great, then it drags a little, but stick around for the ending. Well worth it. I was even able to decipher her rant at the end: "Somebody gimme my hair so I can go! Somebody gimme my hair so I can go! Somebody gimme my hair so I can go! Did anybody see my hair? I'm pressin' charges! I'm pressin' charges! I'm pressin' charges! I'm pressin' charges! I'm pressin' charges! Where my do-rag at?"

Broken Bats

I read this story on how maple bats suck and are dangerous. Then I caught the last few innings of the Yankees game on the tube and saw a bat break in the seventh, eighth and ninth. Hmmm.

I think the story needs a stronger nut graf, and the lede is a little sensational (even if it's true), but it raises an interesting issue.

Hillary Clinton has lost it

Some people would say that happened a long time ago, but if there was any doubt, enjoy her latest: "Senator Obama's support ... among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again. I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on."

Desperate. And sad.

There's also been a lot of squawking that "Hillary Democrats" might back John McCain if she doesn't get the nomination. I just don't buy it. Americans are pretty stupid, but Hillary's clan can't be that bitter.

Other People's Stuff

Mark May 15 on your calendar.

Interesting post from my buddy Matt Duffy on a study of "The Daily Show"

Bedbugs on the subway?

As if you could date New Yorkers

Someone please please please please please get me a reservation

And here's a little something extra. R.I.P. Freddy Soto:

Bronx Bombers

Caught my first game of 2008 at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night, and the two guys who sat behind me were more interesting than the Bombers, who looked like a bunch of bums against Cleveland. They lost 3-0.

My girlfriend and I had upper-deck seats right behind the foul pole where that squirrel watched the playoffs last season. When these two guys sat behind us, I thought they were going to spend the rest of the game annoying the crap out of me.

It's no crime to be drunk and loud at a baseball game in the Bronx. It actually helps you fit in. But the guy closest to me stumbled while sitting down and I thought I was going to have to catch him with my face, but he managed to right the ship. No harm, no foul.

And other than getting smacked in the head once and some stomping on the empty seat next to me, they actually made the game a very enjoyable experience.

The guy who almost fell on me announced, "I know baseball!" to his buddy, whose dreads curled around his head like a turban (no, that's not a hat). Because he was missing his front teeth, he had a hard time pronouncing some words. “My father taught me. Jackie Robinson. Babe Roof. He played for Boston! I know everything. Joe DiMaggio.”

And the guy did seem to know quite a lot about the Yankees.

"Wang’s the best pitcher dey got!” he told his friend during the fourth inning. This is true.

“Well, the Yankees ain't doing nuthin’,” his dreadlocked buddy said. Also true.

“The other guy’s throwing a one-hitter, man!” he countered. And in fact Cliff Lee was shutting down the Yankees.

When a trivia question about perfect games by Yankees pitchers went up on the big screen, he started reeling off names. He called out, "Boomer!" then "Coney!" remembering the perfection of David Wells and David Cone in the late '90s.

A vendor yelled, “Peanuts, here! Peanuts!”

“I want some free nuts!” the guy without the front teeth yelled back. The vendor looked at him and kept walking. “Watch," he said to his friend, "I’m gonna get me some free nuts. Ha!”

Later in the game, the stadium speakers blared “YMCA” and the grounds crew did its dance while dragging the infield. The guy with the dreads went to the bathroom and the other guy said to a man nearby, "They made 'YMCA' into a movie. It was really, really good." He proceeded to give an in-depth review of the 1980 Village People film. He also informed him that “Mamma Mia!” is being made into a movie, too. Baseball buff, film buff, and a fan of Broadway.

The next peanut vendor that walked by yelled, “Sack a nuts here! Last chance for deez nuts!”

“You can’t say free nuts, then not give free nuts," he said. "That’s against the law! Ha, ha!”

During the sixth inning, a camera man showed up and started filming people dancing to Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love.”

A woman got up and began to swing her hips and her arms like she was falling out of a tree, hitting every branch on the way down. The guy with the dreads busted out some wild moves of his own, punching at the air and kicking his feet.

“You were battling her, man! That was a battle!” the guy told his friend. "Ha, ha! We’re going to Shea on Friday.”

Today's Buzzword: At the end of the day

OK, so that's not a word, it's a phrase. But still. In four hours of meetings today, I must have heard "at the end of the day" about 649 times.

Journalism Requiem: Headlines

(Found this here)

Copy editors love to say that more headlines get read on a daily basis that stories. And that's true. People flick through the paper and scan almost every headline but read far fewer stories. The same is true online.

Readers might think they are walking away with the essence of the story if they only read the headline and perhaps the lead paragraph. At least that should be the case.

But take this headline: Too Much, Too Little Sleep Leads to Big Belly

This would be fine, except that it's not true. Poor sleep is "linked" to being obese. It's not a causal relationship and the story even says as much. This type of mistake is common. And much worse mistakes are made all the time.

As news sources, especially newspapers, slash staffs and move away from copy editing, as if it's a luxury rather than a necessity to protect credibility -- which is the very the lifeblood of news -- more mistakes will be made, and they'll be made on much more important stories.

Journalism Requiem: Sean Bell verdict

When the Sean Bell verdict was announced, the homepage editor of a major television news Web site (the station has three letters and a B in the middle) was overheard saying, “Why aren’t they rioting?”

I recounted this story to a friend of mine, who is black. She laughed and said she was surprised they weren’t rioting, too.

But this same homepage editor went on to say that he didn’t know how big a story the verdict was unless “they” riot.

So, three cops being acquitted of murdering an unarmed man on his wedding day -- he was shot 50 times -- isn’t big news without this. Good to know.

Disney Magic

A bunch of Disney World employees dug through bags of trash and found three platinum and diamond wedding rings, which a Massachusetts couple accidentally threw away during their stay.

I heard about the story at the gym, where I'm force-fed the morning "news" show ad machines while I'm on the elliptical. The wife, Karen Campanale, recounted the story and ended by saying how wonderful the employees are and that "someone should doing something nice for them. They deserve a vacation."

Uh, yeah, someone should do something for them. And that someone is YOU, lady.

Family Ties

It’s Friday. But you knew that. I knew it too, and you knew that I knew that you knew and so on.

Nice.

Real nice.

I likes dat.

Lots.

Cousin’s in town, just finished her world tour. She wants to put the exclamation point on the trip with a visit to the Boogie Down BX, baby.

I want stories, wild tales from Tahiti and Hong Kong. What happened on the moped? She almost got taken out by a truck. She’s brave. Cuz has her ish together. She’s my shero.

I’ll tell her about Philly. And Frida Kahlo. And cheese steak. Saw the penitentiary, too. Al Capone had it made. Even behind bars.

Beer. 67 minutes away from a beer. Or 20. (Beers, not minutes.) Nice and numb. Loose.

I have a lot of family, but not a lot of ties. She a tie. A bow tie. Silk. And denim. With a funky pattern.

Hoboken Haircut

I got my hair cut at this barber shop in Hoboken. The sign says:

"If I find out who gave me this
pasted ten
"I'll cut off his ears and paste them
to his balls."

There something poetic about that.

War or the Gridiron?

It was not that long ago that Pat Tillman walked away from the NFL and millions of dollars to become an Army Ranger and fight the Taliban in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001. He became a national hero, regardless of the outrageous aftermath of his death.

But the Army still can’t get its priorities straight when it comes to football players.

West Point’s Caleb Campbell won't have to worry about fighting in the same war that claimed Tillman's life -- at least not yet -- even though he's been trained as an officer. Because Campbell is good at football, the military thinks his time would be better spent battling running backs and quarterbacks in the NFL rather than the terrorists in Afghanistan or Iraq.

The U.S. Military Academy has spent four years and a considerable amount of money training him to do both, but recently decided to give extraordinary athletes a way to "opt-out" of their military commitment. It's good PR and it's also allows the school to recruit better athletes, perhaps a way to resurrect Army's football glory days.

I don't blame Campbell for pursuing a career (and a huge amount of money) as a professional football player. I blame the people in the Army who allowed this to happen. The Navy and the Air Force do not have such loopholes – yet.

The last time I checked, more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers had died. We are at war, and thousands and thousands of lives are being lost in the process. But somehow the Army has determined that what happens on Sunday in the NFL is more important that happens to human beings every day in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mailer-McLuhan Debate (1968)

It's 40 years old, but Norman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan's thoughts on violence, alienation and the electronic envelope really stuck a cord with me. I'm pretty new to Norman Mailer (just read "Deer Park"), and I'd never encountered McLuhan until this video, but I'm now a pretty big fan of both.

I met Mailer at a wedding a few years ago. I knew who he was, but hadn't read any of his books or essays. He didn't say anything to me, we just shook hands and he nodded his head. He seemed much more interested in the woman I was with, my then-wife. Mailer always had an eye for the ladies.

Anyway, the video is almost 30 minutes long, but well worth the time. And I won't pretend I could wrap my head around all of it. I listened to a couple parts twice -- okay, three times -- because my brain is allergic to some types of knowledge.

Norman Mailer on Journalists

"If a person is not talented enough to be a novelist, not smart enough to be a lawyer, and his hands are too shaky to perform operations, he becomes a journalist."

~Norman Mailer

Love is a Choice

(Found this great photo here)

I don't consider myself a Christian -- I lean toward Buddhism, but am far from a Buddhist -- but I agree with the title of this sermon: Love is a Choice.

The sermon cites this passage from Kenneth W. Morgan's book "Reaching for the Moon":

“... a bitter altercation broke out between the two men. After an angry exchange of shouted insults, as the bicyclist moved toward the porter with a clenched fist, a tattered little man slipped from the crowd, took the raised fist in his hand, and kissed it. A murmur of approval ran through the watchers, the antagonists relaxed, then people began picking up oranges and the little man drifted away. I have remembered that as a caring act, an act of devotion by a man who might have been a Syrian Muslim, a Syrian Jew, or a Syrian Christian. ...”

The older I get, the more it seems that life is a fist and the punches keep coming. Here's how the sermon ends: "... kiss the fist and change the world."