Happy Tardy New Year

So, many of you have wondered* where my annual Christmas bitch-fest was this year and truth be told it's because I didn't have enough venom stored up inside me to harsh your holiday buzzes (be they created with delicious eggnog or heathen manischewitz). Consider it a sea change in attitude for me coupled with the simple fact that I was pleased with my 2009 and didn't care to see it end, unlike the last three or four years where I have wanted to strangle everyone and everything.

A spot of good news and an auspicious event for the beginning for the new year:

New Year's Eve Day I had lost my Con Ed and National Grid bills somewhere in Park Slope. A few hours had passed between leaving the neighborhood and realizing they were missing and in my head I knew they were gone and lost forever, but I went back anyway to see if the could be found at any of the three stores I had gone into that morning.

My head was correct and they were lost and gone; probably on the bus, probably trashed, probably being used to break into my checking account (the argument in favor of paperless bill-pay begins here).

But a few days later, on January 2nd, a strange letter appeared in my mailbox with no return address, my name listed only as "Gin" in blue ball point pen. Inside was a lines piece of spiral bound paper with a grease stain on the margin.

"Hi Gin,

I found your con edison and National Grid bills on the bus(63) and I dropped it in the mail for you.

12/31/09
Happy New Year."

So there you go. Some good person not only put my bills in the mail for me, but wasted another 32-cents+ to tell me they had done so. If that isn't a sign of good things to come and the promise of a better future, then I don't know what is. Happy New Year indeed.

So in honor of you, stranger, who lives somewhere between Columbia St. and Ft. Hamilton in Brooklyn, NY, I have made a donation to the good people at This American Life. Why This American Life? It's free for everyone with a radio or mp3-ready device, generally non-partisan (but with a healthily progressive bent) and as far as I'm concerned, it's as capable of showing the power of the generosity of human spirit as your good deed did. Thank you for teaching us about life and love, again.

Happy New Year.

*None of you have wondered, and fuck all y'all.
+I don't know how much a stamp costs these days.

Whittier Pt. 2b: The Bucker Building

Of course, once you return from a successful trip to an exotic place everyone wants to go. The rest of the crew loaded up to go on a tour of their own and this time I took the flashlights.



The Buckner was an arcology of sorts with a theater and a bowling alley and a general store and a tunnel system connecting the buildings to each other for winter safety. While the building we saw was mostly in ruins, the movie theater was in surprisingly good shape -- except for the collapsing ceiling -- and because the seats were intact, it had the most visible evidence that humans actually used the place and lived and played and worked there. We didn't find the bowling alley (we suspect it's in the basement) but we did manage to find the kitchens and galleys as well as the lounge on the second floor.




The damage to the building appears to be mostly man made. For example, most of the latrines have had their porcelain smashed to bits (bears do not carry sledgehammers). The copper and metals have been stripped, the fixtures redistributed and any infrastructure remaining falls from lack of support. Hardhats, while not able to protect you from, say an exhaust fan dangling from a single wire, they will protect you from smaller plasters and are recommended when visiting (again, know that you are breaking and entering when you visit so... leave your felons at home).



Buildings and cars tend to be anthropomorphized more than anything and it's easy enough to project a veil of sadness over the site: The building was built by the military but sold in to private hands so there is no money for cleanup or teardown and so it sits on otherwise usable land. Any sort of amusement or pleasure to be taken from it involves the destruction of the building bit by bit by half-bored teenagers, exotic forms of vandalism and clandestine activities (read: drugs, alcohol, sex). It's not even stable enough to be used as a tourist trap and eventually someone will be hurt or killed by falling debris or falling into debris and god knows what will happen then.

View And Response: Kate O'Brien's Portrait Of Amanda Palmer

This portrait of Amanda Palmer by Kate O'Brien reminded me of a little Valentine's Day incident last year wherein I was lured into attending a "Happening" in Ft. Greene with the promise of exotic and swarthy companionship (shall we say).

The location: It was seemingly a squatted factory of the kind that was so popular Pre-9/11 with poor college students and reprobate young adults; red brick and crooked floors and exposed beams. Paintings were on the wall in a fresco style and they were poorly done, garish and ugly. There were several floors of the party and several rooms per floor and at least one corner of each floor had a makeshift bar with tiki lamps, christmas lights and cheap off-brand liquors and cans of watery, warm beer. Also on each floor was a stage whose boundaries were marked on the ground with reflective tape. Naturally, there was a band playing each stage in a different musical style. The crowd was young -- perhaps underage -- and enthusiastic in the way that young people are when they are allowed outside of the house and horny and drunk and drugged.

So the Girl I was with (who shall remain nameless) and I couldn't figure out what to do. Some of our more resilient traveling companions (the idiots that took us there) went off in search of booze or weed or both. Some of the others lingered against the furthest wall from the action in hopes that death would come swiftly and painlessly. The Girl and I looked at each other and slipped off past the throngs of sweaty, bepatchouli oiled college freshmen and we stumbled downstairs to dance. And we danced close... very, very close... to swingin' oldies and sweet soul music for what seemed like seconds but was more like hours and the room stopped spinning and our buzz wore off and we both realized that -- hey -- we were both huddled for comfort because we were fascinated by each other, true, but also because we were trying to protect each other from sweaty, bepatchouli oiled college freshmen. Time to go.

I grabbed her hand and we headed back upstairs from the room we had left hours before. As we fought up against the current of stumbling girls in awkward heels I heard the sound of a broken piano and a female voice singing in a strange affected English contralto.

"Fucking bitch thinks she's Amanda Palmer!" I turned and said to the Girl.

"What?!" She didn't hear me.

I turned back to find the exit. Of course it was Amanda Palmer playing a solo show on a broken piano on Classon Ave. with about sixty rapt post-teens sitting cross-legged on the floor like kindergarteners waiting for story time.

I turned and whispered in the girl's ear, "We need to go. Now."

A Cruel Observation

Following my stint in New Orleans, I visited George and Lauren and we went to have an enjoyable day at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.

Lauren: There are a lot of lamb-kebab stands here.

George: It seems a little harsh.

Me: Maybe lambs like irony?

Lauren: I wonder if they recognize the smell of... themselves.

Me: They all smell much better while cooking than they do when they're living.

George: That's gross. We should go look at the herding dogs now.

Me: Good idea.

Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory

Breaking News: Rocky doesn't beat Apollo Creed, Truman defeats Dewey, and The Mighty Handful finish third (out of six) in the Battle of the Bands at Bard. They received a gift certificate to the Virgin Megastore with a value of twenty-five (25) United States Dollars. The sound system failed (after numerous microphone dropkicks), the drums fell apart, and Greenleaf bloodied himself. The principal, however, was apparently furious about the confetti. In the end, all is right and well in the universe.

Up, Up And Away...

Blimps are neat. There was this one instance in Junior High when I we were asked to list attributes of a character as an exercise in description and I chose "good." The teacher thought the word was weak and told me so, and I told her that "good" was perfectly acceptable if you used the word with enough conviction. So blimps are NEAT -- said with a child-like enthusiasm -- in the same way that Dinosaurs are NEAT and elephants and giraffes are NEAT. Big things are NEAT.



When stationary, a blimp always wants to face into the wind. When blimps are moored in a field they are tethered to some sort of mast (in this case, a telescoping mast attached to a truck) with a bearing on top so that the blimp can spin as the wind shifts.



These are the poured-concrete ruins of a WWII-era hangar that was burned to the ground six or so years ago. The company whose blimp we were shooting lost a few ships in the blaze. The hanger itself was similar to the one below, only BIGGER.



In google satellite images you can see the footprint of the old hangar and how it relates to the footprint of the one still standing. We never got to go into the hangar because of some sensitive co-renting agreement between multiple blimp companies and their desire to keep their ships off camera. Similar hangars were used to house the Gotham City set for Batman Begins.



When a blimp takes off, it's literally CARRIED by the ground crew -- around 15 or so people -- to a spot that's free from obstructions. On the ground, the ship appears clumsy and awkward and uses its engines to assist the crew in maneuvering. The captain of the ground crew, with help from another member holding a wind sock, uses hand gestures and verbal commands to help the crew move the ship. Recall that a blimp always wants to face into the wind when not powered -- the crew WANTS the ship to face into the wind so that the pilots can use the lift generated by the airflow over the envelope and the ailerons. When the pilots are ready, they turn their engines to the ground and clear the ground crew for takeoff.



The pilots told us that the blimp can take off in a straight vertical like a helicopter, but more often than not will use more of a fixed-wing-style takeoff with a short taxi down the strip to gain speed before pulling up into the sky.



The nature of the blimp, which the president of the company described as 'benign,' and the fact that it takes a HUGE disaster to bring a modern helium blimp to the ground, means that it can travel safely above ground at about 100 feet. It allows us to see how the rich people at Kitty Hawk live. They live well, annual hurricane threat aside.



The windows of the blimp are removable, so you can stick your head and shoulders out of the gondola and take unobstructed pictures of the ground below. The pilots have two small windows that they tend to rest their elbows on the way Harrison Ford leans on the windows of his hot rod in American Graffiti. Obviously, the cabin is non-pressurized.



Taking pictures of the Elizabeth City Coast Guard facility is probably a breach of national security in someone's mind.



The ship has a motion very much like a ocean-going ship -- a smooth rocking and cresting and diving over airstreams. The propellers are powered by Porsche engines and are belligerently loud when the windows are open.



When it comes time to land, the ground crew lines up in a "V" shape, with the chief of the crew and the windsock at the vector. They visually tell the pilots how to orient the craft so that it's facing into the wind. As the blimp descends, the ground crew breaks for the dangling lines and they WALK the blimp back into the mast. Here, the rope team has already grabbed the lines and the men who will carry the gondola are sprinting for the hand rails on the side of the ship.



As with most of the posts on this blog, there is no real conclusion. I'm not a good essayist. The blimp averages about 50 MPH in the best conditions, which is slower than a car. It requires a ground crew of 12 to 15 people and a secure mast to lash it to when it's at rest. The ship is higher than a 747 at its highest point, and is unable to fit into most hangars. The flight is pleasant and relaxing and non-hurried and when the weather is fair, as it was when we flew, the views are beautiful. The ship we were in is the only model with a restroom and it maxes out with a 12 passenger load. For all the potential and pleasure to be derived from the blimp as a mode of common travel it's not practical.

Charlie was one of our pilots for our trip. He's a full-time professor and a part time blimp pilot.