Friday, March 26, 2004
Producers Sidebar: It's a Small Blogging World
File this in your "Two Degrees of Kevin Bacon" file.
So I'm sitting in line yesterday waiting for standing-room only tickets for "The Producers." The two guys at my left (Howard and Efren) are on their honeymoon after getting married in San Francisco on Valentine's Day. I'm tapping away at my Treo and the guy just next to me is IMing with a friend in California. At one point he laughs and says his friend (JozJozJoz) is blogging about them waiting in line. And I say, you want me to take a picture and post it so your friend can link to it?
I know, totally geeking out. Forgive us.
So I take the picture, post it to my site with Buzznet, and hand the guy one of my Blogcards with my URL. He IMs my Web info to his friend, and a few moments later he turns to me and says: "She says Marc Brown says 'hi.'"
I've known Marc, who runs Buzznet, since college when he worked at the campus radio station and worked for the student paper. When I got home last night, I read the full IM conversation:
joz: so my friends howie and efren, the gay asian male couple who got married and i blogged about them standing in line? Do you remember that?Even funnier, Efren didn't even ask about pictures. I just heard him say his friend was blogging it and I offered to post a picture. And note that Joz happened to be IMing with MC Brown while I'm sitting next to Efren in line in NYC.
marc: yes
joz: so efren sends me IMs from his sidekick to me "i'm standing in line again" so i say "want me to blog about it?"
marc: gettin married again?
joz: (no, they're in NYC, in line for The Producers)
joz: so i am joking around that i would [blog about it] but that "i'd better get pictures, buddy!!!"
joz: so he says ok and then the next thing i get is an IM
joz: efren: "we found someone to take our picture for us. it's on her site at www.amylangfield.com so steal it from there"
joz: i recognized her name from buzznet!
joz: they don't know amy... she happened to be waiting in line for tickets, too! so she was nice enough to post their picture (and other producers photos) to buzznet!
marc: ha ha
marc: hilarious
marc: i know amy from college
Afterward I was wondering how many of us go around with one or two degrees of separation but never know it. You could be in an elevator with your kindergarten teacher's husband but what are the chances you'd stumble onto a conversation that would produce that fact? And while knowing a mutual blogger with a mutual friend in another state might not be so weird, you've got to admit it was weird at "The Producers." Less weird if we'd been waiting in line for tickets to a Broadway show about bloggers, but uh, that's too weird. Gotta quit.
Here are too many links on this topic:
My picture of Howard and Efren
JozJozJoz "Producers" blog item
JozJozJoz's own Buzznet photo gallery
JozJozJoz's blog entry on Howard and Efren's wedding
Get your own Blogcards to increase your powerful geek points in the blogosphere.
Marc overlooked the opportunity to blog about this exciting event, but here's a link to his blog anyhow, considering he played the role of Kevin Bacon in this story.
And in case you're my mom and you have no idea what this whole Kevin Bacon thing is, here's a link to set you straight.
How to Get Cheap 'Producers' Tickets
Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, orchestra section, $26. Totally legit.
The catch is that they're standing-room only tickets so you sit on your duff for three hours in line the day of the show outside the St. James Theatre, then you stand in the back of the orchestra section during the three-hour glorious, magnificent, totally-not-PC, hilarious show. I swear I was actually in tears of awe during the singing of "Springtime for Hitler" when one the "Nazi" showgirls came out wearing giant kielbasas on her head and attached to her hips, followed by the showgirl Valkyrie with similar accoutrements at her head and hips.
And in case you forgot, Lane/Broderick are only appearing in a few more shows. Their contracts end April 4.
My friend Heesun and got standing-room tickets last night, and here are the details.
Every night, there are up to 18 SRO tickets available to "The Producers." Last night, there were only 16 because someone in the show used two for friends. They are sold each night at 6 p.m. for the 8 p.m. show. But the line starts forming around 2 p.m., though I think the last person in line to get tickets arrived just before 3:30. (Of course that may change every day.) You are allowed two tickets per person in line.
And if you don't want to go that route, there are a surprising number of tickets for sale due to cancellations. (We asked an usher later during intermission and she said those are generally the comp VIP, tickets that get turned back in before the show.) There were people coming up to the ticket booth during the day and buying tickets for Sunday night's show. We were in line on Wednesday (until we heard Broderick's understudy would be in the Wednesday performances and left) and saw people buy mezzanine tickets for Friday night's show. Apparently it's kind of a hit-or-miss chance when/if these tickets come available. These tickets sell at full price; an orchestra seat (the whole first floor) normally sells for $100.
Around 4 p.m., a line started forming behind our SRO line for people who still wanted cancellation tickets for last night's show. Someone said they wouldn't get those tickets until 8 p.m. However, around 6 p.m. -- just before we got our tickets -- The producers staff took at least a dozen of them to the ticket counter to buy tickets. And when we came back close to 8 p.m. there were about 40 people still in that line for cancellations -- so obviously there was at least a slim chance they got in.
I saw "obviously" because I need to heap a truck of praise on the people who work at the theater and manage the line. About every 15 or 20 minutes, a theater employee comes out with a pen and paper and checks on us. He (or she, we had a few people over the two days) keeps everyone's name on a list and the number of tickets they want. He stands there and answers everyone's questions and chats up everyone, asking where they're from, what they do, making lots of chit-chat and generally making everyone feel comfortable. (Alas, no chairs to sit on though.) As we got closer to crunch time, it became obvious why they have that list of names. Lots of confusion as the front of the box offices gets packed with theater business and a mad rush of commuters walking from Times Square over to the Port Authority. Plenty of opportunities for someone to insinuate himself into the line. When we did buy our tickets, the line manager was right up front, making sure each person bought the exact number of tickets agreed upon earlier.
Our tickets were $26 each, cash only. However, it is cheaper for the matinees and I think a couple bucks more for the weekend performances. They only sell SRO tickets if the performance is sold out, which of course isn't an issue for these last Lane/Broderick performances of "The Producers." Plenty of other Broadway shows also do discounted SRO tickets, according to this Playbill article from a month ago. It has details and prices for a number of shows, including "The Lion King," "Hairspray" and "Gypsy."
A few last tips if you go the SRO route. There's no place to sit when you're in line. So bring a folding stool or at least a notebook, piece of plastic or something to sit on. If you're with a friend and each getting only one ticket, you can trade off and head to a restroom, or a food-run. Otherwise, you're stuck. Bring something to read. Make sure you have cash for your ticket. As soon as the curtain drops at intermission, make a bee line for the main lobby and head up one flight of stairs where there are a bunch of couches for your aching dogs. If you don't get there right away, all the seats will be taken by the goofs who have been sitting through the performance. Standing through the show isn't all that bad because you have a ledge to lean on and you can actually stretch your legs and move around a bit. But still, those couches felt really great for 15 minutes.
The Ken Layne Conspiracy
Uh-oh, Dave Barry has leaked some crucial clues about the secret-cult of Ken Layne, a man with great powers who tells us how to live our lives for the betterment of Ken Layne and his disciples here on Earth and elsewhere.
What music have you been listening to this week?
"Fought Down," by Ken Layne and the Corvids.
When and why did you begin your blog? Is it a burden to keep up in addition to the columns and the books and the other projects?
I started it in early 2003 or thereabouts because Ken Layne ordered me to.
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Treo 600 at the Five-Month Mark
I've had several e-mails in the past week from people who are considering buying the Treo 600 and all wanted to know how I like mine. So I thought I'd post an update.
Overall, I absolutely love it and go into fits if I realize I've left the apartment without it or without all the functions in working order. It's so small I can take it everywhere - even when joging in the park. That said, there are some definite drawbacks.
The functions I use most are the e-mail, web and camera functions. I like to take pictures and e-mail them (via Buzznet and Blogger) so they show up on my Web site less than a minute after I've taken the picture. I still can't get over how cool that is. I can also e-mail those images to people immediately -- the highest value is e-mailing my in-laws pictures of their grandson while we're still at the park. Bridges the distance in a very neat way.
However, the camera is a weak beast. No flash and quality is mediocre. You can take pictures in the subway, but usually not in a restaurant, or even of the skyline at night. About an hour before dusk, you're basically done for the night. Conversely, bright days are also a killer. So bright it might as well be night. You have to hold the camera still longer than with a normal camera, and there is something of a delay after you click -- so you have to anticipate the shot before it happens.
Web access. Very slow connection speed. But it does work, and it seems like it might be a tad faster than it was even a few months ago. Then again the whole phone's functionality slowed tremendously when the temperature dropped below 30 this winter. ... There are some pages that just won't load - I suspect due to their design. Some sites refuse to let me enter my username/password (at first none did, but I got that figured out eventually.)
E-mail. It comes with SMS but I prefer to stick with my Yahoo account, which I have a shortcut for. I could get to my other (main) e-mail account if I need to through mail2web.com. That is, if I know the password for my main e-mail account. One of my smart tech friends has suggested I install Verichat, an IM-type program, I think -- but I haven't used it yet. He says it's better than the SMS.
Unfortunately I'm not yet using it to post text to the Web. (Though I think Jeff Jarvis has been doing it frequently - even from church.) At first I was posting pictures via Blogger, but Sprint keeps adding crap to the Picture Mail file, so my Web page would wind up not only with an odd-sized picture and a mega-Sprint ad, but also my cell phone number. Posting text with Yahoo would leave my Yahoo account details up on the post. I'm sure there's a way around this, but I haven't bothered yet, since I can easily attach some text to the pictures as they come in through my Buzznet feed (But you'd still have to click on the picture at the top of the page to see the text.)
Cell phone talkie stuff. You should probably know I really don't like cell phones. I don't like people calling me on my cell phone unless you are my husband, or if I'm en route to meet you somewhere and you're late or the location is changing. That's about it. If you call me on my cell phone before trying my home line first, I'll probably be very mean to you. That's how much I hate using the cell phone. So as you can guess, I don't use the talk-talk function much so I'm not that bent out of shape that the sound quality is pretty scratchy. I find myself doing that whole annoying "What? What did you say?" cliche thing way more often than I had to on my Star-Tec phone. ... The speakerphone and headset work just fine.
Ooh, you know what else I use it for a lot? Vindigo. I swear, all you New Yorkers with a Palm Pilot even - I don't know how you get along without this. It's about $25 a year and I'm telling you, I use it every time I leave the house to double-check addresses, walking and subway directions, to jog my memory on which of my favorite restaurants are in the neighborhood I'm meeting someone, etc. When people on the street ask me for directions I'm not totally sure of, (and I'm in a good mood,) I can get it for them in a couple of taps on the screen. Vindigo has loads of other cities besides NY - I've used it for Portland, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Long Beach and London while traveling -- though not all have as useful as a database as NYC. Even the Brooklyn file is missing a lot of key shops, bars and restaurants.
Other basic stuff: If I'm out taking loads of pictures and sending them with e-mail, I find the battery gets eaten up pretty fast. A few times I get home at the end of the day and was surprised how low my charge was. But on a typical day, it recharges very rapidly. (I don't pay attention but I'm guessing it's well under an hour.) I don't use any of the games, so I couldn't tell you about that. They do have a couple nice inoffensive ring tones (along the lines of Mozart) which is far less embarrassing when your phone rings in a crowded room.
The keypad is actually very cool. It looks like it would be way too tiny for grown-up hands, but that's not true. I make very few typos with it. However, just in the past week or two, I've noticed the shift key has lost it's tackiness that all the other keys have. Tackiness probably isn't the right word. Normally, when you press the key it has a certain feel and it makes a nearly inaudible "tick" sound -- so you know you've pressed it. But the shift key no longer does that. I don't know if that means it's going to stop working, or if it means nothing.
Another thing - they sent out a software update in a couple months ago that totally screwed up my Treo until I figured out how to uninstall their "fix" and reload all the software from scratch. It ate all my contacts and everything in my notepad, though I'm guessing it may still be buried in one of my backup files. Just haven't found it yet.
Sprint's support is useless of course. But I've found the message boards at TreoCentral to be pretty useful though not conveniently searchable.
And as for price -- I think you can pay as much as $500, but most cell phone companies have specials where you can get at least $100 knocked off that if you sign a one-year contract with them. I pay Sprint $35 a month for 300 anytime minutes plus $15/month for unlimited Web and picture-sending access. Plus all those taxes.
Overall: great device. It's making me think in new ways about communication. If you work in media, I think it's a must-have. But I'll definitely want to upgrade once they get better Web capabilities and a better camera -- though I'm guessing that's a good one or two years away. And I'm no longer sold on Sprint so next time will definitely ask around to see which company offers the best coverage in NYC.
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Broadway Bargains
I'm heading out this evening to test out the standing-room only ticket policy at Broadway show. I'll let you know how it goes.
A Few Good NY Links
A look inside the NYPD's secret 'Hiphop Task Force' (at the Village Voice)
Play a Video Game on (the Reuters') Times Square Billboard (at Gothamist)
New (Gehry-designed) Theater for Brooklyn Arts District (at the New York Times.)
Banning Street Vendors from Ground Zero (at Gotham Gazette.)
The Onion's first post-Sept. 11 issue was nearly a Pulitzer finalist (in Editor & Publisher.)
Political Cell Phone Spam
Good heavens, can you imagine getting political spam on your cell phone from President Bush? Something like that is already going on in India, reports the Voice of America. (Link via SmartMobs.)
Across India, tens of thousands of people have recently answered their cellphones and heard a surprising voice. It is Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, wishing them well and discussing the achievements he has made during the past 5 years in office.They're also using text messages and pop-up ads on Web sites. I know, you'd think it would automatically make you want to vote for the opposition, but the other side is planning on doing it too, but in a "less invasive" way.
Investment Bankers Not Hiring
A story on the pay for investment bankers in Investment Dealers' Digest may hold some interesting insights about where this city's economy may be headed, considering the financial sector helps set the tone. (Link via the Dealbook e-mail from The New York Times.)
The top 20% of investment bankers got the heftiest pay packages last year, with some rainmakers earning triple what they received in 2002.
And even though 2004 is looking better, Wall Street is still leaner and meaner than during the late '90s. Firms are unlikely to be going on a hiring spree or paying junior bankers much more this year.
"Banks can do 20% or 25% more business with the people they have," adds another recruiter. "They'll break people's backs before they hire more."
Metro Coming to New York
Metro, a free daily paper now in a handful of cities across the country, is finally coming to New York "sometime after May 1," the Daily News reports. Since October, the Tribune Co.-owned amNewYork has been littering subway stations with its own free paper. amNewYork, by the way, claims a circulation of 179,000 but no word on whether that includes the huge stacks of papers their newsboys leave sitting in a corner of a subway stairwell after commuters refuse to take them.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Wall Street Journal on Spamwagon
Even the Wall Street Journal is sending me spam.
My name is Todd Larsen and I'm the president of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE. I am writing to you because even in today's business climate I'm certain of one thing: If you try THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE for two weeks RISK-FREE. ... This is an advertisement. Your address was obtained from i-netvalues or one of its affiliates for a recurring mailing.Just once I'd like i-netvalues or any of those other slimy companies to tell me where they got my e-mail so I know with whom to stop doing business.
Monday, March 22, 2004
Lawrence Block
I stopped by Partners & Crime mystery bookstore yesterday to hear Lawrence Block talk about writing and his new book. Block's a prolific crime writer, but I was first introduced to him through his book "Telling Lies for Fun and Profit." I'm trying to write a novel for the first time and I find that after reading only a couple pages of "Telling Lies," I've got new ideas bouncing around in my head and feel the spark to get writing again.
Block, by the way, has just started a blog to go with his book tour. You can check it out on his site.
As always, I had my notebook, so here are some of the things he had to say.
Block said he doesn't do book reviews because he "never wanted to be placed in a position where I said something negative about another writer."
When asked how long he spends on each novel, Block said he can write one in four to six weeks if he sequesters himself at a writer's colony. Block said he usually starts work on a novel and has no idea where it's going to lead. "I'm usually about a chapter ahead in my mind." In one of his Bernie detective novels, he said he was very worried about what he was going to do to pull the whole story together in a climax. "I kept waiting for things to be clear," Block said. "I think it was when Bernie said 'I bet you're all wondering why I gathered you here today,' - No one was wondering more than me." But Block said he kept writing and everything magically fell into place. "Bernie was a better detective than I was." He went on to explain "most of the work gets done on a level that the conscious mind has no knowledge of whatsoever." And when questioned again about that 4 to 6 weeks for working on a novel, he said "it's hard to know when you start." (Meaning your brain is working on the story before you sit down to write.)
He quoted an E.L. Doctorow line: "Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
A few other lines: On writing his first book in the Bernie Rhodenbarr series: "When I first started writing, Bernie was just there - with all the same patterns he has now."
"I thought burglary might suit me because it's really not all that different from writing. You get to set your own hours, avoid human contact, and unless something goes wrong, it's violence-free."
Extra Subway Security
The New York Post reports on the "unprecedented security effort" underway in our NYC subways since the Madrid attack. Teams of a dozen police officers have been sweeping through subway cars before they enter a tunnel or cross a bridge, the Post reports. There are new surveillance cameras in tunnels and "shoebox-size sensors" with silent alarms have been placed in some stations to warn of a biochemical attack. (Link via Gothamist.)
Yesterday I noticed the Wall Street station (which is the last 2/3 stop before heading under the East River to Brooklyn) now has a booth on the subway platform with a cop sitting there watching the trains and passengers.
Israel Question
What I don't understand is how Israel justifies - in a legal sense - each of these assassinations it undertakes. Each time they take out a prominent Palestinian with a strategic missile on a car or home I usually comb the stories looking for the legal defense, but haven't been able to find it.
Why don't they just arrest these guys in question and either put them on trial themselves or send them off to The Hague for crimes against humanity? Or do they maintain that Israel is in a constant state of war and such strategic attacks are legitimate war maneuvers?
Forgotten NY in NY Times
Kevin Walsh and his Forgotten New York Web site make it into the pages of the New York Times today.
A group of 25 hard-core New York history buffs gathered early yesterday afternoon on a gusty corner in South Jamaica, Queens, provoking curious glances from passers-by. They were there in anticipation of a rare glimpse of one of the city's most legendary and seldom-seen landmarks: Prospect Cemetery. Established in 1668, it now sits decayed behind locked gates just south of the Long Island Rail Road tracks, unknown to all but a small group of the city's historically minded cognoscenti.
Their leader was Kevin Walsh, a man with unkempt graying hair and blue-tinted wire frame glasses who runs a Web site called Forgotten New York (forgotten-ny.com) and has become a kind of cult figure among those who take local lore seriously.
Sunday, March 21, 2004
Making Politics Very Local
Here's a cool new tool that might make you wince. Neighbor Search lets you type in your address (or any address) and find out who in the neighborhood has made a donation for the current presidential race. You get the donor's name, address, who they work for, the amount of the donation and who it went to. (Yet another link via Dan Gillmor.)
This information has always been public, but just not quite this easy to access.
Poking around a bit I found that in my neighborhood, a writer for The Onion gave $225 to Howard Dean; Charles Wilson, listed as a writer for the New York Times, gave $190 to Wesley Clark; an attorney on Prospect Park West gave $2,000 to Howard Dean, $1,500 to Clark, and $1,000 to John Edwards; Ilene Rosen, a producer at WABC-TV gave $200 to Dean; computer designer Wesley Clark gave $250 to Wesley Clark while Wesley A. Clark the consultant (at the same address) gave $1,000 to Wesley Clark.
Bad Manners at Ground Zero
I guess I should have expected that Ground Zero would eventually become the spot for a lot of weird protesters to gather. It's amazing how many people don't think they need to observe the same manners there as they would in a cemetery.
Smart Mobs reports on a flash mob demonstration set for Ground Zero this coming Tuesday. The participants will gather in the PATH train station - which is in the pit - and recite the First Amendment. It's organized by Reverend Billy.
Then, after ten minutes of repetition, say the whole thing forcefully. We all get better at the same rate and gather, reciting the great words in unison. We become a crowd with one common statement. Finally: We repeat the phrase big and clean.Rev., I'm a big fan of the First Amendment, but by holding your event in the pit at Ground Zero, you've immediately turned me off to whatever your cause may be. There's a really big plaza at the southeast corner across the street from Ground Zero. That would be a much better place for your event if you really hope to have people pay attention to your cause.
The room is "live" and acts as a natural amplifier. This is exciting.
Crime-fighting Camera Phones
Check out this AP story about how people are using their camera phones to catch evil-doers. But here's the key observation: "Their real impact will be in the future, when millions of phone users will be able to document any event at any time." (Link via Dan Gillmor.)
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