Bruce the Blog

Up at 7:20. Clock flashing 2:35. We lost power, my powers of deductive reasoning tell me. We regained power, ditto the deduction, kiddo. Yippee. Out bedroom window. Wow, it’s weally white out there, wifey. Wifey: “Yes, I know, you wuss, where were YOU at 6:00a when you shoulda been shoveling snow instead of shoveling the shoot last night at your computer doing whatever it is you do on that dagnabit demonic device.” (Disclosure: All previous dialogue is purely figment of my imagination. Never said. Never happened. But this is a blog, which means half of what is writ is true. Like the famous advertising axiom, you just don’t know which half, unless the blogger tells you, and even then, who knows? As for anonymous bloggers, that creepy crawly species of digital devolution, you can’t believe anything those gutless wonders write. They blog for therapy when they should be IN therapy, but I can’t help them there because I’m not a licensed practitioner.) How’s THAT for a protracted parenthetical aside? Send your answers to bapar@ncnlocal.com if you don’t want to win a prize because I got nuttin’ to give.

Like the little kid I never stopped being, the profusion of snow excites me. I can’t wait to get outside and get to the office. I’m assuming there will be few of us there, mainly those like myself who live within a coupla miles, within the Yorktown town limits.

It may sound flakey, but even though on days like this a person can feel adrift, I have ice in my veins, and perhaps water on the brain. But I say, bring on the snow, man.

Open the garage door. There’s a curvature of snow rising up to where the door just was before retracting on its creaky pulley contraption. I pick up a shovel to push some of the snow away from the portal, all the while thinking this may not be the best idea because my back has been bothering me since bowling those three games Sunday night with my YAC brethren in support of Yorktown High baseball coach Sean Kennedy’s fundraiser for the team. Let’s just say after a long layoff, I found bowling currently is not right up my alley, and it didn’t help that my back was infirm before the ball got rolling (which explains why my game from the get-go was in the gutter until I found my graceless form).

I pulled my 1998 RAV 4 ragtop out and immediately had the sensation of hydroplaning, except on frozen instead of liquid water. It was kinda fun, actually.

At the end of our hammerhead driveway, the car stopped as the wheels kept spinning. I couple of jukes back and forth let me burst through the street-plowed embankment forming a barricade between the publicly-owned street and our bank-owned paved path destined to end in a garage.

I picked up the yellow plastic bag containing the 20th Century artifact that still arrives daily and brought it inside like the once-in-a-while thoughtful husband I oughta be more often-in-a-while. The wife peered outside the warmth of the kitchen and what passes for a virtual mud foyer and declared after eyeballing the snow by the garage entrance that it looked like 18 inches. After I regained my composure from being doubled over laughing at the hyperbolic assessment, I said it was a drift, not fallen snow, and that it probably was less than a foot deep at that.

Elyse produced one of those math-class three-sided rulers with markings on two sides I didn’t understand in trig and still don’t, and sure enough, the snow stopped at about 10 inches. Case closed.

It was now about 8:35 as I proceeded to the office, snapping white-out vignettes with my phone along the way (Verizon can’t offer the iPhone soon enough for my money, and it will take a lot of that for me to change my fruit diet, but I like apples more than blackberries anyhoo.)

The only vehicles I espied between my house and where Route 35 meets Broad Street right past Brookside Elementary were snow plows and that of my neighbor, Yorktown Board of Ed trustee Mark Drexel, who rolled down his window while making the turn from town to Broad as I sat at the Stop sign to ask what I was doing on the road in these conditions. Me: “I’m crazy.” Mark: “Me too.”

Oh, yeah, and there was one other private vehicle, driven by someone who, in this of all conditions, didn’t have his headlights on. He’s of course our Maddening Motorist Award winner of the day, and one only can hope the dunderhead doesn’t cause damage to someone else who knows enough that it’s both common sense and state law to have headlights on in inclement weather so other motorists can more easily see you coming. I barely saw him barreling down Broad Street as I waited to exit our development. Nice going, Slick.

Then, at the intersection of Ridge Street and Route 202, a power line was down, hovering not far above the roof of my car, with Yorktown Police Officer Mike Kahn on the scene. I continued snapping away (photos will be posted at Facebook.com/NCNLocal).

In the middle of town, I could continue to count other cars on one hand. Pulled into Starbucks closed. Edwin’s open. 7-Eleven open. Those business operators should get some kind of prize for customer service beyond the call of duty. Let’s hear it, folks, for neighborhood owned-and-operated businesses. Last time there was a lot less snow falling one afternoon, Panera closed its doors at 4:00 p.m. What’s with these chain operations? Hardly hardy stock. Guess which businesses I’ll be sure to patronize more in the future? The ones who are there when you need them most, that’s who. Local businesses, that’s who.

This is the kind of weather and these are the kinds of times that cause some of us to fret for the future of civilization. Believe it or not, that’s not meant to be either facetious or an exaggeration. A day like Friday, Feb. 26 separates those in the snow from those who don’t want to know what it takes to get the job done.

What does one make of workers who arrive at their Yorktown office at 7:30 a.m. from an hour’s drive away in a different state — none the worse for wear — or who determinedly push ahead from Poughkeepsie to report to work. Or a worker whose husband is shoveling the snowplow-created wall of snow blocking the cul-de-sac driveway so she can get to work on time? These are folks made of sterner stuff when the white stuff causes others to act like the sky is falling.

For an employer, a day like today is a no-win. You can’t exactly expect people to push ahead to get to work under such conditions, but the truth of the matter is I am no mountain man and am far from fearless and not exactly wreckless when it comes to my personal safety and well-being, and I don’t see that this is exactly a record-making meteorological event. The main roads are very passable if you drive with due caution at sensible speeds.

My friend Ahmad Bash, owner of Yorktown’s 7-Eleven, told me this morning that a customer told him, “This is the worst I’ve seen.” Both Ahmad and I concurred it’s far, far from that. “He hasn’t seen much then,” I cracked. Ahmad recalled the storm of 1996 that was appreciably more precipitous than this occurrence. This is no walk in the park, but it’s also not a walk through Central Park at night in the 1970s and ’80s, which in that era was downright foolhardy, if not death-defying. Maybe it still is, but Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg have done yeomans’ work reducing NYC crime in general, so hats off to them both. The only folks who still think NYC is the nation’s crime capital are those who never visited it but hate it nonetheless. I’ve encountered the type in my Left Coast travels especially, like the time one wit advised a friend not to go near Yankee Stadium because it’s in … The South Bronx! (ominous melodramatic music swells here). Of course, the immediate periphery of The Stadium is eminently safe because it has more cops patrolling than a precinct stationhouse.

Weather like this also tests the resourcefulness and sheer competency of TV news. One field reporter described a town where power had gone off and on and off again, labeling that chronic problem “concurrent,” which was as close to “recurring” as he could manage but made no sense. Something tells me he’s not into crossword puzzles. Comic books, maybe. It’s no joke, though. These are professional, very well-paid public presenters and information agents who struggle to speak with authority or lucidity. And you thought Ted Knight’s character on The Mary Tyler Moore Show or William Hurt’s airhead anchor in “Broadcast News” were pure fiction?

When the going gets tough out there, the tough in general don’t seem to be producing TV news coverage, which quickly begins to play like the movie “Groundhog Day.” Every “package,” as those who make TV call it, is a cookie-cutter version of the one before it and after it. How many B rolls of snow plows and salt trucks do we need to see, or motorists whining, or a reporter standing waist-deep in a snowdrift. We get it. It snowed. A lot. Thanks for the incisive reportage.

My opthalmologist’s office is closed today, so my experiment in wearing contacts for the first time in my life will have to wait. When I called a second time to see if anybody would be in the office today, the message service operator told me, “The roads are awful, sir.” Oh, I see (but not with contacts until next week, I guess.)

Well, tell that to a hospital patient who needs a nurse or doctor or orderly, or to someone in the ER waiting for a serious injury to be treated: “We’re sorry, but nobody can help you today because, you know, the roads out there are just awful.” Tell it to the people of Haiti: “We just had 12 inches of snow and you can’t imagine what it’s like. We are completely dysfunctional.” You can say that again. Haitians only wish they could imagine something so relatively uneventful.

Hudson Valley Hospital Center spokesperson Dawn French tells us that “[we] had a couple of dozen staff members stay overnight, some sleeping on inflatable mattresses…to ensure we continue to provide quality care for our patients.  The Engineering Department has worked through the night plowing the hospital to keep it safe for visitors and staff…”

THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT! 

Despite the edgy observations this blog is known to make as a matter of course — that’s commentainment! — I don’t sit in judgment or hold to account or blame anyone for not going to work today (and if you care what I think anyhow, that’s your first mistake; I’m just another jerk with an opinion on everything that doesn’t concern me.)

What can rankle, though, is the attitude of anyone who virtually decides not to go to work the next day based on the eventuality of a forecast — not on the workday’s actuality. It’s not my opinion that matters in that case. It’s just wrong. Maybe it’s time to change jobs for that person, or for the job to be changed for that person. In the case of Friday, Feb. 25, the forecast was prescient and a decision to stay home is well advised. But at other times, when the forecast overstates the actuality, it’s not the weather’s severity that decides who shows up; it’s whether the person’s free will wants to be at work that day.

Now I’m in Chase Media Group offices at my desk. Oops. We lost power. But there’s backup. So, heigh-ho, it’s back to work I go. Where there’s free will, there’s a freeway that’ll take you there. Unless there’s a little (less) snow in the way (than today). Then, where there’s a wimp, there’s no way I’m going in to work on a so-so snowday because I’d rather play than make hay. O-kay! Whatever you say!

Stay safe, warm, dry. And don’t patronize anonymous blogs. If you’re going to get riled up, like by today’s especially bilious blog entry you just read, might as well know who to rant against.

To no one’s surprise in medialand, there was a rash of emails flooding our inboxes today that started with the fateful phrase, “Due to inclement weather …  is cancelled.”

Except for one such email that stood out — for the wrong reason.  In fact, it almost caused Grammar Geek to gag on his thesaurus (talk about an endangered species). This email spoke of “in climate” weather. It was sent by a school district. From someone whose title is “Key Communicator.” Sigh.

Discretion being the better part of pallor, we’ll refrain from identifying the school district to protect the guilty, but movie fans will recognize the municipality as the very tony east coast moviestar colony made famous in “Fatal Attraction.” And anagrammarians might visualize its name as a combination of sleeping furniture and the most famous American automaker. But I don’t want to identify the fancy shmancy town whose school district made such a stunningly uneducated gaffe.

Other than evoking the studied inarticulateness of 1960s standup comic Norm Crosby — a regular on The Ed Sullivan Show who made a career out of purposely mispronouncing words in the service of humor for the masses — “in climate” (the sender of course intended the word to be “inclement”) proves my long-held theory that subliteracy largely derives from the tendency of people to spell and pronounce words based not on understanding basics of the English language — relegating it to the English languish — but on intuitive (and more problematically, counter-intuitive) phonetics. Witness those who say “supposably” instead of  the correct “supposedly” or “hone in on” instead of the correct “home in on” or “for all intensive purposes” instead of the correct “for all intents and purposes.”  There are many more such examples that we don’t have thyme for.

Meanwhile, back at the meteor-illogical ranch, with the accuracy of some forecasts lately, I worry more when the prognosticators predict little or no snow. How often, or so it seems, have we been forewarned about an avalanche of frosty flakes only to have the little kiddies disappointed the next morning when the school bus stops on time at the corner as always.

That makes it all the more bemusing that nowadays school districts can’t wait to cancel classes a day in advance on the strength — or weakness, as the case may be — of a forecast. It’s like a doctor treating a patient for pneumonia after hearing the sniffles because, well, you just never know what it might turn into.

Why, when I was a kid in the rough-and-tumble former potato fields of Long Island’s western Nassau County, I had to trudge a whole block to school in the snow. In my galosh-shod feet. It had to snow 18 inches for school to be canceled. Or maybe it was 8. You know how big things look when you’re four feet tall. But let’s not nitpick. Back then, men were men, and kids were kids and snowmen were snowmen. A little frozen precip was hardly reason to bypass readin’ and writin’.

Not in the weather-wimpy 21st Century, though. When I told my wife Elyse that the schools already were canceled for Friday by 6:00p Thursday, she told me how Thursday counted as a school day even though students were dismissed at 10:00 a.m. and a school district needs to use up those snow days.

I looked at her in disbelief: “Oh, that’s nice. Early dismissal means today they didn’t learn much of anything, but here we are conversing casually about some bureaucratically-bungled rulemaking that dictates it still can count as a school day?” As the non-commital slacker types are quick to say … whatever.

The way I look at it, with the snow-drift-high school taxes we are privileged to pay, what business is it of mine or yours how far in advance classes are canceled. If anything, it probably is more cost-efficient and stress-reducing to plan ahead. I get it. I’m a lowly taxpayer: just shut up and pay up, like a good little lemming.

Here’s an idea for a revisionist rubric: Let’s teach kids math by having them count snow days. That’ll work just swell.

[TO SEE NCNLOCAL-TV VIDEOS OF ALL SIX PERFORMANCES BY FINALISTS VANESSA RACCIOPPO AND MARYANN RENZA, GO TO http://www.facebook.com/NCNLocal]

There were no losers Tuesday night (23) at Augie’s Prime Cut Restaurant and Bar in the Mohegan Lake hamlet of Yorktown. (One of the myriad beauties of life in Yorktown is the charm of having five sub-’burbs grouped under the rubric of hamlet. Billy Bard would be proud, if a tad confused because, after all, as far as he was concerned, to paraphrase Oscar Hammerstein II, “There is nothing like a Dane.”)

After such a self-indulgently elongated parenthetical aside, the writer in me (yeah, he’s in there somewhere, I swear) is compelled to act like one of those ’60s serial weekly TV dramas that began with a recap of “last week’s episode.”

Well, it’s true. There were no losers at the final, championship-round, no-holds-barred, cage match of Augie’s Idol Season 1 (Season 2 starts April 22). Not the audience (with an unfortunate momentary lapse of couth at the end), not the restaurant staff or management, and certainly not the two performers, who gave it their all and treated the jam-packed house to a thrilling display of competitive vocalizations in a community contest that was a rousing success on several levels.

The community itself — and people came from all over Westchester as well as beyond its borders, including as far away as Poughkeepsie (made famous by Gene Hackman’s cryptic recurring line in Oscar-winning “The French Connection” to a punk: “Do you pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?”) — got to spend a weekend-style night midweek each Tuesday for 14 weeks. The ultimate night was simply amazing not least because on a horrendously inclement evening, when it took me nearly an hour to drive back to Yorktown from Hastings on a snow-encrusted Taconic, Augie’s was more crowded than arguably for any of the previous elimination rounds. It was quite a sight.

Showman Sal Barone, owner of the hot spot with wife Audrey Hochroth, even added his trademark dash of class and flash with what he jokingly called his “flashlight,” actually a skylight the likes of which are used at Hollywood premieres. As I was driving up a white-blanketed Lexington Avenue from Route 202, the beam of light washed across the night sky like a beacon beckoning to a judge who was running late after hightailing it from a really cool reception at Harvest on the Hudson to launch Hudson Valley Restaurant Week March 15-28.  Fortunately, the competition start time was running late too, so my lateness was right on schedule!

The restaurant staff and management benefited from a major boost in the watering hole’s reputation, reach, number of regulars and, quite evidently from all the filled tables and heavily peopled bar, midweek take.

Even the judges, including yours truly, had so much fun it should be illegal, with time off for good behavior.

Extra big shout-outs go to keyboardist par excellence Shelly Gartner and sound technician Brian Gunther, both of whose reliability, proficiency and professionalism helped elevate this competition way beyond a run-of-the-mill karaoke night.

The final night was graced by Maxine (Mrs. Tommy) Agee, a delightful person who served as a celebrity judge and with vocal chops of her own, as she amply showed with her rendition of “Wind Beneath My Wings.”

But the real point of this musing about the musicfest Augie’s treated us to these past several months is that both MaryAnn Renza and Vanessa Raccioppo are winners. Their final three performances each were a fitting, exciting culmination to the hard-fought competition.

Even my friends in the crowd who were so upset at the end they made some inelegant remarks about the outcome can be forgiven their trespasses because that’s how seriously some people took this bout among the warbling warriors. Some silly remark was passed — shouted, actually — that one of the contestants “should have been gone three weeks ago,” which couldn’t be further from the truth. Nobody in their right mind who was a regular Idol-ator would argue that MaryAnn and Vanessa weren’t the most deserving finalists.  We of course are not about to dignify the dishy outburst by identifying to whom it was aimed because it has zero validity. Like we said, there were no losers. That’s the point. That’s the spirit of this competition. To suggest otherwise is to totally miss the point, and perhaps to overindulge in liquid refreshment beyond your tolerance. That’s why The Kinks’ Ray Davies (pronounced “Davis,” BTW) called it “Old Demon Alcohol.” It can make people act waywardly and talk gibberish.

Miss MaryAnn opened it with “Remember Me,” and Miss Vanessa answered the well-sung challenge with “At Last.” Next time up, Miss MaryAnn lit into her belting mode with “The Greatest Love of All” and Miss Vanessa delivered a fresh rendition of “Over the Rainbow” that highlighted her smooth style.

Then it was time for the final round and Miss MaryAnn certainly didn’t disappoint, using her brassy, room-size personality and punctuated gesticulation to full effect with an homage to Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary.”

Finally, Miss Vanessa capped the competition with a sultry, shimmering “Power of Love.”

Both of these Misses didn’t miss much when it came to having the right instincts and excellent song selection that showed off their respective strengths and muted their lesser qualities. They both know how to put a song over, a talent that at its best is transparent because it’s effortless, but, perhaps paradoxically, you still know it when you see it, and hear it. Vanessa received a $2000 check from Sal Barone and Audrey Hochroth as well as a chance to appear in the April production of “Cats” staged by Scarlett Antonia of Antonia Arts at the Paramount Theater in Peekskill. Miss MaryAnn Renza received a $500 check from Bel D’Oro Jewelers owners Gino and Josephine Rubino, who are upping the runner-up prize for Season 2 to $750. They also are exploring the possible appearance of the elegant Miss Vanessa Raccioppo in Bel D’Oro marketing.

Speaking of Misses, I’m going to miss watching all the Augie’s Idol entrants, especially these two. But who knows. There’s always Season 2, right Sal and Audrey. Maybe I’ll even get my long-awaited break as a standup. That’s the dream of every aspiring comic — to play the big room in a Vegas hotel. In my case, it may be Sal announcing, “And now, laddies and germs, playing in Augie’s Men’s Room, please welcome Bruce the Blog. Fortunately, seating is limited.” Sorta gives new meaning to the show biz term “standup.” But I’m not greedy. All I need is a single laugh in that venue to feel flush with success. Oops. Time to clean up my act. Besides, the hook’s here. Later.

[For the prequel to this blog entry, see Oh, MOMA! Part I posted Feb. 21, 2010]

When we checked Museum of Modern Art’s website Friday in anticipation of visiting the venue the following day, we were crestfallen to find the popular Tim Burton exhibit sold out.

[Note from Grammar Geek: there is no hyphen for “sold out” in that usage, though the indiscriminate use of hyphens has become a distressingly common, and subliterate, faux pas nowadays. The hyphen would be appropriate in context of noun or adjective usage like “It’s a sold-out show,” but not when saying, “The show was sold out.” Thanks, GG. Now, take-a walk.]

Due to the popularity of the Burton exhibit, MOMA requires patrons to reserve a time to enter the gallery with a time-stamped ticket (at no extra charge). So when the website tells an onliner that each posted on-the-hour o’clock is “sold out,” it simply means issuing any more tickets at the appointed hour would be a fire hazard or just a bane of safe crowd control and comfort levels.

Once at the museum on Saturday, my much better half (though it’s not too hard being that when the other half is moi) Elyse, as is her paternally inherited wont to consider ”No” simply as a precursor to “Of course you can,” found out that circa 5:00 p.m. we most likely could just walk in to the exhibit, after the mid-afternoon crush thinned out. As advertised by a museum staffer, to Elyse, we were in like flint at 5 on the nose.

While the exhibit does not present any element — eg, a short film — that starts at a particular time, the reservation times posted online are every hour on the hour probably because it takes a good hour to take in everything Burton MOMA has to offer. It’s a prodigious display of a particularly off-center popular culture artistic sensibility that has given the world Edward Scissorhands, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman (1), Corpse Bride, Mars Attacks! and Ed Wood, among others.

There are props, artifacts and costumes from all the above in the exhibit, as well as production notes hand scrawled on legal yellow pad paper, such as suggesting an unscripted line of dialogue (about the undesirability of cannibalism in polite society) to the young actor playing Roald Dahl’s Charlie in the film remake formerly titled in its original incarnation Willy Wonka. To say that Burton’s version of the story is darker is to encapsulate the whole of his ouevre.  [Wow, I’m really in a French italicized idiom today; must be the Canadian Winter Olympics, no? Oui.]

There are also mementoes from Burton’s artistic blossoming as an adolescent growing up in Southern California, such as high school essays and locally award-winning posters for civic activities.

Upon entering the exhibit, there’s a video monitor montage (with screens arrayed along a makeshift breezeway) of his animated character Stainboy. Certain of his semi-mutant illustrated figures bespeak the glaring influence of Charles Addams, and perhaps of early Playboy Magazine cartoonist Gahan Wilson, a master of macabre social satire writ in ink.

My daughter Elissa and I spent a full 30 minutes in the Burton funhouse and didn’t see everything, because the museum’s closing time of 5:30 closed in on us.

On the way out, we passed through a photography gallery, causing me to rue not experiencing that part of this magnificent repository’s diverse works. Next time.

The Wife and The Daughter, who have been known to answer to the given names Elyse and Elissa, respectively, wanted to take in a museum this past Saturday. The Daughter is home for an asynchronous mid-February break from SUNY Oneonta, where elementary ed is her game and math her “concentration,” as they say in academia. It’s asynchronous because none of her buds (or for girls is it buddas?) are on break simultaneously. Dem’s the breaks (and if you’re a Dem dese days, dings definitely are broken, aren’t dey?).

So she is given to doing crazy stuff like auditing an elementary school class at Brookside on Monday and Tuesday, and attending Yorktown’s Board of Ed meeting Monday night to take notes on assignment. And on Saturday, we decided to go get us some culture at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, the place I have loved since I was knee-high to an illegally-opened fire hydrant. There’s no place in the world like Manhattan, not that I’ve been to all that many spots on the globe, so call it just a wild guess. But one with which I find myself eminently comfortable and confident. If you know a more exciting place on the planet than the isle once called Manhatta, please text me the longitude and latitude at your earliest convenience so I can visit it forthwith.

Admittedly, I wasn’t jumping up and down about visiting the cultural mecca indecorously abbreviated as MOMA, which sounds like the name of the mother of a famous cellist. What’s so funny? Makes sense to me that Yo-Yo Ma’s momma would be named Mo-Ma. If you dare to disagree, please stop reading this blog right now and I’ll give you a full refund.

Okay, for those of you still here … I found myself stopping and staring at virtually every objet d’art as we wended our way through the museum, especially absorbed by the exhibit on architecture and landscape, though I wonder what it meant that there was no Frank Gehry on display.

The Monet Water Lilies room was ethereal. I wanted to spend more time in the Joan Jonas video installation in the Akio Morita room (informing The Wife that he is a co-founder of Sony).

The Gabriel Orozco exhibit was too much for The Wife, though I can’t imagine why she didn’t find the first work thoroughly compelling: an empty cardboard box on the floor as you enter the gallery. That was only outdone by the yougurt container tops affixed to the wall in the first room. I could have spent all day studying those for their beautifully rendered expiration dates, but nooooooo, the ladies in my life had to move on to more important things, like the Tim Burton exhibit, which was AWESOME!

To be continued …. bed beckons.

We hear that with Yorktown Board of Ed trustee Judith Huntington stepping down in deference to her new full-time post as president of the College of New Rochelle, only one hat is in the ring: Tom Donatelli.

We know and have worked with Tom and can enthusiastically vouch for his being a highly involved, eminently sensible, fair, analytical and savvy community contributor who would be a notable asset to the Board of Ed and the Yorktown district.

Tom currently serves on the boards of Foundation for Excellence in Yorktown Schools and of Yorktown Athletic Club (YAC), where he is Treasurer. Bruce the Blog (who also is on the YAC board) applauds the BoE for its due diligence in extending the period for submission of names to ensure everyone with an interest has a fair shot at being considered for appointment.

Still, with all due respect to anyone else who might apply, BtB can’t see that the BoE will do better than by adding Tom Donatelli to their ranks. BtB looks forward to his friend’s formal appointment to fill the vacant seat, and to his eventual election to the board by the voting public later this year.

Speaking of the Board of Ed, we have a sneaking suspicion that an issue in the making is clarification of the Yorktown — or any — district’s policy on businesses soliciting students as customers within a school building. Our understanding is that there are strict rules for outside commercial operators, who cannot pitch their goods or services on school property without formal permission, which is rarely given and even then only to a privileged few. Take official team photographers, for example.

So when a faculty member, for another example, runs a personal business unaffiliated with the district, how does that person go about drumming up business among students without the implicit or explicit approval of the district or the building administration or the Board of Education?

These are very open-ended questions that we suspect — and expect — will be asked more formally in the near future. We look forward to the answers.

But first there are more weighty matters at hand that must be resolved, like deliberating and debating and defining the differences between a sponsorship and a donation. We’d like to see that powers that be find ways to facilitate and leverage independent fundraising efforts — where individual and corporate donations supplement public monies that are in ever shorter supply — rather than fuss over what to call them.

When we moved to Yorktown Heights in 1993, my job was in Manhattan, and continued to be either there or, during my consulting phase, at home. Over the years, I’ve seen the evolution of the Croton-Harmon Metro North parking lot, from the rude and gruff management in the early 1990s, who acted like they were doing motorists a favor when you forked over the $3.00 daily parking fee, to the newly paved, flood-resistant current digs.

As my boss Carla Chase and I yesterday (Tuesday) approached the Croton parking shed familiar to those who are daytrippers and pay the daily parking fee, a worker advised us, “There’s nobody in there anymore,” and very helpfully ushered us to the APM (automatic payment machine) that has displaced the humans who once stood inside the shed like bank tellers and collected the daily fees. “That’s one way for the town to save money,” I told Carla as we wended our way between the cars to the station.

We were headed to the annual conference at the New York Hilton of the Association of the Towns of the State of New York. For the second year in a row, we were invited to give a presentation to the public officals who attend this event. Our topic this year was a slight modification of last year’s seminar: “How Main Street Media Affects the Way You Govern.”

[Actually, the official title used the word “Impacts” where I substituted “Affects.” Call me eccentric (and get in line when you do that, podner) but when it comes to language, as followers of my alter ego Grammar Geek know, I’m obsessive compulsive to the max. The word “impact” is a native noun, and I recollect that it started to be misused as a verb in the mid 1980s (told you I was nutso about this stuff), but to me that corruption, commonplace as it has become, is like hearing chalk squeak on a blackboard and I avoid it like the plague. Impact is a harsh word. Affect is a warmer, fuzzier, kinder, gentler word. Why people wrongly use impact to mean affect is beyond me.  And we won’t even go into the frequent confusion of affect and effect, made more complicated by the latter’s dual identity as both a verb and noun.]

Meanwhile, back at the Hilton … last year, our session was in a single-unit function room and it was packed, standing-room-only. Naturally, this year, they gave us a room twice the size, and gave us the organizers said was a better, as well as longer time slot, moving our session up to 12:30-2:00 from last year’s 2:00-3:00. Naturally, this year, we had a fraction of the turnout in the much larger space than we had in 2009 in the smaller room. Murphy’s Law. What we didn’t realize until later is that our 2009 session was on Monday, the first day of the conference, and this year we were slotted at the tail end, after the exhibit area closed, so naturally, many attendees had hightailed out of town by the time we were speaking to the hardy few who stayed behind.

There’s also the cost-savings factor that towns throughout New York State and the other 49 are grappling with in the new reality of the New Economy. My co-presenter, Dan Alexander of Denton Publications, based in Elizabethtown, New York, said that town’s officials told him they were sending half as many people to the conference as last year.

We also encountered Cortlandt Supervisor Linda Puglisi, who gave a talk on shared services. The four-term municipal leader told us for all the years she’s been attending the conference, this year’s had the lowest attendance in her memory. Between local government austerity budgets and metro New York’s arctic weather, we were getting a more holistic view of why our big room moment was anti-climactic.

From downsizing the workforce through automated payment at public facilities to cutting back on travel and expenses even if it’s to a conference that includes seminars on how towns can be more cost efficient, knowing that towns now frown on spending what they can’t afford just might give taxpayers a little reason to smile.

I have a few built-in thermostats I reflexively use to take the temperature of periodicals in the course of determining the caliber of journalists at the helm.

1) Dates: They are most correctly and cleanly written as on the folio of a periodical or on a calendar, which is to say Feb. 9, 2010. Inexplicably, even the same publications that present dates the correct way on their cover or on the folio of each page are prone to clumsily present the date inside their pages as Feb. 9th, 2010. That’s the way it’s said, not written. The culprits surprisingly include Rolling Stone and The New Yorker. In the latter case, its chief editor is a trained reporter, which rarely implies a comparable skill in editing. Both periodicals are at a far remove from the height of their previous powers as among the most revered and cleanly edited consumer periodicals, as reflected by their flouting of the most standard, obvious style conventions.

2) State abbreviations: In journalism, the abbreviation for California is
Calif., not CA, which, like every other two-letter state abbreviation, is a postal code used in the context of street addresses, not a textual abbreviation. Journalists with a sense of style and dedication to the details of their craft know that; other journalists are just lazy and don’t care, so they moonlight during their day job as mail carriers.

3) Advertorial: It’s not only because this non-word is properly reviled and not even acknowledged as legitimate by the American Society of Magazine Editors that I make it known to all staffs I’ve ever run that I don’t want to hear or see the oxymoronic term appear on anything I publish or used in conversation with advertisers. 

My rationale is rooted in the most simple logic and respect for our language and our audience: Everything that appears on the printed page can be classified as one of two things: if it’s placed and controlled by the pub’s staff, it’s editorial: if it’s paid for and originated by someone outside our staff, it’s advertising. The duplicitous purpose of the neologism advertorial is to confuse and mislead people into thinking the content so labeled is either neither editorial or advertising or is both editorial and advertising. Either way, there’s no such thing.

4)  This is the latest litmus test that separates the publishing pros from the shmos: It’s not everyday you see any business fairly bragging about violating a federal regulation. Yet that’s just what free periodicals that list U.S. Post Offices among their distribution locations are doing. The pros know it’s against
U.S. postal code for periodicals to be displayed for distribution inside a post office. You can’t blame the shmos for not knowing any better.  That would require research, which happens to be another word for reporting.

Augie’s Prime Cut Restaurant & Bar in Mohegan Lake Tuesday night turned into Motown, at least for the first round of the quarterfinals in the rockin’ and rollin’ Augie’s Idol competition that packs this already popular dining destination every week.

I had the privilege of being a guest judge this past Tuesday, thanks to owners Audrey Hochroth and Sal Barone, who have proven promotional wizards. Frankly, the task was made more fun by the fact what I said — as well as the other three judges — had no bearing on the outcome. That’s because this was the first week that the live audience voted for their favorites, showing the door to the singer with the fewest votes.

It was down to four vocalists: Brianne Chasanoff, Vanessa Raccioppo, Rob Raio, Maryann Renza.

The other judges were musicians Joe and Carmine, who I quickly hit it off with, and Augie’s Chef Fabio, who doesn’t pull his punches when delivering a verdict to each singer. He told Rob Raio, who admittedly had a bit of a rough night with both Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely and Billy Joel’s New York State of Mind, “I didn’t think you’d still be here.”

Brianne is notable for playing keyboards and composing her own music. She has a Carol King-ish presence and is undeniably a musical talent.

I asked Maryann if she knows who Ethel Merman is because Maryann is a belter in the old tradition of La Merman, famous for her star turns in Annie Get Your Gun and Gypsy. Fittingly, Maryann sang Aretha’s Respect. I told her, “It takes gut to do Aretha, and you also have the chops.” She knows how to fill a room with her voice and personality.

Vanessa has the best pure voice in the competiton, and few of the regulars these past few weeks are surprised she’s still there. We expected her to be. In fact, at this point, you have to consider her the odds-on favorite to be crowned Augie’s Idol on Feb. 23. Her Motown choice was the gorgeous Jackson 5 melody, I’ll Be There. “You had me at I’ll,” I told Vanessa after she finished.

She’s a sensual stylist who pours herself into the song and knows how to phrase, which requires an artful combination of training, technique and pure instinct.

Among popular singers, the two greatest exponents of song phrasing in my — and a lot of other people’s — book are Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland. The average listener wouldn’t notice much, and that’s precisely the point: effortlessness is the essence of their brilliance in making virtually each song they sing their own.  As someone who plays Sinatra and Garland recordings frequently, it’s virtually impossible for me to listen to any other singer perform their signature songs — which are abundant — without comparing the cover, unfavorably, to the genuine article.

Two of the greatest albums I own are live concerts of Sinatra at the Sands in Las Vegas and — the all-time king (or queen) of live concerts: Judy at Carnegie Hall, recorded in 1962. You’ve never heard a tres chic  audience of A-list celebrities and socialites go crazy like they do in this concert. During the multiple encores, the ovations for Garland that cascade down from the tiers of the historic hall last longer than the songs.

When I told Vanessa she reminded me of a torch singer, like Peggy Lee, a young woman at a ringside table told me to explain what that meant. I did a lousy job of it by saying, “It’s a singer who simmers, and Vanessa, you light my fire.” Ha ha. Bruce the wiseacre. What I should have said is that it’s a performer who smolders in the delivery of slow songs that light the flame of love, hence torch singer.  Vanessa fills the bill.

By the way, Brianne didn’t make the cut Tuesday, so next Tuesday, it’s Maryann, Rob, Vanessa going toe to toe and mouth to mouth. Oops. That doesn’t sound right. Come next Tuesday, we’ll find out which one of them doesn’t sound right to the audience. I have my own thoughts on who that will be, but I’ll keep those thoughts to myself for now.

Yorktown Heights was Ghostown Heights today. At 4:00 p.m., I drove up Commerce Street towards the crossroads at Route 202 and I espied exactly one other car on the road. There were several cars in CVS Plaza, with empty spots aplenty but of course nonetheless there was the obligatory Maddening Motorist sitting front of CVS, jutting out into the lane I needed to exit the lot into the Triangle Center.

[Speaking of Maddening Motorist Awards, which we haven’t meted out in too long a time, even though there is no shortage of drivers deserving them though there is shortage of considerateness for others, a special citation goes to the lady in front of 7-Eleven on Monday with her motor running, reading a newspaper while her Volvo straddled the line to neatly occupy two spaces. In addition to the MMA, let’s give her a blue ribbon for obliviousness.]

Back at the Triangle, I was headed to Mrs. Green’s to buy Agave Nectar, which North County News Managing Editor Kathleen Maffetone turned me on to as an organic sweetener that is much superior to the chemically-based artificial sweeteners.  I was real happy to see Mrs. Green’s was opened, with me the sole customer at the time, despite the desolate Triangle parking lot, where the only cars were in front of A&P. I also noted Radio Shack was open. Kudos to both of those chains for serving customers with mettle worthy of the U.S. Post Office’s weather-proof work ethic.

As long as I was out, Panera beckoned to me for a salad, and I saw the lights still on inside, so I parked alongside the only other car in that part of the lot. Yet, by the time I was out of the car, Panera’s lights were doused and a worker was leaving the building at 4:00 p.m.. Whatever. I guess they won’t miss the 8 bucks or so I was ready to spend on a salad, but I can’t help that it did leave a sour taste in my mouth. Mrs. Green’s being opened spoiled me.

The bottom line meteorologically is we didn’t get nearly the maximum snowfall forecast, and I found the roads easily passable, especially the main surface roads, but also neighborhood streets.

But don’t go by me. I live 2.2 miles from my office. My commuting career has come full cycle. In the late 70s and early 80s, I lived on Second Avenue at 23rd Street in Manhattan, a 10-minute walk to my office at Park Avenue South and 17th Street. I switched companies to help launch a consumer entertainment magazine that was distributed in thousands of 7-Elevens. Except the office was in Philadelphia, so I’d drive each Monday morning to Philly, stay with my partner in his home, and drive back each Friday.

After a year of that — the first year of my marriage to boot — we relocated to Philadelphia. We lived on Arch Street at Fourth Street, in the shadow of the Ben Franklin Bridge, with Betsy Ross’s House a block away.  That walk to the office was also about 10 minutes, or less, to North Second Street at Market Street. Then there were the transcontinental commutes in the late 90s and early oughts to a second office in California, which at its peak had me boarding planes every other Sunday to depart for Southern California, returning that Friday, except for the the stretch in fall 2000 when I flew to the Santa Ana office six Sundays in a row, spending only weekends at home.

There was a period of consulting, when the commute is vertical: up and down stairs from bedroom to home office. That was followed by a gig in Princeton, New Jersey, and I was back on the long-distance road, becoming a regular at the Red Roof Inn, where I’d hole up during the weeks I put to bed the professional magazine I launched for the digital media manufacturing industry.

Now it’s a stone’s throw again to my office. So when it comes to reports from the road about driving conditions during inclement conditions, don’t rely on me for accurate readings. One thing I do know, though: Lady MacBeth was treacherous. Inanimate objects like roads are not capable of treachery.