In this year’s economy, attendance at some of the tournaments is down even as entry fees continue to climb, a function of how much the course or club is charging the charity and how much profit the charity wants to clear on each player.

One of the best run tournaments I’ve been to is the DeVito Foundation’s annual event, just held at The Canyon Club in Armonk on Sept. 18. Anthony DeVito and brother John do a splendid and classy job, and it shows in the turnout of 110 golfers, including Yorktown Supervisor Don Peters, County Legislator Michael Kaplowitz, Yorktown’s unofficial lawyer laureate and past Supervisor Al Cappellini, restaurateur Dave Paganelli, Atlantic Appliance proprietor Rich Leahy, Yortown Planning Dept. head John Tegeder, Planning Commission chair Dave Klaus, Outback Steakhouse exec Ron Duckstein, NetbizCom exec Tom Jacobs, Club Fit’s Bill Beck and James Stropoli, and more.

It was a gorgeous day to be out on the links and the Canyon course is no walk in the park, but a lot of fun nonetheless.

(To Be Continued)

Make no mistake. There are businesses around here that are suffering right now, and we hope they get relief as soon as possible.

At the same time, others are opening businesses. Our Business Beat section in the North County News issue of September 10 reports on newly opened Peekskill Brewery. It’s always encouraging to see local commerce reinvent itself, and not just because it supports the structural integrity of the tax base. even if it is one enterprise at a time. In Yorktown, there are several examples, we’re pleased to report.

At Yorktown’s monthly Chamber of Commerce networking mixer on Monday, September 8, expansively hosted by Roxanne Innerfield of Joe Visconti of RGI Properties, with barbecue catered lip-smackingly by Colonial Terrace, John Chiazzese was introduced as a new Chamber member. He’s just opened Throggs Neck Jewelers in Underhill Plaza, home of Chamber members like Party Celebrations, Mimi’s, Country Florist and State Farm Insurance. John and family’s flagship location is on Tremont Avenue in The Bronx, and many locals are devoted customers of his brother Rosario’s barbershop in The Triangle.

Up the road from Chase Media Group headquarters on Front Street is another retail arrival, aptly named Up Front, A Clothing Boutique for Men & Women. On Commerce Street in the strip mall across from that omnipresent coffee chain is Southside Inn, a tavern and eatery at the former site of Coachlight Inn. We expect to report on its opening very soon.

Another place starting to cause a buzz is Miracles Bar & Grill in Brookside Park on Kear Street. It is situated just below Murphy’s Restaurant (on Route 118), and a stone’s throw in the other direction from Finnegan’s, both of which have developed very loyal followings, particularly among the younger crowd. Around the corner on Underhill is The Heights, a popular bistro for those who prefer the quieter, more leisurely taste of nouvele cuisine.

A recent evening en route home from our Front Street offices, I noticed that Miracles was fully lit inside, the first time I glimpsed its furnishings, so I pulled in the parking lot and moseyed over to the entrance, which faces the rear of the parking lot, looking toward Underhill Avenue.

Inside was a handsomely well-done, blonde-wood decor and two guys who are rarin’ to go: Miracles proprietors Jimmy Bobolakis, owner of Brookside Park, the commercial building that houses the restaurant, and Nick Halampalakis, the 32-year-old managing partner raised by a family of chefs, and who attended the famed Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park.

Projecting a smart ambience that’s at once classy, cool and casual, Miracles fills the two spaces once inhabited by Italian gourmet deli A Taste of Italy and Maria’s Restaurant, which for a very short time after closing turned into Viansa Restaurant. Both spaces have been vacant for an extended period, but sometime in October, Miracles should be open for business, according to the two partners. Once their liquor license is in hand, they will seek town board approval of a cabaret license for live music performances. We can’t imagine why the town board would not approve it. Both Murphy’s and The Heights on occasion offer live music, and Yorktown still has a long way to go to emulate the rich cultural offerings of nearby music mecca Peekskill.

Nick, whose affable, enthusiastic personality is well suited to working the front of the house, as he intends to do, describes his menu as more upscale than comparable establishments, but also reasonably priced, with a range of entrees anywhere from $13, say for a salad, to $60, for a surf-and-turf of filet mignon and lobster tail.

He and his partner Jimmy emphasize all provisions will be purchased and delivered daily to the kitchen, which is impressively spacious and, to my eye, state-of-the-art. A see-through portal in the main dining area will afford patrons full view of food preparation in the kitchen.

Upon entering the 175-seat restaurant, there is a bar and booths, with a flat screen TV perched above what seemed like every booth. There also are giant screens above the bar and in the main dining room.

The partners are aiming for a somewhat different mix of customers than frequent the neighboring tavern restaurants, noting their concept is to recreate the good-time dining-and-music milieu popularized in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Let the kids have their hangouts, they seem to be saying. Miracles is aiming for a client base that skews older, populated by mature adults and families. In the evenings when music is scheduled, Nick says he hopes to keep the kitchen open until 11:00 p.m.

If it sounds like he and Jimmy are trying to import a Manhattanesque night-out to the North County, at suburban prices, I say, bring it on! It’s about time. I’m there. And I know a lot of others who will be too.

As part of my ongoing efforts to become educated about all the communities in North County, including those not currently part of our coverage area of more than seven towns, I was eager to get to Carmel’s VFW headquarters on Route 52, opposite Lake Gleneida, on Tuesday night (August 13).

The attraction for me, and more than 100 others present, was a debate between incumbent 99th District Assemblyman Greg Ball and his challenger, John Degnan, former Mayor of Brewster. They are both running in the September 9 Republican Primary for the privilege of holding that line in the November election.

The two combatants — and those present would attest that is not as much hyperbole as it looks on paper — traded accusations, barbs, insults and denials of the other’s allegations of inaction or, worse, acting against the public’s interest. The agenda bullet points are familiar enough by now: unregistered immigrants, property taxes and the state of state government as practiced in Albany.

Here’s a sampling: Ball — “This is a horrible, nasty campaign.” Degnan (not responding to that Ball remark but to a question from audience): “He’s a liar.”

The crowd was passionate, with at least three-quarters of them cheering on Assemblyman Ball vociferously; that was to be expected, as one resident put it, because “this is his home base.”

The moderator, Karl Rhode, of VFW, a Vietnam veteran, was not shy about holding both the candidates and outspoken audience members to account for stepping outside the lines of debate decorum.

He cautioned both candidates about what he deemed improper remarks or disruptions.

Rhode admonished Ball more than once about interrupting Degnan while the latter had the podium, one time even threatening to end the debate altogether, but then relented. One Ball supporter blurted out, “You’re denying democracy,” to which Rhode replied, “You’re our guest here.”

Rhode also chastised Degnan to not address remarks to anybody in the audience by name after the candidate made caustic remarks about Southeast Supervisor Michael Rights, who was present.

Nevertheless, Ball did make references to New York State Senator Vincent Leibell, also on hand, who has created quite a buzz in this race by funneling substantial financial support to the Degnan campaign. The Ball remarks were not about that fact, but painted the popular Senator as part of the “good ol’ boys’ club in Albany” that Ball has made a virtual political career, in a very short time, of tweaking and challenging to change its profligate ways.

The debate did not so much end as disintegrate into a crossfire of salvos among candidates and their respective supporters. It started with a question posed by the moderator to Assemblyman Ball that the candidate for re-election took exception to, because it besmirched his military service. There followed a heated exchange between Ball and Rhode alluding to whether the moderator was a Leibell partisan and therefore trying to embarrass Ball with such questions. One Ball campaign worker whispered in my ear that Rhode used to be on the payroll of Senator Leibell. The one-word response from the Senator’s office: “Never.”

Ball began persistently demanding to know of Degnan, “What are you, John — Democrat or Republican?” [A registered Republican, Degnan was endorsed for Assembly by the Putnam County Democrats and Republicans. Ball was endorsed by Westchester County Republicans. Pawling Republicans in Dutchess County issued no endorsement.]

The inquiry to his opponent by Ball seemed to be the final straw for Moderator Rhode, who stepped to the mike to signal the end of the session, which was in effect at its end anyhow because, as Rhode himself allowed, the only audience questions left to ask were obviously partisan statements with question marks attached at the end.

Then the supporters joined in, with a Degnan loyalist decrying a Ball remark while Degnan was speaking with, “This is an outburst!” A Ball person behind him replied, “Oh, be quiet.” Then the Degnan person said to Ball, “That’s inappropriate.” Ball: “You’re inappropriate.” Degnan person: “So’s your conduct, sir.” Ball: “So is yours.” And so it went.

The climax to the noisy dispersal of the audience came when Degnan supporter Robert Buckley left the hall repeating the refrain, “Greg Ball’s a fraud,” and throwing in a remark that “He’s anti-union.” That Buckley is an imposing figure did not deter a middle-aged woman on Ball’s side from confronting him as he exited.

Someone in the Degnan camp I spoke with was not pleased with Buckley’s over-the-top behavior. Even less pleased was a Ball supporter who, watching Buckley wend his way through the crowd to exit the building, expressed concern for the safety of others.

Another debate between the two candidates is scheduled for Wednesday, August 13, at 8:00 p.m. at the Somers Library in Reis Park on Route 139 (between Routes 202 and 100). It is sponsored by the Somers Republican Town Committee and the Somers Republican Club. Early Wednesday afternoon, Rey Solano, head of the Somers Republican Club, told me his group had not heard back from John Degnan or his camp confirming his attendance.

Can the level of election campaign discourse sink any lower on a national scale, or local? That’s a rhetorical question. Apparently there is no bottom to the cesspool of ethical snubbery, another way of saying ethics don’t matter any more in public life. The only rule for how far to go is whether you can get away with it.

Let’s face the music and wince: The sanitized term “spin” has replaced that not very nice word “lies,” but who is kidding whom? Voters who want to be duped will be. Others will just shake their heads in a mix of disbelief and disgust, and mutter that now, heaven knows, to quote Cole Porter, anything goes.

The same goes for some media outlets, including certain local papers.

On Fox News, jingoism has replaced journalism. On MSNBC, Keith Olbermann fancies himself Edward R. Murrow. How humble of him. His screeds against the President, no matter what you think of the latter, are like listening to chalk screeching across a blackboard. They are pedantic, self-important and plain badly written. As for CNN, I haven’t tuned in since “AC” (Anderson Cooper) came after “AB” (Aaron Brown). The CNN brass reportedly though AB was too low-key and lacking in sex appeal, yet I find AC flat-out boring, so off with this talking head, at least in my media room!

How do you really know that the cable news nets, of which I am admittedly a junkie, are not practicing any form of journalism known to earthlings? That’s not a rhetorical question. It’s because when was the last time you saw a newspaper that quoted the same so-called expert every day in articles covering the same story. Or continue covering a story every day when there is nothing new to report? Or having the reporters (read: Bill O’Reilly or Olbermann or Geraldo Rivera or AC) insert themselves into the story, or proclaim, as O’Reilly is wont to do, “I’m going to git you, sucka!” (he does not say it in so many words, but I did recently see Mr. T on one of those shows as a guest, if that counts).

The same political “analysts” are hauled out every evening on the cable newscasts, but they really are not analysts. They are paid flacks. Gee, I can’t imagine what position the campaign manager for John McCain or Barack Obama is going to take when asked about something their man said earlier in the day. It’s a joke.

Peekskill plays jazz & blues
Something I didn’t have room to include in my Talking Points column this week in the print edition of North County News, as I sang the praises of Peekskill’s many charms, is the Jazz & Blues 2nd Annual Celebration this Saturday night at Division and Park streets (site of the gazebo). It’s quite a lineup of diverse talents and genres on stage from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., including a quartet fronted by Peekskill’s “finest” policeman-musician, Andy Polay, a familiar figure about town on his bicycle. I’m a big band buff, so Greg Westhoff’s Westchester Swing Band also catches my eye (and ear). And you never can go wrong with Tommy Dabbs & A Little Bit of This & That, a very Peekskillful group. Plus there’s lots more. Guest of honor is Carmen Leggio “for his contribution to music and the arts over the past 60 years.” Check it all out, because Saturday night’s alright for groovin’.

Who’s the yank-ee?
Watching the 2008 edition of the professional baseball club formerly known as the New York Highlanders (if you don’t believe me, just ask your grandfather, if you can, and if you’re past 60) can give a fan whiplash. (And the prices of seats in the new Yankee Stadium can give a fan bankruptcy.)

They get within 1 game of 2nd place Boston and three behind front-runner TB Rays, then fall back to their current slot of 6 games behind the leader and a trey behind Fenway’s faves. And the season sure ain’t getting any longer.

Feels like your pinstriped heart is being yanked this way and that, raising the question: Just who here is the y anker and who is the yankee?

Whatever and whomever, it sure feels more and more like this will be the first October in a dozen falls where we won’t be watching the Yankees on the field.

The moderator will be independently selected by North County News, which will ask if the person identified meets with each camp’s approval. The moderator will pose questions derived from the newspaper’s archives of stories covering both candidates and issues of the day. The questions will betray no bias toward one candidate or the other and reveal no prejudicial leaning on hot-button issues. Audience members will be invited to pose questions of their own.

If all the above seems painfully obvious to any reasonable, well-informed person, the need to exercise ethical, fair and thoroughly impartial procedures to justify using the word “debate” is not obvious to everyone, even including those who are holding what they inaccurately call a “debate.”

A local group that has its heart in the right place, but is misinformed about the proper way to stage a debate, is holding a totally partisan event this Friday at Yorktown Town Hall that more accurately should be called a press conference.

It’s quite a feat to announce a debate for two elected offices and work it so that only one candidate for each office shows up. Here’s a preview of how that is accomplished, borrowed from an imaginary primer that might be titled, “How to Turn a Debate into a Duh-Bait.”

Why “duh-bait”? Because people who put on a debate that is set up to explicitly favor one candidate are insulting the intelligence of the candidate on the other side; as if the prey don’t know (duh!) that they are being baited instead of debated.

1) Have the duh-bait hosted by an organization that actively engages in partisan politics and has made known which candidates it favors, ensuring their opponents have valid reasons for staying away. It takes two to debate. It takes one to duh-bait.

2) Schedule and announce the duh-bait date without first consulting all the candidates to confirm they are available.

3) Select a moderator who has campaigned for one of the candidates and collected signatures on a petition required to get the candidate’s name on the ballot.

4) Select a panel of questioners that includes only those who agree with one of the candidate’s agendas and take a hard line against the views of his opponent.

When you’ve lived in the quaint development of Pinetree Estates in the hamlet of Yorktown Heights since its inception in 1993, you become resigned to living a little like a pioneer, after a fashion. It’s not unlike residing in a historical restoration village, except my neighors and my family are reluctant re-enactors. We don’t even play them on TV. (And if these are estates, I’m Tiger Woods. Got to give the developer props, though, for imagination, and gall.)

Churn that butter. Wash that laundry against stones down by the stream in the wetlands buffer zone. Acclimate yourself to the certainties of life, including death, taxes, and loss of power when the barometer so much as hiccups.

Okay, so I exaggerate a tad. In all sincerity, when I speak truth to power companies, I say it with just as much love they show their customers. For the sake of very, very, very momentary forgiveness, and semi-fair play, the companies we have in mind herein remain nameless, if not blameless.

And who the heck are we to complain anyhow about being deprived every now and then, like clockwork, of modern-day extravagances like electricity and light. 21st Century Man, and Woman, have it so cushy compared to our forebears, it’s embarrassing. If Thomas Edison meant for us to have the luxury of lux all the time, he would have invented the sun instead of the tungsten bulb.

You need to do as the song says — look for the silver lining. Deprivation, like membership, has its privileges. The Proud Pioneers of Pinetree are so accustomed to doing without power whenever the weather stubs its toe that we arguably are of hardier stock than other locals who are coddled by the constant comfort of artificial empowerment. We challenge you to a softball game! (but check the standings in our Sports section before you accept — easy for me to say; I haven’t been on the roster since the French were encamped at French Hill.)

Yeah, that’s the ticket. Without electifrication, I kinda like sitting on my porch on a Wednesday night (this being July 23) with my friend David Steinmetz, sipping some vino – we crushed the grapes ourselves, don’t you know — and puffing on cigars we rolled with our own pampered hands, or maybe they were purchased at the new Doc James store in Katonah opening July 26 under the ownership of Anthony DeVito and Tony Scaglione and Adam DeSiena (how’s that for product placement, guys?). This is the life. And we are powerless to do much about it.

We’ve come a long way since I grew up in the 50s and 60s on Long Island, when power outages were so rare, they actually were newsworthy events. In Pinetreeland, they are mundane, casual occurrences that, from all appearances, seem to barely faze the utility companies that have the remarkable fortitude to tolerate them and act as if they never occur.

Depending on the power supplier, when you call to report the outage and inquire, sheepishly, when power might be restored, they may even imperiously inform you that they do not provide such impertinent information, no doubt muttering something under their breath about the unworthy slackers who happen to be their customers. “Shut up and shop more often at Yankee Candle,” they might as well be saying.

It now is going on three hours that Pinetree has been powerless. But who’s complaining? Not the Energizer Bunny. His batteries never looked so good.

In the age of Internetworked mobile devices, please sir, can we have online updates as to the progress being made toward power being restored? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Shut up and go to sleep, we imagine being told, and when you are awakened at 4:00 a.m. by the revenge of the TVs and lights and cable boxes, beepers and buzzers, then, and only then, will you know when you’ve been granted the alienable right to have power restored.

Yes, yes, no, no, we are not worthy, we are contrite and, worse, Power Hungry! Please accept the humble suggestions below as a modest token of gratitude for your teaching us the ways of becoming one again with nature by sacrificing the corrupting influence of electricity and light and all that overheated, overrated nonsense that our foredads and moms did without for eons.

If the once-in-a-creation discoveries of wheel and fire were good enough for them, who are we to complain?

We’re truly thankful that the stability of the power grid to which we are so tenuously connected seems to be increasingly vulnerable, and that the keeper of its flickering flame exhibits scant solutions for how to stabilize, let alone improve, the situation. After all, it’s for our own good, and we know it.

How can I ever repay Big Brother & the Power Company for its selfless, patriotic efforts to toughen up a society that has become sickeningly soft in its underbelly? Thought you’d never ask.

Here are the “Top 11 List of Suggestions for the Powers that Be” to shine a light on the ingenious infrastructure that guarantees we will lose power at the flick of a tree switch being snapped in wayward weather. (We add the 11th as a backup just in case one of the other 10 unexpectedly loses power.)

1. Adopt as your new logo a log cabin in tribute to the Spartan lifestyle we all must seriously consider returning to at once, especially if we are chronically powerless customers of a power utility.

2. Enclose some futuristic form of paper-thin flashlight in utility bills each month for the inevitable power outage that is reliably, always just around the corner.

3. Hold free seminars on how the average billpayer can breed a mutant form of giant fireflies, corral them in their own gated community in your backyard, and train them to light up on command during regularly scheduled power outages.

4. Distribute calendars each December published in conjunction with the Farmer’s Almanac that forecast the most likely dates when power outages will occur, and cross-promote it with flashlight, battery and candle makers.

5. Hire Debbie Boone to perform at free concerts that take place when homes lose power, where, in the tradition of a rain dance, she will restore morale, if not power, by leading group sing-alongs of “You Light Up My Life” until dawn, or until your refrigerator food spoils, whichever comes first.

6. Issue rebates of an eighth day of the week – or the cash equivalent of lost revenue of a workday — to compensate those who are deprived of valuable hours of productivity during a blackout, resulting in that lucrative proposal not being ready for the morning meeting with a big customer.

7. Try to impersonate a competitive supplier instead of a monopoly by mailing a letter of apology to customers with a plan for how you intend to minimize power outages. Do not date it April 1. That would be redundant anyhow, since your customers have long since gotten the hint that you already take us for fools every day of the year.

8. Fire underperforming managers and hold all managers’ feet to the fires that easily can be found in the homes of customers who have lost electricity during the winter months.

9. Invest heavily and immediately in alternate power sources, like solar and nuclear energy.

10. Hold a no-rules contest where the prizes are power generators awarded to any family with infirm children or elders whose medical condition is severely compromised if their electrical assistive devices do not work due to a recurring failure of competency over which they have absolutely no control.

11. Hire ex-Senator Phil Gramm as your spokesman to remind customers to stop whining just because they have to stumble around in the dark for several hours every other Wednesday or so.

As much as I love all types of music, with advancing age has come increasing appreciation for interludes of silence, especially when I am inside the ultimate boom box — a motor vehicle. There, resisting the pull of satellite radio, I can listen to the beat of my heart, the rhythm of my soul and the lyrics of my mind. We’re all composers of life.
Whether it’s Shakespeare’s “food of love” or love of food, moderation in maturity heightens experiences simply because something that becomes more rare becomes more valued.
The same applies to discovering talent who also happen to be your neighbors. Just as there is the rising influence of hyperlocal media – such as this newspaper – there is hyperlocal talent that we will be hearing from more frequently and loudly, thanks to the democracy of digital distribution that is accessible to millions of individuals rather than controlled by a few music and movie moguls.
Hyperlocal talent – or local hypertalent — is everywhere around us. It was in full view and full voice at Travelers Rest last Friday for a fundraiser to support students in the performing arts.
Appropriately enough, in the audience with her family was Angelina Joyce-DiBart, a XX-year-old performer who sang in the Jenna’s Dream Choir and could be on her way to bigger things on the stage. Her parents Kevin Joyce and Patricia DiBart set a great example for both their offspring and for other parents as prominent donors to the schools’ stage productions through the First Nighters of Yorktown, akin to a sports team booster club.
Jenna’s Dream is named in m emory of the daughter of Monica and Craig Schulman, a Broadway leading man who is the fundraiser’s headliner. One audience member remarked to me how remarkable he found it for Craig to shift his whole persona from The Music Man’s “Ya Got Trouble” to the drama of Les Miserables’ “Bring Him Home.” Whatever the song, his voice never fails to thrill both those who’ve heard him and those who haven’t ( CraigSchulman.com).
Barbara Borok is Membership Coordinator of First Nighters and a first-rate vocalist and songwriter with her guitarist-vocalist-songwriting spouse Michael. They perform as New Middle Class and their songs are brilliantly original and entertaining, but are better heard than described, so check them out at NewMiddleClass.com. The couple is working on a second CD they hope to release in the first half of 2009.
Also on the bill at the Cabaret was Spyro Gyra’s Jeremy Wall, whose keyboard playing is magical, and a newly formed Sixties revival band, Not Fade Away., which had the crowd dancing the night away in short order. The group’s frontman sang and played with the legendary Dion of Runaround Sue fame. Both he and another band member are longtime Yorktowners. You also can catch them on some Thursday evenings starting at 9:30p at The Heights Bistro in Yorktown.
The Cabaret Dinner Show was produced by two local organizations, Jenna’s Dream and our family’s Harrison Apar Field of Dreams Foundation, which is closely affiliated with and donates to First Nighters.
There was another kind of star talent in our midst without whom this and many other fundraisers would not be possible or productive: Travelers Rest proprietor Dave Paganelli. It’s no surprise that he and wife Nancy have been honored several times this year alone by local organizations such as Yorktown Chamber of Commerce and Circolo da Vinci, which said it was the first time that the same name was nominated on every member’s ballot. If there are more giving and sincere people than the Paganellis in these parts, I haven’t met them.

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