Welcome to New York Francisco

Well, Bloomberg is getting his wish. Even though the City Council is having a hearing on the mayor's proposed smoking ban next week, it looks like a done deal, with the mayor agreeing to certain changes. Who is exempt? Owner-operated bars with no employees (yeah, I can think of, let's see, NONE of those); seven existing cigar bars (why? hmm, could it be that the clientele is filthy rich?); fraternal organizations, like the American Legion (because they complained loudly and have influence); a small percentage of the space of outdoor cafes (because you can really set up non-smoking areas outside, right?); and bars that set up super-ventilated smoking rooms that employees don't enter. Bloomberg says we can smoke in the privacy of our own homes, and outside. But hey, not all outdoor areas allow smoking either, like ballparks and, now, 75% of outdoor cafe space. This takes effect in late March or April. There's no way I'm going to sit in a bar and not smoke. What's the point? All or nothing, I say.

I'm hoping that out of this comes some interesting parties, actually. "Smoke-easys," maybe. Flagrant violation of the law by large groups of puffers. Halloween parade marchers dressed like Adolph Bloomberg. Coalitions to buy cigarettes out of state and make lists of the all smoke-friendly establishments in the city. One rule I learned as a teenager that I will never forget: That which is forbidden is most desirable. To quote Catherine Martell in Basic Instinct, "What are you going to do, arrest me for smoking?" No, they'll just fine me $200. How ridiculous is that?

I'm going to open myself a little nightclub with no cabaret license where people can drink and dance and smoke all they want. Too bad it won't be in New York. Maybe France.


Fear of a Black Box

In other anti-government New York news, an "incident" at the Union Square subway station (14th Street, 4th Avenue) shut down the station for a few hours yesterday. It seems some clever-trousers found a way to leave 37 black boxes with the word "FEAR" printed on them (in white) throughout the station. The Post is for some reason trying to tie the "hoax" to the upcoming transit strike, but I don't think so. So-called suspicious packages -- which are actually just the baggage of absent minded people -- have been the cause of many recent shut-downs at transportation centers all over the country. I figure, considering the way the boxes looked (I saw a picture of one on the news last night), that this was actually a guerilla art project. A ballsy move, but so far, there aren't any suspects named.

I don't know what to think about it. On the one hand, it's pretty stupid to mess with the cops this way, considering the stiff penalties for faking terrorism threats, and it's not very nice to shut down a train station, you know, to your fellow New Yorkers with the big giant asses. On the other hand, if they aren't caught, it's a pretty brilliant execution of guerilla art. Considering that the first box reported was actually opened by a civilian, it begs the question of where our fear of terrorism really lies, and how great it is.


I Dream of Alexia With Long Brown Hair

This morning I dreamed I had long hair, past my shoulders, and I was brushing it. I couldn't decide whether to put it up or leave it down. It was very pretty. I also dreamed that I was in a beauty contest and made it to the semi-finals, and that I was swimming with dolphins but it made my lips curl back violently. I carried one of the dolphins on shore and it turned into a husk and some guy broke it. There was also something about towels and stairs and doors.

Yesterday I dreamed that I was watching the end of Stonewall and it became a documentary about parks where bad things happened. Then I was in it, and I was walking through a park in Detroit (where I've never been) and all around me were these big, different colored plastic bags, and I knew that this was a park where people dumped bodies. I started freaking out, because they were everywhere. I tried to find my way out of the park and I spied a little bridge with a small tunnel. A guy who was pushing a kind of sled (like a football sled) with a body bag on it told me I could go that way. For some reason I took his sled and went down the slope to the tunnel, but it tipped over and I had a dead person in a bag on top of me. I pushed it off, and looked through the tunnel. There was a slope down, covered with small, dusty gravel, and a kind of granola-y guy looking at me suspiciously. He and I walked away from the tunnel and we were in a big dormitory-like building, and it seems that we were behind all the guys clearing out the bodies, because it was safe. Then his girlfriend walked up to us and I left the building. That was a weird dream.