sean bell protests start at 3pm today!

for interactive map, click here!

i don't know if you're aware of it or not, but there are pray-in protests scheduled at 3pm today in 6 strategic pockets in the city, led by al sharpton and sean bell supporters, as well as mr. bell's friends and family. the intent is to create enough of a furor peacefully to get the federal government to prosecute the police for violating sean bell's civil rights. ideally, the streets will be flooded with people in prayer from harlem to brooklyn -- but i'm not sure how viable that is when the police can arrest you if you are in a group without a permit or if you do not disperse when you are told to do so.

after the nonviolent protests of the 60s and 70s, the state, federal and local authorities know how to deal with this kind of outrage. they know how to process it through the jails and the court systems. and they have laws in place to prosecute them -- for nonviolent protesting. people who aren't involved and who could care less will inevitably feel beset upon -- because if people gather anywhere near the numbers that they're anticipating, it will bring rush hour traffic to a screeching halt.

i think the only way left to protest something like this is to write a song about it that everyone will want to hear and sing along to -- something that is so innocuous, they won't even know what they are singing about, until it's too late.

still and all, i think a pray-in protest is a noble gesture. and at least someone somewhere is doing something -- because dying in a hail of bullets is the last thing that sean bell deserved.

did "Sex and the City" ruin New York City?

in a word: YES!

how any thinking person that resides in any borough of the city can seriously imagine otherwise is laughable.

i grew up on a steady diet of scorsese films and gritty urban cop tv shows on one hand and a father who survived the great migration north as a resident of brooklyn in the early part of the 20th century on the other -- so when i decided that i would move to new york city from the south, i had absolutely no illusions of grandeur. i knew that the rats and roaches would meet me at the airport, that it would be a filth hole beyond anything i could possibly imagine -- with crime everywhere, a rude sullen embittered poverty-stricken populace and an unholy stench that would rise to meet me every single day. i knew this because my father promised me that it was all one gigantic toilet, a cesspool of idiocy, because why would anyone pay what amounts to the cost of a home mortgage every month to live in a tiny apartment?

was it that bad when i got here? almost.

i lived in the ghetto of west harlem before this latest wave of gentrification, the one that's got hipster white people leaving the lower east side and moving uptown to buy and rent property because this area feels a lot like their old neighborhood did in the 90s: a strong mix of latin cultures, working class black folk and artists. mostly, there's an element of danger, set firmly in place to remind them that they're in new york city -- not the suburbs.

more and more, the city feels like surburbia. it's cleaner and quieter than ever, with more of a police presence on the streets, to make white people and tourists feel safe (because blacks and hispanics certainly don't).

do people believe that new york city is just like an episode of "sex and the city"? truth be told, there is a steady stream of white people from God knows where who are basically hipsters in training -- dilletantes for the most part who are willing to sacrifice their youth to affect a trendy urban lifestyle for the sake of cool and some semblance of culture that they probably never had. in the meantime, the things that really are cool about the city -- mom and pop stores and shops and eateries and the like, and the ethnic diversity of the populace that made this city what it is -- are vanishing. there's a starbucks on every corner. there's a crate and barrel in every neighborhood. african americans are moving south in droves. it's over.

the problem is, it's still new york city -- it's just as foul as it ever was. maybe even more so, because people aren't taking it as seriously as they should.

don't believe me? wander down ludlow street on any given saturday night after 1 am. i haven't seen that many fully trashed expensively well-dressed white people staggering down sidewalks since i went to the university of texas at austin and lived in west campus, surrounded by frat houses. is it really smart to get drunk and bar hop in new york?

lest we forget, there have been several high-profile murders of white females lately who were at play in the city: imette st. guillen from boston, whose friends left her drunk at the pioneer bar because she wanted to barhop through soho; jennifer moore from harrington park nj who, along with her best friend, went barhopping in chelsea (both of them were minors); and last but not least nicole du fresne from minnesota, who was drunk enough (at 3:15am in the lower east side) to berate a mugger with a gun pointed at her by saying, "what are you going to do, shoot us?"

the bottom line is, people believe what they see in the movies and on tv. as an artist, i want to make art that's impactful but it's fairly obvious at this point that if i want to change the world, making music or taking broadway by storm isn't the way to go about it. everyone watches television. you wanna change the world? write/produce a sit-com.

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'Sex and the City' cast: Not our fault

Cynthia Nixon, Kristen Davis and Sarah Jessica Parker star in 'Sex in the City.' (handout)

By Julie Gordon |jgordon@am-ny.com

7:58 PM EDT, May 4, 2008

The decade since "Sex and the City" premiered saw the transformation of New York into a real-life set for the show, with gaggles of cosmo-swigging young women chasing the lifestyle it depicts.

The city now teems with glass tower condos and swank shops that have displaced affordable apartments as well as small businesses that cater to longtime New Yorkers.

So is it the show's fault that your corner diner was knocked down for a condo and places like Third Avenue in Murray Hill are overrun with Samantha clones? No way, says the actor Chris Noth, who plays Mr. Big on the show and in its big-screen treatment, which premieres May 30.

"Look, there's always been plenty of fashion in New York, and it's never going to die," Noth said yesterday at a roundtable discussion with the film's cast and director at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. "But this show didn't create 40-story tall buildings and it doesn't negate [that] either."

Cast members yesterday conceded that they were familiar with the critique that "Sex and the City" helped launch these changes by drawing out-of-towners hell bent on living the life at all cost.

High-priced designer labels and extravagant lifestyles have been as much a part of the series as its four female stars -- Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon.

Nixon, for her part, is all too familiar with these bright-eyed girls.

"When people come up to me on the street and say, 'I just got here from Iowa two weeks ago. Your show made me come. I'm like, 'Oh no,'" said Nixon, who plays reprising Miranda Hobbes. "People do come here looking for love, but what do they find?"

Quite possibly bad luck in love, cramped apartments, shopping trips that don't include Fifth Avenue and life in a borough other than Manhattan.

In contrast to Miranda's experience where a cab driver wouldn't even cross the Brooklyn Bridge, that is not the case any more. And what was Miranda's unthinkable move to that "other" borough is now the norm for many 20- and 30-somethings.

In a city facing relentless neighborhood gentrification, Noth says he is a strong advocate of old New York. The actor mentioned his support of a movement to keep the 13th Street Repertory Theater and other city mainstays alive.

"We're losing a lot of our stoops and coffee shops and things like that," Noth said. "These are places to come together. It's hard to get together under the shadow of a 40-story building."

Michael Patrick King, writer and director of the film, said fans should keep in mind that the series and film don't exactly reflect reality. They should, in a sense, watch with a shaded view -- even if those shades are Gucci.

"I think the movie reflects your life but with a really big budget," King said. "It is a fantastical reflection of the lives of women around the world."

What Does The "S" Stand For? Part 2: The Bernard Goetz Factor

I was on the east side and I was running for the S train. No, not running. I was moving fast, which would be considered running if I lived anywhere else. But I live in a city where everyone moves this way when you’ve got somewhere to be. It’s kind of like driving at a certain speed in spite of what the speed limit says, because that’s how fast traffic is going. When everyone around you is moving that way, you either pick up the pace or get run over. I’ve lived in New York City for so long that I know how to eat lunch, talk on my cell and move it with a quickness – in heels.

Everyone around me was going in the same direction at breakneck speed like some urban herd, with some band or some panhandling toothless freak or some guitar player’s incessant canoodling as the living soundtrack to the airtight nightmare i call “getting there.” When the music is full-tilt and I am surrounded by oblivious strangers, when my legs get to swinging underneath me like I’m a lifesized metronome and my eyes are wide with exhaustion behind my dark shades, when the flow and the crush of the herd makes my mind wander, that’s when I know I’m moving in stereo.

About a month or so ago, I was caught in one of these panoramic sensurround lapses that forces so much noise and confusion onto me that I didn’t really hear anything at all. On this particular day, I was thinking that if I moved from train (S) to train (2 or 3) to train (1), I would be home inside of 30 minutes. No waiting on the overcrowded platforms, no down time for casual interaction of any kind. Keep it moving – that’s the goal.

I hear them before I see them: three black girls, long and lean and somewhat lanky, one of them pushing a baby stroller, the other two lagging behind her, around her – falling behind, catching up, hanging on. Bobbing in and out of the herd in their own rhythm as though they were the only ones there. It’s a game they’re used to playing. They are laughing so loudly, it almost sounds as though they are screaming. Sweet-faced girls. Pretty. Probably teenagers. I don’t give them a second thought.

I head for the back of the train because at the next and last and only stop, it will be the front, which will crash-land me in a direct path to my next train line. Everyone is already sandwiched in every doorway I pass like sardines in a can. They look like obedient sheep being led to the slaughterhouse. I approach the last door and who do I see? Those three black girls. I step in next to one of them, I murmur an “excuse me” to her, she readjusts and then I wait for the door to close. Right as the doors are about to come together, this white woman runs up and jumps on. She was blonde and she was pale and she was dressed in black. It was a nice overcoat. She had heels on. Comfortable heels. She didn’t look nondescript, but she did look like she worked in an office. Immediately the black girl to my left started loud-talking and shoving into her with her arm and her shoulder, trying to get her off the train. “can’t you see there’s no room?” something like that. The black girl to my right immediately started to calm her down. And the black girl with the baby threatened imminent bodily harm if the child got hurt. That’s when the doors went all herky-jerky the way they do sometimes when the train is packed and someone’s belongings are keeping them from closing completely. It’s like they’re having an epileptic fit. To tell you the truth, it was almost as though the doors wanted her to get off the train, too. But she didn’t move. She didn’t say anything, either. She just held her ground physically and looked down. And then the doors closed, the girl stopped hitting her and the train began to move.

Everyone saw this girl hitting this woman and no one came to her defense. I was standing right next to her, and I said nothing. I figured she could handle herself as a city dweller. No. Scratch that. What I really figured was that it wasn’t any of my business. I figured that interfering in moments like these is what gets you beat up or badly injured or even killed. I figured that with a train filled with men, I shouldn’t have to say anything. Some gentleman would appear. Or a cop. Or something. Or maybe what I really figured is that it was over. But it wasn’t over. The black girl to my left said something like, this lady (she points at me) said excuse me but this one (she points at the blonde) said nothing, and she starts going off. She’s loud and young but she’s old enough to have already learned that it’s all in the delivery, so she’s smiling and sounding really light and affable as she’s saying all of this foul racist garbage, stuff like “if I was a certain kind of bitch, I would kick your ass,” and all this junk. Someone on the train said something. She goes, who said that? No one said anything. She kept going.

Honestly. It’s a two minute train ride with one stop in either direction and I’m telling you, it felt like I was on that thing for more than a half-hour.

The black girl to my left went on and on and on. She had a chip in her heart, she laughed. And then all of a sudden, we were there. It looked like it was over. Everyone wanted it to be over. The blonde turned around and faced the door so that as soon as she stepped out of the train, she’d be on her way. The doors opened and pow! It happened in an instant: The black girl to my left shoved the woman with all her might and made some declaratory statement about white people, with the black girl to my right begging her not to and the black girl with the baby carriage laughing; some guy over my shoulder said, “don’t do that to the lady”; and the blonde staggered, very nearly fell, recovered and kept going. Picked up the pace, moved fast and disappeared into the crowd. It all happened in a nanosecond. It was over just that fast.

I can’t stop thinking about the blonde, how frightened she was, how she never said anything the whole time. I keep wondering what I would have done -- if I would have hit that girl in the face and shoved her onto the tracks or kept it moving. i actually thought about Bernard Goetz. i know that statistically, i'm the one that's more likely to get physically assaulted or harassed or robbed, but i'm convinced that if stuff like that keeps happening, paranoia will turn this place into a city of Bernie Goetz' guns.

and they won't be the ones saying "what are you going to do, shoot us" either.

Nicole DuFresne, Guns and Self-Defense

i wanted to write something insightful about the nicole dufresne shooting because of the life sentence that was handed down this week to the kid that pulled the trigger. but then i read this article and thought that it summed up my feelings on the subject so perfectly, i'd pass it along -- so here it is.

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A New York Shooting -- and What the Victims Did Wrong by Kent Fung

Even if you don't live in New York City, you've likely heard by now of an aspiring actress who was shot and killed during a robbery in Manhattan's Lower East Side last Friday. Much has been made of this killing - particularly, I believe, because the victim, Nicole duFresne, was young, pretty and blonde. (But that's another issue altogether.)

The killing was a tragedy, and I extend my condolences to Nicole's family and friends.

But duFresne's actions, along with her fiancé and their friends the night of their murders, are also a prime example of exactly how NOT to behave on a city street. I'm certainly not saying or implying that these victims deserved what happened to them. But they certainly made it easy for themselves to be victims. I think, therefore, this tragedy gives us the opportunity to review what it means to be safe in a modern urban environment.

For those who haven't read about the incident, here's an abbreviated account of what happened. On early Thursday morning, Nicole duFresne finished working at a popular Manhattan music club - her first night on the job - and had gone bar-hopping with her fiancée, Jeffrey Sparks, and two other friends. Upon leaving a bar around 3:15 a.m., the group was walking down the street when as many as seven teens stepped in front of them and accosted them. One of the men pulled a gun and demanded money. Sparks, drunk (by his own admission) and not thinking clearly, shoved the man aside and tried to walk past him; the man proceeded to pistol-whip Sparks. At some point, the muggers then grabbed the purse of one of duFresne's friends. DuFresne tried to stop him, reportedly saying, "What are you going to do? Shoot us?" At which point the mugger responded by taking Nicole's suggestion, shooting her in the chest. She was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

Once again, while no one is suggesting that Nicole deserved to die, she and her friends certainly didn't do anything to prevent this tragedy. Here's a list of the things they did wrong:

1) They were drunk in public. Now, I'm sure many of you will tell me that just because Nicole and her friends were drunk didn't justify they're being shot. You're right. But you're also missing the point. Anything that impairs your judgment, vision, reflexes and awareness should be consumed in the safety of a private home. I'm all for partying it up - do it myself on a regular basis. But I make it a point to never have more than a drink or two in me if I'm going to be out in public. Especially in a major city (such as New York). Especially late at night. This is probably the biggest mistake Nicole and her friends made, one that led to all the other ones that followed.

2) They were unaware. There's no telling what role alcohol had to do with this. But late at night, walking down the street, vigilance is crucial to staying safe. From what I've read, Nicole and her friends should have noticed a large group of teens walking toward them, noted the hostile aura around them, and tried to avoid them. Obviously, they didn't. Especially in a city, but not matter where you live, you should be constantly scanning ahead while in public, evaluating places where a criminal might be hiding and waiting for a choice victim, and - most importantly - avoiding those places. This might seem like a lot of trouble - but you can quickly make it an automatic habit, one that you do almost subconsciously. A good way to do this is to start by evaluating your usual routes - from work to your parking lot, from your home to the subway stop, etc. - and imagining where you would hide if you wanted to ambush yourself. That gives you a starting point of places you should make a point of scanning every time you go outside.

3) They failed to evaluate the situation correctly. Nicole and her friends were outnumbered. Surrounded. And at least one of the assailants was armed. Yet Sparks apparently thought the right thing to do was to shove one of them away. That's stupid, and akin to poking a rattlesnake for laughs and giggles. Again, I'm not saying he deserved to be beaten. But was it really a surprise that he was?

4) They failed to evaluate the situation correctly - part two. After Sparks had been beaten for his actions - i.e., the assailants had demonstrated their willingness to use violence - and after one of the assailants (reportedly) said, "Look, all we want is some money," they failed to just comply and give up their wallets and purses.

5) They failed to evaluate the situation correctly - part three. After Sparks had been beaten for his actions - i.e., the assailants had demonstrated their willingness to use violence - and after one of the assailants (reportedly) said, "Look, all we want is some money," Nicole evidently thought it was a good idea to challenge - to dare - and to taunt the gun wielder. In general, if someone is pointing a gun at you, it's hard to imagine a more inappropriate thing to say than, "What are you going to do, shoot us?"

The shooting of Nicole duFresne was an unfortunate occurrence. But if anything good can come from it, it's this: learn from her mistakes. Don't do what she and her friends did. Yes, it's true that we should all be able to walk the streets at any time, without risk to our safety, our loved ones, or our possessions. You have the right to walk down the street safely and unaccosted. Unfortunately, we live in the real world, not an idealized one, and precautions and sound judgment must be taken - regardless of rights.