Opening Tonight! May 18 6-9pm 5th Ave @ 89th

Steinway Ribbon Cutting

Gold scissors cut the golden ribbon at the new Steinway Hall.  The new Spirio technology turns a new Steinway into a player-piano that you can still play, and record your own playing into your iPad app.  If we have a good filmstrip of Grandpa playing the piano, that can be recorded in and replayed, phantom-of-the-opera style.  They've got music playing all day long at 43rd and 6th Ave.  http://www.steinway.com/spirio.

PRIMARY

Tonight is opening night of PRIMARY, a play directed by my cousin.  http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2483539PRIMARY

$9 tickets available on TDF

Art Show Sailing Benefit

One of the best things about living in the city is getting out of the city.  An hour away by car or train you can sail or go to the beach.  

I have donated one of my oil paintings to benefit Oak Cliff Sailing Center.  Please come see the show and enjoy a champagne brunch at the sailing center on beautiful Oyster Bay!

Nancy Reagan's Birthplace

http://www.ny1.com/nyc/queens/news/2016/03/7/before-she-was-first-lady--nancy-reagan-s-roots-began-in-flushing.html

I would like to go back and lay flowers and a flag, with friends in case the man jumps out of a box on the porch and yells at us again.

There is even a homeless person at Nancy Reagan's birthplace.

When I opened the newspapers after she died to see beautiful photographs of Nancy and Ronald Reagan, I didn't expect to learn reading the New York Post that Nancy Reagan was born in Queens, New York.  I drove right out there to look at the house.

The grape vines and cedar trees may well date back to when she lived there.  I haven't read her book, so didn't know that she and her Mother overcame real adversity.  She got out of Queens, the hard-working middle-class community with such American treasures as the Steinway piano factory.  Nancy Reagan's Mother had to go back there to find her ex-husband who had abandoned them, the only way she could marry the man who would adopt Nancy.

From her new life in Chicago, Nancy went on to Smith College, became an elegant 1940s movie star, then First Lady of the State of California and the United States of America.

I knew from President Reagan's book that his early life was fraught with challenge, yet I didn't know that Mrs. Reagan's was, too.

What I remember about them in person was their warmth and energy filling the Superdome as they spoke at the Republican National Convention before Vice President Bush got the nomination to run for Presideht.  The youth caucus got to run out and stand right in front of the stage.  It was very exciting.  

As was working on that campaign in California my Freshman year of college, which was so strong economically compared to my home state of Oklahoma, one of the few in a slump due to the low oil prices that helped the American economy overall.  I really got to live in "a shining city on a hill" called The University of San Diego.

While this wood frame house in Queens is not the side to Nancy Reagan many people knew, I think the Reagans could be proud that it is under renovation in an entrepreneurial community of new Americans.  

I don't know what they'd say about the "greeter" on the front porch.  I don't know what their homeless policy would be.  Where it would fall between leaving the guy alone and the private property rights of the owner.  They would want him to have a job and own a home, yet they wouldn't want to force anyone to hire him.  So a business?

The RNC recently announced plans to open an office in Queens.  The former First Lady's birthplace would be a great location if they haven't already picked one.  However, the real estate price of such a gem would be prohibitive.  Then again, after "The Big Short", who knows, the owner might donate the place (which I don't think is legal for a campaign, but a  charity, fine.)

Though it may not be the glamourous monument we'd imagine for them, it is the heart and spirit of the Reagans to inspire people to work hard and pull themselves up from the boot straps, visibly alive in the community around Mrs. Reagan's birthplace.  The Reagan Democrats in New York helped turn the whole country around.  If a little patch of Reagan soil could be preserved here in their memory, to continue their ideals, whether it be for small business, for children, or for "Just Say No", New York would be a better place.

Thank you for all that you did for our Country, Nancy Reagan, Rest In Peace.

The Snowy Road to New Hampshire

I generally follow my late Granddaddy's advice, "Don't do anything before the Primary."  This year, I got invited to campaign for Jeb in Dover, New Hampshire.

In the motel lobby, we met Jeb's cousins, President George H. W. Bush's first cousin.  They both went to school in New Hampshire.  We followed them out into the field to go door-to-door talking to voters.

New technology this race includes an iPhone app that gave us an online map and survey.  While the answer choices leave no room for notes are not likely to yield accurate polling data, the app does get you out talking to voters and is probably more efficient than paper maps and lists.  We had a state map, but no neighborhood street maps.  Without seeing the back end of what goes into the technology, it looks easier to organize than assembling lists, maps and scripts for hundreds of volunteers.  The campaign assigns walkbooks to your phone.

The neighborhood we canvased was positive.  Some were voting for Jeb, one had made up his mind for someone, wouldn't say who, but probably not Jeb, some were not for Trump, a few undecided between Jeb and Marco Rubio.

Rubio and Cruz are my age.  Bill Kristol's prediction that the next President would be one of the new, young Senators is regaining credibility.  It is also the age and stage of Barack Obama when he was elected.  There is still time for younger candidates to gain a few more years of knowledge, experience and maturity.  I loved Rubio's debate answer to this -- elect Joe Biden, he's the oldest! 

Jeb does have more experience.  As much as some people don't want to elect a family member of past Presidents, his legacy of sound foreign policy, free trade and a network of people who know how to govern is worth electing.  

When Jeb was elected Governor of Florida, I worked for another newly-elected Governor.  It was a good year for Republican Governors and Jeb was one of the best.  Florida lead the country in economic growth.

The first time I heard him speak, newly-elected in Miami, his phone went off at the podium.  Cell phones were relatively new to the mass market and ringers going off when they shouldn't was a big deal.  "Hello?  You're looking for Jeb Bush, the [axe murderer, or whatever his opponent was accusing him of in the bitter-end ads]?  Sorry, wrong number!"  He has a sense of humor in greeting this policy conference then-called "Dark Ages Weekend", a spoof of the Democrats' "Renaissance Weekend" where Bill Clinton was discovered.  Absolutely no one was discovered at Dark Ages Weekend.  I later heard one of the organizers started it just to find a husband.  Absolutely no one found a husband there, either.  There were some great speakers and panels, and Jeb's greeting was a big hit.

A diverse family, Jeb has faced some of the issues surrounding immigration in his own home.  He has a serious wife interested in serious issues.  I met his younger son campaigning for him at an event in New York.

Donald Trump articulates the fears Amercans share on immigration at this time in our nation's history.  His statement in last nights debate on veterans is true.  The year he served as Grand Marshall of the usually-overlooked Veterans Day Parade made it a big deal.  Governor Pataki marched with him and everyone had a great day.  He is capable of the part of the job of going to events and adding something special, namely, back then, Marla Maples.  However, his proposed tariffs will raise the price of a pick-up-truck by $9000.

Ted Cruz is a great Congressman and conservative everybody loves.  He was not only born in Canada, he lived there until age 4.  Is this the time to break the clear constitutional rule that the President cannot be foreign-born?  Who is next?  An ISIS-born President?  Cruz can run for President of Canada.  They need him more than we do.

Did Bernie Sanders fill the Verizon arena in Manchester?  This seems incredible in a primary.  Half of his own State of Vermont has fled to New Hampshire, but why then would they sit in an arena and listen to him?  Mitt Romney filled it before the general.  

Friday morning, 500 people went to hear Barbara Bush speak.  Jeb's town halls had crowds out the door.  

The New Hampshire voters I phoned today said he did well in the debate.  Rubio and Cruz were national debate champions, so this has been hard for Jeb.  Some voters were definite, some undecided.  Only one cursed at me.  

No killer dog attacks.  We had heard robbers were posing as campaigners, but we didn't see anyone running out with a pillow case full of jewelry.  

It was a beautiful, sunny, cold, snowy New England day in the town my Colonial ancestor named Roberts settled after sailing from Dover, England.  No time for genealogy, but I read up on him a little online.  His farm was the longest continuously-family-owned farm in America.  Though as Colonial Governor,  he became sympathetic to Quakers, his sons drove, whipped and beat them out of Dover in the cold of Winter.  In the spirit of his membership in the Fishmongers Guild, which sounds like the town crier, but was actually very prestigious in England, I hope the people of New Hampshire will vote this Tuesday on the values on which their state and country was founded.  It is important enough to us to go up there, call on you, and to ask for your vote.  

While you are getting ready for the prom, or to watch the game, thank you for taking the time to talk to us.

Music of the Counter-Revolution

David Bowie was part of the "Second British Invasion," the first being the Beatles in the 1960's.  After years of 70s music like the BeeGees, dressed in tight pants with shirts unbuttoned down to their waists exposing hairy, coppertone-tanned chests, singing like The Chipmunks, in came a bunch of blonde English guys in baggy clothes who pulled us from Disco to MTV.  For that alone, I give them as much credit as Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II.

While the 70s stars were overtly sexual, it finally caught up with them in the 80s when we learned about AIDS -- sex and drugs could kill.  People even one year older than me had very different experience than Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No."

I still remember my first non-Florence Eisman swimming suit, a shiny bronze leotard with a matching wrap skirt to dance by the pool when the practice of blaring music from outdoor speakers began.  We never wondered that we were diverted to TV screens and video cameras, sporting jazz hands, modern art, indoor sunglasses, punk rock clothes, spiky hairdos and lip-sync.  There were fewer garage bands in my age group.  We didn't realize how much less sexy we looked.  We were trying to be cool.

After a decade of impassioned 70s love songs, Bowie entered the scene with lyrics like "Don't believe in modern love"... "God and man"..."church on time"...We didn't really think about or understand what he was talking about, but it put issues of good and evil into our consciousness.  In the Bible Belt, that would only have happened in Gospel music.  This was something we could dance to, blare from convertibles.  

It didn't occur to me that he was cross-dressing, promoting drug culture and gender confusion, as critics suggest.  People my age who did drugs or had un-monogamous sex with people they didn't end up marrying had more serious problems than those engaging in that culture ten years older.  We knew it was unhealthy, and it didn't end well for those who didn't quit.  I don't really know what drugs people did because I didn't. Heard about ex and pot.  No sign of heroin or cocaine that had come just before us.

Today, kids are snorting prescription drugs and cutting.  I haven't heard any songs about that.  Videos like Lady Gaga's certainly promote abuse, but it didn't take long for even the sexually liberated to be offended.

The music of the 80s was upbeat compared to the 70s and today's Adele, who wants to find someone like the guy who dumped her (Aim higher next time, Adele!), and call to say I'm sorry to a guy she dumped.  Even Culture Club was less depressing than that.

Bowie was an "invasion" we didn't know happened for decades.  We wouldn't have dropped Disco to go back to Mozart (though I once pretended I was buying classical music for my Opera-fan Father so I would have something to listen to when my friends weren't over, having listened to his favorites all our lives.  If only he had told us that English rock stars had a classical musical education, we might not have thought Opera was uncool.)  Heavy metal was the music of the drug culture.  Disco was the music of the sexual revolution (no more cheek-to-cheek for fear of catching something).  80s music got us on our feet.  It was the music of independence, and Bowie was at the center of it.

Some of it was just market forces:  they had to sell music here because the dollar was strong, even if they were card-carrying commies, but what they gave us was the music of the counter-revolution.  

David Bowie, RIP.

A Primer for Canadians Running for POTUS

Natural Born Citizenship Test for candidates who are not natural born citizens, and therefore not eligible to run for President:

This is not the usual New York test.  More like the California version, which asks things like specific historical dates of minor battles in forgotten wars.

1.  From what Borough of New York City does Donald Trump come?

2.  In which Borough of New York City did Archie Bunker live?

3.  What character on Archie Bunker show does Donald Trump's Father most closely resemble?

4.  How much money did Donald Trump inherit from his parents in the 1980s?

5.  How much is Donald Trump worth now?  [Hint:  If he spends his last dime on his campaign for POTUS, he'll outspend Clinton by $1 billion dollars.]

6.  How does that rate of return compare to businessmen [who inherited nothing and actually developed real estate instead of merely licensing their own last name to go on other people's buildings?

7.  What part of New York values does Donald Trump have?

A:  Queens values.  [I'm showing mercy by giving him an answer or two because he'll never get this one.]

8.  Who else has Queens values?

A:  The GOP base.

9.  What happens to people who try to stop a train filled with the GOP base by stepping in front of the train?

10.  Who wins if GOP leaders tell people to vote Clinton?

State of What State?

I'm a little behind in my response to the 1/14/16 New York State Governor's State of the State, because upon reading the transcript, I had to wonder -- is he talking about the same state?

I had to take time to read some past and present articles to make sure.  The day after he gave the speech, GE announced it is pulling the last of its New York presence, a couple of floors in the top of its once-full Executive tower, and moving to Boston along with its entire Connecticut headquarters.  More significantly, Swifty's is closing in the East 70s.  That's the state I see, after all the "two cities" talk, must be two states, too.

Stunned that Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos are still in office.  Both recently convicted of corruption.  I assumed that meant they were in jail, or at least out of office, not seated in Albany with the Governor,  who disbanded the Commission that is investigating him for corruption.  He even joked about it in the State of the State address.  The obvious solution to corruption is let there be consequences.  The next powerpoint..."Don't allow corrupt people in office."  It isn't a video game where you bounce right back to life.

All I can offer now is my clear power-point presentation on ending homelessness, to the tune of "Home is Wherever I'm With You."  Songs like this redefined the word and concept of "home" from being your private property to "wherever," as retirees began liquidating and "traveling", recent graduates moved back in with their parents, and a host of bizarre housing situations in families that had been fairly settled, multi-property landowners for many generations.  Homelessness in women is generally thought to be 100% drug abuse, can be mental health issues independent of drugs in men, and basically amounts to isolation.

The number of homeless on the streets of Manhattan reached epic levels.  I don't defend people's right to never move, don't want to go back to feudal Europe, or pay other peoples' rent.  That I can even pay my own is a miracle.  Moving can be the best thing.

Architecturally-uninspiring projects full of descendants of American slaves seem like sad, entrenched places to live on this celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. -- there must be happier situations for many people.

Creating new projects, even with built-in mental healthcare make sense, as many private apartment buildings have Doctors' offices in them anyway, yet will cost more than it provides.  The recent Artist housing near my neighborhood amounted to $1 million per Artist.  If people had just bought $50 million worth of Art, they wouldn't need to provide what does not amount to 50 $1 million dollar apartments, more like 50 $100,000 apartments that cost $50 million.

https://youtu.be/9ZQX87iYZTY is the link to the video on YouTube, as it seems to have disappeared from the screen.  Nobody wants their building to become a "welfare hotel", yet it would cost less in the long run to prevent temporary situations from becoming long term.  Moving is fun when you move into your dream home, or at least a step in that direction.  Slumlords make more money keeping low-income tenants from moving, so if the payments were anonymous, it would be all business.

Here it is, constructive criticism welcome.  I've gotten used to it.  Some people are hurt by it.  Even when I'm reviewing a book I really like, I always try to think of something critical to say so it doesn't sound like I'm singing to the choir.  This is usually the hardest part.

Barack on my Block

President Obama's last State of the Union address gives hope that his fundraising traffic will also come to an end.  One of the exciting things about our new block was that President Obama came to a neighboring building for a fundraiser.  Everyone had to move our cars.  The guy who parked behind me even said "yes" to a Jeb! bumper sticker.  #barackonmyblock

The end of the Obama era is the beginning of Congressman Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House.  

Who will be the next President?  Who can beat Secretary Clinton?  She has raised $3 billion in all of their superpacs funded by the Chinese.

Jeb!'s at less than half a billion.  

Donald Trump will lose steam if he starts losing primaries.  He gets 10,000 to 20,000 people a day at his rallies, while other candidates can't get 100 people in a room.

After years of polls telling us people don't trust Executives, out leaps the penultimate 90's man-in-a-suit.  Forget  compassionate, creative, "act of love";  put down "Lean In".  Bring back The Donald and The Bern, men who stand for something and speak with conviction.

Even Jerry Falwell's university respects Senator Sanders enough to give him an audience.  He probably didn't change their minds, but did they change his?  Is Jesus now Bernie Sanders' personal savior?  I doubt it, yet he's been married to the same wife for decades and they have some basic values in common.

Senator Sanders and Donald Trump have raised no money, yet Americans' concern for making enough money is fueling both campaigns.  Trump's followers want to be rich and believe it is possible.  Sanders voters want to give up and go on welfare.  Influenced by an international socialist movement that gained ground in England last election, they don't see a path to prosperity through hard work.

Issues with Jeb!'s position on amnesty were expected.  Americans don't want it.  Voters made that very clear last election.  Republicans won on a platform of guns and anti-amnesty.  

The minute they got elected, or re-elected, they promptly dumped the immigration piece.  Now they have to listen to Donald Trump, who has clearly defined the issues.  The Republicans, undaunted, defied the consent of the governed again in trading immigrants for the budget.  How many?  Enough to get Secretary Clinton elected?  That's her only strategic hope, besides the $3 billion.  Nobody wants her running the country from her private computer network.  No wonder there was a dead Ambassador, and countless others compromised.  Even people who think Snowden's okay have dropped her.

The name brand candidates had issues going into the race.

However, I did not expect Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.  People want strength.

As I look at the military uniforms in the audience, I wonder what it must be like to sit and listen to a speech the day seven U.S. Navy sailors are detained in Iran?  Did they postpone speeches during World War II?  Would anything have gotten done if they had?  The last two or three years have been such a scary time in terms of escalating terrorism.  

It gives me hope that Bernie Sanders has young, bright Americans getting out there and campaigning for him.  I differ with him on policy goals, yet thank him for running.  He seems real.

Trump talks tough against immigrants, yet how many has he married?

Michele Obama, in the happy-face yellow dress, doesn't cause traffic and transit issues, even when speaking in Central Park last summer with Bono, Ed Sheeran, Beyoncé and the Global Citizens.  A happy musical memory after Indian-born Nikki Haley took us back to the South Carolina Bible study of summer, followed by beautiful, but sorrowful, traditional hymns inspired us as old flags were torn down.

The Real Reason We Have Homeless

City to End Use of ‘Cluster’ Homeless Shelter Units http://observer.com/2016/01/city-to-end-use-of-cluster-homeless-shelter-units/#.Vo9DY7u399s.twitter

What this means is that Mayor DiBlasio is ending the City's paying property owners $3000/night to temporarily house a homeless person.  If you built a highrise you can't fill, the City will pay you more than the nightly rate of the Presidential Suite at the Waldorf to let a homeless person stay there.  You don't have to take in a permanent tenant, which would interfere with selling the unit.

It's potluck for the homeless -- they might get the rodent-infested public housing even the Christian Science Monitor can't put a positive spin on, or they might get a brand new luxury apartment.  Ten days of that would pay a year's rent in about as nice a building as any.  One sixth of that would be more than enough for a regular hotel room at the Waldorf.  

In an ideal world, that money would be freed up to create businesses and jobs so people could pay their own rent.  However, the man taking up half the subway with carts full of smelly garbage might not be successfully educated to become a recycled-vintage goods dealer anytime soon.  He may not even be able to check into a hotel or figure out air b&b.    

At least one state just reimburses the hotel bill for any hotel which takes a homeless person in below freezing weather, which they are ordered to do, in no matter what kind of condition the person arrives.  They can't walk them in the cold.  Maybe they don't round them up like NYPD always does, which seemed particularly heroic this week because there were so many more than anyone has ever seen.

And the Congress repealed Obamacare!  Which will probably get vetoed, though it may be responsible for the record number of people on Medicaid.  Throwing in the towel on paying thousands more a year than they will ever spend on healthcare, scared to trip and fall on the terribly bad streets now that Senator Pothole has been replaced by agenda-pushers who refuse to do case work.

Urban Camping

After a dreamy Indian summer, much-needed and deserved after two hard winters, today in New York City, it is 18°.  Winter has hit.  

No snow yet, though today, the Governor of New York ordered the homeless into shelters when the weather is below freezing.  

The Manhattan Institute, at the recent kick off of their new publication, The Beat, released a report outlining their recommendations to address this growing problem in New York City.  What to do about the homeless was the most asked question.  

All kinds of people in New York have been interrupted, preventing homelessness of their own, their friends and family, and an increasing number of strangers. 

A few MI recommendations I actually believe are the cause of the rise in homelessness.  

What wasn't discussed was that two or three years ago, New York City repealed some of the tenement laws dating back to Teddy Roosevelt.  During the heat wave of 1896, they repealed the laws preventing people from sleeping outdoors.  Basically, loitering is what they called it in the olden days.  

You just couldn't wander around wherever you wanted to, day or night.  You either had a place to go -- to work, or you had to be going to a concert, or going to the library, to church, even a walk in the park.  

That's why the wandering Charles Dickens style of writing was so popular.  It gave a glance into worlds most people dared not go.    It is what inspires Myron Magnet, among the celebrated Editors at The City Journal's 25th Anniversary (most of which I missed -- why?  Because of crazy NY transit stories!)  

In the days of social order that lead to quality of life, people were not allowed to sleep in the park or on the sidewalk.  

This posed a problem during the heat wave one summer when the humidity reached 90% at a temperature of 83 degrees.  Because people were forced to sleep in overcrowded apartments, mostly construction workers, factory workers and manual laborers stayed in the summer;  Men even at the lowest socio-economic level paid for their wives and children to get out of the city.  

Women would go to the beach, or up to a lake or river somewhere in Connecticut or just someplace where you could at least get some water and fresh air.  They got out of the compounded humidity, where the heat of the concrete never really cools off in the summer.  Without air conditioning and refrigeration, it was intolerable.  

During the heat wave, it was the recipe for mass death.  They found apartments full of dead people -- these were strong men who certainly were in top physical condition, but there simply wasn't enough ventilation.  There were too many people in rooms cut up two small with few windows.  

Horses died by the hundreds on the street.  It was a real disaster. 

Finally, what they realized was they had to allow people to get out of their apartments at night.  They had to allow them to sleep on the street and sleep in the park in that heat that caused 1500 people to die in ten days.   

How this morphed into people sleeping there permanently, all year round, I don't know.  There may be some political protections for the ones carrying signs.  They may have some free-speech rights that allow them to be there, or protects their presence on the streets more so than people who just have no other place to go.  

The MI lunch revealed that in the real estate development boom, a number of SROs (Single Room Occupancy for men) have been lost.  That accounts for [1500?] new homeless on the streets of the West side.  

90% of sheltered homeless families are headed by single Mothers, MI reports.

Outside solutions?  I attended a dinner for Good Counsel Homes in honor of Cardinal Dolan, the first Archbishop to visit the homes, hold babies while meeting their Mothers.  Founder Chris Bell worked with the homeless, then started these special homes for pregnant, homeless women.  They almost lost one house on Staten Island, but have funded and reopened it.  

The Sisters of Life, founded by Cardinal O'Connor, also provides temporary housing and support for crisis pregnancies.

Inwood House, for young, pregnant women kicked out of foster care, recently sold its property on the Upper East side and moved uptown.

Homelessness has become a major problem since Mayor DiBlasio and Governor A. Cuomo took office under the Administration of President Obama.  It has been hard for me to even write about it in the last two years because the key in political journalism is to not have it sound like a rant.  Everything I write about those three sounds like a rant, so the challenge is to have a sense of humor about it and to be able to make constructive recommendations instead of just complaining.  

The "Real Estate Blob" is evicting people, cutting apartments in half and cutting those into 3-bedrooms.  Young people moving to town are living in a 400 sq. ft. apartment with 3 roommates and all of their boyfriends at twice the previous rent of the larger apartment.  The minimum size of an apartment has been reduced from something around 500 ft.² to two or three and they can make that into a four bedroom apartment without windows in every room.  

The tenement laws basically limited the number of tenants by apartment size.  Children of opposite sexes could not sleep in the same room beyond age 5.  Kitchens and bathrooms had to have windows.  Airshafts provided adequate ventilation.  There were all sorts of laws to make these places tolerable and safe.  Now that's all gone.  Replaced by fire hazards.  

"Doubling up" as a transition to homelessness probably occurs because a tenant has blown it somehow, usually by getting into court with the landlord.  Once you do that in New York, you will never be able to rent another apartment.  So the people who weren't expecting to have their lease terminated, because it used to be there were protections if you were basically a good tenant and always paid your rent on time and your landlord offered you a lease in the first place.  If they were selling the building, they had to buy you out.  People used to make fun of tenants rights and say the tenants had all the rights and the landlord had no rights.  These poor landlords are just getting hosed -- can't raise the rent, they can't fix the place up...they can't do anything.  

Now they can kick anybody out for any reason or no reason, renovate the place and charge the next person a lot more money....Well that's not really working out for them either because half these people left town and did not come back.  So they haven't been able to recover the funds as well as they planned.  Maybe the free market will restore its own balance.

It is extremely difficult to move in New York.  It is extremely strenuous.  The negotiations are very difficult, it's expensive, it's more complicated than moving into a house because you have to move things into narrow stairwells;  You've got to deal with schedules and doormen, double-parked moving vans (somebody has to sit in the cab of the truck at $60/hour, or me for free.)  I wonder if what's happening is as some people are so taken off guard by the fact that their lease is not going to be renewed, they can't pull it off.  Since the financial crisis, landlords and bankers are much more careful about who they allow in.  Now they want to make sure you can really fog a mirror.  They want to meet with you.  They want to go over everything.  You may not be able to get a mortgage in time to make yourself not homeless, so then people end up renting at the mercy of other people's decisions as to when they move, which may not be convenient for their employer, and they may lose their job.  As will the brokers if everybody can't keep moving.

Another thing creating new homeless are new rules, whereas it used to be only black and Hispanic communities would kick out single mothers, now even the best buildings in case of divorce will force both spouses to leave regardless of economic circumstances.  Both have to move out and both have to buy or rent new apartments.  This may solve the fighting about real estate, but it is obviously very expensive.  It intensifies the number one destroyer of money:  divorce.  Contrary to their stated goals, the new matrimonial laws have made break-ups more costly and time-consuming.  Even women with houses seem to be choosing to leave their houses and pay rent.  This has become a less stable choice than ever.

 "Gentrification is the new Colonialism" was displayed in bright, speakeasy lights at The Brooklyn Museum of Arts' Target First Saturday.  Why is a housewares store funding activists to incite paying rent to a landlord when they could own?  Ownership would be more responsibility, yet much more stable.

I hope those who have not been lucky in real estate will move into permanent home-ownership.  

Policy should aim to keep people with homes in them, and secure permanent housing for those without.

The current musical beds shelter system can only destabilize those in it and their surrounding communities.  People are happiest settled into homes and jobs.  

Drug addiction has always been a major cause/symptom of homelessness and mental health issues.  The liberal loosening of drug policy is unraveling more people and their ability to function.  People are becoming addicted to pain killers and prescription drugs.  When those run out, they turn to heroin, the chief beneficiaries of which are the terrorists.  

A wise, good and global liberal suggested a 20-year moratorium on immigration.  Some refugees come here homeless.  Always have, by definition, but we first must deal with these crisis levels of our own.

Music Before 1800

Music before 1800

Twelve Days of Christmas music is taking place right now.  

Starting December 26, Trinity Church Wall Street is hosting 12 days of not just Christmas music.  

I caught up on New Year's Day for Handel's Music for Royal Fireworks commissioned by King George II.  The King himself must have listened to it with more than the couple-hundred people I did, with the same sound of real Baroque horns.  Schubert's Winterreise, written the year he died, and the Play of Daniel, written on vellum in the year 1200 in Beauvaise, performed in period costume in Latin with medieval instruments.  The Play of Daniel is the only performance with a charge and tickets in the roomier Trinity Church (which makes it a little more comfortable if you don't arrive early.)  There's a matinee and evening performance tomorrow.  

Trinity and St. Paul's share an endowment of $4 billion.  St. Paul's is the oldest continuously running church in Manhattan.  It survived both the fire of 1776 and the terrorist attacks on the Wold Trade Center directly across the street.  George Washington prayed there and the replica of his pew was the only place people weren't sitting to listen to these packed, though not-uncomfortably-so performances.  

Among the many groups that play Music before 1800 gathered through January 6th are Novus New York, the Clarion Music Society, Gotham Early Music Scene (GEMS).

Today was a music marathon starting with living composer Gerald Busby at 1:00pm.  At 5pm,  Winterreise sung by Christopher Dillon Herbert, baritone, such beautiful lines in Getman as "every sorrow finds its grave."  

After the 7pm performance of Daniel, we skipped off the The Brooklyn Museum, which is a bigger scene than I remember.  There's a fun exhibit about Coney Island, with about as many people viewing it as at Coney Island.

Back at Trinity-St. Paul's Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday will be Bach at One.  They recommend arriving at noon to get a seat.  

Tomorrow again, January 3 at 3 PM and 7 PM at Trinity Church the musical of Daniel will take place.  This was phenomenal.  I highly recommend everyone go and see it.  Tickets start at $25 or if you have student ID $15.  

Everyday until Epiphany there will be two or three different performances, so be sure to look at http:// trinitywallstreet.org for more information.