Red-State Revolution Nearly Complete

NASCAR is moving forward with plans to expand to Staten Island, Wal-Mart’s popularity is strong and getting stronger and Evangelical Christians are making inroads on the Upper East and Upper West Sides of Manhattan:

In the twilight of the biggest snowstorm in New York City’s history, the pews of a rented Baptist church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan were packed for the Rev. Timothy J. Keller’s fourth sermon of the day.

The 600 or so who braved the snow for the evening service got what they had come to expect — a compelling discourse by Dr. Keller, this time on Jesus’ healing of the paralytic, that quoted such varied sources as C. S. Lewis, The Village Voice and the George MacDonald fairy tale “The Princess and the Goblin.” It was the kind of cogent, literary sermon that has helped turn Dr. Keller, a former seminary professor whose only previous pulpit experience was at a small blue-collar church in rural Virginia, into the pastor many call Manhattan’s leading evangelist.

Over the last 16 years, Dr. Keller’s church, Redeemer Presbyterian, has swelled to 4,400 attendees, mostly young professionals and artists who do not fit the prototypical evangelical mold, spread out across four different services on Sundays.

. . .

The Rev. Stephen Um, whose church in Boston, Citylife, began four years ago and now attracts about 500 people every Sunday, said he and other pastors had embraced Dr. Keller’s emphasis on delving into the prevailing culture almost as much as into the biblical text. Along these lines, Dr. Um is just as likely to cite a postmodern philosopher like Richard Rorty or Michel Foucault in his sermons, as he is, say, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians.

The Cult Of “Dr. Z”

The Times’ Dan Barry does yeoman’s work in expressing the ineffable . . . in this case, why Dr. Zizmor subway ads are so intriguing:

In “The Great Gatsby,” the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg stared out upon the ashen urban landscape from an old billboard in Queens. Dr. Eckleburg’s practice had long since vanished, but his gigantic blue eyes, framed by enormous yellow spectacles, continued to watch in seeming judgment the striving, hapless denizens of 1920’s New York.

The successor to the good Dr. Eckleburg is the good Dr. Zizmor, who gazes down at us now from subway car advertisements everywhere. Promotions for night school and safe sex come and go, but what lingers in the mind are the repeated suggestions of flawed being, as conveyed through the ads of Dr. Jonathan Zizmor, dermatologist.

He first began to scrutinize our facial imperfections a quarter-century ago through ads that promised, “Now You Can Have Beautiful, Clear Skin.” The eyes in his smiling, baby-chubby visage bore like laser beams into our skulls to read our innermost insecurities — about acne or moles or stretch marks or the risqué tattoo that seemed like such a good idea down at the beach that time.

One reason these ads continue to draw the eye is the art of their artlessness. Instead of featuring a sleek, nameless model promoting a national brand of beer, they present us with the image of a local doctor who is exceedingly average-looking and more than glad to take a look at that rash.

The ads also seem to celebrate typographical errors, which contribute to a look of having been cobbled together by someone who doesn’t work in graphics or advertising — which, it turns out, is the case. That someone is Dr. Zizmor.

. . .

People who deconstruct Zizmor sometimes interpret the rainbow to mean we are a city of many skin colors. Truth is, 15 years ago the doctor’s 6-year-old daughter was fiddling with the computer, came up with a rainbow — and he liked it.

Finally, the ads cast a spell because they combine Dr. Zizmor’s judging stare with language rooted in the tradition of the very finest direct-mail come-ons. One of the ubiquitous Zizmor ads currently featured in your local or express — his face appears, it is said, in every fifth car — includes a yes-or-no quiz to ponder as you rock and sway in self-consciousness. “Is your skin loose? Do you have more than one chin? Has your skin lost its firmness and tightness? Do you think you look older than you should for your age?”

Linguistic Carpetbagger?

The Times investigates whether Hizzoner has been affecting a more New Yorkish accent:

Linguists enlisted by The New York Times to compare recordings of the mayor’s first and second inaugural addresses detected several telltale signs of the change, suggesting that four years spent commanding the corridors of City Hall and navigating the five boroughs had taken its toll on Mr. Bloomberg’s once-pronounced New England accent.

. . .

William Labov, a linguistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania and co-author of “The Atlas of North American English,” said: “He’s been interacting more closely with New Yorkers and has unconsciously shifted. He is not becoming a linguistic carpetbagger, but he’s becoming a little bit more a New Yorker as time goes on.”

The linguists said Mr. Bloomberg’s pronunciation of several words — “father,” “last,” “because” and “our,” for example — gave him away. He has been dropping his “r’s” less than he once did, Professor Labov added. Dr. Labov said that while the mayor is “very careful to pronounce his ‘r’ all the time in New York,” — in other words, no “Noo Yawk” — his “aw” instead of “ah” in words like “because” or “lost” was the most obvious cue to his distinctly New York shift.

A Bostonian’s fathah might have lahst an election becahse of how he said something. In New York, his father would have lawst becawse of what he said.

. . .

For his part, the mayor was silent about his change in inflections. But Stu Loeser, the mayor’s press secretary, said that any change in accent was because of his immersion in the city, not the result of cold political calculation or a vocal coach. “Four years ago the mayor was new to politics and new to public speaking, and since then he’s had a lot of practice,” Mr. Loeser said.

The Sanitation Man’s Special

The New York Press’ C.J. Sullivan trails the King of Mongo, a 52-year-old gin-swilling Department of Sanitation employee. Even if half of what the King says is complete trash, it’s great:

The King of Mongo is on his first coffee break. He leans against the brick wall of a Queens apartment building, sipping a cup of coffee laced with a shot of Gordon’s Gin. The alcohol helps with the early morning aches and pains that come from 25 years as a New York City garbage man.

. . .

“When you need money you pray for snow. I have gone to church and asked God for a blizzard. A big snow hits and until it is cleared all we do is snow removal. No garbage collection. At first it is like a vacation. Then the hours become endless, and mandatory. You have to do 12-hour shifts seven days a week until the snow is removed. This is a big city. The overtime is so much that at the end you almost regret asking for the snow. It is back-breaking, but then the big ass check comes—and it is all forgotten and your prayers are answered.”

. . .

“Eight million slobs is what this city got. I’ve worked everywhere and the whole place is a mess. No one thinks about their garbage. They put it out into cans and like magic it gets taken away. That’s what we are. We’re fuckin’ magicians,” the King says.

Praying for snow (apostate!) — fine. I’m not so sure how I feel about on-the-job gin swilling, but whatever. But other parts of his story seem to stretch credulity:

Mostly, though, he seems to miss the old days: “This job has changed. Can’t get away with what you used to. What surprised me when I first started was how quick I got over the stink of garbage. The first couple of days I almost threw up from the smells and then it just went away and I loved the job. Back then I was single and working the Bronx in the Hunts Point section. We would pull up to the hookers and get the Sanitation Man’s Special. You know what that is?” I tell him I don’t.

“A $5 blow job. I guess they took pity on us when traffic was slow for them. We had three men on the truck back then. They changed that after I was on the job a few years. Now it’s all two-men trucks.

“When we had three men we’d get our route done as fast as we could and we were free. I mean we couldn’t go home but we’d roam the neighborhood. The driver always got to choose the hooker and get off first. That was our rule. Back then I tried to do a lot of driving. Didn’t really care for sloppy seconds, know what I mean.” The King lowers his voice as his young partner hops into the cab of the truck.

“That kid never saw the things I did. He’s a newbie. I only work with the new guys now because I work slow and steady and the vets all want to rush though the route. I take my time and the other guys just want to do their job and go back to the garage and rest.

“Maybe for the kid it is for the better. We did some foul shit when I was a young San Man. So back to the hookers — when I was young the driver got his load off first and then the other two guys would choose who would go next. I loved when I worked with married guys who didn’t want to do it — although believe me there were enough married guys getting it too.”

Pabst Shortage Hits Brooklyn Bars; Hipsters And Tastemakers Most Affected

New York Magazine reports on the Pabst Blue Ribbon (hereinafter referred to as “PBR”) shortage hitting Brooklyn faux-dive bars:

There’s been a mystery brewing among the sort of dive bars in Brooklyn that appeal to rigorously trendy, budget-minded twentysomethings: What’s become of their favorite watery lager, Pabst Blue Ribbon? Pabst, which took off in popularity in the last few years, became a textbook case of how to market a brand without seeming to. Hipsters, already fascinated by down-market accessories like trucker caps, took to the low-rent beer with ironic fervor. Which is why it was so traumatic that, over the past few months, die-hard Pabst bars have reported that their regular orders have gone unfulfilled. “It’s a bummer,” says set designer Bryn Bowen, who recently tried to order a PBR at Lodge, a bar in Williamsburg, but found it was out. “I’m a connoisseur of working-class shit beer.”

The problem happened when the distributor went out of business, but don’t worry, as one of the bartenders quoted says, they have “other crappy beer.”