I flew to Los Angeles with a big backpack filled with trail mix, granola bars, chocolate, cheese and a tent. My father met me there and drove me down to Campo at the Tijuana-California border. He left me at the fence, dust puffing from his tires like drab clouds.

There was a border monument marking the southern terminus of the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail—a trail that fades in the mist and lush of northern Washington then ends in Canada. I would walk the length of the country.

I walked north from the Mexican border fence; the trail was well marked with rusty signs and scattered with lazy rattlesnakes baking in the sun’s warmth. I was eating a green apple, I remember, when I nearly stepped on the first one. I shrieked and ran south a hundred yards. I bit my apple, breathed, ate that apple—my last piece of fresh food; everything else was processed or salted or junk. I was fine. I walked back north, stepped over the snake, kept walking, stepped over another and another.

Within a few hours, I had met a dozen hikers, all attempting the same trans-country journey on foot. They seemed kind—young men, retired couples, a 30-year-old woman with big curly hair and good teeth; the curly lady smiled at me. I was curt. On my second day on the trail, I met a 20-year-old man—a former professional mountain bike racer from Switzerland. We hiked together for 700 miles and five weeks and then let the miles between us grow. He hiked faster than I did. I didn’t love him.

I made friends—a twentysomething girl with a ukulele and an angelic voice and face and a photographer with a master’s in psychology he had never used and didn’t want to. And packs of fit, hungry hikers, happy to hear my stories. Happy to know me.

In Bend, Ore., 1,970 miles north of that border monument dull with Campo dust and 1,500 miles from spiny pastel plants and rattlesnake teeth and venom and sadness, I met Justin. We were in town—the verdant, river-cut trail town of Bend—and we knew a handful of the same hikers. A big group of us went to dinner at the Deshutes Brewery. Justin sat next to me, close. He smiled a lot. I smiled—tried not to but couldn’t help it. Under the table, his knee brushed mine.

I lifted my hot hand, moved it slowly through the space between us like a teenaged boy would when trying to float unnoticed to second base; I pressed my trembling palm against Justin’s sweating beer, squeezed the glass. Lifted and carried it through the air to my mouth. Took a sip. I was 19.

Justin knew.

He was amused, contorted his face like he disapproved—but I knew he didn’t.

I was pulsing, invigorated. So fit from the miles and miles, unarmed and no longer unhappy.

I felt an illogical desire for Justin—my body, high on attraction and quivering, betrayed my mind.

We walked, together, 600 miles into Canada.

I remember our first day hiking together. Rain had poured down in sheets, smacking the soil, tearing up the trail. Earth washed away; roots loosened, left soaked and exposed. Lubricated with water, everything shone in the gray light.

Justin and I shouted over the downpour, shared childhood stories and our ambitions as we walked. We were saturated with rain to the bone, both of us, but I was giddy and on the verge of laughter.

My walk with Justin ended in the mist-dense Cascade Mountains on a garden stage at the end of a lily-lined aisle. Storm clouds, gray, navy and low, illuminated the flowers, the fine clothing, the glassware in soft, important light. The mist was backlit by sunlight, bathing the Cascade foothills in silver.

Justin and I read our vows and grinned and cried on a stone stage over the Cascade Mountain garden, lightning flashing like a camera. Camera flashes would have been invisible under that sky. My parents were there in the garden, happy and warm and not too nervous.

I could not lose my job. The envelope of cash in my top dresser drawer was too thin to pay the rent on my rat-infested East Village basement sublet.

Besides the threat of homelessness, I had a second, almost as crucial motivation to keep my job: It impressed my family. Back in suburban Minnesota, my parents were captivated by the revolving door of celebrities I served. It helped that I left out the less glamorous details.

“Dr. Melfi from The Sopranos!” they gushed when I called to say I served a plate of bucatini con sadre to Lorraine Bracco. Why mention the pointed look she gave me when I refilled her water glass and a stray ice cube slid toward her across the black walnut tabletop?

Among my relatives, my tales of the rich and famous spread like a game of telephone—through the actual phone. Home for Christmas that year, my aunt approached me.

“How’s the Big Apple?” she asked. “I hear you served Tony Soprano.”

I smiled and didn’t correct her. Growing up in a sports-loving family, attention and accolades were usually bestowed upon my siblings. They were the captains; I was the benchwarmer who once tried to score against his team.

My original plan to get noticed was hatched in 6th grade, when a friend returned home with tales of Broadway, a place where people sang and danced like Cats for a living. If I was bad at sports, maybe I should try the opposite: the arts. Unfortunately, my dramatic skills were on par with my athletic ones. The most lines I had were as a Party Guest/Nazi in a high school production of The Sound of Music. I ran through the auditorium with a flashlight and accused audience members of hiding the von Trapps.

After college, I was ready to relocate. Thespian dreams aside, I still thought living in New York would give me the prestige needed to prove my worth to my family and, in turn, myself. I believed Frank Sinatra when he said if you could make it there, you could make it anywhere.

Because it sounded cooler than the unexciting pharmacies already on my résumé, I decided to break into Manhattan’s trendy restaurant scene upon my arrival—despite my complete lack of experience. At a cattle call for servers, I was the only person without a headshot or an acting credit on a Law & Order franchise. I told a well-dressed restaurateur a merlot would pair nicely with duck confit because it had an earthly flavor; he asked if I meant earthy.

When I downgraded myself to food runner, I was hired by an Italian-Mediterranean fusion bistro that was opening in Soho. I got lost on my way to orientation and spent my first weeks looking like a bug-eyed rabbit backed into a corner by a salivating doberman. A server noticed my movements were slow and graceful and asked if I was a dancer—truth was, I moved at a glacial pace because the plates were big and the tables small; I could never figure out where to set things.

To avoid blowups—like the time I delivered food to the wrong table and our celebrity chef shattered a plate of carpaccio at my feet—I often took cover in our dimly lit wine room to polish the same silverware repeatedly. Unfortunately, I made myself too invisible. One night, the servers forgot to add me to the tip book.

“To redo it would be a hassle,” explained Morgan, the young, modelesque staff manager. I gave Morgan my best I’m-on-the-verge-of-eviction face, and she formed her well-glossed lips into a tight smile that said, “We’re done now, halfwit.”

Afterward, I locked myself in one of our lavish marble bathrooms and sat on the toilet fully clothed. Thankfully, my sobs were muffled by the classical music that played overhead.

Panic spread among the staff with the rumor that a major food critic was reviewing us. We hung pictures of him in our stations, and our high-strung house manager eyed diners suspiciously. Once the critic was spotted, I was not allowed near his table; the house manager personally delivered every dish. A server was fired between courses for pouring the wrong wine; I was relieved to be quarantined.

Before the review came out, I quit. Even if we received five stars, I could claim no bragging rights to them. Why stay?

The review, as it turned out, was dismal. A few weeks later, the restaurant closed; I was already back working in a pharmacy. My new job might not impress, but my rent was paid.

Back home for Christmas, I was ready to fade into the background once more.

“I hear you’re a pharmacist now,” my aunt said, backing me into a corner.

“Technician,” I corrected, slightly embarrassed.

She leaned in close, like she had a secret to tell me. “I brag about you to all my friends.”

Maybe I was making it after all.

Brian Kennedy no longer works in a pharmacy.  He lives and writes in Manhattan.

My first home in New York was the basketball frat house at Columbia University. The men were tall, smart and gorgeous. But in the July heat, the airconditioned-less house sweated and stunk of old beer and rancid gym socks. My space was an illegally subleased bunk bed in a two-room suite, compliments of the boyfriend of the daughter of my aunt’s colleague. I was 22 and decidedly Southern and suburban. So I felt cool and connected — until I realized everyone had such a real estate tale.

I spent my days interviewing Modern Orthodox Jewish women for my thesis, my nights throwing kosher dill pickles at the cat-sized rats that overran the ground floor and backyard. One night my roommates’ hamster escaped from his cage and I woke at 3 am to the feel of a thin rodent tail sliding across my bare stomach. I leapt out of bed, convinced the rats had come for revenge.

After my first two weeks, suddenly $1,500 poorer and limping with blisters, I decided New York was a great place to visit, but I’d never want to move there. Everything I had grown up hearing was right: it was dirty, expensive and full of vermin. I fled back to my quaint Missouri college town and promptly had four car accidents in just 10 months.

By the time of my May graduation, I couldn’t afford car insurance anymore and needed mass transit. I opted to try the New York City again, this time sans exit strategy. I vowed to stock up on rodent bait. I booked a one-way ticket, emptied my $3,000 savings account and sent my stuff and my dog to my parent’s house in Alabama. I landed at LaGuardia without a job, friends, or a place to stay except for a one-night reservation at a seedy hotel with a three-deadbolt door.

True to the single girl trifecta, I scored a job, an apartment and a boyfriend within two months. My shoebox-sized studio on 85^th Street was a fraction of my graduate school living room and cost three times as much, but it had a tiny balcony and an exquisite view of the firefighters next door. I thought I’d made it. Then one evening a furry rodent dashed across the floor.

I jumped on the bed and called the boyfriend. Jonathan trekked from Gramercy to Yorkville, with a collection of snap traps and peanut butter. He set the traps and warned me to be careful of my fingers. I didn’t tell him how I used to tease my grandmother for being petrified of mice. Karma was not my friend.

Alone later that night I heard a trap snap shut. I peeked into the kitchen. There was a long thin tail protruding from the trap’s wooden platform. In college when I found a bat in my house, I’d called animal control to deal with it. In New York, I called the boyfriend.

“I caught one! Now what?”

He headed back north. There was no mouse — the “tail” was the thin metal release arm of the trap. I felt even more pathetic.

When we broke up, I turned to glue traps, a cruel move that left me dealing with squeaking shaking creatures that stared me down with beady black eyes. More scared of them than they were of me, I dropped second traps on top and scooped them up in a dustpan while wearing plastic dishwashing gloves and knee-high boots.

Many mice and years later, I married and moved into my husband’s co-op in Murray Hill. From the window I could clearly see rat bait traps in the back patio area. My dog’s food was an irresistible lure and I developed the ability to smell dead vermin upon entry. Marriage and a live-in super had its perks. I delegated disposal of the corpses.

When my marriage crumbled, I couch surfed at a friend’s Upper East Side luxury high-rise. The best thing about it was that there were no mice.

When I was finally divorced, I moved to an alcove studio downtown. Two months in, the rampant kibble-fueled breeding of the mini Mickeys led to daytime sightings. This was different – this was my home and the mortgage was too high for heads to not roll.

A contractor discovered there were fist-sized holes around the pipes and no kickboards under the cabinets. I pictured rodent-sized ruby-red carpets from the holes to the puppy chow. I paid him to gut the kitchen and fill the holes. He promised me I would be vermin free and I was. For a year.

As the winter months rolled around another mouse made it into my place. It was war and I was going nuclear. So was he. I set glue traps; he ate the munchies and escaped. I put out poison; he rolled around in it with immunity, sprinkling powdery green pellets around the black plastic dishes like toxic fairy dust. The exterminator dropped guaranteed-kill poison packets behind the furniture; he dragged them out to the middle of the living room, an outsmarting act of vengeance. When I saw my pooch pondering the poison pack with a curious look I considered trading him for a cat.

We sprinkled sand-like layers of tracking powder behind the stove, the bookshelves, the TV. I spent hours on my hands and knees, using a flat-head screwdriver to shove extra-coarse steel wool into every crack and crevice. And every morning, my rodent – by this time he was mine – left a new trail of droppings. This was Mighty Mouse, and I hoped he was infertile.

Weeks into the battle, I smelled the stench of victory. I found his furry body on a pile of scarves, a casket worthy of a warrior. A dustpan was not an option — I doubled up a Duane Reade bag and lifted out my feather-weight foe, dropping him down the garbage disposal chute. I sent the scarves out to be dry-cleaned.

Last month when out on a date in the East Village, a rat ran across my path. I startled and grabbed my date’s hand, but it wasn’t out of fear. Perhaps rodents weren’t so bad after all.

Now relatively rodent-free in downtown New York, Alexandrea J. Ravenelle (www.alexandreajravenelle.com) is a marketing and communications consultant and adjunct instructor of sociology. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, thefrisky.com and The Houston Chronicle.

Get to know someone first. And no, asking if they have been tested before the act does not count as a Proustian interview. Unless this is someone you have known for a very long time and you guys are “giving it a try,” there is no possible way either of you could be comfortable going between blankets. Booze of course would take care of this, letting your inhibitions loose, but that most commonly ends with a 7 a.m. walk to Duane Reade for a little Plan B action. (Don’t act like it doesn’t.) And if you have known that person for a while and you are giving it a try, that is a major shift from: let’s go grab a beer and shoot some pool tonight friend-o.

Now, if you’re dead set on getting yours on that very first date, I can’t stop you. But I might be able to help you based on what you’re looking for. If you’ve been on the market too long and you’re looking for the GF clause, you’re knocking yourself ten steps back by jumping in the sack. “But we drank a lot, and he’s really hot and respects me.” If he respects you, he’ll respect your needing to wait. If he doesn’t respect that, he’s a chump. If you’re the chump and you’re looking to jump his bones ASAP, go against all post-coitus instincts. After you have sex, get out of there as fast as you can. He’ll try to make a whole kerfuffle about it, but have your BS meter on high. How is he saying, “But no babe, I really want you to spend the night”? Is there that high inflection in the back of his voice? Yup. That’s what we call lying. And that’s cool darling, because you’re not going to fall for it. You’re going to make him feel used, because every guy wants a little holding time after sex. They jostle, jab and joke about it, but if you leave him in that dark room alone, I guarantee he’ll curl up with a pillow so he can get some of that snuggle fever covered. This also (and I’m aware that this is retarded, but guess what, so are men) will make you seem cool. Like you are a hip little chick. Don’t need no man to make you feel whole. And in that message, the man will wonder if he could possibly ever be the man that you’d want to spend the night with.

In initiating the sex if, once again, you can’t control yourself. Gently let your gentleman caller know you are a sexual being, but don’t oversell it. You should not be talking about your view of sex as a fun thing you like to do. No. Be the strong, sexy, confident woman you are. Let them know that you are in touch with your sexuality. If you’d like you can say that you enjoy sex, but anything that might come off as “I get around,” can be dangerous, so play this one close to your chest. Be very subtle, with just enough innuendo that it gets his mind-a-movin’. If his mind is moving, you really should get out there, because you’ll be leaving him wanting more. It doesn’t matter whose place you go to, though, if your dude has a roommate you should really ask yourself if this is someone you want to have sex with. Grown man + roommate = some sort of trouble.

Now, if you’re just looking for a little slap and tickle, then go all out. Sex is fun and we sometimes crave it. If you’re just looking to get it out of your system, take your shots, talk about how much you love sex and take him home. It doesn’t mean anything tonight and it sure as hell won’t tomorrow.

Have I been living under a rock for the past ten years? I am completely incapable of playing “the game”. What are the rules? When do they apply? Help!

Disclaimer: The following post is in no way a statement that men are the sex that should be pursued. In my total and utter belief, the old renaissance idea of courtship is ideal, complete with white powdered faces, pocket watches and line dancing. However, given the nature of this question I will be focusing on the ways to pursue a man based on the relationship you seek. I am unable to write about how to pursue women in this way, because I am simply NOT QUALIFIED! You are a far more complex creature than we troglodytic Neanderthals, and should be respected as such. Given this disclaimer, the following is not a “He’s Just Not That Into You,” sort of self-help post. If he’s not into you, drop him. He’s not worth wasting your time.

One Nighter: Men aren’t the only ones who need sex. Fact. It’s not talked about as much, and the old double standard of “player” to “slut” is a sad thing in our (somewhat) evolved present. Women should enjoy their sexual appetites to the fullest of their capabilities. We only live once, right? Even so, if you’re really looking for a quick hit and run, best not to talk about it with your friends. They will try to discourage you, which will in no way help loosen your inhibitions for Rompfest 2012.

It’s a common misconception that in the pursuit of the male species women should go out and group up. We men are children. Very sensitive children. It’s hard to move past the cowardice of breaking the ice with one woman, much less seven. By all means, go out with your girlfriends and be on the hunt, but I recommend you split off from the group as quickly as possible. Plant yourself in densely populated area (i.e. By the bar, on the dance floor). Engrain yourself as part of the crowd and at once removed from it. When the right guy asks to buy you a drink; think about it for a second. Do not immediately nod your head. Think it over, shrug your shoulders as if to say, “why not,” and head to the bar. Play the mysterious one.

You’re most likely in a bar or a nightclub, there are too many aural and visual stimulants for us to comprehend long drawn out statements, so make physical contact. If it’s a younger guy you’re looking for, play with his hair. He’s still vulnerable to mommy syndrome, and this coddling will have him cooing in your hands. If it’s an older man, go for forearm or upper arm. It’ll give him a chance to feel muscular and at ease. If you’ve gotten this far, you’re in. Take him home and kick him out. If he wants to take you out and you’re into it, then go for it. If you don’t ever want to see the dude again, tell him you have a boyfriend. It gives him a story and lets him down easy.

Sex Buddies: Ahhh doom of the doom-ed. That fickle two-backed beast of mischief: sex buddies. Friends with benefits. Fuck buddies. No strings. The tango of the tempest. If you really want to give this a shot (and I highly recommend that you do not) you will need guile. You should already have someone in mind, most likely a new male friend. There should be obvious mutual attraction, but the way you two can hang should be right on the line of romantic and platonic. “Grab dinner, and then grab a beer?” Perfect. Eventually the topic of sex will come up, and this is where the tricks begin. Personally, I’ve found that women I’ve had casual sex relationships with tend to start off by saying that they don’t get emotionally connected to most of the men they sleep with. They say this as if to put me at ease. I’ve talked to other guys about this as well, and they agree: WE DON’T BELIEVE YOU. It only freaks us out more. Immediately our mind races to the thought, what if I’m the first one she likes… We get scared, and wait for the inevitable. Even if it’s true, why talk about it? What good does it do? None. Prove it through action. Allow yourself to be seen as a sexual individual. Talk about how you take pleasure in sex, this gets us thinking about what it would be like to be with you, rather than the cold mentality of, “I don’t ever get attached.” Once the relationship begins be ready for drama on either side. One of you guys is going to try turning this into a booty call, and there is a definite difference between the two. You need to be mature about it. Remember that you started as friends, and have now integrated sex into the great relationship you had before. Don‘t let things get weird, making it solely about the sex. It will dwindle into rage and hurt feelings. Always have a back up, whether it’s someone you’re casually dating or just someone to boost your ego on the nights when your fuck buddy is being an idiot. This goes for men as well. Feelings will get hurt if all energy is focused on one individual when something as personal as sex is handled immaturely.

Relationship: This is probably the simplest of all. Weird, right? There’s just one major factor to it. Wait. Dear God WAIT! If you seriously want a relationship with the dude you’re seeing (and be sure you do), wait as long as you possibly can to have sex with him. When men sleep with someone on the first date, they lose interest in the personality. Their brains kickstart from getting to know you, to getting laid by you. The getting to know part is when you find out about compatibility. I’m not saying pull a Sister Mary; foreplay is more than welcome. Go to town on it, and make sure he reciprocates. I’m just saying, no penetration for the first few weeks, and the longer you can hold back everything else, the better off you’ll be. Do not get possessive or needy, think about how big of a turn off that is when guys are to you. What goes around comes around.

The recent decision by the Supreme Court to revisit the issue clearly puts it in peril. Even if the court ends up retaining the legality of affirmative action for now, using race as a factor in school admissions was never seen as a permanent solution; there are fairer ways to add diversity.

Current affirmative action plans typically benefit the most advantaged in a group, including those who are also members of a minority most of us would like to be in—the 1 percent.

Large racial disparities, of course, persist everywhere. In New York City, even though over 75 percent of the students at the top-ranked public high schools are minorities, there are still deeply troubling numbers. Less than four percent of the students are black or Hispanic at Stuyvesant High School, where the black population is a hair over 1 percent. At my alma mater, Bronx Science, 10 percent of the students are black or Hispanic. Compare this to the 72 percent of the city’s public school students who are Hispanic or black, roughly the same percentage of Asians at the two specialized schools.

The city Department of Education has made only half-hearted attempts to diversify Stuyvesant and Bronx Science and the numbers have moved in the wrong direction. The Specialized School Institute does recruit “disadvantaged” middle school students of all races to help them pass the admission test, but the city has also expanded the number of specialized schools.

Adding five schools was undoubtedly done with the best of intentions and has had mostly positive effects—but it also allows officials to downplay the problem at specialized schools, since the new schools have broader diversity. Higher scores are needed to enroll at the top two schools, but the DOE tries to maintain the fiction it has not set up a two-tier system by not publicizing the scores. This was made clear in the emails the agency sent this paper last year when our reporter Megan Bungeroth [then Finnegan] looked into
the problem.

One fair way to add more diversity at Stuyvesant and Bronx Science would be to give the best students at every middle school an added chance to attend, similar to a state college admission plan in Texas.

Coincidentally, the Supreme Court is now reviewing a different part of the Texas system. The undisputed part of the law grants college admission to the top 10 percent of high school graduates in Texas, thus opening doors to the best students in schools with large numbers of minorities. Affirmative action supporters acknowledge that the non-racial component of the plan is working, but they argue it is not as effective as using race. The same argument is also made when income is used. But if diversity were the only goal, strict quotas would work even better than affirmative action.

Fairness can’t be ignored, which is why you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who favors legalizing racial quotas. Although affirmative action is going to end sooner or later, academia, for the most part, is not ready to give up. The energy used on these battles would be better spent on figuring out what causes racial disparity so it can be ended.

Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, wrote on the Huffington Post,
“It would be an enormous step backward to force our admissions offices to retreat to a homogeneity that stifles creative, broad-based education.” He won’t have to. There are other paths to diversity.

Josh Rogers, contributing editor at Manhattan Media, is a lifelong New Yorker.
Follow him @JoshRogersNYC.

Right there, whenever you like, on your browser, iPhone or iPad. Yes.
Let’s be real: Nobody but Nielsen families watches TV on a television set anymore. I bet so few people watch “TV” TV that only a few of you understood my killer Nielsen family joke!

To be honest, who has time to sit around and watch the tube? Most of it’s not must-see; if it is—trust me—some bar in Williamsburg has a theme night for it. Not to mention how totally unhip it is to actually watch TV these days. We all know kids these days are watching the Internet just like the rest of us. If you are watching TV, it’s likely you’re using a DVR to do it, which is sort of what Aereo is about.

All the way back in 2009, Vishesh Kumar and Sam Schechner reported in the Wall
Street Journal, “The Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a new type of digital video recorder from Cablevision Systems Corp., [which set] the stage for wider use of the technology.” That, of course, was the good ol’ Cablevision DVR Plus; much lauded for not requiring a small object in a room but derided for being unfathomably
slow in the beginning. When Cablevision launched their bright idea, a slew of networks sued them too. Cablevision hired a lawyer and won their case—no spoilers, but Aereo just hired the same one.

The original defense rested on the fact that DVR Plus members were basically doing the same thing TiVo lets you do: recording content that anybody with an antenna and a TV has free access to. Every recording was saved to an individual’s own private virtual DVR storage. It’s very much like when Universal and Disney sued Sony
because the Betamax was considered an evil piracy device. Aereo is is likely to use the Cablevision defense because their whole system works by allotting members their own private pair of micro-antennae located on the company’s Brooklyn rooftop— in effect, you’re paying Aereo to hold on to your antenna for you.

Like millions and millions of my contemporaries, to me, the Internet equals an Absolutely Everything Machine. If it’s not on the Internet, I don’t know about it. Even if it is on the Internet, if it’s not in the cheap-to-free price range, I actually do not want it. Aereo’s $12/month price is not bad at all. If you add in the price of monthly Netflix and Hulu Plus accounts, the price tag for your TV diet is still way less than my grandfather pays for cable. After an extended Beta, Aereo launched for New York residents on March 14th. New users get a 90-day free trial. Their website looks nice and the video quality is just fine when you’re watching it live—that’s right: live streaming video.

All this actually-on-the-air-right-now content reminded me of what a huge letdown it was back in the day when there was “nothing on!” But with Aereo, I flipped ahead in the guide a bit, set it to record 30 Rock, did things, came back at 9 p.m. and was actually giddy! To think, my very own, brand-new episode of 30 Rock saved snug in my 40 hours of DVR storage space on the Aereo cloud and—What?! Under the Recordings tab, I found
a friendly, devil-red line of text that read: “Not recorded: System error.”

I felt feelings then that I hadn’t felt since I once forgot to put a new VHS tape
in for the Star Trek: The Next Generation series finale. There’s bound to be issues at first. And an episode of Seinfeld and an airing of the Addams Family movie recorded just fine later on.

Broadcasters need to stop and take stock of their industry. Here is another example, of many, of a business model showing us that the future of television is not allergic to revenue. But still, these clunky old brands are so afraid of reality that they’ve become incapable of taking all this money I’ve got sitting around.

Services like Aereo could be a non-candy lifesaver for these guys. All of the ingredients are there: TV, Internet, willing consumers and money. And think of how much more in touch networks would be with all the data available from a web audience. Instead of spending cash picking on the new kids, legacy media outfits might consider a few smart investments.

Don’t be afraid of working together to make life easier for consumers.
How do you get your sitcoms? Think the plaintiffs are right? Let us know at nypress.com!
Follow @44carib on Twitter, just because.

Hill) in 21 Jump Street.

The duo have not outgrown their adolescent rivalry or immature sense of amusement that began in high school. Seven years later (after a police academy training session ridiculously scored to The Clash’s version of Junior Murvin’s reggae classic “Police and Thieves”), they’re sent back to high school as undercover cops. Less audience representatives than pandering role models, they want moviegoers to laugh at class clowns and cop clowns.

This nonsense comes from rebooting the 1980s TV series 21 Jump Street, minus the cop-drama gravitas. Ironically, it exhibits the lowbrow humor currently found on both network and cable TV shows—forms geared to the juvenile taste of 12-year-old boys, the gullible demographic desperately sought after by advertisers. Adults now embrace their
inner brat as a sign of cool, longing for the irresponsibility of childishness. They accept TV mediocrity and smuttiness in movies like Knocked Up, The Hangover and Bridesmaids. The downward spiral continues with 21 Jump Street.

Refashioning TV junk as if it were enriched our cultural heritage, Hollywood diminishes it. As that misappropriated reggae song demonstrates, any possibility that pop culture can address socially, morally, politically important experience is denied. 21 Jump Street’s idiocy is personified in Tatum’s tall-drink-ofretardation, Hill’s rotund schmuck (a role he should have outgrown after David Gordon Green’s The Sitter) and later in a cameo by Johnny Depp, star of the original TV series, who is only fooling himself if he thinks this meta-comic turn is equivalent to Marlon Brando spoofing Don Vito Corleone in The Freshman.

Consider: Brando seized the opportunity to comment upon The Godfather’s cultural phenomenon that proved less conscientious than he had hoped when signing on to its gangster-movie allegory for corporate greed. (Could even Brando’s genius have intuited that The Godfather would inspire a new cultural standard of thievery and ruthlessness that even politicians such as The Sopranos fans Bill and Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama would eventually endorse?)

Tatum, Hill and Depp are less conscientious stars; they simply overlook the consequences when trash ignores the crisis of police brutality—a problem producer Stephen J. Cannell had addressed in his exploitative TV mogul way by giving cop drama a hip-hop spin.

Now the spin is out of control. 21 Jump Street is aggressively stupid farce. Its directing team, Phil Lord and Chris
Miller, can’t cohere the tone of a single scene, jumping from teen sap to grossout humor almost schizophrenically. The relentless hodge-podge resembles a LMFAO music video—without the delirium that gives LMFAO their party-animal style. Frequent video game intertitles steal from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World; dance scenes, stunt scenes and explosions are mistimed, while the overly violent shootouts imitate Pineapple Express.

This mess of dishonest intentions and cultural decline epitomizes the lack of sincerity and imagination now passing for entertainment. 21 Jump Street has gotten better reviews than Jack and Jill, probably because it has nothing to do with real experience; because it substitutes narrative development with explosions and uses dick jokes for the repressed tensions of male bonding, as in Tatum’s homoerotic puzzlement when Schmidt befriends a
narc played by Dave Franco.

Perhaps the lowest point is Jenks and Schmidt’s singsong
trivialization of the Miranda rights advisory; it’s insulting to current urban sensitivities and reveals Hollywood’s ongoing juvenile comedy phase to be mindlessly offensive. 21 Jump Street is so obtuse it’s as if the social satire of Hot Fuzz never happened.

How organic living expert and NYC mom Alexandra Zissu keeps her loft clean, cozy and eco-friendly

Eco expert and author Alexandra Zissu’s West Village loft that she shares with her 6-year-old daughter Aili and her partner Olli Chanoff lets off a cozy air amidst its über-green ambitions.

Olli Chanoff, Aili and Alexandra Zissu.

The walls are painted in soothing, muted shades, a mix of vintage and modern furniture is perfectly arranged for engaging adult conversation and piles of welcoming books are always within reach. But rather than pointing out the collection of retro prints and eclectic furnishings that she’s gathered from her childhood home, Zissu is most excited about the perfect amaryllis that’s in full bloom on her dinner table.

“Can you believe I planted that?” she said. “It was just a bulb with a tiny bit of green sticking out of the top.” The flower is a vibrant poppy red and is, unquestionably, a cheerful touch on a cold winter day inside this green guru’s abode. Without a doubt, Zissu has forever been a nature-minded Manhattanite. “I had always eaten super organically because I was raised eating whole foods,” she said. “I joined a CSA [Community Supported Agriculture] in the late 1990s and turned very organic, learning a little bit more about the way food was raised.”

But it wasn’t until she started considering pregnancy that Zissu really jumped on the eco-friendly bandwagon. “I was talking to a friend who was also thinking about getting pregnant,” she recalled. “I started researching everything from paint to nail polish to cleaning products, which can affect growing children.”

As Zissu dove deep into the world of eco-conscious parenting, she reacted like most moms-to-be. “I started freaking out. It’s a house of horrors. What am I sitting on? What kind of foam is in here? Is it offgassing? What am I breathing? You get in the shower… there’s bleach residue getting up in your feet. The nail polish you’ve loved for years has hormone destructors! It’s going to do something unbelievably horrible!” she remembered with humor.

After methodically going through each aspect of her home and work life in an effort to make things greener, Zissu started to become fluent in the organic and natural lifestyle. Her next step, naturally, was writing The Complete Organic Pregnancy with Deirdre Dolan, the friend with whom she had shared that initial conversation.

And that was the beginning of her career. Six years and three more books later, Zissu fully embodies the environmentally responsible way of living and writes about it regularly on her blog at alexandrazissu.com. One of her biggest must-dos? Shared meals at the family table and purchasing food locally. “We spend Saturday afternoon at the farmer’s market at Abingdon Square. We can get apples, bread, fish, meat, eggs—everything. Then we usually head home for a farmer’s market lunch.” Back at the apartment, Zissu describes her living space as a “wholesome urban home setting.” While the loft is a good example of conscious design choices, like the sleek yet rustic dinner table, Zissu feels strongly that “it’s more about what’s green.”

The layout of the family’s living space is a testament to her commitment to clean and responsible living. The first floor features a central lounging area, including an antique table paired with new hardwood chairs. The office furniture is hand-me-downs—solid wood and classic in design—while Aili sleeps on her mother’s childhood bed frame, topped with a new organic mattress, of course. Toys are neatly stacked in non-plastic bins and rugs are made from natural fibers without backing. But Zissu is especially proud of her kitchen, most notably her glass container collection.

An entire cabinet filled with jars of all shapes and sizes provides an attractive and safe alternative for storing food. “Look…no plastic!” Zissu exclaimed. Aili goes to school with a stainless steel Japanese lunch box while her mom chooses to cook in enamel pans—never nonstick. “A good alternative is a cast iron pan. They cost about $25 and last forever.”

While committing to a green lifestyle may sound overwhelming, especially to a busy parent, there are some simple steps you can immediately take to improve conditions in your home. “Take off your shoes!” insisted Zissu. “It’s the public health equivalent of washing your hands. We all walk around in NYC and we know what we’re stepping on, and then we see our kids crawling around on the floor [at home]. You wouldn’t let your kids crawl around the street. Right there you minimize your exposure to pesticides, auto exhaust and even dog poop.” To make shoe removal easier for her own guests, Zissu has placed a charming bench with storage right next to her entryway.

When helping clients, she starts by finding the easy fixes. “It might not be easy to throw out your mattress, [so] change what’s already there…Look underneath your kitchen sink. What are you willing to give up? Take everything out and switch it with green products. Just doing this can result in a drastic reduction in inner air pollution.”

With an apartment that’s as pure as can be, Zissu now looks forward to cultivating a green thumb. “I would like to grow things. To experience that full circle…watching something grow from seed to corn.” Alexandra glances back at her amaryllis. “There’s something magical about growing things with a kid.”
For more tips on green living, read “Home, Green Home” at newyorkfamily.com

Think of it this way: Democracy is hard to do. To achieve true democracy, you need to have an educated electorate. If citizens don’t know what their public officials are up to, they can’t make intelligent choices. In fact, they can be led around like donkeys. When that happens, public officials can put anything out there, take a bow and say, “We did it and you should thank us.”Take the case of Gov. Andrew Cuomo. After New York got the reputation of being dysfunctional, Cuomo came in and set things right—at least he said he did.

Among his other accomplishments, he got the state Legislature to establish a single ethics commission governing all public servants. Good stuff—really. Among other things agreed to in its establishment were that the Legislature would appoint many of the members and that the Senate Republicans, in or out of the majority, would get the lion’s share of the picks for commission, now and in the future. That would be like agreeing that if the Democrats win the next election, the Republicans will be allowed to pick the Supreme Court justices after each vacancy. No matter; Cuomo got the bragging rights for having done the impossible. The more he says it, the more people believe it. The more people believe it, the higher his popularity soars.

There is also the question of redistricting and the efforts to put an end to the insidious self-serving gerrymandering that allows legislative majorities to draw districts where they have the best chance of winning. Cuomo ran for office on that one—“I will veto that bill,” he intoned time and again. In fact, he said it so many times that I believed it. I admired him for it and said so, in my columns and on the radio.

The problem was that the redesigned Cuomo, now a sort of Blue Dog Democrat, appears to like the Republican conservative-moderates in the majority in the state Senate. If he stuck to his guns and vetoed the bill and everyone got a fair chance in Democratic New York, the Democrats would win big and have the kind of majority they enjoy in the state Assembly. Now, I admit that the Democrats don’t deserve any rave reviews for their past performance. Nevertheless, we are talking democracy here. If the game is rigged—and believe me, it is—you don’t have democracy.

Into all of this comes old New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch, who has said all along that he supports Cuomo for his determination to veto the corrupt, morally repugnant, anti-democratic redistricting bill. Cuomo and Koch have had their problems in the past but they made up, I am sure, partly based on Cuomo’s assurance that he would veto the terrible gerrymander.

But, politics being what they are, Cuomo began to waver. He began to hint that in politics, you have to give something to get something. The question then is whether what you give is more than what you get. In this case, the agreement seemed to be that in 10 years (!), there would be a very bad constitutional amendment that would allow the legislative minorities to continue to do then what they are doing now. But if Cuomo gets an agreement, he will once again say that he has won.

So the technique is now established. Cuomo’s very high popularity numbers have begun to dip. Two groups are very angry. The New York teachers believe that they have been very badly treated by the governor, as do the labor unions representing the state’s public servants. His popularity drop has only been a few points—by itself, a five- or six-point drop in the polls is nothing. But if the numbers continue to drop, the Cuomo folks will take notice. If Cuomo is anything, it is tough.

If he has to make concessions, he will. But Team Cuomo doesn’t take nicely to those who oppose them. Like the Cuomo staffer said to gutsy Governor Dannel Malloy from Connecticut, “We operate on two speeds here: Get along and kill.”

Alan S. Chartock is president and CEO of WAMC/Northeast Public Radio and an executive publisher at The Legislative Gazette.