Cajun Tomato’s NYC 100: “No Drive City”

January 2, 2013 By 1 Comment

This is the 23rd installment of Cajun Tomato’s NYC 100, a periodic look into life as a new New Yorker from yours truly. Today’s dispatch is called “No Drive City”. You can read previous installments here.

On New Year’s Eve I met a native New Yorker in his twenties who informed me he did not know how to drive a car. He’s never had to learn because he lived the majority of his life in New York City. I told him I was the opposite, having grown up in rural parts of south Louisiana. My entire adult life has consisted of driving experiences, both short and far. Just this August, I drove more than 2,000 miles from Portland, Ore., to Chicago to south Louisiana. The open road is an enticing mistress.

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Cajun Tomato’s NYC 100: “Naked Cowgirl”

December 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Naked Cowgirl and her fans

This is the 21st edition of Cajun Tomato’s NYC 100, a periodic glimpse into New York City seen through the eyes of a new New Yorker, yours truly. Click here for past installments.

New Yorkers will do anything, literally anything, to make a buck. Witness a Naked Cowgirl in a bikini on a 35-degree night last week near Times Square. I have no idea whether she is affiliated with the Naked Cowboy, but she looks a hell of a lot better in her patriotic outfit. Here’s hoping she doesn’t get sick standing out in the cold. Tourists to the city need a little Naked Cowgirl to thaw them out.

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Guest Blog: What I Learned Volunteering In Hurricane Sandy’s Aftermath

November 28, 2012 By 1 Comment

Today my journalist friend Brett Schweinberg shares his experience volunteering in Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath on Staten Island. It’s been a month since Sandy hit. Many people in the area Brett visited remain in need. Learn how you can help here.

I journeyed to Staten Island in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy feeling uneasy about my reasons for the trip. The plan called for two neighbors and I to drive from Chicago on Friday night after work, volunteer on Saturday and Sunday, and drive through the night Sunday to get home in time for work on Monday.

On the 13-hour car ride in, my travel companions and I wondered aloud whether the money we were spending on gas and lodging would be better spent through any of the dozens of organizations collecting for the relief effort. I feared a shameful sort of voyeurism drove my desire to volunteer as much as a true desire to help.
Between the thrill of participating in a relief mission, the fun associated with driving halfway across the country and the incessant praise I received from friends and family, I worried I might be gaining too much from what was supposedly a selfless act.

What I found once I arrived in Staten Island erased my doubts.

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Manti Te’o for Heisman: Why The Numbers Don’t Add Up

November 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Manti Te'o/US Presswire

All praise/blame for this post should go to Jordy Pujol, the anti-Bayless.

ESPN carnival barker/used car salesman/white devil Skip Bayless pissed in the wind Tuesday to the contrived, shit-starting tune of Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o for Heisman. Bayless is famous for taking contrarian viewpoints, and generally being a pompous, arrogant, spineless piece of shit. His latest piece, I must admit, floored me. He is capable of talking about someone besides LeBron James or Tim Tebow, I learned.

Other than this revelation, Bayless’s Te’o piece followed the same cookie-cutter theme as all his arguments – a lot of bluster and precious little substance. Bayless proclaimed Te’o a deserving Heisman winner but also anointed himself head of the Johnny Football fan club. Johnny Football, for the uninitiated, is Texas A&M Johnny Manziel, believed to be Teo’s chief competition for the Heisman.

Truth is, talk of a Te’o Heisman is laughable – whether or not it comes from Bayless’s well-manicured fingers or anyone else. Te’o Heisman talk has gathered steam for two reasons: A) Te’o plays for Notre Dame, a traditional power in the midst of a national championship run; and B) Notre Dame is 12-0 and ranked No. 1 in the country. Some would argue the Heisman should be awarded to the best player on the best team. I am not one of those people. If anything, talk of Te’o, as Heisman winner, reflects on the dearth of quality candidates this season, Manziel excluded.

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An Open Letter To My Republican Friends

November 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Election Day Tomato!

I wrote this open letter to my Republican friends to let them know it would all be OK.

Dear Republican friends,
I know today feels like the death of America and the end of the world all rolled into one. I’ve read your Facebook posts and tweets. Your guy lost. I get it. Now President Obama’s going to fulfill his nefarious plan to make America a socialist country, take away your guns, let immigrants run wild picking all manner of crops, and bankrupt us all. Hell, he’ll probably fulfill a portion of his plan while smoking a doobie and reading the Koran during a same-sex marriage ceremony in the Oval Office. We are surely going to hell in a hand basket.

This is fantasy though. Star Wars VII, that’s reality.

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Cajun Tomato’s NYC 100: “A Surreal Storm”

October 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Wash Heights' silent streets

This is the 17th installment of Cajun Tomato’s NYC 100, a daily series chronicling my experiences and observations as a new New Yorker. Click here to read more about my “Frankenstorm” experiences.

This morning I’d consider Hurricane Sandy a dud if I had no TV or Internet. The so-called “Frankenstorm” delivered a minimal amount of mayhem in Washington Heights, the neighborhood I live in on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I waited 16 hours for a jarring wind gust or buckets of rain to alert me a serious weather event had arrived. None came. My apartment never lost power, unlike millions of Americans along the Atlantic coast. The lights flickered two or three times. It was all painless, distant.

Ironically, I know Sandy rocked the East Coast because I have power, and thus TV and Internet. I watched video of rising waters in lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, and New Jersey. I also witnessed a collapsed four-story apartment building on the news. People across the country saw these same images Monday. The images were real, though they seemed otherwise.

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Cajun Tomato’s NYC 100: “Frankenstorm”

October 26, 2012 By 1 Comment

Frankenstorm?

This is the 13th installment of Cajun Tomato’s NYC 100, a daily series chronicling my experiences and observations as a new New Yorker. I am using the term “daily” loosely, I admit.

The first time I saw the phrase “Frankenstorm” I thought the media was referring to former “Saturday Night Live” funnyman and current U.S. Sen. Al Franken. Like, Al Franken had whipped up a ruckus about someone or something. It seemed like a New York Post-style phrase. This is how my mind works. I was wrong of course.

When I learned “Frankenstorm” referred to the convergence of a hurricane with an arctic blast, and therefore was unrelated to the senator, I laughed. I might have yawned too. I’ll leave the freakout to New Yorkers.

As a south Louisiana native who has weathered more hurricanes than I can count, I find it hilarious how New Yorkers are bugging out about the so-called “Frankenstorm”. To them, it’s like the Zombie Apocalypse meets The Perfect Storm.

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Haiku poetry: “Mitt’s a pacifist”

October 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Mitt’s a pacifist
What a hilarious joke
Funny but not true

Hawks don’t become doves
Not in one debate, at least
That’s some magic trick

Mitt’s no magician
He’s a damn used car salesman
Selling past failures

History will repeat
Mitt will answer the hawks’ cry
I want an answer

Why $2 trillion more
On our military spending
Talk does not come cheap?

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Cajun Tomato’s NYC 100: “Mardi Gras In Jersey/Clapping For Rutgers”

October 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This is the 10th installment of Cajun Tomato’s NYC 100, a daily series chronicling my experiences and observations as a new New Yorker. You might have noticed it’s been a few days since I posted one of these. I have been without Internet this week. Translation: Sucks to be me.

Surrounded by the kings, queens, princes, and princesses of New Brunswick Saturday morning in the parking lot outside Rutgers’ football stadium, I did what any self-respecting Cajun would. I declared “Mardi Gras in Jersey” and poured myself a concoction I will call “Cran Drank”. Then I poured myself another.

I arrived at High Point Solution Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey, a stone’s throw from New Brunswick, around an hour before the kickoff of Rutgers’ football contest against Syracuse. My friend, Robert Zullo, a self-proclaimed King of New Brunswick persuaded me earlier in the week via text message to partake in the “full Zullo experience” before the game’s noon kickoff.

Alas, “Mardi Gras in Jersey” and the “full Zullo experience” collided to create a perfect storm.

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News Goes On In New Orleans, Just To A Different Beat

October 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

As a native New Orleanian, I would be remiss if I didn’t write about the Times-Picayune passing from the ranks of daily newspapers today, thus leaving New Orleans as the largest city in the country without a daily newspaper. My feelings about Newhouse’s decision to reduce the newspaper to three days per week have not changed much. I am hopeful though that, while the method many people get their news will change, the strength of reporting from other outlets will not. Competition can be a good thing.

I look at the Baton Rouge Advocate seeking to make a greater footprint in New Orleans as a good thing. The same goes for New Orleans TV stations hiring veteran T-P staff. And there are blogs popping up that do a great job of covering local issues, such as my friend Robert Morris’s Uptown Messenger. Somehow, some way, the news will be delivered to New Orleanians. It will be different though.

My confidence in other outlets does not translate to the Times-Picayune itself. The newspaper’s recent reporter layoffs cost the organization a depth of institutional knowledge that will not soon be replaced. There is also the issue of the Times-Picayune’s web site being user unfriendly. Aside from Newhouse changing its organizational web site layout I do not see readers having a satisfying experience on nola.com.

The news goes on in New Orleans. Just to a different beat.

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