And so it begins. Not with a bang but a brrrrrr. On January 5th, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo laid down his first State of the State address in a freezing cold auditorium at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center in Albany. The space wasn’t frigid by accident. Some like it hot, but Andy does not. According to a Cuomo minion quoted in the New York Times, walk-in refrigerators are his thing. The “meat locker”* temp at the Center drove some older legislators to wrap themselves in blankets. Which apparently are kept handily at hand in the Empire State Plaza linen closet.

Imagine the scene as seen from the podium by Andrew Cuomo! New York’s most venerable reps (some of whom have held office since the daze of Rip Van Winkle) huddled in blankets like refugees, their blue-lipped faces upturned in a mass mask of rapt attention.

None the less, the clapping for Cuomo was somewhat subdued — folks feared their fingers might shatter.

Another big chill: Cuomo’s inaugural address in the State Capital on New Year’s Day. The evening before, his office ordered that the windows of the room where Andy would speak be kept open all night. Whether or not the heat was turned off in that room, or the rest of the building, during those hours is unknown. It’s also not known if Cuomo counted how many blankets were returned by the venerable legislators after his frosty State of the State. My guess is yes — the heat was snuffed and the blankets counted. Andy has promised to cut waste and spending and protect New York taxpayers. He’s also promising to deliver a “new reality.”** Hopefully, the latter won’t include a New Ice Age.

Personally, I get nervous when pols use such godlike terms. X Governor Eliot Spitzer was big on holy pronouncements. Most famous: “Day one, everything changes.” On Spitzer’s inauguration day, New Yorkers got up bright and early. Couldn’t wait to see the sun rise in the west. Alas. No go. But not much more than a year later, everyone in the USA got to see Spitzer go down in the east.

While campaigning Andrew Cuomo took care to distance himself from Spitzer; keeping his control freak tamped down (most of the time) and vowing not to be planning any big changes for “day one.” His choice of residence as governor is in keeping with that vow. Like the last three governors before him (including Eliot Spitzer) Cuomo won’t be living full time in the Governor’s Mansion in Albany. His main digs will be downstate, where most of the state’s money lives.

Some Albanians were disappointed by Andy’s choice, seeing that he implied otherwise while campaigning. They should be heaving sighs of relief. The Mansion is an old historic building. Four years or more of open windows on winter nights would destroy it. Then there’s the havoc that the frozen water pipes and lines would wreak on the nearby sidewalk and street. Plus, if Andy were to hang in the mansion full time his significant other, Sandra Lee, might be tempted to go on a decorating binge. Anyone who’s seen her holiday “tablescapes” on the Food Channel knows what that would mean. Think pink pink pink and acres of frou-frou. The graceful old manse would wind up looking like a semi-homemade pop tart.

Back to Andy’s love of the freeze. Why is a mystery. Sure — some unkind people say his eyes have a shark-like quality. And that his political ambitions keep him circling endlessly, without sleeping. But I don’t believe for an instant that Andy is a secret Great White who needs the deep chill and wants to swallow smaller fish and rip the limbs off unlucky surfers. My guess is that the New York Times reporter had it right when she suggested Andy may like cold rooms ’cause they keep audiences alert. When I heard his State of the State on the radio my windows were shut and the heat was on. After about 10 minutes of Andy’s fifty minute speech, I was feeling sleepy very sleepy…

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Mondo QT

* Going to an Event Featuring Cuomo? Take a Coat, or Maybe a Blanket, Elizabeth A Harris, New York Times, 01/06/11

** “Cuomo outlines new reality“, Jimmy Vielkind, Albany Times Union, 01/03/11

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If only I were Edith Piaf. But alas, I can’t say je ne regrette rien. Once upon a wasted time (circa late 1970′s and early 80′s) I hung on New York City’s downtown art/music scene. The scene never fit me, I tried to fit it. Which was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. My only excuse is that I was caught in a spiritual downdraft. Couldn’t see how deeply the Punk New Wave No Wave Ironic Transgressive thing wasn’t me. Its gods weren’t mine. The Velvet Underground gave good vinyl but their legend was tiresome. William Burroughs seemed shallow. Neo-Expressionism? A few pieces were sharp (albeit over-priced) but a lot looked like puke splattered on a sidewalk outside the Mudd Club.

Oh. Yeah. Those fabulous avant-garde nite spots…

Color me ashamed for ever taking pride in being approved by a doorman.

By ’83, I was outta there. Living in Hoboken, New Jersey, across the Hudson from Manhattan. In those days Hoboken felt far from NYC. An escape from hip happening hell. David Solomonoff (my future husband) and I lived in a five floor walk-up in the tallest building on our block. No telephone. Couldn’t afford it. Up there in the clouds, where no phone ever rang, we began doing Mail Art and making music cassettes as Solomonoff & Von Hoffmannstahl. The post office became our scene and we loved it. No cliques, clacks or clutter, just real deal underground art. Via snail mail we connected with artists and musicians all over the world.

Our first connect came via Jim Sauter of Borbetomagus. (Aka the “pioneers of aggressive improvised noise music.”) Jim gave us contact info for Japanese Mail Artist and musician Masami Akita. The work received from Akita was a revelation. His dense rich collages were non splatter and his music as Merzbow was full-tilt lush noise. Apres Akita, the deluge. Our correspondents eventually numbered in the hundreds. Some were creative trifectas (art, music, words) others specialized. We developed collaborative relationships (as opposed to just trading work) with many, both for Mail Art and cassette projects. We contributed numerous pieces to cassette compilations and also supplied material for other musicians to cut up and rework.

In no particular order, our cassette culture collaborators* included: Joel Haertling (Architect’s Office), Zan Hoffman (Zanstones, Zanoisect, Zidsick, etc.), Al Margolis (Sound of Pig; If Bwana), GX Jupitter-Larsen (The Haters), Seiei Jack Nakahara (Joke Project), Rafael Flores (Comando Bruno), Mike Honeycutt (Mystery Hearsay), M. Nomized (Fraction Studio), Hal McGee (Homemade Alien Music), Shinichi Igari (Uterus of Plant), Alain Neffe (Insane Music Productions), Rudi Tuscher (Nisus Anal Furgler), Wally Shoup, Kowa Kato, Bart Plantenga, Ken Clinger, Denier Du Culte, Calypso Now, Soft Joke Productions, Magthea, Absolute Body Control, DDAA (Déficit Des Années Antérieures), Intrendent Fansette, Bog-Art, Reportage, and So On & So Forth. The last a place holder for anyone I’ve inadvertently omitted.

Over roughly four years, we produced five cassette “albums”: In The Mood, Swim Or Die, Great In Bed, God Is Love, and finally, The Element That Defies Description. Great In Bed was a compilation which included work by some of the people listed above. It came packaged in a black nylon stocking. (We’d bought boxes of them at a Hoboken odd lots store.) In The Element we took tracks supplied by others and reworked the material into an overarching musical structure and metaphysical theme.

The Solomonoff & Von Hoffmannstahl sound was shaped by having little money. Dirty Harry/Clint Eastwood once said “A man’s got to know his limitations.” The same goes for broke musicians. Our equipment was limited and we knew those limitations intimately. We worked them. Our apartment was our studio. Its ancient inadequate wiring meant lots of line hum. The hum would sing in shrill choruses when channeled through the frequency analyzer (aka ring modulator), a groovy 70′s effect manufactured by Electro-Harmonix. David had a made-in-Korea electric guitar and a Polytone Mini-Brute amp. Which was indeed brutish. When its spring-reverb was sproinging and its distortion was cranked the Mini-Brute turned into Godzilla doing Tokyo. We also had a vintage tube hifi amp which we played through the kind of wooden PA speakers that once hung in schoolrooms.

Our biggest (in terms of size and lineage) instrument was a 1960′s Vox Continental organ. The keyboard that carried The Doors. When momentarily flush from a freelance writing job, I’d bought the Vox for 200 bucks from The Major Thinkers, an Irish punk group. They claimed it previously belonged to Hall & Oates. The Vox was a workhorse. It had a few iffy drawbars but the randomness was a good thing; it seemed as if the Vox were actively improvising. Vox and Mini-Brute were bosom buddies.

Our other keyboards were miniature Casios. An MT-40 and VL-5. Among the earlier Casios on the market, their cheesy rhythm sections had options that allowed jump-cut transitions twixt say, samba and disco. When jacked with the line-humming frequency analyzer and/or our Doctor Q envelope filter (also made by Electro-Harmonix) samba and disco shattered into infinity. When the Casios’ batteries got weak, the shattering became even more extreme.

We also snagged rhythm from records. Most typically, ones from the 1950′s that demonstrated the exciting new audio technology of Stereo. Think demented bongos bouncing back and forth, forth and back, while Dad mixes martinis (clink clink) in the rec room. We also pulled snippets of exotic instrumentation from easy listening albums. We found countless treasures of Incredibly Strange Music and Exotica in Hoboken’s many junk shops. Prices ranged from 10 cents to a dollar. An LP had to be really special to warrant a dollar. Something like: Mario Lanza Gargles Gershwin — in Stereo.

We listened intently to the records we mined. Culling snippets of rhythm, minuscule musical phrases, and single syllables. Everything we sampled was sampled without a sampler. David was fast on the draw with our Pioneer turntable. He’d hover over a spinning platter, tone arm in hand — his other hand poised to punch the ree-cord button on our cheapie cassette deck. We had three cheapie decks. Plus a stereo amp with cheapie speakers, a good set of headphones, and a Radio Shack four channel mixer. Four tracks in, two tracks out. Layer up and do it all over again. Toss in a few guitar effect pedals (which we also used on samples and keyboards), a Roland analog micro synth/sequencer, a microphone, and me on vocals. That was our sound. Tech wise. As for the creative process –

When creating a piece we carefully assembled and structured the materials, then combined them through improvisation. We’d have a clear idea of what mood we wanted to create, how it should sound, and how the piece should generally progress. But the road was open to inspiration. Instrumentals by David and myself, together and solo, were improvised but sometimes sampled, cut-up, and recast. My vocals were fairly straight (no, no Yoko) inclining more to cocktail lounge and big band than rock. Sometimes a bit gospel. The sound of Solomonoff & Von Hoffmannstahl (in Stereo) was/is described by others with words such as Industrial, Electronic, Experimental, Sound-Collage, Noise, Art-Rock. I’ve never known how to describe it. Guess I’d just say it is what it is.

One thing I do know — we had a whole lot of fun doing it. Though being so broke was no fun. That big old railroad apartment was only heated at one end, by the kind of gas heater that even then was archaic. Up on the top floor we froze in the winter and baked in the summer. We didn’t have a stove for a year and juggled pots on a hot plate. And like I said, no phone. But hey, we always managed to scrape together enough for postage and blank cassettes. And when the no-cash blues got tough we got going. Cranking the Mini-Brute to the max and ring-modulating our cares into the international ether.

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Mondo QT

“I hear you singing in the wire, I can hear you through the whine…”

Wichita Lineman, Jimmy Webb, 1968

*So as to not clog this paragraph with links, I’m supplying contacts and/or background material re our cassette collaborators below. Haven’t been in touch with some of them for years. Apologies if I’ve missed more apropos links:

• Joel Haertling/Architect’s Office
• Zan Hoffman/Zanstones, Zanoisect, Zidsick, etc.
• Al Margolis/Sound of Pig; If, Bwana
• GX Jupitter-Larsen/The Haters
• Seiei Jack Nakahara/Joke Project
• Rafael Flores/Comando Bruno
• Mike Honeycutt/Mystery Hearsay
• M.Nomized/Fraction Studio, Fraction Studio blog
• Hal McGee/Homemade Alien Music
• Shinichi Igari/Uterus of Plant
• Insane Music Productions/Alain Neffe
• Rudi Tuscher/Nisus Anal Furgler
• Wally Shoup
• Kowa Kato
• Bart Plantenga
• Ken Clinger
• Denier Du Culte
• Calypso Now
• Soft Joke Productions
• Magthea
• Absolute Body Control
• DDAA (Déficit Des Années Antérieures)
• Bog-Art
• Reportage — No info found. Too bad, ’cause their Iron Curtain sound was delightfully relentless.

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Mondo QT

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Just when I think I’m through dishing the United States of Real Estate, it pulls me back in. The show is old, but still too hot to ignore. In mid-April the Klown Execs From Washington Mutual (WaMu) reunited on a DC stage, wowing the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations with a blazin’ rendition of their rap classic “Me So Greedy.” Icing the cake? When grilled by assorted legislators re the mortgage lending policies that by 2008 helped turn WaMu into the largest bank collapse in U.S. history, The Execs laid down their equally incendiary remix “Me No Recall.”

The show turned briefly sour when Kerry “Chief Exec” Killinger went all Kanye West and spewed a pile o’ bile. Chief Exec accused the Clubby Crew (formerly the Wall Street Boyz) of cutting Seattle-based WaMu out of the big bailout that saved other players. Forcing WaMu to become a cheap pick-up for Wall Street homey JPMorgan Chase. When Chief Exec went into his spiel taxpayers in the C-Span house got restive. Tossing beer cans and shouting out “boo hoo, one less pig at the trough.” The scene was threatening to turn Woodstock circa ’99 but thankfully, music hath charms. The savage beast chilled when The Execs rolled out their 2006 cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s 1992 hit “Baby Got Back.”

As ya’ll may recall, Sir Mix-a-Lot’s seminal ode to humongous booty hammered home the refrain “I like big butts.” The Klown Execs’ genius lay in changing the refrain to “I like big bucks.” Transforming the piece into a WaMu stadium anthem by metaphorically morphing ass(ets) into cash.

Seriously folks, among a passel of damning docs obtained by the Senate Subcommittee pertaining to Washington Mutual’s housing bubble doings was an account of a 2006 retreat in Maui, Hawaii that WaMu tossed for its Presidents’ Club — the top earners from their Home Loan Groups. Entertainment included a skit wherein the Kauai Kick It Krew (a babelicious group manufactured for the moment) tossed play money into the crowd while rapping “I Like Big Bucks.” Lyrics such as “you just spends/like it never ends/cuz you gotta have that big new Benz” lathed the ears of loan officers who were cranking out the mountains of shoddy and often downright fraudulent “affordable” mortgages Wall Street was fudge packing into tranches of mortgage backed securities (MBS).

WaMu’s motto was “The Power of Yes.” As in — no wannabe borrower left behind. At an earlier retreat in 2004, WaMu’s Chief Risk Officer James G. Vanasek told thousands of WaMu troops that the power of yes needed to be balanced by “The Wisdom of No.” His downer dropped like a stone. Some said Vanasek’s career would be crushed. In the same year Vanasek allegedly went to WaMu’s Chairman and CEO (which at the time would have been Kerry Killinger) proposing WaMu take out a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal disavowing the bizarro mortgage products and dodgy underwriting practices that had come to characterize the lending industry. The proposal took a quick trip to the void.

Imagine if Washington Mutual had run that ad in 2004! Everybody in Bubbleville, from flippers and refi gamblers on Main Street to traders and investors on Wall Street, would have gone ballistic. The National Association of Realtors? Die WaMu Die! Media barkers for the next hot city/nabe/brown field would have called WaMu mad. Or even worse — old, white, and male. Assorted oversight entities, housing and finance officials, and hordes of pols and non-profits at national and local levels would have joined the angry mob. President Bush might even have grabbed a torch. In 2004, Dubya was pushing The Ownership Society. The power of yes ruled all over the place. . . .

Sorry Vanasek u little whistle blower u. The Klown Execs knew the score. Silence was golden, golden.

In the Obama now, the power of yes plays on. To the tune of burgeoning taxpayer risk. Yes We Can support the mortgage markets (both lending and investment) to a greater degree than ever before. Not only via the hoary conduit of HUD and its sub, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), but through the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. Like, how mission creep is that? Yes We Can make Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) whose policies as mortgage buyers and MBS peddlers contributed mightily to the growth and collapse of the housing bubble, into real estate rescue machines. By the by, Fannie and Freddie were big buyers and movers of Washington Mutual product.

Back in Autumn 2007, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo subpoenaed Fannie and Freddie, as part of an “industry-wide investigation” of mortgage fraud. WaMu was an institution of interest. In early 2008 Cuomo closed his investigation. Declaring the culprit of housing bubble bad was “rampant appraisal fraud.” Though Cuomo claimed banks pressured appraisers to inflate values in order to “make a quick buck” he didn’t name the quick buck banks. Nor did he mention his earlier allegation that since Fannie and Freddie profited from inflated values through sales of MBS, they might have been in on the quick buck.

In September 2008, Fan and Fred went into crash mode and were taken over by the federal government. The remains of WaMu filed for Chapter 11 around the same time. (JPMorgan Chase had already absorbed most of the body.) Fannie and Freddie’s bailout cost taxpayers more than that of any other institution. As 2010 dawned the U.S. Treasury pledged yet more love; three years of unlimited financial support for Fannie and Freddie in their role as mortgage market rescue tools. Baby got back indeed.

Much of the mortgage market rescue falls under the aegis of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). TARP’s special inspector general, Neil Barofsky, delivered a riveting rap about the rescue in his January 30 report to Congress. Section 3, “Federal Support of the Residential Real Estate Market,” laid out the drift of the U.S. housing market into nationalization and the concurrent growth in taxpayer risk. Barofsky’s whistleblower words got airplay but never quite made top of the chart. Maybe ’cause Health Care was hogging the slot. Or maybe when it comes to real estate, silence is still kind of golden.

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Mondo QT

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["Washington Mutual Home Loan" photo by Times Square Public Art; CC BY-SA 3.0]

I confess. I had a 15 minute fling with Barack Obama in presidential primary time. When cringing at the memory, I remind myself that when I voted O the only real alternative for folks registered D was Return Of The Clintons. Oh nooo Mrs. Bill! That real estate is so yesterday. (Speaking of Whitewater, you gotta credit Hillary for being housing bubble before housing bubble was blip.)

But back to Barack. He of the power grab called health care reform. Yup, I pulled the primary lever for him. Though I take comfort in not doing likewise in the general election (by then I’d returned to Mister Third Party) the memory of going O, if only for a few mad moments, humbles me. Whenever I start feeling smarty pants, a little voice says “Hey, remember how you bought that crock of Obama?” When I was a kid I thought canned ravioli would taste like it looked on the label. Fool me once…

After the primaries, I paid more attention to Obama’s ingredients. So much Reverend Wright, so little memory of his wack. And didn’t Bill Ayers and the Weatherblather have a well documented history of causing radical blindness in sheep? Who could believe O didn’t know? Then there was the freshness factor. To me, fresh is everything; corruption is rotting our core. Was O as fresh as his label proclaimed?

As grad of some deeply spoiled places, including Hudson County, New Jersey, and Albany, New York, I’ve observed that pit pols come in three varieties. First, the wildly corrupt and utterly shameless. Big ambition: being top flop in some regional cesspool. Second, canny careerists who avert their eyes from the cesspool, lip-servicing reform as they climb. Third, genuine kick ass corruption busters. Their numbers are few. Successful ones catch a wave of public sentiment. Obama’s record in the Cook County cesspool didn’t qualify him as a buster. But he wasn’t wildly corrupt either. Just a look-away Joe aka O. Talking a good one, packing a passel of Chicago players. How non-fresh is that?

While my picture of Obama was sharpening, Dubya was rolling out housing bubble bailouts. No surprise. The minute the bubble started hissing twas plain our reps would go to the wall/our wallets to save the United States of Real Estate. The Bush administration and relevant figures in Congress were tailoring the government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with HUD’s sub, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) as rescue machines. (A policy President Obama continues to expand.) The irony? Institutions with the stated mission of facilitating affordable housing would be buoying inflated real estate prices. Though this is an old joke (see decades of U.S. housing policy) it still cracks me up.

So — no shock that taxpayers, including people who rented, or bought within their means, or never speculated or treated their homes like ATMs, would be covering the big bad real estate tab. What did shock was that taxpayers would also be covering blowback on Wall Street from mortgage-derived investment instruments. Much of it so far derived from actual assets as to be air securities. When President Bush and then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson unveiled the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in early autumn 2008, the public hit the ceiling.

Though TARP was commonly called “bailout” its advocates preferred to call it a taxpayer investment. (While the word “investment” suggests an act of choice, this never stops public officials from combining it with “taxpayer.”) Any lingering thought I had of voting for Obama disappeared with his quick support for TARP. (McCain coyly hinted he’d nix, then folded like a cheap maverick.) Oh sure, O was pained. But behind his tut tut over the unfortunate necessity of TARP, one sensed eagerness coiled like a spring. An enormous government expansion was being rolled out before him like a red carpet. By a Republican administration no less! Walk right in, sit right down, baby let the edicts rain down.

After taking office President Obama continued to employ the emergency-measure rhetoric that greased TARP. His apps were quite creative. Such as linking his massively expensive health care initiative to fixing the financial crisis rooted in an entirely different section of the economy. Logic oddly reminiscent of President Bush citing the 9/11 attack as reason for declaring war on a country that had nothing to do with it.

A current riff making the rounds is a pic of Dubya captioned “Miss Me Yet?” Can’t say that I do. Bush and Obama are peas in a pod as regards speaking truth to the public. O’Dubya assumes we’re William Hurt to his Kathleen Turner in Body Heat. “Keep talking Matty. Experience shows I can be convinced of anything.” While Americans may have been slow on the uptake about Bush invading Iraq, they’ve been far less so about Obama invading health care. The patsy has morphed into Sam Spade.

Re: Tea Parties. Duh-oh! Democrats are dumb to demonize ‘em. Even if Dems disagree, painting genuinely concerned and informed blue collar and middle class Americans as racist nuts is going down the same path that created legions of Reagan Democrats. Duh-oh! Republicans are dumb to think all is forgiven and forgotten. Tea can’t be used to take the tarnish off Dubya. The big government/big debt segue from Bush to Obama was one smooth highway. And not every party-goer has forgotten the WMD.

Tea party voters are currently being wooed with promises that Republicans will repeal the health care bill. But some Republicans are saying hey — there are good things in the bill. Why not just prune and tweak it? Whenever the political power card flips (it always does) Republicans will be in the driver’s seat of our new improved health care, steering a huge part of the economy this way and that. Will they rush to divest? Such is the stuff that dreams are made of…

Re: Third Parties. Both major parties continue to demonstrate how little they respect or understand the people they represent. When considering a third party option vs. supporting donkeys or elephants ask yourself — what would Sam Spade do? Crush the duplicitous dame to his chest or send her over?

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Mondo QT

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["My Neighborhood" photo by Woodley Wonderworks; CC BY 2.0]
["Cartoosh's View 1-12-2009" by Cartoosh; GFDL 1.2/CC BY-SA 3.0/Free Art License]

Jersey Shore? Fuhgeddaboudit. Jersey City is the gem of reality TV. Shore is MTV. Jersey City is FBI. Like, how real is that? Killer videos of pols talking trash and passing cash have been unspooling in federal court in Newark at the trial of Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini. Beldini was busted last summer in an FBI sweep that corralled dozens of Jersey pols. It was one of the largest corruption roundups in Jersey’s thick history of roundups. The majority of the busted were from Hudson County, parent entity of Jersey City, second largest city in the state. Twelve public servants have pleaded guilty; Leona Beldini is first to stand trial. Charges? Bribe taking, attempted extortion, and conspiracy to commit extortion. MTV’s Jersey Shore has hot munchkin Snooki, but Jersey City has the far classier — albeit far older — Beldini. Back in the day, Beldini was burlesque queen “Hope Diamond.” “The Gem of Exotics.”

In the here and now, Deputy Mayor Beldini is a prominent Realtor, past president of the Hudson County Board of Realtors. Until suspended as deputy mayor (an appointed position) Beldini was Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy’s liaison to various development-related municipal agencies. Beldini also headed the board of the quasi public Jersey City Economic Development Corporation, which among other things, administers the city’s Urban Enterprise Zone projects. One third of Jersey City is Urban Enterprise Zone. Development projects in The Zone are eligible for a wide array of tax exemptions and utility breaks.

Mayor Jerramiah Healy hasn’t been indicted but he appears in FBI videos featuring Beldini. (There are other tapes, starring other pols.) As does former Jersey City Housing Authority Commissioner, Vice President of the Board of Education, and Hudson County Affirmative Action Officer Edward Cheatam. (Yup, Ed wore 3 hats.) Also appearing: the late Jack Shaw, a well worn political consultant. Cheatam has pleaded guilty to conspiring with Beldini and others “to accept corrupt cash payments” in return for “official influence.”* Consultant Jack Shaw died of a Valium overdose a few days after being busted.

Mayor Jerry Healy is Jersey City’s version of Jersey Shore’s bod-flaunting JWOWW. JHOWW-come-he-keeps-getting-elected and Beldini go back decades. A Healy son has a license in Beldini’s real estate office and Beldini and the Healys are neighbors in Jersey City. They have summer homes a block from each other in Bradley Beach at the — where else — Jersey shore. In 1999, when Healy was Chief Judge of Jersey City Municipal Court, cops visited his vacation crib. Neighbors were bitching about party hearties. Healy wrestled with the cops on his porch. In the nude. (Though one neighbor said he was clutching a towel when the fracas began.) Healy pleaded guilty to a minor disorderly conduct charge.

In 2004, mayoral candidate Jerry Healy was seen — and photographed — passed out naked on his front porch in Jersey City. The nudie pic, which was posted on the Internet by an opponent, might have discouraged a less determined electorate. But Healy swept to victory.

In 2006, Mayor Healy was back for a rematch with the Bradley Beach cops. (This time he was clothed.) Two officers rassled him to the ground outside his sister’s bar and gave him a few shots of pepper spray. The shots chased a good deal of beer. Healy was convicted on disorderly conduct charges in 2007. The same year he was made chairman of the Hudson County Democratic Organization, a monster political machine that’s been somewhat weakened by a decade of corruption indictments and flaccid leadership.

By the Spring of 2009, Jerramiah Healy was on the mayoral campaign trail again, with Leona Beldini as campaign treasurer. Things were looking good. New York City Mayor Mike “The Situation” Bloomberg was set to toss a $1,000-a-head fundraiser for Healy at his NYC townhouse. (The Situation and his deputy mayor, Kevin Sheekey, have Jersey City roots. Sheekey’s family goes way back with the Healy family.) Another big bux event was scheduled at the Beacon, an elegant condo fortress in one of Jersey City’s poorest nabes. Plus, a new developer in town was spreading cash around.

Developer David Esenbach wanted to build a high-rise luxury condo project of 750 units on land next to a site contaminated with chromium in an inner city neighborhood. Esenbach was confident the units could be marketed for half-a-mil each. But he worried the city’s planning, zoning, and overall development process might be too slow and cumbersome.

Esenbach conveyed his concern to Mayor Jerry Healy, Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini, Housing Commissioner Ed Cheatam, and political consultant Jack Shaw in meetings at Healy’s favorite luncheonette (City Hall is so impersonal) and other eateries. The foursome assured Esenbach that Jersey City was developer-friendly. Healy touted “a planning department let’s put it that way, that’s receptive.”** Beldini and Cheatam praised the director of the Division of Zoning Enforcement. “Tony’s Good” opined Cheatam. “He’s good” echoed Beldini. “Tony’s good. Tony’s been good for a long time” said Cheatam.

Despite the real estate slump, Beldini seemed to think Esenbach’s projected price of half-a-mil each for his condos was on target. Saying “with what’s happening, the inner city is the place to invest.” Esenbach granted Beldini exclusive dibs on marketing the condos. Beldini touted her ability to “cut through red tape” and cited her position at the Economic Development Corporation and as the mayor’s liaison to the Parking Authority. (Parking being a huge issue in large scale development projects.) She also tried pitching a “shovel ready” former sausage factory for a potential condo project but Esenbach didn’t bite. He’d already passed on a macaroni factory pitched by Cheatam.

(In ye old days, Jersey City produced something other than oleaginous pols and real estate capers.)

As the meetings progressed Esenbach made “donations” totaling $20 thousand. (A slice of what he was laying out at other meetings with Shaw, Cheatam, and myriad other officials.) Leona Beldini didn’t handle the cash but was enthusiastic about the transfer. Saying $10 thousand was for “J” (Jack Shaw) and the “Jersey City Democratic Committee”. She delineated how the money would be broken down into “different funds” (to beat legal limits on contributions) in order to “funnel it back into the mayor . . . which everybody does.” Esenbach said he’d “do him (Shaw) another 10 for Healy” and would “do more before election.” “Beautiful” replied Beldini.

Mayor Healy didn’t handle the cash. Cheatam and Shaw did the blunt talk. Esenbach did the taping.

Oh nooo! Developer David Esenbach didn’t exist. He was really developer Solomon Dwek, serial Ponzi schemer. In 2006, Dwek was nailed by the Feds for bank fraud after kiting tens of millions in bad checks. Apres bust, Dwek turned informant. Dwek was a natural for the job of Sting Boy. At Beldini’s trial, he admitted bribing countless public servants re development deals for some 10 years in Jersey and New York. He’d laundered the bribes through his family’s Yeshiva in Monmouth County. Dwek’s gift of grifter gab served him well with Healy, Beldini, Cheatam, and Shaw. On the FBI tapes the Fab Four echo each other’s lines and finish each other’s sentences like folks in a very old marriage. Dwek picked up their dialog and fed it back. Riffing on the slippery chit chat.

As for visuals, the tapes are cinema verite as shot from under a shirt. A herky jerky chest level camera catches Mayor Healy fist-pumping pepper onto potato salad. His tie hangs unknotted as if he’s starting to strip. His face looks red even in black and white. On one tape Leona Beldini describes the upcoming Healy fund raiser at the Beacon as an “elegant affair” with “carving stations” and “champagne.” The guests would be swell as well. “We want people who’ll look good.” One wonders — was Healy invited?

Political consultant Jack Shaw lends a touch of Banquo to the vids. As said, he died of a Valium overdose a few days after being busted. Accident? Only his shadow knows. His shadow hangs over the FBI’s case in Hudson County. After his arrest, Shaw allegedly agreed to cooperate with the Feds. His input would have been invaluable. It was Shaw who introduced Esenbach/Dwek to many of the indicted or suspect pols and it was Shaw who collected $40,000 from Dwek as an alleged bribe for the biggest fish in the batch — Joseph V. Doria, state commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs (DCA). As DCA head, Joe Doria chaired the New Jersey Redevelopment Authority, the Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, and the Council on Affordable Housing. Doria, a Hudson County machine man elevated to state power by former Governor Jon Corzine, admits meeting with Shaw and Dwek but denies taking bribes. Doria resigned as DCA head last summer, after his offices were raided by the FBI. He has not been indicted.

Jack Shaw cut his corruption teeth in Cook County, Illinois. He told Solomon Dwek that of all the places he knew, Hudson County was the most like Cook County. When the state’s attorney in Cook investigated Shaw in the late 70s, he emigrated to Hudson County. (He was invited in.) In Hudson, Shaw was jack of all trades. Among other things, he served as campaign manager and advisor to ex Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski. In 2002, Janiszewski pleaded guilty to extorting bribes from developers. Until his arrest became public knowledge, he wore a wire for the Feds. There went another batch . . .

Jack Shaw had his ups and downs. He riled a few cronies by allegedly embezzling from them to support a cocaine habit. The State Commission of Investigation said scathing things about how Shaw and a buddy ran the Hudson County chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. But in Hudson County, tomorrow is always another day. As the new millennium glided along, Shaw was guiding New York developer George Filopoulos of Metrovest Equities through the shoals of Jersey City’s development process. The result? The Beacon. An elegant condo fortress in one of Jersey City’s poorest nabes. FHA mortgages available! By the buy, Jack Shaw’s girlfriend was/is property manager for the Beacon. Money that Dwek gave Shaw flowed back to Mayor Jerry Healy’s campaign through her checkbook.

Even after death, Jack Shaw is a go-to guy. Leona Beldini’s attorney claims Jack was the real grafter. Cheatam? How ’bout that name? Solomon Dwek is a deceitful rat, Beldini an honest public servant. So pure she didn’t need to take the stand in her own defense. She just sat next to her attorney, shining . . .

As this is being written, the jury is out on U.S. v. Leona Beldini. In the FBI tapes, Deputy Mayor Beldini kept her hands clear of Dwek’s cash. Quid pro quo was at tongue’s length. Perhaps the jury will say “not proven.” But whether Beldini is convicted or not, the Feds deserve some sort of media award. Jersey City is a Reality TV classic. Its images are forever.

*Ex-Hudson County Official Admits Conspiring with Numerous Others to Extort Cash in Return for Official Influence, USDOJ, U.S. Attorney, District of New Jersey, 09/18/09

**Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from the following transcripts of videos and audio tapes played during the U.S. v. Leona Beldini trial, and published in the Newark Star-Ledger:

• Dwek, Cheatam, Shaw body recording transcript 2, March 11, 2009
• Jersey City diner hidden camera video: Mayor Healy, Beldini meet with Dwek, March 13, 2009
• FBI informant, Jersey City deputy mayor Beldini discuss campaign donations, March 24, 2009

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Mondo QT

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["Jersey City, New Jersey" photo by Oquendo; CC BY 2.0]

Please join us for our great tradition: Al Gore singing classic Christmas Songs, with a global message!

Be Seeing You!

An important and insightful look at an important and insightful (?) news story that means a great deal to all the cavemen in Washington, DC! Be Seeing You!

[Note: A November 27 car accident has led to allegations that Tiger Woods has had numerous extramarital affairs. Woods was cited for careless driving and paid a $164 fine.]

Your tax dollars at work!

Happy Thanksgiving!

[Note: Images discussed in this story may be offensive to some people. Because of this, we have linked to potentially offensive images using a distinctive red link rather than displaying them directly in the story. Viewer discretion is advised.]

Google posted an apology for image search results in which the top image depicted first lady Michelle Obama as an ape. The image, however, was just one of dozens of images of celebrities and political figures altered to look like apes.

The image, which has been circulating on the Internet for over a year, drew little attention until it began appearing as the top result in Google image searches for Michelle Obama after being posted to a spam blog. That site has since taken down the picture, and the image no longer appears in the top image search results.

Google says that its search results are automatically generated via computer algorithms. “The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results,” the statement said.

Ironically, the interest in this image has caused Google’s automated system to suggest a related search of “michelle obama monkey” when people search for images of Michelle Obama.

Many people have called the image racist and offensive. But Jasmine Waters, whose entertainment blog FlyStyleLife was among the first to republish the image, disagreed, attributing the image to a site called Celebrity Apes.

“If you choose to visit the source site, you will see that this picture WAS NOT created out of racially motivated ignorance,” Waters wrote after posting the image of Mrs. Obama. “Had that have been the case, as a journalist, an American and most importantly, a Black woman, I would have NEVER posted it.”

Before being taken down Wednesday, Celebrity Apes contained altered images of John McCain, Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Jackson, Jessica Alba, Sarah Silverman, Barack Obama himself, and dozens of other celebrities and political figures. Nobody was spared, not even Ron Paul.

Celebrity Apes is owned by Michael Hussey, 31, of Alfred, Maine. Hussey runs Sharper Communications, a public relations firm which says on its web site that its “goal is to develop & implement creative and strategic breakthrough PR programs that get our clients noticed via news publicity.” In the 1990s Hussey created the Rate My Face web site, a precursor to the better-known Hot or Not. His personal blog shows an image of Sarah Palin as a parrot.

Likening a “person of color” to an ape or monkey has been considered a racial insult since the times of African slavery. Since the Darwinian theory of evolution became widely accepted, the insult has been used to refer to anyone, regardless of race, to suggest that the person had not sufficiently evolved. In the case of Celebrity Apes and the photo in question, it appears to be simply a series of ill-considered jokes.

Nevertheless, reading the news as I do, sometimes I have to wonder whether the people who are running the country, whatever race, color or political party they are, have actually evolved past the monkey stage.

(HT: Schneier the Security Rock Star, again)

If only the terrorists were this easy to find.

Hard to believe somebody actually was dumb enough to walk out in public with this T-shirt on.

I’ve been looking around the Internet to find someplace to buy this T-shirt, but I’ve come up empty. Anyone seen this before?

The closest I’ve been able to come is this.

Anonymous photographer; courtesy FAIL Blog