Samadee paused at the newspaper racks in the Empire News on Armory Square. Two dollars for The New York Times—in Canada $2.25, maybe higher in some parts of that country, and printed in Buffalo—was enough of a jolt from memories of his junior high school paper route, delivering the Great Grey Lady up and down North Broadway. But five dollars for a Sunday
edition—which he didn’t have time for when he could take that day for himself, and wouldn’t ever have time to catch up with—had become something of an indignity. He scanned the racks. Nothing about Governor David Paterson graced the cover of the New York Post, preserving the streaks of front page double downs (in tandem with the Daily News) established by Michael Jackson and Tiger Woods...

CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: Empire News on Armory Square,Governor David Paterson,Harlem Big Four,Senator Kirsten Gillibrand,AG Andrew Cuomo,new York politics,walt shepperd,city eagle,New York Post

Permalink Comments (View)

Many of the accomplishments of the Driscoll administration are currently seeking ways off the drawing board, easing their ways through bureaucratic procedures, or nearing completion with hardly any notice or mention. As with some of the significant legacies of Tom Young’s tenure, some initiated by Driscoll may eventually never be identified with the initiator. If for no other, however, bells should ring and birds should sing at the Driscoll administration’s decision to bring the Buske Group to town...

CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: Chance to get it right,walt shepperd,television syracuse

Permalink Comments (View)

It was a tough read, even in an age of alphabet soup organizations all trying to change some element of how we lived. SCFFI. Skif-fee. The people’s television. Actually, it existed as an ad hoc band of warrior fleas biting at the back of the Caucasian male dominance of the television of the time: 3, 5, 9 and 24—no cable. Words moved to action through a Federal Communications Commission process for bringing challenge to the licenses of the companies which owned the stations. The wording of the challenge process was legalese to shore up the myth of public ownership of the airwaves, but in the early Seventies, SCFFI brought challenges against the three local network affiliates on the basis of on-screen images and off-screen employment...

CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: The people’s television,television channel 9

Permalink Comments (View)

Samadee missed an opportunity to announce his gubernatorial candidacy when, after a week of local snow totaled more inches than all of last year, his campaign canvas disappeared. The thaw robbed him of a way to get the word out that he was running, while still staying true to his perennial pledge not to take any campaign contributions. Searching the back of the closets in his studio, he came up with enough leftover spray paint to script slogans in Hanover Square, Thornden Park, and the lot at the corner of Onondaga Street and South Avenue where the Republican Party was founded. With the snow gone, spraying the announcement would court a graffiti bust and confusion four years hence, when he would be running for something else...

CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: Bergan Brothers Clothes,salina street clothier,Syracuse samadee,syracuse politics,walt shepperd,Fred Dicker’s column,African-American voters,syracuse Pastabilities,gov. David Paterson

Permalink Comments (View)

Stephanie Miner had planned her mayoral inaugural outside in Clinton Square because we some hardy folks. Appealing to that hardiness seemed to emerge as a theme for her administration as dipping temperatures and slippery snow on the evening of her first State of the City address might have dissuaded the frailer folk from attendance. But the Marshall Hall auditorium at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry was packed, with standing room only...

CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: Walt Shepperd,The state of the city,Stephanie Miner,mayoral inaugural,SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry,Common Councilor Matt Rao a happy 24th birthday,County Executive Joanie MahoneyClinton Square

Permalink Comments (View)

Three lifetimes had passed since Samadee’s yearly sojourns with his Aunt Marie to Madison Square Garden for the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus. Transitions between the lifetimes had drained him of sentiment, but Samadee missed those sojourns. He missed wondering how long the tiny alligators would live—in a fish tank or the backyard pond—after being taken out of the little green cardboard boxes with cellophane windows on top to show that, at least at point of sale, they were indeed alive. But mostly he missed the clowns. Each year a VW beetle, or a reasonable facsimile, would drive to the middle of the center ring and dispense more clowns than would fit on a Greyhound Bus...

CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: Clowns already brought out ,walt shepperd,samadee,syracuse politics,Governor David Patterson,Senate campaign,Harold Ford,NY governor

Permalink Comments (View)

The Media Unit’s 2009 season was highlighted with impact, awards and breaking attendance records. The Central New York national award winning teen performance and production troupe’s fifth annual summer tour in collaboration with the Syracuse Department of Parks, Recreation and Youth Programs brought 1,222 youth into neighborhood youth centers for Angels with Broken Wings: the Loss, an original performance on teen violence scripted from workshops conducted with gang members in the Justice Center jail. The previous best attendance totaled 866 the year before...

CATEGORY: Performing Arts

TAGS: The Media Unit,Media Unit 2009 season,Central New York,teen performance and production troupe,Walt shepperd,city scuffle,syracuse,City Eagle

Permalink Comments (View)