New York State Of Mind - 2012

Last night I was sitting in Frank's Lounge bemoaning the Patriots 20-18 loss to the Cards.

"It was a fix. That holding charge against Danny Woodhead was weak. You know when the refs blow a call, when the TV doesn't show the replay." I was on my fourth beer and speaking loud to Paco and Vince.

"So you saying the game was fixed?" Paco was a few years my senior. The Giant fan knew football.

"Maybe." Games were only fixed by referees and the NFL.

"The point spread was already blown and the over-under was 48, so tell me who was to gain from a bad call."

"Add six points to the 38 and a conversion."

"That makes 45. The under is still safe." Vince didn't bet on games. He was a school administrator for math. He was good with numbers.

"Not if the Cards came back and score a field goal." I was deep in an alternative universe.

"That's not what happened, besides this is New York. We don't give a shit, if New England wins." Paco had Brooklyn-born.

Our argument wandered through several topics until we got to best song about Boston and New York. The three of us agreed that DIRTY WATER was Boston's theme song, but none of us thought that Sinatra's NEW YORK NEW YORK was a shoo-in for top New York song.

"I used to listen to it in Boston and think, "Yeah, start spreading the news."

"That's because you come from Boston. New Yorkers don't about New York like that, because we don't leave New York." Vince was younger than both Paco and me. He had been to North Carolina twice. "Plus Sinatra is from New Jersey."

"Only one song I consider # 1." Paco got up from his stool and played Jay Z's EMPIRE STATE OF MIND backed by Alicia Keyes. "This is a song by New Yorkers. The sample comes from LOVE ON A TWO WAY STREET by Sylvie Robinson. She's from Brooklyn and Angela Hunte and Jnay wrote EMPIRE. They Brooklyn too."

"So EMPIRE is a Brooklyn song? Not New York."

"Fool, Brooklyn is New York."

"I know that." I had moved to Park Slope in 1976, thinking I was commuting to Manhattan, the real New York, but not anymore. Brooklyn was my town, but another song slipped onto my mental charts. "I think you have a good argument, but what about Billie Holiday's AUTUMN IN NEW YORK or NO SLEEP TILL BROOKLYN?"

"I know what you're trying to do?" Paco pointed a finger with a smile on his lips. "You're gonna say that the Pogues' FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK is your song. You Irish are so predictable."

"No, I wasn't."

"Oh, yes, you were," Rosa the bartender had been listening to our every word. The Chinese girl had big ears and a warm heart for this city. "EMPIRE is # 1, NEW YORK NEW YORK is # 2, and FAIRY TALE is # 3. And that's it. Anyone have a problem with that?"

Paco, Vince, and I shook our heads. Rosa was the boss at Frank's Lounge and all three of us were old enough to know that a woman is never wrong.

And I mean never.

To hear EMPIRE STATE OF MIND please go to the following URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjsXo9l6I8

Gong-gyeog, Gong-gyeog, Gong-gyeog

My mother loved the Pearl Harbor movie TORA TORA TORA. TORA TORA TORA meant 'attack attack attack' in Japanese. Gong-gyeog, Gong-gyeog, Gong-gyeog translates the same in Korean. This week North Korea has suggested to Russia and the UK that they abandon their diplomatic missions in Pyongyang before April 10, stating that the government will not be able to safeguard the embassy after that date. Nations neighboring the communist state are weighing the threat level to their countries. South Korea has sent two Aegis missile destroyers to sea, as the North Korea transported two mobile launchers to a secret site on the the eastern coast. Most rational minds understand that Kim Jong Un's strike capacity is strictly conventional, since the NK ICBMs cannot deliver a nuclear warhead. Most observers agree that the Supreme Leader's bellicose statements are designed at cementing the people behind his regime. China's patience with its long-time ally once "as close as lips and teeth" is wearing thin according to the Telegraph and states that North Korea no longer merits much respect among ordinary Chinese, who have taken to insulting Kim Jong-un as "Fatty Kim" or "Fatty the Third", in reference to his father and grandfather, on the Chinese internet. Fidel Castro has urged calm, although Beyonce and JayZ, America's # 1 pop couple are in Cuba this week. North Korea has no plans to attack the island 90 miles south of Key West. Maybe they are privy to something the rest of us don't know after speaking with Dennis Rodman, who was in North Korea talking basketball with Kim Jong Un. Didn't he go out with Madonna. See below for the range of North Korea's missiles