Vikar and Mr. Wizard

"Start spreading the news. I'm leaving today."
- New York, New York, best remembered by Frank Sinatra (from Hoboken)

"Do you mind if I smoke? No, do you mind if I fart? It's one of my habits."
- Steve Martin

"Smoke, Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that cigarette."
- Willie Nelson (as well as others)

"The story of the rise of Bloomberg is very interesting. Bloomberg writing about how great he was got boring by page 2. I suggest judicious skipping."
- A reader of Bloomberg On Bloomberg from Amazon.com

"The most arrogant, pompous, self-important autobiography I've ever read. Mike Bloomberg makes Barbara Cartland seem as modest as Ophelia and as talented as Shakespeare. Sloppily written, utterly devoid of irony or self-perception, it is the sort of book one might expecta Harvard MBA to write. "
- Another reader of Bloomberg On Bloomberg from Amazon.com

"If there was ever a time when I felt like I was ripped off, this is the time. It seems everything this guy does is for his ego. I've always heard he's had a tough time keeping people working for him, now I know why."
- Yet another reader of Bloomberg On Bloomberg from Amazon.com

January 1st, 2003

Vikar's Commentary

This isn't my fault.

It was never my fault. It will never be my fault. And worst of all there is nothing I can ever do to fix it.

Mike Bloomberg is mayor of New York City. Mark Green seems to imply that Mr. Bloomberg bought the election (it's in his book). I didn't make Bloomberg mayor. I couldn't have. I can't vote in New York City. I live in New Jersey. My taxes get no representation. However, for 50 hours out of any given week, his idiocy will effect my well being any minute I'm in Manhattan. If I feel like going to a bar and having a beer and a cigarette, thanks to Mikey-boy, I can't have both in the same place. I must drink my beer indoors and smoke outdoors.

Mike Bloomberg recently signed into law the no smoking ban. That means no smoking indoors. For those of you in New York City that smoke, you will know what this means. It means that come rain, snow, sleet, and dark of night, if you wish to smoke while at a bar, finish your beer, then possibly walk out in front of the bar and smoke your cigarette. This is a real pain in the ass if it's raining. In New York, it doesn't just rain. It gets disgusting. Most of the time there isn't a ledge or roof outcropping wide enough to accommodate a smoker. It's not a problem where I work as my building has a overpass where smokers can smoke relatively dry no matter what the weather.

That doesn't stop the cold however. For the five and a half minutes it takes to smoke a cigarette, the smoker really has to brave the cold from November to possibly March or so. It sucks. But the smokers I know are a determined lot. They'll bundle up for the 15 minutes it'll now take for this smoking break. I break it down like this: 2 minutes to bundle up, 3 minutes to walk to the street (this time is variable pending on how many floors the smoker has to travel to get to street level), 5 minutes to actually smoke, and 5 minutes to get back to his desk and unbundle. Bloomberg already had a state worker fired for excess smoking breaks. I think he found the grounds under time justification. The man has never been the same. I find it strangely ironic that I work right across the street from Bloomberg's Data Center. We see them across the way under our underpass and wave at them.

We also tell them that their former boss is a f%#king jackass.

And he's a Mets' fan. No f%#king class.

Well, that's how we smokers feel anyway. I think we're right. Actually, my opinion of the man is tainted. I hated him even before he became mayor. Now that he's screwing with my well being, I hate him even more now.

It all started 12 years ago. I had just started working on my help desk and encountered a problem with a Bloomberg terminal. I asked my supervisor at the time what a Bloomberg terminal was. She said that a Bloomberg terminal is a machine made by a nasty little man named Mike Bloomberg. The machine does everything that most of our other terminals do but it has the distinction of standing alone and not being compatible with any other piece of equipment we have. Bloomberg terminals were always a headache and a half anytime I got a call for one. I usually passed the buck to our local site support department to handle the probable mess. The bad thing was that it was usually for a trader and I got cursed out by the user first.

Listen, I didn't tell him to buy the damn machine. Why yell at me?

But I'm certain that Mr. Bloomberg was able to talk our CEO at the time into buying into his terminals and we'd fix the problems later. He probably did what he did to the city budget folks and flew them down on his private jet to his Bermuda place. Then he'd play a couple of holes of golf with the high executive CTO and use the jedi mind trick to get him to buy the idea. It wasn't the CTO's problem. The headache would fall on two types of people: the people who had to actually use the machine and the poor bastards that had to try to fix them.

That's the Mike Bloomberg I know.

And he's staying true to form. He is completely out of touch with the common man. Sure, his TV ads for his mayoral campaign show a mini bio of him and how he had poor boy Boston roots. But once he made his first billion he never looked back. Here's a prime example. When the transit workers threatened a strike last month, his resolution was for New Yorkers to hitch rides with other car drivers in the city.

THIS IS NEW YORK CITY! You know the place I'm talking about - the butt of every comedian's joke nationwide. Kindness from a stranger in New York outside of a major terrorism attack just doesn't happen. That's why it was a surprise when it actually happened during September 11th. And it will happen, but not for a transit strike.

He was putting on his plain folks propaganda show by whining that he was in not in shape to do his bike riding and the bike he owned was in terrible shape. So, mister common man bought a $500 mountain bike so he could bike to work. This was just to show that he was a common man like the rest of us. Well, I don't know how many common men can just splurge on $500 mountain bikes at times of crisis but I'm not one of them. Plus, when the strike didn't happen, he gave the bike away. Not that that's a bad thing but it only showed the pure charade that is Mike Bloomberg. I don't think for a minute he would have peddled one foot. Confidentially, I was hoping he'd have some kind of coronary incident.

Mr. Bloomberg is not endearing himself to the city of New York, either. Weeks before his nonsmoking ban, he gave New York City an early Christmas Present. Early one morning, 7:AM to be precise, he signed into law the largest real estate tax hike EVER for New York City. I'm not sure of the percentage but I think it's a 18% hike.** No one showed up to protest. IT WAS TOO EARLY. EVERYONE WAS STILL SLEEPING!!!! Not only did he know it was wrong, he was a coward for not facing the people he was going to rape. I'm glad I don't have to pay those taxes.

I live in New Jersey. The mass exodus from New York to New Jersey has already started. My townhouse that I paid $110k in 1998 is already valued between $200k - $225k. And people are paying it. They will be willing to do what I do daily. Commute an hour and a half to New York early in the morning and do the same thing coming back. They are all coming to Central Jersey. Land of easy living and low property taxes. An added bonus is that Hoboken will let you drink and smoke in the same place. The property values shot up shortly after September 11th.

But I try to picture myself now as a New York bar owner. Unless the owner is a cigar specialty bar owner he'll probably be losing business. This is right at the time he'll need to increase customer pull to stay above water. I mean the money to pay his increased taxes has to come from somewhere. I think now is the time for a mob comeback. I'm sure that most bar owners are not above turning to organized crime for a little help in this situation. Either that or an idea similar to that of the "speak easy's" during prohibition comes to mind.

I can see it now.

Knock... knock knock knock... knock.
(A small wooden window slides open) "Who sent you?"
"I'm a friend of Rudy's"
"Okay, Rudy vouches for you. Come in. Smoke your brains out."

Tell Mikey-boy to smoke at the Boom Boom Room he's so fond of.

The last time I checked Amazon.com Bloomberg On Bloomberg resale can be bought for 72¢ a copy.

People I've confided in, telling them I was going to do a Mayor Bloomberg rant say I'm being overly harsh. I did cut it down. Initially, I had thought to compare him to Hitler. I was going to bring up the "you can't smoke in der furher's presence" issue. I decided not to do it. The analogy didn't fit.

Bloomberg's father wasn't a post man.

 Mr. Wizard's Commentary 1/2/2003

The property tax hike signing was soon followed by a letter in the mail, to me at least, conveniently stuffed with updated property tax payment vouchers.

It went up about 18%, according to the City Council.

Personally, I'd like to know who these city council members are and how I can get on this council to put some semblance of intelligence on this board. Bloomberg wanted 25%, but the council wouldn't give in. So they gave in to 18%.

If I was on the city council, I'd put some fuzzy math in here to make it seem like you're getting money back. Considering the utter failure of New York students to comprehend mathematics, you'd probably get away with it.

Consider:

"Mayor Bloomberg was proposing a 25% tax increase. However, the city council, working forever for the common man, has reduced the Mayor's proposed tax hike by a whopping 28%. The revised tax hike increase of 18% is actually saving you money, thanks to the brilliant negotiations and support of your representatives in the city council."

Huh?

Look at the press release about the smoking ban. In it you read some wild statements...

"... Health Department found that more than 400,000 New York City non-smoking workers - one out of every 7 workers - inhale second-hand smoke all or most of the time while on the job." If you extend this logic to the fact that about 20% of households contain a smoking person, one out of five households in New York are full of people breathing second-hand smoke. If you're going to protect people, wouldn't that be the best place to start? Oh, I forgot, you can't restrict what people do in the home. Oh, that's right, you can.

"More than two thirds of these workers are African American, Latino, or Asian ..." Let's make a racial issue out of everything.

"This law does not legislate morality." No? Is not smoking considered a "vice" - which would make it a moral law? There's a fine line between morality and public welfare.

"This law does not take away anyone's rights." Oh it certainly does - it takes away one person's rights (the smoker) in the name of public welfare for non-smokers.

"This law allows working people to earn a living in a safe workplace so they can provide for their families." Last I checked, no one was forced to work in an establishment that allowed smoking. Maybe it's me, but this isn't a socialist state where the government tells you where you have to work. If that's the case, and you don't want to work in a place where you will be subjected to second-hand smoke, you can take a job somewhere else.

Frankly, that last comment is the problem with this law.

This is easily an issue that could be resolved by market forces - something that worked for the past few hundred years of civilization. If an establishment wants to cater to people who don't want to be around smoke, they can be a "non-smoking" establishment. That will attract certain customers. Other establishments can remain "smoking," which will attract others. Each has a benefit and bane to a different market. People will frequent those places that they feel comfortable in. Some businesses will gain customers, some will lose, many will remain the same. Employees can choose to work for the establishment that doesn't allow smoking, or for the establishment that does. In this case, everyone wins, because everyone has a choice.

Sorry, I forgot. No one listens to me. Not even my elected representatives. They're too busy with special interests. I'm not one of them, because I'm a white middle class male heterosexual with ambivalent feelings towards second-hand smoke. There's nothing special about that. I don't count. There's too many of me to be special. I don't make headlines, because I'm the "old-school standard" - the oppressor, in some people's eyes. I contribute more to society than I get back, because I'm not looking for anything handed to me - if I need it I'll earn it. I'm the descendant of the "baby boom," who was the descendant of the "greatest generation." I'm not a "gen-x" because I know my identity. I'm in that forgotten land of people born around the time of the Vietnam War. I'm the "forgotten generation."

Despite the sound of this, I am not complaining - I'm stating facts.

I don't need to complain, because I have my dignity, my self-respect, and my identity. I sleep at night knowing there's no monkey over my head, knowing that my destiny is in my hands because of my efforts. I don't complain, I state facts; I make rational, logical arguments. I don't judge people; I don't persecute; I don't make racial issues - I see everyone the way they choose to be seen based on their efforts as people, their efforts to make themselves better (or worse), their efforts to carry the same level of self-respect and dignity that I have.

Isn't that a "special interest" to pay attention to?

NOW IS THAT ONE WHACKED-OUT FORM OF FREE ASSOCIATION OR WHAT?!?!?!

* - By the way those are the only "smoke while you drink" bar owners that found a loophole

** - The Amazing Mr. Wizard, ever coming to my rescue, has given me the correct percentage. I had initially thought it was something like 40%. I was wrong. He sent me an e-mail shortly after this publication stating the above Bloomberg logic.