:: Mayor Wilders’ recent initiative to “clean up” the city’s catalog of archaic, outdated, obtuse or redundant ordinances begins in earnest next Wednesday when he plans to unveil his self-authored C.O.M.B. (Consolidate Our Municipal Bylaws) Initiative. Among the ordinances targeted by the measure are a 1988 ban on prostitution services for pets, last year’s activist “pro-smoking” initiative, and a late 17th-century punishment which calls for “stabbing centrely amidst the fleshie organs” for anyone caught “dealyng with goods of a gypsie nature.”

:: In addition to police officers, emergency response and medical personnel, it is technically illegal in the city to pose as a practitioner of the following professions: Plumber, baker, cobbler, milliner, grocer, asphalt-mixer.

:: Number of local coyote attacks sparking the “Coyotes: This Summer’s Sharks?” three-day investigative series on Channel 8’s newscast next week: 0

:: The Woodbridge District of the city boasts more hair salons, Thai restaurants and British import shops than any other district in the city (124, 70 and 17 respectively).

:: Tourism in the city is down 15% over the same period last year. The Valley Regional Tourism Bureau attributes the decline to budget cuts, leading to a lack of presence for the city in print and internet advertising over the past few months.

:: Ten most common words found in print advertisements in local publications during March 2008:
1. Sale
2. Free
3. And
4. Discount
5. The
6. P.M.
7. A.M.
8. Pork
9. Credit
10. Rebate

:: The Interactive Orwell exhibit celebrates its fifteenth season this year at Agnew Community College’s Wonsley Blvd. campus. Popular with young children and preteens, the “Living Or-world” features an “Animal Farm Petting Zoo”, the “Oceanian Tele-Screen Playground” and “Ministry of Truth Big Brother Relay Race”. This weekend - June 25th, Orwell’s birthday. As always, with purchase of one child ticket, big brothers get in free.
- David Andrews, Shek Baker, Jon Morris, RJ White

Tableaux
The wait to get into star chef Marlon Picard’s latest venture has become legend in the city’s food circles, with the opening night having been booked a full nine months in advance of the room’s opening. Sadly, The City Desk’s staff has yet to actually dine there, but the gorgeous bar offered what could only be described as heaven in a martini glass with the Danny Tenaglia, one of six cocktails named after the superstar DJs that played the opening party. The guests leaving the dining room all had a smile on their face, so hopefully we’ll get to experience the offerings in full soon.
2983 9th, in the Flotilla Insurance Plaza | Reservations Required

Porky’s BBQ
Could this be the barbecue joint the city’s been desperate for since the closing of Jonesy’s? Sadly, no. The ribs were too dry, the brisket burned beyond recognition, and the barbecued chicken, a perennial favorite, had the consistency of gummi worms. Not even fantastic garlic-herb mashed potatoes and cornbread we’d strike our own mothers down for can save this mess.
987 Wagoneer Avenue | No Reservations

Chingy McChongerson’s
While the name may be cringe-inducing, the fare at this Irish-Chinese fusion joint surprisingly exceeds all of our culinary expectations. The first impulse is to scoff at menu items such as the appetizer featuring egg rolls and a Guinness reduction sauce, but executive chef Seamus Wang (no, really!) wins guests over quickly with high-quality, playful fare. Recommended: The heart-attack-inducing Kung Pao Beef Stew and General Gau’s Fish and Chips. Skip: The desserts. Instead, go next door to Eskimo Pete’s and partake of his new Mexican Hot Chocolate sundae.
18th and Myerson | No Reservations
- Kevin Church

May 1940- Winning float in the 1940 Memorial Day parade, Manufacturer’s Division. The Samson Aeronautical Manufacturing Company’s entry, featuring a scale model of a “Personal Helio-copter.” Local aerospace magnate Lemuel Samson (he of the tiny homes of Samson Heights) would eventually let his obsession with this mode of transport ruin his company and deplete his fortune.

It is thought that his experience riding in the model along the parade route that day was the beginning of the end for the Samson Aero. Mfg. Ltd. some fifteen years later.
- RJ White

Original Photo: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Theodor Horydczak Collection

Over The City Desk’s brief hiatus-

:: No city officials were indicted or arrested.

:: William Atherton withdrew from the mayoral race, rightfully citing it as “gimmicky.”

:: Eleven people were murdered- eight shootings, two stabbings and one vehicular homicide (pending).

:: Three City-Suburban Transit Authority (CSTA) drivers received medals at a national “Bus Rodeo.”

:: The Subway restaurant on Archer Avenue reopened, with inexplicably fancy cafe’ seating.

:: The Mighty Elms have thus far posted a winning record in the season’s first week and a half.

:: A 45-year-old man was crushed by 300 pounds of falling lumber at the grand opening of the Lowe’s on Northside Boulevard.

:: Countless of the city’s residents have fallen in/out of love.

:: Time continued its inexorable march forward.

:: I watched a lot of Arrested Development.

How have you been?
- RJ White

Due to outside matters and a complete and utter lack of content, The City Desk will be taking a short break. In the meantime, here are some pieces you may have missed the first time around:

Save the Legacy Diner (Maybe)
In which Shek Baker weaves a tale of historical preservation that may or may not be warranted.

Stuff Sullivan’s “Cylinder of Dominance”
In which Craig Gaines tells the tragic tale of a local car salesman’s bid to control everything he sees.

The tiny homes of Samson Heights
In which RJ White explores the origins of a persistent urban legend.

When the Moving Pictures Came to Town
In which Matt Vermeulen tells of the city’s bid to be come the film-making mecca of the East Coast long, long ago.

The City’s Letters to Santa
Leonard Pierce’s history of a newspaper’s policy of publishing any letter addressed to Santa, no matter what. Also, the first reference to Lettrism on The City Desk.

What a Character!: Monsieur LeSteak
In which Jon Morris introduces us to another of the city’s retired advertising mascots. This time, a slab of meat that likes to stab itself.

Some Items About Our City Flag
In this very clearly-titled piece, David Andrews introduces us to some facts (items, if you will) about our city flag.

Even more can be found in browsing our archives to the right, by category, date or Google search. Or, we would also suggest that you perhaps browse some of the fine sites linked on the left. We will (hopefully) be returning soon. Thank you.

A brief parody of the film, directed by City Desk contributor Stephen Levinson:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQE045CkDpY]

The unfortunate situation with New York’s Governor Eliot Spitzer has reminded some of a similar controversy which rocked our city in the early 80s. Popular Republican state Representative Karl Montgomery was elected to the mayor’s office in 1980 and had a relatively low-key, yet effective, first year in office. Then, in February of 1982, he suddenly resigned for no apparent reason, at what has come to be known in local political and journalistic circles as The Lunch.

On February 2, Montgomery was scheduled to give a speech at the annual membership luncheon for the Pinion Club, an organization for city business leaders. This had been a yearly tradition for the twenty-seven years of the club’s existence and pretty much ran to the same routine every single time- mayor comes up, talks about the importance of business and commerce, tells a few good-natured jokes, maybe mentions some new policy initiative, serve dessert, end of luncheon. On this day, however, Montgomery took the podium, gripped it nervously and began his planned speech. After the first few sentences, he started railing about the “jackals of the press amongst us,” “certain moral lapses” and, almost tearfully, said that he hoped it would not come to his having to leave office, but he would if the people called for it. After an awkward pause, he mumbled a quick thanks, then hurried out of the Pinion Club’s Oak Room with his entourage of confused and shocked-looking aides.

The “jackal of the press” to whom Montgomery referred in the room at the time was an intern for the Journal-American, student Ken Marsh (now editorial page editor at the News). With the regularity of little-to-no news coming from the luncheon year after year, no editors thought the event to be worth covering with real reporters. The other news outlets in town hadn’t even bothered sending anyone (though Clarion-Standard publisher and lunch attendee Stanton Crawes could be seen frantically screaming into one of the Pinion’s house phones minutes later). Suddenly, Marsh had one of the biggest scoops in decades. He called it into the Journal-American immediately, where the news brought the room to a stop, momentarily, as no one had any idea why Montgomery would do such a thing. Immediately, though, the newsroom spun into action, sources being called across the city, but still- nobody had any idea. The Mayor’s own press people seemed a bit taken aback when called for comment- even they hadn’t even heard the news yet.

As the reports started making their way to local radio that afternoon, Montgomery’s office finally issued its first statement- that all reports were mistaken, that the Mayor had said no such thing about a possible resignation. Except for the fact that 133 of the city’s business leaders, their guests and a newspaper intern with a tape recorder could attest otherwise, as they had witnessed the whole thing with shock and alarm. As it turned out, however, not every person in attendance was shocked.

One of those prominent businessmen knew exactly what had prompted Montgomery’s outburst- Garrison Webster, the president of SaniServices, Ltd. Eight months before, the company had been awarded an extremely lucrative multi-year janitorial contract for the city’s facilities and Webster had personally seen to it that the Mayor was thanked in a Special Manner. A Special Manner involving certain ladies. Repeatedly. So, as soon as Montgomery started getting very nervous, Webster knew what was coming, as the Mayor had called him that very morning, nervous because he’d received several phone messages from a reporter asking about “cleaning services contracts” and “the girls.” When hizzoner saw the intern sitting at table number 9, scribbling in a reporter’s notebook, he assumed the worst and months of guilt came bubbling to the surface.

The messages had actually been from a reporter for the News, working on a story about health benefits for the city’s low-income residents and was asking for comment about the lack of coverage for the city’s (largely female) janitorial staffers. No one was anywhere near any sort of story about a major city contractor paying for the mayor to sleep with prostitutes. By the following day, as cracks formed in walls of silence, deep sources spoke and pieces began to fit together, the city’s media outlets had everything they needed. The fact that he had, in his first year in office, called for a stiff crackdown on vice in the city did not help matters much. The word “ironic” was used heavily in press coverage. The major difference between Montgomery and Spitzer seems to be that people actually seemed to feel a bit sorry for the disgraced Mayor, as he likely could have continued to get away with it, as so many had before him.

On April 15, 1982, Mayor Karl Montgomery formally stepped down, replaced by Mayor pro tem Hatcher Yardling III, who shot someone later that year.
- RJ White

June 1912- A crew of county and city surveyors poses in at lot at 870 S. Harner Street, which would have been the exact geographical center of the city after the proposed Annexation of 1913. After a bitter battle (both physically and legally) with two of the eleven townships and villages to be subsumed into the city, the exact center of the city ended up being 1,053 yards southeast of this spot, where a brass marker, installed in 1916, is embedded in the sidewalk.

In the intervening several decades, the center of the city has shifted and is now in the middle of a ParkSafe lot on Shannon Boulevard. There is no brass marker.
- RJ White

A misunderstanding over the attempted coining of a new phrase has resulted in an unlikely friendship between two groups of the City’s workforce.

When Tomas Babushkin announced the opening of WorkSHOP, his new “wiki-place” where freelance information professionals can rent cubicles, collaborate on projects, and drink complimentary espresso and yerba mate, he foresaw a clientele dressed in open-collar Prada shirts and Chip & Pepper jeans. What he didn’t expect were strong, silent types in flannel shirts and Carharts.

But WorkSHOP’s unexpected diverse clientele now includes many of the migrant workers drawn to the City in hopes of finding landscaping, construction, or agricultural work. Babushkin is still trying to adapt to this mixture of open-source and open-borders, but the “rock-ribbed entrepreneur” is thrilled to have the opportunity. “I guess I brought this situation onto myself,” said the former chief interaction architect for social-networking site MishMash. “But it is what it is, and I’m committed to serving all my customers, whether they’re running from corporate careers or ICE.”

It all started during Babushkin’s media blitz to draw attention to WorkSHOP. He was looking to advertise his services but also cultivate an image of the nebulous group of writers, artists, and consultants who work for themselves. Babushkin thought “freelancer” was overused and didn’t fully capture the spirit of the people he was trying to serve.

So during an interview with Journal-Clarion, Babushkin said, “Don’t mistake [freelancers’] casual dress for a poor work ethic: These people will toil for their paychecks. I like to call them new-economy day laborers.” Babushkin was so pleased with the phrase that it became WorkSHOP’s slogan: “Home office for the new-economy day laborer.”

And that’s where the confusion began. WorkSHOP ads used the slogan, and promised free services, including free international calls, for its first week. When WorkSHOP opened for business three weeks ago, Babushkin greeted a stream of white-collar freelancers — and migrant laborers from Mexico and Central America. While the freelancers booted up their laptops, the laborers rushed to the VoIP phones and began making free calls to their families down south.

“I took a bath on those phone charges for the first week, but how could I resist?” Babushkin says. “These men hadn’t had long phone conversations with their families in weeks, months — one guy even a year — and it was so great that they could do this. More than one of them openly cried.”

The free international calls ended two weeks ago, but the migrants have become comfortable with WorkSHOP, and Babushkin has become fond of them. Just as he predicted, various collaborative efforts have arisen between the freelancers and the migrants:

• Freelance TV producer Seth Cohn is working with a group of migrants on a reality show, tentatively titled Meet the Migrants. “The biggest obstacle is obviously protecting their identities, so these guys don’t get any interference from la migra, but I’m confident we can find a solution,” Cohn says.
• Independent political pollster Maggie McBride is conducting a long-term study of the migrants’ political beliefs. “I’ve been surprised by my findings so far — they think Congress’s stimulus package is a rash quick-fix to a complex problem, they support reinstituting the draft, and they’re surprisingly libertarian. Almost all of them would have voted for Ron Paul if he weren’t such an extremist on immigration.”
• Many of the freelancers are now proud owners of beautifully hedged lawns and sturdy, pressure-treated patio decks. One is even having an addition built for a home office in place of his WorkSHOP cubicle.

Babushkin, ever the communicator, has held a series of themed discussions designed to share knowledge between the freelancers and migrants. There was an uncomfortable moment when a freelancer asked a migrant panel about differentiating himself from his competition, and laborer Hector Gamez answered, “You must work very hard.” The freelancer, assuming Gamez’s simple answer was because of a weak grasp of English, tried to elaborate on his question in a raised voice before the laborer cut him off. “No, man, I’ve been speaking English since I was 3 years old. You just have to work really hard.” A confused debate ensued for the next 20 minutes before Babushkin said everyone was just going to have to agree to disagree on that point.

While no freelancers have traded their BlackBerrys for Black & Deckers, there are signs the migrants might be rethinking their career paths. Fortunato Umaña, a 23-year-old Salvadoran, says he’s through with landscaping. “I was talking to that programmer guy with the red hair, Brian, recently in the Idea Lounge and he was talking about how it hit him one day that he was sick of working for a corporation. When he started talking about how his manager just took all the credit for his work, I went, ‘Exactly! Why am I working 13 hours a day cutting and edging and leaf blowing and getting zero credit? I need to stop breaking my back and start using my brain.’ That’s when I decided to really make a go of it and become a landscaping consultant.”

Umaña then excused himself. “I need to go talk to one of the designers about my logo.”
—Craig Gaines and Ilya Perchikovsky

The Further Adventures of Li’l Bruce Wayne [The Invincible Super Blog]

Often disregarded as part of any continuity, Li’l Bruce Wayne was a long-running series of light-hearted comic books aimed at children, detailing the life of a young, fantastically wealthy Bruce Wayne (known in the series as “The Happiest Kid On Earth”) in the years before the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne and his subsequent transformation into Batman

The series was originally created by Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson to fill a gap in DC’s publishing schedule after the cancellation of More Fun Comics in 1946, and ran through the majority of the Silver Age despite being regarded by editors and fans alike as being “extremely depressing” [citation needed] and is usually left out of any discussion of the character. It is notable, however, as being the first published comic book work of writer/artist Frank Miller.

Of course, there are covers and details at the link.