Two news stories today make us fear that the entire city traveled back in time over the weekend and ended up in the middle of the 1990s. Radical!
First comes reports from the Daily News that the squeegee men, scourge of Times Square drivers in decades past, have resurrected the noble art of cleaning windshields of cars while making people in them feel a little uncomfortable. Why? As with everything else, it’s because of the recession:
“We are out here making a living,” said James, a father of three. “It’s hard to get a job,” he added as he hustled from car to car, accepting $1 to $2 for his work.
… Sheila, 38, said her husband was slinging a squeegee because it’s better than selling drugs.
“I have uterus cancer. He’s here because welfare and Medicaid don’t cover everything,” she said. “He doesn’t come here every day. But he needs to get extra money.”
This is sad stuff, and a reminder that America’s economic “recovery” hasn’t reached the vast majority of its citizens. But luckily, there is happy news! For just a few hours’ pay, we can lose ourselves in the cinematic memories of yesteryear, when the world was bright and optimistic and all of us just couldn’t wait to grow up to be kings. From the L.A. Times:
“The Lion King” reigned supreme at the box office this weekend, nearly two decades after the classic animated movie was first released in theaters.
A 3-D version of the 1994 family film began its limited, two-week engagement this weekend and collected a surprisingly strong $29.3 million domestically, according to an estimate from Walt Disney Pictures.
Clearly we have traveled back in time to the middle of the ’90s. It’s not so bad there. Crime is worse, but music is better. Plus there are no blogs. Let’s get used to our new surroundings:
Seinfeld – The Race – Ending by dhamby86
The Real World (Season 1) from Hoosick Falls Productions on Vimeo.
