Posts Tagged → parking
Men – you need The Clothier in Williamsport
I am not a fancy clothes guy. Most of my time is spent in work boots, hiking boots, cargo pants, and a short sleeved button down shirt. Yeah yeah, I have some dress up clothes that are high quality, but as I age, they become less and less important. They were probably very high quality twenty or thirty years ago, anyhow. They also don’t really fit well now. Somehow those nice clothes shrank. So, my go-to dress-up kit now is a pair of khakis and a navy blue blazer, nice button down shirt, no tie. This informal-formal outfit has enabled me to properly and respectfully mix and mingle with all kinds of wonderful people at big birthday parties, religious events, weddings, etc you name it.
However, the onset of a pending family wedding prompted me to take another look at my fading wardrobe. What I saw I did not like, and no matter how many ways I tried to mix and match this and that, nothing looked right. For example, skinny pants flood jeans look good on gay millennials and straight millennials trying to look gay, but they made me look like New Jersey governor Chris Christie, which is not a look I want, either in office or on my carcass. So, when you are like me and nothing you own and wear passes muster for a serious, dressy event, you must turn to “The Experts.”
And who, you ask, is an expert in the field of dressing guys, including fifty-something guys with a tub o’ lard around the midsection and the shade of the former tough guy athletic build they had twenty years ago? After contemplating this question, it dawned on me that the billboards around Williamsport, PA, probably meant what they said: Experts in men’s clothing reside at The Clothier. And so, following up on this weeks-long deductive reasoning episode, I looked up the number and called The Clothier.
In a nutshell, what I experienced from the first phone call to them to the moment I walked out their door laden down with all kinds of beautiful high quality clothing was like taking a time warp machine back to 1950s Italy or America or London. Matthew and his dad Francis at The Clothier are serious about Best Quality clothing, shoes, belts, you name it, and they want you to look your very best. If a guy wants the absolute best clothing, the most beautiful clothing, the nicest of everything, trust me on this recommendation, you need to pay a visit to The Clothier on 4th Street in Williamsport, PA. They have an astronomical amount of gorgeous clothing from around the world, including Trask shoes, which unbelievably are not made in my duck foot XXXL Man 13 EE size, dammit. They also have the experienced men to help you arrive at your very best public persona.
Now, a word to the wise. Do not enter into this beautiful den of manliness, filled with its rare and beautiful items, enjoy the luxury of being fitted to a tee with the best clothing you can afford to wear, and then expect to have an Amazon price at the end. No way. The Clothier is at the very other end of the quality spectrum from Amazon. When you go to Matthew and Francis to be outfitted for your own wedding, your kid’s wedding, your nonbinary dog’s third official Los Angeles tripartate polyamorous affair wedding, a big party, whatever, you are receiving the very best service, knowledgeable care, and detailed personal attention to your appearance that a man can receive on Planet Earth. They measure every limb and foot and hip and chest with a tape measure, they ask how you want to look, how you want the fabric to fit your body. Yes, you can get good quality, nice looking clothes for a good price at The Clothier, but do not cheap out or try to hondle these good people if you ask for the best they have. They will make your fat, ugly ass look unbelievable; at least they made mine look presentable. And they deserve everything they charge for that service.
Women have makeovers, and some years ago there was that funny “Queer Eye for The Straight Guy” TV show. Well, father and son Matthew and Francis are not gay, but they have all of the skills that an old world tailor and the talented gay guys had up until Western Civilization took a plunge into everyone either wearing nothing at all or crappy Chinese plastic clothes. They can and will get you looking amazing, if you give them a chance.
I was incredulous, like slack jawed, as I looked around their enormous store. “What on earth are you doing here in Williamsport, Francis?” I asked.
“I mean, you have enough beautiful clothing here to outfit each person in Williamsport daily for a month.”
To which the kindly elder tailor responded “You know what? Seventy percent of my business comes from out of state. Not just out of town, but out of state. Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia. Men who want the very best look they can afford come here. And then they come back for the rest of their lives.”
If you are a guy in search of Best Quality clothing, formal or informal, shoes, belt, hat, coat, suit, socks, boxers, and you want help assembling everything into an amazing presentation, then you are not helping yourself until you call The Clothier: (570) 322-5707.
They have parking in the rear of their store at 138 4th Street, Williamsport, PA. And yes, Williamsport has meter people running up and down the street issuing tickets for unpaid meters. The back door parking is a big plus, and believe me, you will need the extra time to really shop. There is almost nothing like this place left in America, anywhere. The visit alone is worth the drive.
New York City is dangerous and dirty
In the past three years I have had the unhappy necessity of visiting Manhattan a number of times for business and family. Last June was the last time I went, and hopefully the last time I have to be there until the place is cleaned up from top to bottom.
Last June I took the pickup to move our daughter out. She lived in New York City for eight years, from undergrad through dental school, and until the last couple of years she enjoyed her experience tremendously. But when we had loaded the last of her things into the bed of the truck, she got into the cab and said “I can’t wait to leave Manhattan. It’s so sad, because I used to love this place. But now it is dangerous and dirty and I want out. Let’s go.”
Manhattan is now looking like its worst days back in the 1970s and 1980s before Rudy Giuliani was elected mayor. Trash is blowing around everywhere, thugs hang out and loiter and saunter along every street and park bench, homeless bums are living in the parks and on building steps. People are being attacked on the sidewalks by demented mental patients prematurely released before their treatments are completed. People exit a restaurant and are immediately punched, kicked, and robbed by young people who laugh about it.
The police do nothing about this dangerous chaos because the Manhattan district attorney believes that holding criminals accountable for their violence and destruction is somehow mean, or wrong. And so the criminals now rule the streets, as an official policy.
The old Diamond District on 47th Street is a shell of its former self. A thousand years of jewelry making and watch making and world class talent all concentrated into one city block is now gone, because some communist in power decided that all this material excess violated some notion of “equity,” and so the jewelers and watchmakers were driven out. It is a sad ghost town now.
An old friend of mine who lives in Manhattan complained about how her own restaurants, which her architect husband had designed, and into which she had invested great amounts of time and money, were torched and looted in the riots of 2020. When I asked her if this destruction was a result of political failure, she went straight to blaming the Bad Orange Man. Who does not live in NYC, was not on city council or mayor of said city, and who had no control over the policing of Manhattan’s streets. It is impossible for me to understand the mental state of a person who appears sane but who reflexively blames their own mistakes on someone hundreds of miles away with no involvement in the matters that have made said person so unhappy.
So long as the citizens of New York City continue to believe they can vote for self-destructive policies and for the political candidates who promote them, and yet expect a different outcome than the mess we see, then Manhattan will continue to descend into madness and filth.
Making matters worse, the prior administration of mayor “Bill DeBlasio” (this is his fictitious name), had embarked on one of those “It only makes sense on paper and in terms of vague feelings” massive landscape changes. Such as turning streetside parking all over the city into un-used bike-only lanes and on-street dining for restaurants. Even going so far as to fill in empty spaces where people used to park with gigantic flower pots and concrete containers. Anything to make NYC unfriendly to car drivers.
This makes no sense, because Americans in general and visitors to New York City in particular still drive cars. But such is the power of blind ideology: “Because all cars are bad, then places to park cars must also be bad.” This is crazy stuff, and it has resulted in a congested city being even more congested, even less user friendly and less accessible than it used to be. Which was difficult enough. If this gigantic failure is how you measure success, then further natural failures will continue to follow. As we see even right now today, failure is considered success in Manhattan.
I am glad I do not live there and don’t have to go there.
The concrete planters need a place to park where cars should be able to park. Because “cars are bad”
Median areas that used to offer car parking and delivery vehicle offloading are now clogged with concrete in order to stop “bad cars”
Rental bikes lined up in the most expensive and colorful virtue signal possible. No one uses these. But someone somewhere feels good about the symbolism
An empty and unused bike lane where cars used to park. Cars still need parking spaces, but don’t expect to find them in Manhattan, where virtue signaling is most important
Go ahead and make sense of NYC’s parking regulations. Try.
Restaurants have fully enclosed “outdoor” dining in the street, where cars used to drive and park. The cars still need to drive and park. Just more congestion and more exhaust fumes trying to navigate all the pointless virtue signaling
Riverdance 25th Anniversary Show A+
Last night the Princess of Patience and I drove to Reading, PA, to watch the 25th anniversary show of the much celebrated Riverdance show that took western countries by storm 25 years ago. We enjoyed the show very much, especially the tap dancing part, which is the height of dancing talent.
The venue was the historic “Rajah” theater, now the Santander Performing Arts Center, in downtown Reading, Pennsylvania. The theater’s interior is nicely artistic and harkens to an earlier time in American history, when design and materials were stone, stained glass, crafted metalwork, and did not include ubiquitous bright neon and loads of plastic. Parking was abundant, whether on the street or in lots or in nearby parking garages.
Comfortably parking my fat butt in one of the old seats was another matter, and I tried to joke with the tall lady to my right whose elbow kept bumping into my arm. Or maybe my arm kept bumping into her elbow, with the result that each of us watched the show with one arm stretched across our chest to avoid discomfiting the other person. Point being that these are smaller seats and could use a few inches added to either side to comfortably accommodate larger, wider, broader bodied people. If you are pint-sized like the Princess of Patience, then you will be more than just fine. The venue was clean, tidy, well maintained, and had no weird old smells.*
Riverdance is fundamentally about Irish tapdance, or at least it was 25 years ago. Back then people commented that this kind of tap dancing was not really culturally Irish per se, but the fact is that it is its own thing and the people doing it and promoting it are mostly Irish dancing to lots of Irish music. So I call it Irish tap dance, and it is a lot of fun to watch. Beyond the outstanding tap dancing abilities of the individual performers, the audience is also entertained by the choreography and the perfectly executed timing of the performers as a troupe. Add in some Celtic-themed music, with Irish musical instruments like the Uillean pipes and drums, some traditional Irish style clothing, some songs sung in Gaelic, and you have the entire package. Excellent light show and dry ice fog for effect.
My favorite performance was the eight men executing some sort of intensely high energy quasi military exercise, with yelled commands from one to another. It was so perfectly timed and crisply done that the audience roared when they finished. Wow. Impressive!
My least favorite (as there is bound to be in almost every kind of theatrical performance) scenes are the singing. Because of the sound system, I can never tell if this is piped in and mouthed by the performers, or is, in fact, their own world class singing voices. I have my suspicions. The sole acoustical instrument scene was outstanding, but again, like the singing, sometimes it is hard to believe that the world-class fiddling is being done by the leaping nymph in front of me, and that it is not being piped in. No question that the percussion guy is incredibly talented. One request: Someone at some point in the show should wear some woad on his face, like Michael Flatley occasionally did. Show some true Celtic pride.
Probably the most entertaining dance routine was near the end of the show, when the backdrop (digital screen, as is standard now on stages almost everywhere) switched from the Emerald Isle countryside to a Downtown-to-Brooklyn B Train station and Manhattan cityscape, with a Hispanic guy and a black guy each doing their own ethnic styles of tap dance. Then the Irish guys enter in a mock-up of the old West Side Story confrontation, and the two groups have a series of dance-offs against each other using their different styles. And then of course they dance together. Lots of performer humor and mugging for the audience, as well as amazing dance, and the audience enjoyed it a lot.
I counted about thirty dancing performers and six musicians last night, and both the Princess of Patience and I felt like we had experienced a full evening of high talent entertainment. During intermission a bunch of little girls who had come to watch the show did their best Irish tap dance in one of the aisles, to lots of praise and cheering by the audience. And naturally, the entire audience was a sea of shades of green and various family green plaids and the famous Black Watch plaid, including tartan caps, shirts, coats, a kilt and sporran, and more than a few shilleileighs.
Riverdance 25th Anniversary Show is an A+ fun and impressive night out for anyone and any family. You will leave feeling energized and positive. When we first saw Riverdance decades ago, it was a kind of “If you weren’t Irish when you showed up, you will feel Irish when you leave at the end” experience. The updated version is truly a representation of America 2023, with plenty of Ireland’s best along with “culturally updated” themes that are fun.
*A note about the Santander Performing Arts Center: Like almost every other performing arts center I can think of, Santander Performing Arts Center does not allow its patrons to carry any defensive weapons on its premises. This means that patrons must disarm before entering the building, and then we exit into downtown Reading at night unarmed and vulnerable. Downtown Reading, PA, is not a safe place. The streets are dirty, trash is blowing around everywhere, and there are aimless or homeless people walking around, standing around, everywhere. When we entered this venue, we had to go through metal detectors carrying our keys and cell phones with our hands held high as if we were being detained by law enforcement. It is a humiliating experience. When I broached the idea to a security guard at the entrance of having lock boxes available inside the foyer to concealed carry people, he responded “That is an excellent suggestion, but it is never going to happen. With the current management never, it will never happen, I am sorry to say.” Which raises the questions of why these performing arts venues do this, and what responsibility do they have if you are mugged or beaten while approaching their building or after exiting it. Do they really have our safety at heart, if they disarm us and then turn us loose vulnerable on the city streets at night? I do not like being disarmed, especially when I do not see realistic alternatives being provided by the hosting venues.
Intermission time, showing some kids tap dancing in the aisle, and showing some of the theater’s old crafted ornamentation
Ceiling of the old “Rajah” now the Santander Performing Arts Center
When performers ask the audience not to record them, I do as they ask. So the best I can show is the empty stage with the show logo. Several extra rows of chairs up front were added to accommodate the audience.
Harrisburg’s new parking scam
Today I parked in a Harrisburg municipal garage. Got my ticket when I entered, and tried to pay when I returned four hours later.
Several poorly written, hand-written notes on lined paper were taped to the payment kiosk. These notes said that the kiosk was now taking only exact payment, that no refunds were being given, that inserting your credit card to pay could result in the permanent loss of your card, and that receipts slips were not printing.
In other words, you might mistakenly over-pay, because few people carry exact cash for anything, the machine would not give you a receipt for proof that you had overpaid, and you’d get no change back. What happens if you are in a rush to exit the garage and get on your way to your next destination? You might just leave a few extra bucks behind to save the time…no doubt that’s part of the purpose.
And we are not talking about nickels and dimes, but dollars only. It cost sixteen bucks to park in the garage for the four hours I was up at the Capitol. That is four dollars an hour, or four quarters for fifteen minutes of parking time (as opposed to one quarter for ten or fifteen minutes like it was until last year). It is a huge amount of money for parking.
And on top of the rip-off parking price, you get zero service, theft of your change due back, and no receipt to prove you did indeed pay.
Harrisburg has some serious challenges, and this parking scam is going to make recovery worse. One of the ways the city is supposed to re-coup its bad debt on the incinerator is lease out the parking garages. Well, here ya go; here is the natural result of that leasing arrangement: All rip-off, no service, outrageous prices, no due process. Really hope the “geniuses” who thought this up are held accountable for this failure.
Wait a minute! The guys who ripped us all off with the incinerator debt never got held accountable, and now we have a whole new set of rip-off guys milking us in new ways. I guess it just doesn’t end, until every taxpayer will have moved from the city and abandoned the place to the crows and the weasels.
Harrisburg’s descent marked by stupid stuff
Harrisburg City now charges cars at over-time meters $30.00, and $50.00 if you don’t respond within four days.
It’s an egregious amount of money to pay for a stupid meter violation.
Four days is hardly enough time in this day and age to do anything. If you’ve got a job, kids, and volunteer work, the ticket either lays on your car seat for two days or sits on your kitchen desk for a week before you get to it. That’s normal. Now, Harrisburg City is engaging in predatory behavior.
Remind me to avoid meetings downtown, and to invite people to meetings away from the city, where parking is not a predatory scheme to rip off citizens so rip-off artists can stay out of jail.
That’s what this is about: Making money to cover costs that were incurred through the incinerator scandal.
Good luck with rebuilding our beloved city by chasing away the people you need.