By ULA ILNYTZKY, Associated Press Writer Ula Ilnytzky, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 22 mins ago .
NEW YORK – Andy Kessler, a trailblazer during New York City‘s nascent 1970s skateboarding scene and a designer of skate parks who was admired by boarders on both coasts, died Monday. He was 48. .
Kessler died after suffering a heart attack following an allergic reaction to a wasp sting, Moose Huerta, a close friend and fellow skateboarder, said Thursday. .
He was dismantling old wood on a shack in Montauk, Long Island, when he was stung, said Tony Farmer, a skateboarding friend and West Coast native who now lives in Brooklyn. .
Kessler got his start in the 1970s with a loose-knit group of skateboarders and graffiti artists known as the Soul Artists of Zoo York. They skated all over Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where Kessler lived. Central Park’s Bandshell was a favorite spot. .
In the 1990s, Kessler persuaded the city’s Parks Department to build a skateboard facility in Riverside Park. He went on to design other skate parks in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Montauk. .
Huerta said Kessler also developed a zeal for surfing in the past decade. .
“The two groups are completely different from each other,” he said. “But the level of friends, and how he transcended age and demographics with the people he touched, was amazing.” .
Kessler had no health insurance in 2005 when he took a spill on his board and dislocated his femur. When he was unable to pay a $51,000 medical bill, several dozen surfers, skaters and artists — Julian Schnabel, Mickey Eskimo, Zephyr and Wes Humpston reportedly among them — helped raise the money with a benefit party, Farmer said. .
When he healed from the injury, he hopped back on his board, Farmer said. .
“Flowing through traffic, timing lights, shooting reds, dodging pedestrians … dude just had the streets so wired,” Farmer said. “Suffice to say, he was an amazing cat.” .
Huerta, who was too young to have skated with Kessler during the early days, said the sport started as “a counterculture activity” but never carried the cache that California skateboarding did. But Kessler didn’t care. .
“He did it out of love,” he said. “He didn’t receive anything out of it. It spoke to him.” .
In 2008, Kessler was featured in a documentary, “From Deathbowl to Downtown: The Evolution of Skateboarding in New York.” The producers, NCP Films, described it as “an anthropological overview of skating’s epochal shift from the parks and pools of the 70′s, to ramp skating in the 80′s, to the street ascendancy of the 1990′s as seen from a New York-centric perspective. .
It is scheduled for international release on DVD on Sept. 15. .
In addition to his love for the sport, Huerta said Kessler’s first big success was orchestrating the building of the city’s first skate park, near the Hudson River. At the time of his death, he was trying to update the Montauk skate park he had designed about a decade earlier, Huerta said. .
On Friday evening, surfers planned to paddle out together and circle around Ditch Plains Beach in Montauk in remembrance of Kessler, Huerta said. Friends also planned a get-together Saturday at the Autumn Bowl, a semiprivate warehouse facility in Brooklyn that was one of Kessler’s favorite hangouts. .
Kessler’s burial is scheduled for Sunday at Cedar Park Cemetery in Paramus, N.J.
Les Paul, who invented the solid-body electric guitar later wielded by a legion of rock ‘n’ roll greats, died Thursday of complications from pneumonia. He was 94.According to Gibson Guitar, Paul died at White Plains Hospital. His family and friends were by his side.
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As an inventor, Paul also helped bring about the rise of rock ‘n’ roll with multitrack recording, which enables artists to record different instruments at different times, sing harmony with themselves, and then carefully balance the tracks in the finished recording.
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The use of electric guitar gained popularity in the mid-to-late 1940s, and then exploded with the advent of rock in the mid-’50s.
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“Suddenly, it was recognized that power was a very important part of music,” Paul once said. “To have the dynamics, to have the way of expressing yourself beyond the normal limits of an unamplified instrument, was incredible. Today a guy wouldn’t think of singing a song on a stage without a microphone and a sound system.”
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A tinkerer and musician since childhood, he experimented with guitar amplification for years before coming up in 1941 with what he called “The Log,” a four-by-four piece of wood strung with steel strings.
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“I went into a nightclub and played it. Of course, everybody had me labeled as a nut.” He later put the wooden wings onto the body to give it a tradition guitar shape.
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In 1952, Gibson Guitars began production on the Les Paul guitar.
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Pete Townsend of the Who, Steve Howe of Yes, jazz great Al DiMeola and Led Zeppelin‘s Jimmy Page all made the Gibson Les Paul their trademark six-string.
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Over the years, the Les Paul series has become one of the most widely used guitars in the music industry. In 2005, Christie’s auction house sold a 1955 Gibson Les Paul for $45,600.
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In the late 1960s, Paul retired from music to concentrate on his inventions. His interest in country music was rekindled in the mid-’70s and he teamed up with Chet Atkins for two albums. The duo were awarded a Grammy for best country instrumental performance of 1976 for their “Chester and Lester” album.
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With Mary Ford, his wife from 1949 to 1962, he earned 36 gold records for hits including “Vaya Con Dios” and “How High the Moon,” which both hit No. 1. Many of their songs used overdubbing techniques that Paul had helped develop.
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“I could take my Mary and make her three, six, nine, 12, as many voices as I wished,” he recalled. “This is quite an asset.” The overdubbing technique was highly influential on later recording artists such as the Carpenters.
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Released in 2005, “Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played” was his first album of new material since those 1970s recordings. Among those playing with him: Peter Frampton, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Richie Sambora.
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“They’re not only my friends, but they’re great players,” Paul told The Associated Press. “I never stop being amazed by all the different ways of playing the guitar and making it deliver a message.”
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Two cuts from the album won Grammys, “Caravan” for best pop instrumental performance and “69 Freedom Special” for best rock instrumental performance. (He had also been awarded a technical Grammy in 2001.)
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Paul was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005.
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Paul was born Lester William Polfus, in Waukseha, Wis., on June 9, 1915. He began his career as a musician, billing himself as Red Hot Red or Rhubarb Red. He toured with the popular Chicago band Rube Tronson and His Texas Cowboys and led the house band on WJJD radio in Chicago.
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In the mid-1930s he joined Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians and soon moved to New York to form the Les Paul Trio, with Jim Atkins and bassist Ernie Newton.
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Meanwhile, he had made his first attempt at audio amplification at age 13. Unhappy with the amount of volume produced by his acoustic guitar, Paul tried placing a telephone receiver under the strings. Although this worked to some extent, only two strings were amplified and the volume level was still too low.
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By placing a phonograph needle in the guitar, all six strings were amplified, which proved to be much louder. Paul was playing a working prototype of the electric guitar in 1929.
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His work on taping techniques began in the years after World War II, when Bing Crosby gave him a tape recorder. Drawing on his earlier experimentation with his homemade record-cutting machines, Paul added an additional playback head to the recorder. The result was a delayed effect that became known as tape echo.
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Tape echo gave the recording a more “live” feel and enabled the user to simulate different playing environments.
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Paul’s next “crazy idea” was to stack together eight mono tape machines and send their outputs to one piece of tape, stacking the recording heads on top of each other. The resulting machine served as the forerunner to today’s multitrack recorders.
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In 1954, Paul commissioned Ampex to build the first eight-track tape recorder, later known as “Sel-Sync,” in which a recording head could simultaneously record a new track and play back previous ones.
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He had met Ford, then known as Colleen Summers, in the 1940s while working as a studio musician in Los Angeles. For seven years in the 1950s, Paul and Ford broadcast a TV show from their home in Mahwah, N.J. Ford died in 1977, 15 years after they divorced.
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In recent years, even after his illness in early 2006, Paul played Monday nights at New York night spots. Such stars as Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, Dire Straits‘ Mark Knopfler, Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Van Halen came to pay tribute and sit in with him.
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“It’s where we were the happiest, in a `joint,’” he said in a 2000 interview with the AP. “It was not being on top. The fun was getting there, not staying there — that’s hard work.”
NEWARK — A New Jersey assemblyman and the mayors of Hoboken and Secaucus were among public officials arrested this morning by FBI agents in an international money laundering and corruption probe that includes rabbis in the Syrian Jewish communities of Deal and Brooklyn.
Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt (R-Ocean), Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell and Jersey City Council President Mariano Vega are among those already brought to the FBI building in Newark. Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini has also been arrested.
Robert Scrianno/The Star-LedgerHoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano is one of many people brought to FBI Headquarters in Newark after an being taken into custody early this morning.
A total of 30 people have been taken into custody, officials said.
The arrests are the result of a two-year FBI and IRS probe that began with an investigation of money transfers by members of the Syrian enclaves in Deal and Brooklyn. Those arrested this morning include key religious leaders in the tight-knit, wealthy communities.
The federal investigation then expanded into a public corruption probe.
No indictments have been released, though court appearances are expected later today in U.S. District Court in Newark. Nearly 20 people have already been led into the FBI building in Newark as the sweep continues to unfold in two states.
Agents also raided religious institutions to make arrests and collect information.
The Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and the IRS took out at least three boxes from the Deal Yeshiva, as students were arriving at school. The Deal Yeshiva, on the corner of Brighton and Norwood avenues, is a prestigious religious school in town.
Authorities also searched the Ohel Yaacob synagogue on Ocean Avenue in Deal and removed several boxes.
Bronx Build-A-Bear toys stuffed with millions in heroin
BY Samuel Goldsmith
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Updated Sunday, July 5th 2009, 10:46 AM
They don’t stock this option at your local Build-A-Bear store.
Authorities announced Saturday a massive heroin bust in the Bronx, where dealers were moving millions of dollars in dope inside Build-A-Bear dolls.
The drugs were packaged in tiny glassine bags branded with names like Barack Obama, Swine Flu and Crime 360, a nod to a detective series on A&E.
“The agents walk in and there’s heroin and all the dime bags and the Build-A-Bears just sitting there,” said Erin Mulvey, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
State, local and federal law enforcement officers seized 33 pounds of heroin with a street value of about $33 million and arrested 12 people on Friday. The suspects were waiting to be arraigned late Saturday.
“It’s a huge shock,” said Mario Amesqui, 54, who lives in the same building as one of the Riverdale apartments raided on Friday.
“My daughter has one of those toys. I’m very surprised something like that was going on right here and I’m especially surprised it was a Build-A-Bear.”
Authorities said the heroin suppliers sliced open the backs of the bears and filled the cuddly toys with smack. They used the stuffed animals to transport the drugs without detection.
The three-month investigation led to the execution of five search warrants in the Bronx. The drug crew sold at least 44 pounds of dope before the busts. All the heroin was made in America, authorities said.
“We’ve seen a big increase in heroin use throughout the tristate area in recent months, especially in the suburbs,” Mulvey said.
Agents say the dealers moved thousands of square-inch dime bags inside the Build-A-Bears every week from their safe house on Carpenter Ave. in the Bronx. Agents also seized $150,000 in cash, drug paraphernalia, weapons and incriminating documents at the homes they raided.
Neighbors at the safe house had no idea drugs were moving in and out of the apartment until the cops showed up on Friday, witnesses said.
“All these cops came, jumped out of their vans and ran in. Nobody knew what was going on,” said Jorge Barrios, 28, who lives in the building.
The ring leader was identified as Yeffery Alba of 735 Pelham Parkway. Alba and 11 other suspects – ages 26 to 39 – were charged with criminal possession and conspiracy.
The create-your-own-teddy bears are staples of malls across the country. At Build-A-Bear Workshops, kids can make fully customized dolls with their choice of stuffing, stitching, features, clothes and even sounds.
A Build-A-Bear headquarters spokesman could not be reached.
ok, i am obsessed. aside from his craftsmanship, dick proenneke has some classic quotes…many of which i often here from my grandfather. my favorite? ‘this lake changes personality quickly…just like a woman. all smiles one minute, then dancing with a temper-tantrum the next.’
“”Alone in the Wilderness” is the story of Dick Proenneke living in the Alaska wilderness. Dick filmed his adventures so he could show his relatives in the lower 48 states what life was like in Alaska, building his cabin, hunting for food and exploring the area…”
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) – A strong quake measuring 6.0 in magnitude struck southwestern Mexico near the resort city of Acapulco on Monday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
USGS measured the quake’s epicenter in the state of Guerrero about 43 miles northeast of Acapulco. The preliminary magnitude is 6.0, but that could change.
Authorities in Acapulco evacuated hotels there, although there were no reports of damage, according to CNN affiliate TV Azteca.
The temblor was felt about 145 miles (230 km) to the north in Mexico City.
CNN Producer Lonzo Cook, who is in the Mexican capital, said people there headed out into the streets after a vibration shook the building for about 30 to 40 seconds. There was no visible damage, he said.
“People in neighboring office buildings — quite a majority of them wearing masks because of the swine flu outbreak — were piling out into the streets,” Cook said. “There were a few humorous people on the stairways saying, ‘This is the apocalypse. First the swine flu, and now this.’ “
However, most people were in “high spirits,” Cook said.
Gupta: Swine flu affecting people in prime
updated 1 hour, 32 minutes ago
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) — CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has gone to Mexico, the apparent epicenter of the swine flu outbreak where more than 100 people have died in suspected cases.
CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, reporting outside a Mexico City hospital, says people can’t get swine flu by eating pork.
With governments scrambling to prevent further outbreak, Gupta appeared Monday on CNN to address people’s concerns.
CNN: We got a question that comes to us over Twitter. This question, “I heard that you can’t contract swine flu from eating pork. Is that true? If so, why? Does cooking or curing pork destroy the virus?”
Gupta: It is true. You cannot catch it from eating the pork. And it is true that cooking it to a certain temperature, around 160 degrees, also inactivates most of the pathogens in the pork as well.
Also keep in mind, this is mainly an airborne thing or something that lives on inanimate objects, so people touch the virus, then they touch their mouth, they touch their nose, they touch their eyes. That seems to be the most common mode of transmission.
CNN: Another question that we have we haven’t gotten to, actually, which is an important question, also on Twitter. “If a person has had the flu shot this year, is he or she protected? Does this person have a better chance of getting it, or would it just be a milder case?” Thank you.
That’s from John Martin in Rome, New York. So what’s the answer, doc?
Gupta: Well, it doesn’t appear that the flu shot really offers much in the way of protection, although it may offer some, and here’s why.
This particular virus seems to be a combination of several different strains: two strains of swine flu, one strain of bird flu and one strain of human flu. It’s the human flu that that flu shot may protect slightly against. So you’re protecting against a part of the virus if that makes any sense.
But it’s a very good idea to get your flu shot, for sure. Always think about that. But in terms of protecting for swine flu, it’s not going to be enough.
CNN: We’ve got another question … via Twitter this morning. And this is a question, of course, everybody is wanting to know the answer to: “Could this strain get out of control and mutate into something similar to the 1918 pandemic?”
Gupta: Well, when you look at pandemics, they have several different qualities. They’re usually a virus or some sort of pathogen the world has never seen before. They cause a lot of death, and they’re sustainable in populations. We know that this is a new virus.
It is very hard to figure out just how deadly this is yet. We know that over 100 people have died here in Mexico, but we don’t know out of how many people who got sick. There are about 1,300 people who had serious illness, but there may be thousands more who had mild illness who never went to the hospital. So it’s hard to tell how lethal this is.
So, you know, on one hand, in 1918, you didn’t have global air travel. Nowadays, you do. So this virus can move around the world a lot faster. But right now, it doesn’t seem like it’s as lethal. You know, it’s just early in this whole process to be able to tell.
CNN: Sanjay, one question that we haven’t gotten to … most of the people who died from swine flu in Mexico were in the prime of their lives really, and this usually hits infants or the elderly. What does that say to you as a doctor?
Gupta: This is interesting. And the same thing happened in sort of a nonintuitive way when we were talking about SARS and when we were talking about avian flu.
Think about it like this: Typically, you think of someone who has a weakened immune system, who’s going to be most adversely affected by an infection. Their immune system simply can’t fight it.
But in these cases, it’s the immune system itself that reacts robustly, and it’s the immune system in that reaction to the virus that is causing death in these patients. So the virus starts that cascade, but all that fluid builds up in the lungs, and all those inflammatory cells throughout the body — that’s what’s causing the problem. We saw the same thing with SARS and with avian flu as well.
Which is why exactly as you said … [people in their] 20s and 30s and 40s, this hospital behind me, they say that’s been the bulk of their patients with regard to swine flu.
CNN: You know, Sanjay, everybody knows that you’re the sort of doctor that gets out there in the thick of things whenever something happens around the world — any kind of public health emergency or disaster. And you’re there in Mexico City, and a lot of people at home might be thinking, why the heck would Dr. Gupta want to go to a place where there’s disease outbreak. What are you doing to protect yourself?
Gupta: Well, we are trying to — you know, we’re clearly being very cautious here. We’re not taking any chances. These masks can be helpful. But, you know, this is going to sound simple, but simply washing our hands. This is a virus that lives on keyboards, lives on money. We don’t shake hands with people. That’s the way it’s probably being spread, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid.
But this is where it started. If we figure out what happened here, we may figure out what happened in the rest of the world.
this better not be a gambler’s addiction of spending more to get out of debt. it doesn’t work out too well for the gambler… . cnn – G-20 pumps $1 trillion into beating recession .
The six-point plan includes banking reform measures and more than $1 trillion to be spent on restoring credit, growth and jobs, as well as measures clamping down on tax havens and a commitment to build a green and sustainable economy.
The six-point consensus consisted of measures to:
restore confidence, growth, and jobs
repair the financial system to restore lending
strengthen financial regulation to rebuild trust
fund and reform our international financial institutions to overcome this crisis and prevent future ones
promote global trade and investment and reject protectionism, to underpin prosperity
build an inclusive, green, and sustainable recovery
a bunch of pics of the denver trip are on flickr…here’s a sneakpeak and fun video. it’s days later and i’m still sooo relaxed from it. can’t wait for next week to come when the drift season build starts again!
missile drifting in japan. it’s cool, it’s recession proof, and it’s coming to america once all the street drifters destroy their cars and don’t have the money to rebuild them.
