The Zeitgeist with Howard Barbanel

    

The album covers to Jan and Dean's "Surf City" and Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady."

Two Girls for Every Boy

In July 1963 Jan and Dean had a number one Billboard hit with “Surf City,” it stayed at the top of the charts for two weeks and was the first surf song ever to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. Factoid – it was mainly written by Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys.

Some of the song’s memorable lyrics include “two girls for every boy” and “Well, with two swingin’ honeys for every guy and all you gotta do is just wink your eye,” followed by  “Ya, we’re goin’ to Surf City, ’cause it’s two to one you know we’re goin’ to Surf City, gonna have some fun, now two girls for every boy..”

Now, Jan Berry and Dean Torrance were singing about a mythological, make-believe Pacific coast town where every day was “Beach Blanket Bingo,” but the U.S. Census Bureau is reporting in its 2010 census data that Jan and Dean’s feverish dreams have finally come true here on the east coast, specifically on the island of Manhattan (and some of Brooklyn).  Of people between 20-29, 64.5 percent of the population of the Upper East Side zip code 10075 is comprised of women. Another Upper East Side neighborhood is close behind at 62.7 percent female, that being 10065. In the posh 10021 neighborhood on the UES, 60.2 percent of the population of 25-29 year olds is female.

Looking for a little younger? In the 10001 neighborhood of Chelsea (which includes F.I.T.) a whopping 66.8 percent of the population of 20 to 24 year-olds are female and its 65.4 percent in 10065 in the UES. Older women, perhaps? In Brooklyn’s Starrett City area (zip 11239) you have 64.7 percent of the population of 30-34 year olds are female while in mixed Hipster/Hasid Williamsburg, the figure is 60.3 percent in that same age category.

Mark Regnerus, one of the authors of “How Young Americans Meet, Mate and Think About Marrying” attributes the high percentage of women to “young gals tending to flock to the glamorous city life more than men, trying to achieve their Carie Bradshaw fantasies.”  For those of you unfamiliar with Ms. Bradshaw, she would be the main character in the “Sex and the City” franchise of books, TV shows and movies.

Census numbers also reveal very high percentages of unmarried females throughout Manhattan and these numbers escalate with age. The New York Post reports that “New York state has the country’s highest percentage of women who have never tied the knot…the marital affairs are particularly bleak in the city, where gals who have never wed make up 42 percent of the population,” up from 39 percent in 2006.

Across the country, also according to the Census Bureau in 2010 there were 61.5 million Americans who’ve never married which accounts for 26.9 percent of the U.S. population, up from 40.4 million 20 years ago. The fertility rate (the number of births per 1,000 women ages 15-44) in New York is 61.7 as contrasted to 88.4 in Utah. At least we beat Vermont which comes in dead last at 50.8. In 1990 births by unwed mothers was at 26.6 percent and in 2008 it rose to 40.6 percent. Men are an option.

In this, my new iteration of single life, I’ve discovered these demographic facts first hand. New York has seen the “triumph” of feminism in full force. Women have been liberated every which way, have drunk the Kool-Aid to such a degree that, as I wrote in a prior column this summer, (“What Men Want,” available on our website, Standardli.com) women often don’t want to accommodate men in the least, when in fact, to assuage their deep loneliness and yearning for children they ought to be doing precisely that. Men don’t want to be treated badly, so because of the numbers in their favor, they just move on in the never-ending buffet line that is New York dating. Jewish women comprise the overwhelming majority of Manhattan never-marrieds over 35 and the way many of them treat men has driven many a Jewish male into the arms of non-Jewish women.

For many a New York woman, the apogee of living is personified by their one bedroom Manhattan apartments and their designer clothes, Carrie Bradshaw-style. New York is teeming with them and you’d be surprised (and perhaps if you’re older, suburban and married) somewhat mortified at the sheer number of never-married women 35-45 in New York. The career as stand-in for lasting personal relationships is ubiquitous. Living in the suburbs is considered a fate worse than death.

The restaurant industry in Manhattan is probably the strongest in the country thanks to the seven-day dating cycle and the never ending first through third date merry-go-round. Housing prices are off the charts in the city because there is next to no turnover as single people remain single indefinitely and stay in their apartments for decades instead of marrying and moving out to the suburbs. (Conversely, our home values in The Five Towns would be appreciably higher were more folks looking for family housing).

Often, even if you can break through the one or two month barrier, so many of the never-marrieds become so persnickety and hyper-judgmental (and hyper-comparing to prior flames in their imaginations) that they render it nearly impossible for most men to live up to their unattainable ideals – which makes it easier for them to migrate to the next person thereby avoiding emotional intimacy and commitment.

In the 1930’s Duke Ellington penned a classic which is now in the canon of the Great American Songbook called “Sophisticated Lady,” which was covered by Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Linda Ronstadt among others. The depression-era lyrics are as valid today as they were nearly 80 years ago:

They say into your early life romance came
And in this heart of yours burned a flame
A flame that flickered one day and died away
Then, with disillusion deep in your eyes
You learned that fools in love soon grow wise
The years have changed you, somehow
I see you now
Smoking, drinking, never thinking of tomorrow, nonchalant,
Diamonds shining, dancing, dining with some man in a restaurant
Is that all you really want?
No, sophisticated lady,
I know, you miss the love you lost long ago
And when nobody is nigh you cry.

The Zeitgeist with Howard Barbanel

      

Famous TV curmudgeons Larry David (left) and Andy Rooney (center). Modern-day car bumpers with a bumper guard.

Pet Peeves

My favorite TV grumpy curmudgeons (might be a contradiction in terms) are of course Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes and Larry David playing it for laughs on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. In last week’sCurb, David is infuriated by people who cross over the lines (literally) in parking lots and end-up taking up two parking spaces thereby either forcing the next person to also occupy more than one space or depriving the driving public of one possibly available spot.

While Woodmere and Hewlett are not as glamorous as David’s Beverly Hills, we do have the same kind of parking lots. Lawrence and Cedarhurst, being metered lots with legions of parking enforcement officers on the prowl are devoid of the multi-spot slam problem as the fear of multiple tickets is enough to keep people between the parking lines.

I can’t tell you how many times when trolling for parking here in the Eastern parts of The Five Towns, I encounter the nefarious multi-spot parkers who toss their SUVs, mini-vans or luxo-mobiles over the line. Parking around these parts can be tight and scarce even when people follow the rules. The obliviousness to this discourtesy and infraction are maddening to me, but parking hogs abound. With free parking here, drivers ought to be grateful not to have to subsidize the village budgets of some of our other towns. Hogging two spaces is just something like nails on a blackboard when I’m behind the wheel, so I find myself in complete accord with David’s televised frustrations.

Running a newspaper gives me the opportunity to fulminate on the world’s ills. To that end here are a bunch of other things that make me nuts. For example, how about the interminable construction on the Belt Parkway? They’ve been working on this road for all five decades of my life now. They’re building some new and supposedly better bridges but while they’re doing it lane closures are prolific and with that comes the 20-minute bumper to bumper grind. In the Sunbelt they build entire interstate highways in under a year. In Brooklyn and Queens they believe in perpetual slow-motion where any capital project must take at least five years by definition. Another reason to love New York.

How about left lane squatters? Invariably when you’re in a hurry the left lane will be dominated by someone doing 50 mph with a giant sense of entitlement to crawl in the fast lane and concurrently oblivious to the needs of the 10 people behind them. Weaving around this fellow can consume a lot of time and effort and it happens almost every day.

The opposite number is the person doing 90 in a 50 zone, typically in some revved-up sports car or some eight year-old brown Toyota Corolla tricked-out with 19-inch wheels. This driver is zigging, zagging and tailgating through traffic (often followed by one or two friends trying to keep up) and cutting everyone off with mere nanoseconds for you to slam on the brakes so as to avoid arriving at the world to come before you’d ideally like to get there.

Modern car bumpers – or the lack thereof. Why do they even call these flimsy plastic things bumpers? They crumple at a malevolent sideways glance, are adhered to the front and rear of your car with thumb tacks and Scotch tape and the paint will inevitably be sheared off by a stiff wind. Where are the chrome and steel barriers of yore? I’d gladly sacrifice one or two miles per gallon for some serious hardware fore and aft and I don’t care if the bumpers’ colors match the car’s paint job.

Car sales people – I’ve been shopping for a new set of wheels and the level of disconnect between what I want, what I say and what they come back to me with is as though we’re in an episode of Star Trek where the universal translator isn’t working and I’m speaking English and they’re talking in Klingon or something. They want me to buy what’s on their lot at their price regardless of whether this meets by taste preferences or my budget. Many a sale has been blown this way in the last few weeks. Dealers might be better off just letting us buy cars online like books from Amazon.

Bad service – so help me why is it nearly universally axiomatic that you will receive poor service in a kosher restaurant? And without a smile. Let’s not even get started on the caliber of food in many of these establishments. And I’m talking internationally, not just in our area. The apex of this trying experience can be found while flying El Al, where you can be held prisoner for upwards of 11 hours. Yet, when you’re a guest in an Orthodox Jewish home, the exact opposite is true to a point where you’re smothered in both food, drink, kindness and cheerful hospitality.

Stifling conformity – for many people adolescent peer pressure did not die its deserved death at 17 or 18. Some people derive comfort from being part of a herd and many people will comport themselves (outwardly at least) only so as to fit in and not make waves, not because they really want to. Failure to conform could result in all kinds of dire manifestations of social opprobrium or ostracism, the fear of which can be paralyzing for many. Pressure to become a Lemming is something I find grating to say the least and I try my levelheaded best to be a tad idiosyncratic and eclectic, which, to be honest, does not always inure to my benefit. Case in point my being a loyal Mets fan. But it does make life interesting.

So it is a paradox that I am apoplectic about the multi-parking-space people, seeking their conformity to park between the lines. I suppose marching to the beat of your own drummer is OK as long as it doesn’t hurt or inconvenience others or society at large, or the sound emanating from one’s drums doesn’t disturb your neighbors’ sleep. Therein lies the civilizing social compact that keeps chaos from ruling the day.

The Zeitgeist with Howard Barbanel

I Remember Grandma

Lately, I’ve been thinking about my late maternal Grandmother, Lee Steinfeld. She passed away right around now about 22 years ago. She was my “longest serving” grandparent as everyone else passed away either before I was born or when I was a little kid. Some of the “longevity” was due to her having my mother at 21 and my mom having me at 24.

Grandma Lee was a unique character in so many respects. Her father (for whom I’m named) came here alone at 16 before the turn of the 20^th Century from the town of Iassy, Romania and so my grandmother was born here in the U.S. in 1913. My Great-Grandfather Harry Schwartz (known as “Big Harry” because he was a strapping 6’1” at a time when most immigrant Jewish men were 5’2”) was by all accounts a highly charismatic figure who made a ton of money during Prohibition manufacturing distilling equipment for the Jewish Mafia. He did so well that he built a house for his family on Laurelton Boulevard in Long Beach with all cash and had a Packard limousine with a chauffer.

My Grandmother as a consequence grew up with money and comfort at a time when most newly arrived Jews were barely eking out a living shlepping pushcarts or working horrendous hours in the needle trades. She was also very slim and pretty (throughout her life) something that was always very important to her. I used to joke with her that she was one of the very first Jewish-American Princesses and one of the prototypes upon which succeeding generations of Jewish girls would be modeled.

With all these advantages, my Grandmother married well. Her father made a shiddach (match) to a young, successful Romanian-Jewish attorney, Lewis Steinfeld, who would become my Grandfather. They set-off on a month-long honeymoon tour of Europe and what was then British-ruled Palestine in 1931 and even took home movies of it. They had three daughters, one of whom is my mom.

Life wasn’t completely charmed by any means however. My Great-Grandfather suffered from the repeal of Prohibition and a bunch of bad real estate investments in Florida (the original “swampland in Florida” deals probably) and my Grandfather who also did real estate had some things go sour. He passed away at 63 when the average American man’s life expectancy wasn’t much more than that, leaving my Grandmother as a widow for 26 years, most of which she spent in Manhattan.

Like many of her generation, my Grandmother was not what I’d call very physically demonstrative. She loved people deeply and expressed her feelings in the kitchen. Born with a natural gift for cooking and baking, every meal was a work of art and a taste-bud extravaganza. Dairy dishes were awash in cream, butter, sugar and milk. Meat dishes spared no expense of chicken fat. She was exacting and persnickety when it came to buying meat, poultry, cheese and produce. Only the best quality stuff would do. Hours would be spent preparing even an average dinner and from the first bite you could always tell. She was so acclaimed for her cheese blintzes that for a few years Zabar’s in Manhattan actually sold them. I haven’t had a blintz since she’s gone that is its equal. Amazingly, in spite of her belt-busting cuisine, she never was heavy, owing to her French style of eating – very small portions of very rich food. We didn’t eat small portions though.

She also could be a lot of fun, enjoying beer or cocktails out at restaurants. She loved popular culture, in particular she had a longstanding crush on the singer Tom Jones in his 60s and 70s heyday. A religious reader of The New York Post and watcher of the Channel 5 News at 10 (“It’s 10:00 p.m., do you know where your children are?”), like most New York Jews she was avowedly socially liberal and staunchly Democratic. A huge fan of former Mayors John Lindsay (for his good looks) and Ed Koch (for his no-nonsense policies) she was paradoxically a big fan of the late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and a real right-winger when it came to Israeli security issues as she felt that anti-Semites should be taken at their aspirational, genocidal word. She loved the art of conversation and political debate and at the same time chic outfits, great restaurants and nice things. Her home was always spotlessly immaculate and her living room was sprinkled with bowls of candies and treats.

At the end of her life she was hit with cancer that could not be vanquished by the medical technology of the day. Over many years I would go to her home for dinner quite often when I was living or working in the City. She loved cooking for others and preferred that to going out. A couple of months before her passing, as I was leaving she uncharacteristically reached out and gave me a big hug and told me that she loved me like a son and got all misty-eyed, which was not her style. Trying to cheer her up, I told her, “Now, Grandma, you know you’re not supposed to be hugging people, what’s this all about?” I told her “You can’t leave until you see great grandchildren from me.” This was not to be as she passed soon after. She was one of the few women in my life (and for most people there aren’t that many) who loved me unconditionally and unreservedly. I miss her whenever I make her chicken soup recipe, see blintzes or eat her Romanian eggplant salad that my mother still makes. I think of her during the occasional Ed Koch or Tom Jones sighting, when reading The Post, and of course when her yahrtzeit comes around.

It is said that people can achieve a kind of immortality as long as people remember them. Now, you have shared some of my memories, so maybe in this exponential way you’ll share with me in making her memory be for a blessing.