random thoughts about the hobby department...

the quality is higher when there's money around. The scene pre 9/11 and post 9/11 are two different animals...

regardless of Alan Greenspan's pronouncements... you can smell the deflation in the air if you walk around the city... any of you ever spent some time in the "third world"... parts of dowtown New York are beginning to remind me of Jakarta, and I'm referring to Jakarta pre the 1990s boom... all they're missing are live baby pigs and guys doing dentistry on the streets...

deflation is by nature a race to the bottom, who can undercut whom faster and grab the sale... it's when the conversation about quality gets aced out by the conversation about price..

I saw a heap of businesses gear up for a hot and heavy recovery, investing in new restaurant fixtures, primo plate glass with etched designwork, busy contractors putting the finishing touches on 5 million dollar townhouses, and then I noticed the whole real estate-lending-upgrading machine grind to a near halt... places that should be leased by now covered with grafitti, broker's signs peeling off the inside of windows,
well made Apartment For Rent signs on building after building...

What gives ? Not long ago, you'd put a half inch classified ad in the paper and you'd be rented within 24 hours...

Stores that used to be well managed and profitable are looking like liquidator places... and Chinese "tui na" massage places are cropping up all over the place, little basement holes, teensy storefronts. Yo, having been to China, I'll tellya this... it is beginning to feel like China, and the good old city is slipping back into the 1970s grit.

Remember the 70's ?... grubby, crime ridden, political paralysis, nuclear war hanging over our heads, and sexual as as hell. Are we tuning up for another cheezy greezy phase of city life here ?

When the focus is being put on who can give out the most parking tickets for no reason at all, and making visitors feel very uncomfortable, on top of the fact that since 9/11 everyone is still a little nervous and the people that have money are holding onto it and waiting to see what happens next.

This is the outcome.

Its just a temporary down cycle. We will come out of this even stronger than before.The question is when will it bottom out?
Maybe when Dinkins becomes MAYOR again...lol. He will be quickly run out of town just in time for Rudy's triumphant return and than as the last squeegie man hits the dust, the DOW will hit 25,000 and everything is honkie dory again. As for the world's oldest profession, the internet and boards like this one will continue to keep it safe and satysfying for us hobbyists.New gorgeous providers will contine to come into the scene. Just last month, I had a great session with a former salesgirl with one of those former high flying and now defunct Silicon valley companies.She's having as much fun and making more money now as she did then. Keep the faith!

when the money was pouring the sex was roaring...

I think I remember more, younger, hotter... but memory can be selective too... or maybe you get discriminating over time...

there used to be a better selection of my favorite type, the semi-pros who would skip in to make some fast money and move on... those were always the best. They wouldn't stay in so long that they burned out. Did the pro-amateurs come to see that there wasn't enough to justify all the waiting around and leave the game to the warhorses ? Everybody seems a little more thick skinned and mechanical... not to overgeneralize, but the exceptions are welcome exceptions.

But, frankly, its hard to say if this is the normal boom bust and bada boom that we all know by heart 'cause it feels like something more fundamental but hard to put your finger on is in the wind.