48: Shootist

Show Notes

Moe Factz with Adam Curry for September 5th 2020, Episode number 48

"Shootist"

Description

Adam and Moe go deep on the third rail of topics

Executive Producers:

Sir Dwayne Melancon

Sir Cole Calistra

Noah from Phoenix

David Keyes

Kris Malmi

Anonymous

Sir Jesse Cruz

Adam Choi

Martin Ohlsen

Louise Wakefield

Associate Executive Producers:

Thomas Kelly-Tait

KR

Joseph DiVerniero

David Roll

Kurtis Collins

Drake Biscardi

Sarah Gardner

Timothy Pierce

Anonymous

Andrew J Giannettino

Erik Höchel

Harvey Smith

Cassidy Eastwood

Garlene Copeland

Kenneth Barnhouse

lindsey heitman

Colin Howard

TinyEmpire.com

david drake

Lauren's Witty Knitts

Eric Tolbert

William Taylor

Kathleen Backous

Mireya

Susan

John Taylor

Ed Siemens

Episode 48 Club Members

Rudolph Duff

Ellen King

Dorothy Schrodt

ShowNotes

The Zen TV Experiment '' Ted's Tidbits

Sun, 06 Sep 2020 00:00

If you watch television, you should take a look at this post. It's a repost of an article that first appeared in Adbusters Magazine on the effects of television on individuals and society. It proposes four experiments to attempt at home. I did this, and I recommend you do it to.

1) Watch TV for 10 minutes and count the technical events.What is a technical event? We've all seen TV cameras in banks and jewelry stores. A stationary video camera simply recording what's in front of it is what I will call ''pure TV.'' Anything other than pure TV is a technical event: the camera zooms up, that's a technical event; you are watching someone's profile talking and suddenly you are switched to another person responding, that's a technical event; a car is driving down the road and you also hear music playing, that's a technical event. Simply count the number of times there is a cut, zoom, superimposition, voice-over, appearance of words on the screen, fade in/out, etc.

For this test, I watched the first 10 minutes of this episode of my namesake show. In that 10 minutes I counted 223 technical events, and then I realized I didn't count any audio effects!

2) Watch any TV show for 15 minutes without turning on the sound.For this, I simply muted the volume on the same show and watched the remainder.

3) Watch any news program for 15 minutes without turning on the sound.It took a while for me to find a recording of an actual news program online (I needed 15 contiguous minutes, and the news sites only offer clips) but I finally found this on Hulu.

4) Watch television for one half hour without turning it on.I must admit that I haven't done this yet. I want to do the experiment, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to waste a half hour sitting in front of a turned off television.

Well, the point is that television is messing with your mind. All the technical events that occur in a normal TV show make for a very disjointed set of scenes that we have trained our brains to assemble into a narrative.

Television inhibits your ability to think, but it does not lead to freedom of mind, relaxation or renewal. It leads to a more exhausted mind. You may have time out from prior obsessive thought patterns, but that's as far as television goes. The mind is never empty, the mind is filled. What's worse, it is filled with someone else's obsessive thoughts and images.

Watching the TV without the sound makes it more difficult to connect with the story and therefore easier to observe all the technical events occurring. Switching to a news program you realize that there are fewer technical events.

With fewer technical events the news show appears realistic relative to other shows in the TV environment. Further, it appears super-realistic relative to the commercial shows in this environment. As earlier, we witnessed the joining of technical events in a coherent narrative. Here, we witness the reduction of worldly events into a narrative.

I admit I haven't yet stared at a blank TV for a half hour, but I imagine two things would occur to me. First, I would realize just exactly how long a half hour feels, and I would be bothered by the things I could be doing with that time. Second, I would see the TV for what it is, an object, instead of what it is not, a companion.

If one is alone in one's room and turns on the TV, one actually doesn't feel alone anymore. It's as if companionship is experienced, as if communication is two-way.

This does make for an interesting, if not disturbing, academic discussion, but it is not fruitful unless a behavioral change occurs. I encourage you to make your own resolutions. As for me, I am making a deliberate effort to watch less TV. This is actually something I started doing a while back when we canceled our cable. There are still some shows I enjoy watching, and I will continue to watch them. I don't think I'm going to start watching any new shows, and I'm definitely going to stop watching shows I find myself complaining about. To do otherwise would just be stupid. Tonight, for example, I elected to write this blog post instead of watching The Office or some other show.

Maybe one day I'll stop watching TV altogether (although I have no plans to cease watching the Dallas Cowboys, no matter how frustrating of an experience that may be). I don't want to bind myself to a statement I won't be able to live up to. At least for now, I feel encouraged to read more.

(22) Larry Gaiters (@BishopLGaiters) / Twitter

Sat, 05 Sep 2020 23:59

Something went wrong, but don't fret '-- let's give it another shot.

(1227) NLE Choppa - Walk Em Down feat. Roddy Ricch (Official Music Video) - YouTube

Sat, 05 Sep 2020 22:41

Urban Dictionary: White Mike

Sat, 05 Sep 2020 22:39

a white male typically raised in black/urban environment, adores

black women, despises and rejects anything caucasian including

white women. Adored by black women. The only white guy at the party that everybody loves. Possibly a rapper or dj.

Blacker than some of his black friends proving the "white" in White Mike is actually quite ironic. Fly ass dude.

Get the White Mike neck gaiter and mug.

Any of your typical run of the mill white guys in their early/mid 20's who acts as ghetto as possible. Can typically bee seen sporting the white

wife-beater and

backwards ball cap. White Mikes love

freeloading and will doing ANYTHING for certain goods and services. White Mikes can be seen around public parks and pools trying to pick up girls that he can "t-t-t-turn it over and hit it."

"Hey isn't that White Mike trying to get

free water from that

pizza place?"

"Man, I wish someone would put White Mike out of his missery."

"Hey guys, White Mike is trying to pawn 'House Party 4'

any takers?"

Get a White Mike mug for your barber Bob.

White Mike | Wayans Bros. Wiki | Fandom

Sat, 05 Sep 2020 22:38

White Mike, played by comic/actor Mitch Mullaney, appeared in six episodes of the series.Gender

Male

Occupation

Heir from wealthy Long Island family

Relations on TWB

friend of Shawn and Marlon Williams

Episodes/Apperances

6 episodes in seasons 1 and 2, 1995-1996

Relative

brother Pookie, who appears in the episode It's Shawn! It's Marlon! It's Superboys! in Season 1

Character played by

Mitch Mullany

White Mike is a hip-talking, black girl-dating white friend of Shawn and Marlon Willams who appears in seasons 1 and 2 of The Wayans Bros. Played by late comic/actor Mitch Mullany, he appeared in a total of six episodes, beginning with the episode The Sting, which Thelonious "T.C." Capricornio, another hip huckster type, whom he also eventually becomes friends with, appears with during the first season.

Character description Edit Always trying hard to keep up on the urban fashion and "hip" street ebonics slang talk, Mike is from the suburbs, from an affluent family in Long Island who befriends Marlon, even for allowing Marlon to move in with him in his "crib" after a brief fallout with Shawn, whom T.C. moved in with in Marlon's old apartment. Mike kicks Marlon out, saying that he is too boring for him, he being a hard-partying type. He also becomes cool with Shawn and Pops, even running Pop's Diner with Marlon. while Pops was laid up at home sick from the flu, turning an unseen before big profit while turning the place into a health food restaurant, where they served tofu, and all types organic foods, with the exception of the cheesecake, which Marlon deceives some lovely young females who work at the nearby aerobics center into thinking they're low cal!!

The White Mike character served as a vehicle for Mitch Mullany to earn a title role as Nick Freno on the WB series titled Nick Freno:Lisenced Teacher the next season, where he appeared in 43 episodes before its cancellation.

Burrell Communications '-- Our Agency

Sat, 05 Sep 2020 22:31

Our agency

Our Capabilities

Clients

Our Leadership

Our People

SCROLL DOWN

WE DO TRANSCULTURAL. And we do it well. Our 40+ years of experience has given us the expertise, finesse, and empathy to connect with and engage Millennials, Boomers, and Gen Xers, remember them? From the financially underserved to the socially responsible to gearheads and sneakerheads. We'll do it for the Gram and clap back on SnapChat if necessary. We create work that gets clicked, liked, and shared. Work that rings both the phones and the register. We'll make you think'...laugh'...and we're especially good at the work that gets you right here <3. No matter what we do, we move brands.

We're a diverse collective of passionate and involved cultural mavens. Our talented family includes authors and musicians, artists and activists, sneakerheads and fashionistas.

As an agency and as individuals, we're always striving to improve ourselves and our communities. We've donated our time and voice to increase awareness and make changes for the better in our communities.

Burrell Communications Group - Wikipedia

Sat, 05 Sep 2020 22:21

Burrell Communications GroupIndustryAdvertisingFounded1971 ( 1971 ) FoundersThomas J. Burrell, Emmett McBainHeadquartersChicago, Illinois

,USA

Key people

Fay Ferguson, McGhee Osse, co-chief executive officers Lewis Williams, chief creative officer Website www.burrell.com Burrell Communications Group L.L.C. is an American advertising agency. Founded by chairman emeritus Thomas (Tom) J. Burrell, and headquartered in Chicago, IL, Burrell Communications is one of the largest multi-cultural marketing firms in the world. Some of the company's work is part of a collection in the Library of Congress.[1] Burrell Communications is now under the leadership of co-chief executive officers, Fay Ferguson and McGhee Osse and chief creative officer, Lewis Williams.[2]

History [ edit ] Burrell Communications was founded in 1971, by Tom Burrell and then partner, Emmett McBain, and was originally named Burrell McBain.[3] The company was established with the intention of forging an authentic and respectful relationship with the African-American consumer, and to tap into how the black aesthetic could also appeal to the general market consumer. It was at this time that Burrell coined the phrase, "Black people are not dark-skinned white people." Recognizing that there existed inherent cultural differences, and the fact that these differences drove patterns of consumption, became a driving force and inspiration for future ad campaigns at Burrell.

1971-73'--Burrell McBain quickly establishes itself as a leading shop for niche African American -focused communications. Beginning with the creation of the Black Marlboro Man for Philip Morris, accounts quickly expanded to include marquis brands McDonald's and Coca-Cola.[3]

1974'--Emmett McBain leaves the agency, and it is renamed Burrell Advertising[3]

1975-80'--Burrell's business grows steadily, garnering acclaim in particular for their work on The Coca-Cola Company and McDonald's campaigns. The Coca-Cola commercial entitled "Street Song" wins Burrell its first Clio Award.[4] By 1979, Burrell tops $10 million in billing per annum, making it one of the most successful multi-cultural advertising shops in the United States.[3]

1981-83'--Burrell Advertising picks up Martell Cognac and Stroh's accounts. The McDonald's "Double Dutch" Commercial in particular gains national attention and gains a Gold Award at the U.S. Television Commercials Festival.[5] Agency billing climbs to $20 million annually.[6] In order to accommodate increased needs for their Coca-Cola account, Burrell opens an office in Atlanta, GA.[6]

1984- 86'--Burrell Advertising gains the Procter and Gamble account. Their work for Crest Toothpaste becomes the first major packaged goods account to target an African American consumer audience. Burrell agency billing surpasses $50 million.[3]

1987-90-- Burrell gets the Polaroid account, and gains new campaigns on Procter and Gamble's Tide, and Kraft Foods Stovetop Dressing.[3]

1991-96-- The agency is renamed Burrell Communications. Alma Hopkins is named CCO, while Sarah Burroughs is named President. Burrell Communications is awarded the Grand Effie by the American Marketing Association for its work on "Who Wants," a spot created for the Partnership for a Drug Free America.[7] Burrell garners new clients including Nynex, Mobil, Nabisco's A1 Steak Sauce, Maxwell House Coffee and Sears. Agency billing tops a record-breaking $128 million.[3] Burrell acquires DFA Communications, a general market advertising and direct marketing agency based in New York, adding direct marketing expertise as well as a New York presence.[8]

2000-01'--Burrell sells a 49% minority stake to French media giant Publicis Groupe in order to fund its expansion.[9] Burrell Communications gains Toyota, Hewlett-Packard and General Mills as its clients.[10][11]

2002'--Burrell Communications is named Black Enterprise's Advertising Agency of the Year [12]

2004'--Tom Burrell announces his retirement. Fay Ferguson and McGhee Osse purchase the 51% majority stake, becoming Co-CEOs of Burrell Communications.[13]

2005 '' Burrell is named African-American agency of record for Allstate.[14]

2006'--Lewis Williams is welcomed as CCO at Burrell.[15] Co-CEO Fay Ferguson is named Chicago Advertising Woman of the Year.[16]

2007'--Burrell launches Toyota Camry's highly successful "If Looks Could Kill," the first digital campaign of its kind to target African American women.[17]

2009'--Burrell garners the American Airlines account and launches American Airlines "Black Atlas." Toyota launches Burrell's Toyota Venza "Faces" as its featured Super Bowl spot.[18]

2010--Burrell launches Threshold Nation, a subsidiary dedicated to marketing toward the multi-ethnic urban male.[19]

2011'--Burrell Communications is named Black Enterprise's Advertising Agency of the Year [17] and adds Comcast to its list of clients[20]

2013'--Burrell launches Rising Tide, a Tide-sponsored aspirational social network for millennials looking for professional access. The program features hip-hop media mogul, Russell Simmons, sharing his wisdom with the young, professional audience.

2014'--Burrell scores a major win the 2013 Toyota Avalon "Only The Name Remains" campaign, starring Academy-Award nominee Idris Elba. The campaign won a Gold National ADDY Award, an Official Webby Award Honoree, and was listed as the FWA Site of the Day.

Clients [ edit ] McDonald's, Comcast, Procter and Gamble, General Mills, SuperValu, American Airlines, Toyota, Lilly and Disney's Dreamers Academy

References [ edit ] ^ "Coca-Cola Company donates its collection of Black advertising by Burrell Communications Group to Library of Congress". Jet Magazine. October 20, 2003 . Retrieved March 31, 2012 . ^ "Our Leaders". Burrell Communications Group. Archived from the original on September 19, 2012 . Retrieved March 31, 2012 . ^ a b c d e f g Fawcett, Adrienne W. (June 3, 1996). "Burrell at 25, A Commemorative". Advertising Age. ^ Chambers, Jason (2009). Madison Avenue and the Color Line: African Americans in the Advertising Industry. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 24. ^ "Double Honors". Jet. December 27, 1982 . Retrieved March 31, 2012 . ^ a b Fawcett, Adrienne W. (June 3, 1996). "BURRELL AT 25:A COMMEMORATIVE". Advertising Age. ^ Stuart, Elliot (June 8, 1994). "THE MEDIA BUSINESS: Advertising; An anti-drug public service campaign wins a prestigious prize for advertising effectiveness". New York Times . Retrieved March 31, 2012 . ^ "Burrell Communications Group". Advertising Age. September 2003 . Retrieved June 12, 2012 . ^ Valcourt, Josee (October 1, 1999). "Burrell Communications sells 49% of firm to Publicis Will black ad agencies have to merge to stay alive?". Black Enterprise. Archived from the original on April 6, 2012 . Retrieved March 27, 2012 . ^ "Toyota Announces Partnership With African American Advertising Agency". PRNewswire . Retrieved May 24, 2012 . ^ Brown, Monique R. (June 2002). "Born to transform: the Burrell Communications Group bursts out of the ad agency box to become bigger, better, and bolder - B.E. Advertising Agency Of The Year - Company Profile". Black Enterprise . Retrieved June 3, 2012 . ^ Finkelman, Paul (2009). Encyclopedia of African American history, 1896 to the present: from the age of segregation to the twenty-first century, Volume 1. Oxford University Press. p. 317. ^ Hughs, Zondra (July 27, 2011). "Burrell Communications Celebrates 40 Years". Rolling Out . Retrieved April 2, 2012 . ^ "Burrell Communications Wins Allstate African-American Account". Business Wire. August 3, 2005 . Retrieved June 13, 2012 . ^ "Burrell names Lewis Williams new Chief Creative Officer, replacing Steve Conner". Target Market News. April 10, 2006. ^ "Burrell Communications' Fay Ferguson named Advertising Woman of the Year". Target Market News. May 24, 2006 . Retrieved June 3, 2012 . ^ a b Alleyne, Sonia (June 2011). "Growth By Reinvention". Black Enterprise . Retrieved April 2, 2012 . ^ Tedesco, Richard. "Toyota Ties Events to Venza Spots in Big Game". Promo. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014 . Retrieved June 3, 2012 . ^ "Burrell Communications(TM) Launches Threshold Nation(TM)". PR Newswire . Retrieved June 3, 2012 . ^ "Comcast names Burrell Communications African-American agency of record". Target Market News. March 8, 2011 . Retrieved June 14, 2012 .

A First Rate Madness | Psychology Today

Sat, 05 Sep 2020 22:18

Many great leaders have been mentally ill, mainly with severe depression and sometimes with mania. This is not an entirely controversial statement. It is generally accepted by historians that Abraham Lincoln had severe depression, and so did Winston Churchill. Both were suicidal at times. Some other figures are less well-known but the documentary evidence is relatively strong: General William Sherman was removed from command because of concerns that he was insane. He appeared, in retrospect, to have experienced a manic episode with paranoid delusions; he also had,throughout his life, episodes of severe depression, along with occasional suicidal thoughts. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King both made suicide attempts in adolescence, and each had at least two severe depressive episodes in their lifetimes.

Other examples are not as extreme. The concepts of dysthymia (mild depression) and hyperthymia (chronic hypomanic symptoms) are reasonably well-validated scientifically as abnormal temperaments, genetically and biologically related to depression and mania, respectively. Using the definitions of those conditions, some leaders appear to have had hyperthymic temperaments (such as Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, and John Kennedy).

This is not to say that all leaders had mental illness. Most leaders did not; most leaders were mentally healthy. And that may be the problem. Mental health may not be as good for leadership as people often assume.

This would be the case if mental illness confers certain psychological advantages that may be useful for leadership. Mania, for instance, is well associated with creativity. Depression, in many psychological studies, is associated with enhance realism. Both may increase resilience. I have reviewed the scientific evidence for the occurrence of these positive aspects of mental illness elsewhere. If this evidence is correct, it may explain why mental illness might enhance, and mental health hinder, crisis leadership.

These are the themes of A First Rate Madness, just published. I plan to provide more detail on various aspects in future posts, including some reaction to comments that I receive from readers.

In response to initial reactions to my recent article in the Wall Street Journal, and other interactions, I'll begin by emphasizing four points:

1. My examples are not chosen superficially. There is good documentary evidence for the symptoms that I describe. Diagnosing leaders from the past is more valid than in the present because the documentary evidence often increases with time, and our feelings about distant leaders are usually more objective than is the case with living leaders.

2. I am not diagnosing everyone. In fact I am diagnosing most leaders as healthy. Only a minority are ill, but they happen to be the best crisis leaders.

3. I am distinguishing between crisis and non-crisis leadership. Those who are mentally healthy are fine leaders in non-crisis situations, but they fail during crises. Vice versa for great mentally ill leaders.

4. The intuition against my thesis has its roots in stigma, I believe. This prejudice underlies the notion that a leader we dislike must be mentally ill, or that mental health inherently is better than mental illness for leadership. These ideas are based on a stigmatizing attitude towards mental illness, the view that it is inherently and completely harmful. Mental illness certainly can be harmful in many ways, but not inherently and completely.

DAYZOFNOAH - YouTube

Sat, 05 Sep 2020 22:09

Boss Tweed - Money Scam, Life & Tammany Hall - Biography

Sat, 05 Sep 2020 21:26

Boss Tweed is chiefly remembered for the cronyism of his Tammany Hall political machine, through which he bilked the city of New York of massive sums of money.

SynopsisBorn in New York City in 1823, Boss Tweed was a city alderman by the time he was 28 years old. Elected to other offices, he cemented his position of power in the city's Democratic Party and thereafter filled important positions with people friendly to his concerns. Once he and his cronies had control of the city government, corruption became shockingly widespread until his eventual arrest in 1873.

Early LifeBoss Tweed was born William Magear Tweed on April 3, 1823, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Tweed married Mary Jane Skaden in 1844, and in 1848 he organized a volunteer fire company. When he was 26 years old, in 1850, he ran for city alderman but lost. On his second try, a year later, he ran again and won, and in 1852 he was elected to one term in Congress (which was unremarkable). His influence in New York politics was growing, and in 1856 he was elected to a new city board of supervisors, the first position he would use for corrupt purposes.

"I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating." -- Boss Tweed

He worked on strengthening his position of power in Tammany Hall (the seat of New York City's Democratic Party), and by 1860 he controlled all Democratic Party nominations to city positions. Soon, Boss Tweed dominated the city and state Democratic Party to such an extent that his candidates were elected mayor of New York City, governor of New York and speaker of the state assembly.

The Years of Corruption: The Tweed RingAll the while, he had his associates appointed to key city and county posts, thus establishing a network of corruption that became known as the "Tweed ring." In 1860, Tweed opened a law office, despite not being a lawyer, and began receiving large payments from corporations for his "legal services" (which were in fact extortions hidden under the guise of the law). He was reaping vast sums of illegal cash by this time, and he bought up acres of Manhattan real estate. He began wearing a large diamond attached to the front of his shirt, an object that received endless lampooning from his detractors (whose numbers were growing quickly).

"I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles, my constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures." -- Boss Tweed

In 1868, Tweed became grand sachem (leader) of Tammany Hall and was also elected to the New York State Senate, and in 1870 he and his cronies took control of the city treasury when they passed a new city charter that named them as the board of audit. In full force now, the Tweed ring began to financially drain the city of New York through faked leases, false vouchers, extravagantly padded bills and various other schemes set up and controlled by the ring.

DownfallWith the Tweed ring's activities reaching a fever pitch, and with the losses for the city piling up (to an estimated $30 to $200 million in present-day dollars), the public finally began to support the ongoing efforts of The New York Times and Thomas Nast (a political satirist for Harper's Weekly) to oust Tweed, and he was at last tried and convicted on charges of forgery and larceny in 1873. He was released in 1875, but soon after his release, New York State filed a civil suit against him in an attempt to recover some of the millions he had embezzled, and Tweed was arrested again.

Before long, he escaped from custody and fled, first to Cuba and then to Spain. In November 1876, he was captured and extradited to the United States, where he was confined to a New York City jail. A year and a half later, Boss Tweed died there from severe pneumonia.

circa 1865: American politician William Marcy ''Boss'' Tweed (1823 - 1878), notorious ''Boss'' of Tammany society who headed New York City''s ''Tweed Ring'' until his financial frauds were exposed in 1871. (Photo by C. T. Brady Jr/Museum of the City of New York/Getty Images)

Fact CheckWe strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!

Gangs of New York - Wikipedia

Sat, 05 Sep 2020 21:12

2002 film directed by Martin Scorsese

Gangs of New York is a 2002 American epic crime drama film[3] that was directed by Martin Scorsese, set in the New York City slums, and inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1927 nonfiction book The Gangs of New York. The screenplay was written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Cameron Diaz.

In 1863, a long-running Catholic''Protestant feud erupts into violence, just as an Irish immigrant group is protesting the low wages caused by an influx of freed slaves as well as the threat of conscription. Scorsese spent 20 years developing the project until in 1999 Harvey Weinstein and his production company Miramax Films acquired it.

Made in Cinecitt , Rome, and in New York, the film was completed by 2001, but its release was delayed by the September 11 attacks. Released on December 20, 2002, the film grossed $193 million worldwide against its $100 million budget and received positive reviews from critics for Day-Lewis' performance, Scorsese's directing, the production design and costume design; but criticized for its story. It was nominated for ten Oscars at the 75th Academy Awards.

Plot [ edit ] In the slum neighborhood of Five Points, Manhattan, in 1846, two gangs have engaged in a final battle (or "challenge") in Paradise Square over "who holds sway over the Five Points"; these two factions participating in this event are the Nativist Protestants led by William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, and a group of Irish Catholic immigrants, the "Dead Rabbits", led by "Priest" Vallon. At the end of this battle, Bill kills Vallon and declares the Dead Rabbits outlawed. Having witnessed this, Vallon's young son hides the knife that killed his father and is taken to an orphanage on Blackwell's Island.

Sixteen years later, in 1862, Vallon's son, using the alias of Amsterdam, returns to the Five Points seeking revenge and retrieves the knife. An old acquaintance, Johnny Sirocco, familiarizes him with the local clans of gangs and thieves, all of whom pay tribute to Bill, who controls the neighborhood. Amsterdam is finally introduced to Bill, but keeps his past a secret, seeking to be recruited. He learns that many of his father's former loyalists are now in Bill's employ. Each year, Bill celebrates the anniversary of his victory over the Dead Rabbits; Amsterdam plans to murder him secretly during this celebration.

Amsterdam becomes attracted to pickpocket and grifter Jenny Everdeane, with whom Johnny is infatuated. Amsterdam gains Bill's confidence and Bill becomes his mentor, involving him in the dealings of corrupt Tammany Hall politician William M. Tweed. Amsterdam saves Bill from an assassination attempt, and is tormented by the thought that he may have done so out of honest devotion.

On the evening of the anniversary, Johnny, in a fit of jealousy over Jenny's affections for Amsterdam, reveals Amsterdam's true identity and intentions to Bill. Bill baits Amsterdam with a knife throwing act involving Jenny. As Bill toasts Priest Vallon, Amsterdam throws his knife, but Bill deflects it and wounds Amsterdam with a counter throw. Bill then beats him and burns his cheek with a hot blade. Going into hiding, Jenny nurses Amsterdam back to health and implores him to escape with her to San Francisco.

Amsterdam, however, returns to the Five Points seeking vengeance, and announces his return by hanging a dead rabbit in Paradise Square. Bill sends corrupt policeman Mulraney to investigate, but Amsterdam kills him and hangs his body in the square. In retaliation, Bill has Johnny beaten and run through with a pike, leaving it to Amsterdam to end his suffering. The incident garners newspaper coverage, and Amsterdam presents Tweed with a plan to defeat Bill's influence: Tweed will back the candidacy of Monk McGinn for sheriff and Amsterdam will secure the Irish vote for Tammany. Monk wins in a landslide (the election had been rigged by the Dead Rabbits), and a humiliated Bill murders him. McGinn's death prompts an angry Amsterdam to challenge Bill to a gang battle in Paradise Square for order, which Bill accepts.

Citywide draft riots break out just as the gangs are preparing to fight, and Union Army soldiers are deployed to control the rioters. As the rival gangs face off, cannon fire from naval ships is fired directly into Paradise Square, interrupting their battle shortly before it begins. Between the cannons, soldiers, and rioters, many of the gang members are killed. Bill and Amsterdam face off against one another until Bill gets wounded by a piece of shrapnel. Amsterdam then uses his father's knife to stab Bill, killing him and ending his reign at last. Afterward, Amsterdam and Jenny leave New York together to start a new life in San Francisco. Before they leave, Amsterdam buries Bill in a cemetery in Brooklyn next to his father. As Amsterdam and Jenny leave the cemetery, the final scene of the film shows the skyline changing in a time-lapse over the next hundred and forty years as modern Manhattan is built, from the Brooklyn Bridge to the World Trade Center, and the cemetery becomes overgrown and forgotten.

Cast [ edit ] Production [ edit ] The country was up for grabs, and New York was a powder keg. This was the America not the West with its wide open spaces, but of claustrophobia, where everyone was crushed together. On one hand, you had the first great wave of immigration, the Irish, who were Catholic, spoke Gaelic, and owed allegiance to the Vatican. On the other hand, there were the Nativists, who felt that they were the ones who had fought and bled, and died for the nation. They looked at the Irish coming off the boats and said, "What are you doing here?" It was chaos, tribal chaos. Gradually, there was a street by street, block by block, working out of democracy as people learned somehow to live together. If democracy didn't happen in New York, it wasn't going to happen anywhere.'-- Martin Scorsese on how he saw the history of New York City as the battleground of the modern American democracy[4]Filmmaker Martin Scorsese had grown up in Little Italy in the borough of Manhattan in New York City during the 1950s. At the time, he had noticed there were parts of his neighborhood that were much older than the rest, including tombstones from the 1810s in Old St. Patrick's Cathedral, cobblestone streets and small basements located under more recent large buildings; this sparked Scorsese's curiosity about the history of the area: "I gradually realized that the Italian-Americans weren't the first ones there, that other people had been there before us. As I began to understand this, it fascinated me. I kept wondering, how did New York look? What were the people like? How did they walk, eat, work, dress?"[4]

Writing [ edit ] In 1970, Scorsese came across Herbert Asbury's The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld (1927) about the city's nineteenth-century criminal underworld and found it to be a revelation. In the portraits of the city's criminals, Scorsese saw the potential for an American epic about the battle for the modern American democracy.[4] At the time, Scorsese was a young director without money or fame; by the end of the decade, with the success of crime films such as Mean Streets (1973), about his old neighborhood, and Taxi Driver (1976), he was a rising star. In 1979, he acquired screen rights to Asbury's book; however, it took twenty years to get the production moving forward. Difficulties arose with reproducing the monumental city scape of nineteenth century New York with the style and detail Scorsese wanted; almost nothing in New York City looked as it did in that time, and filming elsewhere was not an option. Eventually, in 1999, Scorsese was able to find a partnership with Harvey Weinstein, noted producer and co-chairman of Miramax Films.[4] Jay Cocks was retained by Scorsese for the film script adaptation which was reported in The New Yorker in March 2000 as having gone through nine revised drafts of development with Scorsese.[5]

Set design [ edit ] In order to create the sets that Scorsese envisioned, the production was filmed at the large Cinecitt Studio in Rome, Italy. Production designer Dante Ferretti recreated over a mile of mid-nineteenth century New York buildings, consisting of a five-block area of Lower Manhattan, including the Five Points slum, a section of the East River waterfront including two full-sized sailing ships, a thirty-building stretch of lower Broadway, a patrician mansion, and replicas of Tammany Hall, a church, a saloon, a Chinese theater, and a gambling casino.[4] For the Five Points, Ferretti recreated George Catlin's painting of the area.[4]

Rehearsals and character development [ edit ] Particular attention was also paid to the speech of characters, as loyalties were often revealed by their accents. The film's voice coach, Tim Monich, resisted using a generic Irish brogue and instead focused on distinctive dialects of Ireland and Great Britain. As DiCaprio's character was born in Ireland but raised in the United States, his accent was designed to be a blend of accents typical of the half-Americanized. To develop the unique, lost accents of the Yankee "Nativists" such as Daniel Day-Lewis's character, Monich studied old poems, ballads, newspaper articles (which sometimes imitated spoken dialect as a form of humor) and the Rogue's Lexicon, a book of underworld idioms compiled by New York's police commissioner, so that his men would be able to tell what criminals were talking about. An important piece was an 1892 wax cylinder recording of Walt Whitman reciting four lines of a poem in which he pronounced the word "Earth" as "Uth", and the "a" of "an" nasal and flat, like "ayan". Monich concluded that native nineteenth-century New Yorkers probably sounded something like the proverbial Brooklyn cabbie of the mid-20th century.[4]

Filming [ edit ] Principal photography began in New York and Rome on December 18, 2000, and ended on March 30, 2001.[6] Due to the strong personalities and clashing visions of director and producer,[clarification needed ] the three year production became a story in and of itself.[4][7][8][9] Scorsese strongly defended his artistic vision on issues of taste and length while Weinstein fought for a streamlined, more commercial version. During the delays, noted actors such as Robert De Niro and Willem Dafoe had to leave the production due to conflicts with their other productions. Costs overshot the original budget by 25 percent, bringing the total cost over $100 million.[7] The increased budget made the film vital to Miramax Films' short term success.[8][10]

Post-production and distribution [ edit ] After post-production was nearly completed in 2001, the film was delayed for over a year. The official justification was after the September 11, 2001 attacks, certain elements of the picture may have made audiences uncomfortable; the film's closing shot is a view of modern-day New York City, complete with the World Trade Center's towers, despite their having been destroyed by the attacks over a year before the film's release.[11] However, this explanation was refuted in Scorsese's own contemporary statements, where he noted that the production was still filming pick-ups even into October 2002.[8][12] The filmmakers had also considered having the towers removed out of the shot to acknowledge their disappearance, or remove the entire sequence altogether. It was ultimately decided to keep the towers unaltered.[13]

Weinstein kept demanding cuts to the film's length, and some of those cuts were eventually made. In December 2001, Jeffrey Wells[who? ] reviewed a purported workprint of the film as it existed in the fall of 2001. Wells reported the work print lacked narration, was about 20 minutes longer, and although it was "different than the [theatrical] version ... scene after scene after scene play[s] exactly the same in both." Despite the similarities, Wells found the work print to be richer and more satisfying than the theatrical version. While Scorsese has stated the theatrical version is his final cut, he reportedly "passed along [the] three-hour-plus [work print] version of Gangs on tape [to friends] and confided, 'Putting aside my contractual obligation to deliver a shorter, two-hour-and-forty-minute version to Miramax, this is the version I'm happiest with,' or words to that effect."[11]

In an interview with Roger Ebert, Scorsese clarified the real issues in the cutting of the film. Ebert notes,

His discussions with Weinstein, he said, were always about finding the length where the picture worked. When that got to the press, it was translated into fights. The movie is currently 168 minutes long, he said, and that is the right length, and that's why there won't be any director's cut '-- because this is the director's cut.[14]

Soundtrack [ edit ] Robbie Robertson supervised the soundtrack's collection of eclectic pop, folk, and neo-classical tracks.

Historicity [ edit ] Scorsese received both praise and criticism for historical depictions in the film. In a PBS interview for the History News Network, George Washington University professor Tyler Anbinder said that the visuals and discrimination of immigrants in the film were historically accurate, but both the amount of violence depicted and the number of Chinese, particularly female, immigrants were much more common in the film than in reality.[15][16]

Asbury's book described the Bowery Boys, Plug Uglies, True Blue Americans, Shirt Tails, and Dead Rabbits, who were named after their battle standard, a dead rabbit on a pike.[4] The book also described William Poole, the inspiration for William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, a member of the Bowery Boys, a bare-knuckle boxer, and a leader of the Know Nothing political movement. Poole did not come from the Five Points and was assassinated nearly a decade before the Draft Riots. Both the fictional Bill and the real one had butcher shops, but Poole is not known to have killed anyone.[17][18] The book also described other famous gangsters from the era such as Red Rocks Farrell, Slobbery Jim and Hell-Cat Maggie, who filed her front teeth to points and wore artificial brass fingernails.[4]

Anbinder said that Scorsese's recreation of the visual environment of mid-19th century New York City and the Five Points "couldn't have been much better".[15] All sets were built completely on the exterior stages of Cinecitt Studios in Rome.[19] By 1860, New York City had 200,000 mostly Catholic Irish immigrants[20] in a population of 800,000.[21]

According to Paul S. Boyer, "The period from the 1830s to the 1850s was a time of almost continuous disorder and turbulence among the urban poor. The decade from 1834''1844 saw more than 200 major gang wars in New York City alone, and in other cities the pattern was similar."[22]

As early as 1839, Mayor Philip Hone said: "This city is infested by gangs of hardened wretches" who "patrol the streets making night hideous and insulting all who are not strong enough to defend themselves."[23] The large gang fight depicted in the film as occurring in 1846 is fictional, though there was one between the Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits in the Five Points on July 4, 1857, which is not mentioned in the film.[24] Reviewer Vincent DiGirolamo concludes that "Gangs of New York becomes a historical epic with no change over time. The effect is to freeze ethno-cultural rivalries over the course of three decades and portray them as irrational ancestral hatreds unaltered by demographic shifts, economic cycles and political realignments."[25]

In the film, the Draft Riots are depicted mostly as acts of destruction but there was considerable violence during that week in July 1863, which resulted in more than one hundred deaths, mostly freed African-Americans. They were especially targeted by the Irish, in part because of fears of job competition that more freed slaves would cause in the city.[26] The bombardment of the city by Navy ships offshore to quell the riots is wholly fictitious. The film references the infamous Tweed Courthouse, as "Boss" Tweed refers to plans for the structure as being "modest" and "economical".[citation needed ]

In the film, Chinese Americans were common enough in the city to have their own community and public venues. Although Chinese people migrated to America as early as the 1840s, significant Chinese migration to New York City did not begin until 1869, the time when the transcontinental railroad was completed. The Chinese theater on Pell St. was not finished until the 1890s.[27] The Old Brewery, the overcrowded tenement shown in the movie in both 1846 and 1862''63, was actually demolished in 1852.[28]

Release [ edit ] The original target release date was December 21, 2001, in time for the 2001 Academy Awards but the production overshot that goal as Scorsese was still filming.[8][12] A twenty-minute clip, billed as an "extended preview", debuted at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and was shown at a star-studded event at the Palais des Festivals et des Congr¨s with Scorsese, DiCaprio, Diaz and Weinstein in attendance.[12]

Harvey Weinstein then wanted the film to open on December 25, 2002, but a potential conflict with another film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Catch Me If You Can produced by DreamWorks, caused him to move the opening day to an earlier position. After negotiations between several parties, including the interests of DiCaprio, Weinstein and DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg, the decision was made on economic grounds: DiCaprio did not want to face a conflict of promoting two movies opening against each other; Katzenberg was able to convince Weinstein that the violence and adult material in Gangs of New York would not necessarily attract families on Christmas Day. Of main concern to all involved was attempting to maximize the film's opening day, an important part of film industry economics.[8]

After three years in production, the film was released on December 20, 2002, a year after its original planned release date.[12] While the film has been released on DVD and Blu-ray, there are no plans to revisit the theatrical cut or prepare a "director's cut" for home video release. "Marty doesn't believe in that," editor Thelma Schoonmaker stated. "He believes in showing only the finished film."[11]

Reception [ edit ] Box office [ edit ] The film made $77,812,000 in Canada and the United States. It also took $23,763,699 in Japan and $16,358,580 in the United Kingdom. Worldwide the film grossed a total of $193,772,504.[29]

Critical reception [ edit ] On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 73% based on 210 reviews, with an average rating of 7.11/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Though flawed, the sprawling, messy Gangs of New York is redeemed by impressive production design and Day-Lewis's electrifying performance."[30] Another review aggregator, Metacritic, gave the film a score of 72 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[31]

Roger Ebert praised the film but believed it fell short of Scorsese's best work, while his At the Movies co-star Richard Roeper called it a "masterpiece" and declared it a leading contender for Best Picture.[32] Paul Clinton of CNN called the film "a grand American epic".[33] In Variety, Todd McCarthy wrote that the film "falls somewhat short of great film status, but is still a richly impressive and densely realized work that bracingly opens the eye and mind to untaught aspects of American history." McCarthy singled out the meticulous attention to historical detail and production design for particular praise.[34]

Some critics were disappointed with the film, with one review on CinemaBlend feeling it was overly violent with few characters worth caring about.[35][36] Norman Berdichevsky of the New English Review wrote in a negative critique that some locals in Spain who had watched Gangs of New York had several anti-American beliefs "confirmed" afterwards, which he felt was due to the film's gratuitous violence, historical inaccuracies, and general depiction of American society "in the worst possible light".[37] Others felt it tried to tackle too many themes without saying anything unique about them, and that the overall story was weak.[38]

Top ten lists [ edit ] Gangs of New York was listed on many critics' top ten lists.[39]

1st '' Peter Travers, Rolling Stone1st '' Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper[40]2nd '' Richard Corliss, Time Magazine2nd '' Ann Hornaday, Washington Post3rd '' F. X. Feeney, L.A. Weekly3rd '' Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club[41]5th '' Jami Bernard, New York Daily News5th '' Claudia Puig, USA Today6th '' Mike Clark, USA Today6th '' Nathan Rabin, The A.V. Club[41]6th '' Chris Kaltenbach, Baltimore Sun8th '' A.O. Scott, The New York Times9th '' Stephen Holden, The New York TimesTop 10 (listed alphabetically) '' Mark Olsen, L.A. WeeklyTop 10 (listed alphabetically) '' Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia InquirerAwards [ edit ] See also [ edit ] Irish Americans in New York CityIrish Brigade (US)List of identities in The Gangs of New York (book)References [ edit ] ^ "Gangs of New York (18)". British Board of Film Classification. December 10, 2002 . Retrieved October 5, 2016 . ^ a b "Gangs of New York (2002)". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved February 27, 2017 . ^ "Gangs of New York (2002) - Martin Scorsese | Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related". AllMovie . Retrieved February 21, 2020 . ^ a b c d e f g h i j Fergus M. Bordewich (December 2002). "Manhattan Mayhem". Smithsonian Magazine . Retrieved July 15, 2010 . ^ Singer, Mark (2000). "The Man Who Forgets Nothing". The New Yorker. March 19, 2000. [1] ^ "Gangs of New York (2002) - Original Print Information". Turner Classic Movies . Retrieved August 19, 2020 . ^ a b Laura M. Holson (April 7, 2002). "2 Hollywood Titans Brawl Over a Gang Epic". The New York Times . Retrieved July 15, 2010 . ^ a b c d e Laura M. Holso