Oh, SmAlbany!

This ain’t your father’s SmAlbany vote fraud:

UPDATE (8/12/2005):This week's Metroland has an article by Miriam Axel-Lute that references this article and the general debate that took place here and at Democracy in Albany.

UPDATE (7/31/2005): Mike over at Democracy at Albany has posted a response critique to this piece. I think he makes some good points, it's definitely worth a read after you read my essay below.

However, I still stand by the main point of my essay: I'm all for clean elections, but it is counterproductive in democratic politics to make trivial election law violations the central topic of campaigns at the expense of substantive discussions of candidate policy positions. Clean elections are only a means to an end- when they come to be the only end, it benefits nobody.

ORIGINAL ESSAY (7/29/2005)

Over at Democracy in Albany, there’s a lot of talk in the past day or two about “vote fraud” and “voter fraud” in recent Albany elections – some of the county legislative elections of 2004 were invalidated by a federal court and in the current Democratic primary for the city common council there is talk of illegal tactics for gathering petition signatures. As the TU reports:

Over at Democracy in Albany, there is a minor uproar over this “voter fraud,” on both its substance and the lack of coverage by the TU. Here are my three initial reactions:

Reaction #1: Whatever has been done that is illegal, it’s not “vote fraud” or “voter fraud” – In the last generation or two in America, there has been a strong move toward protecting the rights of the voter. This is generally a positive development (although I have some reservations; see below). But it has been accompanied by a rhetorical shift of pundits and politicians that has turned every bit of minor election law vioation into “voter fraud.” "Minor election law violations" are the violation of campaign laws, whether trivial or important. If you don’t report your legal spending in a federal election, that’s a violation. If you campaign within 150 feet of a polling place in New York, that’s a violation. “Vote fraud,” as commonly understood, is a very serious subset of election law violations – it covers the practice of illegal receiving votes in an election, either because people voted illegally or because the votes were intentionally counted incorrectly. But in the past 10 years or so, particularly since the 2000 election, “vote fraud” has come to mean anything and everything that is electioneering, as well as some things that are not even illegal. It is not “vote fraud” if you don’t receive your absentee ballot in the mail on time. It might be a minor bit of chicanery, but it’s probably more likely just a mistake.

Small potatoes election law violations (to say nothing of innocent mistakes), although undesirable, happens every election. People cut corners and try to take advantage of vague rules and unenforced laws. Although it can alter elections, the vast majority of violations are so indirectly related to the actual vote that the probability of it having any effect is near zero. This nonsense about petition signatures in the Democratic primary this week is a good example. It’s wrong, but it’s also trivial. It is not going to change the election. Vote fraud, however, is very serious. It directly undermines the validity of the election. This is not to say that there isn't serious electioneering besides vote fraud; there is: Watergate for instance. You shouldn't be raiding the other party's headquarters.

The point here is that we shouldn’t start calling all election law violations “vote fraud.” It just isn’t. It can only serve to unnecessarily alarm the public and put cracks in citizen confidence. In political science- and everywhere else – it is well known that the packaging of an idea has a lot to do with its success. That’s why people use the “death tax” terminology for the estate tax, the “pro-choice” and “right to choose” euphamisms for abortion, and the always funnyuse of “budget cuts” for the reduction in the rate of increase of spending. There are good and bad ideas, but there are also good and bad sales pitches for ideas. Whatever the merit of your idea, you better bring a good sales pitch. Anytime you can stuff your idea into a tried and true rhetorical phrase – like “tax cuts” or “right to X” – you’re halfway to a political winner. The same is true for the selling of accusations of wrongdoing. If you just package all electioneering as “vote fraud,” it makes it sound like a really big deal. Similarly, if you start to treat every wrong action in an election as “voter fraud” – in the “you broke the law so you are frauding the electorate” – then, well, all government corruption becomes “voter fraud.”

Stuffing ballot boxes: vote fraud. Dead people voting: vote fraud. Racially skewed literacy tests to vote: serious electioneering that can reasonably be called vote fraud. Twenty fake or illegally obtained petition signatures: small-time election law violation, not vote fraud.

Reaction #2: Those devious Albany politicos just aren’t what they used to be! – Come on, admit it, this was actually your first reaction. Mine too. Anyone who has lived their whole life in SmAlbany probably had the same reaction as me: that’s it? Just a handful of illegally obtained petition signatures? Where are the dead voters, the old ladies who voted morning, noon, and night, the fictional voters who never existed? Where is the intimidation, the bribes, the dusty ward maps with each house’s voting record printed on them? Back in the day, vote fraud in Albany meant just that – stealing votes – and voter fraud meant fraudulent voters – i.e. people voting who either didn’t exist, didn’t have a pulse, or otherwise didn’t qualify to vote, like my Labrador retriever Sasha. [shouldn’t she sue for her right to vote – i.e. vote fraud? –ed. Probably, but she prefers her status as queen.]

In fact, if SmAlbany politics is known for anything in the rest of the country, it’s known for the O’Connell machine, and with it the glamorization of the sketchy side of machine politics, including – but certainly not limited to – vote fraud. Historically, Albany politics is so synonymous with real “vote fraud” that one begins to wonder if the legend actually outweighs the truth. Who hasn’t heard about “making the machine dance?” And we’re not just talking about 50 years ago. In his great book about running for the Assembly in 2000, Running with the Machine, Dan Lynch basically accuses the Republican party in southern Saratoga county of stuffing the ballot box:

That’s vote fraud. And it’s the only paragraph in Lynch’s book that mentions vote fraud. However, if you read the book cover to cover you’ll find hundreds of accusations of minor election law violations and legal-but-unethical election practices, like ripping someone else’s campaign signs down from public places.

Reaction #3: Is this really the angle that anyone who cares about Albany should be spending their time talking about?

In political science, there is generally agreement that one of the forces that shapes the democratic world is incomplete information. If everyone had all the facts about everything, both democracy and capitalism would look a lot different – there would be no advertising, there would be no campaigning, and people would generally make the decisions, both economic and political, that were – from their perspective – best for themselves. But of course, people don’t have all the information. So the theoretical purpose of advertising, or of a campaign, is to give them that information.

However, neither corporations or politicians are interested in necessarily supplying you with all the information. They just want you to buy their stuff or vote for them. So they try to give you partial information, just the good stuff about them and the bad stuff about their competitors. There is a limited amount of time before a campaign and a limited attention span of the voters. Whatever information is translated to them becomes the information with which the voting decisions are made. This is why we have certain cues in elections, like party labels. Knowing the political party of a candidate gives the average vote the vast majority of information that he/she needs to make a voting decision that he/she is comfortable with.

Most people who are progressive about democracy (whether liberal or conservative) are in agreement that a better-informed electorate would be beneficial toward the ends of a better democracy. I tend to agree. Obviously, you are fighting an uphill battle when you take this position: people are lazy, don’t care much about local politics, and generally don’t even want to be informed about elections beyond the party labels and any major candidate scandal. But you are also fighting a second battle: not only is there limited time for the delivery of information, but the crucial information is often drowned out by unimportant information. Often this is done on purpose by the candidates: if you just starting accusing each other of illegal practices, you don’t have time to talk about the issues! It is a classic campaign that spends all its time arguing over who violated some tiny voter regulation and spends no time talking about any substantive issue. Clean elections can only be a means to an end. If they become the only end in themselves, we have gotten exactly nowhere.

This is clearly the pattern of worrying about small time election law violations. Democracy in Albany in upset that the Times Union doesn’t cover election law violations enough during the election? I think it’s a good thing. It saves space in the paper to talk about the actual election issues, as poorly as the TU does that. Seriously, what is more important in an election – finding out who broke what miniscule law or finding out where the candidates stand on the important issues? I take the latter every time. There are so many violations of small election laws that it ultimately can’t be a judge of character anyway. And half the time, the violation isn’t by the candidate at all, it’s by a party or another politician not in the race. There’s an old saying in politics, “If you spend all your time arguing about who is lying, you probably don’t care a whole lot about the truth.” It implies that partisan extremists just want to win at all costs, and thus devolve elections into battles over silly rhetorical mistakes and small-time electioneering. And it has a lot of merit.

Like I said at the outset of this piece, I’m all for clean elections. But I think it’s silly to demand perfect elections if the cost is to turn the entire campaign into a discussion of fraud. It doesn’t really do the voter any good. Across the vast majority of the democratic world, and through the vast majority of American democratic history, small-time election law violation is and has been a problem. So has vote fraud. We’ve done our best in modern America to stamp out real vote fraud, and that has been a major advancement of our society. But to continue to treat the end of minor and generally inconsequentional electioneering as the most important step towards an improved democracy is just silly. We would be far better off spending the time and money informing voters of candidate policy positions.

Well then: Apparently, Oh, SmAlbany! has been honored with an award from Metroland's "Best of 2005":

Geez. All i do is take a month off from blogging, come back for three days, and then go on a week's vacation, and I win a Metroland award. I should stop blogging altogether, maybe they will make me President.

In all seriousness, however, i appreciate the award and thank whoever nominated me.

Regular essays resume tomorrow. Cheers, MG.

The "intellectual" roots of Oh, SmAlbany!: A few readers have asked me how long I had been thinking and writing about Albany prior to the advent of Oh, SmAlbany!. Honestly, I don't really know. However, I was looking through some old emails this weekend, and I came across a few from June, 2001 that might shed some light on the question. A friend of mine said something like, "Isn't having a boat on Lake George the Albany equivalent of a house in the Hampton's?" And thus a game was born. We the began emailing back and forth, making humorous comparisons between New York City and Albany, the goal being to poke fun at each city while also subtly revealing cultural truths about them.

The format of the comparisons was to discuss the difference between "big shots" (something like the equivalent of "Big Man on Campus" for a city) in the two cities - the types of people who have houses in the Hamptons and boats in Lake George, with liberal exemptions that often just describe things average non-big shots do in both cities. Although many of the entries are a bit dated, I think it still comes across as somewhat funny and quite true. Feel free to add your own in the comments section.

Here were some of the entries:

Big Shot-NYC: wears the latest $300 trendy clothing when looking to impress.
Big Shot-ALB: wears some timeless "Saratoga-style" clothing when looking to impress.

BS-NYC: great "connections" to tix at Madison Square Garden.
BS-ALB: great "connections" to tix at Siena basketball.

BS-NYC: high paying job in the "financial district."
BS-ALB: cushy and comfortable job with the state.

BS-NYC: can score you seats at "The Producers."
BS-ALB: can score you a box at Saratoga.

BS-NYC: hangs out with Jeter, Jay-Z, and others at "Bar 89".
BS-ALB: hangs out with McEneny and others at "Jack's."

BS-NYC: has a place in the hamptons.
BS-ALB: has a boat up in Lake George

BS-NYC: Nostalgic for days when baseball was played in Brooklyn.
BS-ALB: Nostalgic for days when baseball was played in Bleeker Stadium.

BS-NYC: May have grown up in NYC, but probably moved there after college.
BS-ALB: Definitely grew up in Albany, and probably has never lived elsewhere.

BS-NYC: Shows off his city by pointing out Brooklyn Bridge to guests.
BS-ALB: Shows off his city by pointing out "Nipper."

BS-NYC: Enjous a power lunch on Wall St. in the summer.
BS-ALB: Spends lunchtime down at OTB in August.

BS-NYC: You reminisce about those great electronics store commercials from years ago, featuring Crazy Eddie.
BS-ALB: You reminisce about those great Armory Showroom commericals from years ago, featuring Geoffrey Holder.
BS-NYC: impresses friends with vast knowledge of pizza joints on every block of Upper East Side.
BS-ALB: impresses friends by offering lengthy explanations of why "Mild Wallys" is better than "I love NY pizza."

BS-NYC: thinks the "in-town" newspapers are so lame. Reads LA TIMES.
BS-ALB: thinks the "in-town" newspapers are so lame. Reads NY POST.

BS-NYC: looking forward to future "Subway Series."
BS-ALB: looking forward to future "Siena-SUNY" basketball matchup.

BS-NYC: pretends to not know the bars on the lower east side.
BS-ALB: pretends to not know the bars on 4th street in Troy.
BS-NYC: Brags of seeing Dave Matthews Band play the Wetlands on band's first NE tour.
BS-ALB: Brags of seeing the Figgs play Bogie's circa 1994.

BS-NYC: Saw Garth Brooks play Central Park.
BS-ALB: Saw the SpinDoctors play 'Tulipfest'.

BS-NYC: High school hangout- Tunnel and Sound Factory.
BS-ALB: High school hangout- Professor Java's and 'On Broadway'.

BS-NYC: trendy shopping day consists of designer clothes on 5th Avenue and lunch at Russian Tea Room.
BS-ALB: trendy shopping day consists of Stuyvesant Plaza and clam chowder at Brueggers.
BS-NYC: Nostalgic for the heyday of "Studio 54" and "CBGB's."
BS-ALB: Nostalgic for the heyday of "Firebird's block parties."

BS-NYC: would never reduce himself to going to a Nets game.
BS-ALB: would never reduce himself to going to a River Rats game.

BS-NYC: thinks a $7 drink is a "a pretty good deal."
BS-ALB: thinks "Sadie Klutz's" is "a pretty good bar."
BS-NYC: takes a limo for a night out in Atlantic City.
BS-ALB: takes the 'Greyhound Express' for a night out at Turning Stone.

BS-NYC: hangs with Carrot Top and DeNiro at the Underbar at the W.
BS-ALB: hangs with SUNY kingpins at Sneaky Pete's.

BS-NYC: discuss/brag about which boarding school he attended.
BS-ALB: discuss/brag about which suburban council school he attended.
BS-NYC: doesn't wait in line at "Limelight" or "Milk andHoney."
BS-ALB: doesn't wait in line at "Studio 64" or "The Lamppost."

BS-NYC: tries to avoid the NYU/college scene in the village.
BS-ALB: Heads right for the SUNY scene at Washington and Quail.

BS-NYC: good seats for "concerts in the park."
BS-ALB: good seats for "Alive at 5."

On vacation: SJC and I are off to North Carolina till next wednesday (7/27). Posting will either be sporadic or non-existent in the meantime. I hope you enjoyed the essays on Saratoga (new one below), I plan to do more essay length pieces in the coming weeks.

mg

At a track called Saratoga...part 3 of 3: [Note: This post is part three of a three part series on SmAlbany's most well-known tourist attraction, the Saratoga Race Course, which opens for its 36-day season on July 27th. Part 1 discusses the cultural relevance of Saratoga to SmAlbany; part 2 is about the track itself; part 3 is a guide to the bars and restaurants of downtown Saratoga in August]

The last race at the track will usually be in the 5-6pm range. If you're looking to head out of town, you might consider leaving after the second to last race ends, in order to beat the crowds out of the NYRA lots. However, I highly recommend against heading out of town. In fact, don't even go back to your car after you leave the track. Instead, head downtown by foot and come back to retrieve your car after dinner. That way, you can either leave town when there is no traffic by the track, or you can move your car downtown before parking becomes difficult due to nightlife.

To get downtown from the track, exit one of the Union Ave. entrances to the track and take a left heading down Union. It's a nice 3/4 mile stroll to downtown, past numerous fancy mansions, bed and breakfasts, and the National Horse Racing Hall of Fame. When you get to the end of Union, take a right and then the first left, and you will come into "downtown."

"Downtown" Saratoga is not a city - it's more like what college kids would describe as "downtown" if they went to school in a small town. There's a main street - Broadway - and a bunch of side streets with businesses on them. It's quite charming. All together, there are about 50 bars and restaurants in the tiny 3 square blocks bounded by Broadway, Spring, Circular, and Lake that comprise downtown. It's perfectly safe at night - the crowds are just too big - so you should feel comfortable walking around, even if you are alone. If you eat dinner and then retrieve your car, look for a spot in the neighborhoods just before downtown on the track side. There are usually spots with not too far a walk.

Dining in Saratoga can be somewhat problematic in August. The first thing to realize is that nobody takes reservations unless you have a group of 6 or more. They just don't need to. So you are going to wait if you don't head right to eat after the track. Although there are many excellent options for downtown dining, I tend to like the more casual places. If the weather is nice, shoot for a place with outdoor seating (which is the majority of places). If you like pub food, I highly recommend Peabody's sports bar, on Phila street. They have an outdoor area, the wings are phenomenal, and the beer is reasonably priced for Saratoga in August. Another good option of Phila street is Sushi Thai Garden, which has no outdoor seating, but does have some of the best Asian food around. A good bet for burgers, sandwiches, and other light fare is Professor Moriarity's on Broadway. Two better bets for slightly more upscale dining are Brendisi's on Broadway and Sperry's on Caroline street. Expect a healty wait at either of these places.

As I said before, your best bet is to head right downtown after going to the track, have an early dinner, and then lounge around at one of the outdoor bars. This gives you the option of leaving saratoga before the nightlife crowds really heat up. You'll probably want to stay, however. This is probably the best time to check out the most rediculously crowded bar in Saratoga, Gaffney's (on the corner of Putnam and Caroline). By 10:30pm, Gaffney's will be far too crowded to be enjoyable. Instead, go there right after dinner, and have a cocktail in the outdoor seating area. You can peoplewatch out on Putnam street or just listen to the live music that is undoubtedly playing there and at other places. This also isn't a bad time to check out the roofdeck at the City Tavern, which is right across Caroline street from Gaffney's. Although the City Tavern is a mostly forgettable 4 story bar - a lot like the Big House in Albany - the roofdeck has a nice view of downtown and can be great before it gets crowded. You might laugh, but the crowds really do pose a problem at many bars in Saratoga. By 10:30pm, Caroline street will be flooded with people and many of the bars will be absolutely packed. If you finish dinner early, you might also check out the racing memorabilia shop, which is on Broadway between Spring and Phila.

The dress code for Saratoga nightlife is a little different. The bars tend to cater to a wide variety of ages and social classes, so anything is acceptable. Since there are so many bars, you can fit in anywhere or feel out of place anywhere no matter what you are wearing. Some places tend toward the hook-up look: muscle shifts, tight black pants, etc. Others tend toward the subdued Natucket look that predominates so much of Saratoga in August: pastel preppty, flip-flops, pearls. And most of the places are somewhat in between, catering to that standard SmAlbany bar-wear: not dressed up, but not slovenly. On a related note, the underage drinking scene in Saratoga has been cracked down on somewhat over the last ten years. It wasn't difficult to get a drink up there when i was in high school. Now it's somewhat tougher, although still laughably mild compared to many local nightspots. There are just too many bars. Many, many teenagers can be spotted in the various establishments.

Here's a 10-point tip sheete to handling the nightlife in Saratoga once 10pm rolls around:

1) Don't bother with Gaffney's, City Tavern, or any place that wants to charge a cover: The cover thing is really silly in Saratoga. You might consider paying a cover at Luna if you want to bump and grind, but don't even think about it anywhere else - the old Metro and Newberry's come to mind first in this vein. Stick to the 40 or so bars that don't take cash up front. As previously discussed, Gaffney's and City Tavern are not worth the crowds once they get packed. Also, skip Ben and Jerry's. You can get that anywhere.

2) Make sure you check out one of the two great college bars: Both Desparate Anne's (Caroline Street) and the Tin and Lint (a few doors up from Desparate's) are classic college bars: scarred wood tables, excellent jukeboxes, darts, pool, foosball, and surprisingly ok drink prices. The crowds are college-ish, but pretty relaxed. Desparate's feels exactly like the bar you used to go to back in the day, and the Tin and Lint tries very hard to be Joe College, with its stolen roadsigns and college decals adorning the walls. Desparate Anne's is my favorite non-outdoor bar in Saratoga.

3) Find your way to one of the bars that is empty with no explanation: A strange phenomenon in Saratoga in August is that there are several bars that just can't seem to attract a crowd, no matter what they do. One in the Saratoga Brew Pub, which always seems to have exactly no one sitting outside (it's a bit more crowded inside). Get a table out back and order two pitchers - one of the house stout and one of the house pale ale. Back in college (ok, well even now...) my friends and I used to take a sample of the hottest hot sauce at the hot sauce store next door to the Brew Pub, and then race over to the Pub to down pitchers of water before returning to the local beers. If you want to try this, the hot sauce store closes around 9pm. The other bar that can't seem to attract business is the Bullpen Tavern on Caroline Street. Despite being in the absolute center of the action, the BT is rarely more than half full.

4) Go to one of the Irish Pubs that is really out of the way: One of these - the Parting Glass on Lake Ave. - is so well known that it draws an enormous crowd despite being quite far away (it's about 1/4 mile walk from Gaffney's, so it's only relatively far away from the scene.) In addition to having two large barrooms, the Parting Glass has live music, about 15 dart boards, and Italian shuffleboard for free. It's great. And it's very authentic Irish-y. The other out of the way Irish bar is O'Dwyer's on Spring Street. Although not far from the action, people tend to forget about OD's. Stop in for a pint, you'll like it.

5) Take a break and walk the Caroline-Broadway-Phila-Putnam loop: Try this. Start at Gaffney's, walk up Caroline street and stop at the cigar shop on the righthand side for a stogie. Light it up and continue your walk. Take a left on Broadway and head down to either Phila or Spring Street, on which you take a left. Then take a left on Putnam and head back to Gaffney's corner. I guarantee you'll see some great stuff. If you think you might not, stop on Broadway at one of the benches and just sit there for a while. It's a real peoplewatching treat.

6) Go to the Icehouse: A lot of people scoff at the Icehouse, but I love it. It's a former mechanics garage turned barroom. It's tiny, trashy, and loveable. And it has barstools that face open-air on Putnam street, making a great place to see the sights. Order a bucket of rocks, sit down, drink'em, and then leave.

7) Don't get a "Saratoga Slammer": For years, the track and the bars have tried to produce a "signature" drink in Saratoga, kinda like the Kentucky Derby has the mint julip, New Orleans has the Hurricane, and James Bond has the very dry, shaken maritini. Don't fall into this trap. Alternatively called a "Saratoga Sunrise," you'll see this thing advertised a bit around town. It's not worth it and you don't want to promote fake tradition. Saratoga has plenty of real tradition. In the same vein, be wary of any drink that Saratoga in the name, or some local relation to the town. Take Funny Cide Ale, for instance. Sounds cool, but by all acounts it tastes like the horse peed in the bottle.

8) Consider going up there the night of the Travers: Although I highly recommend staying away from the actual track on Travers Day, the downtown scence that night is a sight to behold. It's going to be crowded on every Friday and Saturady night in August - you might as well check it out on the night that it will be most packed, have the most bands playing, and have the most celebrities walking the streets. On Travers night, downtown really feels like another world - some low-level Mardi Gras sets in, and Caroline street has just an amazing energy.

9) Remember not to stay out too late: One sinister aspect of the Saratoga bar scene is that the bars don't really have a closing time - some close at 2:30am, some 3:30am, and some seem to never close. While people in Vegas, New Orleans, and NYC might be used to this, people in SmAlbany are not. We tend to set our betimes to coincide with closing time. 11 months out of the year, this gets you out of the bar by 2:00am, a late but reasonable time. If you don't watch yourself in Saratoga, you'll accidentally be out till well after 3am. Trust me, it's happened to me unintentionally on more than one occassion. And if you stay out real late, all sorts of things tend to go wrong. My college friend Ian once mistakenly stayed out till 5am or so in Saratoga, and woke up the next morning somewhere in Ballston Spa sleeping on the couch of some "friends" he made the night before, who also happened to run a homemade dog buscuits operation. Ouch.

10) Get yourself a Doughboy at the end of the night: After Pope's Pizza closed down around 1997, the late night drunk food scene in Saratoga never really recovered. That is, until Esperanto's, the little tiny shop on Caroline street, became famous for its "Doughboy." Don't even ask what is in it. You don't want to know. Just rest assured that you'll want to eat one whenever you're done carousing. If you really want pizza, there's D'Andreas, a wierd shop on Caroline street down past Putnam that serves gourmet slices, but it's not that good.

UPDATE (7/20/05): A reader suggests Brooklyn Pizza on Henry street, open till 4am.

Of course, there are tens of bars, dozens of restuarants, and a million adventures left off of this essay. The only way to discover them is to head up to the track this August. Hope to see you there!

At a track called Saratoga...part 2 of 3: [Note: This post is part two of a three part series on SmAlbany's most well-known tourist attraction, the Saratoga Race Course, which opens for its 36-day season on July 27th. Part 1 discusses the cultural relevance of Saratoga to SmAlbany; part 2 is about the track itself; part 3 is a guide to the bars and restaurants of downtown Saratoga in August]

This column is about going to the actual track – not downtown, just the track. I was going to write a column here about the axioms of the track – the little things that everyone who is “in the know” knows, but I decided not too. Instead, I’m going to recount the top things I recommend you do at the track. At the end of the column, I’ll list the axioms, but I won’t go into detail about them.

So here are my recommendations for your time at the actual track:

1) Get there way, way too early: Even if you’re going up on a weekday and even if you are brining your own table and chairs, I highly recommend getting the track very early – around 9am if possible. The first race is not until 1pm, and many people do not arrive until just before 1 or even a bit afterwards. This is a huge mistake. There’s something really great about the atmosphere at that time. People are walking around, you can access the clubhouse even if you aren’t buying your way in there later, you can read the papers and the tip sheets, play cards, have breakfast. My favorite move is to get the track around 8am, hang out for an hour, and then walk downtown to have breakfast at the little greasy spoon on Broadway. Park in either one of the free NYRA lots, or park downtown if you plan on spending part of the evening down there (you should). If yo u get to the track prior to about 10am, you won't have to pay admission at first - you can go in and reserve a picnic table by putting your stuff on it (don't worry, no one will steal it if you leave it unattended). Around 10am, everyone has to go outside the gates and wait to come in for the admission, which is $3.

1b) Either get a picnic table or bring your own: This cannot be understated. I’ve never gotten over how some people don’t get a table in the picnic area. Instead, they wander around the track all day. Amazing. So either get there early (9:30 weekdays, 8:30 weekends) and get a picnic table, or just bring your own folding bridge table and chairs and arrive whenever you want. The best spots are places that are (in order): out of the traffic pattern, in the shade, near a TV, close to a betting booth. No table has all these features, so pick what is important to you. I prefer to be on the "inner loop" past the horse walking path, but that's just personal preference.

2) Bring way, way too much food and drink into the picnic area: Perhaps the greatest thing about the track is that you can bring your own food and drink in through the gate. Definitely take advantage, as the track food is one of the weaknesses of the saratoga experience. This can be overdone. You will see picnic tables that have a 6-foot sandwich, 8 bags of chips, four homemade entrees, 10 handles of liquor, a box of cigars, two bottles of wine, a case of beer, pounds of cheese, and 3 tubs of potato salad. You will also see people using handtrucks to wheel in cases upon cases of beer. But they have the right idea. Here’s what you need for a group of 6: Two coolers, one wheeled and one carry. In the wheeled one, put 6 full length subs from subway, 2 bags of chips, a thing of cookies, and either potato salad, apples, or a half-watermelon if you’re adventurous. In the carry cooler, put 20 drinks total, half beer and half soda. I’ve found that people vastly overestimate how much beer you want at the track. It’s just not as conducive for drinking as most people think. Don’t bother with the wine or hard liquor. It’s not worth it. Remember, downtown is only ½ mile away and you’ll be walking there right after the 8^th race. There’s plenty of time to drink. Don’t forget a picnic table cloth, napkins, and something to cut the watermelon with.

3) Fool an out-of-towner into drinking from the Big Red Spring: Never fails to be a crowd favorite! Usually, there’s one or two old Italian men chugging the stuff down right next to the spring, so it doesn’t take much to goad your cousin from California into a cupfull. You can sometimes even get the more gullible to go for it a second time a year later, if you “explain” to them that the track has fixed the sulfur taste in the spring and it’s now delicious.

4) Occasionally, buy the clubhouse admission: Even though you got a table in the picnic area or brought your own table and chairs, at least once a summer you should buy the clubhouse upgrade admission and go in there for an hour or so. It’s worth the $3, if only because you get that moment of superiority when you look out at the picnic area and think to yourself they can’t come in here. It’s a cheap thrill, but trust me, it’s fun. Plus you get to watch a race buy the winner’s circle and the finish line. Just don’t be suckered into buying a beer or any food in there. Not worth it.

5) Put some cologne on in the men’s room in the picnic area: If you go in the main men’s room in the picnic area, they have shaving cream, razors, cologne, and every other men’s care product you can imagine. I’ve never seen anyone shave – it would be a little awkward to lather up in front of the kid who hands you the paper towels – but I often make it a point to throw on some cologne. Adds to the upper crust effect. P.S – That kid who works the men’s room has an awful job, but on the other hand, if you’re going to work on outdoor men’s room, the Saratoga Race Course might be your first choice.

6) Go to the paddock to cheer on your horse: You should at least once walk down to the paddock and cheer on your horse before his race. Although you will initially think it’s silly for everyone to be cheering on their horse, you will eventually join in the fun and yell stuff like, “C’mon number 8! Let’s go Mr. Peanuts! Looking good!” Trust me, good times.

7) Play the experienced/inexperienced game: This was a popular game among me and my friends in high school. Then when I got to college I met another guy from the SmAlbany area, and he played it with his high school friends too! Come to learn, it’s a widely popular game that many people “invent” on their own at the track. The goal is to come up with one-liners based on what “experienced” gamblers do vs. what “inexperienced” gamblers do, with a goal of making your friends laugh at your dry wit and poking fun at both experienced and inexperienced gamblers. Since you'll basically "see it all" at the track, there's lots of good fodder for this type of thing.

Here are a few to get you started, and then you can play all summer:

Standing around: INEXPERIENCED.

Leaning: EXPERIENCED.

Making calls on a cell phone: INEXPERIENCED.

Receiving calls on the pay phones in the picnic area: EXPERIENCED.

Buys any of the food at the track except for a lemonade: INEXPERIENCED.

Doesn’t eat at all in August because there’s not enough time for eating and pickin’ winners: EXPERIENCED.

Has two or more of the following: New York Post tip sheet, TU tip sheet, Gazette tip sheet: INEXPERIENCED.

Has a tip sheet you can’t buy at the track or within 50 miles of saratoga: EXPERIENCED.

This game is closely related to the “odds” game that many people play as they drive up to the track. There’s just something fun about making up odds for things when you go to the track. For instance:

I lose money next time I go: 3-2 in favor.

I complain about it: 10-1 favorite.

My mom asks me “how to place a bet”: 2-1

She still messes up: 4-1

She ends up winning more than me: even money

And so on…

As a side note on the topic of games: when you’re a teenager, Saratoga in August seems like the place where the rules were forgotten. Few people care if you’re not old enough to drink. Nobody cares if you’re not old enough to gamble. And no matter how late you stay up, there’s always something going on. The track is a safe place to hang out; the town is too.

There’s an old game that circulated among my friends for the better part of 3 or 4 years when we were older teenageers, which went something like this: try to get yourself into the track on the child’s admission price and then try to get into one of the bars downtown on the same day. A similar game was the “24 hours of saratoga,” which entailed arriving in the early morning at the track, spending all day there, going out to dinner, and then staying at the bars until they closed around 5am, hopefully not arriving back home until after you left for the track the previous morning.

Ok, back to the track.

8) Watch a race from the rail/picnic area: It always surprises me the number of people who only watch the races from the picnic area or only watch the races from the rail. Each way is fun, but you’re missing out if you don’t do both when you are at the track. At the rail, you should arrive at least 10 minutes before post time, because it really sucks if you aren’t in the front row. Out in the picnic area, you should try to position yourself near some of the gambling loudmouths if possible. They provide the best excitement. Don’t consider your experience out there complete until you see both of the following things: first, a guy whipping a picnic table with a rolled up Post Parade, as if he’s actually on the horse he’s cheering from, and secondly, a guy telling everyone in sight after the race that he “woulda had the triple if the stupid 4 horse just came in, I had 3-8-4 and it came 3-8-2…” as if that means he was actually close to the triple. Another fun thing to do is pick a race and don’t watch it, just stand in the picnic area with your eyes closed, and listen to the growing roar of the crowd as the horses come around the backstretch, it’s quite amazing.

9) Buy a lemonade: I don’t recommend any food purchases at the track. Bring what you want to eat, and eat what you bring. My father-in-law swears by the clam chowder, but come on, it’s August. The only thing I do recommend is a large lemondae. They make it on the spot with a real lemon, plenty of sugar, and even though it’s pricey (about $4) it’s worth it. Just don’t get one before the 3^rd race, or you’ll definitely be getting another one later. A good move is to sucker one of your friends into getting one about the 3^rd race, and have a few sips of his to tide you over.

10) Walk around the picnic area and people watch: This is easily the best thing to do once you’ve lost your quota of money, are sick of playing cars, and have read all three newspapers. Just take a long slow walk from the main gate down to the Big Red Spring and back. It’s truly amazing what you will see. Truly.

11) Become obsessed with a bad jockey: This is actually just something that happened to me and my friends. We’ve been Jean-Luc Samyn fans for as long as I can remember, and he’s stunk as a jockey for as long as I can remember. I bet on him a lot, and he constantly disappoints. Then I don’t bet on him, and he wins. He’s the ultimate lovable loser. Every time I go to the track I end up losing $20, which I pin directly on Samyn as a down a pitcher of beer in town that night.

12) Walk downtown for dinner/drinks at the end of the day: More on this tomorrow in part 3…

Ok, here are the axioms I promised up top: Use a teller, not the SAM machines. Don’t get “trackside preffered” parking. Don’t be a “spinner” on Sunday. Don’t go to Travers Day, but do go on a different weekend day. Always play the pick-6 on a shared ticket with your friends – if you hit the first two races, it will be more exciting than you can imagine. Bet to win, don’t be picking the favorite to show. Don’t throw your losing stubs on the ground; don’t pick stubs up off the ground. Wear a collared shirt; don’t wear pants. Scream if you hit a big exacta. Shut up if you don’t win. Buy your friends dinner if you make a big score. Don’t complain if you get cleaned out. Talk about how great the weather is. Complain about the lack of grass in the picnic area. Bring a pencil. Buy a tip sheet, and complain about it when you lose.

At a track called Saratoga...part 1 of 3: [Note: This post is part one of a three part series on SmAlbany's most well-known tourist attraction, the Saratoga Race Course, which opens for its 36-day season on July 27th. Part 1 discusses the cultural relevance of Saratoga to SmAlbany; part II is a guide to spending a day at the track itself; part III is a guide to the bars and restaurants of downtown Saratoga in August]

Next Wednesday, the Saratoga Race Course opens for the season once again, an annual August tradition that dates back to the mid 19^th century. The track is a big deal in SmAlbany – no one can deny that. It just is. And I think the root of the big deal lies firmly within the cultural significance the track plays in the minds of people from SmAlbany.

Although it doesn’t open till next week, the sights and sounds and majesty of the track are already being heavily advertised on radio and television. Anyone who has lived in SmAlbany for any amount of time can surely recall the various radio and/or TV advertisements of the past 20 years and of today:

"The August place to be!"

"A girl wants a pony. A woman wants a pony to place in the 7th!"

"SAR-A-TOG-A...where magical mornings lead to excitement in the afternoon..."

And, of course, the old spine-tingler [deep voiced, slow-drawl announcer]:

"Man of War started 27 races in his career... Won 26 of them... His only loss... to a horse named Upset... at a track called Saratoga."

Horseracing is a profitable business for the state, and Saratoga is an exceptionally profitable track. So it's only natural that the state spends an enormous amount of money cultivating a memorable print and media campaign to go along with their cash cow. Yet to anyone who lives around here, there's an undeniable love affair between residents of SmAlbany and the Saratoga Race Course, one that transcends the demand-side push of the track ads.

And I don't mean a base, gambling-rooted love affair. Sure, that's there. There are people who love the track because they love to gamble. But the immediate reaction of anyone who visits the track and 'toga for the first time is how much it does not resemble all other tracks and all other gambling locales - it's beautiful, people are well dressed, kids are everywhere, bands are playing, and people are talking to each other. Many people from SmAlbany subconsciously understand horseracing better than people from other places. And it can get you into trouble: when you’re the guy who knows what an exacta is and how you figure the payout for one, a lot of people look at you funny, because horse racing is trashy almost everywhere else in the whole world.

When it comes right down to it, most people don't go to the track to gamble. Sure, the average person at the track bets $2-3 on a handful of races, but that's not why they are there. For the most part, people are there because it's something to do with one's friends and family on a beautiful day in a beautiful park. And because it's something, in SmAlbany, that people feel like they need to be a part of. It’s like you’re not in on something if you don’t know about the Big Red Spring. Or you’ve never walked down Caroline Street on a Friday night. Or you can’t moan about how all your co-workers seem to find ways to ditch work and go to the track several times an August.

And even more so, the track fulfills a recurring fantasy for residents of SmAlbany. People in SmAlbany are neither rich nor ostentatious. But at the track, everything seems rich and ostentatious. You can rub shoulders with the rich and famous. You can walk down Union Avenue past the million-dollar mansions. For $5 you can buy your way into exclusivity in the clubhouse, with its dress code and view of the proletariat picnic area. All the rich people from all over the country come to Saratoga, but for less than $10, any resident of SmAlbany can pretend they are among the rich and famous as well. And this fits right into one of the defining cultural axioms of SmAlbany: the excessive pride taken in a culture obviously looked down upon by those in the big city. People in SmAlbany know this isn’t New York City, and we don’t want it to be. What we have is better, no matter how much the big city folk make fun of it.

So then, why do people love the track around here? Well, first because it’s fun. But a close second is that the rich and famous love the track, but in this case, they have to come to our backyard and our town to enjoy it. Face it – you’ve driven up the Northway to the track before and laughed at how much out of town'ers have to pay for a hotel room. You’ve smiled at rich ladies waiting in a long line to buy a Post Parade. The track is lovable because anyone who’s anyone wants to be there, they have to come live in our backyard for a month to do it, and once they get there they are treated just like us. For one month a year, SmAlbany is the place to be and everyone from New York City comes up to join in the fun.

I assure you that this Horatio Alger-type tale actually takes place in the minds of people at the track. The track is a fine social leveler - it makes everyone feel like part of the upper crust. Just walk through the picnic area sometime, and notice what the people are eating and drinking. It looks something like a football tailgate: coolers full of alcohol, tables covered with way too much food, etc. But then take a closer look: at more tables than not, it’s working class folks drinking expensive beer, or wine, or top-shelf liquor. It’s not burgers and dogs; it’s wine and cheese. Men who I have never seen on the weekend in anything but a t-shirt will put a collared shirt on for the track. The same goes with the “no taking change” policy. It’s cultural taboo at the track to accept coins as change from the kids selling lemonade and programs. And the most tight-fisted people abide by it. Post Parade cost 1.35? I’m not touching that silver as it comes across the counter, no sir. And neither is anyone else.

The freewheeling party atmosphere in Saratoga in August is driven by the track, but probably owes it direct gratitude to the bars and restaurants downtown. For many SmAlbany residents, the sense of “happening” at the track is more produced by the downtown scene than by the racetrack. Try this: on any Friday and Saturday night in August, just after 11:30pm or so, walk out on the corner of Caroline and Putnam street and stand there. See the people. Hear the music. And then think about it. The reaction almost invariably is, “I can’t believe I’m standing in SmAlbany right now. I just can’t believe it.” And you see the limos, and the women in the hats, and the wealthy businessmen, and all of a sudden it hits you. They’d rather be here than Manhattan. They can only admit it one month a year, but they’d rather be here.

And, of course, in all its grand fashion, the track actively plays right into this, cultivating the aura of wealth for both the rich and the not so rich. The same idea is subtly in play downtown at the bars. But more on that in Part II and III of this series, coming tomorrow and Wednesday.

Wrong medicine?:The editorial cartoon in the Thursday TU takes up the issue of the failing Albany city schools. It depicts a hospital patient on a sick bed with several leaches on his/her body. The patient is labeled "Albany school district" and the leeches are labeled "charter schools." The doctor is labeled "SUNY charter school committee" and says to the nurse, "Nurse - the patient is starting to turn blue...get me more leeches."

There are at least two problems with this cartoon:

1) Most importantly, it implies that the charter schools are the root source of the problem with the Albany school district -as if the illness the patient came to the hospital with had an easy enough fix, but the doctor was simply applying a treatment that would end up killing the patient instead.. This is nonsense. While the jury is out on whether or not the charter schools are hurting the public schools, it is clear that the public schools weren't exactly up to par prior to the arrival of the charter schools and weren't going to be turned around with a quick dose of aspirin. Starting to turn blue? How about "arrived at the hospital DOA."

2) It implies that the charter schools are killing the public schools without giving the citizens anything positive. Wouldn't a better analogy be the internet replacing the newspaper? Sure, the internet is killing newspaper sales, but it's not like it isn't providing an equal or better quality product of its own. Same with charter schools.

The one thing that the cartoon does get right is that the patient is sick. How about a cartoon with the same patient labeled "albany school district," an IV hooked up to them labeled "money," and a doctor labeled "liberal solutions/unions/democrats." The doctor could say something like, "I just can't understand why the patient isn't getting better - we've been giving him the best medicine we can think of for better than 30 years."

I'm in favor of anything that improves education in the city. If that means trying some new things - like charter schools - then i'm all for it, regardless of what the entrenched interests say. As the old political saying goes, "in the realm of public policy, something beats nothing." If the alternative is simply trying to throw more money at the problem, forget it.

Cashkeys...:The city of Albany is upgrading its parking meters to take "cashkeys":

I wonder what the civil libertarians, who opposed EZ-PASS on big brother grounds, will say about this one...

Rediculous item of the day...:Just off the corner of Route 9 and 155 in Latham there is a Dunkin' Donuts. It has been there since at least the mid 1960's, according to my excellent sources. It does really good business. So good, in fact, that when you order from the drive-through now, you are greeted with the following sign [i'm paraphrasing from memory]:

"It might result in quicker service if you visit our new location across the street on Route 9."

And sure enough, if you then look up and turn your head to the right, you can see another Dunkin Donuts building, sitting just north of Taco Bell on Route 9.

So, the questions begin:

1) Why two Dunkin donuts within a literal stone's throw of each other? There are only two possible answers:

a) the national chain has franchised an extra building, and is hoping to boost total sales in the area, even if this comes at the expense of the old store.

b) they are both owned by the same person, who thinks that he/she is losing revenue without a store on the southbound traffic side of Route 9.

If it's (a), then we wouldn't expect the old DD to be advertising the new one. If it's (b), then i think someone is vastly overestimating the revenue that the new one will draw. Could it possibly offest the overhead?

Back in Black: That's right. Beginning tomorrow (July 15th), Oh, SmAlbany! resumes publication in ernest. The torrent (well, ok, trickle) of emails from loyal SmAlbany fans has weighed on me over the last month.