I am so ready for "Jersey Shore"

I mean, it's WAY overdue for someone to do a Guido reality show, isn't it? I wrote up a little something for Animal here.

Ballad of The Count: 'When I'm Alone I &%#$ Myself'

As is the case with most people under 40 who grew up in the United States, memories of Sesame Street are woven deep into the tapestry of my childhood. So with today being the show's 40th anniversary and all, I've been thinking all day about posting a favorite clip of mine from way back when, most of which are available on YouTube now. In doing so, I wanted to find a clip featuring one or both of my favorite characters from the show, The Count and Cookie Monster, the thinly veiled intellectual snob and the unrestrained glutton of the show, both of which have always spoken to me for some reason. Anyway, my first choice was one I can still remember vividly from my childhood, a skit in which The Count counts a plate of cookies as Cookie Monster eats them, but then I remembered an altered Sesame Street song sketch I'd seen about a year ago that features The Count and, well, it's just too hilarious not to post.

Yes, Jay-Z's 'Empire Stae of Mind' is the new 'New York, New York'

(Ed. note...I wrote this last Monday, stuck it in the "drafts" folder and forgot to post it. Not that it really matters at all, but I felt compelled to mention that anyway.)

Last night a friend of mine tweeted/Twittered the following about the video for Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind," which was released over the weekend: "If this doesn't give you goosebumps, you don't deserve to live in NYC." I couldn't agree more.

I bought The Blueprint 3 when it first came out a few weeks ago and ESOM was hands-down my favorite track on the record. I probably listened to it 20-30 times per day for the first week or so, often times just setting my iPod to repeat it over and over and over again. Further, I live in Brooklyn and usually work from home with my bedroom window open and a day hasn't gone by in the last month that I haven't heard this song being blasted out of a car on the street at least once. On Saturday night, Halloween night, a friend and I were buzzing down the West Side Highway in a cab on our way to a party, just kind of watching the lights of the city go by without really paying any attention to it all, and then this song came on. All of a sudden, I felt like a new New Yorker again. The jaded asshole default setting that unfortunately tends to take hold after you've lived here for as long as I have (7 years) evaporated instantly. I asked the cabbie to turn up the volume and we all rolled down our windows and started singing this song at the top of our lungs. It was a New York moment that was unique and quintessential, and it made me feel quite alive and oh so very fortunate to call New York my home.

So let's go head and call it right now...Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind" is the anthem, the musical love-letter to the New York City of the 21st century in the same way that Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" was the anthem and the musical love-letter to the New York City of the 20th century. Interestingly, in the third line of the song, Jay proclaims "I'm the new Sinatra," and, well, I suppose there's no arguing with that now. Here's the video below featuring Jay and Alicia Keys, who, by the way, helps tremendously in taking this song to another level. Enjoy...