From the Zola System
alexzola
- Location
- New York, New York, USA
- Birthday
- January 30
- Bio
- I grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, in the Zola System, my father’s philosophy of life. He taught my brothers and me the basic life skills: how to run a street hustle, perpetrate a con or recognize when you were being hustled or conned; information we needed so we could feed our families if another Hitler came to power. My father Aron Zola was a Romanian Jew, a holocaust survivor, a black marketeer, a gun runner, a successful entrepreneur, a true citizen of Detroit. When I was 18, I rebelled against the Zola System and moved to New York City. I was fascinated with cultural heroes – Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson and the aesthetic bohemian artist lifestyle that, in my naivete, I thought they lived. Now I see they were working their own hustles on the public, just like the Old Man. Even the Manhattan dating scene runs on the Zola System. To paraphrase Mark Twain, now that the Old Man is dead, I’m shocked how much he learned.
I wrote reviews for SPIN, an unpublished brunch guide for New York City, covered the death penalty, reviewed books for the New York Law Journal and profiled sports stars for the Jewish Forward. I have two crime novels and a bartenders guide to New York City that I am trying to sell. After dabbling in so many genres, I finally realized I’d been running from my subject: my father and the Zola System. The Old Man is gone now and I am his eldest son carrying on as he wanted me to do. This was not supposed to happen.
MY RECENT POSTS
- Incinerating Chivalry
May 15, 2012 04:37AM - The Watergate Hotel Solves The
Kennedy Assassination
April 13, 2012 12:18AM - The Fashionable Assassin -
Yalie #2
March 22, 2012 03:03AM - My Sweet Mystery
March 16, 2012 03:40AM - The Second Worst Drug Dealer
In America
February 03, 2012 04:01AM
MY RECENT COMMENTS
- “Nothing like a little
Israeli self-defense to bring
out the
anti-Semties
includin…”
June 04, 2010 11:58AM - “Liz, I'm glad someone
had the balls to say it.
Thanks!”
May 19, 2010 06:24PM - “So who does love Chachi
these days? And what would
Grandma
Nussbaum say?”
January 22, 2010 01:36PM - “The way I remember the
snapping turtles, you just fed
them,
never threw the
fish…”
January 22, 2010 01:33PM - “Since I am doing 2-5 in
Scottsdale at the moment, I am
a bit
new to the Sheriff
J…”
January 09, 2010 05:54PM
Alexzola's Links
- New list
- The Zola System
I understand how current college graduates must feel. Much like 2011, 1991 was not a good year to enter the workforce. With my newly minted BA from NYU, a few writing credits from SPIN Magazine and an infinite amount of chutzpah, I hit the New York pavement and quickly foun/… Read full post »
The news hit the wires around 10am this morning. Amy Winehouse was found dead in her London home of an apparent drug overdose. She was 27 years old.
This came as no surprise to anyone. Winehouse had been at the top of many Rock and Roll dead pools since 2008.&nbs/… Read full post »
I’ve never liked Roger Clemens. Actually, since he broke into the Bigs back in 1984, I’ve found reason to actively despise the man. He broke in with the Red Sox. He always seemed to kick the shit out of the Tigers with many double-digit strikeout perf/… Read full post »
The Mars Bar is the definition of a disgusting dive bar. The joint, located on the corner of 2nd Ave and 2ndStreet, is feet from the Bowery and still carries the stink of the alcoholic bums who scammed nickels and dimes to buy their medication. The graffiti on the walls - both inside a/… Read full post »
The city of Dallas, Texas has taken great pains to leave Dealey Plaza in the same condition it was on November 22, 1963. Trees have grown, paint jobs have been touched up and pavement replaced. Otherwise the citizenry of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex have done a remarkable job o/… Read full post »
Hall of Fame Detroit Tiger baseball announcer Ernie Harwell’s body lay in repose in Detroit’s Comerica Park on Thursday May 6, 2010; an unusual honor for a man whose life work was calling play by play for baseball games on the radio. To my knowledge, the only other man who/… Read full post »
There is a new social class that is making its way into the fabric of New York City, one that used to be weeded out by the street tax of violence, threatened or real. The time of the urban rube has arrived.
According to Merriman-Webster’s online dictionary, a rube is… Read full post »
The episode began when Tom, our sommelier, opened one of the six bottles of 2001 La Tache we had in house, although not on inventory. La Tache is one of top two, Richebourg being the other, Cru’s in Burgundy. A bottle of this specific Pinot Noir retails for over $400 and… Read full post »
This item caught my eye as it came over the newswire. In Western Australia, a family learned about the death of their daughter via Facebook. The police were in the process of contacting the parents of the 16-year old girl. The speed of the internet wins out again. As social ne/… Read full post »
New Yorkers have been portrayed as a neurotic strange breed in film and television. We move into our elegant cells, close the door and become somewhat secretive. Yes, there are those that come to the city to get away small town where everyone knows what everyone else is doing. The l… Read full post »
Eight years after the 9/11 attacks, the mood in New York is somber. There’s an odd consideration for your neighbor, the guy next to you on the street or the person in front of you in line at the deli. Even the cabbies are staying out of the crosswalk when they stop fo/
… Read full post »Three of my co-workers kept telling me about a bar they found on 11th Street and the West Side Highway.
“It’s great, Alex, just the kind of place you’d like to hang out in. The Rusty Knot is sleazy.”
My interest was piqued. Ever since I/… Read full post »
A bartender is a social director, a matchmaker for his customers personally and professionally.
Gary, my first boss in the business, had a masterful touch when it came to introductions. He was responsible for two marriages and one business partnership. “Remember to always/… Read full post »
New York City poker clubs are an endangered species.
“This joint on 28th Street I was playing in a few weeks ago got raided,” my friend Steve told me “the cops came in, had us leave our chips on the table, questioned the players, detained the dealers and arrested the manager.&n… Read full post »
It was the busiest Tuesday of the year at the Park Avenue Cafe. We did 220 lunches and were expecting 500 people for dinner. I was working an open to close double.
4:30pm. I was trying to clean and re-set the bar for dinner service. Due to the ferocity of the lunch service period,/… Read full post »
On New Year’s Day 2008, my girlfriend and I broke up. I should have seen it coming. I managed to get reservations at a hot New York restaurant for New Year’s Eve and she cancelled with plans to stay home “alone” with a “cold.” Much like the rest o… Read full post »
She sat at the bar perched on a captain’s chair. While sipping on her white wine she starred at a BlackBerry. This was not the kind of woman we were used to seeing in this joint. It is usually filled with early twenty something dressed in oddly tight outfit/… Read full post »
While reading this, I recommend putting on one of two early Pere Ubu tunes: 'My Dark Ages' or 'Final Solution.' The first song is self explanatory. The second is my attempt to be tounge in cheek.
Also, if anyone has any doubts as to whether my Old Man would have… Read full post »
In some circles I’m known as the Zola, in others as Aleek or A-lex and then there is the small but influential circle in which I am known as the Booger Boy. No, this nom de plume doesn’t date from 3rd Grade, it dates from December of 2007 while I was… Read full post »
Chickie’s dead. Please don’t cue Curtis Mayfield while reading this blog; Chickie wasn’t that kind of guy. The appropriate tunes for elegy would be found on Eric Clapton’s 1977 albumSlowhand, specifically track #1.
I found out on Wednesday from a nei… Read full post »
My 40th birthday scared the living shit out of me.
For the six months leading up to January 30, 2009, I didn’t know why but just the thought of turning 40 sent waves of fear from my sinuses straight to my fingertips. I tried drinking too much but my stomach couldn’t handl/… Read full post »
One of the wonderful things about living in New York is the opportunity to meet so many different people in so many different ways. In a deli line for coffee, on the subway or walking down the street, it’s a differnet game in Gotham. While at NYU, I met a girlfriend w/… Read full post »
One of the major questions still left over from the ongoing war in Afghanistan is the whereabouts of 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden. Was he killed during the Tora Bora raid in December of 2002? Is he residing in the lawless territories in northeastern Pakistan? Just where/… Read full post »
One of the ongoing complaints heard throughout the country is that of fiscal irresponsibility by lending institutions. Just how could they give all that credit/mortgage money to just anyone? Didn’t they know these people weren’t qualified and on and on. Al/… Read full post »
There are certain tableau’s we all deal with that leave us speechless or simply unable to act in any sort of definitive way. Walking in on a robbery at the local 7-11 or discovering your significant other has decided to cheat on you in our own apartment, in your own bed. T/… Read full post »
koshersalaami
Just Thinking...
Lauren J Barnhart
Heidi Banerjee
Out There 1993 to 2002
Brad Nelson
Salon.com
