Good morning. It's Friday. We'll follow up on a story about the spotted lanternfly, an invasive pest the experts say you should kill. We'll also look back at Crazy Eddie and those in-sa-a-a-ne commercials. And a reminder: Early voting in the Aug. 23 primary begins tomorrow. |
 | | Dave Sanders for The New York Times |
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Because of the spotted lanternfly — an insect so invasive it can be swatted, struck or stomped with impunity — the Stephen Sondheim song "Send in the Clowns" is playing in my head — specifically the line that says "Don't bother, they're here." |
I know, I know, the song was about something completely different — a lost love. There's nothing to love about spotted lanternflies, but they're here. |
Ecologists are urging people to squish them on sight. They seem to be all over New York this summer. New York Times readers reported killing them in parks, patios, even in the Union Square subway station. Carrie from Brooklyn said in an online comment that lanterflies had taken up residence on the backstop at the stadium where the Staten Island Ferryhawks play, only to be knocked off by balls the catcher didn't catch. The lanternflies then descended on the fans, "to much screaming and flailing of limbs, followed by hot pursuit." |
Other readers shared tips about tools — fly swatters, dishwashing detergent in a sprayer bottle, even bare hands — and tricks. "My technique is to wiggle my fingers," a reader identified as Christo explained in a 37-second YouTube video. "Get 'em on a horizontal space and freak 'em out" with a finger roll, "and then, get closer and snuff 'em." |
"The trick to stomping them is to stomp them in your natural walking stride," another reader wrote. "If you raise your leg to stomp them, they will usually elude you. If that happens, run in order to stomp them as soon as they land." |
Lanternflies, originally from Asia, have two distinct pairs of wings. They're small, only about an inch long. They arrived in the United States roughly a decade ago and have been documented in 12 states. In New York, they have turned up on Long Island, and in the Hudson Valley and western New York. They are within range of upstate orchards and Finger Lakes vineyards — which the adult lanternflies can damage by feasting on leaves and stems. |
City and state agencies have posted instructions on how to identify the insects — the larvae are as tiny as ticks, while adults look like moths, with their distinctive red bodies hidden beneath their wings. |
Some people love the way they look. Veronica, from Sacramento, Calif., commented on nytimes.com that the lanternfly was "absolutely gorgeous" and belonged in New York: "Its fashion is absolutely flawless!" |
But another reader countered the lanternfly was "strangely grotesque, like a bad collage from a comic book illustrator." |
Early voting begins tomorrow |
Early voting begins on Saturday for the Aug. 23 primary to choose candidates for Congress and the State Senate. |
My colleague Jeffery C. Mays points out that your early voting location is probably different from the polling place where you would cast your ballot on Primary Day. You can find your early voting location and your Primary Day polling place here. |
It's the second primary in New York in two months. It's taking place now because the state's highest courts declared the districts created by Democrats for these races unconstitutional. These primaries were delayed so a court-appointed expert could draw new districts. There are several competitive congressional primaries to watch. But there's also concern that voter participation will sink lower than ever in a rare late-summer primary. |
It's a mostly sunny day with temperatures near the mid-80s. The evening is mostly cloudy with temps dropping to around the mid-60s. |
In effect until Monday (Feast of the Assumption). |
 | | Timothy Pearson, second from left, at Mayor Eric Adams's inauguration.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times |
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Remembering Crazy Eddie's pitchman |
 | | Chester Higgins Jr. |
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In the days when everybody had to have stereo components and videocassette recorders (remember them?), Crazy Eddie was a household name in New York. This was probably because of the commercials everybody loved, or loved to hate — they featured a man whose arms flailed and eyes bulged as he worked toward the last line: "Crazy Eddie — his prices are insa-a-a-ane." |
His name was Jerry Carroll. After reading Alexandra Jacobs's review of the new book "Retail Gangster: The Insane, Real-Life Story of Crazy Eddie," I dug out my notes from an interview for a story in 2016. |
The book is about Crazy Eddie, the chain of discount electronics stores that was a seemingly indelible fixture in New York in the 1970s and 1980s — until it imploded in a morass of debt and fraud. The authorities accused its namesake, Eddie Antar, of skimming cash — he had $32 million under an alias in a Swiss bank account at one point. |
The commercials were parodied in the movie "Splash" and on "Saturday Night Live." Now they live on YouTube. Carroll wasn't Eddie and didn't play him on TV. But as Carroll told me when I found him after Antar's death in 2016, "a lot of people for a long time thought I was Eddie." |
"I never wanted that," Carroll, who had been an on-air radio personality, told me. "I live in the shadows. That's the way I am, that's the way I always wanted to be." By then, he was reclusive. It took some persuasion to get him to talk. I remember going to his apartment building, only to be told that he would do the interview later, by phone, which made it like radio — I couldn't see him. |
"One nice thing about being a disc jockey on the radio or in a dance club, you're a silhouette in the booth or a voice on the radio," he said. "To me, I was always Jerry and he was Eddie. And when everything started to go upside down in the corporation, people thought I was Eddie, it didn't do any good." |
Carroll had been working as Dr. Jerry, "prescribing your rock 'n' roll," on WPIX-FM in the 1970s. Crazy Eddie was still only a one-store operation. Antar liked the way Carroll read the commercial and said, "I wish all my commercials could sound like that. Somebody said, 'Well, they can. Why don't you seek out Dr. Jerry?'" Carroll went on to appear in more than 7,500 commercials on television and radio. Weiss writes in "Retail Gangster" that Carroll died in 2020. |
Carroll put on a Santa suit in the summer — "It's Christmas in August," he bellowed. He put on a beard and a stovepipe hat and, a moment later, a white wig to "honor three great Americans — Lincoln, Washington and Crazy Eddie." And he was in on the jokes. |
"I tried to do the commercials on two levels," he told me. "One was straight — 'Buy this now, save money.' The other was a poke in the ribs — we knew what we're imitating. I once did a commercial for microwave ovens. The commercial ended with me pressing the button, and the microwave opened so you could see inside. I ad-libbed the line 'Chicken not included' because there was a chicken inside." |
Some years back I took my 15-year-old daughter to dinner at Little Owl in the West Village. |
This was when "The Hunger Games" books were very big. At the time, my daughter had her hair done just like Katniss, with an "arena braid." |
The place was crowded, so we ate at the bar. The bartender was fascinated with my daughter's hair, and they had a long chat. She excused herself and disappeared for some time. |
When she reappeared, her hair was done just like my daughter's. |
Glad we could get together here. See you on Monday. — J.B. |
| Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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