Archive for the 'New York' Category

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »
02
May
06

The Saddest Thing in the World

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York

This could be a sequel to Left on the Tracks.

On Sunday afternoon, I was reminded of the emotional turmoil of childhood. It’s amazing to me how kids can swing so quickly and completely from mood to mood. It’s positively dizzying, and I think it’s remarkable that we survive childhood at all, physically or emotionally. At a small age and size, everything has such enormity, and some big feelings can come out of those little brains.

A boy, maybe three years old, was standing with his mother and younger sister at the Roosevelt Avenue subway station in Jackson Heights facing the Manhattan-bound express track. They stood safely back from the edge of the platform. As I walked along the platform near the yellow edge, the boy accidentally dropped something just as a man was walking in front of him. The man’s foot connected with the skidding plastic object with sickening perfection, and he inadvertently kicked it over the edge onto the tracks.

It all happened so quickly, I couldn’t even tell what the kid had dropped.

The boy’s face changed in a flash from disinterested placidity to complete non-comprehension, as if a passing magnet had wiped him clean.

The man stopped dead in his tracks and cringed, his face contorted in acute embarrassment. He wasn’t asking for this, but there it was. “Oh, no,” he said. “Oh, no. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Almost pleading.

There seemed to be complete silence, as there always is in the immediate wake of a child’s injury. Everyone stands there, holding their breath, including the kid … Uh-oh. The kid’s gonna start bawling. Here it comes …

He looked up at his mother, begging with his eyes for her to undo everything that has just happened.

“I’d just hop down there and get it,” the mans started, “but…”

“Oh, no, no,” said the mother. “It’s OK. It’s OK.”

Even I wondered if something could be done, like I was desperate to please this child I’d never met, to protect him from disappointment. But clearly it was a crazy idea to jump down onto the tracks.

She looked down at her son, pointing a finger, and began to compassionately admonish him. She seemed to tell him is was his fault, or that it could have been avoided if only … something. You should be careful next time … I warned you about this … something. Maybe it was all for the benefit of the stranger, who looked like he wanted to melt away between the floor tiles. Maybe she was embarrassed, too.

The boy collapsed into tears.

She picked him up to hold him close and console him. I imagined the hapless stranger as Enemy No. 1 in the boy’s mind. Get out of there, I thought. Get away from that kid.

Walking by the scene of the crime, I tried to steal a glance at the object. It looked like an animal of some kind. A lion, maybe, or half-lion, half-man. Some kind of action figure, probably from some cartoon show I’ve never heard of and will never see in my life.

I noticed his little sister, sitting in a stroller facing the other way, had a similar toy — safe in her grip. A giraffe, maybe. She looked unfazed by the entire episode.

15
Apr
06

Threepenny Opera

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Music, New York, People We Like, Theater and Women of Genius and Talent
Tags: ,

We recently saw the Roundabout Theater’s revival of Threepenny Opera, starring Alan Cumming, Cyndi Lauper, Ana Gasteyer and Nellie MacKay, while it was in previews. I didn’t love it but I enjoyed it. We ended up with great seats because I had screwed up and bought tickets for a Wednesday show and not the Friday show we were at. So, they gaveus best available, which was halfway back on main level, not up in the balcony, two rows in front of the back wall. Sometimes being an idiot pays off.

I know nothing about Berthold Brecht or previous performances of the show. And all I knew about it beforehand was that “Mac the Knife” came from it and the Bea Arthur was in a 1950s staging of the show. I saw her sing Pirate Jenny in her one-woman show a few years ago. So, I figured it would be pretty dark and baudy; low-brow. But it was far darker and baudier than I expected. And I didn’t get all the preachy moralizing about the criminal class at the end, but whatever… I don’t need to.

The cast was great; a good mix of voices and styles. It was less like watching a show than like watching a bunch of people getting together to put on a show. A review I read recently was highly critical of the production, but the writer found the individual performances praiseworthy, like the actors were all gathered to create for something great and then let down.

But we were there primarily to see Cyndi Lauper — much as we once went to a Cher concert only because she did a set between the forgettable opening act and Cher’s overambitious but entertaining headline performance. (More entertaining were the Cher drag queens in attendance.) She had blue hair. She walked out into the arena audience. It was bliss.

In Threepenny Opera, my girl Cyndi has an A+ voice. I mean, really top form. Total control. Her spine-tingling pipes start out the show from dead, dark silence with the opening song, “Mac the Knife.” I was so happy for her.

I’d have to give her stage acting something closer to a B+. Her lines were fine. She seemed mostly natural, but her timing was clearly off. I wasn’t disappointed, per se. Even though she’s only in three of four scenes. And I think they gave one of the songs she is supposed to sing to Nellie MacKay. Plus, it was in previews, and I’m sure she picked up a few things here and there to improve the part.

Cyndi’s moxie is in her singing voice. She expresses herself through a song. Her voice makes the mood of the lyric. This is why she’s good in a video. As amateurish as it may seem by more current standards, Time After Time can still make me cry. When she’s on that train doing that weird sign language with her hands, saying goodbye to her boyfriend, it’s wrenching. Why is she leaving? Who knows. Who cares? She’s leaving, and thats always the worst thing, right? Simple. Expressive. Real enough. And that RCA dog statue? Genius. Same with Madonna, incidentally, though Madonna has markedly less vocal talent than Cyndi Lauper. I think her best acting was in Evita, which is a two-hour music video.

16
Mar
06

Putting on Your Face

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York
Tags: , , ,

There’s a kiosk shop at Manhattan Mall for Vera Moore Cosmetics. I see it every time I walk through the mall to get to my gym. I wonder if there’s any relation to Benjamin Moore, the paint company.

Benjamin Moore covers the interiors and exteriors of buildings. Vera Moore covers the exteriors of people. Seems like a natural, marvelous connection. What if the companies merged? They could make everything pretty. But only on the surface. There’s nothing they could do about the interiors of people.

Reminds me of one of my favorite Sandra Bernhard routines. She’s talking about a fictional friendship with Courtney Love — “… a tear, a bruise. So tender; so fragile” — and she closes the monologue with “Courtney, what plastic surgeon is going to go in there and fix all of the scars in your heart?”

04
Mar
06

“Ain’t Got No Money, Ain’t Got No Honey.”

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York, Strangers Observed and The People in Your Neighborhood
Tags:

Down in the subway station at 74th and Broadway in Jackson Heights, where you can get the E, V, F, G, R and 7, there’s a terribly depressing man who pops up from time to time. He wanders up and down the platform trying to sell a piece of jewelry to commuters. It’s a “gold” necklace with one of those charms on it, usually a woman’s name in scripty lettering, or something like “love” or “precious.” I never get close enough to read the thing.

The guy is old and evidently in poor health. Missing teeth. Crackling skin. If he were a fishmonger or a butcher, in my simple, little world, he might be considered haggared in a charming, story-book way, if not for one thing. His right lower eyelid sags drastically, looking like it’s turned inside-out to reveal pink, moist, swollen flesh that surrounds and obscures the eye itself and leaks fluid down his cheek. It looks like an infection that’s been split open and spread wider. I find it horrifying.

He dangles his trinket out in front of himself, stopping people as they descend the stairs or walk past on their way to the platform edge.

“Ain’t got on money, ain’t got no honey,” he calls out.

Not quite “Feed the birds. Tuppence a bag.” But I guess you gotta have a gimmick.

Apparently he’s appealing to the more shallow part of ourselves that is willing to believe that a flash piece of jewelry will be enough to win the affection (or at least the attention) of our dearest.

People do their best to ignore or avoid him. And, to his credit, he doesn’t press the sale.

I can’t imagine anyone buying this thing from him. It’s tacky. And he’s scary. Assuming he has held onto his sanity through his difficult years, I don’t imagine he expects anyone to buy it. It might just be a pretense for getting some spare change. Or maybe he’s just crazy, after all. I want to give him some Visine and an eye patch. I wonder if he’d get more attention that way.

17
Feb
06

My Barber

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York and The People in Your Neighborhood
Tags:

Call me a tightwad, but I refuse to spend $40 on a men’s haircut. Changing the color or texture? Sure, I’ll pay for it. (In more ways than one. I am an ugly blonde.) But clipping me from one and a half inches to one inch? Sorry. A specialized skill, yes, but not rocket science.

This stubbornness has gotten me in trouble more than a few times. I lucked out with the nice Vietnamese lady at Cost Cutters back in Minnneapolis, where I paid $12. But sometimes she wasn’t in, and the sub would invariably screw it up. Sometimes if I was feeling adventurous, the nice moustachioed homosexual gentleman (who looked like a non-verbal Mark Twain — he seemed to communicate only with gentle grunts and the reassuring clicking together of his many gold bracelets), at Great Clips one strip mall over, would give it his best. But he usually went too short or trimmed up the back in a weird shape.

Not long after starting my job on the Lower East Side, I found my place. There’s a $9 barber — the least I’ve ever paid — about five blocks away. It’s a father-and-son operation. And typical of many small New York City businesses, these barbers also repair broken watches and replace batteries on the side.

Because … well, why not?

They’re from Uzbekistan, I think, or somewhere in eastern Europe. I once asked the son if they were Russian, and he said yes. But then the next time I saw him, he explained that they were actually Uzbek. Or whatever it was. (I wish I remembered.) So I don’t know. All I know is they are Jewish. Not that this fact is in any way remotely related to barbering.

These guys do a fine job, but they could use a little help keeping the place clean. I’ve seen occasional roaches crawling up the walls or across the sink. But they don’t wash my hair there. So who cares? I’ve seen roaches in my own kitchen, and I don’t shoo visitors away from it.

Plus: It’s Nine Dollars — for a perfectly functional haircut. (Still, it wouldn’t kill them to tidy up a bit.)

I prefer when the son cuts my hair. He’s probably in his mid-20s. Dark features. Heavy, but not fat. Robust. Thick arms and fingers. He was probably shaving once a day at age 13. He remembers me and always says hi when I step in on my lunch break. He does a better job than his dad.

When a bad barber’s chair is free, should I wait for another barber who I trust? Anyone would. It’s common. But it always felt rude to me. It’s just a haircut, and I’m kinda in a hurry, so why fuss? I’m pretty utilitarian about it. If it’s bad, I have my Detroit Tigers cap. And it’ll always grow back again.

The father is a big old bear of a man. When he leans in to cut, his ample belly presses against my arm and he has to stretch to reach. The main problem with this is the fog of body odor that tumbles out of his shirt sleeves whenever he raises his arms. He keeps his brow furrowed at all times, and he keeps his mouth firmly shut in a frown — which is a good thing, because his breath also smells terrible. Sometimes he sighs heavily through his nose, and I catch a whiff. I try to match his breathing so I don’t inhale when he exhales.

He’s quiet, unlike his son, who asks me about work, tells me about the new coffee shop in the neighborhood (right next door to his uncle’s shoe-repair shop — nudge, nudge — I love the Lower East Side), tells me about his sister-in-law who is having a baby. I’m not attracted to him, but I like being around him. He’s so comfortable. I guess I feel safe around him or something.

The last time the father cut my hair, everything looked good at the shop. But when I got back to my office and caught a glimpse in the mirror, I saw that the front part on the left side was about a half-inch longer than on the right. Combed over, as he had done, it all blended. But flat against my forehead? We had problems.

So, I wetted my hair down when I got home that night and took a pair of clippers and snipped a better line across my forehead.

Good as new.

Nine Dollars. What can I expect?

I’m totally going back.

15
Feb
06

A Lesson Learned

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York Lessons
Tags: , ,

I walked into Kossar’s this morning on the way to work, asked for a single everything bagel, and dug out my wallet. To my horror, I discovered not a single one-dollar bill. Just the dreaded twenties. The blood drained from my face as the bagel lady grabbed a square of tissue paper and fished out a bagel.

“Nevermind,” I said. “I don’t have any small bills. Nevermind.”

“Huh?” she said.

“Nevermind,” I repeated. “No small bills.”

She glanced down at the bagel she was just about to stuff into a paper bag, looking somewhat put out, then back up at me. She seemed on teh verge of saying something. Rather than let her offer to give it to me on credit, as she had done once before to my humiliation, I threw open the door and leaped out onto the sidewalk.

As I high-tailed it the hell out the there, I hated myself quietly. So stupid! I thought. I almost didn’t even go in — why did I have to get a bagel anyway? Why didn’t I check my wallet first? As the self-admonishment faded, I recognized a weak buzz of pride from within. I can learn from my mistakes.

15
Feb
06

To the Dogs

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Animals and New York
Tags: ,

Walking from my gym to the E train at 8th avenue last night, I had occasion to pass Penn Station. I saw a dog shitting on the corner and its owner picking up the pieces. The wee thing was shivering violently and looking as if the cold were some kind of punishment. “Just give me the rolled-up newspaper!” I could hear him calling. “As long as it’s indoors!” Must be an out-of-town dog, I thought. New Yorkers love to dress their dogs in ridiculous outfits.

I passed by.

As I crossed 8th, there was another woman walking two dogs. I passed by.

Then there was a man holding a little bulldog. Carrying him across the street. Well, it’s slushy and cold. What a nice guy. I passed by.

Then I saw a great big cage on wheels. OK, a kennel on wheels. In it was a beautiful breed, though I’ll be damned if I know what it was.

OK, what’s going on here?

My eyes travelled along across the street ahead of me, from the kennel-on-casters all the way to Madison Square Garden. It was a surreal, orderly, linear exodus of dogs and owners. Some were caged. Some were carried carried. The majority were on foot. It all depended on their size and preciousness. The kennelled ones were witout exception skinny little things, shivering horribly, unused to such harshness. Great big ones lumbered by, sniffing all the random objects before them — the garbage can, the empty planter, the mailbox, other dogs — anything within leash range. One owner pulling a kennel was trying to surmount the snow drift between him and a taxi. The wheels were stuck and the dogs looked completely freaked out.

All these breeds, and there wasn’t a Siberian husky among them that would help pull?

It was like the Ark had just docked into a West-side pier. Not Noah’s, but rather his younger, less intelligent, rather more myopic brother. There were several varieties of terrier, a dalmatian, precious shih tzus, a robust English mastiff, a shaggy and ostentatiously tall Afghan, a couple enormous great Danes, French bulldogs in triplicate, several kinds of spaniels, border collies, bizarrely sculpted poodles (at least their haunches were warm, I thought), some creatures that looked like miniature greyhounds, or really big four-legged spiders, I couldn’t tell.

Ah… of course. This is the after-party of the Westminster Dog Show. Funny how the show’s lustre is dimished somewhat as soon as the animals are forced to deal with the real outside world and everyone’s rushing back to the Hotel Pennsylvania for a rub-down in the doggie spa and a snausage night cap after such a long and tiresome day. Even at events where it’s the humans being judged, the red-carpet affairs, when everyone shows up individually to make a carefully timed appearance, is where the glitz and glamour play out. But at the end of show, when everyone has a kid to tuck in or a martini with their name on it, we are all reduced to cattle.

The canine queue stretched all the way into the loading bay of the Garden, far back into the innards of the building. These must be champions. They were all certainly well-behaved. With the exception of the first little pup I saw, who I’m nt concinved was with this crew, I saw not a single turd among them.

10
Feb
06

Sometimes You Just Find Yourself Backstage with a Stripper

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Bar Stories, Gay and New York
Tags:

Against my better judgment, late last night on my way home from the bar, we stopped in at our local. So close to the E train; who can resist? It was the typical “just one drink” scenario. But the hot bartender convinced me to get a second one. “But a stripper is coming out soon,” he said.

Ah, yes. They always do strippers on Thursday nights at this place. I might as well check it out, eh?

The barman was mixing extra strong. He poured the vodka for about 10 minutes and then splashed some cranberry on top and poured on more vodka. If I’d been near an open flame, it would have exploded. Then he gave us tequila shots out of nowhere. It’s nice to know the bartenders, because they let us kiss them on the cheeks, and they’re generous with us, and sometimes we can convince them to take their shirts off, but needing to wake early to work the next day, it was not a good night to receive this brand of generosity.

Having just finished lip synching a South American torch song, a drag queen was talking to the audience rapidly and breathlessly in Spanish. I comprehended nothing until I caught the word “stripper.” She wound up and pitched his name … “Willy.”

Willy emerged from behind a velvety red curtain and unceremoniously climbed on top of a box that was standing where the pool table usually is. He wasn’t much of a dancer, but he sure was extraordinary to look at. Typically overmuscled for my taste, but a fine example of male perfection and perfect for mindless entertainment.

They never go all nude here, which is fine. It’s vulgar enough as it is to have a stuffed thong flopping over your head and a stranger’s feet much closer to your drink than you’d prefer as a narcissistic straight man tiptoes by gracelessly in construction boots. The guys usually tease you with a quick tug on their overimagined underwear. Maybe they’ll wag themselves like propellers as they convulse to the Latin dance music. But this guy didn’t need to tease. He didn’t need to strip. It was all visible, because he was wearing knee-length britches (I can’t think of a better word) that were skin tight, but very expandable, red — and made from something that resembled macrame. It was all there, fully inflated, barely held in and pressed against his abdomen by the … well, special trousers.

I just don’t know what to do with a stripper. I like to watch from a distance and not participate. To my way of thinking, they are for viewing. I can gratify their egos just fine without touching them. I don’t touch the artwork at the Met. Plus they’re greasy. No one takes home a stripper, except his girlfriend, who is usually ostentatiously stationed nearby with a couple of gal pals drinking things with paper umbrellas. She glares over her drink. “Just here to keep an eye on that man. He’s mine, bitch,” her narrowed, over-eyeshadowed eyes seem to say.

You can have him, missy.

He was very popular. To each his own, I say, definitely, but the pawing of the spectators makes them seem doubly unsexy in comparison to the thing they’re worshipping. Honestly, don’t the dancers prefer not to be groped? If I happen to find myself too close to one, I know he’ll hover over me, dangling his engorged man-flesh, waiting for a couple bucks and a fleeting brush of fingertips against pubic hair. But I’m embarrassed and annoyed, not turned on.

I had to piss like a racehorse. But to get to the restrooms, I would have to walk past the stripper, into the spotlight, across the “stage” and behind the red curtain. “Just go,” said Jeff. But I couldn’t walk past that.

But I had to. I just kept my eyes forward, swept past the stripper and found a couple of people waiting before me in the cramped “back stage” space. The pool table had been shoved back there. And with three grown men, there was barely enough room to turn around and open the door to the men’s room. Then the show ended, and suddenly the stripper was off the box and on his way toward us to change into something else before his next act.

Sharing the cramped space with us, he bent down to get his clothes from a bag. His macrame knickers were hanging loose, the tender globes of his soft, full butt peeking playfully over the waistband. (Sometimes I love overwriting!) It was like being in a locker room at the gym, but with attractive people.

And then his oiled ass was brushing against me.

“Excuse me,” he said shyly.

“Uh…” I said. “Sure … er, no problem.” My face flushed hot. I briefly considered skipping the bathroom. But soon he was bundled up in a heavy winter coat and a pair of warm-up pants. Apparently, he dresses as quickly as he undresses. He grabbed a pack of smokes from his pocket and hopped out back to light up.

Then someone stepped out of the men’s room, and I ducked in.

24
Jan
06

Climbing Boy

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York Minute and Strangers Observed
Tags: ,

Scaffolding is as ubiquitous in New York as it is mysterious. Usually it serves no discernable purpose. It merely is. Like parasitic architectural lampreys, these collections of metal and particle board cling to their host buildings, waiting … for something.

They spring up out of nowhere, as if thrown together by teams of industrious elves overnight. On a routine walk somewhere or other, one might stare at a freshly ensconsed building and think, “Hunh… What’s different?” Then over time it becomes part of the building, the texture of the neighborhood. Tress are rerouted and split. Birds and small mammals make their homes. Then just as suddenly, months later, it disappears. And like a brainless goldfish that forgets its surroundings the moment it swims onward, you stand in the same spot thinking: “Hunh… What’s different?”

I can completely understand how a young boy would look at one and see nothing of its supposed true purpose or benefit — but instead see … a king-size jungle gym. How many video game-inspired Kung-Fu dreams could be fulfilled with a posse of scrappy friends and a Saturday afternoon on one of those things? Oh, consider the possibilities. The ultimate graduation in the School of Found Toys: The refrigerator box is left far behind in our erstwhile childhood, giving way to the glorious Scaffolding.

Today I saw a boy climbing on a scaffolding outside of a deli near where I work. The woman who was minding him said firmly but encouragingly, “You be careful. That thing’ll fall down right on top of you. Get down, now.”

The kid replied, “Aw… Why? What’s gonna happen?” He stopped climbing, but sort of lingered, a leg wrapped around a post out of reluctance and defiance, marking his territory.

“What you climbing that for?” she asked.

“What’s gonna hap—”

“I never touch those things, and you’re climbing all over it.”

“What —” he began, but she interrupted again with a string of admonitions. Repeatedly, he could say no more than “What &#8212?” before she interrupted again. “What —? What —? What —?” he said

“What what what!” she mocked. “Do you understand English?”

Then slowly she repeated: “Why. Are. You. Cli. Ming. On. That?”

What started out as mere concern for his safety quickly and weirdly escalated to a personal grudge about syntax. Her mood had completly changed in an instant. The original question had been rhetorical. “What you climbing that for?” If he had just stepped away and not answered, she would not be challenging the poor kid’s linguistic affinity. But because he annoyed her, the question became something that demanded an answer — long after he had stopped climbing and stepped away.

Ironically, it was she who misunderstood him. He had already asked her “What could happen?” as in “Get a grip, lady. This thing ain’t gonna fall. What do I have to worry about?” True, it’s little more than simple, boyish bravado that probably should be corrected. But he is a boy. Talk to the kid about what’s dangerous. Don’t stand 10 feet away barking at him.

She had a greater chance of breaking her nose on the door of the deli in front of her than he had of being crushed under a ton of aluminum pipes. But she is the Adult, and therefore has the apparent moral authority to not only ignore his curiosity but also to insult him. I understand the concept of enforcement through fear: Look both ways before crossing the street, and all that. But a scaffolding is not a house of cards. It seems to me there are limits to the amounts of disbelief a kid is willing to suspend after a certain age, and one needs something better than unrealistic fears of death and dismemberment to get his attention.

17
Jan
06

New York Lesson No. 330: Blame it on the Train

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York Lessons
Tags:

It was one of those “duh!” moments when I realized an important piece of mass transit physics. Let’s call it the Law of Conservation of Trains. When standing on a 7 platform in Darkest Queens waiting for a Manhattan-bound local train (for example, as I often do), and three Flushing-bound 7s and two Manhattan-bound express 7s pass before a jam-packed Manhattan-bound local finally pulls up, it’s important to remember that the converse phenomenon is absolutely just as likely to occur at some point. It only seems like the dark cloud is hanging over you, because you never see the experience of the people waiting for the Fluching-bound trains until you are that person. You only see the bad-luck story when it’s you, but you may rest assured it happens to every blessed one of us.

This leads to another central truth of subways: Never content yourself with the notion that the trains are late — unless there’s a mass transit strike, or an overturned and brightly burning diesel truck under the elevated tracks, or some other Act of God. No. It is your own stupid fault for getting there later than you meant to. In fact, on time is usually impossible if you are not early. The one fact about subway commutes that will never let you down is their unwavering unluckiness. (This has the benefit of making the lucky times seem so much more magical.)

I am from mass-transit-be-damned Detroit, and even I know this. The fifth or sixth or seventh time I was late to work, it struck me that, yeah, I’m really just an idiot, and I really just need to leave the house earlier, and none of the dyed-in-the-wool New Yawkers I work with is going to have much sympathy for the corn pone Midwesterner.

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »

the untallied hours