My lady found this

it's SO in the now. we're up to #5 :)

Being a native new yorker in manhattan on THAT tuesday

that tuesday, on my roof, on that perfectly sunny day, i was standing next to my father. luckily his office was next door to my apartment, so as soon as i saw the smoking tower on tv, i grabbed him and we went upstairs to see it for real. a few minutes later we were staring incredulously at the massive volcanic looking tower of black smoke bending towards brooklyn. there were jet fighters tearing the quiet with their roaring engines as they screamed up and down the Hudson river. the sound shook my ribcage, and my mind reeled at what their presence meant. it wasn't fleet week.

at that point we had no idea what or who had attacked us. a deep seated sense of insecurity was bubbling up within me. the event reeked of religion right away since it was clearly not the usual military attack. since childhood i had watched historical programs about holy war. mostly with my dad, who has a passion for history and actually taught it in a public school before i was born. through the years, he has broken many things down for me. one of them was regarding who i am in the world and what people think of me. i am a large part Jewish, and the meaning of that can change instantly. in major world events, if you are part of an ethnicity that is vastly outnumbered you had better realize that as soon as possible. i guess what i am saying is that although i have never considered myself a part of any religious struggle, that i knew everybody else would. i always knew, from those black and white images of Europe and Russia during the early 20th century that the shit could hit the fan at any moment. in most of Europe in 1940, even if just one of your great great grandparents was part jewish, you were shit out of luck. it wasn't THAT long ago. people aren't THAT different so as not to consider the possibility. but this isn't really about my paranoia about my background. it's about being attacked. it's about that tuesday.

that Tuesday, there wasn't a single commercial plane in the air for the first time in my life. i looked at my father and we both knew that we had been horribly, obscenely, viciously attacked. we were now at war, whether we wanted it, deserved it, or were ready for it. and in this new and terrifying war, the front line was Manhattan. clearly, we were standing in the middle of a huge historical catastrophy. a moment that was immensely larger then we were. it's rare that an event makes me feel as insignificant, while simultaneously making me feel completely connected, as when looking up at a starry night.

Everybody and their mom has a "how close i was to it" story. especially those of us who were on the island on 9/11. i have actually grown quite sick of telling mine. i wasn't really in any danger. i was in between freelance jobs and actually slept late that day. but i guess since i got to watch, from my roof, as the building my mom was working in get completely engulfed in a black wall of smoke from the second collapse, that i had a reason to go a little bat shits. At the time, and from the sound of the explosion, i assumed, the smoke meant absolute destruction for my mother. plus, i spent a day trying to reach my brother who was one of a few American Airline pilots based out of Boston who regularly flew Flight #11. We knew it was one of his flights starting from 10am that morning and didn't hear from him until the next day because there was no phone service in our area.

Couple those two profound scares with an almost complete and utter sense of identification with NYC. and i was left with the most incredible sense of despair i had ever experienced in my life. i had almost forgotten about this feeling. or maybe it had been abused so horrible by politicians since then that i have tried to bury it, so as to remove it as a lever for politicians to pull in my heart. it had become something of a slot machine for them, they pulled on it and pulled on it, and it kept on cashing in for them.

yesterday, randomly, i decided to youtube a bunch of clips. weird first speeches. stuff like Sting's live performance of Fragile on that day. I have a recording where he gives a specific shout out to a friend who had died. this version i think was done before that one. it was before he knew his friend had died.

plus Letterman:

and Stewart:


Stewart actually reminded me the most about how i felt. the intense pain, the inability to pull myself together so as not to cry. I didn't even know at that point if i knew anybody who had perished. it was more or less just a real blow to who i was. it was personal. somebody tried to destroy us and partially succeeded. somebody had melted metal and stone with pure hatred. they snuffed out hundreds of fire fighters lives. lives that were spent, and then crushed while making sure that we were safe. It was obscene. it made me realize how much these simple things really meant to me. how much i loved those around me that also loved this city. we were all suddenly so connected.

I don't know how many people remember what the city was like immediately following, but it was as beautiful as the burning hole was ugly. there was suddenly no sense of race, no sense of separation from those people around you. as much as we were reeling from pain and sudden fear, which was seen in the fact that every little bomb threat sent us running in mad herds through downtown for weeks following, we were also united. not united like those stupid fucking bumper stickers in Kentucky, but REALLY together. the patriotism wasn't thought out, it wasn't a competition, and it wasn't even a question. if you were there. if you had to close your window from the stench. you felt it.

the patriotism brought out the best in New Yorkers. the Moroccan guys at the corner deli told me they couldn't believe how many people were asking them if they were ok and telling them that if there was any trouble that they should call them on their home phones. they had half expected to get mobbed by angry people blaming it on them. riding public transportation was even different. there was a real sense of being on the train with people rather then just having to share the space. there were no poor people, no minorities, no divisions at all. well, i am a white guy so i could be way off base there, but that's what it felt like.

there was this awesome sense of hope. and a sense of global love for us. at that point we were the good guys, the victims. but our victimhood just reminded us of why we were so strong. the attack had just managed to bring us together, and the turn the world to feel sorry for us and identify with our suffering. we were, as Japan once noted, a slumbering giant that had been woken up. it was a crazy sensation when coupled with the utter sense of loss and hurt. it was one of the ugliest, and also one of the most beautiful moments that i can remember as a new yorker.

its sad to note, that i can't feel the same way, that we can't feel the same way, when thousands die across the ocean in explosions of similar magnitude or worse. a key part of the event for me was the closeness of it. that it was in the place that i knew best. where most of my memories happened. i felt the immediacy of the attack more then i have ever felt any attack or disaster before, more so then i felt for the multitudes who died in the tsunami. its a lot harder for me to feel the despair of the people elsewhere them it is for me to feel for those who share my space.

i could tell that this applies even in America. i moved to California a few months later and quickly realized that people that far away, simply couldn't understand except in the abstract, what i had gone through. the fact that the first anniversary of the attack came and went without any thing except specials on tv on the west coast was astounding to me. i couldn't even show up to work and had to call in sick, for fear that people would see my tears. i guess we are human. our sense of empathy and home can only be so large. that is probably the core of why it happened in the first place.

now we are in 2008. it's become pretty obvious what the real tragedy was actually the political aftermath. the event that we dubbed "September 11th" became a video and sound byte. a prostituted means to an end for just a handful of people who were more or less unaffected, and managed to affect their agenda on the rest of us. i wish more people cried about THAT.

after all of the political abuse, the misguided war, the forgotten enemy (and that really kills me. he is still out there somewhere and our guys aren't anywhere near to getting him). all i am able to really care about nowadays, is that the skyline of NYC gets taller. that the south of the island has a beacon high enough for me to see when i have just climbed the stairs out of an unfamiliar train station and need to know which way south is. i never really cared much about those towers, i cried when i was 5 and went to the top of them. but they were a very visible part of my home. i looked to them enough to have them be part of me. now i miss them greatly. its like that old adage, you never know what you have until it is missing.

My Kingdom for a Cigarette

Hiking around Machu Pichu in 1999 - Marlboro Red, two miles above Sea Level.
Cigarettes carry memories of perfect moments for me. sunsets, mountain landscapes, stormy nights, being on a rooftop, on a boat, on a plane (yes i remember smoking on domestic flights, you pussies) in a foreign land, growing up, being a child, enjoying a buzz, driving a perfect rural road, really truly enjoying somebodie's company i might otherwise avoid.

It's not that i am physically craving for one all the time. the immediate tingling in the face and itching in the lungs that used to be the familiar signs of a jones, are long gone. they usually disappear within 3 months of my last drag when i quit cold turkey. it's the mental and emotional experience that i miss. the pleasant and most welcome interruption. the complete and utter breaking away from the usual flow of life that i crave. the putting down of whatever i am doing, whatever i am thinking, and whatever is bothering me, and lighting up. the tuning out, the stepping away from, shutting down and zoning out.

the lovely advantage of being a smoker means that just about every hour, i have the right, no, the obligation to relax and look out at the horizon without any strings attached. i get to live in the moment as if there was nothing around that. no future nagging at me, no past to hound my thoughts. just the simplicity of the now, and the now is cut off from everything else. just the tendrils of smoke escaping the end of the cigarette and the rush of the nicotine as it fills in those little holes and gaps behind the eyes. the ones that slowly piled up while i dealt with life and all of it's inter-woven and networked needs. the holes that often blinded me to simple solutions to problems that had been bothering me.

often, i could solve a work riddle that had plagued me for a while within my first drag of a Marlboro red. it was as if i had been too close to the problem. too aware of it's menacing complexity, and had not been able to sort of break out of the box and see a simple but alternative answer. cigarettes were an asset often in those bogged down cases. one that a person in HR or accounting couldn't quite justify or understand on the books. but, because it afforded me a solution pulled quickly out of thin smokey air, and allowed me to go home at peace with the battle i had just won.

the splitting of the day and night into easily digestible sections, separated by pure moments of simple breathing. inhale, mmmm, exhale. feeling the heart pump the smoke enriched blood into every needy cell wanting to taste it. the cells each vibrating and creating a shivering sensation of vibrations that moved in waves through my body creating goosebumps and the sense of my hair going up on end. my Tai-Chi crazed physics professor called it Chi. life energy. cellular excitement. simple consumption that felt as if it were at the core of living. simply filling a physical need. one that was so overpowering that society still wages a cultural war against it despite millions of lost lives. nobody ever questions a smoker's right to walk away from their work several times a day and just puff. just breathe. just think.

i really really miss that. the daily rewards and daily inner reflections are still there in my life, but they certainly don't come every hour, on the hour. i drink coffee, but it doesn't allow me to truly break without the nagging awareness of time. even if i do try to walk outside and take a purely refreshing break with a cup o' joe, i have to pay attention to how long i have been outside, and when it's appropriate to go back. without a cigarette's uncanny ability to measure its own time by slowly smoking to the end evenly, i am forced to always stay aware of time's steady motion. plus coffee makes me a little too wired to think clearly and far from being at peace. it also makes me Blog too much :P

Angels of the Tendernob

I used to live in the area of San Francisco right between Nob Hill (very shee-shee) and the Tenderloin (crack infested ghetto that most resembles Alphabet City before Guiliani fucked it up). It was affectionately refered to as the "Tender Nob". the area was a very cool, very exciting place to live. In the daytime it was a collection of hip boutique stores, cafes, bars, lounges, and clubs. there were pockets of ethnic zones, like vietnamese areas, thai, russian, and turkish all mixed together. incredible restaurants and art galleries. it looked a lot like NYC because it was near union square and the center of town so you could step out of your building and hail a cab instantly.



at night, however, the freaks came out. it was like tides. literally since Nob Hill was uphill from the 'Loin. in the daytime the ghetto receded back a bit, by about 3 blocks. but at night, the tide came in and the ghetto splashed uphill into my zone. the later it got, the freakier the freaks were. tranny hookers took over the corners, homeless crazies and drug addicts wandered the streets, screaming bloody murder at the air in front of them. it was the kind of place that i know will probably gentrify in the next 5 years, but right now, its still very "iffy".
thats me on halloween. i was a pro tennis player (i am wearing a jacket though)

here's a review of the hood posted by an old friend of mine.

Dear TenderNob,
Given the recent gentrification of rough and tumble areas such as Western Addition (now NOPA) and SOMA (6th Street Gentrification project), I can only fear and suspect that you will be next. There was a time in the recent past when my humble abode at Sutter and Jones would have been considered part of the Tenderloin proper so even this handle of "TenderNob" is a result of encroaching Marinafication. Please, I beg of you, resist! Send out your fiercest roaches, rats, crackheads, prostitutes and crazies to do battle with the white-bread zombies best suited to Marina living. I don't want to sacrifice my pee-scented, garbage strewn 'hood for a hipster populated, yuppie visited, SUV parking garage. Where will I be forced to live if you forsake me? Dogpatch? Bitch, please.

Yours in times of crack and blowjobs,

Jill S.

i LOVED that about it. living their took me back to growing up in NYC in the 80's. needing to step over people lying in gutters, a police force with bigger fish to fry, yuppies choosing to live elsewhere but visiting the nightlife with fear in their eyes. I never felt in any danger because i tend to look very confident and i have a shaved head so people generally don't target me. the ones that did, usually couldn't even focus enough to perceive my physical advantage over them. one time i just walked around a drug addict who was holding a stick and asked me for my money. it took him a second to realize that i had simply side stepped around him and kept on walking.

one part of it that was a bit annoying though, was that i usually had to accompany my ex's or any female friend who wanted to come or go late night. because they were almost certain to get hassled. like 80% chance of drug addict, 20% chance raving psychopath. this resulted in a few exciting episodes, but one story that i love telling was about a girl in an angel costume. a girl in a white flowing dress and white wings had to fight off 4 freaks at 4 a.m., right out in front of my building.

it happened one night in the winter of 2005 i think. I was recently single and had become friendly with a bartender woman who worked at a place right near my house. she was a very tough girl, kind of scary actually. she was petite, and very girly looking, but i found out quickly that she came out of a tough childhood and could handle herself very well. she also had a tendency to serve herself behind the bar a bit too much. one night, after being very liberal with her personal pours, she ended up telling me a story about when she was a teenager that raised the hair on the back of my neck. it was a story that she really shouldn't ever repeat again as she was involved in something REALLY BAD. so i knew that she was nobody to trifle with, but could tell that people probably didn't figure that out about her until it was too late. seeing as how she looked like a sweet innocent type.

so this one night, i stopped by her place to say hi, i was going out to a friend's party in the mission so i was just stopping in for a drink. there was a theme party going on in the place and she was wearing a full on angel costume. kind of fairy-like, with sparkles and flowing white gown fabric, plus two large cumbersome wings which were obviously impeding her ability to tend the bar. it was actually very comic, she had even put too much mascara on so it looked like she was a washed out fallen angel. perfect for that area at night.

anyways, i don't remember telling her to call me or stop by after closing out the bar, but she must have gotten drunk and thought i did, or maybe she just got plain drunk. i went to the mission, rocked out, came home at about 3.a.m. and promptly passed out. passed out unconscious and nobody was going to be able to wake me up unless Mao, my super awesome deceased cat jumped on my face with his claws out, which he never did.

so most of this event happened with me out cold. i didn't hear about it until i heard from her, and my neighbor who witnessed it. my friend walked to my building in her angel outfit and started ringing my doorbell. despite my bell being a very loud ringing phone, i didn't so much as stir. she called my cellphone like 20 times. no answer. so she must have been standing in my building foyer for a while trying to roust me.

apparently she was there long enough to capture the attention of 4 sketchy guys who quickly targeted her. she suddenly found herself getting grabbed by strange dirty men. they must have figured she was as innocent as her angelic appearance. i am sure they didn't expect her to have any fight in her (i believe she had some kind of training from what my neighbor describes happening next). she started to scream at them in the doorway which awoke my neighbor who lived near the front of the building. he ran to his window and said he thought he was dreaming. it looked like Tinkerbell had turned vigilante like charles bronson. she started kicking and punching at them like a spider monkey. he said he thought in his half sleep that her wings were actually flapping but in retrospect it was probably because she was dancing around so fast. he counted that there were four of them and they had her cornered in our entrance. one of them grabbed her wing and she kneed him in the groin and/or stomach. he said she had them defending themselves rather then the other way around. as he woke up and the reality of the situation sank in, he quickly called 911 and then yelled out the window at the men. they tried a little bit longer to grab at her, i am still not sure if they were trying to rob her, or worse. but my neighbor said they all looked pretty roughed up by her and he saw her kick one in the face and pull his hair so he fell and then she kicked him on the ground. the other three picked their friend up and ran downhill, back to their Tenderloin lair.

meanwhile, 5 stories up and one window to the left, i was snoring away and snuggling with my cat, blissfully unaware of the biblical struggle happening down on earth.

the police screeched up to the scene a few seconds later and surrounded her. they probably even had their sirens on, and i still didn't wake up because my window was facing the street and by then i could have slept while an f-18 landed in my living room. my neighbor, who luckily was not as skilled in sleeping through noise as i was (of course, whether it was luck for my friend or luck four the four attackers we will never know...although it sounded like she was winning) when he went outside to help, apparently she wanted nothing to do with him or the cops. She wouldn't tell them who her friend was in the building, in some sort of instinctual distrust for the police no doubt, i guess i am kind of the same way.

instead she managed to pull herself together, fix her wings, wipe some dirt off her face and walk away like nothing had happened. my neighbor said the cops seemed pretty baffled by her blase' attitude considering the tale that my neighbor told them afterwards. one of them had made a crack about how even the angels of the Tendernob are dangerous. i have a lot of respect for that girl, i was actually kind of scared of her after that and subsequently kept my distance. but the image of that angel in a pitched battle on Sutter and Jones street at 4 a.m. is exactly what made that neighborhood so super turbo awesome cakes.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Ever notice that? my dad used to say that to me and i used to laugh thinking that it was a joke. but it's largely true. let somebody go ahead of you in a line and they turn out to be the slowest person possible, give somebody a ride to the airport and end up with a flat tire going home. it's the cosmos telling us that there really is no right and wrong, only a universal sense of humor.

i was thinking about examples of this phenomenon and remembered an interesting experience i had in San Francisco a few years ago. on the surface the decision i made was honorable and i was undoubtedly doing the right thing. but in the end, in light of events, the lesson i might have come out with was that i had done the wrong thing by being good.

San Francisco is a city with a reputation for being somewhat open minded when it comes to sexual encounters, or any kind of encounter for that matter. its a very fast paced city and there are a lot of "loose" people running around. i was in a serious relationship for the first year and a half of my time there so i was at the point of this story, relatively unaware of that aspect of the city.

not that i hadn't noticed the over active energy yet, but that i had deftly managed to avoid it myself trying to be monogamous, and had only seen it indirectly through my ex-girlfriend's infuriating ability to get a lot of attention and to play with it in front of me. so, basically, it was an annoyance to me rather then something to go out and have fun with.

so one day, i was walking through the Fillmore area on the way to a great Indian restaurant on Haight Street. it was late afternoon and the sun was starting to make the sky red and purple. the air was mild and warm and i think it was summer, although its hard to say because there is a noticable lack of seasons there to help you organize your memories with. I was meeting my ex and some of her work friends. we were having a lot of problems by then, i wasn't making her feel secure in her new found life in California and she wasn't making me feel like she was trustworthy or considerate. two very obviously fatal issues. unfortunately when you are in love and are so closely involved, the obvious can often be elusive. so i think we were in the middle of one of our fights and i didn't really feel like socializing with her and her friends but had agreed anyways.

i knew that if i walked all the way from my place in the Nob hill/Tenderloin area that i would get to miss half of the dreaded meal. so i was walking and i was walking slowly. enjoying the scenery, of which San Fran has a lot of. i came to the intersection of Fillmore and Grove streets i noticed that a silver Mercedes had pulled up to the crosswalk and had stopped. i was walking slowly and was about 40 feet from the intersection so there was no reason for the car to wait for me. but it did. i noticed the passenger side window rolled down and i could see that there were two blond women about my age looking at me and talking to each other. they were pretty looking and i thought it was weird that these two would be staring at me so intently and it even made me a bit uncomfortable. as i walked in front of the car i felt, and i rarely can say this, objectified.

"hey hottie, come over here" said the passenger. they were both smiling at me and it didn't really seem like a dangerous situation, plus i was really in no rush to get where i was going. so i stopped and turned around and walked up to her rolled down window and leaned in to speak to them. they looked at each other and something seemed to pass between them, the driver nodded and the passenger turned to me. "would you by any chance be interested in a threesome with us? we never do this, but you are like, um, our 'type'".

i immediately laughed. the question was SO outrageous to me and so unexpected that i assumed it was a bad joke. i think it also made me a bit nervous. but neither of them laughed. the passenger looked at her friend and then cleared her throat. "uhh, no, i am completely serious, we have protection and nothing to do right now, and we live around the corner on Mcallister. we are totally normal and cool. really. do we look bad?"

i still couldn't believe it. a lot of things had happened to me in my life up to that point, but nothing like this. i had only read about these kinds of things in the Penthouse forums i used to find in my uncle's old porn collection in my grandmother's attic when i was a pre-pubescent squeaker. "uh no, not really. so you are being serious? really?".

they both nodded, just as serious as before. there was no sign of any intended joke or prank. i stood up and scratched my head trying to process the event in my mind. what to do? my little angle and little devil, the ones that sit on each side of my ears squared up against each other. on one side, this would be exactly the kind of event that would have made it so i couldn't get annoyed at my ex for her flirty nature, because i would be the big sinner. it might have even have removed half of what was ailing my current relationship in a sick convoluted way. i actually thought that for a second. and then, the fucking angel stepped in, the moral upright citizen in the back of my mind whispered in my ear, "dude, you already got the offer, that should make your ego feel nice and sweet right now. plus if you do the right thing here, you will be able to say that in the future and use it as yet another reason your lady should feel bad for being irresponsible with you." the voice seemed right. i had assumed the position of the victim in my relationship and it really made sense to keep it that way. to remain in line. to do the right thing.

i leaned back into the open window, i could smell the first girl's breath, it had an inviting warmth and fruity smell to it, and being in their space was very pleasant. but i had to do it, "you know what, any guy would kill me right now for what i have to say, but i have a girlfriend whom i am actually walking to meet right now. if it weren't for that, i would jump in the car right now. you two seem really cool and i am flattered for the offer."

they seemed a bit disappointed, but not nearly as much as i was. the angel had bodyslammed the devil. and before i knew what was happening, they were already waving goodbye and rolling away. the angel was standing over the little devil with a shit eating grin in his face. the bastard had won. i had a very brief moment where i felt very honorable, but that quickly deteriorated into a sharp sense of regret. the change was almost faster then the acceleration of the mercedes. honor was fleeting at best.

so there went one of those shining oppurtunities for a young man to experience the rare and elusive random double hook-up. just slipped right through my fingers as quickly as it appeared.

the irony here, the part of the tale that flipped the script on me. the twist through which the universe proved itself once again to be a master of punchlines. is that the work friends i met that night at dinner, just a few minutes later. turned out to be my ex's "work" husband. a guy who i found out later that she had made out with on a few occasions.

so what's the moral of the story? i actually have no idea.

Best fight scene EVER.

This hero character demonstrates the perfect balance between reluctance, fallibility, skill, and heart. Bravo "Old Boy", bravo.

I just love getting quoted.

Especially when it starts with "the narcissist in me".

see the quote.

When stupidity nearly results in an explosion with political consequences

I use a Weber Gas grill in the city because it is way less of a mess and with some volcanic rocks placed over the flame you can get a real natural grilled flavor. the only problem with using a gas grill is that you have to replace the tanks when you use up all the propane in them. there's only one place in Manhattan where you can take your empty tank and replace it with a full one. it's McKinney Welding Supply Company on 52nd and 11th Avenue. It's like a hole in the wall dirty and cheap operation where you can grab a new tank from the yard in under a minute. it's usually very easy for me except it has sporadic Saturday hours.

So one spring day in 2002 i decided i was going to have a BBQ and i realized that i needed to re-up my gas supply. i didn't want to risk trying it on Saturday just in case it was closed. so i had the stupid stupid idea to do it on my way to work on Friday. at that point in my life i was driving my motorcycle to an animation house right near the U.N. on 45th and the east side. so i thought, hey, why not swoop down on my bike and pick it up and then just take it home after work? seemed like a good idea at the time. why i thought that combining propane gas and a motorcycle was okay, i will never quite understand. my mind remains a mystery to me.

I had a big ruck sack back pack that fit the empty tank perfectly and i hoped on the ride and drove down to the gas spot. everything went according to plan, it took me no less then 15 minutes to make the stop and get the full tank. it was a lot heavier when it was full, and i struggled to mount up a bit, but once the weight of the tank was resting on my passenger seat behind me it seemed good to go. i crossed the park and was riding up the street that passes in front of the U.N. building. everything was fine, except all of a sudden, right in front of me, was a HUGE pothole. I mean like a hole to china huge. like Saddam could have hidden in it. I was heavily weighted and taken by surprise so i didn't have time to swerve to avoid it.

my front tire dove down into it and then was launched at about 30 mph into the air. the violence of the quick down and up lurch actually made me lose my grip on my handles. my body and the tank was, for a brief moment, suspended about a foot above the bike and my hands were flailing. it must have looked like one of those freestyle jumps that the motocross guys do when they lat go of the bike in the middle of a 40 foot leap. only i was not graceful and i was far from professional.

with my heart in my throat and my stomach where my heart was supposed to be, i managed to grab back the handles and prevent the bike from swerving off course and sending me flying. the back did actually swerve a bit and i nearly lost it. it was a VERY close call.

once i recovered and my life stopped flashing in front of my eyes i realized what could have happened had i not managed to grab the handles back in the nick of time. i could have exploded. like big huge fireball explosion. and that explosion would have been out in front of the U.N.

besides the realization that i could have died in a fireball very easily, i also played the whole circumstance out in my head. i could only assume that people would have taken me for some kind of psycho with a political agenda. like maybe a mad motorcycle bomber from the upper west side. they would have searched my house for anti-U.N. material or a connection to some underground political group. its quite possible that i would have gone down in history as america's first jewish animator terrorist. when really, i just wanted to grill up some yummy sea bass and corn on the cob. it was perhaps one of the dumbest commutes i ever took in my life.

OOPSY

It was so nice this morning that i got the urge to take my hooded sweatshirt off while i was driving. i planned the maneuver out, merged into the right lane, waited for a straight section of the Sprain Parkway, slowed to abut 50, took off the seatbelt, checked the mirrors and proceeded to pull it over my head quickly from the back to the front. it worked like a charm, i didn't even swerve because i was using the knee driving technique my dad taught me in Vermont when i was a kid. i was pretty proud of myself...except it was suddenly draftier then i had expected.

apparently, my t-shirt decided to hitch a ride with my sweatshirt. because it came off too. so there i was, driving in the buff. i drive a big sedan, the kind of car you would normally see an older suited man driving with a pipe or cigar in his mouth. so imagine what people were thinking when they see a half naked guy with a shaved head? actually, i can't imagine what they were thinking, but they sure were looking. anyways, i excercized better judgement and just went with the flow. it was actually kind of liberating once i commited to the new "look".

the HBO series John Adams gave me hope.

it's more then great TV. it's a great country.

it reaffirmed my lost sense of patriotism. the Bush Administration has really had the effect of tearing my heart out about my country. its gotten to the point where nothing surprises me and i hardly react with what should be revulsion to everything those criminals do.

But when I saw HBO re-create the first over-the-table discussions between Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, And Washington I was AMAZED at the ginormous undertaking creating America actually was. I was in awe at how smart these men were in creating a framework for a country based on one really simple idea, that has grown and weathered through more then 200 years of rapid change.

Where those simple words took us and are still taking us, was WAY further then the men even imagined. they had no idea that they created a system that would eventual work to dismantel the institutions of slavery, and inequality. it would eventually, and i have my fingers crossed on this, live up to its promise of equality. more so then even they imagined. the system was more high-minded then they were.

Watching the historical series i realized the delicate balance and wording that needed to happen in the constitution to properly set the course. what has come out of it, i believe our fore father's couldn't even have imagined possible. for instance, look at this Treaty from 1797 with Tripoli. just look at this sentence and let it sink in:

"Article. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Get it Mr. Bush? let that shit sink in. You zealot. You are unequivocally un-American in just about every thing you do, from hijacking america's fear for your poli-religious agenda, to blowing our delicate economy on oil procurement. It's clear that you wouldn't be welcome at a table with any of the framers of the Constitution. in fact, an outraged Jefferson would probably challenge you to a duel.

The fact that it needed to be stated by our congress and president Adams that there is no religious grounds for our government should be enough to shut down most of what this Administration has claimed and done. these words from the first days of our government's very existence, when men were MORE religious then they are now. this single Article in a treaty with a Muslim country should be the Administration's shame in their attempt to bring the church of 2 thousand years, one of power grabbing and violent crusading, into the white house. that they tried to break the necessary separation that ALLOWS for religion to be free is almost cannibalism. that in fact, its that very separation that is what PROTECTS them and their outdated beliefs. don't get it twisted, son.

The men who defined this country would see Bush as a test of the theory of Checks and Balances. The Administration has managed to manipulate and expose the system for it's weakness, that the executive can actually offset the balance of power and wield the now overly powerful media to the whims of one or two men. and when that happens in this case, with Cheney as a war profiteer holding the reigns, and Bush as the face of religious rightousness, we end up with a disaster like Iraq.

Well, watching John Adams gave me a bit of hope in these dark times. that maybe this system, which depends on the people who run it can react to this in a way that might prevent it from repeating itself. or that, despite the Electoral College and the voter really having very little say in politics, that there are individuals who will be elected that WILL use the lopsided power to restore our good name. that they might put the good of man in front of the good of their personal business associations or their delusional theocratic beliefs. after all, you have to assume that most people have children and care about their grand children enough to be responsible about things like the balance of peace and the environment. you have to assume that there will be a good natured elected official in our future.

That sunny day in September seems like so long ago, when i was standing on the roof of my building next to my dad and we were watching the second tower go down in a volcanic tower of black smoke. i watched the smoke, which looked like a wall of fire, consume my mother's office building and my dad was busy trying to call my brother, one of a few American Airline pilots who flew flight #11 out of Boston. it was a combination of horrific fear for my loved ones, and a gloomy realization that my home was under attack and we were now at War.

That night, i dreamed of the people in the building, i was consumed by grief and really, it was more then i realized at the time. i was wounded as a New Yorker AND as an American. i had never known how much of a patriot i was until that happened. then, the next day, when Bush arrived and made his speech. that was the beginning of the long spiral downward for my sense of pride in America. a spiral that went to such depths by 2003 that i could barely stand in the same area as a republican without feeling an overwelming urge to do violence upon them.

I think i am getting better now. I think i dare to hope that the winds might stat blowing in the other direction. watch John Adams, it will help the hurt a bit.

Another nail in the coffin for the once mighty and crazy Big Apple.

Bar time at 2 A.M.?!
I am really running out of reasons why it's worth living here.

Not that i need to stay out until dawn anymore. BUT I APPRECIATE THE ABILITY TO CHOOSE TO DO SO.

this might even hurt worse then when Guiliani converted NYC from a haven for dancing where you could dance just about anywhere, to a city with only 300 Cabaret licenses. basically he turned the city into a town like the one in Footloose. and NOBODY SAID A FUCKING THING UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE.

there's a line in this article that has been something on my mind for a decade now. and it's only getting more and more true:

"We might as well rename ourselves Cleveland-on-the-Hudson."

i think i even compared NY to Cleveland in a previous post. its a tragedy and most people in the city are too new to even realize what has happened. they're just like "wow, like i am TOTALLY in the big city now". well, geographically they are right, but in a historical and cultural sense, they are NOT.

Guns and cowards.

I have never held a real handgun in my life. It's never occurred to me that having one might make me safer. i can't imagine how that math works. i have always had the opinion that the very existence of guns in the city is what kills people. from stray bullets, to kids finding loaded guns, to people losing it and blasting other people for no good reason. it has always seemed so cowardly to me and the only people that really need guns, are soldiers and drug dealers. drug dealers need them because they have to kill their competition, which doesn't actually seem all that bad in the bigger picture.

but when i think about how i have operated as a young adult, the amount of times when i could have been shot, it's amazing that i maintained the higher road coming up in the 80's. i was always in some kind of altercation of one kind or the other and the thought never crossed my head how often i was within feet of a loaded weapon during a conflict. i always assumed that the more bad ass a person was the less likely they would resort to the easy way out. i don't know, i think i am a bit Spartan when it comes to conflict. i would fight in the shade if i had to.

let me quickly go through a brief history of my experiences with Guns and the cowards behind them. first off, i grew up in an apartment that face the back of the building, and looked out at 87th street off of Columbus. back then, it was a rough street. the kind of street that you could expect to get chased on at my age. you could assume it actually. it was a street that quite often erupted into sudden violence. i remember being startled out of sleep very often from the loud pops of gunfire. and sometimes it was 6-8 rapid shots, you know, somebody unloading on somebody else. if you heard rapid shots like that, you could almost expect cops to show up at your door the next day asking if you heard something and when. it usually meant somebody had been murdered.

but i was lucky enough to only see it happen once, up on 137th street. it was twilight and i was with some friends walking to a spot to write graffiti in a very bad area. there was a guy just standing in a doorway, looked like a dealer or something. i didn't really pay any attention to him until another guy walked buy, and all of a sudden, turned to the first guy and raised his arm and popped him right in the face. it was insane to see. the guy with the gun just kept on walking away. it was dark so i never saw anything except his silhouette, but i could tell he was calm. the other guy just folded backwards like a lawn chair. we made like sheep and got the flock out of there.

as for me coming close to getting hit. well one time when i lived in the village and had a bedroom right on the sidewalk of 11th street and 4th street i was woken up one night to very loud gunshots right by my window. for a second i thought the gun, or fire crackers, as they sound like, were INSIDE my room. i rolled out of my bed quickly and hit the ground with a thud. there was a bunch of yelling and the sound of footsteps running by. I stayed under the bed until there were no more sounds besides the hum of the city.

the next morning i found out that there had been a full-on police shootout with armed robbers and the bullet holes were right above my window and several in the tree right in front of the window. the tree probably caught the bullets that were headed in my direction. there was some dried blood splattered on the sidewalk. that was also the very spot were a good friend of mine who was walking to his place down the block got held up at gun point. in full view of me watching tv inside.

then another time, i was at a loft party downtown, out on a fire escape with some friends. we were watching a very exciting fight that had broken out on the street in front of the building. there were guys kicking this one guy under a parked car and several other mini fights raging in various places from the sidewalk to the middle of the street. then all of a sudden one of these idiots decides he's been punched one too many times and whips out a gun. he does, what might have seemed like the smart thing, by shooting into the air to get people running. only we were right above this guy, so his gun was aimed right at us. i saw the sparks lick out of the barrel and there was the very audible TINK TINK of the bullets hitting the metal hatching of the fire escape right at our feet. we ran inside as our curiosity quickly changed to panic.

another close call was when i was writing graffitti one night with a friend, Spy-D. We were on 10th avenue and 57th street. a pretty large intersection and it was about 4 A.M. so it was basically a large empty corner except for two DT looking cars. we called any Caprice Classic that was unmarked a DT car, because it was usually driven by Detectives. well, as we were crossing the street in front of these two cars, out of nowhere four guys wearing dark blue windbreakers with D.E.A. printed on them jumped out of the car in back and started popping off shots at the front car in rapid succession. 3 guys jumped out of the front car and started firing back. it was straight out of a movie. Spy-D and i were stunned for a brief second as we figured out what was happening right next to us. we ended up runnning for our lives and diving behind a parked van. as soon as the gunshots became less constant we just high tailed it east on 57th and never looked back. i have no idea how close the bullets came, but i am sure it was TOO close. By the way, R.I.P. Spy-D.

and there are some other moments, like in Mexico city a few times i had to duck when a gunfight unexpectedly broke out or ran past me. of course, international incidents get filed under another header as they don't really affect the way i have chosen to live unarmed in America.

but back to NYC, once me and my friends got pulled over on the upper east side. i was sitting in the back passenger side seat munching on a slice of Ray's pizza. i didn't have anything illegal on me, which back then was actually quite rare. so i was relatively relaxed and was expecting maybe a ticket for the driver, Zar, at the worst. i hear a loud tap on the window right next to my ear and look to the right. I was looking down the barrel of a .38 special. literally i could see the light get darker in the shaft, and i could clearly see the heads of the bullets in the loaded magazine. i realized that if this spastic guy's finger twitched for any reason, i would die a very gory death right in the middle of the nicest neighborhood i knew at the timw. the cop told me to step out slowly with my hands up. i complied. he made me throw my pizza on the ground. i could tell i was facing a small (mentally), scared, and stupid person. the fact that the decision to end my life was in his hands was earth shattering to me.

the cops ended up realizing that we weren't the guys they were looking for and the just walked away without even apologizing.

So despite all of this proximity to these killing devices, these one button and lights out machines, these coward enablers, i have never for one second considering having one of my own. life is just too short for that stupid shit.

Professor Chuckrow, and the A.P Physics class races.

I was in the turbo fast physics class in High School. it was supposed to be the class for students on a fast track to be science stars. so the assumption was that it needed no real policing since the kids were mostly book worms and and an exciting day was getting to light a Bunsen Burner. We were in an attic-like classroom up in the oldest part of the school. it was at least 150 years old and built of large stones and wooden rafters. the professor, Dr. Chuckrow was a very weird, very eccentric genius type of guy. he built his own car, which really looked home made. he made his own clothes and tied his pants up with shoe laces. and he dared the biggest athletes to punch him as hard as they could in his short, fat gut. it was pretty impressive. he studied some kind of martial art that allowed him the "inner chi" and centering to take heavy punches, and we loved to test him on it.

The best part of the class, beside figuring out the rotational acceleration of Jupiter's moons on my own, was the fact that Dr. Chuckrow paid absolutely NO attention to what we were doing. there were four guys who, like me, didn't really fit the usual description of the A.P. student. we were the under achieving, over achievers. and we could care less about school. so, after exhausting all the possible means of amusement in the back row of the class, we realized that there was an awesomely maze-like route that would lead you from the north exit door of the classroom, down 3 flights of dungeon like stairs, across a dark winding hallway and then back up another stairs to the south exit door. basically there was a lap between the door. so we started racing this lap, a person would get up and calmly walk to one of the doors, then when they exited, we would start a stop watch to see how long it took to get to the other door.

it took a lot of familiarity with the route, and a lot of good traction to power yourself through all the complex maneuvers. from inside the class you could usually hear the squeaks of the sneakers and the sound of bounding steps up and down the stairs, then the opposite door would bang open, and the racer would calmly make their way back to their seat, usually panting and red-faced. it was a great sport, and probably good exercise. it probably looked a lot like the race in Chariots of Fire where the two guys race through the school yard and try to beat the large chiming clock. only imagine an even windier route.

until one day, when i had a very unfortunate high speed collision with the old french teacher Madame Spodheim. this was a VERY grumpy old lady who clearly hated kids. all of her french papers flew all over the place and she almost fell backwards down the stairs.

my friends said that you could here her yell from inside the class. "Brrring out ze Guillotine!!!"

the truth

I don't know if this ruins my image. but i have to admit that i think Mariah Carey and Christina Aguilera have got some major pipes. i've been known to secretly shed a tear to certain songs of theirs. I love them. don't tell anybody.

RANT: it's the little things

when you share space, and do the same things in that space daily, you start to notice that it's the little things that matter. it makes sense because all big things are made up of smaller things. like a commute is made up of many little commutes. like merging onto to a freeway, or getting off at an exit. that's why i become a detail minded person when it comes to "sharing". details that come up everyday that get dealt with each and every day. these things become important as one realizes that a minute act, is a rather large percentage of one's entire existence in the long run.

that's why i can't believe some of the shit people pull around me. like they are alone on the planet and all the moving objects that look and sound like them, are not in fact humans like they are. it's astounding how little minded people generally are. the fact that i work in a place where there are people who spray the toilet seat with pee in a unisex bathroom is ABSURD. what's so fucking hard about lifting the seat?! even if the culprit is, in fact, a female, why can't a female lift the seat and hover over the toilet like the mothership in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"? it's the little things.

why, in a place that is supposed to be so civilized and progressive, are their individuals who are lacking the basic ingredients to proclaim humanity? are they in such a rush to get back to work that aiming for a two foot bowl is just too time consuming for them? and then is wiping up their own brand of cellular waste a job for the next employee A.K.A. yours truly? it was a foul deed just to spray the seat, BUT TO NOT CLEAN IT UP?! wow. dudes, and dudettes, i am close to speechless. close. now, anytime a normal "person" goes to the bathroom they have to deal with the mess of an animal. it's like being a human locked up in a zoo. only i have seen animals do it better.


It's really simple to live in such a way that you are always aware of shared space. like is it "sharing" to drive in the right lane when there is space in the middle and left lanes and you are hurdling towards an on-ramp where people are trying to merge in?! No, that's being a dickhead and it's actually dangerous. is it that hard to get out of the left lane when you aren't going faster then the people in the middle lane? no, you're just the new sheriff in town and it's up to Officer Cock-Luster to make sure nobody gets anywhere before you do. what are people thinking about when they drive for miles at the exact same speed as the people next to them? are they flying one of those formations we saw in "Top Gun"? are the persians invading Sparta and they need to hold the line and form a freaking Phalanx?! the assumption here must be that there's NO reason that anybody might have to want to go a different pace. baa-aa-aa. i'm surrounded by sheep and their making me late. it's the little things.

little things like the people on the train who don't immediately move in when there's space and like a hundred people are trying to get on. or the Freakin' Foolios who have to hold their doorway position for fear of getting too far from being the first person out at their stop? get the fuck out of the doorway you fucktard!

little things like the "person" who just had to fart out some level 27 evil fire death stench on a moving train?! how long was your ride you stank ass cockroach?! too long to spare the rest of us from knowing what it would be like to stick our heads up your ass? anybody ever notice how fucking frequently this happens? what are people eating, taco bell breakfasts?


i am a relatively gassy person, you can ask my poor girlfriend about my sphincter prowess. i am like the shogun master of bass tone blasts and fog-of-death clouds. but i hold my functions at bay when in a confined public space for less then an hour (i make exceptions for close friends and loved ones on road trips, they can taste the wrath of my digestive tract at any given time...but that's really just love). it's the little things.

another thing that is small, yet ends up being bigger then you would think, is basic work place civility. basic assumptions that multiple persons are sharing the same space and are actually a TEAM. like at my job, there is a parking garage since the place is located in a somewhat suburban setting, people have to drive. so there's a garage for all the cars. all the cars that use the garage are people who work in the same building. that, ironically, share the same restrooms. well, whenever i get to the garage, there are two toll booths. one for regulars who have an electronic device that the toll recognizes, and another for guests that has a responder thingy PLUS a place to get a ticket.

you would thinkg that in this situation, one that takes barely a second to navigate. that since there are mostly "people" who are all going to the same place, and being aware of the fact that they probably know and like each other, the rat race should get put aside for one shining second and you could assume that people will line up behind you. instead of going into the other booth to try to get an advantage or not to have to wait a half a second. and then having a little dangerous race to see who can get the toll up first and back into position on the other side. like the rat race never stops, even in the most unlikely of places. i chose to be an animator because i assumed i would NOT end up around people like that. if i wanted to fight over every god-damn thing during the day i would have been a corporate lawyer or a stock broker. at least they are honest about being devious assholes. but then again, my building has a law firm or two in it, so these could actually be lawyers that pull this ninja level ass-face maneuver.

let's really examine the situation closely. i understand in the normal case of rush hour traffic that its every rat for him/herself. that's the only way to get thousands of rats to work on time is if each does it's part to try to fuck the others then the going gets really slow. as a long term New Yorker, that fundamental assumption isn't news to me. but what i am talking about is, TWO individuals that work close together. the only individual that the person behind me stands to pass from going into the guest booth is ME.

and, of course, then there's always the situation when its a draw and the tolls open at the same time, like this morning. then suddenly i have to slam on the breaks because some pathetically small person NEEDED to beat me by a fraction of a second. Awesome, now he can get to the one hundred or more open parking spots inside first! jerk-face killah.

we almost collide when merging simultaneously into the one lane for parking for NO GOOD REASON. it leaves me speechless. and at this garage, it happens EVERY TIME SOMEBODY IS BEHIND ME. every time. it's the little things.

RANT, over.

A perfect spring moment with Tony Bennett

Seeing all the frosty white and pink blossoms exploding forth from the happy spring trees reminds me of a lot of memories, mostly of exuberant elation of times past. one such memory is pretty much perfect. like there's NOTHING that could have been better at that moment then what actually did happen.

I used to have a motorcycle. I LOVED that motorcycle. it was my stead, my Shadowfax. she was a straight bar, low riding drag bike. a very classical looking chopper with a black tear drop gas tank and very subtle off-black flame on the sides. wherever it wasn't black, it was chrome. like bling-bling curvy chrome. on top of that, it was insanely fast and quiet. so it looked like a harley, but rode like a ST1100. which to laity is a really suave bolla bike with mucho power and a subtle purr to its engine. not the obnoxious, Blagga-blaga-boom that Harley's use to set off every alarm in the neighborhood and erase your brain mid-sentence because all you can think about is the vibration of your ribcage.

I rode that bike all year long. rain or shine. i would wear ski equipment when it snowed, and i even learned how to put my feet down and ski down the avenue while holding on to the handles. very dumb, but really fun and easier then you would think.

So, when spring rolled around it was off with the goggles and the heavy equipment and time to feel the wind in my hair and ride through the blowing cherry blossoms. there was a particularly perfect afternoon, the occasional dandelion puffy cloud and blossoms in the breeze from the Central Park trees. I was giving my friend Marc a ride home from work. I liked to share the wealth when the weather was like that. I chose to take the road that winds inside of Central Park, as it is, hands down, one of the prettiest drives available.

We came to a slow rolling stop right near the old Carousel. a place i used to frequent for my riding kicks loooong before i could handle driving a motorcycle. the sun was dappled and volumetric shafts of light were dancing between the trees. the warm breeze was blowing millions of blossoms around us, and the air smelled fragrant.

Ok, so there we were, in this perfect place, on this perfect day, on my perfect bike. so i had to say something. i am that guy who can't just let a perfect moment happen. i have to open my big mouth and mention it. sometimes that can take away from the moment. like just my voice degrades it, or pointing it out, makes it less spontaneous and almost cheesy. like a hallmark card. but this moment was TOO perfect to ruin.

"Wow, what we got here, is a perfect day...we got the blue skies...we got the sun...we got the trees..." as i am doing this my hand points to each thing as i call it out, " we got some birds flyin' and chirpin'...we got this pretty jogger joggin' by...we got the horse carriage guy...we got the kids at the merry-go-round..." and just at that moment, i hear a chuckle just to my left. there had been a man and a small dog who was walking in the grass near the curb, just 3 feet from where my bike was. he had heard what i was saying and had moved closer to hear me. so i looked at him mid-sentence. it was Tony mother fuckin' Bennett. so, without missing a beat, i said "...and we got Tony Bennett about to sing us a song." and i gave him a big shit eating grin.

I shit you not about what happened next. He smiled and cleared his throat. "Ok boys, you got it...And if i never had a cent, i'd be as rich as a rock-efeller, with gold dust at my feet, On the sunny side of the street." that's right. he sang us a verse. and then he laughed, we applauded. my leather gloves not even doing the man any justice. here is a man who should only hear the applause of many, hearing it from two guys on a motorcycle in Central Park. he laughed, we laughed. then he waved and said "the light's green boys! have a wonderful day."

Tony Bennett. Central Park. PERFECT.

Deja Vu at the Westchester County Mall and getting jumped by N.K.O.T.B.

I was just wandering the labyrinthine halls of the Westchester County Mall looking for a USB cable so i can attach my new printer/scanner/copier to my computer. It's a very unremarkable mall, not very big or very unique, if such an adjective can be applied when speaking about a mall. I was a bit annoyed because i had walked for several city blocks looking for an electronics place and had only encountered mediocre clothing store after mediocre clothing store. like a vast sea of crap i would never consider wearing.

then i passed a small sports wear store. a very small place that had all of it's walls covered with hats up to the ceiling. i don't wear baseball caps anymore and i certainly don't follow sports. but instantly i knew the place. it was like i snapped back 20 years in a flash. its the place that my friends and i used to drive up to for the every now and then Westchester bargain raid for a hat. My high school was in the Bronx and this mall was the newest and closest mall to the school. it was a good place for the allowance laden kids with a friend in ownership of a car. it was also a fun way to spend an hour and kick it far from the usual adult supervision. it was clean, almost exotic to city kids, and it was safe.

Or so we thought. we found out that even buying a hat in the suburbs can result in injury and assault.

realizing the old school connection i had with this mall was surprising since i have been in it a lot lately. i work right around the corner and just assumed that the mall was new and i had never been there before. recognizing the store reminded me of the day i went there and bought a Mets cap in 1989. I liked the Mets only because my mom is a big fan and i was riveted by the 86 world series. my parents had just divorced and watching my mom go crazy over this team was a welcomed event in my apartment. plus it was a great series, even for somebody who gets bored watching baseball.

i remember buying the hat with my friends, they each bought hats for themselves, each having one weird reason or another to have picked the team they chose. we were having a great time, just joking around, totally free and relaxed. i remember noticing a bunch of kids at the food court, looking all the same. dressed as if they were part of the group, New Kids On the Block. with mullets and tails, acid wash from head to toe. they were suburban kids. like rubber stamp clones of whatever MTV was spinning at 8pm. back when MTV spun music videos that is. i guess you can say these guys were a homogeneous bunch, much like today's O.C. kids. except they were most likely middle to lower class rather then the Range Rover driving kids of the O.C.

I think we noticed that they were staring, but i remember joking about how they had never seen "foreigners" before and then losing interest. after all, we were in the middle of nowhere, and people didn't seem very dangerous. i guess we underestimated the effects of boredom.

we walked around a little more, and then decided it was time to get back to the city. so we headed to the parking area. i was busy putting a bend in my brim so i kind of slacked behind a bit. my friends were probably 200 feet ahead of me as we approached the car in the lot. it was one of the only ones out there because it wasn't a very busy day at the mall. i put my hat on and yelled "yo, wait up!".

my friend Zar turned around and started to say something, when his expression got serious looking and he yelled "watch out!". i think i heard "crotch scout!" or something that didn't convey the right meaning, because i didn't actually watch out.

the next thing i knew, there was a sudden heavy pressure on the back of my head. my hat flipped off my head and flew through the air for like 10 feet. my semi long hair splayed out and ended up in my face. i had just been punched by somebody.

i spun around with fists already up. only i was facing a 4 foot fat guy. he yelled "what you think you tough?!" he was looking very proud of himself and i was already considering which of his teeth i was going to knock out. i had settled on the front top two, when i noticed over his head, what appeared to be dozens of bobbing mullets and baseball caps heading my way. it was the gang of N.K.O.T.B kids bearing down on me. i got it, this little shit was with them. he had gone against physics and hit me with the assumption that his friends would even out the size difference.

only somehow he had really gotten out in front of them. like by another 200 feet. it was as if he had personally been the most offended by our presence and needed the most out of all of them to exact his vengeance. i realized that i had an opportunity to vent my anger. i new that my friends were at the car. i knew that either way, they had to start the car. i also knew that if i turned to pick up my hat and run, this guy would get another shot at me.

so i punched him good. to my satisfaction, my punch had the same effect on his hat as his had had on mine. only my punch was to his face, rather then the back of the head. i am pretty much positive that he hadn't figured that would happen. maybe these guys were used to being the cock of the walk. maybe they were the top of the food chain in White Plains. maybe he was something of a Napoleon Bonaparte of his parts. well, now he was Tucan Sam with a big parrot nose that was nice and red.

but that sealed the deal. we had to get the "F" out of "D", at a high rate of velocity. i spun back around and barreled at the car as fast as i could run, not forgetting to scoop up my prized cap off the ground. we were clearly outnumbered and it was a do or die escape situation. my friends had managed to get in and the only door that was open was the back passenger door and my friends were all wide eyed and yelling "RUN!!". i didn't even want to look back to see if Donny, or one of those mullet mofos was gaining on me.

i remember diving into the car and looking up at the car roof and yelling "Hit it!". my friend Ruxpin, the guy driving hit the gas and peeled out. i pulled my legs in just as the door slammed shut from inertia. we had made it. i sat up while we were deep in a turn and caught the tail end of about 20 knuckle heads running at top speed and slowly giving up as we sped away. it was a huge relief to see them get smaller in the rear window. we were now free to go back to where we could feel safe again. the Bronx.

it was at this point in my reminiscing that i perked up, and gave the place a quick check for Mullet haircuts. they could still be around.

the NY seasons and Wakeboarding the mighty Hudson

Spring is finally in the air. i had almost forgotten that all the toiling during winter amounts to a certain amount of excitement when it seems to be over. in other words, i am feeling the "spring fever". my girlfriend and i are starting to behave in such a way that we rush home to take a bike ride in the park, followed by a glass of wine on the shores of the boat pond in Central Park. the trees are all blowing their loads of blossoms in a similar show of enthusiasm. hopefully my hullabaloo won't blow over as quickly as theirs is destined to.

i would like to bottle up this feeling to be opened when i am in the middle of a cold, wet, and gloomy nor-Easter, wondering what the hell i am doing in such a rugged climate. its the kind of intoxication that is all about appreciation. it's dependant on the ups and mostly downs of an oscillating situation. if there wasn't a long shitty winter, then spring becomes just the time when you have to file taxes. like it is in coastal California. So i guess, in the middle of April, i can safely praise the seasonal system that exists here, where in February, not so much.

But now that its getting warm and i am driving with all my windows open, the time of the year to start heading to the water is basically here. last year i got the opportunity to try something so unheard of to my NY ears, that the sheer simplicity and audacity of it was astounding.

Wake boarding on the Hudson river. you know, that sludgy river that reflects the lustrous skyline of Jersey City. the one that whips by on the Henry Hudson Parkway and makes its way into your daydreams of what it would be like to be able to fly like superman and jump the GW bridge like it was just a hurdle in a relay race. well that River, is just about empty. while you sit in traffic on either side of it wondering how you will ever get that wasted time spent in the car back, there is a river the size of the Mississippi river that NOBODY is using. there is the occasional sail boat, and the occasional mid-sized cargo ship lumbering along in the very middle. but really, considering the millions of people that the river passes everyday, it is a lonely body of water.

A friend of mine noticed this a bunch of years ago, and when an opportunity came up that gave him a parking spot for a boat at the only Marina on the upper west side, he jumped. he got himself a nice speed boat and wake boarding equipment. i got my first invitation to join him last June and it was INCREDIBLE.

first of all, the water is warm during the summer, jumping into it went against ALL of my instincts, as during my 25 or so years growing up in the city i had always thought of the river as a human bacteria frappe. the kind of water that if it got near your eyes and nose, you would come down with the kind of diseases only heard of in the amazon or during the Vietnam war. i had only seen one of my friends ever go near it, and that was because he had a major fall off his bike on the side of the west side highway, causing him to fly over his handle bars and into the drink. he came up covered in sludge and VERY unhappy. but that was well before they really started cleaning it up 20 years ago. that was also on the dirtiest stretch of shore down near the old piers that are now torn down and cleaned up.

so when i willingly jumped in. it was a very unnatural act. but there i was. just fine. the water didn't smell funny and there was only the occasional wrapper or piece of paper. the kind of litter that one finds normal when surfing in LA or near any major city. it was fine. plus it was EMPTY. the boat was floating near the GW bridge, in full view of the Cloisters and uptown Manhattan. the Palisades were on the other side, looming high and mighty up to the other side of the GW bridge. it was emptier then any beach i had ever been to. it was emptier then any lake i had ever sailed on. it was completely OUR river for all intensive purposes. and this is not unusual, apparently.

the river had been a completely ignored asset by me, except for it's place in the scenery of NYC i had never considered it as an object of sport. i was a little uncomfortable not knowing what was going on below me. i know the river is attached to the ocean near there and just about anything can be swimming there. i am always a bit eeked out by water i can't see through. but that's natural, and its part of the excitement and the sense of accomplishment i got when i had the balls to do jump in.

so then the instructions are given to me. the need to line up the towing rope and the tip of the board. the need to spring up and out of the water quickly. all things i was pretty much familiar with having skated, surfed, water skied, and snowboarded my whole life. i knew EXACTLY what i was going to feel. i just didn't realize how fucking cool it would be to surf down a river i had always looked at as off-limits and out of bounds. i had never, except in dreams, pictured myself on a board, whipping across the ruffled surface of a calm flowing river, with Manhattan passing by on the shore. in all my years it had just never occured to me that it was a real possibility. until that moment.

my ears were under water so i heard very clearly the powerful engine roar into action. suddenly the handle of the tow rope pulled away with great force. i stiffened up my body and braced myself between the force of the rope, and the sluggish force of the water. i got a face full of spray and was almost ready to let go to avoid inhaling too much of the water i had just gotten over fearing. but my board lurched up and i levitated out of the water and just took off. suddenly there was wind in my face instead of spray and the surface of the river had a solid feel to it. i was wake boarding.

it was heaven. it was very much like the first time i rode a wave. it redefined the way i looked at a river. it was no longer this completely fluid deep and unknown element. it was now a rippled surface that i could skip across and play with like a toy. i could dig the edge in and slide out of the wake zone and skip across the water to be almost adjacent the speed boat and then, when the sheer force of the pulling rope and my extreme leaned angle was too much, i could turn back in and fly across the wake, jumping a bit over the wake itself, and then whip out to the other side. all this in full view of traffic on the HH parkway, and the little red light house under the GW bridge. it was as if one of my dreams about flying to NJ had suddenly come true. only it was more like i had the ability to run across the surface of the river. which was actually what i was doing. it was a real super power. i can't freakin' wait to do it again.