Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Pubic Enemy


I am constantly reminded that I don’t live in the best neighborhood.  It’s not safe.  It’s not quiet.  It’s not pretty.  Fuck, it’s not even convenient.  Because the cons far outweigh the pros around here, my ongoing decision to renew my lease year after year has forced me to perpetually assure my friends and family that I am not, in fact, Tommy the Pinball Wizard.  Contrariwise, I am well aware that this neighborhood is a total shit hole. 

What needs to be realized by those that bother to return my calls is that this is the very best neighborhood I can afford on my salary of Broadway dreams.  Maybe (just maybe) when musical theatre is discovered to be the official cure for ovarian cancer, I can move somewhere that I don’t fear getting mugged while on my way to the bodega to buy rat poison to kill whatever the fuck is living under my sink. 

Inevitably, I am the first person to make a distasteful joke when something goes terribly wrong- but not often when my pride is at stake.  I like alone.  I pay my own bills (sometimes even on time).  However, something happened the other day that made me slightly too nervous to laugh.  I saw a newsflash when I was sipping my morning coffee that a young woman had been dragged off into the woods and raped near the ball fields in Inwood Hill Park. 

That’s where I jog. 

Granted, I know that I’m probably not too much at risk of getting raped (at least not in this neighborhood- or galaxy), but hearing news like this still makes you crane your neck to look over your shoulder on every third or fourth step when you walk to buy a slurpee at 10PM.  You can’t help but ponder what exactly is standing in your way of becoming a statistic.  Hopefully the recipe for safety is some combination of common sense and not making any eye contact with anyone ever. 

Yesterday I was practicing this recipe as I was getting off the subway and starting my self-contained walk down the hill to my apartment.  At the station exit, I was met by an unavoidable commotion.  A dozen women were there with stacks of flyers with a crude police sketch demanding that everyone beware of the Inwood Hill rapist.  They were shoving the flyers in people’s palms as they looked them straight in the eye. 

It turns out that the image of the rapist was so generic that it could have easily been 60% of the people in my zip code, but bearing witness to this act of upward mobility made me so momentarily proud to live exactly where I do.  Even if the police could care less about our problems, we could take the matter into our own hands and demand our justice be served rape-free (and with a side of chorizo). 

Tonight I was at Columbus Circle waiting for the A train to take me back uptown to the boulevard of broken dreams.  After a few minutes of distracting myself with Plants v. Zombies on my phone, a train pulled into the station at a glacial pace.  The conductor’s window was open and I heard a cop tell him, “Don’t you open those doors.”  The conductor nodded as the cops began to pace the platform and peered in every window.  The people stuck inside the train were smirking and shrugging their shoulders.  After 15 minutes, some old woman standing next to me on the platform gave me a, “What’s going on?” look with her eyebrows. 

I said, “They’re looking for somebody.  Or something.  I hear there’s some serious stuff going on in Inwood and Washington Heights,” never actively admitting that this is exactly where I live.  One of the cops put a key in the side of the subway car and opened the door I was standing in front of.  Several people struggled to push their way out, including this homeless guy that I see a couple of times a month.

When you see the same homeless people over and over again on a continuous loop, you can usually monitor their vital signs and make some guess at how they’ve been holding up.  Having first seen this guy in the dead of winter, I’ve always seen it as some sort of miracle that he’s even still alive.  I have never seen shoes on his feet and he can barely lift his legs when he walks.  His hair is matted in dreads and his beard extends halfway down his bent torso. 

As he pushed his way out of the single door that was open, the cops grabbed him by the elbow and put him in cuffs. 

I said to the old lady, “I see this guy all the time.  Whoever they are looking for, it sure as hell isn’t him…” 

She grimaced and said, “I know. I’d bet half of this platform could vouch for him.  Still, maybe he’s better off with a roof over his head for the night, even if there are bars holding it up.”

It made me so sad to see him taken off.  It felt like he was merely a scapegoat- that the cops had wasted everyone’s time and they needed to cart someone off to prevent getting any egg on their uniforms.  None of us said a thing as we watched them go. 

When I finally got off the train uptown, I called my mother and made mention of all the crazy goings-on.  Police cars slowly passed on the streets by my apartment.  I told her that even though I didn’t like the reason that they were there, it still made me feel better to see them than it would not to. 

I got home and started to round up the trash that needed to be taken down to the dumpster.  Reaching over to the small mesh wastebasket in my living room, I saw a jolt of moving fur- another grey mouse, my third.  I screamed and threw the basket into my larger kitchen trashcan and turned Mommie Dearest white as I grabbed the hammer.  I started swinging while it repeatedly tried to climb up the sides to escape.  My mother said she could hear the thumping like I was Lizzie Borden with her axe. 

Now, before you all freak the fuck out and call PETA on me, I don’t even know if I killed the thing.  To be honest, I was sort of squeamish and sort of crying and I don’t think I ever made contact once, which leads me to believe that he is now on the shores of Montego Bay sipping Pina Coladas before the limbo competition. 

I trembled as I ran the trash downstairs.  Thankfully, I bumped into the super. 

“You’ve got to do something.  I just killed a fucking mouse with a hammer.” 

He laughed.

“No, seriously,” I said.  “I’m not made up for this shit.” 

He said he would be up in 20.

He came to my door with a flashlight and started opening cabinets and throwing their contents on the floor with his overbearing, muscled arms.  He pointed to two holes under my kitchen sink and told me, “They come from there.”  I nodded as he comforted me and said that he would stop by tomorrow evening, how he was going to patch them up and how it was going take care of everything.  I showed him to the door and sighed as I looked down at the mess that lay in his wake.  While picking up after him, I reached down to move my tabletop Christmas tree and found a bundle of paperwork sticking out of its branches.

Ironically enough, it was my lease renewal form.  I had forgotten that I stashed it under the sink several weeks ago.  It was due a while back and I had devoted 30 frantic minutes of every day this week to trying to find it. 

Looking down at the document, I saw the shape of whatever it is that’s been lurking in the shadows.  The latest newsflash would make it hard for a hyena to laugh.  However, I know I’m going to sign the damn thing, lick a stamp and mail it back in.   And when I do, it is going to be pretty hard for me to keep a straight face. 

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Meredith Vieira Has Left Me Forsaken




As some of you know and some of you don’t care, today was Meredith Vieira’s last episode of the Today Show.  As always, she was a stunning vision.  There were a lot of sappy clip montages and they even carted out Carole King to serenade the Heavenly Angel’s departure with "You've Got a Friend". 

What surprised me most about the proceedings was how emotionally swept up I had become.  I’ve spent 5 years waking up and having coffee with this lady and, as I mention often, change scares me. So, I’m sitting and eating my Cheerios at 8:20 in the morning while swiping away tears like an idiot.  I suppose the joy of those moments is that they only appear as a surprise.  They can only sneak up on you.

Meredith offered a terrific speech that validated my vulnerability: 
“But, you know, it’s funny.  That Virginia Tech story, when I talked about those kids- what I remember, and it really says something about the Today Show and why this is such an important show.  They did a candlelight vigil- I’ve talked about this before- and these kids started coming up to me and they said, you know, in that terrible massacre there, and they said, “can we please hug you?” And that they watched the show every day.  And they didn’t have their mothers or their fathers next to them.  I realized in that moment what was so humbling about the power of this show to really reach people.  And it’s such a blessing to have had that ability.  I am so honored to have sat with all of you.  Well, most of you.”
 And then she gave Matt Lauer a playful tap, ultimately demonstrating her ability to transition between sincerity and fluff (as is the goal of the Today Show, which originally got ratings in 1953 because it had a live monkey on the air every day named J. Fred Muggs).

You thought I was kidding?
I still have no idea what I'm going to watch tomorrow morning.  Whatever I choose, it's no doubt that Meredith will be sorely missed. 

Monday, June 6, 2011

The Shaken Baby Song

When I was a baby, my grandfather used to bounce me on his knee and sing a song in German that I assumed was gibberish (as was most language to me at the time).  He’s been gone for a few years, but this particular rhyme has always stayed with me particularly because the ending is accompanied by an action that has the adult “drop” the child on the floor in a playful oh-my-Gott-in-Himmel-I’m-falling kind of motion.  While I still don’t speak German and have no plans to start taking lessons, I was able to use the sounds of the song that I still remembered to track down the rhyme on google.  The internet is totally amazing. 

Withing 30 seconds of searching, I learned that the song was called “Hoppe, Hoppe Reiter” and it sounded a little something like this:


As you can tell by the video, it's true that the Germans have a song for everything. Even Shaken Baby Syndrome.

In actuality, the song’s translation is (sort of) as follows:

Bumpety bump, rider,
if he falls, then he cries out
should he fall into the pond,
no one will find him soon.

Bumpety bump, rider...

should he fall into the ditch,
then the ravens will eat him.

Should he fall into the swamp,
then the rider goes... splash! ("Drop" child)


OMFG.  That’s what that means?  Seriously, I am glad I didn’t speak German.  Even their nursery rhymes are evil.  

Still, thinking of our unbridled laughter on that "plumps" line reminds me of the last time that I may have ever been considered an innocent.   Remembering him fondly. 

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Three Coins in the Fountain



I had a boozy brunch today by the World Financial Center with a handsome gentleman caller.  The sky was perfectly overcast, yet his smile seemed to be tattooed above his flawlessly dimpled chin.  He is the type of person that seems unflaggingly happy, so I am still unsure if I was ever his smile's cause or if it was indebted to the several rounds of Bloody Marys.   

We were seated on the outdoor patio with a view of bobbing yachts in the marina.  Our waiter was a handsome young man whose skin shone like wax in the blurred-out sun.  I wore my sunglasses whenever he stopped by our table for fear of being blinded by his disco-ball radiance.  After he came with our drinks, he asked if we were ready to order and we asked for a few more minutes to look over the menu.  A short while later, he came back to the table and paused before he greeted us with, “So... did you have a few minutes?” as if he worried we may have been caught in a vortex while he was in the kitchen and had lost all concept of time.  It felt like the kind of question a nurse's aid would ask when you awaken from a coma.  Then, when I ordered the Eggs Benedict, he asked how I wanted them cooked to which I said, “Uh… poached?”  Later, when we ordered our coffee, he brought us two separate canisters of milk and two separate sugar caddies.  I almost hoped he had drawn a line down the center of table with the wrappers of our straws and hummed the opening of "West Side Story".

This waiter's whole existence seemed to be an indistinguishable blend of tragic and hilarious, but my date seemed to be so polite that he refused to notice.  With that, the rules had been clearly defined that my making a joke at the waiter’s expense was entirely off-limits.  So, the conversation stayed as light, like my POACHED eggs. 

Luckily, some children wandered over to the fountain next to our table and distracted me by being cute.  They’d been given pennies by their granddad and were instructed to toss them into the water and make a wish.  The girl was older and more methodical with hers while the boy quickly lobbed his like a hot potato.  They both watched transfixed as the coins rocked back and forth until they sank to the bottom with a "plunk". 

The boy immediately asked the girl what she had wished for.  She looked at him like he'd spit in her face and told him that she couldn’t tell him her wish or it wouldn’t come true. 

Even though I have heard that same line of flim-flammery more times than I have blown out candles on a birthday cake, I celebrated the boy's defiance. 

“Yeah?  Says who?”

“Everyone,” she sighed.  “ That’s who.”

“Oh,” he said as they began to amble away, fully contented to accept the girl’s word as gospel.   

It made me realize that whoever first thought up the idea that you cannot reveal your wish must have been a modest coward.  And those that preach that your wish cannot be revealed until after it has come true are merely opportunistic at hedging their bets. 

Hearing that exchange made me want stand up and take a fistful of everything that jangled in my pocket and throw it with abandon into the Hudson.  And you want to know what I would wish for?  I'd be happy to tell you.  I would have wished for the permission to make fun of that shitty waiter until my date grabbed at my forearm while his jaw unhinged with laughter so I could finally rest assured that I was, indeed, responsible for his irrepressible smile.   

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Some People Can Be Content Playin' Bingo and Payin' Rent


I had a chat with my mom on the phone tonight because, well, I’m Jewish and it’s obligatory that we talk to our mothers every day lest it be assumed that we are face down in a ditch.  She was telling me about a conversation she had with my father over dinner about the acting class that she signed up for (if you’re not up to date, more on that here:  My Mother, the Star).   

Mind you, my father is the kind of person that gets his feather ruffled by any talk of change, so this acting class is already cause for his concern.  To prevent any further disturbance, my mother has adapted a technique where she will gradually layer on new information to an old story as to not overwhelm his irritable senses.   In tonight's update, she was to tell him that if the acting class goes well, it might give her the courage to consider auditioning for a show.  He, in turn, responded with his usual blend of apprehension and ferocity.  

He told her that he by no means a fan of that idea.  He didn’t like to think of her being out and about, going who knows where with who knows who.   She reminded him that this was merely a hypothetical situation they were discussing and she would have to see how the class went before she could consider auditioning for something.  And, even then, that wouldn’t mean that she would automatically get cast just because she showed up to the audition. 

His defense was as supportive as usual, stating, “Of course you’d get a part.  They’re not going to be paying you.  They’ll let anyone in that wants to give up their time.”

Years of variations on this theme had her respond with, “That’s not necessarily true.  I’ll have to be good enough first.  They’ll have to want me.  Besides, what difference would it make if I had somewhere to be?  Every single night we watch two separate TV’s in two separate rooms.  It’s not like we would miss any time we spend together.  Besides, you play golf a couple of times a week.  I don't think this is any different.”

“Yes, it is,” he glowered.  There are times when I am certain that Armageddon wouldn’t stop him from excreting the final word.

“You’re right,” she replied.  “That is different because it’s you…”  At this point, I imagine her pushing her food around her plate and not making eye contact with anything but her mashed potatoes. 

To be fair, I have a million and a half things to say about this particular moment as well as the basis of their entire relationship.  But this is another one of those moments where their shared dynamic upsets me and my reaction is still better left unsaid.  It's simply not my battle.  

So, instead of going through my usual laundry list of expletives about how shitty he was behaving, I told her, “You just can’t write this shit.” 

Well, I lied.

And, oddly enough,  I’m not the first person to write this shit either.  I remembered while I was on the phone with her that their conversation was practically line-for-line from an episode of “All in the Family”.  

The set up is pretty simple:  Edith is late getting dinner on the table because she had been volunteering at a retirement home.  Archie is furious and expects her to quit her volunteer efforts so that she can devote herself to house and home.  As you might have guessed, this episode becomes a social commentary on the independent woman's role in the home.  It was all very 1970's, which is why it frightens me all the more that this thematically still applies to my family's household. 

I know I’m asking for a lot in expecting you to watch several minutes of a TV show that wasn’t even made in this century.  Seriously though, this clip is up there as one of my favorite moments from any sitcom ever.  And if you’re really that bored, you can start at 1:10 and still get my point.