During all of my visits the last dozen years or so, there was something I just had to see in New York, but for various reasons, couldn’t. One thing that always held me back was the sight of NYPD officers in the subway; wearing Kevlar and toting automatic weapons in those queasy years after 9/11. Another hold back was from fear of detection and a possible fine by Transit Authority officials.
In New York now it’s easier than ever to find out about things you’d been curious about for years. Intrigued by palimpsests, I’ve always wondered about those old F.M. Ring painted ads about a dozen stories up on several old buildings in the Twenties. I assumed they were many decades old but failed to notice until my last visit that there was no telephone exchange name, like CH5-4565. The ads must be no older than the Sixties, probably late Sixties because there are 7-digit numbers painted there.
Faded a bit, but how old?
There was a flea market that assembled itself outside the gates of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn some Sundays. The trouble was, it only convened on “some Sundays,” it was unreliable. It didn’t matter much anyways, I and my art student friends were usually broke; and the stuff they offered wasn’t worth much. It was all new stuff, and to me that really was worthless. I figured flea markets should only sell old stuff.
This flea had come a long way from the early days a century before when upholstered furniture for sale had to (by law) be brought outside the city limits of Paris, to stop the infestation and spread of fleas. The only thing I remember buying at the Pratt Gate was a red pillow with little pineapples all over it. My girlfriend Isabelle bought a matching one.
My friend Susan has been a vegan for decades. She’s invested a lot of time finding the healthiest, tastiest vegan cuisine in New York. When I was in the City, sometimes I’d come along for the sampling of cuisine, sometimes not.
Knowing about my burgeoning interest in Buddhist Meditation, she brought me along one day in 2004 during one of my mad-dash visits to New York from the Pacific Northwest. She said there was a place I had to try, that it was run by a Buddhist Nun.
Some of my clearest memories are of waiting on the front porch of my house at 126 S. 43rd West Avenue in Tulsa. It was 1978 and I was 10 years old going on 11. I was a reflective (some might say brooding) kid given to flights of fantasy and whimsy.
I sat there, while other kids rode their bikes back and forth, and waited for the mailman. I’d come to expect our mailman on Saturdays around a certain time, I waited for him avidly every fourth Saturday. If that delivery time was close I couldn’t be tempted by either the Toss Across or the Slip –N- Slide. Not even by an offer to pitch our throwing knives into the tree in the front yard.
Twenty years ago tonight I had my last drink ever at my favorite watering hole and hangout, Two Boots Restaurant and Bar in Brooklyn. I was there (as if I ever needed an excuse) to attend the screening, the World Premiere, if you will, of a 90 minute long silent movie comedy called “The Schenectady Massacre.” It was based on a real historic event, a 17th Century massacre at a fort in upstate New York. It had been filmed on location back in February.
To those who care, Hollywood Boulevard conjures up a slew of contrasting images, from seedy to glamorous. The seriously uninitiated believe that Hollywood’s stars promenade up and down the starred sidewalks. Others, equally uninitiated, believe it’s a place too scary to visit, day or night. Well, with 35 years of ongoing experience, I can tell you it’s neither.
Friday July 20, 1979 my mom took a day off from her job at On the Spot, a cleaning supply company located out in the Valley. It was the 10th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing and she thought it would be a good opportunity for us to learn something. Read more
Walking through the Pratt campus one hot sticky day in the late spring of 1989, I made the decision to just go for it. My friend Jordan had invited me to stay the whole summer with him in LA.
Yeah, California.
My mother died seventeen years ago tonight. It’s funny the things you remember, you know. I know that everyone suffers loss, it’s such an old story that there’s almost no story to be told at all. But it sure is weird the things you remember, stuff gets stuck in amber doesn’t it?
Someone dies, practically speaking, they just stop aging. Your memories of the deceased stop, but they don’t stop aging. If you get some kind of warning of impending death your mind can go into some kind of super hi-definition memory mode. It did for me, and I’m sure it’s done the same for you too.