Oh, the warm winds blow

The other night, the weather was criminally pleasant. Nice enough for me to park myself at a sidewalk cafe off Tompkins Square for a little catch-up people watching. I don't like winter. The people are in too bundled up and in too much of a hurry for good recreational observation. The first thaw came the other night, and with it, people.

One of those people was dressed head-to-toe in black. Black wide-brim hat. Black suit coat. Black Pants. Black pleated skirt. (Yup.) Black chukka boots with toes like icepicks. The sun was well down, but his eyes were covered by black wrap-around sunglasses. Even his hands and the lines in his face not covered by a black beard were etched black. He staggered in front of me, trying to eat a slice of pizza and maintain forward movement at the same time. He was drunk. He failed.

Somewhere in the course of this aborted attempt at walking, he managed to spot me. He stopped. His eyes tried to focus. He advanced on me. There was a nasty gash on his left cheek. The blood was dried black, but it hadn't had time to completely scab up yet.

He was close enough that I could smell dead alcohol and old skin in the breeze and he said something in a blurred whisper that was so soft, I couldn't make it out.

"What?"

"You look like a writer. You a writer?"

"That's what some people call it." He was good, I'll admit. Top notch observation skills. I hadn't taken my notebook out. My pen was concealed and my computer holstered. And he still called me out. I wouldn't have pegged him.

"I could tell," he said. "I'm a writer too."

"Oh, that's great," I said. Just great, I thought. Me and you, brother. Me and you. Kindred spirits. It hurt a little.

Just as I braced for the "you got any spare change?" line that wino writers like to close with, a small man with a large voice shouted from the corner. "Al! You fuck! You look like a Goddamn ninja. Where you been?"

My brother of the ink turned away from me. Old friend trumps new comrade, I suppose. "I been busy," he said as the two men split the distance between them and collided in a free-form hug.

I wasn't sad to see him go. I'd been spared the need to tell him to fuck off about the money.

But part of me figured I owed it to him to write about our little moment.

Take a walk on the wild side -- NYC

Yesterday morning was a glorious morning for a stroll through Central Park. Snow from the storm a couple of days ago lay on the ground. The sun was out. The air, while crisp on my face, couldn't penetrate the layers of clothing. I was on my way to a rainwater harvesting seminar sponsored by the Council on the Environment for NYC.

Basically, things were zippidy do-da-ing my way. I think I might even have been humming a happy tune despite myself -- something that happens, sadly, when I'm far from feeling sadly.

All of the sudden, from the high branches of an oak tree about 20 feet to my right, a hawk dropped down looking for breakfast, courtesy of a gray squirrel zippidy do-da-ing its way around the base of the tree. There was a sharp flurry of feathers and fur.

When it ended, the squirrel skittered about three feet up the tree, leaving the hawk standing, embarrassed, talon deep in snow. The hawk was doing its best "cat falls off counter but meant to do that" posturing. Up the tree, the squirrel was giving it a major ass chewing.

The hawk ignored the verbal abuse, waited about 10 seconds (an acceptable amount of "I meant to do that" time), looked at me, puffed its feathers and flew into a nearby tree, where it perched, back to the still bitching squirrel.

Zippidy do-da!

Acme -- Southernish food in NYC

The sign outside Acme reads "Authentic Southern and Cajun Cooking". Proclamations like that make my Epicurean Security Administration terror alert system go to orange.

The only thing that keeps me out of Red is that I automatically disregard claims of "authentic cooking". It has nothing to do with the tastiness of the food or the authentic-ness of the recipes and everything to do with the fact that it ain't authentic unless someone's momma is cookin' it on a Hotpoint range and you're eatin' it in their Formica accented kitchen.

It's a core mistrust of the concept my biscuit-bakin', bream-fryin', collards-boilin', Sno Cap-slingin', Hotpoint and Formica kitchenin', Southern to her Karo syrup-slurpin' soul (may it rest in peace) ma-maw sniffed at and called "cafe food." Unless you are advertising "authentic cafe food" at a cafe, you ain't exactly tellin' the truth. Not that I expect you too, really. It would be unreasonable for me to demand that your sign read "Authentic Southernish and Cajunlike Restaurant Cooking."

The culinary waters get even murkier when you start mixing genres ... Southern and Cajun, Chinese and Korean, Mutt-ern and Jeff-inese (I'll let you youngsters Google that one). For the record, Southern and Cajun ain't kin. Think of it this way. Southern and Soul are cousins across the fence ... or more correctly, sadly, across the tracks. Southern and Cajun just happen to live within a long day's drive of each other.

If that isn't bad enough, we have to add in market factors. To put it bluntly, my ma-maw would never have grilled a portobello mushroom cap. My friend's Nonc Nile (Nonc is coonass for uncle. Nile is the river, cuz that's how crooked he was) would never have grilled a portobello mushroom cap. Wouldn't never have happened. Not even if Christ his own self or a resurrected Gov-nna Huey Long had asked. Truth to tell, my ma-maw woulda jack-slapped either of 'em upside the head for even askin'. I'm pretty sure Nonc Nile'da felt the same way, only he'da used a hammer.

So, let us grab a ladder, a brush, a can of whitewash and a cadre of our most gullible friends and eradicate the word "authentic" from every damn restaurant in New York City.

I'll wait.

Done yet?

Good.

Now, let's talk about Acme.

I go on a regular basis -- and, to ma-maw's eternal shame I always get the grilled portobello mushroom caps. Tuesdays are $2 beers. Appetizers are half price until 7 p.m. every night. The canned music is OK until they get into a Zydeco jag (but that's a different rant). The food is purtey near tasty, even if it ain't really authentic. The hot sauce selection is prodigious. The dress code seems to be that you have to wear clothes ... for the most part, although no one has actually come right out and said it.

And the bartender -- Rudy -- is ... ummm. ... Mere words can't describe. I'll just say this. If you don't love Rudy, you are a degenerate puppy kicker and should be forced to walk through town from "authentic " restaurant to "authentic " restaurant with a scarlet "PK" sewn to your chest. Not to your shirt. Straight to your heartless damn chest.

That's all I'm sayin'.

Last night at Strand

I don't get out and do the free stuff like I did when I first got here. I'm thinking that will change in a couple of weeks. Right now, the sun goes down and Bob goes inside. To freakin' cold ... unless there's drinkin' involved.

Last night was an exception. There was a book talk at the Strand by science writer Jonah Lehrer who wrote the New York Times best seller "How We Decide."

I decided to stop by and see it using my superior deciding brain thing.

Here's how I decide to do things. I think it's called answering questions. You are more than welcome to try it at home.

First, is it free? This was. It is amazing how broadly educated a cheap bastard can be in New York City.

Second, can I find a comfortable way to kill time before the thing starts? Midtown isn't conducive ... unless there's drinkin' involved. This was in the Union Square area ... so, I camped in a little coffee shop a couple of blocks away.

Third, do I have to stand in line early for a chance to do it? If I have to wait in too much of a line, or get there really early to get in and sit, I'm usually not that interested. Last night, I walked up 5 minutes before start time at 7 p.m. and found a spot to lean. It was about why people will turn their nose up at a $5 bottle of wine and love the same wine if they think it is a $90 bottle of wine. Right up my alley. That would have been worth a wait and it certainly was worth standing in the back of the audience for 90 minutes.

And, finally, the temperatures were in the high 40s after the sun went down, so I wasn't testing my frostciles.

Anyway, the talk was filmed by a C-SPAN BookTV crew. I don't know when it will air, but when it does, it should offer visual confirmation of my location in New York City. I'll be the guy in the flannel shirt in standing in the back deciding not to shout "Why don't you just shut the fuck up!" at the interviewer ... Robert Krulwich from NPR's Radio Lab, a flaming twit who was more interested in hearing himself than he was in letting us hear Lehrer.

If the camera pans slowly enough at the right moment, you might be able to see me make another decision. I want the twit's job. I am currently deciding which steps to take to have it.

The oddest thing happened on the way to ...

I was wandering past Saks (on 5th Avenue, oddly enough) two days ago when I found myself inexplicably stepping inside. I don't know what came over me, but it may have had something to do with the head blow described in my previous post. The old Bob would only have gone into Saks if his bladder was full to bursting or his bowels needed immediate emptying in the "Men's Lounge", but this strange new Bob ... apparently there has been a personality shift because there I was. ... Ground floor of Commerce Central, gateway to the land of the lost, Red Hell.

My eyes watered.

Perfumes. Mutants. The rubble of Babble.

Obsession. Envy. Compulsion. Euphoria. Opium. Romance. Ice. Heat. Radiance. Passion. Escape. Poison. Stalked youth. Plastic faces. Dead animals. Matrons wearing granddaughter clothes. The sticky ick of humanity adrift without a compass. Eternity. Seriously enthralling. Neato!

The stigmata on my unicorn nubbin oozed as I road the escalator up six flights to the men's department. I know because I watched the new Bob in the polished brass mirror wall, standing between a man in a cashmere overcoat below me and two 60+ women in matching Juicy Couture sweat suits above me. I don't know what the man's deal was. But I think the women were churning butter in their sweats.

But I didn't care. Euphoria. I was so looking forward to looking at suits, and shirts, and shiny black loafers.

There was a sale! I was gleeful ... full of glee (or something). I picked up a shirt that was 70 percent off -- Super sales price? $275. ...

People are idiots. But, I want to take this chance to thank Saks for setting me straight. I emptied my bowels -- it was a forced evacuation -- in the "Men's Lounge" and made a break for the street (5th Avenue, as it happens.).

Escape. Lovely. Rapture.

Knocking myself out

I almost killed myself with an ancient NordicTrack machine a couple of days ago.

Remember NordicTrack machines? They mimicked cross-country skiing and were all the rage in the late 80s.

I was whining to a friend (Descarte said "I whine, therefore I am," so I must be ...) that I wasn't getting as much time on a bicycle as I was used to -- 17 degree weather here in New York, icy roads and no absolute need, thanks to mass transit, had reduced my cycling urge to zero -- and, while I was walking quite a bit, I missed the aerobic part of the exercise. My friend said she had an old NordicTrack machine folded up in a closet under layers of old clothes that created a sort of archaeological dig of her passing tastes. She figured it might still work and I figured it was worth a shot, so I dragged it back to my place.

That should have been aerobic enough, but then I set the machine up. It was a simple device. A flywheel attached to rollers for the "skis" and a jointed upright that held a spool of rope with a tension nob in the center and a handle on each end to simulate ski poles. Truly, it was a marvel of exercise engineering.

I climbed aboard and started sliding my feet and pulling on the rope. It didn't go well.

I found myself doing the exercise equivalent of rubbing my head and patting my belly while reciting the alphabet backward under the steady gaze of a state trooper at 3 a.m. on New Years Day. My legs were sliding and my arms were pumping, but my legs were fighting my arms, my arms were fighting my ass and my center of gravity was fighting my center of gravity. It was a grave situation.

Then I noticed there was a leather-like pad about stomach high and about a foot in front of me on the machine's upright arm. I'm not a particularly smart guy, but I know that leather goes with sliding and pumping like tuna goes with egg noodles and cream of mushroom soup. I thought, "Gee. I'll bet that's got a purpose. And, I'll bet that purpose is to give the exercising person something to brace against so gravity doesn't kick the slats out from under his center."

I angled the upright toward me. This moved the pad close enough to me that I could press it against my hips. The move also moved the upper level of the upright into a more vertical position so I was pulling down on the ski poles. It seemed more ski-polesque. And, it worked. I was foot-sliding and arm-pumping at 15 kph. The Nordic wind was whistling over my bald spots, and I was whistling an Alpine hiking tune.

Then the upright lurched closer to me. My ass lost center and found gravity. I started to fall over backward. There was flailing.

My deep genetic connection to northern Europe screamed, "Use the poles!"

I yanked on the arm ropes to right myself. It worked. My upper body shot forward to counter balance my wayward butt, just as the upright with the arm-rope tension dial, possibly weakened by time in the closet but more probably incorrectly set up by my incompetence, shot backward.

There was an (Old Testament) "awesome" explosion of light and sound as the dial hit me right between the eyes at 15 kph times the variable "x", with "x" being the sum of the kinetic force of my adrenaline-fueled upper body and the counter force of gravity.

This is probably a good time to mention that I am descended from unicorns -- on my mother's side. I'm not prettier or more lithe or more pure for my genetic link to myth. I'm all those things for other reasons -- having to do with clean living and a godlike moral sensibility cleaved from years of self-examination.

All I got from the unicorn DNA is a skittishness around really bad people and a vestigial horn. The skittishness forced me out of corporate America, possibly saving my life in the long run, and the other night, the unicorn nub might have saved my life in the short run.

When I picked myself up off the ground, my eyes burned from the blood flowing out of the half-inch gash on my nub. But my pupils dilated as nature intended and beyond the ringing in my ears and the dent to my pride, I seemed to sustain no cerebral damage. I'm going to have to break down and buy a bicycle helmet, though. For next time I decide not to leave my room.

Underground New York

Magic time on the subway


There are multiple millions of people in New York City and multiple millions more who come from outside the city proper every day.

A great deal of this flow of humanity, this ant-like thrum of activity, takes place below the city.

I'm a fan of the subways ... I've even found myself riding them just to read (This might be only a couple of stops from Crazy Time Station, where I eat sandwiches out of the garbage, count empty seats with religious fervor, recite the next subway stop information with savant-like detail and clean my toenails with coffee stirrers on the Broadway local, but I think I'm a ways away yet. Then again, did those guys know they were on the way? Did they think, "I'm a ways away yet."? Or did they just wake up one day and decide it might be fun to grab a book and ride the A train from the Rockaways to Inwood ... and maybe grab half a sandwich and a cup of coffee along the way?)

Future mental prospects aside, I -- being of sound mind and body ... for the moment -- profess to be a big fan of the subways.

There are a million stories in the naked city and almost all of the characters crawl underground at some point. The range of faces is global. The range of voices, musical. The subways are magic.

They are freedom for $2 a trip (a lot less if you buy the unlimited-ride cards. I figured my ride costs last month at well under 80 cents per ride.). From practically anywhere in the city you can get to practically anywhere in the city 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

They are entertainment. Between the subway buskers and the subway riders, there is never a car that doesn't have something to watch.

They are inspiration. Billy Strayhorn would have told you that. Duke Elington's directions to his house ... "Take the A Train" ... inspired a jazz classic. I can attest to it. A bad advert on the J Train worshiping "Mighty Cod" inspired a play I just wrote. Sketch artists and actors, musicians and storytellers all draw from the pool of ideas seething beneath New York's streets.

They are home to the walking dead. Ride the 6 train at 5:30 p.m. on a financial district work day and believe.

The are home to unbridled life. Check out the same train two hours earlier when the kids are on their way home from school and believe.

They are rock shows. A group of European wanderers ... obviously high on life ... breaks into a rousing rendition of "Bad Moon Rising". Five black kids start singing "Just Another Brick in the Wall." iPod rappers stare dead straight and unblinking while they atonally parrot the tunes pumped in their head. I've even been practicing my toenail cleaning song. It wanders the musical landscape in time with the clacking of wheel on rail and goes like this: "Take good care of your feet, my children, and they'll take good care of you. Let them breathe, let them breathe, let them breathe. Believe. Believe."

Millions of people are crammed together and few make more than fleeting contact, but the subways are magic. Yesterday, I caught the J train before 7 a.m. (see post below) and found myself in a regular coffee club. A group of commuters from different stops going to different stops have been riding the same car at the same time every morning for so long that they have become friends. The conversation ranged from work to grandkids to the health of someone who missed the train to the Mets vs. the Yankees. And it ends when they leave the car, to be picked up the next day.

Next time you are in the city, do yourself a favor and go underground. "Take the A Train". Keep your eyes and ears open. Have fun. You'll be glad you did.

Snow day in New York City

It snowed last night. Not a lot, maybe three inches, but it was enough to do what snow seems to do for me and that is kill time.

I can't tell 5 a.m. from 5 p.m. in the snow. It all just sort of feels the same and my internal clock responds to the confusion in unpleasant ways.

Time: 4:50 a.m.

I was awake. "Blink, blink ... what the hell time is it? Shit, now I'm awake," awake. The odd light above the curtain confused me. It was blue and rose, but black too. "Snow," I told myself, aloud because I'm apparently becoming one of those old guys who says things aloud to himself at 4:50 a.m. for no reason. This thought occurred to me as I sat up and threw myself out of bed.

"Shit," I said aloud. "Don't start talking to yourself."

"Damn!"

Nothing was moving. Nothing. It was so early even the usual commuter traffic down my street was nonexistent, so I stood in the window, naked, and watched the snow dance through the streetlights and listened to the strange sound Simon and Garfunkel called "silence."

That was fun for about three minutes. Time: 4:54 a.m. I hand-cranked the emergency radio -- it wasn't an emergency. There was plenty of power. I just like generating my own electricity, particularly when standing in a window ... naked. The weather report said it was going to snow until rush hour and then switch to sleet for a while before becoming rain.

Time: 4:59 a.m.

I decided if I was going to be awake, I might as well take advantage of the snow situation in some way. That advantage, I decided, was going to be getting to Central Park before the humans ruined the snow.

Time: 5 a.m.

I crawled back into bed, hoping the feeling would pass.

Time: 5:05 a.m.

Nope. I was awake. I showered, bundled up and walked into the snow.

Time: 5:57-6:40 a.m.

Subway ride and hike from Lexington Avenue and 63rd Street to Central Park's 66th Street entrance. From across 5th Avenue I saw two humans -- joggers actually -- going into the park. It was going to be a lot trickier than I'd hoped to thwart the humans and find pristine snow. There weren't many humans in the park, but I know from years of clinical observation that it doesn't take many. In fact, I followed footprints across the park, into the Grand Plaza and then around the lake and into The Ramble at 72nd Street on the west side of the park.

I was beginning to despair at finding pristine snow.

Time: 7:30 a.m.

I got to the top of a knoll in The Ramble, a knot of paths that er ... ramble around for a while for no reason other than to get you tired. The humans were really starting to flow into the park, I could make out their hunter orange and lime green jogger colors in stark relief against the black and white of the snow on trees. If someone were hunting moose in Central Park on this dreary winter's day, there would be no accidental shootings. Unless, the hunter shot me. I was wearing camo.

I didn't want someone to mistake me for a jogger.

Between the joggers, the next wave of commuters and the dog owners, the window of opportunity was going to close on my winter wonderland.

Then I saw it. A fork in the road. There was a path that was not less traveled. It was not traveled at all ... at least not since the snow started. It was a white carpet of powder. I stepped into it after testing to make sure it would hold me. As my foot pushed down to the asphalt below there was this lovely crunching sound like busting open a beanbag chair and walking on the spilled guts. I was going where no one in New York City had been in five or six hours.

Time: 7:34 a.m.

I was a child again; wide with wonder, frolicky. I kicked the snow and it sent out a perfect fan of icy dust. I slipped and slid and my boots made snake tracks through the virgin snow as I shifted my weight to keep from making an accidental snow angel in The Ramble.

Time: 7:35 a.m.

My 20-feet of virgin path rejoined the path more traveled. I took in my small victory as I stared at a sign on the lamppost in front of me that read, "Wild Forever." (I have a picture on my cell phone and I'd share it if I could figure out how.)

It was time to find coffee ... wild coffee.

Time: 8 a.m.

I'm doing coffee and typing across the street from a large banner on the side of the ABC building on 66th Street and Columbus Avenue advertising "Lost". Between my seat in the window and the sign I've got 20 feet of shit-brown sludge, a hacking wino, two overflowing garbage cans, a parking meter and a steady stream of bleating cars.

"Wild Forever"

New Year's Day -- 2009

2009 started with a hail of bullets -- apparently a longstanding tradition in my neighborhood.

So, at 11:58 p.m. someone down the street emptied a clip into the air. Someone else joined in. And someone else. And someone else. At midnight, I drank a glass of bubbly with my roommate, listened to the shots and watched fireworks as they topped the trees between me and Manhattan. The fireworks stopped at 12:20 a.m. So did the gunplay.

And 2009 was off to the races.

Moments of clarity

It was a beautiful day today. The sun hid behind low clouds and the temperature was in the shirt-sleeve range so I caught the train up to 96th Street on the West Side and walked downtown. At 66th Street, I shrugged off my pack and sat in one of the chairs under a tree.

I was filled with life's joyous love, so I spread my arms, threw back my head and ... found myself looking straight up a pigeon's ass.

Clarity hit.

"Keep moving."

Dog owners in the city ...

The weather was great on Christmas day so I took a looping bicycle ride through Brooklyn and the Lower Eastside. It has been a while and I was a happy, happy guy.

Just before I started back across the Williamsburg Bridge, I stopped for coffee at New Punjab Deli on 2nd Avenue, just north of Houston Street. New Punjab was voted, according to the newspaper article taped to the window, to be the best Pakistani Cabbie Chow place in the city. I don't know about that, but I do know there were half a dozen Pakistani cabbies blocking my way to the coffee, and the food looked pretty good.

I fought my way through the throng, got my coffee and went outside ... to keep an eye on the bicycle because I only had my light chain ... and to get out of the way of the cabbie parade. While I was there, this older gentleman walked past with his long-legged, skinny, twitchy little rat dog -- a whippet, I think, but it doesn't matter because the thing was wearing a puffy vest and thereby relinquished it's right to be part of any breed. The dog started to pee on my bicycle tire while I stood there. I pulled the coffee cup from my lips.

"Oh, man, don't let your dog pee on my bicycle," I said.

The dog heard me, lowered its leg and moved on to a mailbox. The gentleman snapped his head in my direction and ... and ... and GLARED. His dog was about to pee on my bicycle and he glared at me. And then he muttered under his breath, something I couldn't quite make out except that the words "bladder problems" was in there. ... the dog's I presume, but maybe (and this would make me feel a whole lot more happy on the holiday) he meant he had bladder problems.

I like New York City because there are so many people who honest-to-God think the whole damn world belongs to them. It's like a high-rise asshole convention, a surreal circus where a dog's bladder problems are more important than my right as an American to keep my bike pee-free. And maybe they are correct, these dog owners. Maybe I shouldn't expect a sidewalk that isn't seeded with doggie landmines and a tire that isn't sticky. Maybe I shouldn't expect another human being to have the slightest regard for ... for ... hell, I don't even know what to call it. "Manners" comes to mind, but that's too weak a concept. Respect? Decency? Basic consideration?

The dog at least stopped. It showed more humanity than it's human. Maybe this city should go to the dogs. The gentlemen have been measured and found wanting.

Been gone so long

Been gone so long because I've been doing nothing worth reporting.

Since I'm still doing nothing but playing in the dirt (the neighborhood community garden just got a whole lot of dirt that needs pushing around. I'm no gardener, but I can push dirt. Each according to his abilities, each according to his needs, eh?), reading and writing nonblog stuff ... which sucks, by the way. Thanks for asking. ... I thought I'd drop a couple of quick hits here so you'll know I'm alive.

Two days ago, I was walking down 2nd Avenue at 95th Street and a well-dressed gentleman came toward me saying, "I was sitting on the toilet and my butt started hurting. 'Oh, my butt, my butt, why does my butt hurt?'" By then he was close enough for me to see the Bluetooth in his ear so I didn't have to answer him. Small favors, dear Lord and thanks for them.

A week ago I passed a guy sitting on the sidewalk behind a cardboard sign. "AM HUNGRY. AM HOMELESS. PLEASE HELP." I would have asked him what I could do to help, but by then I was close enough to see the cell phone he was talking on.

Everyone who knows me knows I'm an animal lover, provided those animals are bigger than a bread basket, so I was torn yesterday when I saw a yorkie fighting his harness and the large bald gentleman walking at quite the clip talking on a cell phone. (Ah, themes!) At first I thought the little thing was trotting, but upon closer inspection I saw that it was skidding along on, almost skipping like a flat stone on a calm pond, back legs firmly planted against the forward motion of the gentleman. I was going to laugh ... but then I thought maybe it was being hurt. Then I realized it was just being a yorkie. It could have walked if it had been in pain. It wasn't even trying. It was just being cantankerous.

So, there was this really big black guy walking toward me on the street this morning, a scary guy with a ragged scar on his face, one dead eye and hands like Kitchen Aide mixers. He was walking a damn yorkie. "Oh, yeah, tough guy," I thought, and suppressed a smile. I didn't need a yorkie up my ass.

Death wears a Christian face

City officials in Brooklyn, like the rest of New York City, are making an active effort to create bicycle friendly streets. They are designating bike lanes and paths all over the place. These things are well marked and there is a map telling cyclists where the routes are. I follow them when possible, primarily because they are well placed to take you from one part of the borough to another.

The problem is that traffic hasn’t entirely caught on to the idea that bicycles are part of life now and need to be respected. It isn’t unusual to have a couple of near death experiences anytime you ride for any distance. Some one is going to run a red light or swerve into the bike lane. Something is going to happen to keep a cyclist on his toes.

And that’s fine. After all, we are traffic and traffic is a dangerous place for anyone.

Yesterday was actually a good day to ride. Traffic was light and there weren’t too many assholes parked in the bike lane. I was on Bergen Street, in the bicycle lane, making pretty good time. Someone up ahead decided to double park in my lane, so I glanced over my right shoulder. Plenty of room. Things were swell. I started to move into the car lane and heard the van 30 feet behind me stomp on the gas to race me to the squeeze point. I put on the brakes and dropped back. It was too nice a day to die, even though I was in the right. A “Christian Ambulette Inc.” van shot past me, side mirror whispering past my right shoulder.

I’m a positive guy, always looking at the bright side. I’m sure the driver of the Christian Ambulette was just trying to help by sending me to meet my maker a little early. Why extend the suffering on this mortal coil when there’s glory and eternal life on the other side, right?

Except it is rather presumptuous. First, I’m not a Christian. There’s no snowy bearded father waiting for me on the other side with open arms. Second, I’m in good health … even great health, for my age. This mortal coil is treating me quite well, thanks. If the Christian driver really wanted to help someone, he should have considered his passenger and slowed down for me. After all, the person in the ambulette was already ill and most likely Christian. Why rush to get them medical treatment? Send them home, obey the law and let the atheist live. Everyone wins.

I would have explained this to the driver, but he was disappearing into the distance. Instead, I just fruitlessly flipped him off and shouted “Jesus Christ!” into the wind.

Ah, grandparents taking the babies to breakfast … how charming … urp.

I stopped at Marine’s Coffee Shop (Bergen and 5th Avenue, Brooklyn) in Park Slope for breakfast yesterday. The menu on the window said they had a Spanish breakfast. I’ve never had a Spanish breakfast. It seemed like a prime opportunity to break two fasts at once, and at $4 it was cheaper than a plane ticket.

I settled into the corner table – after stripping off three layers of bicycle gear – and ordered cassava and eggs. (There’s a short review on Marine’s in the Google map on the main page of www.neoflaneur.blogspot, if you care.) About five minutes after a tucked into people-watching mode, a couple in their late 40s or early 50s came in with two girls under five.

My initial thought was, “Aw, grandparents out for a day”. But this is Park Slope and I forgot to take into account a particularly New York disease. One of the girls was whining about how she was cold, she didn’t want to eat eggs, she wanted ice cream.

“Mommy doesn’t like it when you talk that way,” the crazy woman said.

“Daddy doesn’t like it either,” the idiot with her said.

I got a little throw up in my mouth. I took a sip of coffee to clear away the bile and shook my head to clear it. People smart enough to make enough money to live in Park Slope aren’t smart enough to know that children are either the result of youthful indiscretions or, if deliberate, a young person’s sport. Not in New York. It is something you see all the time. Grown people completely out of their minds and ill-equipped for the physical and emotional abuse that come factory stock with children. If the damage was localized to the reproducing idiots, I’d have a problem with the disease but I’d get over it. The thing with late parentitis, though, is that it has an impact on everyone … for generations

Hillary Clinton was wrong. It doesn’t take a village to raise a child. It takes a clue and a cattle prod.

Mommy looked at this whiny little creature she’d deliberately conceived at Lord knows what cost and, in what can only be one of the best examples of clueless parenting I have seen in years, said in a high-pitched, goo-goo voice best reserved for pocket dogs and the mentally thin, “BABY, you’re a big girl now, not a BABY.”

Urp. Fuck me. I could taste where this was going the way I could taste the bile in the back of my throat. There is nothing sadistic little bits of the human variety like more than mixed messages and this cute little Satan spawn was just handed an Tech 9 and a full clip. She sprayed the restaurant. Her sister, not to be left out of the firefight, reached into her own arsenal gathered from a lifetime of over-entitled “Daddy loves you. Please stop. Really, please stop. Ah, baby, pllllllleeease. Have a candy bar. Daddy loves you”, loaded up and fired two rounds into the ceiling.

“Alright, everybody, on the ground. This is an emotional hold-up.”

Fuck me.

At this point, I should have done something constructive. I should have handed daddy a pair of balls, maybe, or mommy a pamphlet I’ve not yet written titled “Never Let Them See You Sweat: An adult’s guide to raising what seemed like a good idea at the time”. I didn’t. I just stared and shook my paternalistic head in a condescending way every time one of the parents scanned the room in a panic. It didn’t help, but I enjoyed myself and that’s what I was out and about for.

I’m a bad man.

Here's a google view of the joint.


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A bike ride through Brooklyn

The weather was clear and cold yesterday, so I bundled up, hopped on the bicycle at 8 a.m. and took a ride through Brooklyn. I’m finding that the way to discover Brooklyn – even more so than Manhattan – is on a bicycle. And in the process, I’m starting to develop a deeper love of the borough. For one thing, more people live in Brooklyn (1.8 million) than on the island (1.3 million), and these are people of all stripes.

My neighborhood, for example is pretty heavily West Indian. About a quarter mile to the south, Hasidic Jews take over. Two miles to the northwest, the hipsters have the helm. To the southwest about three miles, the yuppies have taken over my old neighborhood. You’ve got the Irish to my east and five miles south it’s Russian. The list goes on. There are pockets of ethnicity and class with blurred lines between.

I don’t know Queens yet, so I can’t do a compare and contrast … yet. I’ve made a couple of contacts and have heard the stories though. I will get there one day. I do know that the bicycle has stripped away the physical restriction of convenient transportation and opened all these neighborhoods in Brooklyn up for me.

That’s not to say mass transit fails in Brooklyn. The system works. The job is just different. In Manhattan, the subway is designed to get people around the island. In Brooklyn the subway is designed to get people to the island. This is a critical difference for a wanderer. And Brooklyn is not really a walking town … too residential and sprawling for that.

But the bicycle is the right tool for the job. Yesterday, I used it.

I rode from my flat in Bed-Sty to Cobble Hill, then down to the Gowanus Canal on the fringe of Red Hook and up 9th Street to Park Slope for breakfast. The trip took me through dirt poverty to industrial waste to big money in about two hours.

Can you think of a better way to spend a crisp Saturday morning? I can, but not flying solo.

Two-wheeling through Brooklyn

Here's a birds-eye view of today's ramble.

Music to my ears

One of my favorite things about wandering New York ... and anywhere people gather, for that matter ... is the music they make as they rub their collective body parts together (figuratively).

All those voices melding, and serving as counterpoints, with each other; all those accents dancing in and out; all those fragmented conversations intertwined in a 300-square mile tapestry of sound makes me wish I composed grand, vast symphonic works.

Sometimes the voices are just crickets in a distance. Other times they cicada in the trees above me.

The other day in the glen everything fell eerily silent, and one note broke free and soared into my head.

It was a man's voice ... Queens, probably, but maybe Brooklyn, possibly on the cusp of both ... a little on edge, not at all happy.

"No, Bro, you don't get it! I fuckin' lost Jimmy in Times Square! ... I don't fuckin' know ..."

That was all I got. It floated in the air for a second and then was swallowed by the rest of the crickets as they brought their legs together and started critching again.

I don't know if the mook ever found Jimmy or if Jimmy really wanted to be found, but I wanted to thank both men publicly for adding a single golden thread to my sonic wall-hanging.

Thanks, guys.

Number 1 reason my mom needs to visit New York City

If my mom ever comes to visit AND if she brings her heart pills, I'm going to take her to only one place, a place where every Asian piece of crap ever imported into our beautiful country can be found in a single Chinatown big-box store.

Pearl River Mart (447 Broadway, in Soho) is the Wal-Mart of Asian crap. … Three floors of Buddhas, beaded curtains, Chinese dragons, tacky clothing, silly shoes, free-standing screens, paper lanterns, Samurai swords, incense holders, cookware and other stuff my mom LOVES.

If your thing is, like my mom's, cheap, Eastern and in one place this is a must do-do.

I love you ma, and I'm kidding. I'll also take you to the wholesale bead stores around Penn Station ... but that's it! You are getting kinda old and I worry that you'll over do it.

Prix Fixeing food in New York City

The phrase “Prix Fixe” scares me. Too French, maybe and it pushes my “too fancy” button.

That’s exactly what restaurants want you to think, sans the “too” part. They want you to think “fancy.” But in fact, it’s really just the sit-down eatery version of the fast-food value meal.

And, it’s all the rage in New York City right now. You’ll see “Prix Fixe” everywhere. And it can be some of your best deals for mid-priced food, ranging from $8 on up to “don’t ask”.

The reason it’s a smart thing for the tourist on a budget is that it sets up before you even get into the joint, what the bill is going to be when you leave – less the cost of beverages, if they aren’t included (and sometimes they are).

The meals are usually pretty tasty and pretty filling for the non-gourmands among us. I say that, because you’ll need to remember that you just ordered the buffet version of the menu. The cooks know the fix is in -- what to prepare in advance -- and will do just that.

Prix Fixeing has another advantage. It is a short cut for wanderer decision-making. The meal and price are always spelled out on a chalkboard outside the restaurant, so you can scan them as you wander past and make you decision without having to scour every menu taped on every window. When one hits your fancy and price point, just mosey in, grab a seat and ask. In short order, your courses will arrive and you’ll be out the door before your feet forget they were made for walking.

So, if you can’t make it to the fringes of the city where prices fall, but don’t want to blow your budget on fuel, look for the prixed fixe. You might find the price is also right.

Bicycles in New York City

If you are a fan of roller coasters, you might want to give New York City on a bicycle a try. Between the automobiles, the potholes, the construction, the pushcarts, the pedestrians, the cab doors, the delivery trucks in the bike lanes, the squeezes you get from buses, the side mirrors, the occasional cobblestone street and the other bicyclists, it never gets old.

And, New York is trying hard to make this a bicycle friendly town. They’ve laid out 70 miles of bike lanes and in Manhattan they’ve created a path that runs from The Battery (that’s all the way downtown) to the northern tip of the island on West Street. Their efforts have earned them a “bicycle friendly community” designation from the League of American Cyclists. And they have many more miles of lanes planned.

The West Street bike path is a good place to cut your teeth if you are a bit nervous about playing Death Race 2008 on the streets. The path is separated from traffic, well marked and there is a beautiful view of the Hudson River. You can also try a run or two around Central Park. The ride is beautiful. But not flat. This is a city of hills, particularly as you head uptown. It is never San Francisco, but if you are a flatlander, you will find your work cut out for you.

The real fun is on the city streets. That’s where the thrill-seeker in you gets a chance to play. And, while it is possible to get hurt, with 100,000 other cyclists on the road, the odds are in your favor if you keep your wits about you … and obey the traffic rules (which everybody should do, but nobody does).

A bicycle also really opens up the city for you. You have speed that almost compares with a cab and mobility that compares with your feet. You can also slow down and take in the sites (with one eye and both ears out for incoming traffic).

Consider Red Hook in Brooklyn. There isn’t an easy subway stop in Red Hook. You have to hike in and hike back out. … Unless you are on a bicycle. Same holds for the edges of Manhattan. The subway system tends to run up the spine of the island except where the Brooklyn and Queens bound trains make their respective escapes.

A lot of Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side, for example, are a bit of a distance from a subway stop. If you plan to really explore those areas and are on a time schedule, a bicycle is the way to go.

Bicycles will also carry you quickly through residential districts that don’t have a whole lot to see.

If you are bicyclist, consider bringing your wheels with you. Bicycle rentals aren’t cheap. You can pay $30-$50 a day.

If you can’t bring your own wheels, it’s still worth the expense. Consider this. If you go to The Top of the Rock or the Empire State Building observation deck ($20 each), the panoramic views may make you say, “Wow.” But a bike ride down Broadway will take your breath away. It’s a New York experience you will never forget.

NOTE: You can pick up a free bicycling maps at the NYC Department of City Planning bookstore at 22 Reade Street, NY, NY, 10007, in bicycle shops, libraries, and schools. This is a good map for cyclists, but it is also a decent map for walkers because unlike the subway map, most of the city streets are marked.