Oh Come, all ye Faithful: February 2005

Subway drummers. Friendly duo.

This guy was trying to play the violin for everyone, but now he just insists that everyone who gave him a dollar try to play it instead.

This guys is not sprinting, but rather about to start hardcore rapping over his laptop-made music. This was at Tonic, on the Lower East Side.

Building of the Week: The former New York Cancer Hospital. It ceased to function as a hospital a few decades ago and it just sat there. Now it's being divided up into condos. Oh, how I envy its future tenants!

Subway Mosaic

Feel Good Hit of the Winter

I don't want to tell anyone that I feel guilty when I just go to work and go to the gym. Even though i'm in a city where people say "wow" when I call them, I turn away from the big events more and more and just throw my life to fate, which means that I do the same thing every day and evening, just waiting for a suicidal dog to hit me from the 14th floor of a classic apartment building. Even while I wait for my message from above, though, I always feel like I have to take advantage of New York's live entertainment, no less than 2 times a week.

The weekends, though, demand a bit more action in life. At least one day out of the week I need to get rid of a little pile of one-liners, observations, self-deprecations, and news that one could only get by reading the paper. I've even found some people polite enough to stand there and wait for me to finish unloading this. Truthfully, we have real conversations and real laughs. But I can't help but notice the lightness in my heels after having battled against bar music and rock concerts alike to keep the conversation starters going.

It helps, in finding activities outside of the category of instant fun (wine, women, and people who say, "you're funny!"), to look for free activities. So, at the Austrian Cultural Forum this week I saw some Mahler songs for free. They'll keep the program going and, in spite of my dateless status, I'll keep going to their program.

Saturday, after the weekly rounds of shopping and laundry, was anything and everything on music. There was a silly, terrible fiddlest in the first train station; in the next station and then on the train itself were drummers. In the bars full of pretty women I sought out one guy with wild pierced ears and we talked about music all night until we made it to a concert where I met someone from the radio station in Kansas. It turns out that my old Kansas friend was not the only one of us in New York: I then met another Kansan who, at his best, engineered albums and produced his own music. Next week, a Kansan comes up to work at a major-indie label, and another is back in Kansas saving money to come back here and continue his music career. Still another Kansan in the New York area works at a hip-hop magazine and manages bands. I'm no longer worried about New York's future: enough Kansans will make this place tolerable and genius filled, helping these poor New Yorkers out of their general rut.

A fine cathedral, wouldn't you say? On Fifth Avenue, across from the Atlas statue, is St. Patricks.

New York has nothing to do with modesty. Never has, either.

Hippos!

The Brooklyn Brewery is open to the public every Friday, I think, with live music.

The Harlem Meer (NE corner of Central Park)

Christo's "Saffron" vs. standard construction orange. Same? Different? Compare the construction pole with Christo's pole in the background.

Building of the Week: The Bereford. It's a monster that takes over Central Park West north of the Natural History Museum.

This is not a love song

With more Cincinnati people coming into town for the weekend, I went straight to Brooklyn to see them, one of whom I met in France. Friday night was another Brooklyn night of many bars in which some, like the Brooklyn Brewery, were impressive.

Saturday had its obligatory humilation, as certain forces of nature were at work to taint this glorious off-work day. Standing in front of the ATM, I realized that I couldn't remember my PIN code. I tried many, many combinations, but sometime between last weekend and this weekend I've forgotten it. The forty dollars that I still have I hold onto dearly because New York City, being as expensive as it is, is still very much a credit card unfriendly place to be. Cabs and delis, the two mainstays of living here, are now off-limits. In places where credit cards can be used, most shop owners expect a minimum purchase which ends up being more than I intend to pay. For a week I'll be eating out of the grocery store and resisting the temptation of a late-night cab, which means I'll be living like an animal.

Check up from the Neck up

There's nothing like starting a week out with Valentine's Day, which sunk the first exciting day of the week into the mediocrity of a tiresome holiday. My Valentine's highlight ended up being conversation about a sandwich I was eating. Well, at least that's how the conversation started. A woman, clocking in at about 65 years of age, leaned over to me and asked what kind of sandwich I was eating. She caught me by surprise and I didn't quite know what to tell her as this was an Au Bon Pain chicken sandwich. There were some special sandwich features, like chili paste and roasted red peppers, that couldn't be left out of the description. It had an overall visual appeal that would justify an old lady asking me what kind of sandwich I was eating.

I spent a minute or two explaining the how and what of the sandwich, hoping that I had sufficiently described what the Au Bon Pain headquarters had conceived to win the gourmet quick meal market. It so happened, though, that I could have answered her question by saying "there's meat in there. It's a sandwich with meat in it, is what it is," because she wasn't really interested in my sandwich. See, after I stopped talking about the sandwich, she started complementing my hair. Her tactics, from the days of courtship no doubt, were unfamiliar to me, so I couldn't smell her true motives beneath her sandwich commentary. I myself don't come onto people with a meaningless entree. Instead, my preferred approach is to stand up in front of several girls at once and talk to them about basic math for 45 minutes a few times a week. Sometimes I use a chalkboard. Of course, I offer additional help after class.

I took the first exit I could politely find out of the conversation and returned to reading my paper. Her flattery was not unpleasant, but she's much closer to death than I am so I lacked the hormonal energy to keep talking in such a manner. I appreciated the effort, though, and promised myself to remember her little trick, which probably came from an old lady-sized bag of tricks, for picking up on someone in a restaurant. I wish I could find a better trick, though, that doesn't make me look like a broke fatso. The only other thing I can think of is complementing someone's footwear, which probably seems odd. Sadly, I think my lack of creativity in this area has kept my single status safetly guarded for months now.

Yesterday was much more exciting than the other three days. I got ready to apply for a new job within the company and I had dinner with a guy I met while hiking in the Sierras. It goes, though, that these little excitements reveal that the other three days were pretty boring.

The job announcement came over the general company email. I, who am stuck in a real readheaded stepchild of an internship, swiftly responded within 24 hours of its posting. I am not necessarily qualified for this job but I am already on the inside. The position was listed for New York so I could stay in my comfortable studio not far from the newly Christoed Central Park.

Today, in returning from the restroom, I had a little enlightenment. Every return trip from the restroom I would see a nametag on an office door and ignore it each time. Well, today I recognized that the office belongs to none other than to whom I'm applying. Now I'm caught. This person has likely walked by my cubicle numerous times to use the printer and has, by fault of curiosity, looked upon me doing any number of things that hardly resemble work. This is not my fault. I work when people give me work to do and have even stooped to asking four bosses and one guy in Canada to make use of me in any officelike way possible. But, because they're not interested in letting me pull up a chair to their table, they give me a few tasks a week that usually take just a few hours to resolve. Consequently, I look like a slacker and my resume, with all its international trimmings, will likely head for the Windows Recycle Bin. It has been several hours since I sent my resume a whole thirty feet away and I have yet to hear about any interview, talk, or even a Re: Hi, my name is Wells Crandall and I'm writing in response to the job announcement.

The dinner last night was, for someone who often eats while walking or leaning over the kitchen sink, a power-dinner indeed. Hosted at the Carnegie Deli, where one is not allowed, under stipulation of the restaurant, to eat for less than 12.50, me and Mr Pete Banglesdorf enjoyed authentic and well-cooked New York foods. I had a sandwich that cost twenty dollars and was built impossibly high. Pete had a knish, which is some sort of dinner pastry, and a giant piece of apple pie. We talked about our loved ones and what we're doing currently, and it turned out that we're both apparently happy and cancer-free. After having covered that, though, we got into the world of banking and finance, an area of work that I'm going to apply for. Pete broke down the different areas and jobs that once faces in this varied field. We also covered Pete's professional life, which is nothing short of a success. Pete said that he would help me if he could by arranging some interviews at a few places. It was, like the meal he bought me, extremely generous, and I won't forget it after I've been turned down everywhere else. I have to remember, though, that I took this internship on the sole premise that it was offered to me. In other words, there was nothing in my life calling me to work in commercial radio save a fear that my poor looking resume wouldn't get me a better job anywhere else. In order to feel less disappointed about the next job, I'm going to see what I can find for myself.

Welcome to Christo's Central Park. He calls this orange Saffron. I say, forget the trademark name, the color of the poles is enough reason to post thousands of them in repetition. It made my Friday.

Saturday night at the hop.

This wheel, at random, tells you to do something sexual. The girls in the act of pondering are lawyers.

Any takers?

Just one week at the gym. Guaranteed results.

Building of the week: Carnegie Hall. It's not something I'm used to seeing in the daytime because most shows are at night.

I saw my head laughing

Two girls just stopped me as I was walking home. They wanted to know where the burrito place was, as there is only one in my neighborhood. I went ahead and told them exactly where they could find it and then regretted that, while I knew where it was and how to get there, I didn't really know the address. But girls asking me directions inspires a certain 'man of the city' in me. Just ask, I know!

This weekend brought sunshine onto New York to let us all enjoy, or at least see, Christo's piece in Central Park. Lot of praise all around with good criticism coming scarce. I took a picture of the gates before his helpers took down the curtains because I enjoyed the color of the poles without the curtains.

More sunshine came in the human form of my third oldest girl cousin. She came with her boyfriend to go to a party hosted in the name of defaming Valentine's Day. Naturally, I was invited along. In fact, in order to make this most un valentine weekend special, we all went to a charming italian restaurant first. Our company was mixed, several professionals, a British man working for the BBC, a high school student, and myself. We even had one woman, the mother of the high schooler, who allowed herself to get a little antagonistic in the polite company of me and my cousin. We had been talking about the way New Yorkers, or maybe all North Easterners, pronounce Oregon. They pronounce it like the spice, oregano. So, she makes her Superman leap of a segue to non New Yorkers who try out their fake New York accents on her. Oh, that just makes her mad, she told us while using bad words like fuck. Her excitement on this somewhat bland practice of non New Yorkers let us all know that her pride and, above that, her unailing snobbishness established her as a native of this city.

What she didn't touch on, and what I was wondering, was how she would feel if we made fun of her own particular New York accent. New York is too big to only have one accent, and the rich people, who must feel different from everyone in more ways than just money, have a particular accent that rings like crystal glass in blue blood company. Sadly for them, the hallmark example of this accent is none other than Robin Leach, the host of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, who takes the accent so far that some people might think he's an idiot. Indeed she had this accent, cultivated a bit south of here on Long Island. It was pretty low key, though, thanks to her setting up residence in Overland Park, Kansas many years ago. Maybe her special je ne sais quoi passes well with those sons of the soil who made it bigtime.

The party was an all black affair, like a funeral. People were drinking alot and looking for someone to kiss all over and maybe have sex with. Unlike a funeral, nobody was dead and people were wearing sex clothes.

I was completely scandalised by my cousin, former House of Representatives page to Newt Gingrich, as her skirt wasn't quite covering her knees. Mine wasn't either, we were both bad but there's no pictures, save for these few.

Today I chased off the Sunday blues by meeting someone through the grace of internet dating. We talked and had a good time of it by sitting at the fountain in the park, where people showed the world how they dress their dogs, their children, and themselves. I finally found someone who listened to my rant against fur, the end of innovation in fashion. It's the few obtrusive features of this city, like the copious fur worn by so many women, like the transportation system that runs like a broken clock, that I have to keep trying to accept in order to really like this place.

This is my office way up on the 21st floor. Isn't it amazing, the views you get from the 21st floor?

This is the school library where I go to read to NYC children. They make alot of stupid mistakes and it's clear to me now that I can read better than they can.

if I'm supposed to do something different, someone better tell me quick!

It was six summers ago that I sat in the fourth floor of one of Kansas' few highrise buildings waiting for nothing to do and nothing to be done. I was hired to enter data into computers. Out of the entire keyboard, we used eleven buttons. I listened to women talk about their homes with an emphasis on their driveways, because that's where they parked their cars to drive their kids to various activities. My boss spent his days seriously looking at websites about hunting dogs. At first, I did come to work to put in an honest eight hours of data entry. But in time the work was finished and we, as workers, got to experience firsthand a state budget surplus. There were sixteen temp employees like me and not a thing to do except clock in to recieve state money. I read several books that my mom had given me in the past, slept on the job, took two hour lunch breaks, and then quit this supposed luxury of a job to make fifty cents more on the hour gardening. At this point in my life, I exposed the busy bee side of myself. If you wanted to insult me, you could call me a drone.

My job now has me doing little. Everyone went to LA this week and they left me in the office. Sometimes someone calls in with a technical problem and it's my job to be cordial over the phone and then to call the technical support and get the problem resolved.

Why couldn't they just call the technical support themselves, you ask.

I am a replacement salesperson this week, that's the reason. This office is just salespeople who agree on a price with a client (as much as they can get) and then continue to be the customer service person for the length of the contract. It's no small feat, because the system is not very user-friendly and has enough bugs to merit a Microsoft logo. Also, these record company types want all kinds of information that in some way shows how great a job they did.

At the end of this week, I'll know the product and what customers want to use with it. This will enable me to sell it to new customers and thus get a real job. Unlike Carnegie, who was a hard worker, I may succeed in getting a job by sitting around and not making too much noise or flatulence.

My cubical foursome consists of other kids my age. They talk about TV, restaurants, their universities and their drinking societies, and anything where the guy across from me can start going, "I know, oh yeah, I know. And let me tell you..." Two of them form the young avant-garde who takes care of Rush Limbaugh and his team's travelling schedule, clearing the way as that helplessly honest man pounds through radio interviews with more sound effects than could be found In Another Galaxy Far, Far Away... They may progress to become talk-radio salespeople themselves. The young man across from me, a guy who seems to know what I or anyone needs to do in any given situation, is currently crumpling up papers and doodling around on his PC. He and the shockingly attractive sales rep from Winston-Salem get to go to California next week for a sales conference. Are you going? they asked. No, no, I work with the music tracking service, not talk radio, I said. As if I would have been flown out to LA for anything.

Who cares, I hear that LA smells anyways and that the traffic is awful.

Like every job I've had, the other employees will be here longer than I will. No threat of sustained unemployment or even worse, unemployability, has convinced me to weather out a job and learn how to be a real team-player. In addition, no prospect of a better job or higher pay has ever seemed that attractive to me. The raises that jobs have proposed me in the past would seem appealing to someone who runs over to the corner of a closet because they saw several pennies there. That thirty cent raise adds up, you say? Maybe enough to cover a quarter of my Fantasy Deficit which already has me buying myself into fashion, a car, a nice apartment, and broadway plays.

As I've been a little ill this week, I have had no problem living the quiet life. In the hope that I could connect my illness to the 9 hours I've spent on dating websites, I put this sentence in between the next sentence and the sentence previous to it. So, against my stated position of remaining off dating websites for five years, I emerged on the internet as a new, self-described me.

The first site is not really my fault. I was reading the German national paper, Die Welt, when I saw the words "Partner search" in German. Now, my German may not be able to explain how I want my steak cooked, or for what reasons I have for studying German, but I saw that word and clicked on it. Instead of being able to peruse 20 or so faces before the service would cut me off to ask for money, like it's done in the US, they instantly invited me to go a little deeper into the website to take a test. That test took three hours. There was Gestalt testing, situational reaction testing, it was very thorough. I was wasted by the time I finished it, but when I saw that me and number 66 from Switzerland were a good match, I felt welcome to my new life in their popular democracy. Needless to say, in order to get more than an id number and a vague description, I had to start shelling out money. And so my interest dropped accordingly. I feel bad for those German-speaking women. They're probably not looking for a post-Clintonic American to invade their email boxes. I'll spare them by refusing to pay the site's high fees.

Later this week a friend of mine referred me to www.okcupid.com, a free site. This prevented me from backing out, as it was free. So I went whole hog, and now I'm on the site. The pictures of the girls who live near me confirm my haunting realization: New York has alot of ugly women. There's a reason why the Beach Boys sang about a "midwest farmer's daughter" and not a "landlord's precious dahling", the Beach Boys weren't going anywhere near here to include her in their spectrum of California Girls.

This weekend will see the arrival of relatives and friends, as will the week after that, and the week after that. Who knows, you'd better check the website for some pictures, they could be good!

Building of the Week: The San Remo. These apartments date back to 1930, are thirty stories high, and they dominate the skyline of the west side of Central Park until the El Dorado at 90th street.

The San Remo later in the afternoon.

Pat, a young Graphic Designer, singing "Panic" by the Smiths.

Jared, a young Graphic Designer, singing "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins.

Myself singing "Wishing (I Had a Photograph of You)" by A Flock of Seagulls

People live, eat, and congregate in Brooklyn while I live and eat in Manhattan.

Twice in the past four days I've taken the trains to Brooklyn to spend time with people. The buildings are smaller, there's more open space, and there's a high concentration of people my age. The neighborhood I ended up in was called Williamsburg, it's not very picturesque but it's more affordable than my neighborhood in Manhattan. It's the young people you run into time and again down there, a community where there may not be enough bars to contain them.

Normally I would only go to Brooklyn to see a particular building that I read about in my New York architecture book or to go to an event of some sort. But I like to spend time with people, and after having recently gotten in touch with a guy I had met one evening in France, another American, we agreed to meet at a Karaoke bar on Thursday. When I arrived, I was worried that I wouldn't recognize him or that he wouldn't recognize me, being that we spent only one evening together several months ago on the public grass in the picturesque town of Annecy. Earlier, over the phone, he had told me to meet him in the back room of the bar, where he and his friends and co-workers would be sitting. I walked into the bar and headed to the back and saw seven guys and two girls sitting on an L-shaped bench. I looked at them all and said, "Jared?".

I quickly worried that my greek sailor's hat was preventing Jared from positively identifying me. So I rushed to take off my hat and said, "Jared?" again.

I wasn't too impressed that out of nine people in front of me I had failed to meet the one person I came to meet. But, like any rational being, I proceeded away from them and straight to the bar and ordered a Coke. The bartender said that I could have refills "no problems." While drinking my drink I watched the NBA on television, remembering that Shaq had moved back to Miami. It seemed like a good move, in 13 or so years he has come from Orlando to be in Miami. Of course, I hadn't come to the bar to watch NBA programs, I had come to meet someone, and so I looked at the clock from time to time and waited until 10:30, which was the point I would use my cell phone to call Jared and find out where he was.

10:30 came and not a minute later was I on the phone outside, only to find out, as it so often happens, that my party was also inside the bar, answering my cell phone call. These phones have saved the human race from the awkward detectivelike duty of leaning into every table at a bar and checking each face for the suspect, informant, or other detective. This unpleasant activity takes some heart, as you end up interrupting conversations and earning disapproving looks from girls.

After we met face to face, Jared introduced me to other University of Cincinnati students in the field of Graphic Design. We talked about movies and music and I was glad to hear about some exciting new movies and albums that I might enjoy in the near future. I myself spent some time explaining my job to people. It was difficult for two reasons, being that the company I work for sells music industry-specific information and that I have hardly any stake in the company whatsoever, as I am an intern who comes to work but is rarely given any work to do. What's more, the second problem makes one question unnecessarily difficult to answer: "What do you do there?"

But the business of non-sports enthused men, that of albums, travel, girls, jobs, politics, and movies, came to a tidy end because everyone had arrived at the Karaoke bar wanting to sing at least once. We all sang 80's hits. I don't know if we would have been willing or even interested in singing anything else. Jared's music made me enjoy Phil Collins again, as Phil Collins can be easily forgotten if you choose certain radio stations over others. I should note, too, that Pat tried to sing exactly like his singer of choice, a daring move only attempted by three other people in the bar, all women who had had lots of experience singing in the past.

Friday should have been a terrible day because of my late night. Instead, it was an interesting day because I tagged along with someone from work to the offices of Atlantic Records. They own a floor or two in a midtown office building not far from where I work. Perhaps I should remind you all that Atlantic's big sellers were Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Genesis, Led Zepplin and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. The last band was signed by David Geffen, who eventually made his own label which, twenty years later, signed Nirvana, who still charts number three in weekly spins on Alternative stations. Led Zepplin, as it stands, still fills the company's coffers while it continues to try and sign the next Britney, Coldplay, Limp Bizkit, or Jay-Z. Led Zepplin, in order to make some money of its own, started to sign acts on their own label in the mid seventies, such as Bad Company. That label, called Swan Song, no longer exists.

In talking to someone working there I found out some unsurprising information, that the record industry is about who you know, it's competitive, and there is a glut of older, more experienced, and well-connected people willing to take jobs for low pay. This is not very discouraging, though, because on Monday I met two of my father's old friends, one of whom works in what could be called investment banking. His industry, which has no free concert tickets, artist signings, or platinum records, is also very competitive. Restaurants are competitive too, I spent years working in them and never earned anyone's confidence. It's clear as crystal that luck, contacts, a sane and healthy appearance, and excellent timing with logical speech are vital in securing a job in the record industry, while experience or a neat resume will not catch anyone's eye. In fact, when I mentioned resumes to the Atlantic promotions rep I was talking to, he looked off to the side for a couple of seconds, laughed, and then launched into his own life story. One which wouldn't even look that bad on a resume.

After an uneventful Friday comes Saturday, and Saturday I spent an evening with Jared and his company which, as a nice surprise, included two girls. I was impressed that Jared, a twenty year old, could convince two attractive girls older than he to risk their Saturday night amusement with him and his company. It is probably because he lives without being secretive, which at least assures the girls that he won't bring out any unfortunate surprises on them.

We went to a gallery opening in Chinatown. Little was said about the art, save one piece out of the sixteen, which people said they liked. A couple of people emphasized the word liked. Praise, though, was given to the gallery, and many of us agreed that if it were an apartment, it would be a great place to live. The artist was present. No one in our group of people talked to him. I could only think of asking him what kind of white paint he used, which was durable enough for him to scribble on with graphite. There's probably lots of paints that would work in that situation.

During the evening we talked about roommates, unfortunate happenings, and restaurants in New York and Cincinnati because I found myself again in the thick of both present and former University of Cincinnati Graphic Design students. Eventually we went back to Brooklyn. Later that night, I returned home to Manhattan.

Today, among other things, I spent time regretting my apartment in Manhattan. While it's only twenty minutes from the door of my Brownstone to the 21st floor where I work, I am spending 47 dollars a day for rent, electricity, and the initial broker's fee I paid to get the apartment. Brooklyn's calling me, and if New York ends up being where I work, study, and amuse myself, I may have to turn my back on the sensible good looks of the Upper West Side and find an apartment in Brooklyn's Williamsburg or Clinton Hill like everyone else.

When settling in to live somewhere, it seems more truth than truism that it's the people that make the city. If that's so, then Brooklyn must be fascinating. To be generous in generality, there's alot of young professionals there. Whatever they do, they do it with interest and concern, because otherwise someone else who is more invested in his work will take the loafer's job. In talking to total strangers and people you know, you pick up a feeling that these youth are thinking at times about the arts and other fields. Opinions and musings are given out, but also people want to hear what you have to say, too. At that point you can't think about being a visitor or tourist or someone new to the area because you're just yourself out loud, which sounds good going along with a whole bar doing the same.

New York area: Wall Street

New York neighborhood: Little Italy

New Orleans neighborhood: French Quarter

New York neighborhood: Spanish Harlem

Oh Come, all ye Faithful