My Buddy and Me
It was last fall when someone insisted that I look into opera. I had a passing interest in it, as it certainly was cherished by people I knew and loved, as well as those I admired. But this British girl I spent a weekend in Burgandy with was nuts for opera; she was one of those people who saw regular opera tickets as a yearly expense that had to be accounted for. Indeed, these are yearly budget items as the tickets go for 150 dollars, which is a steep fee even for lazy intellectuals.
Lo and behold, the crew of the Metropolitan Opera is bringing itself out and into the parks of all five New York Burroughs, as well as a couple of cities in New Jersey. For ten days, you can put yourself on subways and trains and be delivered to free opera music. If you have no special plans, this could be your salvation to an interesting and heartfelt weekend.
Friday's opera took place in Pehlam Bay Park, way up in the Bronx. It's at the end of a subway line, taking about 35 minutes to get to from central Manhattan. It was the perfect opportunity to see opera and to visit a corner of this city that I would usually pass over.
Well, there's nothing like reading a subway map wrong to make the journey longer. Beceause of this and because of the 2 hours on the phone with customer service people, I was running quite late. When I arrived at the last stop, I was the only one in my subway car. I had to fight back the feeling that I had read the schedule wrong, that the opera was coming there on Saturday. This would not be out of place, as I had missed several events in the last couple of years due to a carelessness with dates and times. Since I had rode the subway to the end of the line, though, I was going to march through the park listening for the sounds of opera. After a few uncertain minutes of marching, I was sure I could see lights and hear a couple strains of music. Then, I finally saw the back of the stage and could see where I needed to go.
At that moment, there was a woman in front of me getting advice from a friendly looking character. I don't want to sound vague, but I couldn't tell the advice giver's sex or sanity until I asked him which way I should go. It turned out that he was a he and was living in the park, picking up trash and taking donations from anyone who cared. A portly young man with a heavy step, he had moved up from Little Rock, Arkansas a week before to settle in this far off part of the Bronx. He said it would be nice to have a few dollars to eat something. He said this a couple of times. Since I had brought a full meal with me, I told him I'd split it with him, and in turn he would show me where the opera was. When we got to the opera he decided to sit there with me and talk about his comings and goings while I passed food and drink to him. Honestly, I didn't know what I felt like more, listening to him or the opera, so I divided my interest and appeared only half-concerned with each one.
It's about reactions versus observations. Normally at a musical event, whether it's a hyped up band, a jazz combo, or an opera, is something I observe and then maybe carry some of the chords with me for days to come. It doesn't often stir the core of my being. Reactions, though, are out of my control and they come and leave me baffled. For instance, several winters ago in Lawrence I was walking to the record store and happened to pass by a homeless guy lying in a doorway with a rough blanket wrapped about him. The thought went through my head that there was hardly difference between me and him, that without family support I would be capable of nothing more than to find places to lie, hoping for sleep. With this came a powerful , frightening feeling that made this idea seem undeniably true. It ruined the rest of my day, ruined the date I had that night, and made everything difficult for a few months. Since then my feelings on this have never changed. Ever since I can remember, I am marked with more instability than stability, my feelings are out-of-control, and I have few social skills that allow me to progress in culturally defined ways. I am not a productive, interactive member of society, but I am always hanging on the edge. I even hang out with a large, successful family, and even there it's by social graces that I'm let in the door.
Opera didn't really interest him, but he was glad that it was for free. He had a lot of concerns for a person so unbound to the usual burdens of life, and he informed me or the park staff about them. He told me about the high security that the opera must've had because the instruments were so expensive, then he turned to a passing parks worker to warn him about a fire someone built. He was keeping active and including everyone else in on it. Then he showed me how he made his money: selling glo-necklaces and little blinking charms. I couldn't very excited about it so I asked him how the sales were and if he had a good pitch. I have always held that the best sales people are loud, funny, and sometimes sing songs, but he eshewed those ways by standing in front of people and steadily stammering out how he had some things that might be of interest to them. With the opera going, though, I didn't feel like talking business. Besides, I was starting to think that I should be selling trinkets on the street. I'm not a successful salesperson, why should I get to be in such a lucrative sales job? Society should pull me back down to the ground floor, imploring anyone and everyone to take a look at what I have in my hand. Seeing as how I wasn't going to buy one of his doo-dads, he carted off, saying he'd be back. The opera was ending, and a chord jumped out of the finale that made hold back some tears. This is a problem with music that I often forget about: sometimes it catches me off guard, upsetting the balance and making my dull broodiness shake with new life. It's the pain that makes you feel in with the suffering of everyone on earth.
When I write in the blog, it's usually things I've kept secret from most people. I feel like everything needs to be expressed, and the only way that seems to work, where people tell me that they understood, is through writing.
In my mind I'm goin' to Carolina
Many winters ago, I was on a plane bound for asia with an intelligent, headstrong friend. I was obsessed with the idea that my destiny lay in my blood as a gentille southern aristocrat, one who must deign effronteries like aggressive networking, smarmy sales tactics, or performance-based salaries only if the family's in real trouble. I didn't think that this was something I would have to overcome because I thought it was inevitable--it was who I was. My lifelong challenge would be to ease myself into being comfortable with this role, no easy task I assure you. With the world spinning around me I would have to content myself with walking around on my southern mossy grounds, stopping every once and a while, and tapping the back of my calves with a stick.
My friend thought all this was ludicrous. Later, though, he would concede and own up to my abilities in relishing a life where little gets done because, as one knows, you can't do much better than that.
Recently, I pulled my southern self up to the telephone at my desk and called my boss. It was time to ask for a raise. I could see the world spinning around me, other people clinching their fists as they were making deals, and I knew I needed some change, some action. To the point, I felt like seeing a cost-of-living increase directly on my check, so I decided to test the waters. It was deemed acceptable. Eventually though, I was informed that I may need to pass muster by securing some deals myself, depending on the stance taken by the as-of-yet nonexistent vice-president. Even I, I who laughed longest at the idea of earning money through so-called honest, hard work, agreed with this. I want to make at least one sale.
Hoodie with a kite flying, winter with the spring.
Good old...castle.
Only two rules on a Central Park Sunday, bring your bats and be happy!
Make your smile sweet to see
In two weeks I've been sick enough to warrant staying home from work, still sick enough to get comments from my boss about how bad I look, and now hardly sick at all. I'm not the only one who makes NYC look like a toxic enviornment, I met up with another Kansan who's been sick quite a bit as well. Colds, mostly, but in forms that include astonishingly sore throats, fevers, and coughing that wakes you up in the early morning. Is it being around all these people, the cold weather, or just stress? I don't know, but I always felt like I had my ducks in a row in the past, now everything changes when I'm in a city where even basic living has a competitive edge.
These past couple of weeks of being sick have convinced me that there are definite minuses to cubicles. The prescence of six foot walls make it seem okay to cough, then hack, then even spit the product in a coke can. This is, though, a bad idea, as your other three cubicle buddies wish that someone would fire you quickly. Even if you're of perfectly good health, you probably think that you can have some private phone calls, which you may...but they will never be private. I know well that the girl across from me tells her father that she wishes she made more money. She never wanted that to get out, I don't think. On a serious note, though, I have a window into the fascinating life of the former golf caddie, who's my age as well (our cubicle sector is pretty much grouped by age). It's seriously different from my life.
Seeing this Kansan was a treat as we went right across the Hudson to Hoboken, NJ. I never had an idea of Hoboken, because unlike NYC and its outer boroughs, there were no sitcom families in NJ. The Sorpranos are somewhere in Jersey, but I don't have a television or cable, so I'm not paying extra for HBO (one of the few unchanging themes in my life). Hoboken has something about it that says "live here, enjoy yourself!" Apparently the downtown has more restaurants per capita than anywhere else, and it's true, you'd have an easier time finding indan food than a hardware store. One of the aspects of Hoboken that I liked is the same thing I liked about Brooklyn, you get more air space. The buildings don't rush up to the sky giving you only a feeling of being really walled in. Oh, being walled in is a part of NYC, especially if it isn't Greenwich Village, people say. It's cool, that's something that I've said in the past. There's a huge difference, though, between driving or walking around Manhattan and being astonished and waking up to only a morsel of sun because the building across the way blocks it. Then leaving your building and being confronted by the wall of 5 story facades all the way to the end of a long block. And that's not to mention midtown.
There needs to be a New York exchange, a new one for people my age in my grey area of life. So what. I want to live on the outskirts of Orange County, commute 30 minutes 3 times a week to UNC while working somewhere, probably without much enthusiasm. Maybe I want to drive by all the pine trees, let those be the walls blocking my sun. At the same time, on the outskirts of Orange County there's someone waiting to be broken out and freed, in some way, by living here. His life could comprise anything from ultra corporate to used bookstore, but the importance is that so many people he read about did the same thing, sort of, and became successful here. Also, he has some visual memories of NYC, a collusion between 300 movies and 2 visits that makes certain aspects, like unemployment figures or a rather unwelcoming society, very hard to think about. So why shouldn't we switch? No trade backs, of course, but at least on the eight hour drive and the first week afterwards, both people will get what they want.
Spring is lovely here, but the yellow pollen wonderland of North Carolina I'm sure is even more wonderful. The sheer weight of the verdant landscape down there is so full of color that it'll even make children look up from their books on a long car ride. To make life good here, though, I went to the park two days in a row. A child came up to me today to hand me a ball. Apparently children, unlike their parents, nannies, and even dogs, haven't learned to fuzz out all the strangers around them. I also spent some time on the stoop, where I was joined by a Malaysian girl hired at the sushi restaurant next door. Pulling from my grab-bag of foreign languages, I said "Abakaba", to which she asked if I spoke Malay. Well, we all know the answer to that one. But now I have a reason to go next door for sushi. At least to keep someone talking who loves this country so much.
I had to put that title in, thanks to the Neutral Milk Hotel I've been listening to lately. Every title comes from a pop song.
Does anyone know what this building is? It's near Harvard, it's worth a stare if you're there.
Here we are at the 11th table of a restaraunt called "10 Tables". My scallops await.
They couldn't be doing more predictable things on the Charles, could they? It was such a nice day, even I wanted to strap into an "8 manner". (I was nummer 3 in high school)
Three Kings, Three Amigos, Three Stooges? No, we're even more stereotypical than that. (Too much for Hollywood).
And they'll be rocking in Boston
Last Friday, Good Friday. If there was ever a day that lost its original meaning, it's Good Friday. It seems to be good to everyone, because the Financial Markets are closed, so that means that everyone is off work, even just a little. I felt good doing my part, precipitating this towards the exit door movement. Everyone was wondering, whispering at the lunch table about asking to get off Friday afternoon. Then I had to break it all off by saying hi to my boss and just asking, "so, would it be okay if I took a bus out of town a bit early on Friday, maybe 3?" Oh, I told him. Then everyone in my 23-28 age bracket followed suit. There are leaders and there are followers, and I think I know what it takes to be a certain kind of leader. It may not be a paid position, but I'm out of town before all ya'll! Peace!
So on this holiest of weekends I ended up with two unholy people that I grew up with. Oh, we had a great time, doing what we used to do as kids: Bowling (candlepin bowling to be specific), drinking...sodas..., listening to music, pointing out how stupid I am. We added in some new activities that as young men we didn't take part in: Fine dining and foreign films. Of course, any dining is a little finer when you're seated across from the young chinese chef. Oh la la we said as we tried to finish one course after another. This young girl was headed over to the same region of France that I spent a weekend in with a young English girl. I told her, "visit the abbey, it's beautiful". Such sage advice can't come from anyone, just from someone who recommends abbies or museums without ever remembering their names.
It was great to walk around Harvard and MIT campuses. For the first time in my life I knew that my place was not among them. I enjoyed the architecture and looked at everyone with a quiet midwesterner's gaze which said "you may be smarter than me, but I can run you over with my truck."
Unreal made real
It's a vertical city, there's no doubt about it. Sometimes it's nice, when you're on the outskirts or in downtown, to pretend that this huge city is composed of 4 story buildings. Not in Midtown though. What was once a novelty for me when I was a child, to ride 23 floors up, is now just entirely normal. Everyday, I work on the 21st floor.
We were doing a company call over at Atlantic Records. To refresh, Atlantic is a part of the WEA group (Warner Music Group), W is Warner, E is Elektra (the Doors' label), and A is Atlantic. We were actually going over to the Asylum label, which is simply a name owned by Warner. Asylum was David Geffen's label in the 70's for such luminaries as Joni Mitchell, the Eagles, and Jackson Browne. Warner bought it and, in record labels' partial faith in luck over logic, set it up as an urban label. You can catch the Geto Boys' new release out now on Asylum records.
As our elevator went up, I told my superior that I had a friend at Domino records, a label we had talked about before. He couldn't quite remember what the label was, so I reminded him, and at that moment the elevator jolted to a stop. No floor was on the display, just two red x's. He said, "we're going to get off here" but the door didn't open. Before we could say anything else, the elevator started to fall, slowly, then a bit faster. Then it stopped again.
I wasn't sure what to do, and as usual, when I'm unsure I usually do nothing. Well, this time as the elevator descended I bent my knees for the impact. Fortunately, there was no impact, but the elevator was totally unresponsive to our button pushing. My superior especially kept pushing one button that seemed to do nothing. I looked at the same button that I had on my own panel of buttons. It said, "pull for emergency stop". I pulled it and the alarm went off. I remember a girl from long ago wanting to pull that button for less emergency and more explicit passions. Because it was an emergency and an odd situation, I considered my superior for what would be our last minutes with another human being. I figured we could hug or something.
The intercom came on and the maintenance man was hoping that we would be able to tell him what was wrong. He talked to someone who gave us very little news, and after that asked us to depress the pulled button. The elevator went up and let us off one floor sooner than we had selected. From there we took the stairs.
Since the elevator didn't crash and only a few people in the building noticed the alarm, no one really cared about our perilous happening. As events turned in the tri state area, a woman's car was struck by a train not far from a pharmacy where my superior's wife was buying drugs. So he didn't even mention it to his wife. As for myself, I forgot to mention it a few hours later at the German conversation group, but I think that was also because I couldn't remember the German word for elevator.
Elevators have such a place in Midtown Manhattan that I think they are never, ever even looked at as something fun or interesting. Put mirrors in one, it's everyone's powder room. Some even have TV's, like the ones at Atlantic Records. I watched the updates on celebrity and executive trials as our elevator stopped and stayed stopped. But if an elevator takes the plunge, that's it. The plunge begins, though, just as eerily as our little floor drop. Who knows what the next few seconds will bring? It left us with nothing but to think of our last seconds on earth being spent with the guy from work, he we left happily each day to return home to books or to a loving family.
Tonight I almost ran in front of a cab because I was exercising my jaywalk abilities while out for a run. I forgot that it was a two-way street. For the angel believers, there's definitely one tailing me these days, or for the occult, there's an ancient Indian Mahattan God who's trying to kill me.
Palm Trees
It's a little cold in Hawaii's 2 month winter!
This is at the Doris Duke House. You can go on a tour or just walk to the beach (there are no private beaches on Oahu).
Building of the Week: Japanese Buddhist Temple, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Heat may have been used in the preparation of tea.
And it couldn't be real
It's all happened. Another person has seen my apartment, deemed it small. I left New York for a vacation and came back within a week. I watched TV. I found life again difficult to enjoy.
A week spent with my parents showed me how much I had compared to other kids. My parents are both successful in business and so they coached me in everything from how to interview to where to look for jobs, from losing in corporate politics to winning in corporate politics. This was priceless stuff, and as I looked at the desperate titles of career guidance in a Honolulu Border's Books, I really didn't know what I'd do without it.
Hawaii is a sport-lover's paradise. I went after traditional surfing, which I learned how to do pretty fast in calm but steady waves. I only hit one person, and it was only his head, which he probably should have ducked underwater. Surfing was everywhere, even at a museum we could look out at someone surfing a couple hundred feet off shore. On a cold afternoon we watched kiteboarders cruise through choppy waters. I even found out that the old Discovery Channel standby, getting in a cage and having sharks swim around you, is now availible for consumers.
None of us, though, wanted to stay for the rest of our lives. With my sister and I, you'd have to take our word for it. My parents, though, have the wherewithall to move out there, but plans made years ago really mean something to them. They're still going with the life of farmers, a life that's guaranteed to be "in-the-works" for years to come.
Early in the Morning and Late in the Eveningtime
I can't tell you what's happening in New York. Hopefully it's not buried in snow, hopefully a bunch of robbers haven't figured out how to get into the window of my apartment. I'm writing from Hawaii, for our spring-time family vacation. My mom just came back from the beach, looked at the laundry and asked why no one had collected it yet. Well, clearly we're all on vacation, feeling kind of lazy, and so we all expect her to do it. That's not exactly true. We're pretty P.C., so we don't believe that mom should do all the work. But we do wait for the work to get done, and when mom does it we're all pretty happy.
I met a relative today, he's of my Grandmother's generation but is 18 years younger than her. He moved to Hawaii in the 70's and never came back. I can understand how he did it, he worked nine-to-five's in cultivating all kinds of big gardens and then spent and still spends all his leisure time on several beaches seven days a week. I'll have to post a picture of this guy because he looks real healthy, tanned but not cancer-spotty.
Don't Worry, to all those who worry about me. I'm enjoying this week in Hawaii as much as I enjoyed last week, when I told everyone that I was going to Hawaii. We've only driven the length of Oahu, stopping here and there, and it's taken hours. My parents have reached a point in their lives where they don't see this Hawaii trip as their last. They're happy to do almost everything, even things they've done before.
I know that parts of Hawaii can get crowded, but we haven't seen those crowds yet. Instead, there's been people who were at the North Shore on Sunday to see 25 foot waves who were on the Eastern shore to swim in some finer waves today. People here don't just talk about the weather, they know what the weather, especially the wind, will bring to certain parts of the island. Then they follow the conditions to follow their own pleasures. My great-uncle twice removed (at that point we would call him a distant cousin) has been doing it for over twenty years.
