Melissa suggested that I make a writing practice of my trip to New York. So if it interests you, here it is. If it doesn't, utilize that delete key.
So I have been staying in Windsor, Connecticut, just 10 minutes north of Hartford, and a mere 3 hours out of New York City.
My previous New York experience consisted of JFK airport for two long layovers. I never saw the outside of the terminal. So for the 2 months I have been in Connecticut, I tried to devise some method of going to New York.
Something great happened a couple of weeks ago. I met up with Matt & Mary. For those of you who don't know,that is Matt M. Matt and I had been friends in junior high (in 1984), when we were the only two kids in our school who listened to hardcore punk - Black Flag and Dead Kennedys. Matt moved to Texas while we were in high school, and we kept in touch for several years. But I had not seen him in 12 years.
I was a little worried. After all, I had evolved from a little anarchist into a husband and a father, living a life of indolent, domesticated bliss. (Though leave it to me to turn the American dream and the Greco-Roman system of marriage into something purely anti-establishment in my utopian vision of rural living.)
The point is - Matt was always the quintessential post-modernist. He always knew everything about art and music and literature. Matt was always the one who turned me on to great art.
I was worried that the years would not be kind to us. Matt had met Mary and moved to Philly, and by all reports was as cosmopolitan as ever. And I was as rural Arizona hillbilly as I could be. Would we still hit it off?
Well, Matt and Mary came to Hartford, and we hit it off. I felt as if I had known Mary as long as I had known Matt. They are the perfect couple. And that comes from a man who has been married for 12 years. (17 years if you count Temple ;)
We spent a weekend looking for a restaurant all over Holyoke and Springfield, Mass. Matt & Mary have a thing about not eating at chain restaurants – a residual influence from our days when punk was not mainstream. But their sense of principle landed us in a dive that served some of the best Maine lobster I have ever had.
We had a great weekend and came up with a plan for meeting up in New York in two weeks.
So early Saturday morning, the owner of the hotel was kindly driving me from Hartford to New Haven. We had a pleasant visit, but he was flaming gay and the hetero-corner of my mind was wondering why he was so amiably volunteering to drive me to the train station outside Yale.
So I bought my ticket and was on my way. Of course, the area was well-populated from Bridgeport to New Rochelle. The first real hint that you are coming to the city are the high-rise apartments in the Bronx. Then you see Manhattan.
There are so many buildings that my mind refused to accept it. It was nothing like Phoenix. When I first came to Connecticut, I laughed when people referred to it as the country. Connecticut has, if not a metropolitan feel, certainly a suburban one. Definitely more than White Mountains of Arizona, where I have spent the last 10 years.
There were so many buildings that it could not be real. It was like a dream - buildings after buildings of all kinds of architectural styles piled on top of each other in insane layers - an incongruous mix of old and modern. It was like a cut-out from a Monty Python landscape, feverish, random.
I met Matt and Mary at Penn Station, and we walked to the Empire State Building to do the one tourist thing I did the whole time - go to the top. There were incredibly long lines, and I experienced a security guard being a little gruff with me.
Matt explained that people in New York can be a little rude. I told him that I disagreed. New York people are honest and direct. I would rather hang with someone from New York who is rude and says "Fuck" every other word than those of us from the West Coast who are kind and polite, but don't mean it.
From the Empire State Building, we walked 30 or so blocks to the East Village. On the way, we stopped by the Chelsea Hotel. Matt asked me if I knew the significance of it. I told him that I knew that it figured prominently in Leonard Cohen songs where someone "gave him head on a hotel bed". Matt gave me that grin and said it was the favorite place for rock stars to OD on heroin.
On the way to the Lower East Side, we stop and had some Thai food. That was one thing I loved about NYC. There are so many restaurants to choose from. Unlike Arizona. You can literally pick any type of food that you want. And it is all so good.
We went to an arthouse movie theater and went to see "Los Olvidados", a Mexican film from the 1950s directed by Luis Buñel. Matt asked me if I knew who Luis Buñel was. I told him, "Of course. Everybody has seen 'Un Chien Andalou'."
I said that knowing that most people in St Johns, Arizona probably have not.
Plus, the Pixies did that great song about it. "Girly so groovy".
The movie reminded me of the Italian Neo-realism movement, though it had some episodes of Buñel's weirdness.
Later, Matt and Mary were giving me a hard time about how many kids I have. I told them I was going to have at least one more and name him Jaibo, one of the characters in the movie.
We ate at a place in NoHo called Cafe Dante, an Italian pastry shop with photos of patrons like Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro on the wall. The cappuccino was some of the most bitter stuff I have ever had, even with gelatto in it. The pastry was so delicious it was sinful.
We stopped by a couple of record stores. Matt collects vinyl. He is into some of the weirdest shit you have ever seen. He says his favorite is Japanese psychedelic. I asked Mary if he was like that guy in Ghostworld, and she said that he was.
I found a used copy of Dead Can Dance "Spleen and Ideal" for 6 bucks. I hadn't owned that since I still listened to vinyl. Then I got a copy of Descendents "Milo Goes to College". This album has particular significance to me, because I was actually in a punk band in high school that covered one of the songs off this album. I have had fun listening to it. The crap they call punk today is not punk. I mean, how many bands today write lyrics like "Parents - why won't they shut up, parents - they're so fucked up." :)
After Matt spending $200 on vinyl, we started walking back to our hotel - the Gershwin, which is just a couple of blocks north of Washington Square. The Gershwin is a trendy little place established in the 1920s, and is a pop art haven, with original prints decorating everyroom.
After eating a great dinner at a BBQ place, we went back to the hotel and went to sleep. I had walked so much that I had blisters on my feet. On my job, I wear these worn out hiking boots. So the day before I went to NYC, I bought some new shoes. I should have left them at home and brought the damn hiking boots. :) Comfort is definitely better than fashion.
The next day, Matt & Mary asked me if I was up to walking 50 blocks to Midtown. I whined and asked if we could get there by some other means, so we took the subway and got there is 15 minutes.
We went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa). I am so grateful for that Art Appreciation class in college. :) The fact that I know who Henri Matisse and Jason Pollack were.
It was a pleasant reminder that I am not just some dumb Arizona rancher. That I am not just that guy who is a husband and father and chops wood and hauls water and drives down a dirt road to get home.
I am a guy that knows about modern art and can discuss it intelligently. I am a guy that can fit in in New York. I am a guy that can ask the clerk at the record shop about obscure electronica from the mid 1980s (Cabaret Voltaire) and have him know what I am talking about.
You see, sometimes I need a reminder that I am an okay guy, that I am actually an interesting person. Because when you are immersed in domestic tranquility you tend to forget that.
Anyone who knows me understands that I love my family beyond belief. But being in New York made me wonder what I would be like if my life had been a little bit different.
After the museum, we had the best pizza ever at John's Pizzeria, just off Time Square. It is in this old cathedral, and there is something almost machiavellian about eating pizza under a dome of stained glass. :)
We meandered back to Penn Station and waited for the train. Since we had a couple of hours to kill, we stopped by an Irish pub and I had my first Stella Artois since I had been in Belgium. It tasted almost sweet. But as with all Belgian beers, after a couple I was feeling slightly tipsy.
I slept the whole train ride and pulled into Windsor Locks at about 11PM.
I think that seeing New York this way really changed my outlook on the world and I don't think I will everlook at Phoenix the same again. :) The best thing was definitely Matt and Mary. It is great to have friends like them.
Moroni
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