Monday, August 30, 2010

Seeing The Sights

I’m not sure if touristy is a real word, but if it is, I would say that I am still very much in my touristy phase of life in the big apple.
If you don’t believe me, maybe you will believe this.
Last Friday, I got up early and hoofed my butt down to The Today Show to see the three-song outdoor concert by Katy Perry.
I wouldn’t say I’m the biggest Katy Perry fan, but as the parent of three kids 13 and under, it was something I had to do.
Not seeing Katy Perry

I got there at like 8:29am, just in time to see the first song, “California Gurls”.
Actually, I got there just in time to HEAR the first song.
If I wanted to SEE anything, I needed to get there the night before.
According to the NYPD officer that I made small talk with, people started lining up at 6:00pm on Thursday.
Wait 14+ hours for three songs?
I wouldn’t do that if Katy would’ve let me sing with her.
Ok, I would.
The mini-concert was just the beginning of an action packed weekend.
Saturday I spent all day on Long Island visiting a friend and checking out the place.
According to longisland.com, Long Island is comprised of “two counties, two cities, numerous local towns, villages, hamlets, postal zones and designated places”.
And 3.5 million people.
Some of the cities (or towns or hamlets) on Long Island also provide some tremendous scrabble possibilities:
  • Amagansett
  • Hauppauge
  • Massapequa
  • Patchogue
  • Ronkonkoma
  • Sagaponack
  • Setauket
  • Wyandanch
  • Yaphank
Oh, did I forget to mention Hicksville?
As a NASCAR fan, I thought I had been to Hicksville.
But this is, THE HICKSVILLE.
Now that the name calling is out to the way, I was really impressed by how nice Long Island really is.
New York City is a place like no other, for about 14 million reasons.
One of them is all of the options you have on where to live.
Even some you just might be able to afford.
Flip A Coin
If you are looking to the locals for some help on where to live, DON’T.
The people who live in Long Island, LOVE Long Island.
The people who don’t, DON’T.



The people who live in New Jersey, LOVE New Jersey.
The people who don’t, DON’T.

The people who live in Manhattan or Queens or Brooklyn or the Bronx, LOVE Manquebroonx.
The people who don’t, DON’T.
The people who commute 90 minutes each way, LOVE the down time.
The people who don’t commute, make fun of it.

I have met some really nice, opinionated, helpful, sincere, genuine people who are of absolutely no use to me.
King of the Castle
At least in this area.
Can somebody please make my decision for me!
One of the high points of my trip to Long Island, was a lunch stop at White Castle.
I didn’t see Harold or Kumar, but I did enjoy the little mini-burgers, all five of them.
As my friend put it, “they are gone in minutes, but they last for hours.”

My touristy weekend came to a close with a trip to Times Square.
I headed over to the TKTS window where they sell tickets to a Broadway play for half the price.
Basically, these are the tickets that people didn’t buy for shows that night.

So they’ve decided half of something is a whole lot better than all of nothing.
I’m down with that.
Amazingly, on a Saturday night in late August, I had about 20 options to choose from.
I wanted to see something with music, so I got one ticket for something called The Million Dollar Quartet.
Long story short, it’s the story of the one-time studio session with Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.
So I bought my one ticket and headed over to the theatre.

When I got there, the usher instructed me to head down towards the stage and my seat would be on the right.
Signs of the Times
Ok.
What in the world of Bob Uecker is going on here.
My seat was not, “towards the stage”, my seat was in THE FRONT ROW.
I was so close that when the first actor came out and started speaking, his spit particles landed on my lap.
How cool is that?   I think.
Since this was my big night out, I wanted to get to the theatre early.   
Had I known where my seats were, I might’ve arrived at 6:00pm.
The night before.
(That’s what us comedians refer to as a callback:  See Katy Perry.)
Getting there early gave me a chance to look around, enjoy the atmosphere and most of all eavesdrop on the conversation of the two grumpy people sitting behind me.
In a span of a few minutes, Donald and Donna Depressing uttered the following statements:
  • “we would’ve been better off in the balcony”
  • “that dinner was so bad I couldn’t believe it”
  • “it’s supposed to be 93 or 94 degrees tomorrow.  for a one o’clock baseball game, that should be fun"
  • the waiter came around to ask for drink orders.  after he left, i heard, “why would I get something down here when I didn’t get something up there (at the bar)
They must’ve paid full price for their tickets.
But even with all the negativity, the show was amazing.

And as an extra bonus, I even heard the dynamic duo behind me clapping and cheering at the end of the show.
Oh, the magic of Broadway.



Sunday, August 29, 2010

The Walk of Life


There are a whole lot of candidates for how you can fill in the blank to this sentence:
  • New York is one of the best ____ing cities in the world.
I can think of one word that many New Yorkers like to use, but I’ll save that for another blog.
For this drill, I would say that...
  •  New York is one of the best people watching cities in the world.
  • New York is one of the best eating cities in the world.
  • New York is one of the best walking cities in the world.
Every day, I really put that last sentence to the test.
I love walking Uptown, Downtown, Midtown, Chinatown -- pretty much anywhere with a town in it.
In the two weeks I have been here, I have not yet stepped into a taxi.
But I’ve almost been hit by a bunch of them.
For me, I just prefer walking.
Saturday was one of the most beautiful days of all-time, a perfect day to do so.
And walk is what I did.
In fact, I just used the google maps to calculate that I walked a grand total of 9.3 miles on Saturday.
Walking around Manhattan also gives you a perfect opportunity to do the two other “ings” -- people watching and eating.
With a vendor on every street corner, or so it seems, it takes very little money or effort to feed your appetite.
You can buy three falafel for $1 or a small bag of hot roasted peanuts for $2 or a chocolate dipped ice cream cone for $3.
Those, of course, are just hypothetical things that I could’ve possibly done in the last day, but not necessarily things that I actually did.

(Yes I did.)
Eating off the street, so to speak, has become part of my daily routine.
Honestly, its just way too easy and way too cheap.
But unfortunately, not for everyone.
Friday, while I was buying my $1.25 morning muffin from a street vendor, a lady walked right up next to me and quietly asked if I could buy her one as well.
Which I did.
I certainly am not pointing this out for what I did, but rather for what she did.
You can't make it two blocks in Manhattan, sometimes one, without seeing your worst nightmare.
The number of homeless in this city may be on the decline from years past, but the bottom line is one is too many.
I certainly understand that there are A LOT of factors that I certainly don't understand.
But the only thing that I can see is their situation.
How they got to this point is up to my imagination.
This has never been a political blog and I'm not about to start now.
But no matter what party you come from, the day you can look at someone so down on their luck and have no feeling for them, that is a bad day.
According to a report called “Hope”, the Homeless Outreach Population Estimates, there are 3,111 unsheltered individuals in the five boroughs of New York.
That’s 783 more than last year, a 34% rise, which is 9.3 miles past staggering.
The good news, I think, is that the number is nearly 1500 fewer than it was just five years ago, a 29% decline.
According to the “Hope” report, there are nearly 2700 street homeless in San Francisco, 2000 in Seattle, 1500 in Chicago and 25,000 in LA.
Yes, 25,000.
Fortunately, there are literally hundreds of thousands of people across these united states helping those in need on a daily basis.
In just the New York area, there are more than 1,200 nonprofit soup kitchens and food pantries helping homeless and low-income families.
Honestly, the people that take the time out of their lives to help others with theirs just don't get enough attention.
And let there be no doubt, attention is not what these saints are looking for.
They are just trying to make a difference.
One person at a time.
And its working.
I’ve seen it.
The other day, a very hot day in this concrete jungle, I saw a doorman approach a homeless man, who lives right outside that building.
The doorman called out, “Fred, this is for you”, as he handed him a cold bottle of Gatorade.
The fact that the doorman did it was great.
The fact that he knew his name told me that he had done it before.
A random act of kindness.  What a concept.
Truly, inspir-ing.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Apple Bottom Genes

I was planning on keeping my new hometown a secret.
At least that was the plan.
But with each day I walk around this amazing city, I think to myself...
...Self...
THAT’S A BLOG.  
AND THAT’S A BLOG.
AND THAT’S A BLOG TOO.
Through the first seven entries in my new journey, I’ve managed to make vague references to the greatest city in the world.
Well, enough is enough.
I AM A NEW YORKER.  
And proud of it.
If I want to write about yesterday’s journey through the subway system, where I took three different trains to go 17 blocks, then I’m going to write about it.
Just for fun, take a look at the map of the New York subway system and tell me it doesn’t look like Russell Crowe’s wall in A Beautiful Mind.
And if I want to write about the eight-cent tax on sliced bagels, but no tax on unsliced ones, I’m going to write about that too.
Why don’t they just call it the anti-Semetic tax?
Just because we own all of the banks on 5th avenue and all of the jewelry stores on 47th street doesn’t mean we can afford an extra eight cents on a sliced bagel.
And if I want to write about eating dinner from a street vendor near Times Square, I’m done with the secret code of...
... so I decided to have a meal from this place.
The truth is tonight after work, I enjoyed a beautiful lamb and chicken combo from a street vendor near Times Square.
Not just any street vendor, but KWIK MEAT.
Yep, that Kwik Meat.
The 2008 runner-up for the Vendy Award.
You know the Vendy Award, the annual award handed out for the most outstanding street meat.
Street meat, that’s what us New Yorkers call it.
Well tonight after work, I was told “you gotta go up to 45th and sixth to the get the best street meat in the city.”
I thought all the vendors were the same.
“Trust me," he said.
So I headed up to 45th and sixth... Yada Yada Yada... $8.50 later ($9.20 with the tax), I had a great dinner.
GREAT!
I can still remember my mom telling me that I couldn’t eat off the floor, so I can only imagine how she would feel about me eating off the street.
But she obviously never tried Kwik Meat.
Let me tell you, this stuff was good.   Real good.
Well, actually I won’t know how good until tomorrow.
My dad split many of his years between Los Angeles and New 
York.  
He always raved about the Big Apple, but I never really understood why.
Until now.
There is just something electric about this place.
The buildings.   The taxis.   The restaurants.
But that stuff about this being the city that never sleeps is a bunch of hogwash.
A friend of mine was in town this week and we met up for a late dinner.   
No problem, this is New York.
Plus she was staying in one of the busiest parts of town.
Well, so much for that theory.
One place stopped serving at 9:30, another at 10.
Is this Cleveland or New York?
We eventually found a place and had a great meal.
There are so many restaurants in this city that you better be great or you will be gone by breakfast.
Its no wonder why you try to walk so much in this place.   
Its to avoid having your belt buckle explode on you.
I guess that gets us back to Kwik Meat.
These vendors are on EVERY corner.
In the morning, you can get a muffin on one street.
Three bananas for a dollar on another.
Coffee on another.
Then later its a pretzel.
And a hot dog.
And wash that down with the lamb & chicken combo.
I would call that a perfect day.   
Actually, I would call it a normal day.
At least the pretzel part.   
My goal is to break Cal Ripken’s streak by eating a pretzel every day for the next 17 years.
I think I can do it.
It sure will be fun trying.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Now Leaving Paradise City

It had to end sometime.
This ride in the clouds I’ve been living for the last few weeks has been incredible.
Especially when you consider where my life was taking me just before that.
Here I am with a new job, a new city and a new outlook.
Well if it sounds like I am setting this up for a big negative bombshell, I am not.
This is a no bombshell zone.
My life is still good and I am still in a great place -- physically and emotionally.
But I am definitely not in the same place I was just a few days ago.
Approaching the end of my second week, my job is becoming... a job.
Life in my little bachelor pad has gone from cool... to empty.
And yesterday, thanks to a broken elevator, I had to walk up to the 17th floor of a building.
Ok, that last part, while very true, was only temporary.
But the piece of this puzzle that is probably hitting me the hardest is the reality that my family is not here.
And they won’t be anytime soon.
Sure, we still skype.  
In fact, I just got off the computer with them.
But even that had a different tone tonight.
I started off with my 13-year old daughter, but after a few quick minutes, she had to go to do homework, shower and get to bed.
By my calculations, that would place me no better than 4th on her to do list.
Then came my six-year old daughter.
We talked about her upcoming soccer season and her new adventure with a local choir.
Then she was telling me about how things are going in school when all of a sudden...
... she started crying.
Full crocodile tears.
Midway through a sentence.
For no apparent reason.
“I miss you dad.”
I’m not sure exactly what set her emotions in motion, but those emotions represented exactly what I’ve been feeling.
“I miss you too,” I said, somehow holding back my tears.
Here’s where it had a chance to go downhill very quickly.
But fortunately I remembered an old yiddish adage just in the nick of time:
  • when you are skyping with your six-year old child and they start crying uncontrollably because their father is on the other side of the country trying to restart his life and give his family a better one, the father needs to start making funny faces and funny noises as quickly as possible to distract the child from the reason that they are crying.
It’s a lot funnier in yiddish.
But for at least this night, it worked.
I put my face as close to the camera as possible, which ignited her giggling.
That, plus a loud burp (or two) and we were good to go.
Just at that time, my wife came in and sent the six-year old to bed.
I’m guessing this will not be the end of her sadness, but the good news is I have a lot more burps still left in me.
Now it was time for my son, the 11-year old boy living in a house full of females.
Even the dog is a girl.
Well normally he would come on the skype line and we’d talk about boy things.
Like the baseball season.   And football season.   And basketball season.
And burping.
And if we had thirty seconds left, we could talk about school too.
Well, this time my son didn’t come on the line.
That’s because he’s not there.
He left today on a three-day trip with his sixth grade class.
The same type of trip I’ve gone on for the last two years with my daughter’s class.
Before this little job thing popped up, I was scheduled to be there with him too.
But that all changed.
Bright and early this morning, I called my son to wish him a great trip.
He sounded excited.  Almost very excited.
But I could tell from his voice (and my wife’s first hand observation) that he was a little scared.
And disappointed.
This was going to be his big trip with dad.
Just like his sister had.
Twice.
But dad is not there anymore.
And now my son is flying solo.   
And he doesn’t like it.
And neither do I.
I’m sure by the time that school bus got to its destination, he’ll be plenty nauseous and he’ll forget all about me.
And that’s what I’m scared of.
Out of sight, out of mind. 
We knew this was going to be the hard part.
And this is just week two.
What makes me sad is knowing that I am making them sad.
And that's enough to make any grown man cry.

Monday, August 23, 2010

A Blog About Nothing

Last Friday night, me and my new peeps went out for a drink after work.
Lets just say it ended up being a few more than just one.
But it sure made for some good quality bonding time.
As the new guy, I made triple sure that I was NOT the life of the party.
So I did my best to just sit there and listen and drop in a one-liner from time-to-time.
At the end of the night/morning, they had learned just a little about me and I had learned just a little more than a little about them.
Mission accomplished.
Perhaps the biggest nugget I uncovered was that my new boss is a Seinfeld fanatic.
Like me.
And like me, he says he can quote the show about nothing, like nothing.
As I grow more comfortable (and secure) in the new job, I might just have to test that a little bit.
I might just bring up the time that Frank Costanza attacked Mr. Steinbrenner about trading Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps.
And I might just ask if he is an importer or an exporter.
And I might just ask if he liked the English Patient.
Or made out at Schindler’s List.
Or if he preferred Rochelle Rochelle as a movie or a musical.
And I might just see if he wants to be my latex salesman.
I probably won’t ask if he is the master of his own domain.
Until the next time we go out for drinks.
As it turned out, the show about nothing was a whole lot more than nothing.
I hope someday I can say the same about this new blog.
But at the moment, I’m kinda struggling.
When I decided to write a blog on my journey through unemployment, it was a pretty simple project.
I sat down at the computer, wrote what was on my mind and hit publish.
Simple.
Because of the subject matter and the spirit of the letter, I think people really connected with it.
I know I connected with it.
Now that the message of the blog has changed, I have hit a little bit of writer’s block.
I still LOVE writing and I’m going to continue to write, but sometimes I just don’t know what to say.
In the words of Seinfeld, I am speechless.   
I am without speech.
As someone who is living thousands of miles away from his family, I think there is something interesting here.  
Actually, I know there is something interesting here.
But at the moment, I just don’t know what it is.
I found it interesting that the place I am staying at has water pressure so low, it feels like I am showering at the 4077th.
I even came up with the line, “but the only Hot Lips around here were from the spicy food I had last night”.
Somewhere in this blogosphere, some 70’s sitcom nut is  doubling over in laughter.
I have made other observations too.
I found it interesting that I went into a Dunkin’ Donuts and there was a sign that said “CPR Equipment is in the back.”
It could be time for the decaf.
And I found it interesting that I saw a pizza delivery guy pulled over by the police for speeding.
So much for making it in 30 minutes or less.
And I found it interesting that when I packed my two suitcases for the big trip, one bag weighed 47 pounds and the other was 43.
My entire life weighed just 90 pounds.   
And I found it interesting that when I told my neighbor I was moving cross country, he thought my wife and I were getting a divorce.
Sign of the times I suppose.
And I found it interesting that on a train ride last weekend, I sat next to a real celebrity.
Ms. Yenta, 1948.
By the time I got off the train, she knew everything about me but my social security number.
I found all of those moments to be interesting and some of them even made me laugh.
But how in the world could I turn them into a blog.
It would be a blog about, nothing.
Hey, it worked for Jerry.