Union Square

A year ago, I was driving daily from a barren, isolated parking lot to a fast-food drive-thru for lunch (and feeling deeply depressed every time I left the building and looked around at nothing). And now, this is where I'm having lunch!

Union Square is so vibrant. I know, "vibrant" is an over-used trendy word, but I can't think of any other way to describe what all is going on there... Nothing in particular, but yet everything. It's hard to explain, but people are just putzing around here and hanging out, and it's interesting as hell to sit around and watch. It's like a bee-hive or an ant-colony---people in droves going about their business in a fashion that's highly organized, yet the onlookers are welcome, too, and definitely part of the "scene." Like on the subways, there's occasional eye-contact made, but then complete personal space given, an overall sense of non-judgmental-ness...

Some have written about New York City as being "impersonal" and "cold," but for me personally (my personality, my temperament), I don't particularly LIKE having to phonily "make nice" and pretend there's a heart-felt connection when there's not. I like wandering around and having daily---sometimes witty, sometimes obnoxious, sometimes utterly sweet---interactions with other people; I like the SURPRISE of it.

I just read in the NY press that NYC Mayor Bloomberg is spearheading a campaign to attract tourists, specifically trying to counter the image of New Yorkers as "unfriendly"... As a neophyte to the city of 6 months who has asked countless random New Yorkers on the street for street/landmark directions, for bank directions, for advice on pizza places, for you-name-it, I must say that I don't see why this campaign is necessary. From what I've seen in my 6 months here, New Yorkers are absolutely cool about being helpful and nice. I've had small-store owners give me incredible bargains on packs of cigarettes, waiters give me advice on where to live, Metro police officers help me swipe my subway card when it wouldn't go through...

I felt self-conscious in Austin, like I had to "act a certain way" to be perceived as "normal" and "competent." There's so much going on in New York City that no one gives a shit about "how you appear." What seems to matter here (thankfully) is simply that you "get the job done," whether you're a garbage collector or a trannie performer or an office worker or a business mogul or a model. The atmosphere is so free-wheeling and accepting, yet with the underlying coda of "competence." That kind of ethic is so utterly SANE to me.

Shock-headed Peter

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The above link is so long it's probably shit, but do try to find the 1844 German "Struwwelpeter" (in English, "Shock-headed Peter") online. Subtitled "Merry Stories and Funny Fables" (by Heinrich Hoffman), it's anything BUT merry or funny! It's all about kids who do bad things like play with matches or don't eat their food or suck their thumbs... And, boy, do they pay the price! Their getting burnt up or dying of starvation or getting their thumbs cut off in these "fairy tales" is weirdly brutal, but fascinating!

My German mom was born in 1941 and this book was a part of her childhood, which she read to me when I was little. Its weird, utterly evil, frightening illustrations have been ingrained in my memory since I was a kid. Until recently, I had no idea that anyone else had even seen such a thing! (Just recently the "Ovation" US cable channel had a program about some British guys who were touring with a stage performance based solely on the book. The stage show was cheesy---a big unshaven slob of a lead singer dressed in pseudo Weimar-Berlin garb emoting about "Fire! Fire! Fire!" But the fact that someone had been inspired by this book was still interesting to me.)

John Lennon "Some Time in New York City" lyrics

Standing on the corner
Just me and Yoko Ono
We was waiting for Jerry to land
Up come a man with a guitar in his hand
Singing, "Have a marijuana if you can"
His name was David Peel
And we found that he was real
He sang, "The Pope smokes dope every day"
Up come a policeman shoved us up the street
Singing, "Power to the people today!"

New York City...New York City...New York City
Que pasa, New York?
Que pasa, New York?

Well down to Max's Kansas City
Got down the nitty gritty
With the Elephants Memory Band
Laid something down
As the news spread around
About the Plastic Ono Elephants Memory Band!
And we played some funky boogie
And laid some tutti frutti
Singing, "Long Tall Sally's a man."
Up come a preacherman trying to be a teacher
Singing, "God's a red herring in drag!"

New York City...New York City...New York City
Que pasa, New York?
Que pasa, New York?

New York City...New York City...New York City
Que pasa, New York?
Que pasa, New York?

Well we did the Staten Island Ferry
Making movies for the telly
Played the Fillmore and Apollo for freedom
Tried to shake our image
Just a cycling through the Village
But found that we had left it back in London
Well nobody came to bug us
Hustle us or shove us
So we decided to make it our home
If the Man wants to shove us out
We gonna jump and shout
The Statue of Liberty said, "Come!"

New York City...New York City...New York City
Que pasa, New York?
Que pasa, New York?

New York City...back in New York City [my note: this lyric is really "what a bad-ass city!]...New York City
Que pasa, New York?
Que pasa, New York?
---------------------------------------------

The 1972 Lennon/Yoko album "Some Time in New York City" is a rare one, but for some reason I found a copy in 1983 in a mall record store in Fort Worth, Texas, of all places! (They also had a re-issue copy of the now ultra-rare "Two Virgins"!!) I bought "Some Time" while I was hanging out with my best friend Ginny, and I remember spending the night over at her house that night...and then listening to the thing over and over and over and over, to Ginny's eventual annoyance!

Ginny was a Libra---a calm, placid soul by nature---but this album stretched her limits of tolerance! I remember in particular the "John Sinclair" song, with its "gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta set him free" alleged "chorus"... I think at that annoying repetition she finally put her foot down and made me take off the album! But before that song, there was also "The Luck of the Irish"---

If you had the luck of the Irish
You'd be sorry and wish you were dead
You should have the luck of the Irish
And you'd wish you was English instead!

A thousand years of torture and hunger
Drove the people away from their land
A land full of beauty and wonder
Was raped by the British brigands! Goddamn! Goddamn!

If you could keep voices like flowers
There'd be shamrock all over the world
If you could drink dreams like Irish streams
Then the world would be high as the mountain of morn

In the 'Pool they told us the story
How the English divided the land
Of the pain, the death and the glory
And the poets of auld Eireland

If we could make chains with the morning dew
The world would be like Galway Bay
Let's walk over rainbows like leprechauns
The world would be one big Blarney stone

Why the hell are the English there anyway?
As they kill with God on their side
Blame it all on the kids the IRA
As the bastards commit genocide! Aye! Aye! Genocide!

If you had the luck of the Irish
You'd be sorry and wish you was dead
You should have the luck of the Irish
And you'd wish you was English instead!
Yes you'd wish you was English instead!
------------------------------------------------------

Before she turned the record off, Ginny kept randomly interspersing/outbursting in our conversation, "Aye! Aye! Genocide!" and "Goddamn! Goddamn! Ireland!" ;p

I miss her a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot. She was a cool kid from Georgia who'd just moved to Texas with her mom and dad, and then she met a nerdy freak like me who was into "weird" things (for 1983) like John Lennon and she had to sit there and interpret 1972 Lennon lyrics with me... When I went off to college in Austin in 1983, Ginny found someone else, but I hurt for her for 5 years. I remember it---5 whole years! Almost everything I did for 5 years I kept thinking of what it would be like had she been there with me.

She died in 1988. And up until the mid-90s or so she was still in contact with me. Not often, but when I'd be going through something hard, she'd come visit me in a dream, and I'd wake up feeling completely rejuvenated and hopeful. I haven't heard from her in years. I think when you're in the spirit world, it takes some effort and strain to get in touch with people in the actual world... I think she did what she could for me and then went off to be completely in her new world. (That sounds nuts, but... that's pretty much how it happened after she died.)

The Brooklyn Bridge

On my first birthday in New York City, two weeks ago, I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge (which opened to traffic in 1883 after 13 years of construction). I'm not of the knee-jerk "I like old things just because they're old" school, but in general it does seem that things of the past were constructed with much more care and aesthetic consideration. This bridge, for instance, is just gorgeous to look at, both close up and from a distance.










The last picture wasn't taken by me, but is of New Yorkers walking across the Brooklyn Bridge in August 2003, after a massive power-outage had shut down the subways. I had just been flown in to NYC for a job interview in June that summer. I didn't get the job, but that first glimpse of New York City gave me a taste of the city and a real sense that I wanted to be there. When the blackout happened a couple of months later, there was a photo of people walking home on the Brooklyn Bridge on the front page of the NY Times (which gave me chills), which I cut out and taped up above my desk at work, with my notation: "I should have been there." It took me nearly 4 years since my first visit, but...here I am, as I should be!

What a bad-ass city!

I was in such a deep funk in Austin last year. I quit my well-paying job just because I was being disrespected. And a friend told me, "Why don't you just move to New York, like you've been talking about? Now seems like exactly the right time."

I don't know that I would have done it if not for that casual conversation. And now that I'm here, I cannot get over how grateful I am.

I've never been religious, but I've been praying like hell for the past month: to get out of a horrible roommate situation and find a new place, to get a job... I don't say this like a religious fanatic, but rather sincerely: Thank you, GOD, for getting me through this.

Again, I can't say enough how grateful I am. For this beautiful city, for my new place, for my new job.

The "what a bad-ass city!" quote comes from John Lennon's 1972 song "New York City." I agree. It IS a fucking "bad-ass city," in the best way. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Come here!

I never thought I'd be sane again: December 8, 1980

Our life together is so precious together
We have grown, we have grown
Although our love is still special
Let's take a chance and fly away somewhere alone

It's been too long since we took the time
No-one's to blame, I know time flies so quickly
But when I see you darling
It's like we both are falling in love again
It'll be just like starting over, starting over

Everyday we used to make it love
Why can't we be making love nice and easy
It's time to spread our wings and fly
Don't let another day go by my love
It'll be just like starting over, starting over

Why don't we take off alone
Take a trip somewhere far, far away
We'll be together all alone again
Like we used to in the early days
Well, well, well darling

It's been too long since we took the time
No-one's to blame, I know time flies so quickly
But when I see you darling
It's like we both are falling in love again
It'll be just like starting over, starting over

Our life together is so precious together
We have grown, we have grown
Although our love is still special
Let's take a chance and fly away somewhere

Starting over

What a loser!

Another Joan Crawford webmaster just did yet another idiotic thing: Neil sent my dad an e-mail saying that I was going around online claiming that my dad had sexually abused me AND that I was writing a book about him!

For the record, my father never sexually abused me, and I'm certainly not writing a "Daddy Dearest"! Geez.

Neil keeps getting dumber and dumber: All those messages you send have traceable IP numbers, Retard!

How pretty is this!

The garden of my new apartment building. In general, I really love the flora of New York City and its environs. The city as a whole is so well-landscaped. When you see NYC onscreen from a camera angle aimed down at it, it looks like nothing but masses of gray buildings, but in actuality, there are trees everywhere. It's a very green city.

LL Rocks

You know what? Who gives a fuck if Lindsay Lohan drinks or does drugs... or chases people down the street in a "hijacked" vehicle, for that matter. (Oooh---I bet those 3 big club guys were really scared when Lindsay jumped in their car...)

Good for Lindsay for having an ounce of gumption and free will left in her after 15 years in show business. Good for her for daring to act weird in the face of the monotonous drumbeat of the media (including the so-called iconoclast Perez Hilton) that wants her smiling and acting fakely pleasant at all times.

I'm sure she'll "repent" publicly in the near future, but for now... keep those golden cuffs on your rear-view mirror, Lindsay. You're the most aesthetically pleasing wild thing since the 1932 Joan Crawford.

Birthday Greetings

I got this card from my brother for my birthday. The best part was the inside, with the quote from my brother RE 5-year-old nephew Townes at the upper left ("I told Townes that the girl on the front was you as a child. He says 'She looks cute, but she looks crazy!'"):

What cracked me up is that I could very much sense Townes's dilemma... Though the picture is NOT me, he thought it was (my brother has a warped sense of humor, similar to mine---it's a weird German/East Texas thing), and was trying so very hard to be polite... but then the REAL impression of what he saw just burst out of him!

When I talked to Townes on my birthday, I asked him when he's coming to New York to visit... Besides me, both of my brother's wife's sisters live here, too (Brooklyn and the Lower East Side), as does Townes' 10-year-old cousin, who just spent a week with my brother and family in Austin. My brother told me that Townes is very aware of New York and is curious about it. That's my goal---to get him curious and comfortable with the idea of the city at a young age so he'll visit and ultimately make it here by his 20s! (As opposed to my not getting here 'til age 41!)

It really is a special place. Not only is it gorgeous and interesting, but it's got more than enough substance to back up its glamour. People have referred to it as being a "hard" town, but what it actually is is... It's not a lazy town. It expects something of you. It wants you to work for what you ultimately get. To me, that's not "hard"---it's "fair."

Happy Birthday

I woke up Thursday morning with this Concrete Blonde song in my head---I owned the album 10 years ago and used to think of this song all the time, but haven't since then... My birthday's not even for a couple of weeks, but this song still makes me feel happy.


Well, outside in the hall there's a catfight
It's well after midnight
I guess I'll be allright
I'm laid out on the floor
Drunk and poor
How much longer how much more

Rock me to sleep
Strong & deep.
The screaming cats they give me the creeps
But aside from all that I feel no pain
Staring up at the ceiling stains
...Neon in the window
...Sirens far away
...News on the radio happy birthday happy birthday happy
birthday

They're at it again next door
This whole floor I swear
They're out to drive me crazy
Not right now I'm high as a cloud I'm soft and gray and lazy
..Smoking Out the window,
...feeling far away
...News on the radio happy birthday happy birthday happy
birthday

Fly me
out the window.
Somewhere far away
News on the radio, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday.
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday.
-------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of birthdays... I get "Astrocenter" horoscopes e-mailed to me daily. A couple of days ago, the generic thing said something like, I've been in Saturn Hell since April 4th, and now it's time to move on... Amen.

As a general thing, I'm also interested in the "7-year-cycle" theory... I switched over from my "partying" to my "Internet" mode back in early 2001... I've given it my all with, honestly, not a lot to show for it... I'm on the cusp now of something else...

Starstruck/Moonstruck

A couple of weeks ago I took a 3-hour boat tour around the island of Manhattan, all 36 miles of it. The glamorous parts came at the beginning, passing by Ellis Island/Statue of Liberty/downtown, and then the east-side BMW bridges (Brooklyn/Manhattan/Williamsburg?). I snapped pictures of all these bigtime sites and then kind of got lazy the further north and west we got. But I'm kicking myself now for a shot I didn't catch just at the northern tip of the island... I forget what bridge it was near, but someone had built a sturdy lean-to shack for himself, nestled in the brush. It reminded me of reading "Huckleberry Finn" back in college, how Huck and his n'er-do-well dad lived in a shanty by the river... Obviously back then (the early/mid-1800s) it was a lot easier to just go off and build yourself a shack and scrabble by, without any interference from the government, etc., telling you you couldn't build a shack there... So how did this guy manage to pull it off in 2007 at the tip of Manhattan? I grew up way out in the country and so building "forts" and "hideouts" and "clubhouses" is ingrained in me. Just like the idea of the shack-by-the-river is...

Yet, when it comes down to the actuality of it... The soul core of me would do it, and has done it, perhaps, if you believe in reincarnation. But my current self---yeah, right! Of course not.

What's funny is that my close friends back in Austin, those who'd known me for over 15 years, also made fun of the idea of ME camping out or hiking or what-have-you. In truth, when I didn't camp out or hike with them, it was 'cause of the crowd. I've never been camping or hiking, but I would like to, very much. Just, not in a "whooo-hooo, we're going camping!" kind of way, with the clowns of the group being loud and stupid and everyone making a production of how "we're going camping." They don't seem to get the concept of actually being QUIET. Of walking around and LOOKING and just BEING without imposing yourself on your surroundings. Of just looking up and seeing the stars at night, where the magnitude of what you're seeing makes you forget yourself.(Everyone in cities forgets that there are stars, 'cause light pollution has drowned them out---actually seeing billions of stars makes you quiet and awestruck.)

Oh yeah---as the cruise around Manhattan continued on the west-side, our boat got mooned by a bunch of kids hanging out on the shore... Didn't get a picture of that (except mentally) either!

Gay Training Wheels

Note to a diminutive gay guy who says on his blog that learning to ride a bike without training wheels made a "man" of him:

Um... I was about to say, "We ALL learned to ride bikes without training wheels," but, oh, that's just mean. I'm gay too, so I suppose I should be sensitive. (But, REALLY--- Can't I just mock this guy just like he was a STRAIGHT guy?? What straight guy---nay, what PERSON---would ever, 25 years later, act all proud that he once learned how to ride a bike?!)

Reminds me of another gay blog where the author's boyfriend was soooo proud of once yelling at a middle-aged woman in a parking lot because she was too slow in getting out of his way: Wooooo! You GO, Tuff Gay Guy!

If there's anything I can't stand, it's weak, bitchy men who try to give great import to their extremely minor "triumphs." (I would say "weak, bitchy PEOPLE," but it's rare that girls wave their dicks around while dissing somebody about their makeup, etc. Girls, to their credit, usually admit it right up front when they're being trivial.)

Hot in the City

Back when I lived in Texas, which is "fuckin' hot" (90 to 105 degrees) for about 4 months straight out of the year, I used to mock weather reports from other parts of the country, like NYC, complaining of "heat waves."

Now that I'm actually in New York City, I realize what they (the news reports and residents) were talking about: While Texas is completely equipped for constant 90+ - degree weather, with every house/office building having air conditioning, NYC, on the other hand, is decidedly NOT so equipped! My room in my apartment, for one.

I had a job interview today, and sans air-conditioning in my room or bathroom, blow-drying my hair while getting ready was a huge sweaty chore, as was trying to put on my makeup afterwards. I took an expensive car rather than the subway ($25 versus $2) to the interview just to avoid the sweaty nastiness of the subway in this weather, and was able to make conversation about the bad weather once at the interview... (The editor in charge, it turns out, has both a wife and daughter who have been bitchin' about the very same hair/makeup problems!) ;)

I'm going absolutely nuts in this heat.

Talk about yer huddled masses...

As a recent tourist out to Ellis Island, I feel I partook of the "huddled masses" experience galore. First, a shot of the real thing:










And then the modern-day "yearning to breathe free" folk waiting in line and actually on the damn boat:


But before I even began my trek out to Ellis Island, I had a scary (albeit in an "I Love Lucy" kind of way) moment in the entry point to the ferry. Where I made the mistake of SNAPPING A PICTURE! A couple of over-zealous guards yelled at me, "NO PICTURES! NO PICTURES! NO PICTURES! C'MERE! NOW!!!!" Completely rattled, I first yelled at the top of my lungs, "I'm SORRY! I DIDN'T KNOW! JESUS!" Then I ran over to the closest guard who was yelling at me to show him my camera: "See---I'm erasing the picture!" Thank goodness for the digital age---I got the impression that in an earlier era, they would have grabbed my camera and ripped the film out of it!

The Lucy Moments continued: After showing the guard my camera and deleted picture, I scurried back in line, just in time to be at the front of it, where the next guard was asking, "How many? How many?!" Freaked out, I yelled at him: "ONE! I just took ONE picture! And I erased it!" Turned out he had no idea what I was talking about, and was just wondering how many were in my party to board the ferry... Oh. :\

After this guy, we in line all made our way to the X-ray machines, exactly like in airports. Where it turned out that both my bracelet and my belt buckle were setting off alarms. When I told the x-ray guy that if I took off my belt, my pants would fall off (seriously---I was a size 12 when I came to NYC, and I'm now a size 8), he got a bit too excited and asked where I was from, and then, when he found out I was new here, asked for my phone number so he could show me around, which caused another big hold-up in the line... I didn't give him my number, and, yes, my pants did fall down and did show my underwear, and then I put my belt back on backwards and...oh, good lord! At this point I did feel like just going, a la Lucy: "Waaaaaaa!"

Ellis Island, here I come, goddammit! ;p

Who's Your Momney

Last night, while falling asleep, I was watching Republican candidate Mitt Romney on C-Span, with his blonde wife, doing a generic meet-n-greet in Iowa, which went on for about a half-hour. (I did indeed fall asleep during it, as desired.)

In the dream I had later, though: the blonde woman with Romney wasn't his wife at all. Instead, there was another woman giving a press conference, cloaked in blue robes, with the rest of her face all in blue, except for the area of her nose, which was green. While watching this, I knew that the woman was Norwegian, in some sort of "tribal garb." This woman claimed to be Romney's wife, and he said it was so. I remember being extremely bewildered: "But I just SAW your wife and she looked nothing like that!"

Let me just say, in the few minutes that I watched Romney on C-Span, I thought he was a shallow, Republican jerk. And, yeah, I do have a "Norwegian" hanging around in my mental past. But what in the world would put these two together?!

Happy Birthday

A belated Happy 21st Birthday, July 2, to the simultaneously dark and gorgeous Lindsay Lohan.

Oh! My Statue of Liberty

I just took a cruise out to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. (Before I got too "New York" for my own good and started snubbing such "tourist attractions"!)

















Of course, during my whole "Lady Liberty" experience, I was also thinking of this Joan picture:





















And of this XTC song from my youth:

"Statue Of Liberty"

The first time I saw you standing in the water
You must have been all of a thousand feet tall
Nearly naked - unashamed like Herod's daughter
Your love was so big
It made New York look small

You've been the subject of so many dreams
Since I climbed your torso
Oh!
My statue of Liberty
Boo Boo
Impaled on your hair
What do you do
Do Do to me
Boo Boo

I leaned right over to kiss your stoney book
A little jealous of the ships with whom you flirt
A billion lovers with their cameras
Snap to look and in my fantasy
I sail beneath your skirt...


And then there was this guy, who was entertaining the huddled masses waiting in line for over an hour to get on the damn boat! (How in the world did those immigrants do it?!)

America, Past and Present

With the 4th of July coming up, I suppose these photos are appropriate reminders of some of America's history. I didn't take them with that idea in mind, but, my goodness, New York City is so much at the center of our country's founding. My home state of Texas is a baby comparatively!

(Though, to put things in even more perspective, here's a quote from "The Epic of New York": "When these white men [Verrazano, an Italian explorer sent by France] discovered the site of New York City that year of 1524, Jerusalem was more than 3,000 years old, Athens was at least 2,500 years old, Rome's history went back more than 2,270 years, Paris had existed about 1,550 years, London could count more than 1,460 birthdays, and Berlin was a village 217 years old." Oh. OK, so NYC is a baby when judged in terms of the world!)

Anyway, today I walked around the World Trade Center and Wall Street areas. The first photo is what the WTC rebuilding looks like at this stage. The next photo is of St. Paul's Chapel, which, built in 1766, is the oldest public building in the city. (This shot, to me, is what New York is all about.) St. Paul's sits directly across the street from the WTC site and was, miraculously, spared from destruction during the 9/11 attacks. A giant sycamore tree, uprooted in the explosions, fell in a way that protected the church.

Close by, at the intersection of Broadway and Wall Street, is the Trinity Church, where I took these photos of the cemetery. I love how cozy the gravestones look, despite the hustle-and-bustle of the surrounding street traffic. And one of our Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, is buried there.




























The last photo is a shot of the Trinity Church, as seen from further down Wall Street. That's the Trump Building to the right.