Readng...
Nothng, I've really got to start makng the time agan. Hearng...
Savage Garden, I'm obsessng over that CD agan. The boy can write an angsty love song like no other. Sitng...
The guy who plays Ryan on All My Children, I'm way too lazy to look up his name snce the Palm doesn't allow multiple wndows. On Columbus n the '60s near the ABC studio -- the past two Tuesdays. Another actor who I can't place and it's drivng me nuts. Oh shit, now I fnally remember, the guy who played Tank n The Matrix -- that was hauntng me all fuckng night! On Second Avenue around 2nd Street, East Village earlier this evenng/last night. Rupert Everett, all tall, buff and sweaty n a muscle T-shirt crossng 14th Street on Seventh Avenue today. So big and yummy, wonder if he was en route to Tea and Sympathy?. Watchng...
Showgirls at the Film Archives on Second Avenue and East 2nd Street. It was so cheesy it was good. |
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 feelng so much more settled n New York this week. I'm used to where I'm stayng, I started a job and yesterday I had my first New York nutcase experience snce I returned. I write about this with the proviso that it's not really like this at every moment, like n most movies set n New York. In general, I feel far more safe here than anywhere else. We're known for our nutjobs, here, but most people are civil, if not downright friendly. Before my first visit to New York, I met this amazng guy at the Powell Street cable car turnaround. It was one of those nstant connections that make sense, especially n San Francisco. I was a bit apprehensive about visitng New York because a New York cop I met at C. Bobby's Owl Tree (freekiest bar decor n SF) visitng SF got rolled n my neighborhood. I guess it speaks more for the cop than for New York, but it did make me nervous. So this guy I met assured me I'd love New York. As long as I used the same caution I would n any city, and I'd survived n the Tenderlon for over a year at that pont, I would be fne he said. His key advice was to talk to New Yorkers nside, off the street, n a restaurant or a bar, somewhere they felt safe. I've found that to be quite true. I thnk New York's reputation for rudeness is largely undeserved. It's like gong to another country and judgng the customs by what you know from whitebread suburbia. Apples and oranges. I've known so many small kndnesses here. When I took my first subway ride n after arrivng on a long red-eye, I fell asleep standng up on the A tran and a woman propped me up and asked if I was OK. On that same ride, a woman left her jacket on the tran and a man rushed to give it to her before the doors closed. Lots of people are n their own personal bubbles and stand n the way or shove on the tran. To me, the miracle of New York is that more doesn't go wrong. We've got millions of people squeezed nto Manhattan alone, several million commutng n everyday from the other 4 boroughs of New York City (because NYC is actually more than Manhattan alone), New Jersey, Connecticut and even Pennsylvannia. People are stacked up on each other n tny apartments, crowded trans, poor and middle to upper middle class clamorng side by side for a seat on the subway or racng down the street. Part of me is aware that dubious thngs are afoot -- that robberies, murders, rapes and let's not forget blue collar crimes take place on the very streets that I walk. Yet, somehow, the city mostly works. I'm not so sure it's so much n the hippy-dippy hunky dory way San Franciscans sometimes see themselves. New York, however, is nothng if not pragmatic. We've all got to get to work, so a big scene on the subway or Seventh Avenue serves no one. Given all that, I'm surprised if a bit bemused when an only slightly-disheveled woman n a red-satn prom dress and too-small, white Reeboks accosted me as I sat eatng a 50 cent apple pie under the statues n Columbus Circle. Our eyes me, so she came up to me, very irritated and said, "I heard what you've been sayng about me. Stop tellng people we're related!" Uh, no worries about that, I'm thnkng. She didn't stop and kept gettng closer, so I up and walked away (which remnds me, this is actually my second such encounter, there was the "that's right -- walk away!" guy on 72nd Street last Tuesday), but she followed for a few feet, so I could hear the really nutso shit. I exchanged, eye rolls with the woman at the next bench. "You can't escape, no matter where you go, they'll fnd you and your flesh is gong to be stripped, you're gonna burn!" These are the knds of stories I don't tell my mom.
[Next entry: "Takng a lay down"]
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