Leaving on a Jet Plane

July 31, 2012 6 Comments

I dropped my 15 year old off at the airport this morning. He’s on his way to summer camp. I did the same thing yesterday but this time he actually got on the plane.

I had it set in my mind, erroneously as it turns out, that the flight was at 8:45. We were about 150 feet away from the gate at Newark, having a piece of crumb cake, with plenty of time to spare. There are no site lines to the gates. Concessions block everything. I’m not saying this as an excuse, it just so happens to be the case. We didn’t hear the boarding announcement because, with all these obstacles blocking sound, unless you are reading the lips of the person making the announcement, all your going to get is what sounds like a muffled trumpet. It’s the wah, wah, wah, of Charlie Brown’s elementary school teacher. Again, I’m not trying to shift any blame here, it just so happens to be the case.

Clay was hungry, as always, so we stopped at one of the concessions for the snack. It’s relaxed between us. I adore him but he drives me crazy. I’m sure he would say the same thing. Camp will be a nice break for him from my constant corrections. Corrections I don’t want to give, corrections I don’t want to have to give, but I just can’t seem to help myself. It must be some kind of developmental peculiarity of parenting. Camp will also be a nice break for me from his self-centered self and his own developmental idiosyncrasies. Beyond being a teen there is nothing wrong with him, but that is enough. Beyond being a parent there is nothing wrong with me, but that too is enough.

While we’re waiting, I’m trying to decode the ticket for information about his arrival time in Minnesota; after all, I already know everything I need to know about his departure time. The stub is printed in the same font size they used to use for microfilm. In other airports, there are TV monitors every 50 feet with arrival and departure information. Someone here determined that “information” was not a worthwhile use of a screen when that same screen could be used for non-stop advertising lightly peppered with celebrity gossip and inspirational stories about overcoming adversity. I’m not making any value judgements here, it just so happens to be the case.

Finally, I make out 825. That’s it. No : break, just 825 and it dawns on me that this might be the departure time. I check my watch. It’s 8:21. I grab the kid, we turn the corner and step in front of the gate desk just in the nick of time. It’s still 8:21. There are no less than 5 attendants trying to figure out seat 18A because it isn’t checked off even though everyone has boarded. I say to them, pointing at my 18A, that no he isn’t on board, he’s standing right here and can he get on the plane?

“Well, no.” says the lady at the desk. “The plane has left the gate.” which is a lie. I can tell it’s a lie because there is an eight foot tall window, a hundred feet long, directly behind her and through that very window I am looking at the plane.

“What are you talking about?” I say. “It isn’t 8:25!”  I hold up my phone showing the time.  It is now 8:22 and the plane is backing away from the building.

“Well, yes, but 8:25 is the departure time. The plane is gone.”

“Departure time from where? The gate? The ground? The State of New Jersey?” This conversation may or may not be turning relativistic but it is definitely passed the point of being academic.

I’m cursing up a storm because of my own idiocy but it isn’t made any better by the idiots I’m talking with. The senior guy comes over and immediately tells them to rebook me a ticket at no charge. It’s all pretty clear. They let the plane leave a couple minutes early because it was fully loaded. Fully loaded except for one of the passengers. An unescorted minor, who had already checked his bag, got his boarding pass and was supposed to be in the care of the gate. Whoopsy Daisy.

I’m calling my wife to explain this minor catastrophe, complete with my own culpability and the departure time details. The gate lady, listening in on my side of the conversation, is now trying to correct me that the time the plane leaves is somehow different than the departure time. I’m trying to figure out why this woman is tampering with my diminishing good nature as well as my understanding of my native language. I want to ignore her but her unsolicited comments, and something about her hair, are begging for confrontation.

“Depart means leave, right?”

Oh boy! I can feel the potential energy of this situation developing into kinetic energy. I don’t want that to happen in front of my son and while I am not totally averse to being arrested and strip searched by an overzealous TSA employee, this just doesn’t seem like the most opportune moment. Nevertheless:

“If not; if I have somehow misunderstood what is meant by depart; if that is the case, then “Departure Time” isn’t really all that useful a term is it!?! Maybe someone in authority should consider doing away with it altogether; replace it with a term and a time that match in a meaningful way. How about “Leave Taking” or “Decamping” or “Exiting” or, dare I say it, “DEPARTING!” What a perfect god damn word! Somebody should consider using that word to describe when the plane leaves the gate and then attach a hard and fast time to it. Holy Jumping Jesus Christ, wouldn’t that be a great idea?”

“And here’s another one. When people have checked in with their bags and all, make sure they’re on the plane. And if they’re not, get this, if  they  are  not, if there is a large checked in bag and nobody attached to it, maybe that should set off some kind of alarm; some kind of bells and whistles. At least a sparkler, right? Because, you know, there are people out there who like to blow things up! For some of them, it’s their actual job description.”

Great Caesar’s Ghost, I hope it’s a high paying job because these folks are working overtime trying to cut all the curves off this wheel.

None of this, of course, is in any way depriving me of my own dumbshit lapse. I’m just tossing out some ideas here; kind of opening up a conversation.

Well, there’s nothing to do but take tomorrow’s plane. There is only one seat available and it is on the last flight and unaccompanied minors are not allowed to fly the last flight. I guess the thinking is that if things are a little quirky in the morning, they must be an absolute shit-storm by the end of the day and we reserve shit-storms for people who are actually on urgent business or desperately trying to get home.

The shame of it all, is that we made it from Brooklyn to the so called Departure Gate in about 30 minutes flat. No traffic in Brooklyn, no traffic in Manhattan, no traffic at the tunnel, the bridge, the highway, nothing! Even the parking lot is damn near empty. We were the only ones in the baggage check line and when we go through security there are only a hand full of people ahead of us. I’ve always liked Mondays and this just seems like one more validation.

On the drive home we sit in rush-hour traffic at the Holland Tunnel and make small talk. I can not wait for tomorrow. It cannot come soon enough to erase this error. Clay seems fine but I have already given this some thought. He is going to miss the introductory events that make for a smooth transition into camp life and he has always been a person who is troubled by transitions. I have 23 hours of self torture ahead. Clay will figure it all out by this evening and get a healthy 18 hours of self torture in before arriving at camp. Still, he is adaptable and makes friends easily. Another one of the many things that I admire about him. Also, by the time we get home, my wife has called the camp and they have reassured her, and therefore him, that it happens all the time and, in fact, Clay will be flying in to camp from Minneapolis with another camper who missed their flight. Ok, so I’m not alone in my misery and stupidity but I am alone with this child who I have let down and to whom I have exposed my imperfection. Alas.

As a small consolation, he and his mom have a night out together and go to the movies. They decide to see

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

 

Good plan. Now he’s too scared to worry about camp. He spends a sleepless night with the lights on. One more thing he shares with me. We don’t like scary movies. Or sad movies. Or chick flicks, naturally. Or anything with tension or romance. No tear jerkers either. No thrillers, dramas or low brow comedies. What can I say, we’re a tough audience.

Naturally enough, tomorrow comes. He’s starting to worry about camp and what he’s missed. He’s a very smart kid; he’ll adjust, but now he’s got me worrying. He’s a teenager and teen intelligence comes with all kinds of qualifiers. I guess all kinds of intelligence comes with all kinds of qualifiers but, as with everything else, those qualities are exaggerated in teens. I try to take comfort from the fact that he seems capable of learning anything they throw at him in school. On the other hand, he’s utterly incapable of learning to put the cap back on the toothpaste, or taking his phone and wallet out of his pants before putting them in the washing machine. Also, he is maddeningly disorganized but I think the blame for that may rest at my feet. We’ve tried to help him. We’ve tried in a hundred ways but it’s just no use. Heredity is just too strong a force. In fact, it is so strong a force that I think I can plausibly lay blame with my own father for the rampant disorganization around here. I can, but it doesn’t help. I still need to pick up Clay’s clothes if I hope to avoid a meltdown every morning because his only shirt, the “only” shirt he can wear “today” is missing.

Although he owns thirty shirts, the only one he wants to wear is, inevitably, the one he can’t find and, invariably, it is bundled up on the floor next to his dirty clothes basket.

He talks incessantly and while I’m grateful that he’s still speaking to me I dearly wish he had something to say that didn’t involve television, fashion or the petty squabbles and verbal assassinations of kids I’ve never met.

The girls I’m interested in. Everything else is filler.

The girl struggles are endlessly fascinating because, let’s face it, girls are fascinating and figuring out girls is a life long diversion. It’s interesting and challenging but ultimately pointless. The target is too highly evasive and too highly evolved. The target is constantly moving and changing shape. The bait that works in the morning is poison by late afternoon; and I’m a seasoned veteran. It doesn’t help that teens are so hopelessly inept. They seem to make sense to one another but that’s about as far as it goes and probably not even that far. If you are not of their tribe you are as good as a separate species. An alien. And a stupid alien at that.

My wife says “Teens should only be allowed to share the company of other teens.” I understand that viewpoint and agree with it about 96% of the time but it’s important not to forget the entertainment value of their struggles.

Often times I will see a boy and girl on the subway debating the fine points of some unbelievably witless question. They’re shifting around and smiling, the fluorescent lights gleaming off their braces and the conversation ebbs and it’s all awkward, the air is twisting around them and I want to scream:

“Kiss her you moron. She wants you to kiss her.”

Or

“Take his hand! Would you please just take his hand! Can’t you see he’s in agony?”

I know they’ll get to it eventually but meanwhile the rest of us are suffering, replaying our own teen insecurities and failures; our own struggles and self-doubts. I know this because I’m also watching the young woman standing in the corner pretending to read her book but she is mesmerized by their incompetence. As the teens exit the train this woman catches me looking at her looking at them and we both crack up.

Her smile says: “God that was painful.”

My smile says: “That used to be us.”

The camp my teen is going to is a language immersion camp. Yeah, I never heard of that either and I think it is reasonable to ask; “Who sends their kid to language immersion camp for summer vacation?” In our case, the answer to that question would be “Him.” This was his idea. We never heard of this place before. He heard about it through a teacher and he wanted to go. He really is the greatest.

The way it works is, each language has its own village complete with style, architecture, culture and cuisine. The villages include French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, English, Russian and a bunch of others.

The villages are separate but in fairly close proximity. I guess the idea is that the campers are immersed in the language and culture of their region of choice. It’s the next best thing to being there. Ideally they develop a certain pride in their group, they identify with their adopted culture and, ultimately, become xenophobic. Thus having become fully enculturated, when the time comes they can rise up, Lord of the Flies like, and reenact the Second World War. That last part might be my spin but, given the players, I think it’s a plausible scenario.

Today’s trip to the airport is the same as yesterday’s except in all the details. Going on the assumption that the same flight, same time, same circumstances rule should be in effect, we leave Brooklyn with two hours to spare. You can’t be too careful after a fuckup, you know what I mean? And I can’t wait to put this one behind me. Get him on the flight and pretend the whole thing didn’t happen.

We leave home and turn right into traffic. I dodge around and take a back way to the tunnel. Ok, we’re good. Up onto the highway; more traffic. We make it to the airport where the parking lot is already filling up. We grab a distant spot and hurry into the terminal. His bag is already in Minnesota but I need to get a pass to get through security so that I can escort him out to the departure gate. Again. Of course, there is a line. We get everything squared away and head to security. There are fully 200 people ahead of us. It’s starting to feel like a conspiracy but I am on a mission here, totally focused. Not however, so focused that I don’t notice a half dozen soldiers who are not five years older than my son; young men and women, children really, saying goodbye to their grim faced families. My problems are petty and ridiculous; just the way I like them.

Finally we get to the gate and we check in with the staff. The nice thing is that we have not run into a single person from yesterday’s debacle. No explaining to do. Maybe they all got fired. The not so nice thing is that this new staff is easily as clueless as yesterday’s staff. My son’s ticket needs an unescorted minor stub which, somehow, did not get issued yesterday and nobody here quite knows how to do it. They give it their all and figure it out and immediately tell him to board. He hugs me and I hug him, “I love you”, and he’s gone.

Wait a minute! I’m not prepared for this. I’m upset. I don’t know how but I’ve been caught by surprise. How can that be? We’ve had so much practice! I have to call my wife. I’ve been looking forward to this moment for him and for me but now he’s gone and I miss him terribly. Immediately, I want him back. I’m all choked up when I realize they’ve boarded him a half hour early. I sit in the long window, looking at his plane, and we text until they tell him phone off. The last text I get off to him is that I slipped an iPod into his carry-on bag. His last text is “Haha great!” He’s happy and now I’m ok. I did something right.

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The Art Opening

June 19, 2012 3 Comments

Sculpture: Tom Butter

I went to a friend’s art opening the other night. I entered the building, stopped to check the directory to locate the gallery and turned to find my pal Tom standing right behind me. That’s a good sign since a trip to a gallery where I don’t know anyone is usually brief and depressing. Brief because I don’t much care for looking at new art and depressing because artists are, as a rule, terrible conversationalists. Artists don’t talk so much as they give a point by point recitation of their resume. It’s a transparently self-centered exercise and unforgivably dull. The only upside is that invariably these people’s egos are as fragile as the thin film of burnt sugar on a creme brûlée. It’s a combination that fairly demands a little soft tissue probing. Torturing artists can be fun but it’s so easy it barely qualifies as sporting.

Tom thinks that I’m macho because I’m in heavy construction as well as the fine arts. In fact, a lot of people seem to think I get a lot done for someone with three kids, a full time job and a so called career in the arts but Tom genuinely seems to be impressed by it. Maybe he’s just shy and it gives him something to talk about. We are friendly now and there is a real warmth, but that was not always the case.

Tom is a sculptor I met back in my Philly days. I worked in art galleries as a preparator, which sounds like a salad position in a restaurant but is more like a salad position in a gallery. You know, hang the work, paint the walls, date the receptionist, that sort of thing. Back then, Tom was one of the few artists whose work I could really identify with. He lived in New York and was in a good gallery and he taught and was good looking and super talented and he has a great last name; Butter. Tom Butter. How can a name like that not shine? It’s inevitable. Like an unfair advantage. Tom was also mysterious and ultra-smart. For me, he was an artist to be like. Not that I wanted to make his work, or have his life, but I wanted to be a respected artist with important things to say, a good gallery in Manhattan, an exotic girlfriend and a great name. Man, then I would have it all. Back then it didn’t seem like too much to ask, it just seemed so far away. Except the name. That! That was too much to ask.

I felt back then that a good first step would be to befriend this guy. It wasn’t a strategic move, it was simply that I wanted his approval. Like many young people and not so young people for that matter, I sought the approval of those I respected who were in a position of authority. I guess that’s normal and certainly beats seeking the approval of those whom no one respects and have no authority at all. Better to aim a little higher, I say.

Well naturally I didn’t get his approval which should come as no surprise. I, and almost everyone else, always look for approval from those who won’t give it. Which is probably just as well. Where is the value of something that is given away for free? I was forced to admit that, unfortunately, this was going to require some work. If I wanted respect, I was going to have to earn it. In fact, I was never able to find a way to talk to Tom at all. I’m sure I was awkward but I also think he was a bit tightly wound.

Years later, after I moved to New York, I would run into Tom every so often at his art openings or at Parsons School of Design where I worked as a technician at night and he taught during the day. It was always the same. A simple hello; totally ungratifying. Even more so because he was so animated with his students. Eventually it dawned on me that he was comfortable in a position of authority like the student teacher relationship. All I needed was to put myself in that position. In other words, all I really needed was a question.

By this point I was more grown up and beyond caring about the approval of others. Age and the daily abuses of heavy construction had pretty much cured me of that, but Tom was a loose end from my youth. My desire to connect with him had lost its sense of urgency and need; it was now more like a hobby.

Around this time, it so happens, I was working on my own show. It was my third solo exhibition and I was trying hard to grow the work around a tightly focused idea. I always underpin my work with a ton of research and in this instance I was meddling in art history. History is a place I have an interest in but I probably shouldn’t be allowed to go. I have a terrible memory and I’m not a stickler for facts, even when I know them. I had been doing research on the mathematics of Postwar American Art. There has never been a period of such raw experimentation with such astounding successes and yet that aesthetic passed away like all the others before it.

To me it was a mystery and I thought if I revisited some of the more formal tactics used by the greats I might learn something. Maybe some of that greatness would rub off on me.

I was using everything from John Cage’s chance operations and Myron Stout’s handmade, obsessive precision to Barnett Newman’s personal preferences for canvas size. From the standard intervals of Donald Judd to the variable intervals of subway stops on the A Train between West 4th and 125th street, I used it all.

I couldn’t see it then but I realize now that these names were the superheroes of my youth. I did not read comic books until I was in my twenties when I stopped watching television. But as a kid I would always look through the picture books in our house and, my father being an artist, all the picture books were contemporary art books; all the magazines were art magazines.

I was trying to tether my work to this most explosive period of American Art when I ran into Tom at school. I cornered him, if it can be said that someone can be cornered in the middle of a hallway, and shot him the question that I’d been rolling over in my mind and which doesn’t seem to be answered in any book. It is also the question which I had formulated for just this occasion. The only other question on my mind was: “Will he take the bait?”

As any fisherman will tell you; when you go fishing it is important to know your prey and to use the right bait. The right bait on the wrong hook will not get you dinner. The wrong lure in the right place will leave you hungry. But if the lure is convincing and the fish is provoked and you are quiet, all that remains is patience. I am a patient man.

“Hey Tom,

What was the failure of modernism?”

.

.

.

.

.

.

Jackpot!

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The Good Book

June 5, 2012 5 Comments

There are some books that you want to read. There are some books that you have to read. And there are some books that are ill-fitting shoes; you try to get into them but there’s just too much resistance and they are set aside. And then there are the classics. Books that can be read again and again with something new taken away at each reading.

It’s been awhile since I dove into a classic so I thought I’d go straight to a book that pretty much everyone is familiar with. Anyone stressed out from a cross-country road trip will find a copy in their motel room. It is there to calm, and to soothe, and to inform. In fact, in one form or another, it’s probably the most read book out there. I am, of course, referring to the phone book.

I am a purist so I prefer the White Pages but for raw excitement I will occasional succumb to the cheap thrills of the Yellow Pages. Illustrations, bold type, extravagant claims; it can be a little overwhelming. All flash; very Hollywood.

No, for me it’s the small label, indie film charm, of the White Pages. Visually calm but with the promise of discovery ’round every turn of the page. Did you ever take a strong magnifying glass to the beach and look at sand? Do! You’ll be surprised. The White Pages is like that. It is the map and the treasure; X marks the spot but so does every other letter. In fact, in my phone book, X is represented by a phone number and a single X. No first name or initial; no address. Very mysterious.

The phone book is like that; there is history, mystery and romance.

The phone book I’m reading is, I believe, a classic in its own right. The September 1998 to August 1999 Bell Atlantic White Pages for Brooklyn; Area Code 718, complete with six pages of CUSTOMER RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES (their caps not mine). The very first line reads “The last thing we want to do is turn off your telephone service.” You see? From the very first line you are in its grip. Hold that up to your “Call me Ishmael.” This is a threat! To you personally! And it’s real!

In reality, almost every phone book can be considered a classic. The hidden gem of a small, exclusive hotel, shares so much with the boutique qualities of a small town phone book. Those books are a history lesson in geography and the migration of people’s. Rural Minnesota books full of Anderson’s and Andersen’s; the French and Scottish surnames of Coastal Maine. And every book has its standouts. I am reminded of a mid-70’s Philadelphia White Pages of my youth. It takes me back just thinking about that manuscript; the leaves unbleached, thin as rolling papers. Maybe it’s hometown pride but that book had what I consider to be two of the finest entries anywhere. Phillip and Douglas Updegrave. Yes, you read that correctly. Phil Updegrave and Doug Updegrave. What a great family legacy. And these names would have been unavailable to the world at large were it not for being documented in the White Pages.

But for sheer variety it’s hard to beat Brooklyn. The Brooklyn book has a nice balance of names both familiar and unfamiliar. Sure, Queens is the most ethnically diverse place on the planet but when they say a fat man has more chins than a Chinese phonebook it’s just a joke; a little word play. Take it from me, there are way, way, way more Chin’s in the Chinese phonebook. The Chinese phone book is the king of the Chin’s but the Queens phone book has got to be running a close second.

Reading from the Queens book is like reading from a book in a language you don’t understand. In fact, it is reading from a book in a language you don’t understand. The Queens phone book is page after page of what look like menu items. A few hundred thousand names that are obviously phonetic spellings, transposed from alphabets that don’t contain any familiar letters. These names are wonderful I’m sure, but for a westerner they are sound without meaning; they don’t connect to anything. There are no narratives to build around them; they don’t remind you of anyone you might know or even know of. Bottom line? It kills the book’s dramatic tension. So Brooklyn, as in so many other spheres, is the place.

In place of all those Chin’s, Brooklyn has the Smith’s. The nice thing about the Smith’s is that everyone knows them.  They are America’s default next-door neighbor. You would think that Smith was the most common, English speaking, last name and there are a bunch of historical reasons that it is but in this Brooklyn book they are outnumbered by the Williams’, unless you count variations like Smythe, Schmidt and Kowalski, which is Polish for Smith.

With the big entries like Smith, Johnson, Brown, Williams and Jones, I like to see if the first names are represented by every letter in the alphabet. Sadly, Johnson and Williams are each missing an X. It’s always an X isn’t it. There’s always something getting in the way of perfection and it’s always something like an X; an element that seems deliberately inserted to foil a flawless performance. One more reminder that nothing worth doing comes easily.

The nice thing about reading the phone book is that you really can start anywhere. The story is timeless and familiar, the characters like old friends. Oh look! There’s John McCrudden. He actually is an old friend. The only Dockbuilder I know who can do justice to song after song from the golden age of Broadway musicals. Oklahoma, The Music Man, South Pacific, West Side Story; his “I Feel Pretty” will bring you to tears. In fact, it isn’t him at all. My John doesn’t even live in this state but you see it doesn’t matter. The connection is made.

No two people read the phone book the same way. Without guile, the telephone book interacts with you. The White Pages would never presume to leverage your affections. It is happy to let you write the story; you create the narrative. You see? Here is Daniel Walker. Daniel Walker was my first friend. He died and yet here he is. It’s good to see him. It brings back memories.

Plotnick, Plotnick, let’s see Barbara, no; David, no; Elizabeth, no; Seymour, no; aha! Walter! Walter Plotnick and I each had a broken arm in first grade. His was left, mine was right. It must be getting on 40 years since I last saw Walter and here he is. Not really though, but maybe. I live in a different city than the city whose suburbs I grew up in. It’s unlikely that this is the same Walter but that’s the beauty of the phone book. Everyone you know or ever knew, including fictional characters, is likely to be here but not if you don’t want them to be. All the names of old enemies belong to someone else. Their names have been diluted to the point of anonymity. Or not. Your choice.

Even though you can start reading the Phone Book anywhere, it’s only natural to start by having a look for your own name. You know, see if there are any others of you roaming around out there. I imagine it’s a strange feeling to see your name in a phone book and know it’s not you. Like there’s another you; a you who may be living one of the lives you misplaced along the way.

Then a review of those who share your last name. I have an unusual last name but there are other Mednick’s out there and though I doubt we’re related, they feel like lost family members when I read their names. It’s reminiscent of when you see old photographs of relatives who died before you were born.

The adolescent in me had to look up Lipschitz but who knew that I would be rewarded with a Lipshits? Truly a gratifying moment but let’s be honest; I don’t care if your dad discovers the cure for cancer, if your name is Lipshits, it’s time to go get yourself a name change. That said, the adolescent does wonder if the world would have been different if Lipshits had been Jesus last name. Jesus Lipshits. You gotta think so. In these matters, it’s important to let that internal adolescent have his way. He will take you places that will make you laugh; no harm is done and you know he so rarely gets out these days.

After that I believe it is only proper to introduce yourself to the first and last names in the book. I consider it a common courtesy. To quote Dirty Harry, “A man has got to know his limitations.” The limitation of our knowledge of this discreet universe will fall between AAB and ZYZINSKI. That knowledge may seem trivial but it does tell us something; like the person whose presence is noted by their absence. There are no people who are named by a number. In my phone book, no one is named by a symbol or pictograph.

It seems inconsequential but it does tell us about conformity. Jung spoke about archetypes; the unconscious patterns we follow. Every culture may have a different creation myth but every culture has a creation myth. Every group may be structured differently but every group is structured. So it is with names. Everyone has a name but nobody is named R2D2 or 7come11 or i8 1-u8 1 2. Sure there is an M. Four, a J. Five and an E. Six in our book. There are Aziz, Joe and Doris Seven as well as Willa Eights but that’s not the same. I’m talking hard numbers here and I’m just not finding them. And do you know why? Yeah, me neither. I can’t figure it out because the kid next door would give his last Twinkie to be named C3PO and he is by no means unique in this desire. For years my own sister was known only as #1.

After these few introductions, simply move as the spirit moves you. Allow the connections to make themselves and follow up every lead, no matter how daft, because you never know where it will take you and that really is the point isn’t it?

So first off, there are a ton of SAINTs. I mean, I’m no religious scholar but I never heard of half these saints. Saint Albord? Saints Arromand and Aude? Saint Felix? I guess he was the happy saint. Saint Finbars? Saints Perix and Pard and Preux? Who the hell are these people? All these folks named SAINT and yet there is not a single entry under SINNER. And this is New York City! How are we to explain that? I think there’s a lot of wishful thinking going on here.

Like salt on watermelon, comedy and tragedy go together in life and therefore in literature and this applies no less to the phone book. But comedy is the reaction to tragedy; tragedy is the dominant theme. Maybe that explains why, while there are some HIGHs in the phone book, they are greatly outnumbered by the LOWs.

Examples are as common as tears and each is equivalent to the next.

You see, I know it ended in a lot of death and heartache and jail time between the families of Devil Anse and Ole Ran’l down along the banks of Tug Fork, a tributary of the Big Sandy River but this isn’t the line between Confederate Kentucky and Union West Virginia. That issue is not an issue here. But maybe the past just wouldn’t stay put down there and something had to give. Time is a distance but sometimes not as much of a distance as separation requires. Maybe it was time to leave the past behind and start anew. Whatever the case, up here in Brooklyn, there are way more McCOYs than there are HATFIELDs

Pride and vengeance were the undoing of those families and that line of thinking will always lead you back to Romeo & Juliet.

It saddens me to say this but while there are plenty of MONTAGUEs in the Brooklyn White Pages, there is not a single CAPULET. Wherefore art thou Juliet?

But romance is ever present so sometimes it’s just relaxing to see if you can find two people who need to meet. A few of my favorites are:

GRIN and BARET (Jeanette and Michael respectively) who should probably never date.

NOW and THEN (Susan and Rafael respectively) who should probably just go out occasionally.

KISS and TELL (Morris and K., who seems to prefer a little anonymity. You can understand why) who are gonna have a blast but will be running into commitment problems.

Speaking of KISS, what have we here? Another KISS, first name Hersch! Oh man, I hope his middle initial is E.

Then we’re on to STRAIGHT and NARRO (Danasia and Aureliano) who will have a steady, joyless relationship that they’ll both feel really “good” about.

And finally:

LOVE and MARRY (Sonia and John) who I think may have a real shot at happiness.

I guess the luckiest guy in the phone book lived up in Bay Ridge. Of the ten people with the last name of LUCKY, there is one with the first name VERY. Very Lucky. I worked with Lucky for many years but we all knew him as Lucky Sweeney. The phone book name was his little joke. He was a dive tender; the topside help for the commercial diver. The tender is on the radio with the diver and looks out for the divers needs including tools, materials and air. Air is a big one. You want to piss off a diver, just let his air run low. They hate that. Lucky’s tag line was:

Every day’s a holiday.

Every meal’s a banquet.

He was great to work with and around the winter holidays he made a wicked Glogg which had the entire crew hammered by coffee. We don’t work that way anymore and in a way it’s a shame. The new rules took a lot of the joy and camaraderie out of the work.

Before exiting the good book, I like to see if I can build a familiar phrase using only the available names. Today’s result was most satisfying because in the end the White Pages is really about the connections between people and in that way it’s appeal is as universal as a catchy tune.

Mei, An, Yoo, Ann, Yoo, Anne, Mei,

Noe, Madar, Howe, Day, Toste, Tha, Dyes, Ittehad, Abedi,

Onn, Leewah, N, Formey, Yisu, An, Yoo, Formey,

Soe, Happy, Toh, Gheith, Er

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This Old House

May 29, 2012 Leave a comment

Good morning deviants. This post is going to be a short one. I’m having house problems.

Last week I noticed that my porch roof looked rather….soft. A slight gap here, a small twist there and all of it leading to a sense of unease. I decide to take a day off from work, tear down a few boards and look to see what the problem was. In an old house like ours, that’s how this stuff starts. You pick at a crack in the wall and suddenly, so it seems, there is a gaping hole and a pile of plaster at your feet. There are no small jobs in old houses.

You always hear the lament that things aren’t built the way they used to be. That’s true. There is no horse hair embedded in the plaster, over the rough coat, over the wooden lath, past the uninsulated gap to the brick. But once I removed the porch ceiling I could see that this house was built before building codes or basic common sense. There is a general sense of know how with a strong sense of “Git ‘er done!”

My 90% deaf friend Vinnie was doing some work in his old house. He was shouting the details of his discovery at me even though I was standing right next to him. He was redoing some plumbing and found that there were no pipes in the walls. All the water was being moved around the house through garden hoses. I think the sense that craftsmanship has slipped away is mostly based on a reduced amount of building ornamentation. Buildings just don’t look so grand anymore. Houses are startlingly efficient but not visually impressive. And unless your wealthy, I guess that’s always going to be the trade off. Me? Two weeks into it and I’m just trying to finish this damn thing.

Now, I could describe the problems that I found when I took down the ceiling and I could lay out my plan of action because, after all, I am a man of action. I could do a “This Old House” point by point reconstruction complete with product endorsements but no. First off, there are people better equipped to do that than I. Lots and lots of people. And, in fact, they already do. And while I may bring a certain slant to the writing end of this project I don’t bring any actual skill on the construction end. Yes, I am a Dockbuilder. A tradesmen in heavy timber, concrete form work, pile driving and all the other gentlemanly arts. But house carpentry? No. Dockbuilders refer to carpenters as “termites”.

There is no “wood” where I work. Where I work, there is only timber. No 2″ x 4″s. No plywood. The smallest piece of wood I work with is a 4″ x 12″ and, except for tying a patch into the middle of a repair, we use the timber full length; 20 feet is our shortest. The larger stuff, the backbone of our work, is 12″ x 12″ x 24′. All our timber is Greenheart (clorocardium rodiei) an extremely dense, strong, weather and pest resistant hardwood from the rainforests of Guyana.  All the timber is handled with the crane.

At my job, there are no nails or screws or adhesives. No paint. No table saw. No chop saw. No dinky claw hammers.

At my job, timber is cut with a chainsaw, pounded in place with a sledge hammer, drilled with a pneumatic drill, and bolted together. The shorter bolts weigh about 8 pounds each.

I have a mind that can wrap itself around the problems of large projects, because large projects are fundamentally about tearing out bad and bolting in good, in a pattern that will resist the piloting errors of ship’s captains. But there is something small and precious about house carpentry that kind of eludes me. For instance “fit” seems to be important. I’m going to have to pay attention to that. In Dockbuilding fit is less important than overall mass.

And all these little tools and screws and plastic widgets and batteries. Everywhere I look I have rechargers winking their lights at me accusatorially. And every year there are hundreds of improved products. It’s like being a doctor. You have to keep up with every development.

Or not. That’s what I’ve decided to do. Well, not decided. I’m doing it the only way I know how.

Git ‘er done!

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Man Child

May 22, 2012 4 Comments

llustration: Clayton Mednick

Hey Drew,

I don’t remember much about my puberty and I don’t recall a thing about yours, which is probably just as well, but maybe you can give me a hand here. A little advice to your little cousin to help me through this trying time.

We had a week of extreme and changeable weather around here. Very dramatic. The Weather Channel was an orgy of predictions. The meteorologist, April Shauer, was so excited she had a fine mist of sweat on her upper lip. It was like the atmospheric turbulence had moved into her panties.

Then, just when things seemed to have settled down, our middle guy Miles sprouted almost a foot overnight. None of his clothes fit in the morning. I had to take a day off from work so the wife could take him to the doctor. We thought it was gonna be a bigger deal than it was. Clothing wise he actually fits nicely into Clayton’s clothes even though Clay is 5 years older. I hope Clay doesn’t mind sharing with Miles for a few months until we see what happens but you know a whole wardrobe is a lot of money, particularly if he’s gonna outgrow it all in 36 hours. What do you think, is that unfair?

The doctor said it was the most extreme case of Precocious Puberty he’d seen in quite a while but apparently not so rare as one would imagine. Something to do with the Pituitary yadda yadda. Who can understand doctors anyway? I swear, I think they just make it up as they go. I know that’s what the rest of us do, so it’s a pretty fair assumption, right? Even so, it’s probably just as well I’m not a doctor.

My mother used to say that she could have been a doctor but she hates sick people. Know thyself, right? Well I’ll tell you something else I know; kids can make you feel old in a hurry. Especially this kid!

I mean the height is kind of shocking but not nearly so much as his change of voice. He went right down into the lower registers and is able to hit a low C on the piano. That probably doesn’t mean much to you but when he’s humming it actually moves a glass of water across the table by vibration. Weird, I know.

The other disconcerting thing is the beard and chest hair. Way more than me, which I know isn’t saying much, but for an 8 year old it’s pretty startling. And boy is he strong. Every time Butch, the neighbor’s Pit Bull, looks at him Miles snarls and Butch runs away in terror. I’m actually enjoying that but don’t tell anyone. I think Miles put a beating on him when no one was looking. Only room for one alpha male on this block, Buuutch!

Now don’t get me wrong, he’s still the same sweet kid he’s always been but he’s a little more insistent about things like cookies and bedtime. We’re trying to act as if it’s nothing out of the ordinary but you can tell he knows that a rule change may be coming his way. For the moment he’s still susceptible to the old bait and switch but that’s only gonna last for so long. The upshot is that either we can address it now, before he makes demands, kind of get the upper hand or we can take a wait and see approach, deal with it as an evolving situation. Proactive or reactive, that’s the question.

Ok, so I started this letter yesterday and never mind about the question of sharing Clay’s clothes. He must have had a hell of a night because this morning he’s looking pretty comfortable in my clothes. And he wants to borrow the car and get a job. I mean, I admire his drive but still, I’m a little conflicted. I wish you were here to help me on this. I know you could talk some sense into him. A parent’s authority is so greatly diminished as a child reaches the parent’s height, but there is something about a stranger that always commands a kid’s respect. I mean, the job thing might be ok but I don’t know. What do you think? Should he finish second grade first? What a dilemma!!

Where do I draw the line? Where would you? Anything taboo just becomes more desirable, right? For instance the Scotch. I had to hold the line there didn’t I?  I’m still the parent, right? But still there’s the need for flexibility. So the single malt is forbidden but I bent on the blended. Compromise, right? But with an eye towards the future. Right?

I don’t know, it’s so disorienting. I mean, it seems like only yesterday he was just a little kid. Or maybe it was the day before yesterday.

Anyway, I guess it’s true what everyone says. They really do grow up so fast.

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Your Number Is Up

May 15, 2012 10 Comments


 Sculpture by Jack Gregory / Photo Credit: Seymour Mednick

Hey Drew,

Well you died last night. Time of death, 10:55 pm, which is to say, 22:55 hours. A nice balance of numbers. For a final act, it was very thoughtful. A pair of evens, a pair of odds, both multiplied by a prime number, itself a pair of ones. Very thoughtful indeed.

This comes 10 months and 4 days (10-4, message received) after you entered the hospital and fell into a coma on July 4th, 2011, which is to say 07/04/2011. Add the 7 to the 4, split the 2011 and the whole thing looks like this; 11 20 11. Nice.

You died 129 days into the year, on May 8th, 2012, which is to say 05/08/2012, but only because it’s a leap year. Any other year and it would have been the 9th. When my time comes I hope to die early in a leap year too. Avoid the whole election cycle. Campaigning, primaries, debates; the whole thing. A wise choice and I’m glad you brought it to my attention. Also, I like that adding the individual numbers of your last day, 0+5, 0+8, 2+0+1+2, gives us 5 8 5. So much symmetry.

I’m pretty sure if I start tampering with the numbers surrounding your death I’ll be able to squeeze out a winning lottery number. I won’t know which one to play until after the drawing so it will be meaningless but that never stopped anyone from assigning significance to coincidence.

I guess you would have been able to see where I’m headed with this.

Numerology. Astrology. Phrenology. All the bed wetting pseudosciences.

Numerology is the belief that numbers have occult significance. That there is a divine and arcane relationship between numbers, counting and life.

Numerology touches on the infinite and that, I suppose, is it’s appeal. The assumption is that numerical coincidence is more than just coincidence and that somewhere in that infinity of possibilities there must be an explanation for everything. It’s pure bullshit of course. Anything can be proven if you start with a false premise because it closes the system around your answer. You can’t ask a question from inside this bubble and expect to get anything but your own foregone conclusions. You might just as well ask, “Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near?” The only possible answer is that “Just like me, they long to be close to you.”

Let’s take a line. Our line may stretch out to infinity in both directions but that doesn’t mean it encapsulates, or even touches on, anything at all. Infinity is not everything. So understanding the infinite is not really that helpful in determining what to do in the here and now. It just goes to show you the desperate measures people will go to, in order to avoid the obvious. Some things, like death for instance, are not explainable beyond the fact of being so.

Many people believe that you can know the mind of god if you can tease out the numerology supposedly imbedded in the testaments, the stars or the roulette tables. This belief presumes that god has absolutely nothing better to do with eternity. It also suggests that god has a special love of puzzles because, you know, god just loves to fuck with us. All of it amounts to one more instance in which people think that the answers to life’s riddles are obscured and require someone else, an “expert” (with powers far beyond those of mortal men) to do the interpreting. Enter the prophets and charlatans. A core of self doubt will have you believing that a traveling salesman has insights that are not available to you directly, through observation and a little common sense.

It seems probable that this belief in obscurity is, itself, the problem.

But people always seem to need an expert to tell them how to live and what it all means. They say the definition of an expert is:

Someone From Out of Town

The assumption here is that not only are the people we know uninformed but so are we. Well Drew, at this point, no one is further out of town than you. The shame of it is that you and all your neighbors at Montefiore Cemetery have all the answers; the whole meaning of life. Ordinarily the problem of communication has stood in the way of insights from beyond the grave but that may be our shortcoming and not yours. Maybe we aren’t attentive enough.

I live a few blocks from historic Green-Wood Cemetery and let me tell you, there’s a lot going on over there. Eight generations of inscriptions speak to us. The husbands and wives who die within months of each other. The graves of children; small in the past when infant mortality was high but large now. There is wisdom out here among the marbles.

I was thinking about all these things as we got you to the cemetery. Why we think there is sense to be made. The cause and effect of life suggests that there should be something learned here about death but again we are misled by our own assumptions. Life and death are not math. You don’t tally the days and come up with a cumulative answer based on a system of checks and balances. 2+2 do not equal 4 when tallying a life or probing for the meaning of death. The complexity of an individual resists that kind of reductive reasoning. But seen from just a few steps away, there may be something else; something unexpected, something overlooked. So often the answers appear to be obscured because they lie directly in front of us; cloaked in a veil of simplicity.

At graveside, I was reading the stones around you and I have to say that good fortune has put you in good company. Right behind you, a few stones away, is a dark granite headstone belonging to Seymour “Sy” Kamens. You cant miss it, it’s the only dark stone there. Sy’s epitaph reads:

“He Lived While He Lived”

Sy died a few months shy of his fiftieth birthday but his inscription takes us out of the box (so to speak) of evaluating a life and looking for meaning, and reminds us that the meaning is intrinsic and needs no further explanation.

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Que Sera Sera

May 8, 2012 2 Comments

Hey Drew,

My wife had to work last Saturday and so did Charlotte, the neighbor across the street. Her husband Chris was left with their two girls Miranda, 5, and Kendal, 7. They are a mixed race couple, same as us. Chris had six tickets for a members only event at the Brooklyn Zoo that included free rides on the restored Brooklyn Carousel as well as snacks and events at The Lefferts Homestead, an 18th century farmhouse. Chris called with the invite for me and my little guys Cole, 7 and Miles, 8.

I guess you can see where I’m headed with this.

Two middle aged white guys with four kids of color in tow. Two boys, two girls, two men. Gay! Pretty much guarantees that you’ll be ignored by the single mom’s and all the dads. Couples are occupied so you become a magnet for married moms, alone with their kids, looking for a gay guy to girl talk with. I let Chris field the heifers while I kept a laissez faire eye on the chilluns and watched the neurotics. It’s always fun to watch today’s parents molding tomorrow’s psychopaths. I try to keep a positive spin on it.

There isn’t really much to tell about the event. The zoo had animals; the big hit was the baboon’s ass. Bright red for reasons that only another baboon could fully appreciate though the kids came in a highly vocal second. The homestead had old fashioned handmade toys for kids to try, like 6 inch wooden stilts. I mean, what is the point of stilts that don’t make you appreciably taller? I guess when you’re under 4 feet tall, 6 inches is a big deal.

“Look at me dad, look at me! I’m a giant!”

The boys had them pretty well mastered in a few minutes, the girls wouldn’t go near them without crying. The kids are too old for the storytelling circle and too young to appreciate the house, built either in 1777 or 1783 depending on your source. It has a sloping concave roof with wooden shingles. There is a photo of it being moved across Flatbush avenue into the park about 100 years ago. In the photo there is a slowly cresting wave of brick houses and low rise apartment buildings creeping up the blocks on all sides. Blocks that didn’t exist when the house was built. Blocks that aren’t even squared to the lot the house sits on. The house seems dropped into the scene like Dorothy’s house into Munchkin Land.

The photo was taken at that moment when it wasn’t clear who the intruder was in the situation. Were the buildings overwhelming the pastoral scene or was the farmhouse getting in the way of progress? I guess the answer depended on whether you were standing on a porch or a stoop. Oddly enough the loser in that battle is the last one standing. Many of the new buildings in the photograph are gone now, replaced by apartment blocks only a generation later. The remaining ones have been stripped of what little dignity they originally possessed; glassed over and turned into cell phone stores, roti shops and cheap clothing outlets. Down the street, a few steps into Prospect Park, under the maples and sycamores, the homestead has its dignity and its porch intact.

And then there was the carousel. It’s an old beauty and as it is a device that goes round and round it’s purpose is to make you want to puke. Coleman was a little intimidated by it and wanted to sit on a bench instead of on the back of one of the horsies. As luck would have it the benches were few and taken so while the others rode, Cole and I sat out and watched. As luck would also have it the other kids wanted to ride again and Chris was looking a little green so we slipped into the cool vinyl couch of the beast, with brave faces and a nervous belly.

I never used to have this problem. When I was a lad I used to go on a ride called The Zipper. To my mind the reasons for calling it The Zipper aren’t entirely clear. I think it probably should have been called Vomit Now. This would have been the very early 70’s and the carnival was on the lower fields of Grey Nuns on Old York Road. The carnival was designed to take the small change from the kids and keep them busy while the adults played illegal slot machines up in the school. The slots were arranged in an oval with their backs open to the center where the operator could keep an eye on the innards. Whenever a machine was about to make a colossal payout a nun would come over to the machine, graciously ask to jump the line, take the handle away from the player and start jacking coins down the slot. Within a pull or two she would hit the jackpot, scoop up her winnings and walk away from the adoring parishioner she had just ripped off. And the adoring idiot would just marvel at the sister’s good luck. I swear it’s true. First hand knowledge. I was sitting cross legged under the table watching with my friend Richard as we were digging dropped quarters out from between the machines.

The Zipper was basically a dozen tipsy cages spinning on a pair of drive chains that were rotating around a parallel pair of 40 foot propellers that where spinning. Rated number 1 on any carnival ride shortlist, every description of it is priceless. I have only just now learned from Wikipedia that I was riding the pre safety improved model. Improvements came in ’77 after a hefty number of gruesome and litigable accidents. It is, in fact, hard to think of any description of this ride that would even remotely suggest that those injurious outcomes were anything but deliberate. I urge you to have a look at the Youtube clips of it and then consider this little gem of a fact. The stripped down model I rode turned about 40% faster.

Ordinarily I am loathe to use anyone else’s writing beyond the length of a short quote but this entry from another web site is just too precious to pass up.

# 1 Ride – The Zipper

Truly the most metal of all the amusements – the Zipper is King of Kings amongst carnival rides. No matter where you are, in any state, in any town, the Zipper ALWAYS guarantees you the following three things:

1) The most insane, scary, drunk and high ride operator in the entire fair

2) The largest line, consisting of more middle schoolers smoking cigarettes per capita than anywhere else in the nation

3) The ONLY ride that gives you both a 10 in Fun and a 10 in Likelihood of a Fatal Accident.

The Zipper rules all that comes before it – a 48 foot tall beast, where the only thing preventing you from meeting an untimely demise is a two inch long pin, that’s half an inch in diameter. The ultimate deathtrap, the Zipper rewards those brave enough to look past the squeaking, creaking, and falling of integral pieces with an incredibly intense riding experience that changes every time you go on. What’s that clicking noise? No time to think about it – you’re being hurled head first toward the pavement. Is that a screw that just hit me? Doesn’t matter, because we’re going BACKWARDS, baby.

Nice right? Not anymore. A 99 year old carousel is now an alarming prospect. I’m sure it’s partly mental but still, after I turned 40, everything that could make me dizzy did. After I turned 50 even the mirror became disorienting. Then again that may be another story.

So there I was, facing down the hellish, nauseating threat of the carousel. The platform spinning round and round. The horses going up and down. And only two padded benches for the cowards. The merry old gentleman operator, a clever disguise for the roaring soul eater. He whose name must not be spoken. For a reckless torpedo of a kid, Coleman can have extraordinary moments of fear over the most mundane events. In retrospect, it was less like fear and more like shyness. As if a formal introduction to the wooden horsies might be all it would have taken to dissipate his anxiety. “Coleman, this is Sea Biscuit. Sea Biscuit, this is Coleman. You two are gonna be great buddies”.

I know his anxiety must have been on my mind because as the carousel started turning and I began testing myself, successfully, as to whether I could make myself dizzy I started to look for stable points for us to focus on. I started by pointing out the music maker. A one man band, minus the man, called a Wurlitzer Band Organ, it sits on the blacktop, unmoving, in the central area along with the drive motor and operator, the carousel spinning around them. Opposite the Wurlitzer there is a bare breasted caryatid, her arms draped languidly over her softly quaffed hair. Her breasts are high and her nipples suggest that she was carved on a cold day. A surprising addition really to a ride that dates back to 1912, and yet it doesn’t look at all out of place. Personally I  think they should have one like her on every street corner in America.

Now we’re picking up speed; pushing I would guess 6 rpm maybe even 7. I need a strategy, a game-plan to get us through this. Or maybe just to get me through this. When you look towards the center of a spinning object, as we did with the fulsome caryatid, you are looking at the slowest moving part of that object. If you are seated on that spinning object it’s a pretty good tactic nausea avoidance-wise. Better yet is to look at something else on that object that is spinning with you. As a matter of relativity you are now standing still, centrifugal forces aside. But staring at my hands is only going to alarm Coleman so I look up and I see the very slowly turning crank. The horsies that go up and down are not pushed up from below they are pulled up from above by a driveshaft with offsets like a hand cranked drill laying on its side. As the shaft turns these offsets describe a small circle. The crank passes through a sleeve at the top of the pole that carries the horse up and down and the pole slips up and down in a guide mounted to the floor of the carousel. Cole is either very interested in how this simple mechanism works or he is too petrified to resist my guided tour. Either way the ride is soon over and as the last strains of Que Sera Sera played by organ, xylophone and drums fade away I can see he’s ready to ride again.

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A Man Out of Time

May 1, 2012 11 Comments

I used to know a guy named Jack VanSickle; Mr. Van we used to call him. The chatter around Blue Water Lake is he died a lonely and miserable drunk. So naturally, I’m looking for the punchline.

I met Mr. Van in 1971. He was my group leader at a backpacking camp in New Mexico called Cottonwood Gulch a.k.a. the Prairie Trek Expedition. We traveled around the four corners area, so called because of the the right angle joinery of the four states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. We were in search of good, off the beaten track backpacking and adventure. Mr Van was a bachelor science teacher from Rushville, Indiana and this was his summer gig.

I spent three summers with Mr.Van; my last two as his quartermaster. This promotion came with the perks of lower tuition, greater responsibility and while not exactly a councilor I was not exactly a camper either. An early step, if you will, in my long ascent to world domination. My job was to pack, unpack and generally keep organized, Mother. Mother was a motorized Conestoga wagon. A large, rumbling, slat sided truck with arched hoop roof covered in old fashioned oil canvas. She held our gear and food and water. Often times, while exploring the dessert, the water from her side tanks was the only water we would have for weeks. Strictly rationed. No washing. Her petcock was our nipple of life.

There were 16 campers as well as three other counselors including Kurt Vonnegut’s nephew, Ricky Vonnegut. We called Ricky, Choo Choo, because he was obsessed with taking pictures of freight trains as we drove in our van from one spot to another. Nobody would have noticed this, we were self obsessed young teens after all, but Ricky had figured the best way to get a clear shot was to match the train’s speed, lean out the window, face glued to the viewfinder and ever so carefully focus and then wait for the engines to align with the mountainous background to form the perfect composition. The problem was that we were doing 70 miles an hour in an effort to overtake the train’s engines and get everything just so. Ricky was the only adult in the van and consequently the driver. Take it from me, regardless of claims to the contrary, teenage boys do scream like little girls.

There was a cook named Tom Hyde. Tom’s secret to perfected eating habits, which was no secret at all, was that whatever didn’t get eaten at dinner, was included in the next morning’s breakfast. This was before nouvelle cuisine so Beef Stew Pancakes and Barbecue Chicken Oatmeal were not considered delicacies.

The peculiarities of memory allow me to remember Ricky’s name because of his famous Uncle Kurt. I remember Tom’s name because of a single piece of junk mail. I was the quartermaster and therefore I called out the weekly mail from stops that were arranged before the beginning of the summer. Tom was a botanist and this was in the early days of automated mass mailings for credit card applications. One day Tom received a letter from a credit card company. Showing off their intelligence network capabilities of combing data for worthy credit card recipients the letter started out as follows.

T. Hyde Botany

We know who you are and We know what you do.

From then on he was known as T. Hyde Botany.

There was a third counselor but I don’t remember his name. No stories attached themselves to him therefore no memory cues. All I do remember is that he left at the end of camp and went directly to Amsterdam. At 13 that didn’t have any meaning for me. Now I understand that he was off on an adventure of his own.

We picked up mail along our travel route at these one room post offices; sometimes nothing more than a desk in a store or the front room of somebodies house, in towns that probably no longer exist. The southwest was full of ghost towns but there were an equal number of fringe communities. Clusters of old houses and shuttered businesses; wooden mausoleums that were waiting for their elderly inhabitants to die, so that the buildings too might finally rest in peace.

Most of these towns had grown up in the 1870’s and 80’s around mines and mills producing silver. Silver and gold, the so-called bi-metal standard, had been used in US coinage from the beginning. The use of gold and silver allowed for large and small denominations of coins, before the introduction of paper money in 1862, without resorting to gigantic and minuscule coins minted from a single metal. That sounds good. Exchange rates between the two metals were set by law. That sounds bad.  Laws are the kind of thing that markets are notorious for ignoring.

Then along comes the California gold rush of 1849. So much gold gets introduced into the market that not only does it damp the value of gold it undermines the value of silver. The good news is that with more metal you can mint more coins. Instant prosperity. Simple! Silver mining remains profitable enough and towns here grow. That was good news.

However, as I understand it, which is just another way of saying that I don’t really understand it, the constant recalculation of value between the two metals by speculators  was becoming unmanageable. That was bad news. Hoarding and dumping were a constant strain on economies and in 1873 the US Congress, along with most of Europe, followed England’s half century lead and tipped towards a gold standard. If you were big into silver, a so-called Silverite, you would have called this The Crime of ’73.

Silver was still used in coinage (that was good news) and it would be, in ever more dilute amounts, until 1965 but a one to one correspondence between the metal value and coin denomination was on the wane. The demonetization of silver, along with the great silver strikes here in Colorado that flooded the market in the last quarter of the 19th century, further eroded prices. That was bad news.

The good news was that help was on the way in the form of The Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, whereby the government promised to buy silver. Lots and lots of it. 4.5 million ounces a month more than it was already buying for the purpose of coinage. That’s over 280,000 pounds! A Month! The miners took a moment to wet their pants, jack up the price and then dig like mad.

Of course for every profitable action there is an unprofitable reaction. All this government support for silver caused a flood of silver in the market that eventually undermined its value relative to gold. As they say, or more accurately as Gresham’s Law states, “Bad money drives out good” which means that overvalued money drives undervalued money out of circulation into hoards. Everyone ran to the bank to trade silver for gold. That was bad.

At the same time, all this unexpected federal support for silver undermined confidence in the promised gold standard and the Silver Purchase Act was repealed in 1893. The market was flooded with cheap silver and everyone holding Treasury Notes, which were redeemable in silver or gold, ran to the banks to get the gold. That was bad too. The resulting run on gold brought the United States to the brink of bankruptcy before the jolly joker himself, J.P. Morgan, and a syndicate of his pals stepped in with a loan of gold, on attractive terms naturally, that saved the nation from insolvency. Not a great guy to owe money and favors to. Nope, not a good situation to find yourself in and one I personally have tried my best to avoid by consolidating all my gold holdings into a single low karat ring on my left ring finger.

In 1900 the Gold Standard Act made the gold standard official but in these parts the steep decline had already taken hold. Mines and mills, banks and railroads throughout the region were shutting down. When the money left, the people left. Silver camps shut down all over and real estate values simply dissolved. Other metals of value, Lead, Zinc, Molybdenum for high strength steel, saved some towns and slowed the demise of others for awhile. But by the time of the Great Depression, when metals demand all but disappeared, many towns throughout the region had been abandoned. The days of mine camps and remote mountain towns was over.

But there are always those few souls who root easily and deeply; those who never leave, preferring to tend the graves of their loved ones while waiting to join them. Enter Mr. Van. It seemed to us that Mr. Van knew everyone in the southwest worth knowing. Tribal elders, shop owners, nomadic prospectors still panning for gold. He knew everybody that was nobody. Old old people; the children of boom and bust. These ancients had stories to tell about the mines, the ore crushing mills, the tribes, the rustic living homesteads, the tragic deaths of loved ones.

And then there was the backpacking. Caves and canyons, lava beds, rock formations, mesas and mountains; we covered them all. Mr. Van was our Wagonmaster; we were his pioneers; Mother and the two Ford Econoliners were our wagon train. For us, every road was a back road, every town, every pueblo, was in a state of ruin and every ruin was open for exploration. Hiking in the San Juan’s? Mr. Van knew people at the San Juan County Historical Society. Of course he did! So we went following the trail of a doomed 19th century expedition. Of course we did! We were looking for the remains of the definitely lost and probably cannibalized Fremont Expedition of 1848-49. It was all directly under foot; a finger touch away.

Mr. Van had nothing but contempt for what he called GAT’s; Great American Tourists, enveloped as they were, in the fatness of their luxury. He hated their crass ignorance of this holy land; a land they ignored in favor of cheesy roadside attractions offering cheap imitation mementos of the vanished and vanishing cultures he held in such high regard. For Mr. Van, and therefore us, authenticity was the law. He was right but he was also a man out of his time.

After setting up a base camp in a new location we, the boys, would break out the topographical maps, plan a trip and pass it by the counselors. The counselors would point out that we had the map upside down and were planning a trip over a cliff. After a brief lesson in topographical map reading we would plan again, get approval and the following morning set out with tents, sleeping bags, food, water, stove and toilet paper. Everything but a counselor. We were on our own, unsupervised for a few days. We’d walk through deep waterless canyons, along high desert cliffs and over windswept mountaintops thousands of feet above tree line. Not for a moment did this strike anyone as unwise or unusual. Up until this moment I never gave it a second thought at all. But I will say this; Every bit of self confidence I have springs directly from those formative times, the responsibility that Mr. Van put on us and the prize of winning his trust.

And it’s not like we didn’t get lost once in awhile. But when we did, we figured it out. Poured over the maps, checked compasses and backtracked or set out on a new route. It was a thinking man’s game entrusted to a bunch of 13 year olds. Genius really, when you think about it.

Mr. Van would stay back and drink scotch while the other counselors did the same or borrowed the Ford van and went in search of a town with a bar and a girl or set out with a group of the boys who hadn’t proven themselves. The name of the game was Wingin’ it and nobody did it better than us.

One afternoon, after I was done setting up camp and supervising the digging of the pit toilet, Mr. Van called me over. “Art, do me a favor. Go get me some snow for my drink.” We were camped beyond Mayday, a ghost town in the San Juan Mountains of south western Colorado. Our base camp was at about 9,000 feet. The snow pack was directly up the almost vertical mountainside at about 10,000 feet. I never would have thought to question Mr. Van. I was happy to do it for him. Things are different now aren’t they; the expectations of children and grown ups. But I’ll tell you what; if he asked me to do it again tomorrow, I wouldn’t hesitate.

The second to last time I saw Mr Van was 1973. It was my third year; my second year as quartermaster. I was already being groomed as a counselor although I never did become one. We did the desert loop. Keet Seel ruin in Navajo National Monument, the Gila Wilderness, Canyonlands, Chaco Canyon, Canyon de Chelly (pronounced Shay), El Malpais Lava Flows, Arches and more. We saw ancient Native American cave paintings deep underground in a cavern on a reservation ranch that nobody saw but us because these were Mr. Van’s people. He was like a white medicine man who held respect wherever he went because he valued that which every other human had passed by. He was not so much the story teller but he knew where every story was hidden.

He took us to see very old people, sitting in dusty yards or on the rough porches of their tiny desiccated towns. Our job was to listen. The land, the houses, these shuffling relics were all equally dry. The people and their stories would soon disappear but not the towns. The buildings, in this arid environment, will last for another century at least. I have stood, at a steep angle, in a miners boardinghouse, half slid down a talus slope, that had not slept a soul in any living persons memory. And of course the land. The land would remain; little different than when these people’s grandparents had arrived a century ago.

Dust devils, cholla cactus, dead grass, tumbleweeds, open sky and light. So much light that an Easterner’s eyes become thirsty for color. At summer’s end, touching down in Philadelphia, the lushness was an ocular plunge into cool waters.

It would be 20 years before I saw Mr. Van again; it was also the last time I would see him. I took my wife to visit the camp when we were backpacking in the area. I was in my mid-thirties. We pulled up and he was sitting on the porch of the log cabin mess hall. Camp had ended for the summer. Hummingbirds were whizzing around; all else was quiet. We got out of the car and approached him. “Hello Mr. Van. It’s Arthur Mednick. I was your quartermaster back in the early seventies.”

“I know Art. I’ve been expecting you.”

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Adoption a.k.a. I Want to Hold Your Hand

April 24, 2012 7 Comments

Adoption requires, among other things, a background check. A background check requires, among other things, finger prints. To get your fingers printed you need to go to a precinct house. And so our story begins.

I left work a bit before lunch anticipating a noontime rush for fingerprinting at the police station. I no longer know why that made sense to me but at the time it seemed as obvious as the line at the deli counter. I was working in the Bronx and the 50th Precinct was within walking distance just beyond the bank. That was fortuitous as you need to have a certified check to pay for fingerprinting, at least if you haven’t been caught doing something illegal. I’m not certain but I do believe if you’ve been caught engaging in law breaking activities, fingerprinting is offered free of charge.

I arrived just before twelve, self satisfied with the accuracy of my prediction. There was no one ahead of me needing fingerprinting. “Great, I beat the rush” I thought. As it turns out, police stations share very little in common with retail establishments and the crowd never did materialize.

I walked to the desk. It is not exactly like a hotel check in and it is not so much like a grocery checkout but it does suggest these things. I explain that I need my fingers printed and the desk…. Sergeant? tells me that I need to call in advance to see if anyone is available to do that. I explain casually, so as not to alarm anyone, that my wife called and was told that I could stop by between ten and two and it wouldn’t be a problem. Of course even as I am saying this I know it is futile to disagree with a cop. They don’t give an inch and frankly I don’t think they can afford to. Part of an officer’s job is the projection of power which is achieved through control and confidence. Haggling is not the big stick in the police repertoire.

The officer responds that I will have to call. I maintain my pleasantness, which is no chore as I like cops anyway, and say “OK, can I borrow a pen and do you know the number off hand?” She is a not unpleasant looking blonde with a medium large frame and strong breasts. She has a mole in the left crease of her nose and I am having a little trouble maintaining my friendly face while trying not to stare at it. Ordinarily I am not given to staring but for some reason, in her case, I am willing to make an exception.  Rather then give me a pen (a show of weakness?) she takes the manila envelope I’m holding, with the fingerprinting sheets inside and begins to write the phone number on it.

Somehow the envelope is right side up and as she finishes writing the phone number I see something subtle happen. It is ever so slight but I see it before she speaks. It is a relaxation of the muscles in her shoulders and arms and I know she has seen the return address. Of course she has, because these kinds of details are fascinating to everyone but especially to those who make there living gathering clues. She looks up at me and says “Is this for adoption?” I respond that it is and she tells me to wait a moment and she’ll get her partner to fingerprint me. She goes over to his desk and leans over and says a few words in his ear. He looks up and gives me a friendly nod. She returns and tells me that he’ll take care of it but it might take him a little while because he’s in the middle of something.

It doesn’t. Within a very few minutes he’s processing the papers, taking the check for seventeen dollars (fifteen for the first set and a buck for each of the following two) and rolling out the ink as if he were going to print a wood block. He tells me that there are automatic fingerprinting machines or scanners or some such thing but they have not made it up to the Bronx yet. We chat amiably and I am aware of the intimacy of all this. Fingerprinting is choreographed hand holding and since this is not the first step toward incarceration it is relaxed and friendly and instructive.

While he is fingerprinting me I hear someone talking to the desk sergeant. She is back at the desk and no more than eight feet away. It is a man and he has come to get his fingers printed. It is obviously for immigration reasons and she tells him that he will need to call in advance to make sure that someone is available. There is no one available today. I am reminded once again that it is good to be me. We finish up and they let me go into the officers bathroom to wash up, unescorted. When I return my cop has finished filling out the forms and I thank him and he shakes my hand and wishes me good luck. I return to the desk sergeant and thank her very much and she says she hopes it works out. I assure her that it will. Her tone is both respectful and genuine; her look is caring. I think she must be a mother. As I walk back to work I feel like a different person inside and I admit to myself that their approval feels good. Not just good but that in some way my wife and I are undertaking a thing which they approve of and that we are good in their eyes and that we are in some way bonded in their company; the company of do gooders.

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Saturday Morning Cartoons

April 17, 2012 5 Comments

Hey Drew,

Let’s Pretend that it’s story time

And I’ll tell a tale to you.

I’ll tell you a story of make believe

And all your dreams will come true.

And when the story’s over

And when we reach the end.

We’ll live happily ever after, Where?

In the land of Let’s Pretend.

I guess you can see where I’m heading with this.

That guy, Gene London, early 60’s, singing to us on the television on saturday mornings from Cartoon Corners General Store was telling us that there is a better place than where we are. And you know what kids? It’s in your mind, man. The part that is really impressive man, is how we will live happily ever after in the Land of Let’s Pretend, after the story is over man. After! We are goin’ out there man and we are not coming back man and it’s gonna rule man! I shit you not Drew, that guy was a stone cold freak. No wonder we loved him.

You know the story. In the not too distant past a kid joined the family business, was apprenticed to an acquaintance or simply sold to a stranger. Life was simpler then. Our generation was, to a greater degree than ever before, free of those constraints. Consequently, of course, we were also free of that iron fisted guidance. But television abhors a vacuum and guidance appeared in the form of televised animated role models. And if you take a second look at the messages we were getting man, they are a glorious trail mix of fruits, nuts and seedy characters. The old wicked was a new viable alternative lifestyle.

In the old days man, in the old days the old allegories hammered home the old values. You see, the message of fables and fairytales was that if you stepped out of line you were dead meat. Killed, cooked and cannibalized by an unforgiving natural order. And we remember those stories but it didn’t end there with us. We bridged the past perfect and the future shock. Fractured Fairytales was our New Testament and it revealed to us that the past wasn’t so perfect and the shock was more like a delightful buzz.

We were the link between the Brothers Grimm and Warner Brothers. From Mother Goose to Merry Melodies from Mothra to Hanna Barbera we watched it all. We were the passive aggressive receptors in a psych-o-social mind fuck.

Huckleberry Hound, Drew. Huckle fuckin’ Berry Hound! Need I say more? That dog had his paws deep in the shit, noooo doubt!

Underdog, man. When Sweet Polly’s in trouble I am not slow! The rest of you can go scratch yer ass cause Polly wants more than a cracker, you know what I mean man? Bird is the word man. Bird..is..the..word!

Casper the Friendly Ghost? Great. Really great. You tune in to turn on to a little scare me time, a little adrenaline rush and what have we here man? What a little apple polishing, boot licking, brown nosing, goody two-shoes! No wonder he’s a ghost. I’d pop a cap in his ass myself. And you know he’s such a transparent suckup. Really makes you think twice about being a good guy. I mean, if he’s a member of the crew your hangin’ with, you need to get yourself a wolf pack and go wilding.

Bugs Bunny, amigo! Come on!! Now there is a hometown homeboy! There isn’t a soul alive or dead who doesn’t love Bugs Bunny. Cross dressing, Fudd kissing, carrot obsessed, sarcastic flamboyant bitch. A role model for millions man. Undeniable!

Mickey Mouse? Nice guy. Kind of a chameleon. Trying to be all things to all people. Genial, with a castrato’s voice. I think I liked him best when he dressed like Bing Crosby. Cool yet wholesome. No undercurrents. Minnie was pleasant enough; a female without allure or any sexuality what-so-ever, which is saying something. They were like warm broth. A pair of role models we might choose for our parents but for ourselves? No way man! Ain’t happenin’!! They didn’t know how to have a good time. To them fun was exciting and a little scary. No man, for us it was Goofy, man. Fuckin Goofy! The dude didn’t know how to have anything but a good time. Goofy was the man, dog! He could have the best time ever just trying to figure out his own shadow. I can just hear my old man saying ” who would look up to a character named Goofy?” Silly question, right? The answer is “Me! You! Everyone”! When we were kids you had to have a nickname. To this day my three best friends are, Dink, Funk and Zonker. Say no more, por favor.

Road Runner? I don’t know man. Everyone I know would rather be Wile E. Coyote. Wile E. was the Don Quixote of murderous stalkers. I’m convinced he pointed the way for a generation of punk bands and paparazzi.

Popeye? Smoking, cursing, muttering, substance abusing, twisted freak of a snap case.  I’ve had all I can stands and I can’t stands no more. What’s not to love?

Foghorn Leghorn, Drew! Freakin’ Foghorn freakin’ Leghorn. Without a doubt among the most imitated of all characters. Drew, we were all emulating a chicken! And not just any chicken. A stuttering, conniving, lazy, shit stirring common domestic fowl (Gallus gallus) with delusions of grandeur. Who could resist?

Mr. Magoo? Forest Gump meets Foster Brooks. There’s a little Mr. Magoo in every stoner I ever met.

The Pink Panther? Pretty much self explanatory.

Woody Woodpecker. A name is like a picture without the image. Woody was playing in the same league as Beaver Cleaver, Peter Parker, Pat McGroin, Ashur du Smelbad, and I.P. Daly. Also the theme music was a big hit for Kay Kyser’s band in 1948. The band featured the cornetist comedian Merwyn Bogue whose stage name was Ish Kabibble. True fact, man.

When I was a kid I had a best friend. So did you and everyone else. The same held true for cartoons, right? It was match.com with a no divorce guarantee. Chip ‘n Dale, Heckle and Jeckle, Tom and Jerry, Beany and Cecil, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Fred and Barney, Sylvester and Tweety, Sherman and Mr. Peabody. Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole, Tennessee Tuxedo and Chumly, Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy (“Auggie my son, my son”! was that Jimmy Durante?) Libby the Lion and Hardy Har Har. Yogi and Boo Boo, Touché Turtle and Dum Dum, and the legendary Quick Draw McGraw and Baba Looey. “I’ll do the thinnin’  around here Baba and don’t! you! for! get! it! “ Nobody ever loved a dim bulb better than we did.

Who’s to say who we’d be without the likes of Clutch Cargo (featuring real lips), the weirdo marionettes of Fireball XL5 and Thunderbirds and the final morph to H.R. Pufnstuf and The Banana Splits. These last two may have been live action shows fronting B grade toons but they were hosted by fully costumed, foam filled, fun furred, day-glow stoners. Gene London on acid. Two hits! By this time the kiddy gloves were off and the smoking jacket was on. I mean really man, H.R. Pufnstuf? That is, without a doubt, the name of a head shop somewhere!

Refocus man, refocus. What was the question? That always happens man. I get off, on these tangents, and the next thing you know I’m at the refrigerator door looking for a snack and, oh yeah, Saturday Morning Cartoons. So look, there are big issues here man. Big issues. Like was Crazy Cat really that crazy or was he just a product of his environment? For that matter was Felix the Cat really happy or was he just putting on a brave face. The facts of fiction are inscrutable man. And why so many cats and dogs? And mice too. Speedy Gonzalez had a totally positive mental attitude sure but I think it was the amphetamines. When he comes down he’s gonna be a high speed train wreck.

Top Cat; lazy, scheming, fancy-pants hoodlum. Gang leader of a ragtag band of miscreants. As if all that wasn’t enviable enough he had an awesome theme song. When I was growing up you had to have your own sound track because every character had their own sound track. And T.C. had street style. So we needed street style. In my school that meant you had to have your own walk. And a walk sticks. All these influences stuck. People I know can tell it’s me walking down the street before they can identify my face. The walk is so distinctive that it arrives before I do. I am aware that’s probably not a good thing.

Obviously Mighty Mouse was mightier than the Mighty Manfred, sidekick to Tom Terrific but Manfred was the man that Fred wasn’t. Fred, sidekick to Super Chicken, who wasn’t all that super but did take his Super Sauce Elixir in a martini glass, had to be reminded that he knew the job was dangerous when he took it. But then, that’s why we all picked up the martini glass in the first place, right?

Look, I could go on and on but all I’m trying to say is that George Jetson’s dog is Astro and Astro Boy is a robot who wants to be a real boy and Pinnochio is a wooden toy who wants to be a real boy too. Not a big issue for Pinnochio because he lives in a world with magic which is really a bullshit plot device. There is no magic in the future so Astro boy, who can live forever, will be disappointed forever. Dude needs to adjust his expectations. Meanwhile, Tobor the 8th Man was just Robot the 8th Man spelled backwards but he had no desire to move beyond his station in life. He was basically Iron Man without the man, man. Lacking desire maybe he should have been Tobor the 8th. Done! Give him the benefit of the doubt? I don’t think so. Takes us into murky territory. Makes the connection to Henry the 8th, I am, I am, as in I am Sam. Sam I am.

I Am. Two words. Three letters. The most powerful statement in any language. Self determining. Self referential. Bottom line? Deputy Dawg was not a real officer of the law, bro. You know, that’s all I’m trying to say.

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