Times Square, The Day After

Wisco Girls Take Manhattan

New York City is not for owning, it is for sharing.  When friends visit it is okay to pass on joining them to the see the Statue of Liberty (but only if you have gone in the last 5 years) but to miss out on the joy of a visit and the joy of their joy of being here is a shame.

 

Many friends will say "I am here to see YOU, I do not need to do any touristy stuff."  This I will not allow.  You can see me, but you must see me while we are walking through Central Park or while we are strolling through the Frick or while we are strolling along the Hudson or taking a coffee a Joe.  I insist.  Think "Woody Allen Movie" before they got creepy.




You walk and talk, but New York City must be a backdrop for the conversation.

My friends Lisa and Carri came here to celebrate the "20th Anniversary of their 30th birthday" this week and it was so good to have them.  I was going through "a thing" and they kept me buoyant and laughing and eating good food.





I had never goofily played in front of the jumbo screen in Times Square.  (we are on the bottom left second row)



and we got to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge which is never not a thrill and meander through Central Park. 



We also had one of the small town experiences that I love here:  I wanted to show them my old beloved block on the Upper West Side where I used to live and we crashed into old neighbors and dogs and it was just a delight. 

New York is for lovers and friends and is not to be hogged like Halloween candy when you were a kid.

I Choose to Be In Love.

I remember when I lived and worked in LA and people would be out from New York on business I would think, "How glamourous. They actually LIVE in New York.  What must that be like?"  Well, now I know.  I have lived here for 3 years.  And it is like living anywhere else in some respects and like nowhere else in others: there is laundry, grocery shopping, and the gym.  Except here everything is much harder and more expensive! But, no matter, I love it. And then I forget and I just exist in it.

Whenever I feel like I am taking living here for granted I put my ipod on RANDOM, make life into a musical and go.  This morning I was heading to the subway for work listening to Sinead O'Connor and I passed by St. Vincent's Hospital.  This hospital is now sadly closed due to bankruptcy and will be more luxury housing. It almost seems ironic, if it weren't so shameful. Anyway, I don't want to kill my buzz here.  But as I was passing and the snow was gently falling I recalled how this very place took in Titanic survivors, 911 survivors and was one of the first major AIDS hospitals in the world. It was humbling and moving.

Down I went into the subway. A system like no other and I was happy to be in it among the masses.  My music made it so much more palatable. 

I alighted at 50th Street and just as Madonna's Vogue started I walked across the street to behold bright and shiny Times Square.  Lately I have had nothing but disdain for this gaudy, tourist-infested tourist trap, but this morning thanks to Madonna I was empowered and inspired by it. 

It all boils down to perspective. New York is either a crowded, expensive, filthy, crime-ridden dump or it is a bright, exciting, never to be outdone metropolis of possibility. Or both.  I choose today to be in love.

Sweet Smell of Success

Sunday night alone in the big city. A dog, a cat, me. The city shimmering at dusk outside my window. I pulled out the DVD "Sweet Smell of Success" as I had never seen it and it was wonderful. Great music, great lines, great acting and just awful people!

But the thing I loved the most was it was shot on the streets of New York. Real New York. Not backlot Burbank New York. And in 1957! Times Square never looked better. Burt Lancaster's character lived in the famous Brill Building which is still there. I am continually seduced by jazzy B & W New York. There were a bunch of scenes at 21 with its figures outside which still stand today. Fancy.  I will go there someday.

It was all a rush and I loved it.

Then I took my teeth out and went to bed. Alone. In the big, mean city.

Cold Hearted Big Apple

A 10 foot, 7000 pound ice sculpture was plopped down in the middle of Times Square in time for St. Valentine's Day.  

I felt happy to see it and be with it.  Back in the swing of my beloved City.

Now to find someone to melt mine.

Busking NYC

Desperate times lead to desperate measures.

I, like so many others, have been looking for work for a long time. I once was a successful media executive. I had a career! Now I am pounding the pavement like so many others. But why not tap the pavement instead of pound it?

In the film "Fun with Dick and Jane" starring the excellent Jane Fonda and George Segal, Dick loses his corporate job and his house gets repossessed. He and his wife turn to a life of crime in order to get by. Others turn to prostitution and others gambling. I was thinking "What else can I do?" I don't have the stomach for crime and I don't have the stomach, pecs, abs, etc. for prostitution and then I thought, "I can play pipes! I will be the weddings and funerals piper for New York City!"

But first I decided to busk on the streets of New York.

I started out the other day in front of the Museum of Natural History and today went down to South Street Seaport. I learned fast to DO and ask questions later. Good idea as I got stopped by security (but not before raking in some good dough) and was told I needed a permit and there were auditions in January! Auditions to busk. Okay, I will do that. On to Times Square!

Here I was (and the excellent photo is kind of small here) playing in the crossroads of the world RIGHT in front of the master showman himself, George M. "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" Cohan!!




That was all worth it to get stopped again by security. Another bloody permit!

"But isn't this public property?"

"You need a permit"

"C'mon, can't I just play here? The people dig it."

Then New York's finest...

A nice young cop came to my rescue and told me to come play over by his beat on Times Square! Wow, I had NYPD protection. Another officer even bought me a bottle of water. Irish policeman. You gotta love 'em.


My friends.
Tourist posing for a photo op.

Then it was onto St. Pat's!!!!

Times Square. Beach Chair.

One of my very besties, Brian, journeyed from the Pacific Northwest across the plains and prairies to his homestead in Wisconsin and finally to visit me in the Big City today. So happy to have him here. We are so in touch all the time that it was hard to believe that we had not laid three-dimensional eyes on each other since Thanksgiving Aught Seven.

This evening we had a screening to go at MTV in Times Square and came across the test-drive of Times Square as Pedestrian Mall. Very Euro, but with lawn chairs! What a great feeling it was to lounge at the crossroad of the world and have a coffee!

Daily, amidst all the craziness and struggles I have, I realize I have a charmed life.