Driving and Eating In New York City

The past week has been another mini-tour of New York, starting off in Albany and ending up in Long Island, with one detour to Connecticut. It was a good week with no tight flight departures or luggage hassels, but I caught some horrible cold and usually fell asleep by nine.

Friday ended in Long Island. People in New York City, while very friendly and always willing to help, always seem to have a chip on their shoulder. Their demeanor can be mistaken for rude: there are no responses to my well meaning "Good Morning!" or cheery door holding, and it's not that they don't appreciate it, I guess it's just expected that strangers be nice only when approached. Now this is only on the basis of one-on-one, personal contact. The rules change when a New Yorker gets behind the wheel of his or her car. Driving in the city is like a cross between racing in Nascar and fighting the Imperial Forces in Star Wars. Those white stripey lines on the road that designate lanes have no meaning in New York. Driving in the right lane is only a good idea if you're about to double-park, and when you do, you don't use any sort of signal: you just stop the car and get out. The cars behind you can fend for themselves, and they do so without complaint. Unless honking is complaining, but the honking in New York is as natural as birds chirping. You don't only honk if someone is about to crash into you or if someone doesn't notice the stop light turned green. Drivers in New York just honk. Maybe they honk because the sky is blue and the sun is shining. Maybe it's a mating call. Maybe New Yorkers just like to be noisy and sometimes the only noise to be made is a good old honk of the horn. Anyhow, I saw no reason for it.

My weekend in New York was nice and uneventful. I showed up at my old pal Mitch's apartment on Friday night around 8pm where I met his roommate Jim. They live in a neighborhood called "Washington Heights" which is on W. 170th Street. It's also known as "Uptown," but they say "way up town." Most of the residents in the area are Dominican, and everyone spoke Spanish and English with perfect New York accents. We spent Friday night drinking beers in the apartment and heading down to the general store to buy more beer where a bunch of Dominicans hang around inside drinking beer and listening to loud music, escaping the cold. They were a festive bunch who laughed at my dancing.

Saturday morning I headed to the East Village to get good and cultured. My first lesson was that in New York, everything is done outside, even in Winter weather: ordering coffee, eating, and catching up with neighbors on the front stoop.

I enjoyed a cup of soup outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art before heading in to appreciate paintings I've only seen on postcards. I think my favorite works were a bunch of lithographs designed by Cyril E. Power:

The Tube Train, Cyril E. Power
This image summed up New York for me: a whole lotta people and no one to talk to

My Weekend in Phoenix

Thursday night I arrived at the Phoenix airport and took a cab to Mesa, the location of our Friday's seminar. My room had a squeaky bed and a few cobwebs, but there was a microwave and a refrigerator so I headed to the closest place to buy food and ended up at Walgreens where I picked up a Hot Pockets Calzone and some Gardettos:


After my work day I took another cab to my mini-vacation hotel downtown Phoenix, which I guess was a mistake because all the cab drivers said the parties are all in Scottsdale, which is a 20 minute drive away. Also, there was a huge convention happening: the Society for Hispanic Engineers, a group of over 1,000 college students from all across the country all dressed up for interviews with such companies as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and 3M. If the lobby was bad, the elevators were even worse.


I didn't mind, however, because my room was poolside and there was beer to drink and latina college babes to talk to hanging out in the Arizona sun. Saturday night I decided I was partied out from too much laying around on patio furniture and decided to head to the orchestra, where I caught Brahms: Symphony No. 1 performed by the Phoenix Symphony. I told the folks at the box office I was a student and got a $72 ticket for 10 bucks! First tier first row baby! It was a great way to lull my mini-vacation to a nice, quiet end. Still, I couldn't help but dance with the statues of naked ballet dancers (and a homeless lady) after the performance:


This morning I packed up all my stuff and took one last look at the pool before heading off to the airport for a long flight to Albany, NY. I'm sitting in the bar having my free glass of wine and ready for sleep. I miss that dry desert heat already and sort of wish I had brought some long johns.

A Weekend of Rememberance and Snakin' the Drain (of my Minivan)

Saturday morning my good friend Adam Bale and I headed to a memorial for Edward McMichael, better know in Seattle as The Tuba Man. He was a street musician prolific in this town: from the Ballet to a Seahawks game he could be seen on the sidewalk blowing notes into his tarnished tuba. Adam and I had spent the past month, cameras in tow, tracking him down at one of his local stations and recording a bit of his performances, interviews with fans, and discussions with the man himself. I got a phone call from Adam last week that Ed had died; the result of a beating from three kids for the little money he collected in his old tin garbage can each night.

Link to Adam's story on Ed McMichael here (the story starts on 14:00)

The memorial was something Ed would've been proud of. It started of with a handful of brass players, and then a banjo showed up, a couple of fiddles, and soon there was a large group of musicians blowing Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Danny Boy, and When the Saints Go Marching In.

Link to Seattle Times story here

My highlight of the weekend was fixing the minivan. For over a year my car would leak water from Seattle's constant rain right onto the feet of whomever sat in the passenger seat. Sometimes I'd have a cooking pot sitting in the front, and I'd ask my uncomfortable passenger to collect some of the water from the gushing mystery leak as we drove down the street. Many first dates quickly became lasts on these drives in the minivan. This weekend I resolved to fix the problem by purchasing a tarp to drape over the general problem-area whenever it rained. Still, something deep inside me said it was an easy fix. Adam and I pulled off the windshield wipers and then some plastic panel attached by many screws with unfamiliar holes. Then we got a stick and jammed it into what appeared to be a drain for the water. We then flushed it out with hose water, reattached everything, and the car hasn't leaked since! With a screwdriver, a stick, and google, one man can accomplish so much.

I'm also very excited about the new glasses I bought over the weekend, after losing my old pair on a drunken pontoon ride in Wisconsin over Independence Day. I found a frame similar to the ones I had in college: sort of a mix between intellectual, nerd, and hipster:

Ba-rockin' Grant Park on Election Night

Click here to see more pictures from my night at Grant Park

I will never forget Election Day in Grant Park. An estimated 150,000 people showed up to watch the fate of the 2008 Presidential Election, the culmination of two years of hard campaigning that finally brought Senators John McCain and Barack Obama to the political ring.

The "USA" on the building to the left was florescent office lights situated from about 10 floors

I thought it would take days, or even weeks to get a definite answer on the outcome. I didn't expect to watch McCain address his fans in Arizona to conceed defeat. I never expected to be among the crowds of a hometown hero and the first "official" black American President as he gave his acceptance speech.

I'll never forget the optimism of the mass group of supporters. So many different faces, all with equal anticipation of celebration, and a true spirit of love: for eachother, for America. I've never caught so many acknowledging smiles so many times in one night.

Even the CPD serving as crowd control smiled before and after the election results

Before Pennsylvania's electorate announced their decision, the Chicago crowd's energy pointed to blue. The same went for Virginia. And then California. And then, somehow, Obama won. It's funny how people respond to hope's manifestation of reality. After so long, with such a volitile American identity through the spirit of the campaign trail, the answer came.


The energy from this crowd was contagious. Everyone was hugging and kissing and crying with the collective catharsis of relief and gratitiude to the constituents who voted for something new and different. When Barack finally walked on the stage, those of us outside the tickets-only section huddled around the Jumbotrons stationed on some of Downtown Chicago's busiest blocks:

"This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing - Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old. She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin. And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can. At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can. When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can. When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can. She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes we can. A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can. America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves - if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made? "

Cigarettes and Big Buck Hunter in PA

Pennsylvania is one of those states that can't decide what color to wear today (Election Day). Last night I headed to a bar that had both smoking and Big Buck Hunter to quietly enjoy a glass of the delicious beer they have out here called Yuengling Lager. Sitting at the bar, Nicki, the pretty blond who served me my pint, was discussing with Mike, the Pall Mall smoking Vietnam War vet, about how it's bad to talk politics and religion at the bar. They went on to discuss why they both were voting for McCain. Mike said he thought Palin was hot, and that clinched his decision. Nicki said she read an email with 7 points about why Obama was a bad choice. She showed me the list and it included his misinterpretation of the Bible, the choice for change not resonating with Senator Joe "the" Biden, and his lack of experience.

At the corner of the bar sat Dave, a grouchy young businessman who doesn't care who wins, though his opinions for both candidates were strong indeed: "If Obama wins, he'll be assassinated and that Joe guy, whoever the hell he is, will take his place. If McCain wins, he'll croak, and we'll have a broad for a president." Nicki expressed her concern as well for the notions of a female president: "I saw this movie about Queen Elizabeth, and she ruined the country because she lead by her emotions."

I finished my beer and ordered another. I played a game of Big Buck Hunter and then offered one of my American Spirit cigarettes to Mike. He liked them, but said they pulled too hard and went back to his pack of Pall Malls.