Cars and Driving

I guess by New York City standards I got my driver’s license on the early side at 19 but by the rest of the country’s standards I’d bet that’s on the late side. At the time I was living on Long Island and dealing with public transportation was eating up too much of my time.  I was lucky enough to get a deal on a 1990 Toyota Corolla from my mom’s friend.  The problem was that I got the car before I had my license and the car sat in the driveway for a while. 

The first time I took the car out by myself ended up being a harrowing experience.  A friend’s parents were going on vacation so in an effort to make my life easier and cut out traveling from Long Island to Manhattan and back every night, I decided to crash at his place for the week.  I packed my bags and loaded up the car.

Growing up in the city we didn’t really have access to cars and most of our going out was limited to walking or taking the subway.  Adding a car to the mix meant the world had become our oyster. 

I started down Glen Cove Road, a normal two lane road with stop lights.  Every second knowing that I was getting closer to my first real fear, the Long Island Expressway.  The LIE features tractor trailers flying by three lanes at 60 and 70 miles an hour at all points in time.  Poorly operating a sedan that feels like a tinker toy, leads to panic attacks in better men.  After fifteen minutes I found myself in the belly of the beast.  I hugged the right lane like a stuffed animal.  That day I was the most consciousness driver in the history of mankind, you need to merge, merge away, you need to pass, I’m slowing down to a crawl.   I make it to Astoria and to the safety of familiarity and luxury items like stop signs and traffic lights. 

I dropped off my stuff and we discussed what we should do with our new found freedom.   In past summers we would house sit for this friend’s sister and brother in law, in Forest Hills.  We fell in love with a few spots in the neighborhood but none more than UJay’s dinner right off of Austin Street.  Fast fact, the Triple Bypass cover for “Memories We Never Had” was shot at UJay’s.  So it became painstakingly apparent where our first local roadtrip would take us.  We piled into the car and headed towards the boulevard of death, Queens Boulevard.  Actually at that point I don’t think Queens Boulevard, the yet to be shot Vinnie Chase movie, had been deemed the boulevard of death.  That probably came a few summers later when two or three pedestrians were killed within a month of each other.

The drive up Queens Boulevard was scary but manageable.  Stop lights can be your friend when you have 12 lanes of traffic and concrete dividers.  What I learned more than anything that day is that the hardest part of driving isn’t controlling the car, it’s paying attention to all the signs.  We made it to Austin Street without incident but we couldn’t find a parking spot.  We circled Queens Boulevard and Austin Street, each time extending the circle and making our way down side streets.  Most of the residential areas in Queens don’t have parking restrictions outside of street cleaning which usually happens in the mornings.  We ended up on a very nice, quiet street about three blocks from Austin.  We bounced out of the car with a spring in our step.  Everything was working out for us.  We headed to UJay’s and a couple of bacon cheeseburgers deluxes later we walked Austin Street stopping at the Disney Store and Gamestop to waste some time and do some shopping.  All in all it was a pretty perfect evening.  Friends, food, and freedom. 

We walked back to the car and with just my luck, I see a car double parked next to the Corolla.  What are the chances that of all the cars on the street, this guy decides to box me in.  Just great.  As I walk up to the driver’s side door I see a note glued to the window.  It says: “You have illegally parked on a private street.  There is a Boot on your car.  Call this number to get it removed.”  The panic I felt on the LIE seemed trivial to this, to this world shattering fear.  I pulled out my gray Motorola flip phone, which was the pinnacle of technology in 1999, and dialed the number.  The door on the double parked car next to mine opens up and a large man slides out. 

“Oh good, I was hoping it would be you guys. You are my last boot of the night.” He said.

“Umm okay, cool man.  How do we get this thing off?” I asked sounding like a frightened 4 year old when in actuality I was a terrified 19 year old. 

“Oh, easy, I have the key.” He said. “But you have to pay me $250.”

“What? How much?” I ask as I see my checking account now settling comfortably in the red. 

“Is there anything you can do?”  I asked hoping that through my trembling voice the guy understood that I meant, hey would you take a bribe for less than $250?  That didn’t come through as he replied.

“I can wait here until you go to an ATM and get the $250.” 

I considered driving off with the boot on the car but the Simpsons taught me that it would be a bad idea. 

We returned and paid the man.  Eight seconds later the boot was off and we got into the car, me visibly shaken. 

Back down Queens Boulevard we went.  I don’t think I breathed the entire way.  I couldn’t find the turn for Steinway Street to get across Astoria.  We turned down 39^th and 37^th, going down one way streets the wrong way in an effort to make this living nightmare come to end.  Finally I decided, fuck it, I’ll go underneath the L and take 31^st street.

As we drove down heading towards 31^st street, I realized that I was in big trouble.  There was a concrete divider that wouldn’t let me make the right. What it would let me do is go straight over the 59^th street bridge and into Manhattan.  The two things that most drivers around here fear are driving on highways and driving in Manhattan.  My heart sounded like a death metal kick drum.  I was in a full fledged panic.  Deep breathes, I thought, deep breathes.  We pulled into the isle of Manhattan and I made three lefts and one right as quickly as humanly possible.  It was the world’s shortest foray into Manhattan. 

We got over the bridge and were able to make the turn on 31^st and cross over to Astoria.  I’ve never been more excited to park a car than I was on that day.  We parked outside of his house and I went inside and openly wept. 

New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

I live next to a store on Thompson Street that epitomizes everything that’s right about New York, but at the same time I hate it.  The Little Lebowski is a store that specializes in all things related to the Big Lebowski.  The fact that it exists is what I love about New York City.  An owner operated shop with an extreme focus, nestled on a quiet, unassuming block, that most people would never walk by or go in if they did.  Stores like it bring the character, the enthusiasm and cool factor to the greatest city in the world.  I love that a store with such a specific clientele, people who love the Big Lebowski, can stay in business for as long as it has. Also on Thompson there were two rival chess shops across the street from each other. I say were because one of them (the one I liked less) recently closed and even though it was the one I liked less, it was a very sad day for the neighborhood.  I would take pride in saying, “it’s the block with all the chess shops,” when trying to describe where I live to people.  The surviving chess shop stay open 24 hours just in case you get a craving to castle in the middle of the night.  My economic guess is that stores like these couldn’t survive in most major cities let alone in more rural areas.   This what’s right with NYC.  Cool local businesses can make it no matter how niche they are.  The stumble upon aspect of walking down a street you’ve never been on and finding something that you never thought could exist but it does and it’s right in front of you. 

The first morning after Sandy hit I walked around downtown to see how severe the damage was.  I was surprised how intact everything was for the most part, at least what was above ground.  I didn’t expect to find anything open since the mass transit system had been shut down effectively making Manhattan a sweet, sweet, isolated dream, devoid of tourists and making “I Am Legend” a reality or at least a reality without those creatures.  After a few hours of walking around I realized that I had planned poorly and hadn’t brought any water with me, ordinarily this situation is remedied by walking 15 feet in any direction and walking into a convenience store, bodega, Starbucks, street vendor, bookstore, Best Buy etc., etc. ad nauseam.  On this day it meant another 2 to 3 miles of walking back to my place.  I turned off of Battery Park and found a pocket of blocks that had power.  There was a mom and pop convenience store that was open with cases of water.  I started a conversation with them because one, there was nothing else to do, two, to see if all the power had come back, and three how they got there.  They drove into the city at 6 am because this store was the livelihood of multiple generations of their family and since it was only about a block and a half away from the river they were terrified (to the point of not being able to sleep) as to what the ramifications for their family would be depending on the extent of the damage.  Thankfully for them there was nothing amiss with their store and they had power.  When I walked in I expected to pay upwards of $3 for a bottle of water given the market conditions, they were the only game in about a 40 block radius that was operational, staffed and with inventory; yet I paid $.75 for a bottle. 

I walked out of there with a few thoughts.  The first being reminded how people for the overwhelming majority are genuinely good, in particularly in a time of crisis.  The second being how small businesses like this one have been squeezed out of the city due to landlords upping the rents and preferring to keep spaces vacant for the tax write off than rent them at reasonable rates to help the city bounce back economically and spur it culturally.    The third thing was how the chain stores have taken over and have stripped New York City of the charm of finding eccentrically themed or eccentrically owned and operated shops.  The other downside of the chains is that in a true crisis their employees will happily (and very justifiably) sit in the comfort of their own homes instead of not sleeping and rushing to their workplace as early as possible just to know one way or another as to how their lives will be affected going forward. 

These reasons are just a few as to why, New York I love you but you are bringing me down.  

Rich vs. Poor

Don’t let the title fool you this isn’t a class war rage.  It’s more of an understanding how people grow up in different areas with different resources and as much as I’d like to think that we can over come these financial and therefore cultural differences, I’m not so sure.

Our story begins with me meeting someone through a mutual friend, who had just moved to town.  She had come to New York via Paris but was originally from a wealthy suburb of San Francisco.  She was smart, accomplished, well traveled, well educated and easy on the eyes.  She had me after she finished the sentence, “I was a journalist for a Parisian newspaper but there’s something about New York City.”  Oh and one more thing about this girl, for all intents and purposes she was engaged.  Engaged in that way when people have been in a relationship for a long time and the next step should have happened by now but it hasn’t so let’s just get engaged even though we both know it’s a huge mistake.  You know, that kind.  In any case, I don’t meet women like this often.  Actually, I never meet women like this.  For a long time I started thinking that women like this didn’t exist, so finding one in the wild, even if she was engaged, was quite the reassuring prospect.  The world was filled with hope again.  I made a promise to myself that if she ever becomes single I would ask her out immediately for a few reasons.  The first being to get out of my comfort zone of only thinking about talking to women of that caliber.  The second being that I was positive that there would be a line of dudes who were also going to be vying for her attention and lastly, rebound relationships usually have at least a pretty good run before they end in a dismal pile of tears, booze and harassment. 

So let’s fast forward through the months of her living with her fiancé and move right to the part where she leaves him.  This story is so old that I Myspaced this girl when I found out about her moving to Upper West Side.  That’s right, I said Myspaced.  For some unbeknownst reason see agreed to go out with me.  I often think it was because she either felt like she owed our mutual friend, or there was a strong sense of pity in my general direction, or she figured let’s get this over with.  Having come out of a long relationship  she was very upfront about not being interested in being in one any time soon, which I completely understood and respected.   I was so excited to spend time with her that I would have happily paid for anything and everything date related, even if it meant three and a half hours of her verbally and physically berating and abusing me.  I would have taken out a loan to make that happen.  Happily.

We agreed to go for coffee at a place that she loved in Paris that also had a location not too far from where she was crashing.  Crashing isn’t exactly the right word here but I’m blanking on what would be.  The reason crashing isn’t appropriate is because people don’t crash at apartments with full time doorman who have seen enough to know that I’m not the quality of person to be allowed entrance in the lobby let alone the multimillion dollar apartments.  Staying also doesn’t quite work either. 

For my own therapy, looking back I should have noticed the chink in the armor when we went to La Pain Quidien for coffee.  An upscale chain coffee place for a fake date?  I’m not sure about that move.  There are far too many coffee places in New York with charm and character that I would have chosen before La Pain Quidien.  I know I was so overcome with joy at the prospect of sitting down with this woman that at the time I wouldn’t have minded if we were in an old man bar surrounded by people projectile vomiting onto the floor and walls, but I digress. 

The anecdote that has stayed with me these five or six years which is sort of the point of this article? Entry? Post? Whatever this thing is, is this. We were both removed from college by only a few years and she was going to go back for a master’s, so it was natural to discuss those rather formative years.  She regaled me with a tale of walking into her suitemate’s room while the radio was playing and asked who was on the radio. 

The roommate replied, “Santana.”  Mind you this would have been around 1999 or 2000 when “Smooth” was released and took over every radio station.

She replies in an overtly sarcastic tone with, “Who Carlos Santana?”  One of those goofy, adoy, tones.  A tone so deliberate that it’s used only in absolute certainty. 

The suitemate replies, “Yeah, Carlos Santana.”  I image she had a quizzical look on her face during and after her reply. 

You see, dear reader, the girl sitting across from me drinking her tea and nibbling on her croissant had lived next door from one Carlos Santana.  You must be thinking well, Carlos Santana must be a fairly common name and this girl just has a strange sense of humor, which would be two very reasonable thoughts and you shouldn’t feel badly about the fact that you are 100% incorrect.  The truth is that she not only lived next to a Carlos Santana for her entire life up until she had gone away to college that year, but that she lived next to THE Carlos Santana.  That’s right, THE Carlos Santana.  Having no idea what he did for a living, despite, I may add, that he took her backstage to the Grammy’s a few years before that. 

Like I said earlier, I’ve thought about this story a lot over the years.  I don’t have a satisfactory answer as to why she felt the need to share it.  My best guess is that I was very into music at the time and she thought it might be a cute story that I would appreciate.  Or it could very well be her way of showing how not cool she was by being so ignorant about her surroundings and what popular culture society expects us to know.  I’m not sure if it’s even either of those things.  The one thing that I did know immediately after hearing the story was how out of my league this girl was.  Not only out of my league but how we came from different worlds.  Worlds not separate by physical distance, nor economy but what rather what that money can do and give a person.  Whether the story was supposed to be cute and telling about her personality or something unrelated, it won’t change where we come from.  In that instant it became very clear to me that there wouldn’t be a Hollywood ending in the cards for us.  The two worlds we came from were entirely too different. 

That last line has depressed me as I typed it, so I’m going to pull a 180.  Come to think of it, I have no idea what old Mr. Fitzgerald our neighbor did for a living.  I’m pretty sure he didn’t play Woodstock but I might be wrong about that.

Diddy

I almost don’t want to write about this because it was written about so much before hand, during and afterwards.  I figured I’d write about it for a few reasons.  One we were talking about it last night, two for posterity, and three the band’s perspective wasn’t really covered. 

I’ve played bass or guitar in the house band for the Chris Gethard Show from the beginning of the show’s run.  At one point Chris got the idea to try to land a celebrity by using twitter.  His first choice was Al Roker but after the former weatherman turned him down, Chris went bigger.  Diddy became the target and Chris went after him like a big game hunter.  The hashtag #diddygethard was all over the place and after a year of trying to lock down a date it came down January 14^th, 2011. 

Now the band was going through some problems because of people moving or quitting and finding people to play with us each month was proving harder than you’d think.  For all intents and purposes the band was James’s band and we were along for the ride.  In July 2010 James took a terrific job in Canada and we continued with out him basically reshuffling and having Kelly sing and play drums.  With James leaving, I took it upon myself to take over and start dealing with everything.  After the August show, Kelly couldn’t do the show anymore so we were out both a singer and a drummer.  We cobbled together line-ups for the next few shows by calling in some favors and getting creative.  Once we got the word the Diddy seemed to be a realty, we discussed what we should do and decided to keep small by only adding another drummer who could sing a bit so we called Mikey. 

Diddy obviously has forayed into so many different businesses and different lines of business but he’s known for getting his start in the music business.  We were a bunch of punk rockers whose subgenre is constantly criticized for being full of people who can’t play their instruments and it’s basically looked down upon.  With all of that in mind, I didn’t want us to sound good, I wanted us to sound as professional as possible, for my pride but also for validation for all of us musicians and everyone involved with the show.  I always loved playing the show but crowds were never really into us.  It felt like they politely tolerated us when we played and I understand where they were coming from.  They were there for a comedy show, not a rock show.

To complicate matters for everyone involved with the show, we were getting ready to do a two week cross country tour and with that we didn’t have a lot of time to rehearse for the Diddy show.  We had one practice with Mikey to learn 4 songs, which isn’t too tough to do but given that half of them were hip hop and not our usual style and the given the high stakes of the circumstance.  If we fucked up to kick off the show it would be bad news for everyone.  It would make us look bad, but the show look bad, and Chris look bad while the entire music and comedy worlds had their eyes focused on us.  So yes the stakes were high. 

We intro’d Gethard with Pray for Rain by the Ergs and then when Diddy came out we switched to Bad Boy for Life.  It was 15 of the most stressful seconds of my life but we were tight.  I felt satisfied and relieved.  Then as the raucous applause started to dip Diddy says something that I’ll never forget.  “Give it up for the band!  They are playing their asses off tonight!”