Citizen of the Month

the writing and photography of Neil Kramer

Category: New York City (Page 11 of 24)

Canada’s Most Embarrassing City?

June 16, 2011 / / 13 Comments

“Vancouver, Canada’s most embarrassing city.”

“Nice way to be classy, Vancouver.”

“I am ashamed that I am from Vancouver.”

“Never going to Vancouver again.”

There was a riot after a sporting event in Vancouver.  It wasn’t incredibly shocking to me, since I lived for many years in Los Angeles, where riots happen weekly at Little League games.    And considering that hockey is a violent sport where men love to drink Canadian beer… you get my point.  It isn’t a church crowd.

But I’m mostly talking about words right now.  And logic.

I know many are upset by this ugly display of violence and lack of sportsmanship, but why are so many blaming the city of “Vancouver” and not the small group of male hockey assholes who were drunk off their asses?   I constantly saw the city being blamed on Twtter last night and this morning.   Have we lost any sense of personal responsibility, or is the branding of a collective more important than what crimes individuals commit?   Or is this the result of only having 140 characters to make a point?   Is this the future of thought?

This blaming of “Vancouver” also makes me wonder if all of the political correctness that I see online is a facade, and that when people relax, they show their true colors about how they think.    I’ve always felt that more people actually DO blame the collective Muslim religion for Islamic terrorism than are actually saying it.  Or that a mommyblogger who “lacks integrity” DOES represent the collective.   Or that all “men” or “women” are to blame for some cultural problem.   I think we too often put people and groups into boxes because it is easier that way.   This makes me uncomfortable, even when it is something as meaningless as blaming “Vancouver.”  I know this particular example is a petty one, but YOU are the ones who are always saying that “language is important.”

And perhaps this is a personal issue, as someone familiar with Jewish history, where over and over again, the fingers were pointed at “the Jews” as involved in a collective crime.   What exactly did “Vancouver” do?

Group identity is important.  And we certainly want to be proud of the city or country in which we live.  But why are so many verbally abusing an entire city?   Is someone really never travelling to Vancouver again because of this one incident?   And to turn the tables on Vancouverites, are you so insecure with your image, that you are now shoving the blame on the “suburbanites” who don’t really live in the nice polite city?  What code word do the “suburbanites” represent?   Blue collar folk who don’t eat sushi?  How many times do we blame some ethnic group for crime in the city?

I’m not particularly politically correct myself.  I use stereotypes all the time for humorous effect.  But I was surprised how many people were upset at the “city of Vancouver.”

Vancouver, you are a very pretty town.   Embrace your new rough and tough image.  In all honesty, you were kinda boring before.

A Month of Instagram

June 14, 2011 / / 12 Comments

In the last month, I’ve taken over 300 photos of my neighborhood in Queens and around the New York City, and posted them on Istagram, which is a Twitter-type app on the iPhone for photography.   I’ve also greatly enjoyed seeing the photos of other bloggers also using this iPhone app.   Instagram is an interesting place to visit, a mixure of professionals and amateurs from around the world, all putting up random photos of their lives in an never-ending stream.

I rarely take photos, even on vacations, but during the last month of photo-taking, I’ve learned some interesting tidbits about myself, the creative act, and YOU, the viewer.   Maybe I’ll talk about these insights during my next post.  This exercise has been a lot of fun, even a little sexy.   Life is interesting, and colorful, so why not capture it in images?

Writing is a different animal.   Words frequently fail me when I try to recreate the real world on the blank page.   I hide behind the words.  But the real world loves the camera.   It doesn’t play games.   It begs for our attention, like a spoiled movie star in a low cut dress crying, “Take my photo!”

I suggest you take some photos this weekend, throw some filters on top of them, and publish them on your blog.  Visual art energizes a different part of the brain.

I don’t know how much longer I will be running around town taking photos, or whether LA will inspire me in the same way, if I end up returning there.  I like that there is a little story behind each photograph, even when the subject is the most ordinary.  Especially when the subject is the most ordinary.  That makes it even more intriguing.  It’s an important lesson to remember for writing.  The other photos are on Flickr.

A Week of Photos

May 20, 2011 / / 23 Comments

This week was one of my most pleasurable weeks online that I’ve had in a long time.

I had fun.

I played around on Instagram, an easy-to-use photo social media app that is on my phone, taking random photos of Queens and Manhattan.   And when I say “played around,” I mean I PLAYED AROUND, focusing on the activity, not on the trappings of who, what, or where.   And I enjoyed playing around with other individuals who were having fun, not jockeying for position or pimping posts.

Instagram will eventually be ruined too, going the same way as every other social media application.   People will notice who is and who is not following them.  A marketing company will create a list of the Top 50 Instagram Moms.  A professional photographer will write a manifesto with rule #1 being:  no more photos of your lunch.

But for now, I am clueless.  I’m not a photographer.  I don’t care if you follow me or not.  I’m not even sure I will continue using this app next week.   But this week, I enjoyed seeing YOUR photos of your kids, dogs, patio chairs, and what you had for lunch.

Thanks for inviting me over!

Next week, I will return to blogging and Twitter.  Maybe my week of photography will inspire me to have fun again online.

see my recent instagram photos on Flickr

Weird Sunday Morning, Queens

May 16, 2011 / / 19 Comments

There are some days that that you know will just turn out weirder than others.  I predict that today will be a very weird day.

It is 10:30 in the morning. Sunday. I’m sitting on a park bench in Kissena Park, waiting for a friend.  I am writing this post on a writing pad.

How do I know today will be weird?   Well, let’s begin right now and work backwards.

At this precise moment, I am looking at a big, bald, black man.  He is sitting at the adjacent park bench, where he is drinking a cup of coffee. This isn’t very unusual, but this man is built like a football player, with broad shoulder and a thick neck.  Again, not so strange, right?

So why is this man so special?   I can’t seem to look away from the back of his bald head.   It is pleasantly colored and shaped, and covered with only a wisp of peach fuzz.   His strong neck muscles lead upwards to the appropriate connectors, but his upper body strength gives off the impression that his head is also made of pure muscle.   As he turns towards the right to watch the passing pedestrians, I can clearly notice the indentation that at the point where the neck muscles meets the skull somewhere in the center of the back of the head.  It isn’t as if I have never seen a bald man before, but the prominent crease on this man’s head is incredibly unique, in so far that it looks almost exactly like a woman’s vagina, down to the gentle folds of skin and strands of short, wild hair surrounding the perfect recess, like the framing of a Rembrandt.

This dude has what looks to be a vagina in the back of his head.

Of course, I know that this is not a real woman’s vagina located on this guy’s head.   That defies reality.  Or does it?  Isn’t that what is on the minds of most men?   Isn’t it possible that the process of evolution might physically actualize what is already inside a man’s head, into something real, in a way that even Darwin could never understand.   After all, once mankind only imagined video phones, and now we can Skype in the real world on our laptops.    I’d like to believe that a man’s life is more than just a constant journey for the comfort of a woman, but can we fight human nature?  Why not make “pussy on our minds” into a genetic reality, much like we we developed ten fingers?!

Yes, today will be a weird day. And it is not just been about encountering men with vaginas on their heads!  I took a bus to get here to Kissena Park, about a ten minute ride from my home.  The bus arrived on time and the driver was friendly.

In the bus, I sat across from a man and woman, who were both dressed shabbily.  It was hard to decipher if they needy or a well-off couple dressing down for the weekend.   The man was deaf and was communicating with the woman in sign language.

As they signed, they took secret glances in my direction.  Or at least I imagined it.   I tried to ignore them by reading the advertisements in the bus, which were mostly about career schools and firms that killed bedbugs.   But I knew I was being watched and discussed.

At a certain point, the woman reached into her purse and took out an iPhone.  She handed it over to the deaf man.  He quickly typed something in, then abruptly stood, not in a threatening manner, but certainly with anxiety, and began to move towards me with the iPhone screen held out to my face, like he was presenting me with some bizarre Facebook update from Hell.

Was he going to ask me for money?   I have encountered many needy and homeless vision and hearing-disabled men in the subways, feeling their way down the middle aisle, warbling a song or selling pencils, making everyone in the subway car feel uncomfortable and guilty.   Was this the 21st Century method of asking for money on public transportation — coming up to strangers with a message on your iPhone?

I had no choice but to read the message on the screen, which was now inches from my face.

“Are you Tom Greene?” was written on the iPhone.

Tom Greene?   The comedian?  The one who was once married Drew Barrymore and had a TV show about his testicular cancer?

“No,” I said, shaking my head with emphasis, in case this deaf man was bad at lip-reading. “No, I am NOT Tom Green.”

He appeared disappointed.  He sign-languaged the information back to the women.   Even though I don’t understand sign language, I knew that he was expressing sadness over not being in the same Queens bus with Tom Green.  I was an impostor.  They ignored me for the rest of the trip.

Now do you see why I think today will be weird?  A black men with a vagina on his bald head.  A deaf man who thought I was Tom Greene and asked me about it on his iPhone.  And it is still only 10:30 as I sit here on this park bench.  Who knows what will happen next?

Perhaps I should have seen the signs earlier that events today would be odd and off-kilter.  If only I had been more observant.

After I woke up, I went to the Colombian Diner for breakfast.  This was before I went onto the bus with the deaf guy that brought me to this park bench near the bald guy where I am sitting right now, writing this down.

I frequently come into the diner, and usually order the breakfast special of two eggs, potatoes, toast, coffee, and a teeny-tiny glass of their water-downed orange juice.  When I am feeling spontaneous, I will order a Belgian waffle or an omelete, but 95% of the time, I order the same items for breakfast. My waiter is always Manny, the slowest waiter in the history of Queens, and never the other server, a curvy Latina with beautiful brown skin and full breasts.  Even though no one believes me, I have a conspiracy theory that the owner only allows the hot waitress to serve the Spanish-speaking customers, while the gringos like me get stuck with the dreadful Manny, who I assume is a nephew the owner was forced to hire.

“I’ll have two scrambled eggs, home fries, wheat toast, coffee, and the juice,” I told Manny.

“OK,” he said, as he wrote it down.

I’ve always been tempted to just say, “Just give me the usual,” like they do in the movies, but I’m not sure Manny would enjoy my familiarity.  He is not a sociable chap.  Perhaps something tragic happened to him during his childhood in Colombia, like his father being shot in front of him during a drug war.   There must be a reason he is the most dour waiter  that I’ve ever met.

On the other side of the restaurant, on the wall, are two framed photos.  I don’t usually take much notice of them — two random “relaxing” stock footage nature shots — that can easily be bought at Target or IKEA, framed for fifteen bucks.   Sometimes I notice a stressed NYC sanitation worker meditating on the photos while drinking his cup of coffee, imagining himself living near a gentle brook rather than a noisy, dirty neighborhood where the pigeons poop and the planes zoom overhead as the descend on nearby Laguardia Airport, spitting out their gas fumes next to the pigeon poop.

Today, when I looked over at the photos, and I noticed that they were crooked.  Perhaps someone accidentally knocked them while standing.   Or it was a subtle act of terrorism.   At this point, I had no idea that these photos were crooked for ME — a sign from God that my day was going to be as off-centered as their alignment.

“Hey, Manny.” I said, as he brought me my minuscule, thimble-sized glass of orange juice.  “Do you realize that the two photos over there are crooked?”

“No, they’re not,” he replied.

“Yes, they are.”

“No, they’re not.”

“OK, maybe it is me.”

I said that just to end the conversation.   Yes, I wimped out, even when I was 100% positive that they were crooked, and if I had OCD, like so many of you, I would have felt compelled to walk over there, lean in over the customers sitting in the booth under the photos, and lined nature back into symmetrical order.

“Screw it,” I said to myself. “It’s their freaking restaurant. If they want crooked photos here, let them!”

Crooked framed nature photos, deaf men who question my identity on their iPhones, and bald men with vagina heads.   Now, as I sit here on the park bench on this sunny Sunday in New York, I understand it all.   The Earth is coming off its axis, at least for one day.

It is 10:30 in the morning.   This day is going to be very weird.

“The Ride” with Marinka

May 3, 2011 / / 11 Comments

(via iphone3)

I’m beginning to understand why I never get any PR companies asking me to attend blogging events.   It not because I’m not a parent.   It’s because I am bad in writing reviews of blogging events.

I’m one of those people who find it difficult to separate an event from the people that I am with at the time.  I’ve had as much fun in dusty Bakersfield as I’ve had in exotic Hong Kong.  It depends on who is at my side.  This is important for me to remember when going out with friends. I’d rather be with good friends at McDonald’s then with acquaintances at a four-star restaurant.

On Saturday, Marinka invited me to join her and her kids on THE RIDE, a new-fangled NYC tour bus “experience” that has been getting positive reviews by the local media. Marinka was invited as part of a blogger PR out-reach, and asked them if she could bring me.  They reluctantly agreed.   That means, in blog-speak, that we didn’t pay to go on the Ride.

I first met Marinka in August 2008, when she was a complete nobody in the blogging world.   I wanted to test having guest posts on my blog, but I wanted to do it differently, so I just chose the first five people to write a comment on my blog.    Marinka was the first.  As a test of her skill, I presented her with a topic to write about, and I purposely chose the most ridiculous one ever, “I Woke Up Today with a Penis! Can My Marriage Survive?”

As anyone who has ever seen the movie “A Star is Born” knows, it wasn’t long before our fortunes turned, and I was the one bowing at her feet.

On Sunday, I was Marinka’s guest.

The Ride differs from typical tour buses in that the seats face one-way, theater-style, towards a large glass window which is open to the public.   The riders look out at the passing city like it is a movie on a giant screen.  Those on the street can see you, so there is a good amount of waving and photographing going on back and forth.

As we passed a few landmarks such as the Chrysler Building and Central Park, two cheery twenty-something tour guides entertained us with jokey information about the city.  It felt as if were were on a ride at Disneyland. To add to the artifice, actors/entertainers were placed on the street to interact with us.

We might see a UPS courier delivering a package on 45th Street.

Tour guide: “Hey, look, there is a UPS guy, working on a Saturday.  In NY, there are so many people wanting to get a break in show business, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was also a dancer going for auditions.”

A second later, the UPS guy would start break-dancing for our entertainment, and then the bus would move on,  just like in  the Pirates of the Caribbean ride!  Except here, real-life New Yorkers, just walked by, ignoring it all.

The bus was also a character.  Lights blinked, and videos blasted, and the bus even spoke, in that deep electronic voice of Knight Rider, joking with the tour guides, and telling us New York facts and statistics.

My review of the Ride: It is very very clever, making the typical 70-minute bus tour ride around Manhattan as old-fashioned as the evening news in the age of Twitter.

I am a fan of clever.   I love Disneyland.  But in all honesty, I’m not sure I enjoyed seeing New York City turned into Disneyland.   Will the tourist on “The Ride” go home thinking he had a real experience?  Why don’t tourists just walk the same twenty blocks themselves, carrying a tour book? Will future generations of tourists be disappointed when no opera singers approach them outside of Carnegie Hall with a song? Does EVERYTHING have to be interactive and pre-packaged?

If I were on the bus by myself, without Marinka and her kids, I would be counting the time, waiting to get off it and back on the noisy, crowded street with real smelly people.

If I were a thirteen year old tourist with my parents, I would hate it even more. I would not enjoy having tourists in the street taking photos of ME sitting in a bus with my parents, all of us in the dorky “I Love NY” hats.  I do not want to be part of the entertainment.  But maybe that is just me.

That said, everyone in the bus loved The Ride, including Marinka’s kids. They got a big kick out of seeing the performers in the street. I mostly wondered if they were getting paid union wages, and where they waited before their cue.  In their car?  At a Starbucks?

Should you go on The Ride if you are visiting New York?  If you have ten year old kids, and have never been to New York before, the Ride could be a lot of fun (although pricey, $59-$65!).  I also think stoned college students might find The Ride a fun and campy experience if they go on it at night, when the lights are on and there are less kids in the bus, and after the ride, go off for some pizza.

Did I have fun? Yes, I did. I was with Marinka. I’ve know her long enough now to have developed some a rapport.  When the Knight Rider “bus” made some cliched New York-centric joke about cupcakes in “Sex in the City” or “Robert DeNiro” in Taxi Driver, we could just glance at each other and, without words, know each other’s snarky response.

And that was fun. It is always who you are with that counts, not where you are.

Your Fashion Questions Answered

February 16, 2011 / / 18 Comments

Have you ever noticed that whenever there is fashion advice given in a woman’s magazine, it is always written by… a woman?  I find this discriminatory, as if 50% of the population had no opinion on the matter.

In honor of New York Fashion Week, I asked YOU, some of my female readers, to ask me — a straight male — some of your pressing fashion questions.


Your Fashion Expert

Question: Are there any cute alternatives to skinny jeans this season? — Mary C, Phoenix, Arizona

I wouldn’t wear skinny jeans because I’m not THAT skinny anymore, considering my love for bagels and pizza, so why would I ask you to wear pants that squeezes your ass together like a tight package of kosher salami?  I’m not cruel.  Women should just wear more short skirts to show off their legs.

Question: What the heck should I wear on a first date with a nice guy from the office? – Beth M, New Rochelle, New York

Show cleavage.  Or wear a tight sweater.  While I do not recommend skinny jeans or tight pants because I believe in a woman’s comfort from the waist down, I make an exception for the tight sweater in the upper half of the body.  Buy a good bra.  And comb your hair.  If you have long hair, it is always good to have some of it drape onto your shoulder, seductively, like Lana Turner did in that old black and white movie, the name of which I don’t remember, but is always playing on Turner Classic Movies at three in the morning.  Also, if you are going sleeveless, have a little bit of bra strap showing as a tease.  But not TOO much.  Don’t have your boobs hanging out if he is such a nice guy.  He will be intimidated.

Question: I need a new going-out bag, on the cheap.  Help! — Latrissa W, Miami, Florida

Seriously.  No one cares ONE IOTA what type of bag you carry.   No one even notices it.  Why should anyone care what type of bag you carry, unless we know that there is a kinky sex toy inside, or a lot of cash and you’re paying for our dinner, or a stash of cocaine in the side pocket, which means you are either a drug dealer, which is a little exciting and dangerous, but ultimately scary and off-putting, or a drug user, and we know that type of relationship never ends well.  So, my recommendation is to just pick up any cheapo bag at Target or from an illegal street vendor, and stop wasting your time worrying over useless stuff like your BAG.  Or, for that matter, your nails.  No man has ever said, “Check out her newly-colored nails!”  Instead, spend time thinking about how you are going to show  a little bit of your bra strap on the shoulder.  That’s way more important, in a fashion sense.

Hope that helped.  Keep on sending those questions, so I can serve up some more closet advice!  Ciao!

Note:  I am currently available for writing assignments at Glamour and Cosmopolitan magazines.

Vintage Subway Train

December 26, 2010 / / 12 Comments

Every year during Christmastime, the MTA in New York City runs this special “Nostalgic subway train,” made up of subway cars from the 1930’s and 1940’s.  On a few Sundays during December, it runs back and forth between Queens and Manhattan.  To ride this old train costs the same as a regular ride and it makes the same stops as the M train.  Many regular subway riders had no idea this holiday train exists, and when it pulls into the station, they stare in wonder, as if they are seeing an iron ghost.

This holiday gimmick attracts three subsets of visitors: families with kids into Thomas the Train, Japanese tourists who read about this in some tour book, and very geeky, hermit-looking, New York men who wait all year for this occasion, and can name the model number of a specific E-train running in 1955.

And then there was me, of course.  I’m probably closest to that last group of train geeks, but not THAT bad.  I certainly didn’t wear a t-shirt that showed the map of the NYC subway circa 1972.

So, on the day after Christmas, I spent a good part of my day hanging out in the subway with other train geeks, unaware that a major blizzard was occurring outside.   (Ironically, the only trouble I had with mass transit today was with a modern bus that got stuck in the snow on the way home)

I can’t imagine many of you will be interested in this little video I made on my iphone.  I’m publishing it anyway, mostly for my childhood friend, Barry.

A few of these old style subway cars were still around, even into the late 1970s.  I remember these uncomfortable seats from when I went into the “city” with my parents.  The sounds of the old trains — the racket, the heat, the open windows — is a great way to connect to the classic era of New York life, not the upscale world of Madison Avenue, but of the working class.   The subways were gruffer and noisier.  I forgot how the lights flickered all the time, making the experience a little seedy, like the gritty street scenes from the old movies, where guys smoked and wear hats and were knifed in the alley for looking the wrong way, certainly not the same, slightly-boring Manhattan of today where Times Square is populated not by real-life Guys and Dolls, but the M&M store.

The Soup

December 22, 2010 / / 7 Comments

“Chicken noodle!” called out the counter man in a loud deep voice.

The father went to the counter, took the bowl of soup, and carried it to the plastic orange booth where his five year old daughter was waiting.   He slid the soup in front of her, and her eyes showed surprise at the size of the bowl; it was bigger than her head!  She zipped up her winter jacket.  A cold blast would shoot in from the street each time a new customer entered and exited the deli, and she was cold.

Inside, the speakers played Christmas music.  “Winter Wonderland.”  Outside, two teenage boys were fighting in the alleyway between Crazy Chicken and Rite-Aid.  They were so heavily layered with clothes that they seem like chunky members of the Pillsbury Doughboys Fight Club.

The father and daughter were ignoring the real world outside.   It was time for soup.   He was from India and wore a Yankee cap.   She had bright, jewel-like eyes.

“Let me get you another napkin,” said the father, and went to the counter, leaving his daughter alone with the soup.

She was happy to be left alone, to explore this new delicacy.  Slowly she leaned forward, to peer into the bowl, as gently and respectfully as someone looking down for the first time from the top of the Empire State Building, conscious of the danger.  Her father had promised to take her there soon.  She would enjoy traveling with him on the noisy subway from Queens.

As the deli door opened and the cold jolted in again, the girl became as fearless as a soldier; she peered into the soup without hesitation or further reflection.  The hot rising steam from the soup created a foggy mask around her face and she disappeared from my sight.

iPhone Notes from Veronica and Di’s Visit

December 2, 2010 / / 18 Comments

Wednesday, November 24

Veronica (V-Grrrl), one of my oldest and dearest blog friends, is coming to Queens this afternoon for Thanksgiving, along with her husband, her two teenage children, and Di Mackey (visiting from Belgium).

My mother and I are waiting for their arrival. Although they said the trip should take five hours coming up from the South, it is now seven hours since they left.   Not unexpected knowing pre-Holiday traffic.

++++

I received a phone call from Veronica’s husband saying that they reached New Jersey.  They assume, based on what their GPS says, that they will reach Queens in forty-five minutes.   I just turned to my mother, who is watching “Judge Judy” on the television, and told her that they arrived in New Jersey.

“OK, it’s going to take them another three hours,” she said.

I agreed, and we laughed.

++++

And we were right!  It took them ten hours to come to Queens.  Veronica’s husband parked the car down the block.   The others stumbled out, their bodies creaky and bent-over from hours in traffic.  Veronica was the last to exit.  I felt a sense of warmth seeing her again, despite her looking like she could use a serious nap.

++++

I have met Veronica and her family in person before (I had visited them last Christmas), but this was my first time meeting Di Mackey. I forgot, that despite her living in Belgium as a photographer, that she was born a Kiwi.  I was surprised to hear her New Zealand accent, with its dusty, rough-and-ready timbre.

After we hugged, she asked me, “And where’s your mum?”

“What?!” I asked, not understanding her question.

“Your mum!”

Funny Kiwis.

++++

Everyone was hungry after their arrival, so I called my mother down from the apartment building, and we walked over to Valentino’s Pizzeria, famous for its shrine to Fran Drescher (“The Nanny”), one of our block’s most famous former residents.

++++

Still at Valentino’s.  Di is fascinated by the large portion of pasta at Valentino’s.   While Veronica and I mock American culture, Di seems to love our country.

“The people are so friendly,” she said.

“Maybe you’re the friendly one.” I said, already noticing how she had immediately started conversations with the waiter and a Chinese woman standing in the street, carrying an umbrella.

She was also “blown away” by her visit with Veronica and her daughter to… Marshall’s at the mall!   Apparently, in Belgium, there are two types of women’s clothing shops — ones that are very expensive and ones completely schlocky. There aren’t stores like TJ Maxx and Marshall’s, where the average woman can buy designer clothes at a discount.

Di mentioned that her new-found enthusiasm for American life got her in trouble with some blog readers back home, who thought she was dissing Belgium with her glowing reviews of Marshall’s and Applebee’s.   After all, asked her friends, wasn’t it the Belgians who really invented the waffle?

++++

We’re back home and I am falling asleep.  A few weeks ago, when I first told my mother that I invited guests over, she wasn’t THAT happy. She was traveling to Florida for the winter a few days after Thanksgiving, and didn’t want to deal with the cooking, etc.    But now she is enjoying herself with the guests.  She is chatting with Veronica and Di as they watch the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

++++

Knowing that my mother was leaving town in a few days, Veronica and Di presented me with a cool — and amusing — gift.    They wrote — by hand — a small cookbook for me, with easy to make recipes.  They also gave me twenty essential McCormick spices to have in the cabinet.  If you follow me on Facebook, you might remember that I once asked a question about the essential spices every cook should have, which caused a minor fight amongst other Facebookers debating the merits of such things as tarragon and cinnamon.

++++

Thursday, November 25

We are in the subway. We woke up at 5AM so we can find a good place to stand at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Despite growing up in New York, I have never gone to the parade.  Maybe it is the idea of waking up at 5AM that had something to do with it.

When we entered the subway station, it was fun seeing everyone’s confusion over using the Metrocards.  For some reason, Di has compared the NYC subway to the train system in Istanbul!   She is now chatting with this grandmother who is sitting next to her.

Di talks to everyone.

++++

We are on 50th Street.   We got a decent spot.  The parade is in progress.  But the waiting for the parade, and now the standing and watching the parade is tiring.  The event is fun, but it feels like my feet are falling off.

By chance, we picked a spot that couldn’t be more “American” in culture.  We are across the street from

1) an Applebee’s restaurant

2) a huge, building-length billboard for some ultra-violent video game where each game character is holding a shiny phallic gun.

3) some tropical island tourist billboard, where a woman’s bikini is half-falling off.

Surprisingly, this inappropriate billboard is quickly becoming the highlight of the parade for Veronica and her kids.  They are each amusing themselves by trying to photograph each balloon character at the exact moment it floats by the billboard, making the character look like he is trying to grab the woman’s bikini, or just plain sleazy.

I like Veronica’s family!

Photos by V-grrrl —



++++

It is now night. My mother cooked up quite a Thanksgiving dinner. To top it off, Veronica and her family brought three delicious pies from a bakery down South.

++++

It is after dinner and we are now watching the parade on TV that we saw in person earlier in the day.  What a vastly different experience.

First of all, most people on the parade route never see any of the Broadway show routines that they perform for the cameras in front of Macy’s.  Also, the celebrities on the floats, such as Kanye West and Gladys Knight, mostly wave and yawn as they travel down the parade route, reserving their energy for when the camera lights go on.  Sometimes, the floats passed by so fast, you’re not sure who it was that was waving at you.   We just learned from the NBC broadcast that the five clean-cut guys on the Build-a-Bear float were some popular boy band on Nickelodeon!

Even though you see more of the parade on TV, the NBC broadcast has become very cloying and commercial.  Was it better years ago?   Now it seems that they break away from the parade every five minutes so Al Roker could interview — wait, is that a star from one of NBC’s new shows who just “happens” to be standing there on the parade route?!

++++

Friday, November 26

We’re back in the subway this morning, this time to Battery Park to take the boat to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.


My photo of Ellis Island (via iPhone)

+++

Today, it is Di’s day to shine. I am watching how she takes her photos. She has such an eye for detail.

Here’s an example in one of her photos from Ellis Island.

++++

We have returned to Queens.  Veronica’s husband just found out that he got a $70 parking ticket because he misread one of New York’s many confusing parking enforcement tickets. He is a little mad at himself for making the mistake.  I am telling him that rather than feeling upset, he should consider getting this overpriced parking ticket the most authentically New York experience that he will have this entire weekend.

++++

We just ate dinner.  Why do leftovers always taste better?

++++

After dinner, we were using my mother’s laptop to show each other various funny videos from YouTube.  I remembered that there was a parody version of the song, “Empire State of Mind,” titled “Forest Hills State of Mind,” which prominently showcases the Queens subway stop at 71st Street and Continental Avenue, which is where we caught the E train each day en route to Manhattan.  I thought I would amuse everyone by showing it.

OK, now remember, I don’t have kids.  So it didn’t even occur to me that this video, filled with references to motherf*ckers and other NSFW items, might not have been been the best Holiday video for the entire family.  From now on, I’ll remember to check the ratings before I show Veronica’s family any videos!  (Yeah, like photographing Thanksgiving Day balloon as sleazy characters is “normal” family behavior.)

++++

Di wants to take some photos of me.   She tells me to stop mugging and “look natural.”


by Di Mackey

++++

Saturday, November 27

My guests are going home later today in order to avoid the big traffic on Sunday.  We are at the Dominican Diner having breakfast.

A few moments ago, Di ordered a bagel, saying that she hadn’t yet tasted a “real New York bagel.” My mother and I exchanged glances.  Both of us know that the bagels at the diner are terrible, probably from the supermarket.  My mother gestured to me, as if to say, “Eh, don’t tell her, and she won’t know the difference. Why ruin the moment for her.”

++++

She loved the crappy bagel.

++++

I just said good-bye to everyone, hugging Veronica, Di, and Veronica’s daughter.   I have been feeling a little lonely since leaving LA.  Their visit was just what I needed.

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