Courtesy of our friends at Gothamist, a map of the United States as seen by New York City residents. Sure puts that cliche New Yorker cover to shame now, doesn't it?
New York is suddenly crazy for Dolly Parton, who grew up just 20 miles from my house.
Pretty soon, we'll be having Bobby Osborne & Earl Scruggs concerts in Central Park and clogging competitions at Studio 54.
One of the most sobering things I've had to come to grips with in New York is the regular experience of watching rats scurrying around the subway tracks and platforms while I await my train.
The first time you see it, it's startling and somewhat creepy. But like many other things New York, you quickly become numbed to the inherent creepiness of it, and it becomes just another distraction as you await your D-train home.
A Board of Health study last year basically concluded that man doesn't stand a chance against rats, and eradicating them in this city of 8 millions is an impossibility. In the subway, they actually live in the walls rather than on the tracks, so whenever trains come they simply scurry into the walls and avoid being crushed, electrocuted or possibly poisoned by the countless bait packets that are fruitlessly dropped by the MTA in their stations.
Still, it's creepy every time you see one. And of late, there's been a couple of videos making the viral route of rats actually getting into the trains and climbing on people, although I've never seen it and there's questions as to whether the videos were staged or not.
The general consensus is that the rats proliferate because of garbage in the subways, both trash dropped by passengers and the rooms where workers store up collected trash prior to it being brought above ground for removal. At times, rats have been used as an excuse to try and create laws banning food and drink on the subways (you're allowed to carry it in closed containers, but I've watched people practically have a 3-course breakfast while they sit on the train in the mornings).
As for the entertainment value, I'm not the only one who enjoys the show. It's a nice distraction to watch them scurry around, and then watch as one-by-one others waiting on the platform become aware, nudging friends to point out the show. They're entertaining -- but don't expect me to bring one home as a pet.
OK, forget the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Tree-lighting at Rockefeller Center? Don't go. The event you HAVE to attend once in your life is the Annual Halloween Parade through the Villages of New York.
If you think the average New Yorker on the street is weird, you won't believe what you see when they're actually trying to be weird.
The missues and I rushed back from droppin' one of the younguns at the airport and quickly hopped on the C train to get down to 4th Street and hopefully see the parade. The subway ride proved to be the best and most surreal moment of the evening. At every station we stopped at, more and more people with more and more crazy costumes blithely walked onto the subway. Guys in inmate uniforms. Zombies galore. Werewolves. Girls wearing low-cut Swiss Miss outfits. You name it. And right at the point where our train reached critical mass and was rocketing nonstop toward our final station, we looked over to our right and watched as a second train car of equally bizarre partiers raced us at 60 mph on a parallel track.
When we arrived at the station, it was a mob scene, with more than 3,000 people all trying to work their way off the platform, through a tunnel and up to the street. When we got to the street, the mob was 30-people deep from the sidewalk, ensuring we wouldn't be able to see anything. We spend the next 35 minutes pushing through crowds and working our way north up side streets, trying to find a decent vantage point. By the time we'd back0-and-forthed our way to 12th street, we decided the best way to see the parade was on TV, and headed back north.
But we'd gotten the flavor of it. And it was amazing. The crowd along the parade route were just as amazingly costumed as those who took the street. It's not really an organized parade, per se, just a collection of tens of thousands of crazy New Yorkers walking down Sixth Avenue in costume having a good time. Nothing debauched. Kids and adults having a really good time.
I took a few pictures, but candidly from my vantage point you don't really get the story. Here's a link to Gothamist's site where they've rolled up some great Flickr images of the event and another link to Google images. Enjoy!
Had my first experience with White Castle hamburgers Thursday. Krystals, they're not.
This is another of those many touchstones that determine whether you're a Yankee or not. If you grew up in the North, especially the MidWest, then you grew up on White Castles. If you grew up in the South, then it's Krystals.
Which came first? White Castle was born in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas, while Krystal showed up 11 years later in Chattanooga, Tennessee. There's been countless analysis, battles and critiques comparing the two brands over the years, and just like The Civil ..., er., the War Between the States, it's unlikely that one side is going to abandon their loyalties anytime soon.
So with an admitted bias, I'm going to add my hillbilly voice the cacophony of voices comparing the two. First, the venue: I had my White Castles just south of the Port Authority Bus Terminal along 8th Avenue, not the seedy side of Manhattan but definitely not a hub of fine dining either.
The line was long, and when I got to the counter I was faced with a myraid of choices. In addition to hamburgers, cheeseburgers and chicken sandwiches, which Krystal has on their menu, I was also faced with a Jalipeno Cheeseburger, a BBQ Pulled Pork White Castle (I wasn't brave or foolhardy enough to try this!), a Fish Sandwich, Cheese Sticks, Clam Sticks and something called "Fish Nibblers." They also, bodaciously enough, had something labeled "Surf and Turf" on the menu. Didn't even want to know what that was!
My bottom line? I ordered two traditional White Castles. They were greasier than Krystals (which is really saying something!) which made the bun soggier. The meat itself was identical to a Krystal's (I assume it's meat. Now I'm not so sure) and the only major flavoring difference was a big one: If you're a White Castle person, apparently you're used to the fact it comes with ketchup. Krystal people know the thing that makes it a Krystal are three things: Onion, pickle and mustard. Not having mustard was a big surprise to the palette, and made the dining experience a little otherworldly.
Want to tell me why White Castle rocks your world, or why Krystals still rule? Cast your vote and make your case by hitting the "Comments" link below.
This is going to be one f-ing difficult post to write.
Because no matter what I say here, I’m going to come off as a prude.
Let’s start with full disclosure: I’ve dropped an f-bomb or two during my lifetime. My mercurial temper ensures that when I screw up home repair project, or bounce a check, I’m going to be f-ing mad. Not just mad, but f-ing mad.
That said, I don’t think I’ve ever said that word in public. Not on an open street. Never in a train car or bus. Certainly not around women (sadly, the misses excluded).
So one of the big changes I’m having to deal with is that New Yorkers f-ing love the f-word. Not all New Yorkers. Maybe not a majority. But an f-ing lot of them.
About every other day I’ll be walking along a street and overhear a couple of guys talking on the corner, and the f-bomb is anything from 10% to 40% of the dialogue. Interestingly, I don’t hear “damn” that much. Not a lot of the s-word. Even the more rare biological and scatological curse words are also not de rigueur.
But New Yorkers love the f-word.
Here was yesterday’s conversation, loudly belted out on the street corner at 39th and 5th Avenue, near Bryant Park. I noted that even when women and small children wandered by, the conversation was never hushed or halted:
“Jimmy f-ing knows that I don’t give a f-. Why he f-ing keeps going to his boss and f-ing telling him that is a f-ing mystery. Why the f- does he keep doing that? It’s f-ing p-sing me off. I mean, what the f-?”
What the f-, indeed.
I mean, I’m willing to bend to the New York way and let guys be guys, and drop the f-bomb all day if they want. I’m just one hillbilly, after all.
The least they can do is meet me half-way and not use it around women and kids, right? I let you know how my crusade works out.
This is Times Square, kiddo!
My view as I sit and read The New York Times in Verdi Square. A very New York -- and enjoyable -- thing to do.
TruTV recently posted their list of "12 Dumbest Things New Yorkers Do." And as any reader of this blog knows, there's a lot more than 12.
Actually, I think New Yorkers get a bad shake on this. No one I know would ever eat one of those Burger King Pizza Hamburger thingees, and no one here seems to root for the Mets from what I can see.
That said, I think trash can jenga is an art form here.
H/T: Gothamist.
One of the major cultural differences between New York City and the South is how you interact with the neighbors.
Quite bluntly, in New York, you don't.
As any dyed-in-the-wool Southerner knows, interaction across the fence with the neighbors isn't just a tradition, it's required as part of the social code. You may hate your neighbor, but you'll kill them with kindness by pointing out with a fake sense of sadness how their rose garden is rapidly dying, subtly suggesting that it's their lack of care or dearth of horticultural knowledge that's doing them in.
In the north, we've lived in our apartment building now for six weeks. There are 12 apartments and I've seen three neighbors as they passed in and out of the front door. I've said hello. Introduced myself to two of them. Nothing.
Neighbors in New York City are ships passing in the night. Even the mere act of holding a door open for them brings about odd looks. Actually conversing beyond "hello" is immediately greeted as suspect. Apartment doors are quickly closed so that neighbors can't peek in and see who has the nicer apartment, or who might be busy dismembering corpses in their kitchen. But according to The New York Times, this trend might be changing.
So being a sociable hillbilly, me and the misses are going to try and change that. We're sending out invitations tomorrow for a "meet-the-tenants" social at our place in two weeks. We're going to avoid freaking them out by having a pig-picking or a catfish fry, and attempt something more urban and less threatening: a little wine-and-cheese get together in the evening.
We'll see how it goes. If I start feeling comfortable, who knows -- I might put the NASCAR race on the TV.
About once a week I start having serious withdrawal. I mean, tremors and shaking. Disorientation. Irritation and confusion. The enormity of a Southerner stuck in Yankeeland truly hits me.
It's at that point that I usually go out to the park, crank up the iPod and listen with my eyes closed to some bluegrass music.
Today, it's a new album I just downloaded from the Steep Canyon Rangers.
Ahhhhhhh.
That's the question that keeps rolling through my head.
Saturday, riding the E train back to my apartment with wife and two college-aged children, we had a pack of nine kids enter the train. They were ages 15-18 I'd guess, and they were loud. At first, I thought, no big deal, kids are loud, they're having good fun. They're obnoxious, but no biggie.
Then they got more animated. And more foul-mouthed. They started shouting back and forth through the car about "f-ing someone's mother" and other offensive stuff I'd rather not type. My wife was sittingthere. My 19-year-old daughter was sittingthere. I was getting more and more ticked off.
Those who know me well know I'm the most non-confrontational guy there is. I hate confrontation. I'll walk out of a bank if my wife's arguing with the teller about a problem. I just don't like it.
So 999 times out of a thousand, I would just let these kids go on offending everyone in the car, keep my head down and let it go. Like almost every New Yorker does.
Except I didn't. I stood up.
I thought the simple of act of standing up and glaring at several of the kids would be enough to make them realize they were out of line and tone it down. No such luck. 16-year-olds are many things, and one of them is oblivious. More obscenities. So I walked to the corner of the car where four of the nine were standingand asked one of them under my breath, not to call them out, "Hey, I know you kids are just having a good time, but would you mind taking your party up to the next car?"
You'd have thought I'd asked him to shoot his sister. He gave me a look like he couldn't believe what I'd said. Then he cursed at me. Then as his friends figured out what had happened, they joined in, cursing and telling me they weren't going anywhere.
"You apparently didn't hear what I said," I said, more loudly now, and more ominously and threateningly. "I know you're just having fun, but go do it in the next car."
Now all hell broke loose. I had a pack of kids all yelling an screaming about how they weren't going anywhere. I was called a cracker. I stayed calm, knowing from my training as a football official not to let the situation escalate. As we pulled into the next station I looked over the shoulders of two of the kids through the doorway window into the next car, acted like I'd made eye contact and made a subtle gesture with my finger calling some nonexistent person up and pointing at the kids. It was subtle but convinced at least three of them that an enforcement officer might be in the next car and might be heading our way. They took the bait, and at least half of the kids jumped outside the doors and started calling for their friends to join them.
After a lot more name-calling and yelling -- none of which I returned or responded to -- they were all outside the door and I waited for it to close. But before it could, one of them reached down into their pocket and pulled out a small one-inch buck knife and started waving it at me through the open doorway. He made one slashing movement at me, which I didn't even have to dodge and then the door started closing. The train moved out and I calmly sat back down at my seat.
My wife was more amused than startled by the whole incident. My son had stayed calm on the other side of the car until he saw the knife, then had jumped up to cover my back. My daughter was quite shaken up, and scolded me -- perhaps rightly -- for getting involved rather than just letting the whole thing go.
So that's the internal debate I'm still having. Was I brave? Was I stupid? Was I right to get my hillbilly sensibilities up and shoo the toughs off the train? Or did I risk my life foolishly. I'm pleased to note that at no time were my wife and kids in any danger. And at the time, until the knife showed up, I didn't really feel I was. I was calm and in control. But it was so unlike me that I still don't know why I did it.
But was I brave? Or stupid? Hit the comments section and let me know what you think.
Passing me in a crosswalk at 5th Avenue at 48th Street. Yes, it is a guy with a giant albino snake around his neck.
As we approach the one-month mark of our New York City adventure, I get asked "what's the biggest change from living in the South?" There are lots of answers, from the food to accents to living space. But perhaps the biggest change is the pace.
Everything here is fast. It's movement. New York does not stand still. That's not a cliche. It's the god's-honest truth. Everything here is a convaluded ballet of energy. People walking. Dancing. Waving for cabs. Rushing to beat the crossing signal. Stutterstepping down stairs to catch a subway train. Pacing the platform. There may be moments of solitude, silence and stillness, but I haven't seen or experienced them yet.
Want to immerse yourself in this feeling? Check out this three-minute film shot by three members of the production company Stereoscreen. They were part of a German crew filiming a commerical here last month, and in their spare time they shot street footage and then edited it into what Gawker calls "perhaps the greatest New York home movie."
Big milestone yesterday as I was doing laundry in our building's basement. As I was loading the washing machine, out of the corner of my eye I spotted what seemed to be a small dog scooting across the floor. I quickly realized it was a roach! My first New York cockroach!
Granted, it was big. Bigger than most I saw in Georgia. That said, I still think at 3 1/2 inches long, it was smaller that some of the monsters I used to fight in South Carolina. (South Carolinians try and mitigate things through language. They refer to "cockroaches" as "palmetto bugs." These are the same people who refer to the Civil War as "the recent unpleasantness.")
The only weapon I had in what I've now referred to as The Battle of The Laundryroom Roach was my bottle of liquid laundry detergent. So I reared back and repeatedly smashed the bug until I turned back up in the middle of the laundry room. I then returned upstairs to get my next load of laundry and something to pick up the bug and dispose of it.
But like the Battle of Bull Run, there was a First and Second Bull Run. When I returned, I found out the bug had just been "playing possum," and it was slowly climbing the wall attempting to regroup for further action. Startled, I shouted "What, you're still alive?" Then I grabbed the laundry bottle and whacked it four or five times against the side of the wall, this time making sure the bug was completely crushed.
Suddenly, I heard to the lock on the apartment across from the laundry room snap shut. It dawned on me that the tenant had heard the initial whacks, which sounded like gunshots. Then a few minutes later, they heard me say "What, you're still alive?" and four more gunshot sounds. God only knows what was going through their head, but at least the cops weren't called. I didn't want to end up in an episode of "Insecticide: Life on the Streets."
Do one thing, and do it well? Screw that!
There are a lot of things as a hillbilly I'm going to have to learn to do here in Yankee-land. My efforts to learn the subway system are well-documented. Mastering how to get in and out of my building was a tad challenging. But one thing I knew how to do before I moved to the tri-state area was pump gas.
Apparently, people in New Jersey have a problem with this. On my drive in, we stopped just shy of the city to fill up the tank stopping in Clinton, N.J. I popped out of the truck, opened the tank and moved to grab the nozzle.
"No! No! No! No! No!" came the shouts in a distinctively Columbian accent. "I pump for you." At first, it wasn't clear whether the gentleman worked at the station or had made pumping people's gas his good works community service project. He snagged my debit card, swiped it, and proceeded to fill the tank.
I quickly learned that in New Jersey, it's the law that you can't pump your own gas. (Oregon has the same law). The law was passed in 1949, with a big push from gasoline retailers. You'd think it would drive up the cost of gasoline, but since they are exactly four billion refineries in the state of New Jersey, it's actually cheaper there than in nearby states like Connecticut and New York. On several occasions, New Jerseyans have had the chance to vote out full-serve gas and have chosen not to do so.
I guess the next time I drive through New Jersey, I'll adapt to having someone else do my dirty work for me. And I'll fight the urge to ask New Jerseyans "You live in Jersey? What exit?"
My expectations about what it was like to live in New York City were formed by movies. Admittedly, movies are perhaps the most inaccurate representations of real life, but my expectations of the subway system were formed by The Warriors. My ideas about what it is like to work at Rockefeller Center were created by My Favorite Year.
Since there's a film festival this week at the lawn at Central Park, this seems like a good opportunity to rattle off some of my favorite films about New York. Have your own favorite? The comments section is located below.
Those are some of my favorites? Got films to add?
Amazingly, it's been legal in New York for women to go topless in the streets since 1992. Sadly, it's rare that women here exert their rights (a far more interesting constitutional right than being able to carry guns in church!). But Sunday GoTopless.org held rallies here and elsewhere to encourage the practice and complain about gender inequities. You can check out a report here, but beware, after the first picture the rest are NSFW.
As a red-blooded Southern male, I'd like to see more women exercising their rights. But like I discovered the first time I visited a topless beach in Tahiti, most of the people who go to nude beaches -- shouldn't.
Unless you live in a big city, you have no idea what a Zipcar is.
One of the best and worst moments in the move to New York City was the selling of our cars. I loved our cars. The misses and I both owned convertibles, and in Atlanta we got to drive with the top down often. One time, we took our Mini Cooper on a 1,000-mile road trip to Wisconsin, with the top down most of the way. That said, I liked the idea of being on-foot 24-hours a day, with no car payment, no insurance payment and no payment for parking.
So when the misses suggested yesterday that we sign up for a Zipcar account, I said
I've just now adjusted to the subways and taxis. So now I have to start driving on the streets of New York again?
The misses made a good argument (let's admit here that she always does, even when she doesn't) that we would occasionally need a car to drive upstate, or pick someone up at the airport, or in emergencies. Our first "emergency" occurred this week when we bought an armoire desk on craigslist and then couldn't find anyone with a truck willing to help us move it. So we became "zippers."
Here's how the deal works: You pay $50 a year to be a zipper. After that, whenever you need a car, you go online and reserve a Zipcar -- which can be anything from a Mini to a pickup truck or van. You go to pick it up at a nearby garage. You hold your zipcard up to the door and it unlocks, with the key already inside. You drive the car around as much as you want for a flat hourly or daily rate. The hourly rate usually ranges from $8 to $13 an hour. Not too bad. When you're done, you return the car and re-lock it for the next person to use.
You don't have to pay for the insurance. If you need gas, it's paid for, you just use your Zipcar to fill up. It's not a bad deal, giving us the ability to have a car when needed, without all the long-term headaches.
How did it work last night? Pretty well. I took the subway to where the pickup was located. Took a minute to figure out where to hold my card, but when I found the sensor it unlocked easily. The truck even had an iPod plug for the stereo, which was cool and allowed me to play Sinatra while rolling down 57th Street. Moved the 4,000-pound piece of furniture from the seller's house to our apartment (thank God for our elevator!) and then returned the car and subwayed back home. All in two hours. Cost me $28 for two hours, far cheaper than what I'd have paid someone to move the armoire for me.
One regret: No tractors or four-wheelers in the Zipcar stable. I just got my email asking for feedback, so I'm sure it'll raise some eyebrows when they open my response.
Take a good look at my wallet. Looks like any other wallet, right? Wrong! It's a thinner wallet with a money clip attached to it (which I have since removed, since I now live in New York City and thus have no money). What's most important about it is that it's designed to fit in your front pocket rather than you back pocket.
One of the first tips I received from a native New Yorker was to stop keeping my billfold in my back pocket. Living in South, it was rare to even have a wallet (most of us bartered corn and tobacco crops for groceries, right?). Those of us who did own a wallet just shoved it in our back pocket, most often not even bothering to button the flap on the pocket. You just shove it in there, head on your way, and forget about it until you sit down on this phone-book-thickness billfold. My old wallet had every possible card I owned inside -- credit cards, library cards, voter ID cards, hotel and rental car frequent-user cards -- you name it.
But up here, you have to pare down your card collection so you can shove your wafer-thin front-wallet into your front pocket. The reason, of course, is to discourage pickpockets, which I'm told are rife, especially in tourist-laden areas like Times Square, Herald Square and Battery Park.
Sadly, shoving all of my possessions into my front pockets has made for some awkward situations, and two incidents that give lie to the notion that New Yorkers are a thievin' lot.
Because I had my billfold, a money clip, a set of keys and a cellphone all shoved into my two front pockets, things have on two occasions fallen out. The first came the day I took a cab to purchase an air conditioner for the apartment. My brand-new iPhone 4 apparently slipped out of my pocket as I was getting out of the cab. Fortunately, the misses kept calling the phone for me and convinced the cabbie to bring it back -- for a $20 reward. Less than three days later, my wallet fell out as I was paying for a meal at Big Nick's. Fifteen minutes later I realized I'd lost it and sprinted the six blocks back, to discover that it was still sitting on the ground under my table.
I've had no more incidents since these, because I've instituted a pocket-checking protocol every time I get up or leave a place, patting myself down back and forth, left and right to make sure I have all four items. Unfortunately, it makes me look like I'm genuflecting my genitals, but at least I still have my credit cards.
This is something that absolutely shocked all of my northern acquaintances: I have never eaten a cannoli.
Now, I never got my dungarees in a bunch whenever I ran into a Yankee who hadn't tried grits. Grits are refined, high-calibre foodstuffs that may be too refined for many not from the South. I understand that, and would never try and make a visitor from the North feel bad that they'd never experienced them.
But when I let slip the other day that I'd never eaten a cannoli, my right arm was grabbed and I was hustled out the door to the nearest pastry shop as if I was going to die if I didn't receive an immediate injection of ricotta cheese.
I'd heard of cannoli. I realized they might be important as a result of that famous line from The Godfather. But aside from them being some type of pastry, I knew nothing.
Essentially, they're a thinly formed piece of dough, rolled up and fried. Then the bakers add a mixture of sugar and ricotta ( which is pronounced "ri-COTT-ah" by someone like me, and "ri-GUH-tah" by anyone who's Italian or knows an Italian).
My verdict: Not bad. Certainly filling. But I suspect by the time I take my pilgrimage this weekend to this televised bakery wonderland, I'll find much more interesting and tasty bakery items to sample.
I did a double-take when I passed this statue yesterday. It's a fairly innocuous one as statues in New York City go, but it struck me for several reasons.
First, it's a Civil War statue. You don't see that many of them in the city because, with the exception of a healthy race riot, there were no battles fought here in the city. Everywhere in the South, there were battles and skirmishes -- heck, if a union fighter and confederate got into a fistfight over who got to use an outhouse first they would have erected a sign on the site -- but here in the North there aren't that many. Revolutionary War, you bet. Class warfare? Heck, there's hundreds of statues to both the robber barons and union leaders. But the "War Between the States"/"War for Southern Independence"/"Civil War'/"Recent Unpleasantness"? Not so much.
Another observation: There are monuments to northern soldiers and units throughout the South, most erected in the 20 or 30 years after the war's end by members of those units that made fortunes but still fondly remembered their war years that were probably not that fond. Go to Chickamauga National Battlefield Park and you'll see many more monuments and memorials to northern units than to southern ones.
But up here, you won't see any statues to Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson. Too much's the pity. Some of them are quite impressive, and quite beautiful.
Twice a week on the streets of New York, the nuttiest dance takes place. And if you're not a native, you're not going to believe the steps.
First, let's accept that New York City is a dirty place. Any city with 8.4 million people living in close quarters is going to get a little messy. So every now and again, you have to clean the streets. On average, about two days per week. So how do you run a street sweeper up and down the streets when the curbs are literally jammed with cars? Answer: You force them to move. Practically at gunpoint.
If you drive a car in New York, the street you park on has a sign like the one at right. And for an hour and half twice a week, you have to be with you car if you want to hang on to your parking space. The dance goes something like this:
Let's say you're parking next to this sign, that says "opposite street parking Mondays and Thursdays 9 am to 10:30 am." At 9 a.m. Monday, you either leave with your car or you move it and double-park on the opposite side of the street. But you can't just leave it there. You have to stay in the driver's seat with the engine running in case someone needs to get out or in case the NYPD traffic officer (who travels just ahead of the street sweepers) needs you to move.
Forget to be there at the designated day and time? Guess what. You win a great big parking ticket courtesy of the city of New York. Theoretically, you could get towed, but the odds are the sweeper will just work around you and your several-hundred-dollars-poorer butt.
Here's the fun part: Even after the sweeper comes, you can't leave. You have to stay either in your car, or within arms-reach for the entire hour and a half. So for a total of three hours each week, you'll see otherwise productive New Yorkers sitting in their idling cars down entire miles of streets, running the air conditioning and reading the latest Amy Tan novel. Imagine how many diseases might be cured or ad campaigns created if everyone with a car in this city didn't waste their time twice a week waiting to move their vehicles!
This is the craziest dance I've ever seen. And I still remember my clumsy friend Wilmer trying to learn how to Alaman Left in junior high square dancing class.
Apparently, no one wants to claim credit for any of the cast members of Jersey Shore, including the state's governor. He say's they're all New Yorkers.
I've never watched the show, but apparently I'll need to start Tivo-ing the program as part of my education for living in Yankee-land.
I'm sure they're all fine young folk, likely to just hang out down by the general store and have a grape Nehi occasionally. Right?
Bonus question: Is "guido" the same as "hillbilly," but with better hair?
I didn't realize how important purses are. And I certainly didn't know the special rights and privileges they hold in the big city.
Was sitting with the Misses earlier in the week at a restaurant, and a third person helping us find an apartment came in to join us. We needed to add a chair to the table, and there were three vacant chairs at tables next to us.
All occupied by women's purses.
You can see where this is going. Yours truly had to ask each of the ladies at these three tables if we could borrow their what-I-thought-was-empty chair. And in each case, they gave me a look like I'd asked them to sacrifice their first child for an entree. Me forcing her to put her Coach handbag on the floor under her? To allow her bag to actually touch dust? What I rube I clearly was.
Then, not two hours later on a crowded subway, I watched this lady keep 25 people from sitting down on a busy subway because her handbag needed its own seat.
What was more sobering was when I learned that 90% of the Coach, Aignor and other designer handbags I was seeing weren't even real. Apparently, counterfeit handbags are more common than the real ones in New York City. And obtaining them is kind of a cat-and-mouse sting operation. A female friend of mine decided to go down to Chinatown last week with the expressed intent of scoring a faux ladies handbag.
First, we walked up and down the street, looking at the no-name handbags for sale in the various shops. "The people who sell the knock-offs will come up to you if they see you're in the market for purses," she explained. We walked 12 blocks. Nothing. We walked down the narrowest and seamiest of streets, the only non-Chinese within miles. No one said a word.
"You're the problem, she finally snarked.
"Excuse me?"
"You look like a fed."
"What?"
"They're obviously not talking to me because you look like a police officer." I took this as a compliment, but couldn't understand how someone like me with a stocky build, short cropped haircut and aviator sunglasses could be confused for a law enforcement officer. "Go up to the corner and wait for me there."
I waited. And waited. After 25 minutes, I began to think I needed to call real law enforcement officers. Finally, my special lady friend showed up. She had been accosted not two minutes after I'd left, supporting her argument that I was cramping her illicit shopping style. She had been ushered down dark alleys into back rooms, and different people kept coming and going with handbags. At no time did the same person discuss price, touch the merchandise or exchange anything. It was as if she was purchasing drugs or illegal arms, but everyone was much more paranoid.
For me, I just don't understand the whole handbag thing. I figure a good burlap bag can do the job as well as anything and is much more durable. You don't even need to save a seat on the subway for it.
Here's one of those little disconnects that make New York City as disconcerting as a chicken rendering plant:
Check out this lovely sign outside a local cleaners. Look familiar? If you live in New York, it does, because almost EVERY dry cleaner has the same type of art stuck to their windows. It's either a dowdy horned-rim glasses-toting elderly woman or a nebbish-looking man in a striped shirt. They are breathtakinging old-school and obsessively caucasian.
The disconnect? These people don't exist. In every dry cleaner, the proprietor is either Chinese or Korean. Nothing wrong with that. But how about a little truth in advertising in the windows, guys?
The countdown to my departure from the South has begun. And with it comes the reality that I will be leaving the only life I've ever known. A life of walking barefoot, of ya'lls a ma'ms and blackberry jams. So amidst the chaos of packing, selling the trailer, loading up the car, finding a job and figuring out whether to drive up I-95 or I-81, I need to find time to do that "one thing, one last time" before I depart the region of my birth. So here's a short list I devised, a sort of "Hillbilly Bucket List." Feel free to add suggestions in the comments section below.
Did I leave anything out?
I sure felt like a fly in the potato salad yesterday. Spent the afternoon at New Yankee Stadium. Got a tan on my knees (my legs were in the sun and my head and torso were in the shade). Like a trucker's tan, but in reverse.
Decided not to wear my Braves cap, since I was in an AL park, but I did sport my bright orange University of Tennessee t-shirt. No reaction whatsoever. Which was fine. Some guy with a death wish showed up in a Red Sox jersey. I figured he was some frat pledge on an initiation dare, but he swore he wasn't.
But as a sociology experiment, my first visit to the epicenter of northernness was worthy of a research paper. Some of my key findings for my Southern brethren:
In the end, it was a grand day. The Yankees racked up an 11-run third inning and coasted, former Atlanta Brave Mark Teixeira upheld the South's honor with some solid hitting and fielding. I didn't buy any pinstripe hats or jerseys, but my loathing of the Yanks has been diminished somewhat, thanks in large part to my host Jessica and her loyalty to her team.
Blog posted here.
The news will start getting interesting tomorrow. I have an early-morning flight out of Georgia for New York. Going to spend the next week on the ground getting citified and looking for an apartment. Suspect I won't be able to find a place with a big field in the back yard to grow beans, but I'm willing to settle.
The beagles are going to summer camp for the week while we're gone, oblivious to the changes they have in store. I hear there's tons of squirrels in Central Park, and I suspect chasing pigeons is as easy as chasing doves, so they should adjust rather well.
We're flying Delta, so odds are good we won't have to dust any crops on the way up, but you never know. I keep having Lewis Grizzard's famous line ringing in my ears: "If you Yankees don't like it down here, Delta is ready when you are!" Well, I've liked it here all my life, but I guess Delta's still ready for me.
See, New York City isn't that different from the hills:
The ones in New York City seem to be missing the half moons on the doors, though.
OK, to folks from the North, this may not be a big deal to you, but it is to me: Where to get a haircut.
Next to finding good barbecue, biscuits and gravy and someplace to get my overalls laundered, finding a good place to get my hair cut is going to be a critical search.
Why, you ask?
Because in the South, getting your haircut is more a social experience than a pragmatic one.
Currently, I get my hair cut at the neighborhood barber shop. It's tiny. Three chairs. If you come in on a Saturday morning, you're likely to be waiting up to an hour before you get in the chair. But that's OK, because you didn't come there for the haircut. You came there for the atmosphere. And the conversation.
Atmosphere: You want minimalist. No Muzak. A TV with a sports channel on turned down real low is good. Mounted deer heads and taxidermically-prepared fish on the wall are big pluses. Photos of big fighter jets are also tasteful. Signs promoting hair-care products that haven't existed since the 1960s is a great touch.
Conversation: You don't want a barber who's silent. But you also don't want a chatty Cathy either. You want to be able able to have some back-and-forth about things. Some barbers like to talk the heavy stuff, like politics or what big movers and shakers in town are doing. Others prefer the mundane, like good places to eat or weather. Either's OK. It's a personal taste thing. But it's got to be a friendly give-or-take. Barbers have to engage in the conversation, but the good ones don't drive it. Nothing's worse than sitting in a chair while someone who doesn't share your political views preaches on for 20 minutes while scraping your ears with the clippers.
So this is going to be yet another tough search in the big city. I pay $10 for a haircut (I'm still smarting from when they raised it from $8). I suspect it will be quite more in NYC. And I'm not sure the barbers here have ever seen a deer, much less considered putting a stuffed head on the wall.
This is the enemy.
I've had at least two New Yorkers tell me that it will be only a matter of time before I begin carrying the dreaded, emasculating "man purse" around the city.
The idea's as popular with me as an outhouse breeze.
Having walked the streets of New York for several days in a row, I can understand the appeal. Your arm gets about two inches longer carrying a briefcase around. Walking from interview to interview, you need to carry a few things to get yourself ready: hairbrush, breath mints, resumes, etc. Slinging on a messenger bag around and keeping all this weight on your shoulders is more comfortable.
And makes you look like a girl.
I'm a hillbilly from the south, and men don't wear purses. It's not a negotiable point. And I'm willing at this point to tough it up and wear out my hands carrying a briefcase. Heck, I'll even join those who sling on a backpack if I have to. As somebody who regularly hikes the Appalachian Trail, I think that looks pretty manly.
But a man purse? Let me try this expression out for the first time: Fugggit aboutit!
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