New York Scribbles - Post 1
by McCutcheonI'm starting a new New York City on line journal. A Pax Acidus exclusive. Here is the first installment.
So I went to 110th and Columbus to check out where I used to live today, and where I wrote V.D. The building is gone. There is just a big hole in the ground with barbed wire around it. The area is changing fast. It used to be a rough neighborhood where if you had white skin and blue eyes you were a minority, and while passing another Caucasian on the street you would make ever so slight eye contact, you wouldn't acknowledge them, but you were reassured to see them all the same, like the looks I've seen black folks give to each other when they are caught in white bread suburbia hell. Someday all New Yorkers are gonna look like Derek Jeter, just not as handsome or athletic. And that's fine by me. So anyway I walked around, still pretty much the only white person, but No Man's Land, which I called it in the story, and is now referred to as North Upper West Side or Manhattan Valley is getting the gentrification makeover. Ten years ago when they revamped the street the gunshots sort of stopped, according to an article in this week's NY Times. (J Dog- our favorite Wisconsin translplant doesn't seem to have his colum anymore. Either he is making money off his books or went completely blind.) Columbia is buying up the buildings in an attempt to keep some of the students around.
I like writing in NYC. I feel there has been a new chapter turned in my life and that being a New Yorker will give me renewed energy. I always got my best ideas while running, or just plain walking around. And New York has plenty of stimulation on offer. Plus it is nice to live back in a place I actually like. I never cared for the city of Seattle. I liked it because some of the dearest people in the world to me live there. Awe. Blush, blush.
Then I went to check out other places like the video store I worked at. It has all changed. And my old friend Jesus doesn't work there anymore. Jesus wanted to be a soccer player, and if Man U didn't want him he would have settled for playing in the American league. The problem was he wasn't any good. Not even as good as me and I only made it to the lowest level in the Paris league. When we played in Central Park and other places his peer group would make fun of him for hanging around a bitch ass gringo. I only got to play because I was better than their Speedy Gonzalez street moves. What Jesus was good at was selling small amounts of pot on the street corner of 86th and Broadway to the Baldwins and other celebs. He did this because his older brother Manny made him. Manny was tough and I only went to their house in the Bronx once. When Rudy Giuliani was mayor he made the New York City cops get out and walk their beats. He put a police force presence on the streets. I hope Jesus isn't playing soccer in the San Quinton league.
So I went to 110th and Columbus to check out where I used to live today, and where I wrote V.D. The building is gone. There is just a big hole in the ground with barbed wire around it. The area is changing fast. It used to be a rough neighborhood where if you had white skin and blue eyes you were a minority, and while passing another Caucasian on the street you would make ever so slight eye contact, you wouldn't acknowledge them, but you were reassured to see them all the same, like the looks I've seen black folks give to each other when they are caught in white bread suburbia hell. Someday all New Yorkers are gonna look like Derek Jeter, just not as handsome or athletic. And that's fine by me. So anyway I walked around, still pretty much the only white person, but No Man's Land, which I called it in the story, and is now referred to as North Upper West Side or Manhattan Valley is getting the gentrification makeover. Ten years ago when they revamped the street the gunshots sort of stopped, according to an article in this week's NY Times. (J Dog- our favorite Wisconsin translplant doesn't seem to have his colum anymore. Either he is making money off his books or went completely blind.) Columbia is buying up the buildings in an attempt to keep some of the students around.
I like writing in NYC. I feel there has been a new chapter turned in my life and that being a New Yorker will give me renewed energy. I always got my best ideas while running, or just plain walking around. And New York has plenty of stimulation on offer. Plus it is nice to live back in a place I actually like. I never cared for the city of Seattle. I liked it because some of the dearest people in the world to me live there. Awe. Blush, blush.
Then I went to check out other places like the video store I worked at. It has all changed. And my old friend Jesus doesn't work there anymore. Jesus wanted to be a soccer player, and if Man U didn't want him he would have settled for playing in the American league. The problem was he wasn't any good. Not even as good as me and I only made it to the lowest level in the Paris league. When we played in Central Park and other places his peer group would make fun of him for hanging around a bitch ass gringo. I only got to play because I was better than their Speedy Gonzalez street moves. What Jesus was good at was selling small amounts of pot on the street corner of 86th and Broadway to the Baldwins and other celebs. He did this because his older brother Manny made him. Manny was tough and I only went to their house in the Bronx once. When Rudy Giuliani was mayor he made the New York City cops get out and walk their beats. He put a police force presence on the streets. I hope Jesus isn't playing soccer in the San Quinton league.