A Baboon In New York, Part 2.1: A Baboon on Wall Street

“Let Wall Street have a nightmare and the whole country has to help get them back in bed again.” -Will Rogers

"The point is ladies and gentlemen that greed, for lack of a better word, is good." -Gordon Gekko

Big Brother: Police Tower over looking Zuccotti Park.

There's a spot, when you're at the Staten Island Ferry Station, where you can see the Statue of Liberty. It's at a distance, in relief against the western sky and the choppy waves of the Hudson River. I don't know if I'll actually take the ferry out to see it and Ellis Island up close; it's one of Those Things That Tourists Do. I have no interest in being a tourist and I'm entirely too cynical about the condition of our country to get all touchy-feely about it.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

When Susan asked me what I wanted to see, I told her one of the things I wanted to see was Zuccotti Park, and that I wanted to go Wall Street, and maybe Time Square. Zuccotti Park was and is the location for the Occupy Wall Street Movement that has spread across the country. When it started in October, I was itchy to be here... but life intervened and I wasn't able to get here. Luckily, my very hospitable friend, Susan, was here to give me a sense of what was really going on -- because I sure as shit wasn't getting it in any of the media coverage.

The first thing I learned... something I don't remember being much discussed... is that the Zuccotti Park, in addition to being close to Wall Street, is located in the shadow of New World Trade Center.

The memorial for the 3000 people who died in the two towers is in the process of being constructed BEHIND two new towers. The construction of One World Trade Center (1 WTC) and another tower were delayed because of disagreements about design, planning, etc.

Sitting in Zuccotti Park, aka Liberty Plaza Park, staring up at the rising skyscraper, it struck me yet again.

We haven't learned a god damn thing.

3000 people die for no good reason, and the absolute best that we can come up with, other than a war in Iraq that made no sense -- in which the official number of American deaths is estimated to be 33,186 (antiwar.com)-- is a symbol that the business of America is and will always be BUSINESS.

(The actual death toll is probably higher. And if you take into account allies and civilian "collateral damage, the number is staggering.)

Since the encampment was destroyed by the city under the pretense of "cleaning it", most of the occupiers are finding ways to wait out the winter. Another interesting tidbit that was left out nearly all the ridiculously ineffective media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street Encampment -- technically, Zuccotti Park is joint Public/Private property.

In order to build a really tall building to house a Brooks Brothers store and a couple thousand anonymous offices no one gives a shit about, Brookfield Office Properties entered into an agreement with the city to make the Park into Public Space. And because it's Public/Private Property, unlike the other parks in New York City, it's open 24 hours. Thus, Liberty Plaza Park -- a place that was considered part of a 9/11 memorial --  was renamed for Brookfield Chairman John Zuccotti.

I guess you know you've arrived and conquered New York when you can put your name on stuff. And whoever has the most stuff wins.

Then again... there's always a bigger hair piece. Sorry Johnny boy.

40 Wall Street. Right down from the New York Stock Exchange

There's never a Magic Marker around when you need one...

This was as close as I could get. The whole area is blockaded and protected like Buckingham Palace.

... no paint filled balloons, either.

My initial impressions of Lower Manhattan were claustrophobic. Especially Wall Street. The labyrinth of skyscrapers and alley width streets block out the sun. The wheezing mechanical money heart of America thumps and bumps in the dark, hidden by long shadows. Light and air are expelled by the very nature of the place -- which probably explains why so many stupid things happen there.

           It's common knowledge that denying your brain oxygen kills you brain.

           It's common knowledge that an absence of sunlight causes sadness.

          It's not commonly known, however, that over time, the absence of air and light

          will strangle your soul. 

         And then, they name a park after you.

Being in Lower Manhattan on Ash Wednesday was an interesting experience. I'm not Catholic, and except for the fact that my name is probably still on a list buried in an ancient file cabinet at the Bethel Church of Christ in Bethel, Ohio, I'm not listed anywhere as a Christian -- Catholic, Protestant, or otherwise. 

I've made up my own label, primarily for reductive and Facebook related reasons: Zen Transcendentalism. All it means, Dear Readers, is that I believe we are more than what we are. I also believe that experience is its own sacred text -- more sacred than any text that's been handed down and re-translated through cultures and generations.

There's a great quote by Lenny Bruce that goes something like this:

"When you live in New York, even if you're Catholic, you're Jewish."

With all respect to Lenny Bruce, this may not necessarily be the case in Lower Manhattan on the first day of Lent. I saw so many men in tailored business suits and women wearing business couture with ash crosses on their foreheads that it seemed almost like part of the uniform.

Then again, it is derived from the ancient Jewish tradition of placing ashes on one's forehead to indicate mourning. So maybe Lenny Bruce had a point, after all.

The thing is, when you consider the mess that the Financial sector has made of this country -- spare me, please, from that tired adage about the business of America being the systematic rape and pillage of people's life savings or that other one about boot straps and S&M masks -- maybe they ought to be asking someone for forgiveness.

I mean, it can't hurt. Right?

(Cont. in Part 2.2)

[If you like what you read here, you can help by:

1. Passing the link around.
2. Graciously donating to the cause using the button on the right hand side of the screen, or by going to paypal.com and donating to mickp@gmx.com. THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT. If you DO decide to donate, I will mention you in the blog. Promise. 
3. Contact Catherine Sellers at Greyhound, 415-331-6049. Tell them you are asking about a sponsorship when the operator picks up. When I go to Boston, I'm riding a Bolt Bus... which owned, or is in partnership with Greyhound. Any single guy will tell you... if you can't get the girl you want, go for the friend. You just never know.

THANKS FOR READING AND FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!]

A Baboon in New York, Part 1.2: The Chaotic Columna Ceruluia (Cont.)

New York has a trip-hammer vitality which drives you insane with restlessness if you have no inner stabilizer.
-- Henry Miller 

The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme—myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated, yet part of the scheme:  -- Walt Whitman


When I found Steve, he was standing right in front of the gate, facing it with his back toward me, waiting. It had been a few years since I'd seen him,  but I recognized him instantly. In his winter coat and pointy winter beanie, at a distance he looks something like an elf;  his small bearded features lend dimension to the description, but so too does his general demeanor. He is neither nervous, nor impatient. He is just standing there, waiting, watching, expecting. Standing, like I said in my previous post, "as if he has always been standing there primordial, separate from the passage of time, as if the Earth and the whole of  The Port Authority had risen up around and engulfed him without his even noticing" .  


I called his name three times, but he didn't turn until I was nearly up on him. If it were anyone else, I would say he was simply conditioned against the noise of city life (Which is Considerable); but I really think that, owing to the way he simply lives in his own space, regardless of where his, and quietly mediates his way through the world like a permanent visitor, trying to harm no one, hoping that no one harms him. 


He was glad to see me, and Susan was glad we found one another. He asked whether I wanted to see some of the city or go home; but I was tired from traveling and a little hungry. So I said I'd rather go back to his and Susan's place, if that was okay.  So we headed for the subway.

Now: to understand New York, you must understand the subway. And to understand the subway, you must appreciate that it is a system based almost entirely on chaos and absolute democracy.

I took my lead from Steve, being as I was in his city; I assumed he knew his way around -- or at least, how to get home from The Port Authority. Of course, I wasn't taking certain things into consideration:

1. No one who lives in New York goes to The Port Authority unless they're taking a bus out of town, buying drugs, or trolling the restrooms for anonymous sex on the down low; and
2. The only possible reason Steve would have to be there is waiting for a country bumpkin techno-hobo, who, like him, has a sometimes questionable sense of direction and is easily lost in his own thoughts.

First things, first, though. Before I could slink around under the city streets first I had to buy a Metro Pass. Travel and the cheap ass motel in Norfolk and spending a bit too much at an Irish Pub in D.C. with my friend Eric had diminished my funds substantially.

My travel plans through back through the Midwest have been plotted and paid for, however, and I have already announced the date of my imminent return to see friends, tie up loose ends and plan for more travel. My plans are to go south and west eventually going to the West Coast to check out life on the Left Coast a bit more closely.

I knew I had about $17 left, so when I approached the Metro Card Vending Machine I looked for the lowest amount I could put on the card that would still be useful, at least for a day. [Note about New York City Subway Metro Card Vending Machines: I'm sure they all start out any given 24 hour period in perfect working and vending condition. BUT THEY DON'T STAY THAT WAY.]  The machine I approached would no longer sell single ride passes. Each time you walk through the gate to enter the subway platform, it costs you $2.25. Now it's possible to catch multiple lines once you've entered, so it's not necessarily $2.25 every time you ride. And according to Steve's wife, Susan, the New York City Subway is so well organized that it puts most other public transit systems in the country to shame... particularly Chicago, a place for which she has little affection.

Probably has something to do with the fact that she grew up around there.

NYC Subway System Map

I put 10 bucks on a metro card. I figured that while some walking would be involved, that Steve and Susan probably lived near a subway entrance. I knew they didn't have a car anymore, having fully embraced the New York urban lifestyle. 

Steve checked his Metro Card twice because he didn't have enough on there to ride. Then he approached the same machine I purchased my card from. Standing back and watching Steve interact with the world is, in many ways, a cultural anthropologist's dream.  And for some reason, it reminded me of the movie Brazil.

After a few minutes of standing in front of the machine, trying to feed it actual money, he walked over and told me it wasn't taking his money. He wanted to find an attendant -- which, he said, were there the last time he was at the Port Authority. So we went back into the station to the information booth. The woman in the booth was busy trying to communicate in English with a tiny Far Eastern girl who's English was probably as bad as the woman's was, only for different reasons. One of them was from another country. The other was probably a survivor of the New York City Public School System. After a couple of minutes of waiting, Steve asked the policeman wearing a riot vest where the nearest metro card attendant was, since the machine would not take his money.

The guard looked perplexed. I could only assume that underground air was affecting him, or maybe he was dreaming of pepper spraying attractive Wall Street Occupiers as a way to heat up his sex life. Then he said there weren't any attendants and told Steve he had to purchase his Metro Card through one of the machines.

So we went back and I suggested that he try another machine. That one seemed to work. Then we entered the turnstiles that led to the subway platform, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

"Let me think," he said. "I know how to get home, but I'm not quite sure."

While we wait, a few notes about New York City Subway platforms.

The first thing I noticed is that the general ambiance of the MTA subway platform is actually... surprisingly... much grimier than on television. It wasn't horrible. No disgusting smells, no bums urinating on the third track, no pickpockets. No one was especially rude, either. As a matter of fact, it was almost the opposite. No one was friendly. But no one was an asshole. Now, it could be because it was a weekend. 

Susan later explained to me that post 9/11 New York was a different place in many ways; Steve agreed, saying it was very different than when he lived here in the 1970's.  People, they told me, were just a little bit more aware, a bit more polite. People didn't generally rush the subway train doors when they opened anymore; Susan said people had offered her their seats more than once and that she had seen numerous examples of basic kindness while riding the subway. Steve agreed, half-joking that the whiteness of his hair helped as well.

Steve said he THOUGHT we were on the correct platform, and that the subway was going the right direction. We stood there for a few minutes, waiting for the E Train to Queens. When it stopped, the conductor stuck his head out the narrow window to look behind and make sure they're not going to be in the way of the next train and to make sure no one was blocking the doors. Steve spoke to him briefly, probably asking if we were boarding the right train. The conductor nodded noncommittally; so we boarded and found a place to stand and hold on.

It's important to either hold on to something, lean against the side, or sit. The ride is smooth, for rail, but it's bumpy because of the rail and because of the slight turns it has to make, and the stops and starts do require some balance ... which I was having trouble with because of my satchel. [NOTE TO SELF: GET A BACKPACK.] 

So we rode along for a bit. Before the first stop, though, he started looking around; I could tell he wan't sure we were going the correct direction. Right before the first stop, he asked another passenger if the train was going to Queens. The passenger, who was not at all sure he wanted to talk to anyone... but who was unwilling to be rude... told Steve the train we were on was headed towards The World Trade Center.

(That he called it The World Trade Center struck me as odd. Was it habit? Some grief/denial strategy?)

We got off at the next stop. We stood there for a few minutes, Steve trying to decide whether the train was indeed going the wrong direction, or whether we needed to make our way to the platform going the opposite direction. On the other side of the turnstiles, there was a booth with a MTA Attendant inside. Steve was going to go ask her about which train we needed to be on. He asked if I wanted to wait in case we really were heading the right direction; but I still had faith in Steve's sense of the place he lived and exited the turnstiles with him.

Turns out we were going the wrong direction, which meant going up a few flights of stairs to the next platform.

More on subway platforms: the subway feels like a world unto itself. Music... sometimes piped in, sometimes by live musicians trying to earn a few bucks... could be heard in between the rhythm of the rattling trains. Kiosks selling newspapers, magazines, and cold drinks were open. People milling around, nearly all of them on the way to somewhere. There are scads of beautiful women here, by the way. Lots of walking, and a smoke-free city (which I object to on principle)... not to mention where I was, I'm sure, was an entry exit location for people who work/live/play in Manhattan.

After making our way upstairs and waiting for the E train -- this one REALLY going the right direction -- we  got on the train and rode to the correct station in Queens, where we exited and walked to his and Susan's apartment.

As someone who rides a lot of public transportation, and has ridden it in enough places to be able to compare, I have to admit, the New York City subway isn't that bad... at least... in my limited experience. One of the things you notice very quickly is that the subway absolutely egalitarian. I'm sure the very wealthy folks and those who are claustrophobic or who are formerly obsessed fans of that miserable show, Sex in the City (link omitted deliberately) and believe you have take a taxi everywhere in order to be cool don't ride the subway often; but the mixture of people, ranging from tailored and fashion forward to dirt poor, from post-millennial mod to goth to hipster to hippie-go-lucky to conservative casual makes for a good cross section view of one part of the city... the area between downtown and Queens. It's all public space and everyone has to mediate it, one way or the other.

Or get ripped off by cab. Or be dumb enough to drive a car.

As someone who, as I mentioned, has no real context for understanding New York, the subway was a better introduction than most. 

And my pass assures me I will ride it again... at least two more times.

At this point, I need to thank Noah S. Kaplowitz and Rebecca Fitkin Jones doe their generous donation. Although Kap wanted me to make sure and paint him as an asshole, I cannot, in good conscience. The good news is, I don't have to, since he does quite a fine job on his own, without my assistance.

[If you like what you read here, you can help by:

1. Passing the link around.
2. Graciously donating to the cause using the button on the right hand side of the screen, or by going to paypal.com and donating to mickp@gmx.com. THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT. If you DO decide to donate, I will mention you in the blog. Promise. 
3. Contact Catherine Sellers at Greyhound, 415-331-6049. Tell them you are asking about a sponsorship when the operator picks up. When I go to Boston, I'm riding a Bolt Bus... which owned, or is in partnership with Greyhound. Any single guy will tell you... if you can't get the girl you want, go for the friend. You just never know.

THANKS FOR READING AND FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!]

A Baboon in New York, Part 1.1: The Chaotic Columna Ceruluia

"It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York." - O. Henry


City of prose and fantasy, of capitalist automatism, its streets a triumph of cubism, its moral philosophy that of the dollar. New York impressed me tremendously because, more than any other city, it is the fullest expression of our modern age. -- Leon Trotsky   


[This blog is dedicated to Ashley Vedder and Stephanie Stobaugh. To Ashley because I'm visiting her home turf while she slings beer back in corn and god country, and whose hugs I miss ; and to Stephanie because listening to her talk about New York is almost as exciting as experiencing it for the first time.]

Riding through the Lincoln Tunnel on a bus stuffed to the shell with people is probably as close to remembering the experience of being born as I will ever achieve, and as close to that buried memory as I want to get on this side of mortality.

Almost my entire context for the City of New York rests entirely on unreliable sources; mainly television and movies. I can think of countless fictive versions of the city, from Law and Order and Seinfeld  to When Harry Met Sally and The Devi's Advocate.  Of course, each of these versions is rooted entirely in someone else's vision... the camera, and behind that, a director. The city then becomes at ones a set and an actor at the same time; sets tone, mood, and contributes in the way an unnamed but unmistakable extra contributes to the frame. Cinema and television, boiled down, really is a frame by frame proposition; much in the same way that a poem is always about the single word. One bad frame can throw off an entire scene, and a bad scene can destroy an otherwise good movie. One misplaced word in a poem can do the same thing.

Thank the gods for prose -- at least here, we have a little slop room. Though not much.

The bus was expelled at a traffic snail's pace from the tunnel and into the underground garage of The Port Authority. Then, after squeezing myself out of the confines of the bus -- which, at this point, makes me consider the train a far superior and gentile form of mass transportation -- I found myself in a massive underground garage that led into the bottom level of station. 

[NOTE: Having at least a casual understanding of Dante's Inferno is helpful understanding the City of New York. And I mean this not as a negative, merely as map key.]

My first thought was to look for my friends, Susan and Steve, who had graciously agreed to put me up for a week at their place in Queens. Unfortunately, that was washed away by two other immediately prevailing impulses. For one, I had the strong desire to piss. (As I have explained... most eloquently, I believe, in The Greyhound Quarto, I try to avoid a lot of food intake while in the process of traveling, but do work at staying hydrated. The body is, after all, 70% water. (For me, maybe a quarter of that is beer, and other quarter bourbon and gin, and another quarter is coffee... but still, all liquid.)

The other impulse was far less of an impulse as it was the immediate sensation that, if I stood still too long, I might get run over by one or all of the hundreds of people around me who seemed to know exactly where they were going.

Luckily, the people who run the Port Authority realized that unless there was clear signage pointing out where people could piss that they would, in all likelihood, piss anywhere; I spied the restroom sign and made for it immediately.

With that weight off my mind, I looked around for my friends; not knowing whether one or both of them were going to meet me and not being sure where, I decided to take the escalator I noticed to my left to the next level; my thought was that maybe there was an actual waiting space up there, or that there was some restriction on non-ticketed people by the gates. 

There isn't. Traveling by bus, and by train, lacks a fundamental paranoia that has been embraced by the air travel industry. And maybe with good reason. As the bus rolled towards the city and I got my first glimpse of the skyline, I was struck by two things: that New York is far more immense than ever portrayed in any movie or television show; and that something is missing.  I thought about a conversation I had with my friend George, who grew up in Long Island, about New York after 9/11. He said one of the things that was difficult for him to grasp was having to look at the skyline and have it look so different. There was sorrow, he said, in knowing it will never be same. 

Riding up the escalator and into another artificially lit level, I paid heed to the repetitive recorded feminine voice, telling me not to stop at the top and to keep walking. I found a column to stand near, in front of the Greyhound ticket office. Still no sign of Susan or Steve. I checked my cell phone -- the battery was near dead -- but realized I didn't have a corresponding cell phone number for either of them. I decided to message Susan -- who I talked to most frequently over Facebook -- and see if maybe she was online, or maybe had a way to access those messages over the phone.

She messaged back, thankfully. Steve was there to meet me, and she recommended that I stay put and she would try to reach him on his cell. Of course, I had trouble imaging Steve with a cell phone... much in the same way I had trouble imaging my friend George with a cell phone. They're symbolic of a sort of frenetic narcissism that runs contrary to both their natures. 

Waiting there, near the column in the front of the Greyhound Ticket office, I was nearly run over by two little girls, no more than 8 years old, playing tag; they were using the column as a defensive/offensive structure to catch each other. Twice the same man came up and asked if I had any change. 

You know I'm good for a little if I have it; but when I KNOW it's just a hustle... which I knew it was from the fact that 1) he looked a bit too appropriately dirty and 2) he kept going back and talking to another person, who was clearly his friend and who didn't look appropriately dirty at all... and when I have to watch my pennies ... which I do at this point because the cost of laying out my travel plans back through the Midwest has left me nearly broke, and I knew I'd need money for mass transit... I do hesitate, just a bit. I hope the universe forgives my still present worry for self-preservation.)

I hadn't seen Steve since leaving Cincinnati, but I remembered him as a quiet and gentle soul who was much engaged with his own thoughts, his own teaching and writing process.  But I also thought that maybe he had one -- maybe at Susan's insistence -- just to be able to keep track of one another in a place as large as New York. (The only reason I ever got a cell phone was at Melissa's insistence, because our schedules were so at odds and because she wanted to be able to find me in Cincinnati without having to run down a list of phone numbers of various coffee shops, bars, libraries, and friends.)

After having no luck and after Susan suggested maybe having him paged (I wondered at the horror of that... not only the process of trying to find an actual PERSON to do that and the terror of hearing one's name over the loudspeaker, like being beckoned from the depths of Hell.), I decided to go back down to the lower level in case I had walked past him in my rush to not get squashed and to empty my bladder.

The buses were more or less empty and the throng of people that had pushed me, spermatozoa like, through the doorway. And there, standing as if he has always been standing there primordial, separate from the passage of time, as if the Earth and the whole of  The Port Authority had risen up around and engulfed him without his even noticing -- was Steve.

[If you like what you read here, you can help by:

1. Passing the link around.
2. Graciously donating to the cause using the button on the right hand side of the screen, or by going to paypal.com and donating to mickp@gmx.com. THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT. If you DO decide to donate, I will mention you in the blog. Promise. 
3. Contact Catherine Sellers at Greyhound, 415-331-6049. Tell them you are asking about a sponsorship when the operator picks up. At this rate, they really ARE losing my love to Amtrak. But I'm no easy whore. No. Really.

THANKS FOR READING AND FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!]