Pictures and Thoughts...I'll have more

You stand, for what seems like an eternity. If it's late it seems worse. Normally when you're underground it's cool, like in a basement. But not in the subways. It's hot, humid, and full of people you don't know. Aahhh! I love it!! The light comes around the bend like in a bad indi film. For some reason you doubted the train would come...but it did. ---the way the light appears in the dimness of the subway tunnels is and oddly comforting thing. It's nothing like I've experienced in other cities like DC, Boston, or Chicago where the ground blinks or an announcement happens when the train is arriving---I LOVE IT!



Here are some pictures of things. Some are of a view that I absolutely love in Central Park...others are of my neighborhood at night.



One side note that I'd like to add is about the buses. I've been riding the buses a lot lately. There are certain things you can do to get around without actually knowing what you're doing around here and that's what I've been doing. On the bus, a lady gets on with her kid. She can't quite get her shit together before the bus takes off. She hands her kid to some lady who is sitting in the seat right in front of her. She doesn't know the lady, nor does the kid, but the kid and the lady play until the mom gets settled. It could be a female thing, but it only seems to happen inthe "ghettoer" parts of town (among black/latino folk) so I am going to read more into that aspect. It's a weird sense of community on public transportation that I have never seen before in a big city. As with everything before, I LOVE IT!!

Harlem Journal

Below is a link to an article in today's New York Times about the neighborhood I'm living in. It's kind of funny to see first-hand the effects of the gentrification that's going on here. A few years ago I had a professor who is now the mayor of Santa Cruz. One day his classroom was covered in fliers calling him a "pro-gentrification" douche bag. I guess I just always assumed that most people like me are opponents of gentrification but a lot of white people that I've talked to here are very much for it. Considering this is the notorious Harlem I am on the side of making it a safer place and if that takes building expensive buildings, then go for it. But this guy, Ray, who works at the bakery down the road is having to find a new place in a cheaper part of town because he can no longer afford to stay here. He and his son have been living in a building in which many of the tenants are crack heads but he can't even afford to stay there. He loves the neighborhood because he grew up here and was here through the worst times of Harlem but can't stay anymore. He's going to have to move to a neighborhood that is less safe and will have to commute to his job which means he will be less available to his son or have to put in fewer hours so that he can maintain his close involvement in his son's life. It's interesting to see the bad side of this stuff being lived by people that I meet.

Anyway, here's the article.

That was quick

Less than an hour and a half ago it was super hot and humid. Now it's really cool outside and raining super hard. I just thought it was weird how fast it changed.

Poor people with no anus

There is a strong correlation between the amount of ice cream sold and a rise in crime rates. I had to read a short study about that for a research methods class last semester. Really, the amount of ice cream sold is directly related to the heat. And there is a decent causal relationship between the temperature and an increase in the crime rate. All of that to say that it is really really hot in New York right now -- in the upper 90s with really fucked up humidity.

As for the crime, i don't know.

I think I mentioned last time that I go to this coffee shop just to talk to people because no one ever really talks to you -- especially when you go into chain places like starbucks or staples. I bought some stuff at a small bodega by my house the other day and i was a buck short. The guy said I owe him. The next day I walked in to buy something else and paid him back his dollar and he was really impressed. He started talking to me. I've been buying lunch at this pizza place by my office for the last few days and today the guy wanted to give me a 'fist pound'... you know, like the terrorist signal the Obamas use. It's pretty insignificant but it's amazing how you can be surrounded by so many people and have zero interaction.

I went out with my roommates the other night. We went to a house party here in Harlem then migrated to mid-town among the yuppies, got kicked out of a bar that we fought our way in to. So, the next day I ran into one of the guys we were with on the street by his house. He came up to me and it threw me off because the only people that talk to me on the street are asking for change or cigarettes...since i wasn't expecting it, it was a really akward conversation.

Today I got the use the "You people?! Aah, I'm calling a house meeting y'all" line with some of the black folks that work in my office. They thought it was the funniest damn thing. We always make jokes about what white people and black people...usually one getting beaten by the cops the other not. One lady said "the day that shit is worth anything poor people will be born without an asshole." Good times.

Still no pictures. I was going to last Saturday but had to work for most of the day. It was cool though. I was in the south Bronx all day manifesting material on a bus and barbecuing. And, hanging out on their stoop...which is a New York poor people past time...it was neat. The people whose house it was at told me to come back whenever I want just to hang out and have food. It was just like Scotts Valley, except in one of the worst neighborhoods in the US instead.

That's it for now. Pictures soon, maybe.

Adjusting

I still haven't taken any pictures. There really hasn't been much time to come home, get my camera, then go out again...plus I hate looking like a tourist. But, in the meantime, here's a bit of what my life here is like.

It's musical. As I type, there's a group of teenagers walking down the road singing a really bad hip hop sing-along as if it were an irish bar song. Along those lines, people act in public as if it were the privacy of their own home. I used to just think that people who talk to themselves on the street are crazy...not so much. Here, you get the sense that the street is their home, although sometimes it does feel like a competition to see who can be the craziest. Since home is boring, there are no yards to be private in, and you can never get a moment alone, you might as well talk to yourself. It's kind of like the sidewalk or the subway is your living room.

Black people don't talk on their cellphones here the way they do in CA - the talk directly into the mic then hold the phone about a foot from your ear maneuver. Just an observation, no conjectures as to why.

I rarely see my roommates and that's kinda wierd; I always saw jon and mike. Although there are only three guys in our apartment, ours in the "home base." The guys/gals on level two and three all all really good friends with my roommates so they always come down to our place because of the TV and cable. I like that. But, no one ever wants to go out during the weeknight because they all work so late. I've been putting in nine hour day's but I start at 9:30 or 10 so it's not as intense as their 6 or 7 start time (that means they have to leave earlier). Hopefully this weekend some of them will be around to go places.

Work is pretty fun. I do menial shit. Mainly I've been put in charge of putting together the boxes and route packets for the various bus route leaders that will begin their journey's to McAllen, TX in a week or so. After a few days of bitch work they realized that I'm not an idiot so I have a few other things to do now. That's kinda nice. Unlike the construction work I do, I can't just see what I have to do and be on my own for a while...well, I do, but when my boss is giving me a task I have to anticipate later problems and ask for the solutions, so I disturb him as little as possible later. It's pretty intense right now with all the last minute problems being taken care of, which to me equals fun. Everyone in the office is really fun - that's it for that aspect.

Tonight after work i went to a place that has half price drinks every weeknight from 4-8. It also had an outdoor patio which is weird in my neck of the woods...ya know, 'cause you'll get shot. This place is on the Upper Westside. There is about a five block strip of Amsterdam that has a shitload of cool bars. I had a couple of drinks on the patio and just got to sit and watch people be weird. There was this old man who walked so slow (because of ailments, not like the crazy pink guy in santa cruz) that he was having significant conversations with people as he walked past the sidewalk seating. I also noticed a lot of Jewish folks - redundant I guess because, after all, it's New York. One super Jewish guy got caught by his wife as he was looking down the shirt of a hot Latina while walking by her table. That was awesome.

Hey! Do you know what the difference between a jewish baby and a normal white baby is?... The jewish baby is obviously jewish - that's not really a joke - they have jewish noses as infants.

Other than that I haven't explored much of NYC. Went to try to see David Sidaris (sp?) last night in Union Square, but it was a packed house. This weekend, if I'm not busy working I'll get to do touristy shit.

I feel that I am naturally an introvert, but this place makes me realize how moderately introverted I am. I find myself going to this particular coffee shop that's really close to my house on the way to and from work, only because the girls who work there are really nice and talk to me. It's not that GIRLS are talking to me, but that ANYONE is talking to me. I sit in there and just absorb the niceness.

New York - day One

I arrived in New York City today. So far, it's a pretty cool place. A little intimidating, but cool. Across the street is a pit bull locked behind a gate. I went outside earlier to go for a walk and saw this lady rubbing her ass in the dogs face. Suddenly she decided that she wanted to piss on the dog. Down went the pants and out came the pee.

I'll have pictures of the area when I get comfortable enough to take them.

I went to the Frederick Douglass in Southeast DC a few months ago and realized that I was the only white person. At the risk of sounding like a racist, that's a little scary. It's not the black people, it's the fact that when any one ethnicity (other than white folks) are concentrated in one area it tends to be a poor, crime prone area. Harlem isn't that bad, but it's pretty damn close.

There's a difference between nice/urban and nice/suburban. A row of shops that we would consider trash in Scotts Valley are welcome signs of economic prosperity here.