Part 3 of X
New York City observations, essentially related in a tangential way to my journey from the prairie to see Rick’s gig:
The JFK Airport is a nice efficient system, and you could get to the it by walking a block and a half up from the Holiday Inn Express I stayed at on 94th or whatever the street is - and how can you have a numbered street like 94th intersecting with the another numbered street like 107th or whatever? That bugged the heck out of me.
But anyway, the neighborhood in which both the air train and my hotel resided seemed a little sketchy, but the people there either ignored me or were nice and one woman standing under a street lamp even said “hey sugar”, which I thought was particularly friendly but I did not have time for chitchat.
The hotel manager assured me that no one had been critically injured there in over a week, so I felt perfectly safe.
IMPORTANT ASIDE FOR FUTURE TRAVELERS: Despite having no free hot breakfast, the Holiday Inn Express had much better mattresses than the Hampton Inn and was much closer to anything to walk to.
TANGENTIAL OBSERVATION: in Chicago O’Hare Airport, on my way to NYC, a fellow from another land saw me wearing my Pink Floyd -Wish You Were Here hoodie, and commented that he thought it was a better album than Dark Side of the Moon. He knew little English so communicated this with grunting and gestures. So I had to sing a few bars to confirm our agreement and my understanding, and he joined in singing then we grunted happily, so we had communicated and bonded over my cheap hoodie from the Roger Waters concert I attended in Costa Rica.
His wife stood a few feet away and looked on admiringly, knowing that I like the same album her husband liked. Actually, I remember now that he was from Switzerland and kind of scruffy and red faced like he skied every day of the year. She on the other hand was tall and lovely like some elf lady you might see in a movie. They made an interesting couple.
EDIT: upon reflection, I remember that this Pink Floyd incident actually occurred one morning at the breakfast bar of the Hampton Inn and Suites near the JFK airport, not at O’Hare, which is dismal but has a baseball-themed restaurant. The point is, you never know who you’ll meet at a breakfast bar or what conversations you’ll strike up. If I hadn’t made a second trip downstairs to get a few bananas for the long train ride to Montauk, we might not have crossed paths.
My life is full of romance (see how I tied it back to Rick?)
———
Part 2b/3a of X - More on NYC
From my journal about my visit to New York City:
———-
I was out walking around in this somewhat sketchy Jamaica, NYC neighborhood near my bug-out hotel and the airport in search of cigarettes, after the front desk guy at my hotel gave me very ambiguous advice of where to look, and as I was walking I ran into an ex Marine staff sergeant who said he knew. And he was walking that way anyway, though I’m not sure he was. We talked about a military career, and I asked him if he ever had to shout “get the F in F’N formation!“ And he laughed and said that he had, because the recruits are not quite the same as they used to be.
Then I told him about my dad‘s career in the military, beginning with the Navy in WWII up through Vietnam. And he listened and said that was a stout generation because they rose to the occasion. I agreed with him, but said his career had been very important too.
And we laughed a lot as we walked, and he made sure I didn’t walk into a street full of traffic.
I was very glad to meet him and talk to him. Also, he was a big dude, and I think he was probably Filipino, and he had laughing eyes and a laughing face, so it was a great pleasure for me.
And the guy at the convenience store asked where I was from, and I said, how can you tell I’m not a local? And he just laughed. And I said I was from Norman Oklahoma, where the OU Sooners are from. He knew what this reference was and said you ain’t doing so hot this year. So that was fun as well.
Part 26a of 26b: Montauk Part 1
One more thing that amused me while I was attending Rick Davie’s gig on Long Island:
I stayed in Montauk, which is the affordable absolute terminus of Long Island and happens to be the very last stop on the Long Island Railroad. It hasn’t been taken over by the superrich yet because it doesn’t have the word Hamptons in it, or vice-versa.
Anyway, I walked from my hotel to a pancake restaurant that might well have been called “Pancake Restaurant” but was a very congenial place, and I sat down at the bar to eat a very good breakfast.
From the bar, I could watch the television screen opposite me, which was showing the local news.
Every local news station has an action news team, but in this case, a man in a navy blazer with over-coiffed hair was interviewing a jittery, blue haired old woman on how to prune roses and winterize them against the frost. It was all very serious. Much nodding by over-coiffed man. But the funny thing was that underneath this captivating interview was a crawl across the bottom of the screen of more sinister local news. And this crawl said things like three killed in tractor-trailer accident! And four murdered in attempted mansion, robbery!, All while the little old lady was using her pruning shears to snip deadheads off of a rosebush.
Anyway, I found the contrast funny, and I pointed it out to my waitress, who looked at me dumbfounded for a second then looked at the television and laughed very hard. So I considered my work to have been done and didn’t even ask after my side of bacon.
Comentarios