“I’m takin a train uptown...yes I am...then takin a train to New Jersey....all right...” this old guy mumbled to himself. “I’m going to take my black briefcase and pack up every goddamned thing I own and drive to ol' Eddy McCoy's house if I damn well please....yes I will.” Who was this guy? He was borderline commitable with his out loud ranting turrets. He was making everyone uncomfortable including myself. Was this man hearing actual responses? “God damned lyin' cheatin bastard....I got my cap...and my black briefcase and here I go...yes I do...” What the fuck was this guy talking about and why must he use his outside voice? I catch myself talking to my dog sometimes and I know what that must look like from an outsider’s perspective. I’m now that guy in a way I suppose but could it be that this man is the one......the one guy who put the final hole in my sanity boat? He confirms more than ever before my need to escape New York City with the same urgency that I would have if I was fleeing a burning building. Characters like this make one run for the burbs like an Olympic sprinter. Sometimes you gotta know when to tap out of the game and hope that one day you realize that 14 years later there were never any rules to begin with. It's kinda like religion...smoke and mirrors. Manhattan R.I.P.
Indeed, it's a slippery slope to becoming that agoraphobic, dazed and confused old lady shut-in with a bunch of mangy cats and no people friends. So a french retreat is highly in order. I think that people that think they are crazy are usually not crazy at all and the people that think they are not crazy are the truly the craziest of all! Speaking of insanity.... my train of thought tonight comes from getting stuck in a kitchen corner at a party talking to some egomaniac stock broker guy that thinks he knows everything about everything. For me when people try too hard it is so unsexy. Guys that try to be charming while offering up stupid Snapple facts are a huge turn off for me and cause instant weenie shrinkage. Just know when to shut the fuck up already! Do people really not care if the person they are holding hostage verbaly in a corner can't get a word in edgewise and isn’t even responding in any way whatsoever? How much cocaine do you actually have to do before you stop noticing that the person you are talking at is just staring at you like a deer into the headlights of an oncoming truck wishing to god to get run over right then and there. Then comes the time for an emergency intervention where action must me taken. You pretend to get a phone call that you just have to take. “Thank god for the vibrate setting....excuse me.” Chances are that he is straight anyway and there is no reason to hang around and listen to his babbling bullshit if I’m not going to get laid.
How can you tell if a particular New Yorker is crazy? I don’t know. Are they fresh out of Bellevue, talking on a Bluetooth, or are they rehearsing a Law and Order monologue for their call back tomorrow at Chelsea Piers? Oh wait....it was canceled after 20 some odd years. You can never tell if the Asian girl that just hopped on at 116th street is homeless or attending Colombia University. Is she a street urchin with no money or is that some super high-end cunty couture from Balenciaga on 22nd? Street/fairy-sprite/tattered asian chic? Just her top alone probably cost more than my rent for the month and was probably put on daddy’s black platinum credit card sending the bill back to Tokyo. Who are these NYU subterranean heiresses? And who was this homeless dude chattering on and on and vomiting way too much information to the world? Where was his black case and who the fuck was Edie McCoy? I remember him being so damned repetitive it was making me and everyone else nervous with the phydical ticks and all. I could see that life has not been kind to this old man. I put my earphones in and drown him out like I do most of my problems. When will be the moment I snap?! Can one urban mental breaking point beget another? How far am I from becoming that guy who has no conscious filter of his looping, audible broken record? He surely inspired Jamie Foxx’s next serious Oscar winning screenplay? The writers of any Hollywood crime show would be so lucky to find such a babbling, fumbling character extra. If he had an agent and a head shot he might eventually be able to fund a lifetime of 40's. Crazy and almost crazy are easy to confuse and can be a little blurry sometimes. For instance, when you watch a show like Jerry Springer, does not even a little piece of you feel better than the baby-mama, bitch slapping losers tearing each other’s weaves out? Don't you stand just a little taller knowing you’re not them?
Freaky city scenes like this are better than any contemporary romance novel. Put down the book miss Columbia and take in the Spanish mariachi band that is about to blow your subway car up with loud, abrasive accordions and maracas. Only in New York are you assaulted by such in your face culture. I need a sweet country break. My daily urban delights aren't cutting it anymore. Peace seems impossible in the big apple unless your Sarah Jessica Parker tap tapping away on your laptop, wearing camouflage, sitting on her brownstone steps, and checking her Sex and the City weekly residuals! Harlem is my glass house where I do all my dreamin’ and emotional brick throwing. It's a world within a world. You can be as visible or invisible as you want to be there.
There are coffee grinds stuck underneath my fingernails and the Pigeon Forge isolation makes me want to claw my eyes out with the deafening quiet but at the end of the day its a much improved life. But home-home for me is a quiet horse farm in Tennessee where everybody knows one another and cares even a little bit. The dry lines of my hands are dirty and my contacts are about to commit suicide but my year or so of no comment on this blog will hopefully be changing. I feel like sometimes you have to pull your head out of your computer and live a collection of minutes and months worth writing about. I still have underground flashbacks of MTA announcements that the train I’ve been waiting for is out of service after 30 minutes of total cab denial. To wait for a train that was never coming to begin with is the final dagger in my country heart. Dios Fucking Mio do I not miss the subteranian parade of circus freaks! Even though the carnival scene down in the great smokey mountains has almost every local Pigeon Forge girl older than 12 auditioning for the spot of the obese bearded lady. Bigger portions equal bigger booties am I right? And I guess the toothless redneck Lesters of the 865 don't differ much from the Harlem homies that harass girls all day long from their front stoops. The only difference between me and them is that I feel bad about my unemployment.
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