You Can Be White And Live In Harlem...
...but you don't have to be an idiot about it.
On the D platform last night three vanilla ladies and their man were waiting for the train. This was between 7-8p, okay? Like primetime. Plenty of color all around, from one end to the other. So what do our little group of minorities do? Two of them started demonstrating some line-dancing moves for the other two. Isn't that like four homeboys busting out some nu-break moves at the Wall St. station at high noon? Inappropriate.

Power Groups I've Met And Avoided...
So, I've not checked in lately about The People That You Meet on the subway. Let me then discuss the Power Groups. I see these during prime activity times, like a Friday or Saturday evening, or when school lets out. These are social groups bonding together out of God only knows what. Fear? Boys, girls, black, Latino, white, you name it.
They speak too loudly, laugh too much, hunt each other with their eyes, entertain, and just generally beg each other for acceptance and approval. Whatever. But if I'm coming up the aisle, take your feet off the pole so I can come through. Don't make me embarrass you in front of your friends.

Friday night/Saturday morning, I came home on the D train from a buddy's house in Yonkers. He dropped me off at the last D stop in the Bronx. Despite his paranoia at letting me go into the deep dark by myself (I should stop blogging for a month and make him check on me!) down I went. Why were there several people down there waiting for the train to Manhattan????? I'm talking 3:00AM in the MORNING.
Can I tell you that people are awake at every conceivable second in this city?
What's unfortunate though is that some of those people actually might be living on the subway. There was this older woman who I'm sure did. She was unloading about seven shopping bags off of the D train that had entered and parked at the station. She had to get off because it was the last stop. She appeared so average that I thought she worked for the subway system and this was her way of cleaning the trains. But then when the Manhattan-bound train came, she loaded all those bags onto it and settled back in. She looked like she was someone's abuela (grandmother in Spanish, I think. How do you spell it?). She probably was. I guess I still have compassion for her because she didn't ask me for any money. Speaking of...

"I'm Really Sorry To Bother You...Thank You For Listening..."
Have you heard this particular subway panhandler? He stealths his way onto the car and scopes it out for police. Then the doors are barely closed before he launches into his riff. He sounds absolutely contemptably pathetic. Whining. Hoarse. Pitiful. He really grabs the dimes out of the soft-hearted. Me? I want to snatch his throat out. What he needs to do is take that act to a casting call and make some REAL money for his efforts.

Gosh. Selfish much? But this leads me to this...

Living Out Loud
Why???
Have you ever heard the following from mother to child, while out shopping--
"No honey, you don't need another box of cereal. We have plenty at home. Yes, gramma's coming over later. She's going to bring over Molly! Aren't you excited?! She's your favorite cousin! Remember that last time we were up in Montauk? Yes, honey...it was a beautiful beachhouse blahblahblah..."
WHY do people feel the need to HAVE these outloud conversations??? You KNOW they aren't really speaking to the person or persons who are supposed to be listening. They want everyone within earshot to hear them. They're actually saying,
"Aren't I a good mother?"
"Don't I have a great job/spouse/family?"
"Aren't you jealous of my life?"

Or is this just me and my own jealousies?

Okay, example--
Last Wednesday, my NJ Transit train had an engine malfunction right out of the Hudson tunnel. Didn't even reach the new Secaucus station yet. So the train is sitting there and all is quiet. Well, except for the tinny beat leaking over the earphones of a cheap headset behind me.
Then this chick, a seat ahead and across the aisle from me, whips out the cellphone and her address book. She called no less than a half dozen people while we sat there. Between calls, she stood up and looked around the cabin at us, her fellow sufferers. I discovered the following facts about her from her outloud living--
she's Jewish and celebrates the holidays,
she's just come back from California
she met a man who was nice
she works in downtown Newark
she was coming from the gym and told her boss she'd be in by 10am
she had friends who had just come from Puerto Rico
she'd been to Puerto Rico
she really really enjoyed it.

Now WHY should I know that?
WHY?

Don't think I don't realize the irony in my rant. After all, am I not spilling my business all over the Worldwide Web? Yes, but this forum is accessed by your initiative. If you're interested, you'll stop by and give it a read. My business isn't spilling all over you just because you happened to get trapped with me in a train.

And believe me, I've examined my public life. Do I speak too loud when I'm with my friend(s) on a train or in a restaurant? How about when I'm speaking on my cellphone (an invention that I kicked, screamed, and dug my fingernails through concrete against until necessity forced my hand)?
Am I laughing too loud?

Well, if I did, I will be putting a check on it because I mean, give me a break people. Your existence is meaningful, okay, but not to me while I'm trying to get my commute on.

Okay, let me go get my clothes out of the dryer before someone's walking around the neighborhood looking like me.

Angels In The Architecture
Just want to give a shoutout to whoever's ancestors built the cathedral on 110th. I discovered it when I walked from my favorite restaurant (110th and Broadway) to the train station at 110th and Central Park West. Provided that it wasn't slave labor who put those stones together, that edifice combined with the view overlooking Morningside Park is one of the most breathtaking sights in Manhattan. I can see that I'm going to have to get me a digicamera and put some pics up in here.

I've since discovered that the PathMark being put into my neighbrhood will only be the bottom floor of another new apartment complex. It is called Bradhurst Court. It's going to look like this and this.

In discovering that I'd have to make a minimum of 60K to live in it, I understood a little more about what my friend says about the gentrification of Harlem. I felt the icy blast of a door slamming in my face. I realized what my neighbors might be feeling when these buildings were renovated and people like me moved in. Resent. Big ups to resentment.

Then you know what I decided? I WILL earn 60K. I WILL move into the Bradhurst Court, or anywhere else I feel like it. NOBODY'S going to exclude me!

Now somehow, I've got to reconcile the selfish with charitable...

And Finally, The "What Up With THAT?" Department, Part I
I realized in writing a letter to a new blog I like reading, that I could never have friends like Monica, Joey, Chandler, Phoebe, Rachel, and Ross since I'm a black dude and all. (Well, maybe Phoebe). Guess to earn that distinction I'd have to; 1) be a girl, and 2) date Ross and Joey at the same time. And even then it'd be a limited engagement. Big Ups to Aisha Tyler and Gabrielle Union with their FOINE selfs, but What Up Wit' DAT??

Me at 2/08/2004 09:12:00 AM

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