Now That I'm Forty...


Born in New York and now going to die in New York. Someday.

About Me:
Born:Here
Raised:Here and Here
Education: Here, Here, Here, and Here
Location: Here now!
Profession: This

Contact Me:
Your Blogger

Links:
Cool Hobby
Subversive Radio
You Will Love Skull Too
Old-Timey Radio Goodness
Webcast Sci Fi
Cool British Accents

My Computer-Savvy Friends:
Grim Jester
Childhood Bud
Goin' to CA
The Antihero
"Local" Boy Makes Good
New Girl In Town
The Female Me (Or IS That An Insult?)
Simply Saidy, (Not For The Faint Of Heart)
Mental Office Girl
California Hip
Archives:
Dec 26, 2003 Dec 27, 2003 Dec 28, 2003 Dec 29, 2003 Dec 30, 2003 Dec 31, 2003 Jan 1, 2004 Jan 2, 2004 Jan 8, 2004 Jan 9, 2004 Jan 11, 2004 Jan 13, 2004 Jan 14, 2004 Jan 18, 2004 Jan 19, 2004 Jan 21, 2004 Jan 25, 2004 Jan 27, 2004 Jan 28, 2004 Jan 31, 2004 Feb 1, 2004 Feb 2, 2004 Feb 3, 2004 Feb 8, 2004 Feb 13, 2004 Feb 14, 2004 Feb 15, 2004 Feb 16, 2004 Feb 17, 2004 Feb 22, 2004 Feb 23, 2004 Feb 24, 2004 Feb 26, 2004 Feb 28, 2004 Mar 2, 2004 Mar 3, 2004 Mar 4, 2004 Mar 5, 2004 Mar 7, 2004 Mar 8, 2004 Mar 9, 2004 Mar 11, 2004 Mar 13, 2004 Mar 14, 2004 Mar 15, 2004 Mar 16, 2004 Mar 17, 2004 Mar 18, 2004 Mar 20, 2004 Mar 22, 2004 Mar 23, 2004 Mar 27, 2004 Mar 28, 2004 Mar 29, 2004 Mar 30, 2004 Mar 31, 2004 Apr 2, 2004 Apr 3, 2004 Apr 4, 2004 Apr 8, 2004 Apr 13, 2004 Apr 18, 2004 Apr 26, 2004 Apr 27, 2004 May 1, 2004 May 3, 2004 May 6, 2004 May 10, 2004 May 12, 2004 May 15, 2004 May 18, 2004 May 20, 2004 Jun 3, 2004 Jun 16, 2004 Jul 13, 2004 Jul 14, 2004 Jul 22, 2004 Jul 26, 2004 Jul 27, 2004 Jul 30, 2004 Aug 1, 2004 Aug 2, 2004 Aug 3, 2004 Aug 4, 2004 Aug 6, 2004 Aug 8, 2004 Aug 10, 2004 Aug 11, 2004 Aug 13, 2004 Aug 14, 2004 Aug 17, 2004 Aug 20, 2004 Aug 23, 2004 Aug 30, 2004 Aug 31, 2004 Sep 7, 2004 Sep 14, 2004 Sep 23, 2004 Sep 25, 2004 Oct 7, 2004 Oct 10, 2004 Oct 18, 2004 Oct 24, 2004 Oct 26, 2004 Oct 28, 2004 Nov 3, 2004 Nov 17, 2004 Nov 18, 2004 Nov 25, 2004 Dec 2, 2004 Dec 11, 2004 Dec 16, 2004 Dec 17, 2004 Dec 20, 2004 Dec 21, 2004 Dec 24, 2004 Jan 10, 2005 Feb 11, 2005 Feb 24, 2005 Mar 19, 2005 Apr 1, 2005 Apr 10, 2005 Apr 20, 2005 May 12, 2005 May 17, 2005 May 26, 2005 Jun 8, 2005 Jun 15, 2005 Jun 16, 2005 Jun 20, 2005 Jun 27, 2005 Jul 7, 2005 Jul 11, 2005 Jul 21, 2005 Aug 1, 2005


Credits:
Picture
Blogskin
Blogger
Design

This counter provided for free from HTMLcounter.com!
HTMLCounter.com

[ Sign My Guestbook] [ View My Guestbook]

Now That I'm Forty...

Weblog Commenting by HaloScan.com Listed on Blogwise
Sunday, February 08, 2004

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