I come up from Penn Station on the NE corner of W.33rd & 7th Ave and walk east passing lines of out-of-townees waiting for tour buses, along the way I pass a series of pubs and public houses. The traffic is backed-up as the garbage is noisily collected by crews who sweep clean as they pass, anything that’s dropped must be picked up. The sounds of the trucks echo down the glass walls of the canyon like building as I come up to Greely square. I make it to 6th Ave and head south, this is a busy area in the low thirties through the twenties. There are busy shops, hotels and souring structures of glass and steel. I hear a snippet of conversation behind me. One young guy relating a story of trying to get a cab and an older woman with a southern accent asks if she can have it first saying “I’m so tired, can you let me take this one?” He did the thing that gives New Yorker’s a bad reputation. He ignored her and got in the cab. He laughingly tells his friend “Hey lady…this isn’t the south!” They both chuckle and I really wanted to tell him what I thought of him, but at almost 50 I can’t risk a beating by two guys in their twenties. Besides the evil that you do comes back to you threefold, so they will get theirs one way or another. A street fair is being held so the police barricades block off traffic and I walk freely down 6th Ave past dozens of vendors. They are selling sunglasses, jewelery, scarves, hats, clothing, and food of all kinds. It’s just getting set up this early but later these streets will be teeming with people buying  early xmas gifts or just trying on some hats as I do in my quest for the right hat. Finding none that I like I move on into the village proper, I notice more than ever the homeless today. They seem to be out in force and it pains me to walk on by, but the sad fact is that if I helped them all I would be standing right next to them shaking my own empty coffee cup. I hear Blue Jays echo though the streets as I pass the Spring St subway station, looking for a loo and wishing I had a hat it’s a little cold.

So after using the loo at Starbucks, the travelers friend. I make my way to my breakfast destination, Vesuvio’s is very small and quaint with pictures of the old ovens in the basement on the wall above the mike and sugar bar. The friendly staff serves me my Maple bacon scone and coffee, they don’t make faces when I ask for some hot water to warm up the coffee gone cool from the freezing cold mike. Why we haven’t adopted the French method of warming the coffee mike is beyond me. The scone is crunchy and delicious and every bit what I love in a scone, but I can’t resist going back in for an oatmeal cookie, these have also been highly recommended online. I move on and walk down W. Broadway, there is an art show on the sidewalk and I admire the work of the artists showing today along the way. It’s so different now that I’m painting again, I no longer feel ashamed when I look at others work. I feel like an artist again with a purpose, even if I’m not doing important social commentary right now. I feel like I bought back a piece of myself. Now I begin to wander looking for good shots and feeling warm and happy, I can ignore my sore back and do what I came here to do. I pass a professional photographer sitting in a chair by his work, he too sits and writes in a small book just like I do. I wonder what he’s about…

I leave the art show and find myself on Lafayette St where an artist is painting the facade of an old bar in a  style based on a small collage of liquor ads he’s been given, it’s very nice work and reminds me of my old style of painting. I talk with him a few minutes but move on to leave him to his work, it looks like it could rain all over his parade soon. Turing the corner I pass an art gallery and decide to go in. Brentano’s Gallery on Crosby St has an amazing collection of original prints and paintings, one whole wall is nothing but Salvador Dali’s work and on the other side a nice seating area with more art. I tell the owner that I’d like to move in and he laughs. Then I share with him the story of Harvey my old friend who would have loved to be here with me looking at Dali’s work. The one I like is a hand signed  lithograph, limited to an edition of 150 which is only $4700. This may sound like a lot but by Dali standards it relatively cheap. Then of course and actual drawing by him is worth a fortune in comparison. I leave the gallery and circle back around to take some pics of the muralist from a distance without bothering him and then begin to move uptown starting to think of lunch, it’s been a few hours since the scone and I’m starting to get a little hungry.

I come to Bleeker St and turn right taking it to Bowery (4th Ave) and then north to St. Marks Place, it’s a long walk from where I was but carried along by the hipster crowds and tourists I make it to my lunch destination Yakitori Taisho, only to find it doesn’t open till 6 pm. So I will not be experiencing the delights of chicken parts cooked on skewers over glowing coals today. So I decide the only thing to do is take the long walk back to the other side of town and go to Rivoli’s Pizza. The clouds have gone away again and the sun is warm as I make my way to 7th Avenue South, passing through another street fair as I do. I stop and look at hats again and even find a $25 hat I like but they don’t take credit and I decide to pass it by instead of looking for a cash machine. When I arrive at 7th Ave South I can see Rivoli’s in the glare of the late afternoon sun and cross the street with others making the most of this glorious day and go in Rivoli’s for a well deserved break. I look at the pie and am immediately disappointed by the looks of it, this is utility pizza at best-nothing special here. I can’t imagine this place turning out veal scallopini or mussels marinara. But with a sigh I order a slice and a soda and settle down in the same window seat I struggled so hard to get the reflections of the table, chairs and taxi in. The pizza is as good as it has to be right now as I am ravenous after my long march, so I read the Village Voice and slowly drink my soda to rest for the walk back.

I sit and it occurs to me that right now or on any other day that I’ve been in NYC.  I might be the person in the picture that someone took as part of their art project, or livelihood. It’s an interesting thought as I look through the window and eyeball the people walking by and crossing the street. I leave and make my way down 7th Ave with the wind at my back. Today I saw many homeless people and heard many French voices all around me, too many of the former and not enough of the latter. The weird and wonderful I saw today in people as I passed by, I would need a personal secretary to remember and document them all. I think to myself God how lucky I am to live so close to this city. I wonder if I could ever leave it.

Cheese

Glen

I predicted all this would happen years ago and the revolutionary in me wants to be there standing up for what I believe in too. But I worry, what if some idiot does something stupid and incites the police? I could easily find myself in a situation. This is one of those times when I wish I was free to do whatever I wanted. If I get arrested and wound up in jail and missed work I’d be in real financial trouble. I have people depending on my income for their life too. But this is what the government and our employers count on-fear. This is how they keep us in line and make us work like slaves. I’ll see how I feel later but at my age I’m a little tired and sore from a busy week at work, I’m getting too old to be doing the grunt work I do.

I head straight for the Lunch Box Buffet, an Asian place right near Penn Station. They are rumored to have the delicious egg tart the Chinese are famous for but when I get there they have none, the only breakfast they have is the ubiquitous NY bagel and rolls or pastry. I was never a pastry for breakfast type so I pass up the chocolate croissants  and move on in search of something better but cheap. I start walking in the busy hustle of the city just before the shops open. The problem with the city in the morning is the blinding sunlight, if you’re walking east your blinded-even with sunglasses on! But I forge on shading my eyes and zig-zag to stay on the shaded side of the street. I hit 3rd Ave and head south. There’s many Indian and Thai eateries here as I walk through Gramercy Park , it’s a busy built up area but as you go south it gets quiet and quaint in ti;s own way. I see many places are not open yet and I make mental notes on shoot locations. I pass a new restaurant where a nice old French cafe used to be, I wish I had eaten there just once. Soon however I come to the industrial part of town, it’s busy and loud here, this area has many restaurant supply shops and metal works fabricating those shinning steel counters where are food is made and sold. Recently on his new show “The Layover” Anthony Bourdain gave a quick tour of such a place, showing viewers how one could cheaply buy the same saute pans they used at Les Halles for $18.95, in fact he got a whole bag of stuff for under a hundred dollars.  I also read online that the people in these shops on Bowery are really helpful and nice to walk-ins so I will make it a point to go over my kitchen inventory and buy my next pans at such places instead of high priced department stores. I turn off the avenue and go down Prince St into the heart of Little Italy. By chance I turn on Elizabeth St and walk right by Albanese Meat market to see Moe sitting inside, I go in and greet him and chat a little about business and the weather. He’s in early on Saturdays as he supplies the restaurants before shutting down for the weekend. He’s always cheerful and happy, I often wonder what his secret his?

I move on to get my breakfast and wind up at Cafe Duke, a fancy name for a place that serves every kind of food you could want in separate stations- both hot and cold can be had. This place also doubles as a cyber cafe and has the mix of cuisine to please everyone. I order a bacon,egg and cheese on an everything bagel with utility coffee and wait for my order as the smells begin to drift about from various stations that are firing up the days offerings. It smells real good in here as food is being cooked in half a dozen places, who would have thought a place that’s not very attractive could be so appetizing. This is the kind of place that amazed my relatives from England in 2008, they have no English equivalent over there. I suggested they open one up and hire people to run it but they politely declined. My egg sandwich is nothing special but it’s still good and compared to a sign I saw advertising a $9.00 egg sandwich with truffles on it I think mine for $3.50 is as good as it has to be. I leave full and in search of my reason to be here today.

The sun is making today’s walk a little hotter than I would like but maybe it will burn the head cold out of me that hasn’t taken hold yet. I walk in the direction of the west side but stop when I see a girl getting off a Vespa, I walk over to make a little conversation about scootering in the city. I ask her about the safety issues of driving a scooter on NYC streets and she tells me that she’s had hers for years and never feels like she’s going to get mowed down by a truck, but also confesses that she stays away from big avenues at rush hour anyway.  Big avenues really aren’t needed to get around in her orbit.  She suggests that I look into buying one and tells me that it was a gift to herself for her 26th birthday. I wish her a happy birthday and she excuses herself to go about her business at the Vespa dealer nearby. I decide to move on without looking at them, I can’t afford one right now and of course the vintage one that I would like is the most expensive and hardest to find. I would like to go to Rivoli’s Pizza and have a slice, having just finished the painting of the storefront but I actually don’t have the address. It was weeks ago that I took that photo and I don’t remember. So I wander through familiar streets till I come to Broadway and see a strange and wondrous sight.

There are crowds gathered on the sidewalks watching dozens and dozens of skateboarders go south on Broadway! Each green light releases another group in all shapes and sizes and colors are coming in waves right alongside the traffic. Many are wearing their cameras taped to helmets or carrying small sticks with cameras running to video their run. The run of their lives! I don’t know why they are doing this but it is but I love it! I snap a few pictures and videos as they pass and am amazed to see some older guys in the mix and girls too. Up ahead a young guy stops and leans over, he’s sick and throws up a little bile. He apologizes and moves on but stops about six feet behind me and throws up for real. It’s pink in color and I figure he has a smoothie for breakfast, I wait till he done and offer him my unopened bottle of water. He gratefully accepts and begin washing out his mouth and drinking water to rehydrate. I ask him “What’s this all about?” puzzled.” Were going down to Wall St.” he says. “Oh to join the protest?” I ask knowingly. “No we just love skateboarding.” he says as he catches his breath. “I mean some are going there for that too.” he says. “Oh I see…where did you start out?” I ask curious. “Ah 116th street.” he says plainly. “Ah hundred and sixteenth street! I repeat astonished. That’s basically three quarters of the length of Manhattan! He offers me a few bucks for my water but I refuse, so he thanks me and turns off to join the ride again. It is then that I think the arrival of hundreds of young skateboarders could turn the protest into a free for all. So I decide to sit it out this time. The sad fact is that I could only stand around impotently for a few hours and go back home. I would then be protesting equivalent of a teeny-bopper from the sixties, spending the weekend as a hippie then going back to my real life. Essentially with all that’s going on at home and at work I could never live the life of a real political activist. The reality is that we can only muster a few signatures on a petition or two and then the powers that be just do what they want anyway. I am no advocate of violence but the only way to achieve change is through total rebellion, like the Star Wars saga. We would have to be funded, armed, organized, and military-like in our actions. Lets face it, a bunch of hipsters, latter day hippies, low level office workers, and housewives are not going to change anything. That might be a cop out but it’s the only one I got. I walk away to find refuge in my work.

I continue my walk and soon find myself on Laguardia Place by a happy accident. This is near where the French pastry shop Mille-Feuille is located, there is no way I’m not going in  for a Macaron or two. I walk down a few streets and find it there between Bleeker and 3rd. Once inside the small shop I seek consultation on which is good today. The salted caramel and a rose are my choice with a decaf coffee-the caramel is the best. I excitedly tell the young staff about the skaters and between customers show them the video I made on my cell phone. They are suitably impressed and happy about it and I leave the shop in search of more pictures. It’s not easy to find good shots, either the lighting is wrong or there is a truck in the way but I persevere. I stop in a Spanish deli and look around, there is an amazing array of oils, olives, sausages of every kind and a whole Serrano ham being sliced paper thin for a customer who talks and waits as his meat is lovingly arranged on butcher paper. The owner offers me a tiny piece and it is magical melt-in-the-mouth good, but a $28 dollars a pound I’ll have to pass this time but I will be back to make some serious purchases some day. By now it’s getting on to about two in the afternoon and I’m hungry again. I wanted to try and find Rivoli Pizza after finishing the painting I felt it would be only right to be able to say I had eaten there once. But I can’t remember where it’s located exactly, so I go around the block to a place I passed before. Roma Pizza is doing one thing and doing it well, pizza on artisinal bread in the tradition of Rome. This is a slab of thinner crust pizza made in long rectangular pans, it’s nothing like Sicilian or Neapolitan or anything else I’ve seen in my life. I go in to a long counter bar with a dozen different pies, I’m greeted by the hipster pizza chef and he tells me what each one has for toppings. I pick the potato and sausage with hot pepper flakes and an imported Italian beer. The pie is cut into two large pieces with “chicken scissors” and brought to me at a small table by the wall. The bread is really nice but too soft for me I like my pizza crunchy, but at this point I just want to eat. I’m actually very hungry after hours of walking and taking pictures. The flavor of the toppings is very good, meaty sausage and cracked peppers provide a salty sharp counterpoint to the mild potatoes and smooth olive oil. It’s good but as usual I went for something I never saw before and I really should have gone with a cheese and tomato slice instead. By the time I was done however there was no room for a second slice. I paid my check and went to the back for a loo break before leaving, there was also an outside dinning area past the actual dinning room. I chatted with a couple from Pittburgh while waiting for my turn and after went back outside to walk the pavements once more.

I spent the rest of the afternoon so wrapped up in shooting that I didn’t actually write any more notes on the trip, and by the time I got on the train going home I was too tired to even try to remember all the places I’d been. This is very unusual for me and I regret now not being able to finish the story of today correctly. The pictures I took offered up about six good choices for my project, so on the whole it was a very good day.

Cheers

Glen

In the cold chill of the fall night we drive to the ER and I drop them off.  By the time I park the car and walk into the waiting area I find my family including my brother sitting in an mostly empty room while the Turner classic movies channel features ‘Jason and the Argonauts!’ My brother, looking dismal, apologizes for the fuss and fills me in on what’s happened since I went to bed. He has had uncontrollable coughing fits spewing up blood and mucus which isn’t letting up. He informs me that he has been sick with a cough and cold for weeks but with him sequestered in his room as he attends online college and me at work all day, I’m afraid I didn’t notice he was sick. They finally call his name and I sit down for a long night, armed with an interesting book called “The Big Short” by Michael Lewis, an unusual read for me about the investment industry. The author was on NPR (National Public Radio) the previous Saturday promoting his new book “Boomerang” and sparked my interest. The ER waiting rooms refreshment area features a broken free coffee maker, soda machine and snack machine. So wearily at my mom’s request I go on a walkabout looking for coffee but finding none I sit down to read and watch TV.

I sit with my mom while dad wanders around unable to sit still. We speculate about our worse fears for my brother’s health. It’s about 4:00 am now and they are taking him for a chest x-ray when I look up and see through the glass of the children’s play area another TV with a breaking news story. I get up to see what’s going on now, and am not surprised to see that the police in New York City have raided Zucotti Park and driven the Occupy Wall Street protesters out, to clean up the park ostensibly. The operation was conducted by police in riot gear and SWAT teams with precise military maneuvers. The action began at 1:00 am and these kinds of operations are always done  in the small hours, it’s the best time to attack your enemy. The protesters didn’t stand a chance, and even the efforts of reinforcements coming to aid the protesters never made it to the park, they were driven back. This is no surprise to me as I predicted this would happen weeks ago; if only to myself. But what shocked me was the lack of violence, many protestors went peacefully and the few who didn’t were not beaten up too bad. That is at least not from what we witnessed on TV, the next day the mayor held a press conference stating that things went well-better than expected! Also the protestors would be allowed to come back to the park, but not with sleeping bags or tents this time.

The Occupy Wall Street movement begun on Sept 17th in New York’s financial district, inspired by the Egyptian Tahir Square uprisings in June and the Spanish “Acampadas”. It is at its core vow to end the monied corruption of our democracy. The anti-consumerist/pro-environment magazine” Adbusters” published in Canada is credited with calling for the peaceful protest movement as a means to bring about social change for the 99 percent of people making under $100,000 a year. While the 1 percent who make upwards of $100,000 a year enjoy an extravagant lifestyle and pay way less than they should in taxes, the 99 percent are trimming down to only the essentials and yet are still being asked to bear the burden for the good of the country. If you look at a map of the cities where protesters have gathered, you can see that the concentration of the movement is in the northeast, but it reaches all the way to the west coast and a sprinkling of the mid-Atlantic states. The mid-section of the country is where you see the least amount of protest, in some states none at all.

The OWS is a leaderless movement and seems to have no clear set path for establishing their agenda. A few weeks ago I watched an interview with one of the organizers on TV and was amazed at what I saw. He was a young guy in his maybe late twenty’s, he was clearly a corporate hipster type, the kind that wears a suit and is well versed in office protocol but you could easily find him at a Dresden Dolls concert on the weekend. He was telling the interviewer that “We are sending a clear message to Wall Street and to Washington that we want change, we are going to be here, we are not going anywhere until there is real change in this country” He talked in that post valley girl/guy hipster twang with that tinge of the feminine that makes people think your either gay or a snob. The powers that be have got be looking at this and laughing at him. This is not any threat to the 1 percent, and guess what else. The one percentile includes all of our leaders and their families and friends and the leaders of big business right down to the owner of the company you work for who has more money in the bank than you will make in your entire life. They don’t care about you or anyone else in the 99 percentile. My brother came out of his x-ray and waited for the results in the ER and we chatted with him until the doctor came and told my brother that he had a nosebleed. I for one was not convinced since the blood wasn’t coming from his nose, but he gave my brother a set of instructions and a bottle of Afrin nasal spray and said see ya later. So at 5:15 am we arrived home and since I usually get up a six o”clock, I decided it was useless to try to sleep and got dressed for work and made my lunch.

When I came home after a very busy grueling day I found my mom made a meatloaf, so I jumped in to help sous chef the veg and mash and set the table. I asked about my brother who had more coughing fits and while we were  just about to sit down to eat, my brother came in again with a garbage can full of bloody tissues and said “I guess we better go back to the hospital.” I got out of my sweats and into jeans and a shirt and took my brother to the hospital alone this time, my parents stayed home and ate the nice dinner she prepared. This time it was more of the same, the coffee machine was still broken and because it was after seven o’clock the cafeterias were both closed so we sat and sat and sat. My brother wasn’t allowed to eat until he had a CAT scan of the chest to see what was going on. So we both starved miserably and I read and watched some TV while he was examined and taken away for his scan. I bought a bag of hard pretzels out of a vending machine and took a small orange juice from a fridge and that was dinner.  He came back and after an eternity was told that he had a touch on Pneumonia in his upper left lung, so they hung a bag of anti-biotic solution given intravenously and got him a lovely dinner of crackers, applesauce, lime jello, and graham crackers with nothing to drink. That took four requests to be accomplished but he finally got some from the staff who seemed eager to get out and go home. While we waited for the meds to finish we watched re-runs of Seinfeld and kept mom, dad and friends  posted on developments. I excused myself to go to the bathroom and when I came back I realized that we had been alone in that area for quite a while, the meds were now done and we had been forgotten. I joked with my brother that he should take out the I.V. and we should skip this place. He chuckled and I said “No really, take out that thing then put a piece of gauze and tape and put on your jacket, I’ll hit the button on the elevator and out we go down to the basement, then up the stairs by the cafeteria into the front lobby and out the door!” He laughed and said he still needed his script for the Z-pac pills he has to take for the next 10 days but I was only kidding anyway, I just wanted to cheer him up after what amounts to his first brush with a serious illness.

We got home at about 12:30 and I had a few crackers and milk and went to bed exhausted but happy that it wasn’t worse than it could have been. Still in the morning I was shot and considered staying home but needing the money I pushed myself to dig deep and get going to work. I stopped for coffee at the supermarket where I usually go and greeted my friends getting their morning cup before work. This machine makes the best decaf ever and I smiled into my cup as I tasted my first gulp. Then continuing my ritual I walked over to the newspapers and looked at each front cover to get an idea of what’s happening today. The front page of Newsday made me laugh out loud. The picture shows a NYC policemen in profile and behind him a girl in her twenties is wearing only stockings and garter belt, sun glasses and a big smile! The caption read that the police have been turning a blind eye to incidents like this at Zucotti Park where protesters are stepping up the civil disobedience! That’s right they did turn a blind eye. Because the picture was taken the day before the police cleared the park, they allowed the incident to go without arrest to lull the protesters into thinking they could get away with anything. The police knew what would happen less than 24 hours later and besides… she wasn’t half bad-looking. Alls well that ends well. My brother is making good progress and should be fine. He threw his pouch of tobacco out on the way to the car when we left the hospital…it made all the effort and lack of  sleep worthwhile, I just hope he doesn’t have a relapse…I mean on smoking.

Sleepily

Glen

The tough reality is that the only way to get better is to write and study writing, and maybe also to read, but without more schooling I feel like I’m never going to make it as a writer. I need to take classes at the Gotham Writers Workshop in NY and beside the fact that I don’t have the money, I also can’t make it from my job in Suffolk all the way to Midtown by the time class starts. I would be an aggravated, sweating, stressed out mess with a headache by the time I got to class. I’m not one for taking online classes either, my brother is pursuing an online degree and I find too many distractions would keep me unfocused. Personally, I don’t know how he does it, but he is doing very well!

I am however starting to feel as though I have to change, this blog is not a blog in the usual sense, it is not a few short paragraphs written hastily each day, but a blog of short stories for readers. If you read my about me page I call it “a selfish venture” and indicate that it is at it’s core an open diary. While that is true I find myself wishing I had more fans and more comments. I see with an app added to my page that people from all over the world are visiting, some multiple times. I can even extrapolate that a few high school or college students might be hijacking my words for school papers, why else would I see people logging on from the same place over and over again sometimes a few hours or minutes apart? I don’t care as long as no one is getting paid for it, but it’s a shame that kids are so lazy these days. The change I think I have to make is to write more to an audience and less to myself, while I thought I was doing that already I think now that some stories are too cookie cutter too much the same basic story I wrote the last time. The fact is that not every trip is that interesting or noteworthy, some trips cool stuff happens and I’m cooking on all burners and others I’m too absorbed in what I’m doing to gather all the stimuli around me. It’s a tightrope but I have to try and do it better in the future, if I ever want to get published I must walk that line.

So tonight I will start writing a new piece about the city trip I took last week, and an editorial about this whole Occupy Wall St movement that’s so controversial and so confusing. I must again give thanks to the people that got me here. Thanks to Professor  Wigetow for your teaching and for believing in my potential, to W.B. Wilkins whom I owe this blog to for giving me the key to being a good writer, hopefully I will use it to unlock all the right doors, to J.R.R. Tolkien for the obvious, to Jack Kerouac for teaching me to write in the moment, to William Burroughs for showing me the way to color my words, to Anthony Bourdain for infusing my imagination with his words and especially for turning me on to Graham Greene, to Graham Greene for igniting my desire to be a better writer and for creating some of the most unforgettable characters ever, to Maureen for being my friend and my number one fan, to my mom Alyce for teaching me my A B C’s while still in the crib, sometimes it’s the little things that matter most. No matter what happens I will keep writing and keep painting and strive as I have all my life to do something with nothing, I will keep hoping, planning, wishing, praying and insisting that life can be what you want it to be with a ton of hard work and a little luck. The work is hard, it’s the luck part that I find is so much harder.

Glen

Long Island N.Y.  2011

But today I am on a special mission in New York, I mentioned that I put brush to paper for the first time in almost four years, after three abortive attempts to paint a cafe scene from the instructional book on watercolors. I finally got a finished piece on the forth try, I learned much about watercolor painting but have miles to go. I wrote in “Doing A Slow Burn” that I have to find good pictures of Paris cafe’s on the net to use for watercolor paintings. But I had a genius attack the other day in the city, and decided that my own pictures taken in my travels would be a better choice. Most good pictures on the net are copyright protected or you pay to use them, the last quiet trip to the city only yielded one picture good enough for a painting. So today I will be taking multiple shots of every scene that catches my eye, different angles will be tried and the element of chance will be invited to come along. I have found out that I can make my own watercolor block at home using home-made glue and sheets of watercolor paper cut to size and pressed together. This will save me lots of money, block is expensive. Especially the superior French Arches Blocks that cost arms and legs for the large sizes.

I am very excited about this new reason to go into New York, I stand at work and think about how I will sit and listen to Pandora Radio and create art later. It takes the idea of being stuck in for the winter a happier thought, and at the same time it ties together all my interests into one. It’s all here in a nice package  Art, New York City, Food, Photography, and Writing. It’s been a quiet ride so far, but in Woodside, Queens things change. A big guy in shorts and t-shirt with a baseball cap get on the train and sits down in front of me. By all accounts he’s very normal looking. But after the train pulls out he starts talking to himself in a high-pitched nasal voice. I wonder if he’s nuts or if he’s practicing lines for a voice over in a commercial or something, either way it’s a little annoying. We slow to begin the descent into Penn Station and I fill with anticipation for the day. I emerge from the station and decide to walk to West 10th st and  head south. I am looking for film for my Advantix camera which I haven’t used since I got the Samsung from my English relative in 2008. I don’t find  any in two places I stop in so I start walking west. What I don’t know is that they stopped making the film and I will have to find it online.  By the time I write this however-ten rolls are sitting in my fridge and I will buy more when I can. I will not give up on those beautiful wide-angle shots, some of my best pictures were shot using that camera!

I’ve never gone this way before and it turns out to be a good decision, as I begin walking south I stop after a few blocks and notice people walking towards something. I turn and see the entrance to the Highline, an old elevated railroad that used to be the carrier of freight trains into and out of the city. But for many years it was the haunt of the homeless, junkies, and crazy kids looking for some free fun in a shrinking economy. Of course it was illegal to be up there but with dozens of ways in, people found a way to do it. It’s kinda like the sewers and catacombs beneath Paris, you’re not supposed to be there but no one really has the time to enforce the law.  The powers that be in New York decided a few years ago to turn this space into a public park, so I go up to investigate. There are stairs leading to walkways that have been built over the tracks, and on either side are planting beds with a wonderful array of trees, shrubs and flowering perennials. There are nice benches along the way, special seating areas and viewing platforms that jut out into space. The park police patrol to keep things cool and emergency call boxes in case of an accident.

There are times when the buildings rise up around you and others when you are open to the sky, it almost feels like your flying as you look out over roofs where only pigeons walk, they stare at you unable to fathom the invasion of their domain. This is a truly wonderful space, you can see the contentment on the faces of the native New Yorker’s and the delight of the visitors is apparent too. I hear a man say to his fellows that the time to come here is in Feb, when it’s not too cold and there’s no one here in the early morning. I can imagine how tranquil that might be especially if it’s snowing. I will have to remember that for the future. I walk some three miles to the end, along the way I encounter common areas where events are staged, a place where the children can splash about in an inch of water while mom and dad sit in chairs big enough for two, and a roofed-over area near the bathrooms where the kids can play with giant wood and plastic Erector set pieces and build small contraptions. I make my way to street level and start for the West Village, walking down Greenwich Ave again for the first time in two years. I pace myself slow, taking pictures, reading menus, and find myself down by the waterside-just a short walk away from the piers. I pass a huge meat distributor and wonder how many millions of dollars of food are inside, then doubling back to civilization to find lunch. So many good places to eat, but I can’t afford them, I need to spend under twenty dollars today so I walk on looking for a sandwich and a beer.

Passing through the buildings.

A Sense Of The Height

I find it at the Fish on Bleeker St, a small place that has been here since the fifties I think as I look around at the decor and the pictures of the old days. I order an Oyster PO-Boy sandwich and a Stella Artois and relax at the old wooden bar and watch TV. I see a huge pyramid of shellfish go by and is laid down on a table in front of six people, they immediately go at the crab legs, lobster’s, clams and mussels with a vengeance. In fact all you can hear is cracking and the banging of small hammers to break shells to get at the wonderful treasure inside, along with corn on the cob and boiled potatoes it’s a meal fit for a king. My sandwich is taking a long time but I watch the prep chef at the raw bar set up his mise-en-place a few feet away. He’s setting up dozens of oysters and clams, making sure he has plenty of sauces and lemons. He stops to put orders together which spit out of a gadget that looks like a credit card machine, then after setting up a plate he rings a bell and it’s picked up and delivered. When my sandwich arrives it’s a big plate. There’s a bunch of fries and a nice side salad with greens, sliced tomato and pickle with a tangy sauce. The po-boy is another matter. It is light on soft bread, the crunch comes from the oysters that have a delicate flavor that deepens as you chew, they taste of the sea and the stones where they grow. It’s altogether a delicious and filling meal, but I can’t resist going down the street for dessert. So I sit and let my food go down and then after paying my bill I go to a place called “Cones” an ice cream shop like no other.

I know I have seen this place on the Food Network or the Travel channel as soon as I walk in. There are many different colors of gelato in the case and as others get theirs I look past them to see many strange flavors. There is Yerba Mate,made with a South American tea. There’s kumquat with Johnnie Walker Black Label which costs a dollar to try a spoonful. Zabayone, based on an Italian dessert with cream and sweet Marsala wine-amazing. But I go for the Corn after the pretty Argentinian woman behind the counter gives me a taste. Made with real corn and cream and with a dash of cinnamon on top, it is a thing of beauty for the tongue. Imagine a piece of corn bread with butter and cinnamon and you’ll get the flavor profile. I talk a while with the waitress who is also Italian, we chat about living  in her home countries, life in the city, and especially about Cones. They have been featured in articles in the New York Times, New York magazine and Zagat’s. They are number four in the top ten places making the best “corn” dish in New York City. I am sure I’ve seen this woman on TV. I finish my treat while she helps other customers and I bid her farewell and head out again. I’m on Bleeker St in the West Village so I decide to head east arriving on 1st Ave. This is the exact opposite of where I started so I think I’ll walk up 1st Ave and see what happens. I feel the heat and humidity more now after eating as the afternoon heats up. This is a fast paced area sporting many Italian, Latin and Indian eateries but not many good photo opportunities. So I begin to work my way back to the center of things and find brassiere Les Halles on Park Ave and a few others. Then I cool off inside a Greistede’s supermarket for a few minutes with a cold bottle of water. I retrace some of my steps from past trips but I always walk down a street I’ve never been before. I always find something new and today is no exception. Mille Feuille is a French bakery on LaGuardia Place in Greenwich Village featuring its namesake dessert and the bright Macarons that thrill and delight children from Paris to Provence. I order a coffee and a Mille Feuille and sit at the bar against the wall. The pastry cream is delicious and the crispy layers make it difficult to eat but oh so worth the effort. I see a mom coming with a stroller so I get up and open the door for her and two kids and her husband follow. They thank me and they are French, looking for a taste of home. The adults order Espresso’s and the kids are so cute asking for “Pain de Shokolat” as they loudly look at everything asking so many questions and running around the small space. I decide not to get into a conversation about France.

I continue my long walk back to Penn Station and think it’s been a almost perfect day. The only way it could have been better would have been to have a little more money to spend and if it had been about ten degrees cooler, but that will come soon enough. The final act of the day is a stop in tracks for a wash-up and a drink. It’s been a hot walk back and my french dessert was burned up hours ago. I ask for a St Germain cocktail and the Irish waitress says to me “What’s that?” so I order a glass of Harp instead. I didn’t really want a beer but when in Rome…

It was a crappy week at work so I really needed a good day out, I am tired and happy. Tomorrow will be a rainy day and I will work on pictures and remember today.

Peace

Glen

I have lived here all my life and have been through many power outages as a child and as an adult. It was not fun but it was not worthy of threats and violence to the people who we depend on for the power we obviously can’t live without. Have we sunk so low that we can’t make the best of the situation and huddle together to tell stories, read to our children by candlelight, how about playing cards-I’ll bet many of today’s kids don’t know how to play games we played when I was young. Then there is also sitting and making arts and crafts. My artistic talent today can be traced all the way back to my early days. I remember sitting with my mom learning how to draw and paint, and make things with paper and glue and glitter.

This country was built by people who lived by candle light every night and had none of the comforts and indulgent time saving pleasures we have today, and yes I know they knew nothing else but what about our grandparents? They didn’t have TV or AC or PC’s or anything like what our parents even enjoyed. Yet somehow, when things were bad they got together, helped each other and muddled through the bad times, and they did it without threatening to blow anyone up!

Some of these crews are from as far away as Illinois, they are working twelve hour days away from their homes and families. They miss them, their cats and dogs, friends,  their own beds and hometowns. The other day after dropping my car off at a closed repair shop, I walked home secure in the knowledge that it will be Wed before I get it back. I walked right past LIPA as I passed the last driveway I saw a lone truck from Illinois waiting for the light. I stepped up to the cab and looked at the driver, he was maybe between 23 and 28 tops. I raised my left fist in a pump gesture, I told him how much most of us appreciate the twelve hour days to put our island back together. You should have seen the smile on his face, it made the long hot walk home worth while. I hate not having a car but I’m making the best of it, getting things done outside, writing, creating art, reading and studying.

While I do agree that LIPA could have and should do a better job than they did for the money they get. Lets remember that this was the largest outage on Long Island in recent memory, and we could be in worse shape sitting on our roofs waiting to be rescued like those folks in flooded areas.  The bad weather season is upon us, after this we have the winter to contend with, there may be many days without power or stuck inside because of snow storms. The point is we may need these people in the future, lets give em a break at least if not a pat on the back.

Oh and by the way, I never lost my lights. I still said what needed to be said. The driver said “Thank You.”

Peace

Glen

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That in a way is part of a bigger picture that my thoughts will be on today as I wander. Issues great and small will be my slow burn for today. I am lucky to have a job and my health for the most part is good. Where I see myself in the next ten years is the key issue. I have to form some sort of plan for my transition to another career, I don’t want to sell parts forever and I can’t see myself driving around a forklift in the snow at 50 let alone 65. The improvement of my health, if I want to make 65 I’d better find the discipline to work out and lose weight and keep it off! The acquisition of love and an active social life with my own kind, I have to find a circle of artist/writer/foodie/francophiles to hang out with or else I will never meet that special someone. I do sometimes feel that maybe I do a little better on my own,  like the character of Scobie in Graham Greene’s novel “The Heart of the Matter”. But then again I haven’t met the “other” yet so I can’t be sure of that.

My creative life is another matter, last night I put brush to paper and worked on a watercolor scene of a Paris cafe out of an instructional book. It took an unfortunate row  to lock me in my apartment and forced me to sit down, listen to music and paint slow. Despite the fact that I have had no formal training in watercolor, and have only painted two others in my life (which came out great by the way) I found out something very important. I can still paint. Even after a nearly four-year hiatus and after two abortive attempts at this scene.  I finally hit my stride and found that which lies within every artist, the something that happens when you find your way. I have to try to find some more good pics of Paris cafe on the web that are not copyright protected.

It’s a sleepy kind of day, except for one kid and his dad everyone is quiet, lost in thought. There is an Asian beatnik on my left up a seat. He asks the conductor if the train stops at Mineola? “No, this is the express- I announced it three times.” the conductor said matter of factly. “What do I do now?” asked the deflated hipster. “You’ll have to get out at Jamaica and go back.” said the conductor as he punched his ticket and moved on. The beatnik in the beret with his Lennon glasses and his Fu-Manchu mustache busied himself with texting and avoided eye-contact  with anyone. I smile inside but I feel for him all the same. Just when you think your cool and in control is when you slip on a banana peel or get on the wrong train. The train meanwhile is getting crowded, everyone is going in for some fun. It’s hard to believe the summer is half over.I don’t know exactly where I’m going, but I do have some restaurants written down and I would like to see the green market again.

I’ve started to wonder about writing a proposal to the Travel Channel about a show in New York City, in it I would do what I love to do…this. It would be better perhaps for NYC TV but not so big an audience as TC. If I knew a little more about the night life in NYC and had a lot more confidence in myself I think I could pull it off. Maybe a book based on my experiences so far would be a better lead in to a show. The one thing I do know is that somehow I have to capitalize on my art, writing, and New York travels while the food and travel boom is on going. If I don’t I’ll miss out like I did the computer boom. It’s amazing to think that the kid who didn’t want to be in the school play now wants his own TV show now…I certainly have changed. We descend underground and soon I’ll be on the street or subway.

I decide on the subway and take it down to 23rd st coming up on busy 8th ave, I try to walk slow and takes things in nudging over an ave or two as I head south. People are swarming like bees enjoying a field of wildflowers, the warm breezy day has all of us walking on air. I find myself at Union Square with no effort at all. How can I describe the green market any better than I already have in so many stories. I can’t, you just have to come and see for yourself. This is a place where you need a French market basket and a whole day. You walk slow, sample the foods and see what is good, then walk back and buy what you need from the vendor with the best product. Too bad it’s only here half the year. I am sold on a pint of fresh blueberries by a slick tongued salesman, then after tasting garlic/rosemary jam and talking with a vendor about heirloom tomatoes and blossom end rot, I move on and wander a little. I eventually wind up at 5th ave and see something I’ve never seen before. It’s closed to traffic, bicycles, skaters and foot traffic only! I find out later that it’s part of a program called “summer streets”and goes on for many blocks to allow folks to enjoy the summer without having to go far. The quiet is almost deafening but there’s a magic to it as well. The walkers, joggers, skaters, and bicyclists are all moving at different paces in a kind of modern ballet. I loop back around after buying a lemonade from kids selling outside their apartment building and head west, I spend too much time on the lower east side so it’s time for a change.

Summer Streets in New York

I am thinking as I walk that maybe I should start using pictures I take in New York as a basis for paintings. I stop to rest on the service entrance steps of an Italian place on Bleeker and eat my berries for a snack while I write and practice my relaxing and people watching skills. Many people pass by as I write, all types from locals out shopping to vacationers and across the street two tour groups pass while the guide tells the same story he told a hundred other times. I could use a loo and a wash-up so I reluctantly get up and begin the search for a clean bathroom, not an easy task in Manhattan unless you eat at a restaurant. But I find one at a place called “The Slaughtered Lamb”, which is actually an old historic bar with a fireplace and a door marked “The Dungeon” opposite the front door. I didn’t ask why. I order a Stella and settle down to read an article in the Village Voice about people who are distilling moonshine in the five Burroughs today. It is actually an appropriate place to read about moonshine, the old wooden floors and the fireplace and mantle tell me that this place has seen some bathtub gin back in the day. The article is fascinating, I didn’t realize so much went into the process and that the authorities are still prosecuting those who distill without a license. But to get a license you have to pay huge fees and taxes and must pass rigorous inspections and limit your production as well. No small wonder where the government is involved, pain follows. Which is the whole idea anyway, they probably really don’t want anyone making their own Hooch and would rather we all just work, spend, sleep…repeat and repeat. The place fills up with a bunch of loud mouth out-of-town types that sound like it’s their first beer so I head out to find some lunch.

On the way I pass the Jefferson Market Garden, a small garden that has benches and pathways that is planted with a wonderful assortment of perennials and roses and scrubs, the beautiful building for which it is named is a branch of the New York Public Library but was built between 1874 and 1877 as the Third Judicial District Courthouse. I walk the trail and see many of my own garden planted here too. Black-eyed Susan’s, copper bells, butterfly bush, azaleas and more are here. I sign the book and donate a few dollars and move on. Soon inevitably, I find myself at Washington Square seeking a food truck. The only one here is the Cambodian Food truck, these folks are former restaurant owners who are victims of a greedy landlord and the system of things in general. They have all the court documents and letters made into a poster set up outside the truck for all to see. It’s too much to read but the little I read makes me feel for them. Now that Kampuchea is gone, this is the only Cambodian food in New York. I order spicy curry chicken with potatoes, bean sprouts, onion over angel hair rice noodles in a coconut sauce  and Thai Ice Tea. It takes about six minutes for my food to be made and I sit on a bench inside the park area and eat very carefully, it’s hot and the sauce is right to the top. This is delicious, the chicken is tender and the potatoes are just right and the thick sauce is creamy, savory and spicy. This is a great meal washed down with cool sweet Thai ice tea, for eight bucks with tip it doesn’t get much better. There may be some kind of advantage to austerity eating after all. I sit and listen to live jazz behind me in the distance, the park is full of families, couples, students, and tourists. Everyone is enjoying the weather in their own way, pretty girls in bikinis lie out getting a tan, others crash out on the grass fast asleep with I-tunes playing in their dreams, the readers read, the dreamers dream and everyone else is just thankful to be out of the rat race. Unfortunately, it’s time for me to start heading for home.

I walk back to Penn station at a slow pace, not wanting to go underground or spend money on a taxi, this is good for me anyway. I stop to get money at an ATM inside a drugstore, enjoying the cool air. There’s an attractive woman dressed up behind me about my age. I say “You know I can remember when,  if the bank was closed you couldn’t get any money!” She laughs and says” Me too”. and I get out of her way and back on the street. I guess I really didn’t figure anything out after all. There is too much to occupy the senses here, anyone who doesn’t live here isn’t used to it and won’t get any thinking done till they are at home. I wander in Penn Station to kill time before my train comes and get a water instead of a beer to save money. My train comes and it’s also an express, three stops and I’m home. I feel a little lonely and isolated from my family right now, but the city is always ready for me when I need it… and it never lets me down.

Peace

Glen

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Our Street

Many others were not so lucky, the storm claimed 16 lives so far, my prayers go out to their families. Many people are dealing with large uprooted trees which have landed on their houses and some have blocked major roads. The main road by my house was almost completely blocked by a large tree and when I ventured out for a walkabout this morning, I saw many trees felled right behind us.

3 lanes blocked

Street behind us.

My brother took out his car around noon and found many downed trees in the area by our house and I too found lots of blocked roads when I took a drive a short time ago. There is flooding in many areas, the Belt Parkway in Queens is shut down due to flooding and many residents in low-lying areas are trying to pump out basements and businesses.

Closed till tomorrow

Like a ghost town.

Most of the stores are closed, as is the mall and almost all restaurants and diners are closed. So tomorrow begins a new work week and a big cleanup will continue, by next weekend this will be a fading memory. But I can tell you, it was a scary night and I stayed up till 4:00 AM listening to the wind expecting the worse. The whole region is relieved however, it was supposed to be much worse than it was, so as I said…we got lucky.

Peace
Glen

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But at least I’m out of the rat race for ten days and my garden is in full swing with veggies growing and war being waged organically on pests and a big barbecue is planned for the 4th with everyone bringing food and drink so life is good. Recently I saw an episode of Andrew Zimmern’s” Bizarre Foods” which actually has him working in restaurants trying to work a shift like he used to in the old days. He goes to Xian’s Famous Noodles in Chinatown and works the busy lunch and dinner shift. Here they make every dish of noodles by hand and after brief instruction he is stretching and slapping the noodles on the counter like a pro. Each dish of noodles is made with a delicious combo of meat or veg in a sauce and the most popular is the Spicy Cumin Lamb Noodles. During the episode his friend and fellow Food Network Star Adam Richman stops by to have a bowl and declares it to be fantastic. I’ve read that Anthony Bourdain has also declared that Xian’s is among the best in New York, so at just 7 bucks a bowl-for me to day-it’s all about the noodle.

Recently, I was looking at Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations website and found that he is writing for a HBO show called “Treme”, I don’t have HBO but he is also contributing to a new culinary quarterly called “Lucky Peach”, this is the baby of David Chang the legendary owner of Momofuku in New York, the home of possibly the best Ramen noodles in the western world as well as three other restaurants. This magazine is available only through McSorleys on the web and this first issue is devoted to Ramen noodles. There are articles by Anthony Bourdain and original artwork  and recipes and maps of Japan showing how Ramen is made in different provinces. It’s an off-beat unconventional magazine and owning a subscription makes me feel like I’ve joined some secret society, known only to a few who have the password and secret handshake. I am today entering the complex world of the noodle, a humble Buddha-like food product so important to so many.

So I get topside and head for my first destination which is another food network episode memory, again to the Lower East Side where many simple good things seem to have been invented, up to and including the donuts at Doughnut Plant, a little shop where hand-made jellies and sauces go over hand-made batches of donuts. It’s a place that’s a little smaller than my house where chef/owner Mark Isreal has come a long way. He has made the doughnut a work of art and they even sell t-shirts for tourists to show off back home! This is a small Jewish enclave on the outskirts of Chinatown on Grand St next to Kossars Bialy and a kosher bakery. But when you come to this small shop, it’s all about two things. The Peanut Butter and Jelly doughnut and the even more venerated Creme Brulee doughnut, so I sit down on the window ledge after a family from Nebraska leaves and tuck into my PB&J, this is a square doughnut that has a square hole in the center with grape jelly running all through it. The outside is covered in a peanut butter sauce, it’s good but I really should have milk with this rather than bad utility coffee. But the Creme Brulee doughnut is another matter. This is good, I mean blackout good, this doughnut is made with creme Brulee filling and the outside is actually got the hard toasted sugar just like the classic French dessert! This reminds me how much I need to learn how to make the French dessert myself from scratch, yet another chapter in my cooking pursuits.

There is much going on today in the city, for some reason Elizabeth St is closed with police barricades. They are moved by officers to let sporty black police edition Dodge Chargers through however, and down the block men in suits and white shirted officers stand around for what…I don’t know. But I later learn it was an accident of some sorts. I walk on and get a text message from mom, she wonders if The Golden Dragon is still open in Chinatown. This was a place where she and her girlfriends would have lunch back in the day. I have no way of tracking this down myself but with additional texts from my brother, I use my map to go to 51 Division St but find it’s not there, I actually go to two more addresses but I come up empty handed. It would have been cool to find it still open but that was back in the fifties, most places don’t last that long. It was a good effort though and it made me hungry. So I decided to double back to my noodle lunch destination. The fascinating thing about being here is how much you feel like an outsider in your own country. You are literally the one in one hundred who doesn’t look or talk like everybody else. The streets are mobbed with people shopping, talking and bustling about. Many are laden with bags of food, unfamiliar greens thrust up from shopping bags, others are heavy with fish, large eyes staring through plastic that were only hours before searching for food in the sea. The streets are lined with vendors selling all manner of colorful hats and shirts, battery operated toys, fans and those ceramic cats with writing on their bellies…I wonder what that’s about? I find Xian’s easily and go into the crowded space and wait my turn. This is not the same location that was used on TV but the food is the same, I am however disappointed that I won’t be seeing my hand=pulled noodles made today. I place my order and go sit in the back and wait for my number to be called, the orders are made in a downstairs kitchen and come up on a dumbwaiter. My number is called and I go up and get my tray and choose my weapon of choice-chopsticks. I tuck into my spicy cumin lamb noodles with gusto, this is a whole other level of good! The noodles are soft and yielding at first but then become chewy, and the chopped lamb with onion and cucumber and scallion swimming in an fiery orange sauce. This is savory and hot, evil and good. It’s too bad the A/C is blowing so cold, I rush to eat my food before it is chilled down. My lips are burning as I slurp down the last of my dish and I really wish I could try another but that would be gluttony so I clean up my tray and head out into the warm summer day. I decide to head back to the Doughnut Plant to get some Creme Brulee’s for the family, it’s a long walk but that’s okay. I make my way back in the growing heat of the late afternoon to Penn Station, zig-zagging to keep to the shaded side of the street, like they do in Provence. Soon I find myself in the growing crowds entering the station proper and the coolness wraps you as you descend. The long walk was tiring but at least I burnt some of todays calories off, this beats the heck out of standing at that hot counter! I grab a cold water and go down for my train, relaxed and happy.

Chow
Glen

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The reaction from people around me went from total indifference to those who felt she got what she deserved. The sad thing is that most of the people who feel that way will never know what it’s like to be an addict, how it can destroy your will to do what you love or be who you want to be. I have seen addiction firsthand and can tell you it’s not the barrel of fun that people make it out to be. I watched a co-worker scramble for drugs every day for over a year.While I drove him home every day, I listened to the phone calls trying to score a hit and out of the corner of my eye watched as he counted money, going through all  his pockets to collate what he had hoping it would be enough. I could feel his eyes upon me when he didn’t have enough money and I lied many times that I was broke. He left the company and I was relieved, the strain of watching him feed his addiction was starting to take its toll on me emotionally.

There are some who are blaming Amy’s close friend Kelly Osbourne and Amy’s parents, saying they should have done more to help her, but I think this is unfair to Kelly and also her parents who are most likely experiencing a lot of guilt. This is an old story unfortunately, for Amy and a handful of other stars.  When a group of friends gathered to try an intervention with CSN legend David Crosby back in the day, his response was to do a line of coke and walk out the door. You can’t sit on top of someone 24-7, sooner or later they have to be alone and no one can possibly be there every minute. The fact is that Amy had been rumored to have been in rehab recently, and after treatment in hospital and as an out-patient for lung problems associated with smoking tobacco and crack cocaine, she had received a clean bill of health from her doctor. She like other stars who died young was embarking on a comeback, with a new album in the works and a tour to follow-she was in good spirits according to those close to her. There was no reason to suspect that she would wind up like she did, in fact it will be several weeks before the toxicology reports are done. So far foul play has been ruled out and the autopsy was inconclusive as to the cause of death.

In interviews her former band mates concluded that the sudden overnight success took a toll on the sensitive young singer and she responded in the typical manner of the gritty Camden neighborhood she grew up in, it’s a place where fast times and the rock-n-roll club life are part of the nightly music scene, where the young singer was easily drawn into the drugs and heavy drinking while she was paying her dues and learning her craft. The pressure of stardom took its toll on Amy, after her sudden explosive success followed emergency room visits and arrests and rehab. But it was the relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil that was the turning point for Amy, at least one band mate Neal Sugarman remarked that the change in her was visible. The first tour was a lot of fun compared to the second tour supporting “Back To Black” which wasn’t fun at all. Sugarmen felt that the return of Blake was when Amy started taking drugs again, he remarked that the last time he saw her in London “it was not a pretty sight”. She was unable to sing on some of the songs they were working on and said “it was really depressing”. In their hit song “Truckin” Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead sings “What in the world ever became of sweet Jane, she’s lost her sparkle you know she isn’t the same. Living on Reds, Vitamin C and Cocaine…all her friends can say is ain’t it a shame.” This seems to be a direct reference to Janis Joplin, a friend of the band and one of the members of the unfortunate 27 Club; rock stars who died at 27. This includes Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison among others.

But the warning signs were there and some people in the industry said that Amy was on what they call a “death watch”, an interesting term considering that people on a death watch are usually behind bars and kept from using any devices that could cause themselves harm. Why then don’t we have the same precautions in place for family and friends. In her short life Amy suffered and struggled with addiction to drugs and alcohol, depression, eating disorders and self-harm issues. The real tragedy is that brilliant career that could have been hers is now lost forever, we’ll never know what might have been had she lived and kept recording the kind of music she loved. What we do know is that she opened the door for new female artists to walk through, Lily Allen rode in after Amy’s release of Back To Black, and Adele credits Winehouse with making the US market easier for herself and Duffy to achieve success. This also ushered in a third wave of female artists including VV Brown, Florence and the Machine, La Roux and Little Boots. But the most acclaim came from Lady Gaga who said Amy Winehouse “paved the way” for her rise to the top of the charts. Winehouse could be said to have jump started a revival of soul music that started in 2000. Amy’s work made it possible in 2009 for five female artists to be nominated for the Mercury Prize in the UK and that year to be called the “year of the woman” in music circles. That is more than can be said for many artists who had hit records who were clean and sober, that she was able to do all this and stand up for causes and start her own record label speaks well of her ambition and energy. Not quite the picture of the irresponsible addict painted by so many. One can easily imagine a new young singer somewhere in the UK or US, unknown at the moment. She has been watching Amy on TV and dreaming of stardom. The thrill of it all, a new sound that harkens back to the age of soul, who many will compare to Amy Winehouse, but a new face, and hopefully a career that will stand the test of time and the roller coaster ride of fame without breaking under the enormous pressure. That is the legacy of a singer like Amy Winehouse.

My unexpected reaction to her death was to sit and watch You Tube videos of Amy in concert, that is where I first realized the power of her vocals and the emotional element she added to them, a conviction about the lyrics and the  honesty with which she sings her songs. I have tried to analyze my feelings of loss, were they driven by a latent sexual desire?…no, she’s not my type so I don’t think that played a role. Was there a deeper issue involved? Such as my lifelong struggle with food and weight loss issues? Yes, that was at least part of it, I could understand the desire for something that was off-limits, and potentially dangerous. But it had to be something more, buried deep in my subconscious. I still haven’t found what it is that moved me so much as I sat at my kitchen table stunned from the news. I can totally understand now why Elton John was moved to write “Candle In The Wind about Marilyn Monroe. I will be sure to buy all available recordings of Amy on CD or DVD, and like so many bands that are no more, I will cherish what we have of them to enjoy. Perhaps the greatest gift Amy unknowingly gave me is the gift of being more open in my mind to new ideas. To listen to new sounds and really see new images before passing judgement and moving on. So goodbye Amy, maybe you didn’t realize how much love was coming your way. While you were searching for the perfect love that doesn’t exist in life,perhaps you finally found it in death. I hope so for your sake…rest in peace.

Regrettably

Glen