I grew up in a wonderful, horrible Pennsylvania town called South Park. It is located a scant 12 miles south of Pittsburgh and features an ice skating rink, a BMX bike course and a big, concrete roller skating rink.
Prior to the 1930s, the area had been known as Snowden Township. It was in this era that Allegheny County--the home of Pittsburgh--purchased nearly half of Snowden, loaded it up with all sorts of recreational amenities, and labeled the area South Park based on its location relative to Pittsburgh. (The county did the same thing, though on a smaller scale, with a patch of land to the north of Pittsburgh, thus creating North Park.)
So, in short, my hometown got a lion's share of Allegheny County's tennis courts, hiking trails, walking paths, basketball courts, nature centers, game preserves, swimming pools, picnic areas, and ball fields. North Park got a bunch of that stuff too, but not as much as South Park. And when compared to adjacent towns, the recreational overload present in South Park is immediately evident.
In the fall of each year, a wooded, non-residential portion of South Park Township near the back nine of the town's public golf course is transformed into something called Hundred Acres Manor. According to its website, Hundred Acres Manor is "The Site for Fright." More specifically, it is described as, "The region's only 100% volunteer-based tri-themed haunt benefiting Homeless Children's Education Fund and Animal Friends."
Basically, the woods by the golf course become one of those haunted house-themed, all-in-good-fun frightfests that are so popular during the weeks leading up to Halloween. This one, as noted, is "tri-themed," so it features Massacre Mansion ("What was once a picturesque mansion, home to one of the most famous families, is now over run with specters and spirits just dying to meet you."), Black Hill Sanitarium ("Comforting, serene, Black Hill Sanitarium. Well . . . only from the outside."), and Fearscapes Factory ("Designed to help those who are plagued with nightmares recover, but utilized as the very place where nightmares start. The nightmare clinic is open for business and your reservation has been made.").
As if those three attractions weren't enough to scare the daylights out of little kids, there's also a "7,500 square-foot labyrinth maze plagued with chainsaw wielding maniacs!"
Yikes.
Between 1992 and 2003, the same location was used each fall for a somewhat similar seasonal event known as "Phantoms in the Park." According to this website, the volunteers who organized the Phantom spectacle every Halloween raised more than $1.3 million over their 10-year run, all of which was donated to The Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Those looking to attend the modern manifestation of South Park's haunted house tradition need only click on the "Location" section of the Hundred Acres Manor site for directions. There, prior to detailed driving directions for those traveling from various spots around Western Pennsylvania, you will find the following bit of information: "Hundred Acres Manor is located on Hundred Acres Drive on the site of what used to be Sully's Pool and Phantoms in the Park in South Park, PA. We are about 10 miles south of Downtown Pittsburgh."
With all due respect to the "chainsaw wilding maniacs" and "the forgotten, the lonely, the dead" of Black Hill Sanitarium, here's where things get really scary.
It turns out that Sully's Pool--the current home of Hundred Acres Manor and a mere 4-iron away from the 16th tee of the golf course I played hundreds of times as a youngster--was once the home of South Park-style Jim Crowism. It was, effectively, a segregated all-Black swimming pool for those who were not welcomed at the larger, better-maintained, all-white alternative located a mile or so away.
Unfortunately, not many people in my recreational wonderland of a hometown have the slightest clue about the ugly history of Sully's Pool. It's not kept secret or anything, it just seems to be something that no one really talks about. In that way, it's akin to a more offensive version of the failed monorail system the town foolishly attempted to maintain during the early '70s.
The only reason I know about Sully's Pool is because one summer during a Cub Scout outing I went on as a child, my troop passed by a fenced-in old building and concrete slab smack in the middle of an otherwise natural setting, and I happened to ask some grown-up what it was.
"That's the old Black pool," the guy said. "It's been closed for a while now. But before that, this was where Black people went swimming."
Though I have no clue who relayed to me this bit of South Park history, I never forgot what I was told on that day. The conversation must have taken place in the early-'80s, more than 20 years ago, but it has haunted me (and I don't mean in the Hundred Acres Drive, "Can you survive Massacre Mansion?" way) ever since.
Over the last 10 years or so, I've tried to find out what I could about Sully's Pool and my hometown's history of segregation. Not surprisingly, my inquiries netted little in the way of advanced knowledge on the subject.
Nonetheless, every once in a while I'll remember that conversation from when I was a kid and think about that damn pool. Today, as it turns out, happened to be one of those days, so I decided to take another shot at researching the topic.
Because of advancements in technology and the fact that I'm fairly badass at computer searches by this point, I now know more than almost anyone on the planet about the history of Sully's Pool.
My initial goal was to figure out the name of the pool so that I could use its name in searches thereafter to dig up as much information as possible. I got lucky on my first attempt at this by typing "South Park" and "segregated" into the Google search engine. On the very first page of search results, I came across a news article about efforts to integrate South Park's "white pool" in the '50s that gave me more than enough info to proceed with subsequent advanced searches.
The pool I'd ambled past that day as a scout, the article informed me, "officially was called One Hundred Acre Pool." But at the time most people called it "Sully's Pool, and it often was referred to by blacks and whites as The Inkwell." It opened in 1938 and the pool area's adjacent barn "served as a popular dance hall that attracted blacks from all over the county."
The article continues: "Integration groups succeeded in cracking the color barrier at the [all-white] pool in 1954, according to old newspaper accounts. The county commissioners issued anti-discrimination orders covering both South Park pools. 'Negroes and whites have patronized the facility ever since,' says a 1963 clip. In reality, though, most blacks continued to swim at Sully's while most whites went to [the all-white pool]. . . . Sully's Pool was closed in 1977 . . . and a picnic grove on the crest of the hill on 100 Acre Drive bears no memorial or marker that it was the location of Sully's Pool. The main pool was filled in and paved over, but the original oval in-ground kiddie pool sits next to the former bathhouse."
Among the handful of other Sully's Pool-related pieces of information on the Internet is a passage by Virginia Whitfield in "The South Park Historian" (Who knew?) entitled, "Sully's Pool-A Revisit."
In the 2003 article, Whitfield provides even more background on the segregated pools of South Park past:
"In 1932, Allegheny County's South Park opened a swimming pool on Corrigan Drive. At that time, Afro-Americans were not permitted to use the facility. In 1938, Sully's Pool was opened to accommodate the Black population of Allegheny County. There were other privately owned swimming pools in the area, but Blacks were not allowed to use them."
She continues:
"In the 1970s, Black leaders in Pittsburgh addressed the issue of segregated pools. Subsequently, in 1977, both swimming pools were closed, and in 1978 the Wave Pool on Corrigan Drive was opened to everyone. . . . On an August Saturday in 1988, we held a family reunion at the 100 Acre House, and we were the only ones in that area."
According to various news accounts on the web, the plot of land that once housed Sully's Pool is now used for more than just family reunions and autumnal fright nights. It has hosted marching band picnics, company outings, nature seminars, and a host of other gatherings.
A September 2002 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an account about the first annual Greater Pittsburgh Pagan Pride Day being held at 100 Acre Drive. According to the piece, of the 200 or so people who attended, some "proudly identified themselves as witches" and "there were several psychics available to do readings."
"There were no black cats or broomsticks," the article notes. "No bloody rituals or animal sacrifices."
That stuff, I suppose, is left to the crew who put together the Hundred Acres Manor displays each Halloween. Though everything done at the park's popular haunted house events is performance-based and purely for show, you wouldn't know it by the reactions of the children, parents, and assorted fright-seekers who flock to the event. The realistic setups and attention to detail that go into the creating Hundred Acres Manor has allowed for it to garner quite a reputation throughout the city. According to the event's website, it is recognized as "Pittsburgh's Largest and Scariest Tri-Themed Haunted Attraction," and their haunted houses really do sound like a lot of fun.
Still, I will not be attending the Hundred Acres Manor performances anytime soon.
The ghosts of racism, discrimination, and hatred that swirl around the despicable history of Sully's segregated pool are scary enough for me, thank you.
posted by mjxm at 11:20 AM |
Friday, October 14, 2005
bliz: crime fighting
I don't fuck around with terror alerts.
When I'm told by some media talking head or government official that "chatter" from overseas has led someone to warn somebody of something, or that a bureaucrat somewhere has decided to change the color on some threat-level matrix, I take note.
More importantly, I take action. In such times--which, actually, occur less frequently than you'd imagine in Manhattan--I do not ride the subway and have been known to stay inside to the extent that such a posture is practical.
Call me a wuss, a worrywart, or an unsophisticated rube if you like. Alert me to the fact that I'm little more than a naive pawn in G-Dub's game of attention diversion and feel free to label me as some paranoid kook who believes everything he reads. Tell me I shouldn't let a crew of killers halfway around the world (or an administration bent on scaring people like me for political reasons, take your pick) dictate how I live my life. It doesn't bother me in the least. I've heard all the arguments, believe me. And I'm not persuaded. You will not change my thinking on this one, I assure you. When the threat level rises, I'm walking to wherever I need to go. If it's a weekend, I'm renting movies and substituting push-ups in the living room for workouts at the gym downtown.
Nearly everyone I know has challenged me on this seemingly incongruous quirk in what most would consider my otherwise rational and reasonable manner of living.
When asked to explain my extreme stance on the subject, I usually say only the following:
"I don't fuck around with terror alerts."
My thinking is that I don't really owe anyone much more than that.
When prodded with additional questions along the lines of "What do you think is going to happen?" or "What are you afraid of?" I may offer up the word "dying" or retort with a short statement such as "I'm too young to die."
Usually, though, I just tell people that "I don't fuck around with terror alerts" . . . and leave it at that.
In fact, those were the exact words I spoke to a co-worker last Thursday night, just before I set off on a 39-block jaunt home from the office. Fifty-five minutes earlier I had read a Yahoo News headline containing the words "NYC," "Subway," and "Terror," and I decided instantaneously to hoof it home after finishing some last-minute edits for a story I was working on. The walk--which, at a leisurely pace, would take approximately 45 minutes--would be "totally annoying," a twenty-something co-worker warned before scampering out the door to hop a train to Brooklyn. "Plus," she added, "terrorists don't attack at seven o'clock on a Thursday night."
Her second point was sound, but I do not often stray when it comes to things like this.
"It's OK," I replied. "I need the exercise anyway."
On my way home, both my mother and aunt called to make sure things were still cool in the city. Both told me, expressly, and in a tone that if written out and punctuated would've called for an exclamation point, not to take the subway.
"Believe me," I told them both, in conversations that, in retrospect, were remarkably similar, "you don't have to worry about me getting on a subway right now."
That night, I ran a few Google searches to check on the veracity of the threats that led me to forsake public transportation and succumb to an impulse ice cream purchase on 58th Street near the park. I learned very little from the search results, and a visit to cnn.com added no new information to that which I'd already gathered. So I set my alarm for exactly 45 minutes earlier than normal and decided to again rely on my black-sole Clark's to see me through the 39 blocks I needed to traverse.
I decided almost immediately upon exiting my apartment that a walk on the west side of town via 11th Avenue--as opposed to a trip on Broadway--though likely to take a few minutes longer, would be my best overall bet. It would surely be less crowded on 11th--which is only a block or so from the Hudson River, and is almost always devoid of people, aside from some stray factory workers or the occasional jogger--and the dearth of pedestrians, I told myself, would help me to better enjoy the time spent commuting.
The weather had not yet turned, and the seven days of rain we've experienced since last Saturday was still a few days away, so the stroll did indeed start out as a peaceful respite from the hustle and bustle of life in the city. I passed numerous beautiful churches that I had no idea even existed, noticed some cool parks, and walked past the studio where John Stewart et al. film "The Daily Show." Everything was lovely.
Birds chirped. Trees rustled. The sun warmed my face and arms.
Then I noticed the guy in the tossel cap breaking into the Jeep.
That's when everything changed.
I came across the guy right before I reached the stretch of 11th Avenue known as Auto Way. The area gained this moniker thanks to the numerous high-end car dealerships that line four or five of its blocks in midtown. Unfortunately for me, at 9:15 last Friday morning, Auto Way had become "Auto Theft Way"--or, if you so desire, "Auto (theft is) Way (cool)"--and upon seeing a portly, bearded man in an aqua sweater and a bright red tossel cap frantically shoving what appeared to be a hand-bent piece of wire into the base of a Jeep's passenger side window, I couldn't help but think about the guts one must have in order to try to rip off a car in the part of town foremost known for its car sales.
The consummate gawker, I couldn't help but watch from across the street as the guy carried out numerous unsuccessful attempts to plunge the wire into an area near the bottom of the vehicle's window. I also noticed that the Jeep was not that nice. It appeared to be one of those Liberty models the company came out with in 2001 or so, and it was probably two or three years old. The black paint that adorned the Jeep did not have any noticeable defects from my vantage point, but it clearly didn't have that shiny new-car paint job that is unmistakable among recently purchased vehicles. In addition, the bumper, it seemed to me, leaned to the right more than normal.
As I looked around, it became clear that for at least two blocks in either direction there were no other people walking on the sidewalk. I noticed a big blue mailbox about 20 feet away from where I was walking and decided to use it for cover as I ducked down a bit to better witness the Jeep jacking. In retrospect, I wasn't even thinking about what I should do under the circumstances, or whether staring at a dude in a tossel cap stealing a car on an empty street on the far west side of Manhattan was possibly not the smartest use of my pre-work time.
I just watched, in disbelief, as the guy struggled with that wire as though his life depended on it. His lack of success was surely due in large part to the fact that he kept diverting attention from the larcenous task at hand in order to look up and twist his head in every direction imaginable to make sure he would not be caught. His limbs seemed to move in an aggressive, convulsive fashion, and his actions were of the herky-jerky variety.
When he first saw me, it was as though I had been awoken from a dream.
I had gotten a bit too confident in the capacity of the mailbox to act as a shield from the fat future felon, and, without knowing it, popped my head above its surface by a foot or two. His eyes were drawn to the movement, and I was busted.
Immediately, everything about him changed. He quickly looked away, in the other direction, as though he was trying to read an imaginary sign down the block. His flailing, rushed motions slowed down. His posture improved. And, for whatever reason, he snatched the tossel cap off his head and shoved it into his pocket.
I suppose I should've just walked away at that point. But I didn't. I stayed. And, surprisingly, perhaps, I was calm. Maybe it was the fact that I was behind a mailbox, or maybe it was because I was across the street and a good distance away from the guy, but I wasn't scared or worried in the least.
That being said, when, after 30 seconds or so, the guy turned his head back around and glared straight at me while stroking his chin, the mailbox seemed to disappear . . . and I totally freaked.
I initially looked over my shoulder and pretended to peer off into the distance behind me. Then, in a twisting and ungraceful motion, I took off in a full sprint.
I had no idea where I was running to, but I was going fast--real fast. I headed downtown one block and then made a left so as to head over towards the more heavily populated 10th Avenue. Truth be told, I was scared as hell.
I was more than certain that the fat guy was not going to catch me, even if he wanted to do so. But what if the guy had a gun? Or what if he had a partner on lookout duty, and that guy chased after me? And what if that guy had a gun?
My only intent was to get as far away from 11th Avenue, the fat guy, his wire, and that mailbox.
When I came across the police car three-fourths of the way between 10th and 11th avenues, I thought nothing of it. In fact, I booked right passed it. It was only after about 20 additional yards of sprinting that I realized I'd almost ran past the solution that I'd somehow previously overlooked. Rather than running around Manhattan like a crazy person, I could just alert the cops to what was going on and benefit from their protection while foiling the tossel cap guy's plans to abscond with a slightly ratty Jeep Liberty.
Perfect.
Of course, there were no cops in the car.
So I screamed.
I screamed, "Hey." Actually, it was more like, "HEEEEEEEEEEEY!"
"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY"
"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY"
Over and over again, I screamed "hey." Not "help," or "police," but "hey."
After about 10 frantic "heys," an old-timer came out of the bodega down the block and asked me what the problem was. When I told him something like, "I need the cops," or "I can't find the cops," he informed me that a police officer was purchasing coffee in the deli he'd just exited.
Without thanking him, I ran into that deli, grabbed the policeman--scaring him half to death--and told him that some guy was stealing a car down the block. In response, he started asking me all these questions about what the guy looked like, what type of car it was, and what I was doing on 11th Avenue.
That last one I didn't really get.
"Why does it matter?" I asked. "The guy is there. I'll show you. Let's go."
"OK," he said, resting the recently-purchased coffee on the counter.
He told me to get in the back seat of his car, and we took off down the block . . . in the wrong direction.
"It's back that way," I yelled. "Where are you going? Didn't you hear me? It was on 11th. He's going to be gone. You're going the wrong way."
I was pissed. Of all the cops in New York, I had to find one with a bad sense of direction.
"Sir, calm down," he said. "This is a one way street. We have to go to 10th and then come back around to get to 11th."
He was right, of course, but I couldn't help but think that he had the authority to go the wrong way down a one-way street . . . and could've if he really wanted to.
When we finally reached 11th, the officer hit the sirens.
I couldn't believe it, but when we pulled into the side street where I'd spotted the Jeep and the dude with the wire, he was still standing next to the car . . . pretending to look in the opposite direction.
"That's him," I screamed. "That's the guy."
After asking me again to relax, the cop used the PA system in his car to tell the fat guy to put his hands above his head and kneel on the ground away from the Jeep. By this time, another police car had arrived.
The cop who drove me back to the scene got out of the car and approached the fat man as I waited inside for what seemed like forever. I noticed that the guy took the tossel cap out of his pocket and dropped it to the ground. Then the cop and the fat guy talked for about 10 minutes. During this time, the man appeared to hand the cop his wallet, or some documents. Thereafter, the officer and a policewoman who had been in the backup car, walked around the Jeep and examined it closely. They paused noticeably at the front of the vehicle and seemed to be peering into the car through the window.
After that, the officer who I snatched from the deli came back over to where he had parked.
"Can you get out of the car please, sir?" he asked, in an uber-polite fashion.
Once I did, he explained to me what had happened.
"This is Frank," the cop told me. "He locked the keys inside his Jeep. He wasn't trying to steal the car, sir. It's his car. And you can't steal your own car."
The other cop chuckled at that one. Frank, though, was clearly pissed.
And he was once again glaring right at me.
"We're going to help Frank retrieve his keys," the cop continued. "But, unfortunately, his vehicle is past inspection and he has no insurance papers."
By this point, I was staring at the ground so as to avoid Frank's venomous gaze.
"Thanks a lot, buddy," Frank said in my direction. "You're a real hero. Nice work. You happy now?"
I felt horrible.
"Sorry, man. I didn't know what was going on. I thought you were stealing the car."
At that point, Frank started cursing at me. And it wasn't pretty.
The cop eventually stopped him, but not before he got out a few good "assholes" and "motherfuckers."
"You can go now, son," the cop informed me.
When I got to the office 20 minutes later--45 minutes after I had planned to arrive--the first person I ran into was the co-worker whom I had spoken to breifly before walking home the night before.
"You didn't walk in today, did you?" she asked. "Please tell me you didn't walk all the way here. Did you?"
"Yes," I replied.
"How was it? How was the trek? Was it annoying?"
"Totally annoying," I said, walking away. "But I don't fuck around with terror alerts."
posted by mjxm at 7:09 PM |
Friday, October 07, 2005
I may start writing here again.
I'm not certain. Nothing has been decided. But I may start writing here again.
I have no time to write. I couldn't be more busy. But I feel I owe it to myself to at least think about giving this thing another go.
I don't regret not writing here for the past year or so. Frankly, I've had little to say. And now that I write every day of the work week, I've found that I use up all my best stuff in order to be on point at the magazine. So, writing the type of non-fiction stories I've posted on this website in the past is going to be more of a challenge.
I don't know that I'm up for it. But I may be.
Plus, even though I don't currently regret my yearlong absence from cyberspace, I can envision myself regretting the void if I let it carry on much longer. And if there's one thing I am absolutely certain of, it is the potentially all-encompassing transformative power of regret. As far as i can tell, no emotion or mind-state has the capacity to impact our existence--for better or worse--more than regret. Combine this with the fact that I already have a host of more important things to regret, and the result is the following:
I may start writing here again.
I'm not certain. Nothing has been decided. But I may start writing here again.
posted by mjxm at 6:53 PM |
Sunday, July 25, 2004
bliz: AN ENEMY OF MINE
It's that time of year again.
As vacation season heats up and millions hit the beaches dotting the East and West Coasts of our great nation, the Discovery Channel rolls out its "Shark Week."
Great.
Thanks guys . . . really. I can't think of better television fare to take in at a rented, beachfront condo than footage of divers getting mauled by this or that species of shark.
Next year, maybe you can follow up "Shark Week" with "Condo Collapse Week" or "Sand-related Injury Week."
Anyway, I digress . . . it struck me today that the onset of "Shark Week" would mark an appropriate time for me to write something about these great, majestic hunters of the sea. So here goes:
Anyone who knows me well knows that I have beef with sharks.
I don't like them one bit, and, for one reason or another, they bother me more than they should. I mean, according to research set forth in a recent article in the "San Diego Union-Tribune," one's odds of being attacked and killed by a shark are one in 300 million. To put that in some perspective, the same article notes that the odds of one dying in a fireworks accident is one in 1 million. And the chances of being killed by a dog are one in 700,000.
In other words, I'm probably more likely to be attacked by your grandmother than a shark.
But I know this. Yup, don't get it twisted, I know the odds--I've seen the data and read the articles in "Newsweek."
Still, despite irrefutable evidence as to the rarity of shark attacks, I am undeterred in my hatred of sharks. My argument is simple, if simpleton in nature. It goes like this: Sharks can eat us, so I don't like them.
That's it. That's the argument.
At its core, it's the same general attitude I'd imagine shrimp, cows, chicken, and all sorts of other animals that we eat would have about us if they knew what the future held for them at our hands.
Simply put, if something can eat you, and has been known to do so, it's not unreasonable to think that the eatee would harbor some level of disdain for the eater.
But, with humans residing comfortably at the top of the food chain for the last couple of thousand years, there's been very little that we've had to worry about in the "things that can eat us" department. Since the demise of dinosaurs, sharks have stood--or, more accurately, swam--nearly alone in the "Animals That Can Eat People" ("ATCEP") column. While many people assert that large, land-based hunting animals such as lions and tigers also belong in the ATCEP category, this contention is incorrect. Those animals, along with alligators and really large snakes, belong in the "Animals That Can Bite and Kill People" ("ATCBAKP") bin.
The distinction may be subtle, but it exists . . and, in my mind, is important.
For reasons that are purely anatomical in nature, sharks are very different from tigers and the like when it comes to eating people. That is, sharks mouths are much, much bigger. Whereas tigers are admittedly big and scary animals, and can indeed open their mouths pretty wide, there's no getting around the fact that those mouths, when compared to that of sharks, just aren't that big. The same goes for lions, snakes, alligators, and most other feared land animals.
Hippos are borderline and waddle along a gray area that separates ATCEP from ATCBAKP. They've got unusually large mouths capable of being opened extremely wide, and are known to be grumpy (data shows that they've killed more people in Africa than any other wild animal on that continent, and in most years kill more people there than all other animals combined). But their fatty neck and throat areas preclude the whole bite-and-swallow-you-whole thing.
Stick with me here . . .
In essence, I suppose it boils down to this: The biggest sharks in the sea have the capacity to literally eat and swallow you in a matter of seconds, while the biggest lions, tigers, and snakes can only bite you until you're dead and then initiate a fairly drawn out process of nibbling away at your carcass. And, even then, they'd leave your bones.
Sure, you die a grizzly death either way. But there's just something extra annoying about an animal that can actually make you disappear, bones and all. Plus, spiders, certain bugs, and poodles are all members of the ATCBAKP camp. And it seems to me that any killing category of animals that includes poodles and ticks cannot possibly be at the top of any list.
In contrast, the ATCEP crew is made up of sharks . . . period.
Well, to be fair, I guess whales could be added to the ATCEP mix. But most whales prefer plankton to people, and their tendency to avoid the shallows makes them far less dangerous than sharks. Still, those that could and would eat people--the orca, for instance--are a few notches above hippos, and right there beside sharks, on our little chart.
So, to sum up: 1) big sharks have unusually large mouths the likes of which other nasty animals don't possess; 2) due to their large mouths, sharks, and . . . yes . . . some whales, can eat people whole in a few swift bites, leaving virtually nothing behind; 3) 1 + 2 = sharks suck and I don't like them.
Moving right along . . . a few days prior to the advent of "Shark Week," i noticed this piece of shark-related news among the Yahoo.com headlines. The article discusses the death of surfer Bradley Adrian Smith, a 29-year-old Australian who died in earlier this month after a shark attack off the coast of Perth. Following Smith's lost battle with "one and possibly two" great white sharks, local authorities set out to hunt down and kill the offending fish.
While it's true that this attempt at exacting vengeance is both pointless and stupid ("I don't believe that Brad can be revenged by killing a shark," the surfer's brother said.), it's the response of those who've organized against the shark killing that I find to be more interesting.
According to Kate Davey, the national coordinator of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, these animals should be left alone and humans should do little more than respect giant, killer sharks. "Instead of pretending that the issue doesn't exist," she says in the piece, "what we actually need is a public education campaign to teach people how to live with sharks."
Huh?
Am I missing something here?
We need to teach people how to live WITH sharks?
What's next, teaching people how to live with anthrax and black widow spiders?
In my estimation, big, scary sharks are similar to guns when it comes to killing. That is, there's only two ways to preclude the occurence of death at their hands/trigger/teeth: 1) stay away from them, or 2) get rid of them.
Any intermingling of people and huge sharks will eventually result in injury and/or death, so I'm not sure that Ms. Davey's idea is all that sound. Hopefully she'll be watching tonight at 8 p.m. when Discovery kicks off its week of shark-related programming with "Primal Scream," the story of a veteran underwater photographer who after years of attempting to "live with sharks" suffered a brutal attack off the coast the Galapagos Islands.
Anyway, the article about the Australian surfer notes that, "In many parts of the world, great white sharks, which can grow to 23 feet in length, are listed as an endangered species." It also informs us that the sharks "breed at a slow rate," that they've "been targeted by hunters and accidentally caught in fishermen's nets," and that they often die as a result of being hunted for their fins.
My response to all this, despite the fact that on nearly all fronts I consider myself to be an environmentalist and a friend of the animals, is the following: Good.
The less 23-foot sharks there are out there, the better.
Dolphins getting caught in fishing nets is one thing--they're nice . . . they don't eat us--but don't ask me to tear up for a damn killer shark. Striped bass, bald eagles, koala bears, manatee . . . those things I can rally around. But sharks?
People, I implore you: If you held a rally in support of big, huge sharks and invited some sharks to the rally, they would show up and . . . um . . . eat you . . . right there in front of the press. And they wouldn't even feel bad about it.
Fuck that.
I don't know about you, but I prefer more traditional showings of gratitude to those that involve my being eaten.
Anyway, I know what you're thinking: This guy sounds like the G.W. of the animal world--kill them before they kill us, and all that jazz. And what about that line you always hear about how the mass killing of sharks will set the food chain out of whack and result in all sorts of negative ramifications on our oceans?
Um, let's just say I'm not averse to the doctrine of preemption when it comes to killer animals, and I'm cool with having more turtles swiming around in exchange for the fact that there are no more sharks eating people.
Now, I'll be the first to admit that my willingness to get rid of sharks en mass is a bit childish and shortsighted.
"Quiet," he yelled, palms open, arms flapping up and down in an awkward, reverse raise-the-roof fashion.
In isolation, it would've appeared as though he was in the process of giving a multitude of violent high-fives to an invisible crew of very short people. But in reality he was attempting to do something much more difficult. He was standing in the aisle at the front of a moving bus packed with eighth graders, doing his best to maintain balance despite not using his hands to grasp the seats surrounding him, and desperately trying to convince 40 or 50 enraged kids to calm down.
"Stop," he screamed, arms still waving around. "Now that's enough. No more."
Broglie was not a big man, and his appearance was anything but intimidating--in his capacity as principal of South Park Middle School, he fell much closer to the Principal Skinner end of the disciplinarian spectrum than the end featuring tough guys like Joe Clark or the mean dude from the "Breakfast Club"--but his gyrations and shouts on this occasion were surprisingly well chosen and non-dorky.
The problem was that only a small percentage of the children on the bus could hear what Broglie was saying, and even those who could decipher his orders were too caught up in their own rhythmic shouting to comply with his pleas for silence.
Unified and extremely loud chants of "STOP THE BUS . . . STOP THE BUS . . . STOP THE BUS" drowned out any words emanating from Brogile's mouth and served to transform his arm flailing into little more than a puppet show.
"STOP THE BUS . . . STOP THE BUS . . . STOP THE BUS."
I was 13 at the time of the anti-Broglie uprising, and had just finished pretending to be interested in a boring-as-hell tour of the U.S. Capitol building in D.C. I was part of a group of 100 or so students touring Washington over a weekend designated by my school as "The Eighth Grade Class Trip." Over the course of the previous two days my classmates and I had trapsed through the Smithsonian, did some assassination analysis at Ford's theater, gazed at the white house lawn, and . . . inevitably . . . purchased all sorts of junk with the words "Washington, D.C." emblazoned all over it.
The tour of the Capitol was our last stop before embarking on the four-hour bus ride home to Pittsburgh. And while our time on the hill was mostly spent peering into empty Senate chambers and listening to a congressional guide say things like "behind that door is where the arms services committee meets," and "that office belongs to one of your state senators," the fury we displayed on the ride back home had absolutely nothing to do with our lame Capital building experience.
We were, in fact, pissed off for a much more zany and non-education-related reason.
In short, we were anrgy because the vast majority of us still had money in our pockets and were not being given one last opportunity to rid ourselves of it.
Somewhere between the Capitol building parking lot and the exit that would take us out of the Metro-DC area, some rabble-rouser on our bus glanced out the window and realized that we were traversing past a seemingly endless array of street vendors and tourist traps.
"We should be stopping at some of these," someone remarked.
And with that, it was on.
We all had cash and we were going to stop . . . end of story.
"These places have great deals," we shouted. "Come on, man . . . stop the bus already."
The makeshift memorabilia marts we continued to cruise by seemed to be everywhere in D.C., and we'd come to rely on them during our stay for Washington-related necessities like: mugs, bumper stickers, novelty pens, snow globes, post cards, sunglasses, and, of course, T-shirts.
I recall purchasing a white Hard Rock Cafe shirt for myself and another for my younger brother. The total for both items was $10. To me, this was the deal of a lifetime. It was as though I'd run a scam on the tossel-capped old man who'd sold me the garments, and I was getting away scott free. It was not until a few weeks and wash cycles later--when both shirts unfortunately, but predictably, fell apart--that I realized I was not the scammer in that transaction, but rather the scammee.
But, again, details about the shoddy quality of merchandise peddled by street vendors in D.C. did not come to light until our crew of pre-high-school consumers was safely within the confines of Allegheny County. So as the bus mosied closer and closer to the outer limits of the capital, and past tons of places where we could spend money, the anger that would later manifest itself with respect to the hucksers on K Street was funnelled almost singularly in the direction of Broglie and the bus driver--both of whom were doing their best to quell a riotous atmosphere that seemed to be escalating with every lost purchasing opportunity.
"STOP THE BUS . . . STOP THE BUS . . . STOP THE BUS."
After about five minutes we switched it up a bit.
"T-SHIRTS . . . T-SHIRTS . . . T-SHIRTS."
By this time, and despite the frigid winter air that seemed to find its way into the bus via some gaps in the rubber that was supposed to provide an air lock on the door adjacent to the driver, Broglie was sweating. Precariously perched at the front of the vehicle like a pissed off school administrator on a surf board, he gradually realized that he was losing his hold over the masses.
Finally, after it became obvious that the chanting was not going to stop anytime soon, Broglie snapped.
"SHUT UPPPPPPP!" he yelled, this time making a seemingly conscious effort not to use his arms in any way. "STOP . . . STOP . . . SHUT UPPPP!"
The decision not to invoke any arms in this round of his battle with the boisterous bus riders, surprisingly, paid dividends. The students, myself included, assumed the possibility that the now non-waving Broglie was attempting to get our attention so as to relent to our demands . . . or at least to offer up some sort of compromise.
We were expecting something along the lines of a face-saving pronouncement notifying us of "a five minute stop," conditioned by language like, "And I mean it, people, five minutes and that's it . . . we're leaving . . . so make it snappy."
What we got, though, was simply more of the same.
"That's better," he proclaimed, in quintessential principal fashion. "Now, see here. We are not stopping this bus. Enough is enough. You kids don't need any more stuff. We have to get back . . ."
After speaking the word "back," Broglie kept talking . . . but he may as well have just ended it at that.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
It was impossible to hear anything he was saying.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
And, once again, he reverted back to his old arm-waving form.
Ten minutes later we were on the beltway, and, much to the bus driver's delight, had put D.C. in the rearview mirror.
After the passage of another five minutes, we'd all given up hope of purchasing one last memory of Washington D.C. Within seconds of our defeat, we returned to the business of eating Twizzlers to the beat of the Guns n' Roses "Appetite for Destruction" cassette tapes we simultaneously snapped into our respective Sony Walkman devices.
We'd essentially traded Mr. Broglie for "Mr. Brownstone."
In short, we got over the fact that we couldn't purchase everything we wanted to, and that we'd have to recall our stupid trip to D.C. with only our memories and the stuff we'd already been able to buy with our parents' money.
But it seems to me that we did so only to a certain extent.
Since the eighth grade, I cannot count the number of times I've attended a concert and felt compelled to shell out $25 for a crummy, poorly designed, screen pressed T-shirt that ended up stuffed in the far reaches of my closet. And up until the time I was 18, a summer vacation at the beach would not go by without me coming home with at least one T-shirt or hat featuring the name of the place my family was visiting.
As an adult, I've changed my tune a bit--I can't remember the last time I purchased a concert T, and recent trips to Hawaii, South Beach, Moab, and other assorted destinations resulted in the purchase of exactly zero items with the words "Hawaii," "South Beach," "Moab," or "Other Assorted Destinations Here" on them--and now, if anything, gravitate toward the position that money spent on "stuff" is better spent seeing and doing more things.
To wit:
Four T-shirts equals one parasailing ride.
Two framed pictures of rainbows and mountains equals one surfing lesson.
Three snow globes, a pen set, and a couple of mugs equals a ticket to go see Prince.
Make no mistake about it, maintaining this posture--where one favors personal experiences over the accumulation of stuff--in modern day America is no easy task. Capitalism has trained us to believe that an experience without a corresponding item or product is no experience at all. Our own memories, it seems, are not good enough, and are in some ways invalid. Without something we can touch, and hold on to, and look at 20 years later . . . the story goes . . . we've got, well, nothing.
To this line of reasoning, i retort the following two-pronged bit of advice: Buy less junk and do a better job of remembering stuff.
Use money previously spent on lame items to do more things, and work hard to burn images, thoughts, and feelings into your mind so that you can recall them for a long period of time, even without a scenic calendar or some crappy figurine.
Favor self-taken pictures over souveneirs, and personal experience over all.
Write.
Keep a journal.
Do whatever it takes to remember things without having to buy something. In doing so, you'll be forced to experience things more fully, and it's a safe bet you'll enjoy your experiences to a greater extent for what they are.
Don't get me wrong, things are nice to have sometimes. But there's more to life than "Aloha" T-shirts and All Star game commemorative pencil sets.
In the immortal words of Mr. Broglie: Sometimes enough really is enough.
In an era of dirty bombs and decapitation, of Abu Ghraib and acid rain, it's not all that easy to find good news. And while it's indeed true that the term "good news" as used in the previous sentence can certainly take on a dual meaning, I use it here to mean "news that reports the occurrence of something good, positive, or otherwise not bad." To get to the point, a quick scan of the top four headlines on the Yahoo.com website will net you the following items: "9/11 report: 10-plane attack was planned"; "Two U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq base attack"; "Family pleads for safety of U.S. hostage"; "Feds watching third suspect in Ohio mall plot." And surprisingly, or perhaps not, the Bad-News-Bearization of modern reporting is not a distinctly American phenomenon. Check out the top headline on the Canadian version of Yahoo: "Alberta police: serial killer may be at work." And the British site leads with, "Football yobs disgrace England." Now, I would be remiss if I failed to admit that I don't really know what a "yob" is, or understand what the headline itself means, but I'm pretty sure the story should not be deemed "good news." Hit up the Australian, Indian, and Asian versions of the site and you'll find more of the same. Hell, I'm even fairly certain that most of the versions printed in languages that I cannot read are imparting one form of bad news or another. I mean, "Ausbildungsplatzabgabe besiegelt"--the top headline on the German Yahoo site--can't be good, right? But, thankfully, amidst this muck of military scandal and yob misdeeds, a beacon of hope does flicker on the bombed-out horizon. The shining star of shiny-happy, it turns out, is Singapore. Mind you, I know next to nothing about Singapore beyond the fact that it resides near Malaysia in Southeast Asia and was in the news some time ago due to the nation's use of caning as a form of punishment for various crimes. As such, I have no knowledge as to whether the national press is solidly independent or whatever. But, for some reason, I am totally digging the fact that the top news headline in that country today is, "Kids' favorite Barney kicks off 26 sell-out shows in Singapore." Laugh at me if you want to, but if you were perpetually nervous about taking the subway and were being bombarded with news about how the Republican Convention that's being held three blocks from your apartment could be ground zero for the next Quaida smackdown, you'd likely understand the appeal of a good, puppet-related top story. "Barney, the purple dinosaur, and his cartoon sidekicks, Baby Bop and BJ, have kicked off a series of 26-sell out shows in Singapore," the article's lead graph trumpets. "The loveable, huggable and very popular Barney and his dinosaur friends are in Singapore for the very first time." The article goes on to inform readers that, "The opening show included a special surprise for one of the dinosaurs, BJ, who is celebrating his seventh birthday." Believe me, it really is great stuff. And aside from some parents' complaints about ticket lines--see, e.g., "I queued for like 45 minutes at Bugis Junction," and "I had to log in on the Internet for five hours before I managed to get good seats"--the piece is nearly devoid of a downer. While it's possible to assert that the second headline on the Singapore Yahoo site should be categorized as bad news, I'd contend that this story, filed under the heading "Residents want compensation for window damage due to grass cutting," should get a pass. "Some HDB residents living on low floors have had their windows bombarded by flying pebbles," the article begins, in true small-town monthly newsletter fashion. "The residents at an apartment block along Jurong West 64 say the damage is caused by the grass cutting in the area." The piece goes on to state that holes in numerous windows from the flying stones resulted in $2,000-worth of damage, and concludes by noting that "the town council has agreed to bear part of the cost but [the residents] are still not happy." This is the second biggest story in the country, people. And while it may technically be classified as "bad news," I'm thinking there's got to be some sort of sliding scale that results in the placement of this article fairly close to the "neither bad nor good news" pile--I mean, I've caused more than $2,000 in window damage with one ill-advised toss of a baseball. Anyway, as I intimated earlier, it's entirely possible that things really are bad in Singapore but that the relevant repulsions are not reported by the press. Still, the notion of a place where Barney, Baby Bop, and broken windows rule the news landscape is undeniably appealing to me at this point in time. Interestingly, the first piece of real bad news to appear on the Singapore site--a story that is slotted third, immediately after the previously menioned items--isn't even Singapore-based bad news. Rather, it's ours: "Iraq assassination spooks oil markets, two US soldiers die in rocket attack." Leave it to us to jack up Singapore's otherwise happy news day. Maybe it's time that our nation's leaders take a cue from the beloved purple dinosaur who's currently wowing audiences from Bukit Panjang to Serangoon. How's that song go again? "I love you . . . you love me. We're a happy family. With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you. Won't you say you love me too."
When I was young, back when my parents were still together, our family pet was a black cat named "Happy."
The cat died when I was 10, so I don't remember all that much about the intricacies of its personality or demeanor. But I do recall that, for the most part, the cat's name was fairly apropos.
Happy was . . . well . . . happy. She caused little, if any, trouble, liked rubbing up against the legs of visitors to our home, and purred a lot.
As you would imagine, the cat and I got along swimmingly. And most people who were fortunate enough to be in Happy's presence every now and again came away from those interactions with similarly positive vibes from the feline.
During Happy's time on the planet, my best friend was a neighborhood kid named Walt Kasevitch. Actually, to be precise, his name wasn't Walt Kasevitch. The "Walt" part is accurate, but what followed that name was some long, odd-looking, impossible-to-spell, Polish surname of the variety that is as common as pierogies in my hometown of Pittsburgh--a word that, when spoken, sounded like Kasevitch (Kass-a-vich).
Anyway, Walt was the son of Walt Sr. and Donna Kasevitch.
Walt Sr. was a burly, beer-bellied man with thinning brown hair and a porno mustache. He had a penchant for Japanese-style manicuring of shrubbery, and maintained an aloof, friendly comportment that made him an ideal dad-of-a-best-friend, as he would rarely get angry about the shenanigans his son and I would get caught up in.
Donna was a blond bombshell--not my type, mind you, but clearly a woman most men would find attractive, if not downright irresistible.
She was the Marilyn Monroe to Walt Sr's aging Joe-D.
Mrs. Kasevitch maintained an impressive, curvy figure that bore no visible signs of child rearing. She had gorgeous, flowing hair, and seemed to always be flashing a wondrously sweet smile.
Meanwhile, Walt Sr. burped a lot and scratched himself often.
It was clearly one of those Ric Ocasek/Paulina Porizkova or Billy Joel/Christie Brinkley deals that make you wonder how on earth an oaf of a man landed such a beauty. The difference, though, was that while ogres Ocasek and Joel are rock stars, Walt was a tire salesman for Goodyear.
Nonetheless, and despite the disparity that existed between the relative attractiveness of the two parents, the Kasevitch family appeared get along just fine. Walt Sr. earned a nice wage, and Donna was a proficient stay-at-home mom who seemed to truly enjoy that role.
When I was eight or so, the Kasevitch's brought home a German Shepherd that would become the family's first pet.
The dog, at first at least, served to bring the Kasevitchs even closer together.
He was small, and cute, and furry, and adorable.
On Walt Jr.'s suggestion, the family named the dog "Happy."
At the time, I was too young to be upset or put out by the ultra-transparent copycatting that went down, but in retrospect it's clear that my best friend basically just ganked the name of my cat and slapped it on the dog tags that hung from around the neck of his new pet. I was busy worrying about baseball cards and searching beneath couch cushions for quarters I could exchange for Bomb Pops from the Ice Cream Man, so I had little time to be mad about what, in the grown-up realm, would be akin to a close friend deciding to give his first child the name that you'd just previously chosen for your own little bundle of joy.
Nope, I wasn't mad at all about the misappropriation of my cat's name.
That is, I wasn't mad about it until Happy . . . the dog version . . . grew up and became known, almost exclusively, for the following two things: 1) breaking his chain, and 2) biting the hell out of me.
That's right, in what just may be the prime example of a pet naming proving to be horribly, horribly inappropriate, Happy grew up to be an absolute menace--big, grumpy, powerful, sharp-toothed, etc.
And he bit . . . hard.
Within a few months of welcoming Happy into the Kasevitch home, the family became well aware that the dog was not of the loveable, cuddly sort.
Simply put, Happy was mean. And after he snapped at three or four of the first visitors to enter their home after the animal's arrival, Walt Sr. determined that it would perhaps be best if Happy was kept in the garage--where there was no one for him to bite.
Well, as you can imagine, a solitary, garage-bound life is not exactly the antidote that one would assume to improve the temperament of a grumpy-ass dog, and the quarantining only served to exacerbate the animal's meanspirited nature.
After a while, even feeding Happy became a dangerous chore. For the most part, he got along OK with Walts Sr. and Jr., but on some occasions Happy would "lose it" and bite an exposed ankle or whatnot.
Eventually, the Kasevitch's were forced to chain the dog's collar to a pole in the garage so as to ensure that he would not attack the person providing him with food. On especially warm summer days, one of the Walts would replace Happy's ordinary chain with a longer one, and then open the garage door so that their pet could spend some time outside on the driveway at the back of the house--while still being chained to the pole, of course. During those times, Happy would simply bark as loud as possible, run around like he was trying to kill an imaginary foe, and do other outrageously scary things.
All in all, the dog was a nightmare.
And for me personally, the whole best-friend's-pissed-off-dog thing was especially troubling.
As it turns out, when I was a child I was both allergic to and really scared of big, huge dogs that will attack you for no apparent reason. And while it's true that Happy . . . the dog . . . hated nearly everyone who did not have the word "Walt" somewhere in his or her name, the monster seemed to maintain a special, extraordinary hatred for me.
Maybe it was the fact that he somehow realized that his name was stolen from my cat.
Or maybe it was some sort of animal jealousy over the fact that I was best friends with the boy that he was supposed to be best friends with.
But whatever it was . . . it sucked.
The few times that I somehow ended up in the same room with Happy, he bit me. And on numerous occasions when he was provided with the longer, outdoor chain, Happy would "break the chain" and run roughshod over the neighborhood, scaring children and sending everyone I knew scurrying for shelter from the beast.
At these times, Happy's focus was quite elemental: He was looking to hunt me down and attack.
Point blank . . . that was it. He was out to get me.
In retrospect, it was almost as though the taste of other children's blood and flesh was some sort of dog poison, or that mine combined to create a secret formula that Happy was convinced contained the potion that would allow him to rise up against the Kasevitch's and escape the garage once and for all.
But, again, whatever it was . . . it sucked.
That dog must've bitten me 10 or 15 times, and on more than a few occasions hospital visits became necessary.
I never understood how a dog could "break a chain" (aren't chains really, really strong?), but when such an occurrence happened I was almost always outdoors and far from the safety of my home.
I distinctly remember a few instances when the dog came bounding into my backyard, barking as loud as could be--he'd usually stop about 10 feet in front of me and show me his teeth for 30 seconds or so before biting the hell out of me--but those scenarios were uncommon.
More often than not, Happy would surprise me and pop up out of nowhere, without any warning. In these cases, his patchwork brown and black coat of fur would serve as a crude form of camouflage. And the battles that followed could not have been more one-sided.
My most vivid memory of a Happy attack refers me to an afternoon in the mid-80s when I was returning home from a killer day of sled riding on a hill located just behind the next street down from mine. I was carrying an inner tube, and had just walked through a thickly wooded area of pine trees that began at the back end of our property line.
I was cold, tired, and ready for some hot cocoa.
Trudging along with my head down, I came to the crest of a small hill located about 50 yards from the back entrance to my childhood home. As I crossed into the backyard, I heard what appeared to be the crackling of breaking sticks.
I immediately stopped in my tracks--hoping against hope that the noise I heard wasn't caused by what I damn well knew it was caused by--and slowly raised my head to confirm the inevitable.
It was Happy . . . and he was pissed. How he got out, or "broke his chain," in the winter, is beyond me.
For whatever reason, on that occasion, he growled at me for an unusually long time--his lean, hulking, muscular frame tensed-up and ready to pounce--before attacking.
Maybe he knew that the inner tube wasn't a Goodyear model, who knows?
Fortunately, on that cold, blustery day my snowsuit and layered apparel helped ensure that the mongrel barely broke the skin on my calf.
"Maybe you should just walk around in a snowsuit all the time," a kid from up the street remarked a few days later.
After a while, people from all over our block who had become aware of my misfortune began feeding me suggestions as to how to escape the wrath of Happy. Interestingly, most of these neighborhood nuggets of wisdom were things that you'd normally hear as part of discussions about surviving unexpected run-ins with Grizzly Bears:
"Don't look him in the eye."
"Move slowly."
"Look him dead in the eye."
"Run."
"Pick up a stick."
"Throw a rock at him."
"Raise your arms and try to look scary."
"Curl up in a ball."
It was all useless, of course.
That dog hated me, and he was set on biting me regardless of what zany piece of self-defense advice I wanted to test out.
As such, for a period of five or six years, my time outdoors was marked by a cautious, ever-vigilant state of attention--well . . . that and a bunch of Happy attack scenarios.
In addition to being a fairly horrifying and unfortunate situation for me to go through, the maulings also provided quite a few ironic--or at least counterintuitive--pronouncements in our neighborhood.
"Happy is loose," frantic children would scream, as though they were sprinting, human warning sirens.
"Happy attacked Matt again," my parents would tell relatives.
"Watch out," Walt Sr. would advise. "Happy is mad today."
And, to this day, the devil dog's legacy lives on.
When I recently reconnected with a former neighborhood buddy, the Kasevitch's canine was a hot topic. After a bit of cursory reintroduction, one of the first things the now-grown-up guy said to me was, "Hey, do you remember how we would always have to climb up trees to get away from Happy."
"Yeah, man," I replied. "I do."
"That damn dog was always breaking his chain," my old friend said. "And he was always looking to bite."
I could muster little more than a groan in response, as I attempted to laugh off all the attacks.
"I wonder what ever came of Happy," the guy shot back, noticeably thankful that he no longer had to experience any terror at the paws of the beast that made a subset of our childhood years fairly scary.
"I don't know," I responded, before transitioning the conversation to our childhood forays into breakdancing.
What I do know, though, is this:
Around the time of my fourteenth run-in with Happy, Donna left Walt Sr. for some dude who rode a motorcycle.
She took Walt Jr., moved to Peters Township, and started a new life with a man who had more hair and a better moustache than her ex-husband.
Thereafter, all that remained at the house next door to the one I grew up in was a portly, aging tire salesman and a dog chained to a pole in the garage.
And neither one of them, I assure you, was very happy.
bliz: THE MYSTERY OF THE MASKED DUDE IN THE ELEVATOR WHO WAS DRESSED UP LIKE A WOMAN AND DECIDED TO VISIT MY APARTMENT
A few years back, at about 1 a.m. on a Saturday night, my girlfriend and I rode the elevator in my building with a tall Black woman in a slinky, low-cut red dress. She wore black stiletto heels, and held a miniature purse in one hand and a canvas bag in the other.
Aside from the fact that my girlfriend and I immediately pegged the elevator interloper as a dude, there was something uniquely creepy about her/him.
First off, s/he entered the elevator immediately after we did, watched as I hit the button for our floor, and thereafter made no attempt to press one of the buttons to select a different exit floor. Now, in most apartment building scenarios this wouldn't be an issue--as it is not uncommon for a building in the city to house 20 or more apartments per floor. But I live in a Chelsea loft building: where each floor is home to exactly one apartment, where the elevator opens directly into the respective apartments, and where one, for obvious reasons, needs a key in order to start the elevator on it's journey to one of the residences.
So, to sum up, by not pressing any of the buttons, the person on the elevator had made it clear that s/he was going to my apartment--despite the fact that s/he was not one of my roommates, and thus had no key to the elevator.
While I found this to be a bit odd, I remembered that one of my roommates had, earlier in the day, mentioned that he was having a few friends over for a get-together. I also recalled that my roommie did have at least one close friend who often dressed in women's clothing and was known for his smarmy-hot female alter-ego. After glancing again at our fellow upwards traveler, s/he didn't really strike me as one who would be pals with my roommate, but I wasn't ready to completely write off a potential friendship between the two.
"You never know," I told myself.
Then, as the elevator got to within one floor of our destination, the girl/guy reached into the canvas sack, pulled out one of those spooky, hand-held, Mardi-Gras-type masks that were all the rage in "Eyes Wide Shut," placed it over her face, and turned to look directly at my girlfriend and I. When the elevator bounced to a stop, she gave us one of those Charles Manson psycho-killer smile/laughs and motioned for us to exit ahead of her.
By this time, I was quite sure that s/he was not simply one of my roommate's friends, and this realization was buoyed by the fact that the five or so people I immediately noticed to be gathered in our living room were all dressed in jeans and T-shirts, appeared to be eating homemade pasta, and were not wearing any creepy sex masks.
Upon getting off the elevator, my girlfriend bolted for my room--"I was freaked completely freaked out," she would confide to me moments later--and after exchanging a passing greeting with the pasta eaters, I joined her.
Once I was in the room, she closed the door behind me and locked it with the determination of one who is trying to escape from zombies or something. "What the fuck was that about?" she asked, frantically. In response, all I could do was shrug my shoulders. "She wasn't here for his party, Matt," my girlfriend said. "And she took a left off the elevator. What if she's still here?"
Again, I replied with a shrug.
"Come on," she implored. "This is serious."
At that point, I offered to play the stereotypical male and "go make sure" that the girl/guy had left the apartment. "Are you crazy?" my girlfriend asked. "You're not going out there. It could be dangerous" In response, I noted that I could not help but take offense from the fact that my girlfriend didn't think I could take the masked marauder in a brawl--"Well, she could have a gun . . . or a knife" my girlfriend added, in attempt to backpedal from the unstated implication of inferiority that she'd let out of the bag moments earlier--and after five minutes or so I'd convinced her that I could indeed handle my own against the mysterious elevator woman. "OK," she said. "But be careful. If you have to, and if it comes down to it, kick him in the balls."
Of course, no ball kicking followed.
By the time that I explained the situation to my roommate and his guests--a few of whom were mutual friends of mine--and we searched the apartment, the confused crossdresser had disappeared.
"How random," one of the guests exclaimed. And, at the time, we all agreed.
But three years later, I've discovered that there was nothing at all random about what happened that night. You see, like many apartment buildings in Manhattan, the one I live in is attached to an adjacent building. That building is pretty much a mirror image of mine, in that each has the same number of floors and the respective entrances are almost identical in appearance. The only noticeable difference between the two is that the giant blue flag that drapes from a second-floor awning of my building contains one street number while the flag hanging from the next building is adorned with a number that is greater by two--that is, for instance, one says "368" while the other says "366." And due to the similarity of the two buildings, the fact that the two street numbers are close in appearance, and the general penchant for New Yorkers to screw up addresses, lots and lots of people buzz my apartment by mistake.
So, for instance, I hear stuff like, "Sushi!"; "We're here for Glen"; "Package for IGL Corporation"; and "We're down here waiting, are you ready yet?" . . . even when I haven't ordered sushi, despite the fact that I don't know anyone named Glen, even though IGL is two floors down, and regardless of whether I'm supposed to be going anywhere with anyone that would necessitate my "getting ready."
In short, people are always mistaking my apartment for something that it is not.
And, as it turns out, this is what happened on that fateful night when I shared an elevator with the equivalent of Chris Rock in a dress.
I realized this, for certain, the other day, when I came across a cool new website that provides an interactive map of Manhattan along with a "walking tour" feature that gives visitors to the site a full rundown of the famous people, places, and events that have ties to each and every block in New York City.
For example, re 23rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues, the site informs us that, among other things, the block is home to:
"at 271: Trialer Park; ironic restaurant/bar"
"at 265: Krispy Kreme doughnuts; good if you stop at two"
"at 228 Manhattan Comics & Card"
"at 235: Communist Party USA national HQ; Unity is the official CP bookstore. Was site of Kalem silent film studios."
"at 226: El Quijote: the Chelsea's bar and restraunt since 1930. A Janis Joplin hangout."
"at 222: The Chelsea Hotel: Built in 1883, it was New York's tallest building until 1902. A hotel noted for writers, artists, musicians. Mark Twain, O. Henry, Edgar Lee Masters, Sarah Bernhardt, Lillian Russell, Dylan Thomas, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, William Burroughs, Claes Oldenburg, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Virgil Thomson, Patti Smith, Jim Carroll, Sid Vicious etc. Art from many tenants hangs on walls. Thomas Wolfe wrote Look Homeward Angel here; William Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch here; Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001 here; Bob Dylan wrote "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" here; Leonard Cohen wrote "Chelsea Hotel No. 2" here. Andy Warhol filmed Chelsea Girls here. Some of Nine 1/2 Weeks was shot here.
"at 215: Oldest Y in NYC (from 1869); moved to this location 1904, supplanting the French Branch, a Y for the local French-speaking population. Moved in 2002 to 14th Street. Named for Robert Ross McBurney, an early leader of the Y movement. Merrill met Lynch in the swimming pool in 1913; other members have included Edward Albee, Andy Warhol and Al Pacino. William Saroyan stayed here when he came to NY in 1928, as did Keith Haring 50 years later. This Y inspired the Village People's "YMCA." The steamroom scene in The Godfather was shot here."
"at 202 (corner): Chelsea Savoy hotel; notably ugly."
Now, I'll be the first to admit that I may be a bit of a nerd when it comes to New York City history, but I find the site's content to be absolutely fascinating. And, of course, one of the first things that I did after discovering the website was find my apartment building on the map so as to be able to read all about the area's history.
Unfortunately, the entries dealing with my block are almost exclusively about flowers.
The very first thing the site notes about the block is that it's known as Manhattan's "Flower District" and that, "This area has been home to New York's plant and floral wholesalers since the 1870s." As such, a lot of the entries for my block look like this:
"at 151: Green (orchids); Mutual Cut Flowers"
"at 131-133: Associated Cut Flower Co."
"at 127: The Plant House"
"at 117 PNK Silk Flowers Corp."
In fact, there are only two entries for my block that could even remotely be considered interesting.
The first is at number 147, where "three African-Americans were victims of the Draft Riots of 1863: William Henry Nichols, who was killed with a crowbar while defending his mother from the mob; Joseph Reed, a seven-year-old boy clubbed to death with the butt of a pistol; and a three-day-old baby, name unknown, who was thrown to his or her death from an upper window."
The entry's not pretty, that's for sure. But at least it's historically significant and has nothing to do with chrysanthemums.
The other "interesting" entry for my block is the following:
"at [number of building directly adjacent to mine excluded]: Bear Cave/Vault: underground gay sex club shut down by the city in 2001.
As soon as I read the entry, my mind immediately shot back to that night when my girlfriend feared for our safety after an elevator ride with a masked-out sex harlot.
Naturally, my next move was to run a Google search including the words "Bear Cave" and the address of the building next to mine. And, sure enough, the search engine quickly spat out a link to a "Gay City News" article that appeared in that publication in 2002 under the headline, "City Warns Five Sex Clubs."
The article first noted that:
"Between March 29 and June 6, the health department sent warning letters to J's Hangout, at 675 Hudson, the Manhole and the Hellfire Club, both at 28 Ninth Avenue, the Jewel Theater, at 100 Third Avenue, and Ann Street Entertainment, at 21 Ann Street. The clubs and shops were told that inspectors had observed violations of a state health code that bans oral, anal, and vaginal sex in businesses."
A little further down, in an attempt to detail the history of enforcement under the health code regulation, the piece stated the following:
"In 2001, the city warned the Christopher Street Book Shop, at 500 Hudson, and closed the Gay Cable Network, at 133 W. 25th Street, and the Bear Cave/Vault at [address of the building adjacent to my apartment removed]. While the Gay Cable Network had produced a weekly cable news for 19 years the premises also doubled as a sex club. The Bear Cave/Vault apparently opened after a renter at [address of the building adjacent to my apartment removed] sublet his apartment and the sub-tenant converted it into a sex club."
And that, my friends, brings us to the conclusion of "The Mystery of the Masked Dude in the Elevator Who was Dressed Up like a Chick and Decided to Visit My Apartment"
The mystery, like the masked marauder's beloved Bear Cave, is no more.
A lime-green-jockey-suited Andre 3000 recently informed the world that "nothin' is forever." And it says here that Mr. 3000's assessment is right-on re the "how long things are for" issue.
Nothing is forever.
That much, at least, is certain. Stuff ends . . . that's just the way it goes.
But while it's pretty much a given that everything under the sun will eventually run its course and reach an endpoint, what's much less clear is whether it's best for something to end abruptly and without warning, or gradually.
Put another way . . . let's say that you're a 42-year-old woman who works in the field of marine biology. Your passion is something called the long-finned pilot whale. You are inspired foremost by that whale's elaborate system of communication and the music of the alt-rock band Radiohead. You drive one of those old-school VW Beetles, which you love with an intensity of emotion that most people reserve for family pets, best friends, and things of that sort. You write hand-scripted calligraphy, and this pastime serves as your sole creative outlet, aside from all that whale research. Your favorite television program is "Law and Order," your secret vice is KFC, and, while you're not all that crazy about where your body's gone since finishing up grad school, you simply adore your thick, flowing mane of blonde hair--which people compliment on a near-daily basis.
Now let's say that a bunch of really, really bad stuff is going to happen to you. In fact, to be more precise, every worst-case scenario is about to befall you. Here are the relevant questions:
-Is it better that your beloved long-finned pilot whales will be extinct within a year, or is it better that they all die off suddenly--like over the span of 24 hours?
-Is your preference that Radiohead break up abruptly, unexpectedly, and unbeknownst to anyone outside of the band, or is it better that the band members slowly go their separate ways after myriad break up rumors, some intra-band scuffling, and a slack-assed farewell tour?
-Would you be better suited if the engine in your VW bug bit the dust one afternoon when you least expected it, or would you prefer the unfortunate event to occur within a few months of your mechanic informing you that, "this thing is not going to last more than a few more months"?
-Are you better off losing your calligraphy hobby via a wicked confluence of arthritis and carpal tunnel that gradually saps you of your ability to grasp a pen, or would it be preferable to lose both hands in a boating accident?
-Would you prefer NBC to ax "Law and Order" out of nowhere, or would you like one of those last-season-run-up-to-the-final-episode dealies that television has become known for?
-Is it better that KFC files for bankruptcy on Tuesday morning and shuts down all operations, for good, by noon of the same day, or would you rather they declare that the company will be going under at the end of next month?
-And, finally, should your hair fall out gradually--say 20 strands each day--over a three year period, or would you rather it be lost in one fell swoop, like in some sort of irreversible chemo scenario?
I think you get the picture. But just in case you don't, the overarching questions are fairly easy to summarize:
Is it better to know that the end of something is coming at some point down the line, or to just have it come without warning? In essence, does that time in between notification that the end of whatever is near, and the actual end make the loss easier to handle, or more difficult?
Now, in some situations, the answer is clear and easy--for instance, you'd surely take another year with the whales because that period would allow for additional and final study of the animals in their live form. But it's my sense that in most cases legitimate arguments could be made for both the quick/painless and gradual/forewarned manners of reaching an endpoint--depending on how sad or unhappy one will be in the knowledge that something they enjoy, respect, or love is about to come to an end.
To wit: Put me in Whale Girl's shoes, and I'm all over the board.
I'd want the Radiohead break up to be random and seemingly out of nowhere, and I'd want my Beetle's demise to be similarly surprising. But I'd prefer to enjoy my head of hair, "Law and Order," and that fried chicken for as long as I possibly could before they went vamoose.
The calligraphy one, for me anyway, is the toughest call. I cannot help but personalize that hypothetical and equate it with my own desired form of expression--which, for the record, is writing--and imagine some sort of Alzheimersesque scenario wherein I gradually lose the capacity to produce coherent pieces. My hunch is to say that in such a situation I'd likely prefer an abrupt loss of the ability to write rather than have to endure an obvious and sad downward spiral eventually leading to the production of absolute jibberish.
But, again, I'm not positive. Surely there would be at least a few spurts of original, creative work that would result during the early stages of a gradual maddening. And it may indeed be the case that those few works alone would justify a preference for the slow and deliberate route to the end in question.
Simply put, it's just not an easy call.
In an effort to discern some sort of underlying principle that I may be able to apply generally to this quandary, I engaged in a bit of thinking. And as is the case with many things that I think about, the best I can come up with is a baseball-related analogy. I'd say the closest I've come to reaching the endpoint of something I'm passionate about engaging in occurred in 1995, the year that I stopped playing a sport that I'd joyously participated in since not long after I could stand upright and walk on my own.
While it is true that the mjxm baseball timeline is teeming with fits and starts, my love for the game always remained constant. Whether I was turning unassisted triple plays in T-ball, overmatched during a bizarre two-year period in middle school when the quality of my play decreased greatly, or hitting .589 in my final season of American Legion ball, I always loved baseball to a remarkably consistent extent.
My last go-round with the sport came a few years after that .589 season--which, notably, was cut short when I decided to forsake the final 10 or so games of the year out of loyalty to the team's coach, a family friend who'd been unjustly relieved of his duties by the squad's know-nothing financier--and took place during the summer following my junior year in college. At the time, I was playing for a team in the Pittsburgh semi-pro Federation League, and I was little more than a shell of the player that I once was. Because I didn't play any college ball, my skills had deteriorated to the point where I couldn't even hit a mediocre fastball thrown right down the middle--much less a tight slider on the outside corner.
I was fine during my first season in the Federation League. I'd only been away from the sport for one school year, and hadn't lost all that much yet. I hit somewhere around .300, played an above average outfield, and was by all accounts a fairly valuable part of my team. But following another year of no baseball during the spring season, I regressed pretty badly and seldom cracked the starting lineup. One year later, I was almost useless.
Yet, even during that final season, I never really thought about the fact that it would likely be my last foray into the sport of baseball. Instead, I just played whenever I got the chance, struck out a lot, and joked around with the other guys who were stuck on the bench.
It was not until a year later--when I decided to stay in Syracuse for the summer between undergrad and law school, rather than go home and play ball--that I even thought about the possibility of not playing baseball anymore. And, by that time, it really wasn't such a big deal.
The end, you see, had already come and gone. And I was none the wiser when it happened.
To me, this was clearly for the best.
I never had a chance to be sad about my final at bat, my last fielding putout, or my definitive voyage across home plate. All those things happened without me realizing that they held any special significance beyond helping determine whether my team won or lost the game at hand.
Thankfully, and perhaps surprisingly, I can still remember the final hit of my baseball career. I couldn't have been hitting more than .200 at the time, and likely didn't have more than 30 at-bats for the entire season due to the diminished quality of my play, but you wouldn't have known it from the way that I handled the 2-2 curveball after it left the hands of some Mt. Lebanon pitcher who spent his springs hurling for Penn State. I stuck with that breaking ball and hit it hard right back up the middle, just like I'd been taught to do and just like I'd done countless times before.
When I returned to first base after rounding the bag, the coach at first--who, by absolutely no coincidence, happened to be the same man that I gave up a .589 season for a few years back--looked at me said, "You're good, you know that?"
We both surely realized that by this time I really wasn't all that good. But it was a nice hit, and he'd been telling me things along those lines for a long time as a coach. There was no reason to switch any of the dialogue up at that point.
"Yeah," I said. "I know."
"Way to stick with that breaking ball . . . right back up the middle," he replied. "That's the way to do it."
Seriously, had I known that single was going to be the last hit I'd ever register in the sport that I'd played and excelled at for the previous 15 years, I probably would've shed a tear right there on the basepaths and been as sad as can be.
That whole season, in fact, would've likely been a pretty gloomy and depressing endeavor.
But since I had no idea at the time that my career was coming to an end, I have nothing but incredibly fond memories of that last single and the season that it was a part of.
In short, my participation in the game ended without me even realizing it. And, as such, I've never really been sad at all about the whole thing.
The abrupt and painless approach to the ending at hand, while not necessarily selected, was, in my mind, the better of the two options in this scenario. And I am grateful that things went down the way that they did.
But others placed in the exact same scenario would surely prefer to have known they were in the midst of their last hurrah on the diamond.
Plus, after all, this is only one scenario; one example. Under a different set of facts, everything changes. And therein lies my fascination with the subject of how it is most appropriate for things to end. It seems to me that the issue of whether it's best for something to end quickly or slowly is one that in a vast majority of cases could potentially go either way.
The right answer in each case, like nearly everything else in this world that is capable of being judged, is simply a matter of opinion.
Hmm . . . is that Beyonce I see being hurried out of an apartment building on 28th Street in Manhattan? And, more importantly, why is she wearing mjxm's crazy, oversized straw hat? And is that his robe?
Does Jay-Z know about this? Or, worse yet, Evelyn?
I swear, Jigga and Ev, nothing happened.
Or did it?
OK, fine . . . enough. Beyonce didn't come over today for some sort of incredibly improbable tryst. But she and Steve Martin did just happen to be filming their remake of "The Pink Panther" right across the street from my apartment this afternoon.
I walked out of the building and . . . bam . . . there was Beyonce. Don't say anything to Jay, but when I snapped this picture I'm pretty sure she winked at me. Apparently they're going to be shooting here for at least the next day or so, because both my street and the next one down are littered with giant trucks and souped-up, moviestar trailers.
Finally, after four years of residing on this block, 28th Street represents on the celebrity front.
