Touching Down in New York Town

New York, N.Y.

I could swear that the pilot of the plane I flew on across the country today said his name was Rusty Wheel. Aside from sashaying across the damp runway when we landed at JFK, which could be appropriate given his name, I can't fault him. He got us here.

So who exactly were us? I say were because in my experience, no one is ever the same person after a long flight as she was when it started.

So many things happen, or don't. So much planetary space is covered. As Captain Wheel noted while addressing us early in the flight over the P.A. system, "We're flying over the entire continent today, so relax and enjoy it."

I can't tell you how relieved I am to be back in New York. Life on the west coast was suddenly becoming unbearable. So much political correctness -- yuck! Too many misunderstandings, so many pointless fights!

As I have noted from time to time, life is getting harsh in the middle-class hinterlands. San Francisco is one of those places where people have for too long maintained the illusion that they have a middle class reach when in fact, once their income goes away, they will soon be on the verge of homelessness.

I know way too much about this subject myself.

Anyway, back to my flight. Commercial airlines have reverted to their earliest business model as strict enforcers of a class system. Not only do they no longer offer hot food to us ordinary mortals stuffed into the "coach" section, they charge for cold food.

Outsmarting them, I purchased hot food at SFO for only twice as much as the cold food they would have sold to me. Go do that math.

In the seats in front of me sat a couple who engaged in the rather strange behavior of turning around at their seats, standing facing those of us to their rear, and stretching their backs. They also engaged in certain exercise rituals, like waving their limbs, shaking them, and bending back and fro.

I tried to ignore this couple, who reminded me of characters in a long forgotten cartoon from my cousin Dan's collection of Mad Magazines back in the day. What was it about them, exactly?

The sort of pothead expression on the man, with his wispy facial hair. No doubt now in his 50s, he seemed untouched by life's searing truths. Or was it the woman, probably in her late 40s, with her dyed black hair, and her constant snacking on pre-planned treats, including chocolates?

Oh my, I fear I am becoming a bitter old man, much as many earlier writer heroes of mine, authors I will not disgrace by naming here.

I feel...impatient with people now. I feel less willing to indulge their foolishness.

Next to me sat a compact, middle-aged woman who does not dye her hair. She hails from either Spain or Italy; her accent, while charming, is not identifiable given the ambient sound of a rather poorly insulated airplane in an aging fleet.

Next to her is a true character, a very short woman from the Bronx, with the guttural speech of a lifelong smoker, who cannot enunciate the "s" sound without emitting (to my radio ears) a hopelessly painful shrieking.

I think she is talking to this European woman about face lifts (which, given her appearance, she is most familiar with) and other types of plastic surgery.

It's at times like this that I wonder why I travel at all anymore, given the conditions that I must endure to get anywhere outside of my own little cave, which I am badly missing at the moment. As the flight drones endlessly on, I grow drowsy.

The people in the row ahead of me, doing yet another round of their stretches, now seem like an animated TV show with the sound muted. They no longer are irritating me. I close my eyes, not really bothered by them or anything else any longer. Whatever.

The voice of that Bronx woman, too, fades into a series of musical low notes, broken by "ssss" sounds floating into the ever-more putrid air of the plane. Sort of like hearing German from a suitable distance.

"Would you like us to make it cooler, or warmer?" asks an attendant urgently, as if increasingly aware of his own helplessness to fix a situation that has been called to his attention.

The couple ahead of me reply that nothing will help, really, because the old guy next to them (her father, as it turns out) is just feeling like his nasal passages have gone dry, as they most certainly must have done. Nonetheless, he seems to be grinning, toothless, to my eyes, with his hearing aids in place, perhaps detecting sounds more peaceful than those I am parsing.

It's at moments like these that I wonder again what I am doing here, among so many who at least seem to have a clue, a direction, in their lives. All I know at this awful instant is that once I escape this tubular hell of metal jail, I will race on my own legs to catch a cab and make my way into Manhattan.

That indeed happened. At precisely 5:00 PM, my cabbie and I were treated to the resonating bells of the old church on 35th Street in Murray Hill. It was muggy, and my neck itched, but I knew that soon I would be safely ensconced here at:

Latitude
40.749950 °
N 40 ° 44′ 59.8″
40 ° 44.9970′ (degree m.mmmm)
Longitude
-73.985658 °
W 73 ° 59′ 8.4″
-73 ° 59.1395′ (degree m.mmmm)

doing exactly what I am doing right now.

-30-

The City as Blender: Seeing, Touching, Tasting

The park is bursting into full-color this month. Two short walks through it the past two days, in heat ranging from 90 to 102 degrees F, helped me appreciate that it is one of the most beautiful places in the country.



The only tasting of its edibles I indulged in was a single leaf of the peppery Nasturtium. Delicious.



I didn't go in to the Japanese Tea Garden, where the Cantonese-speaking girls tie their Saris incorrectly, but its plants and structures beckoned peacefully.



It's a time when we all need to experience beauty as much as possible. The economy is sinking, more and more are, like me, out of work.



Budgets are tight. Stress is high.



Everyone tries to cut costs. Yet in this city, the museums and cafes are still crowded, so clearly many still feel that they can carry on as usual.



But more and more people I talk to confide they are no longer eating out, or going to movies, or driving to stores so much as cooking, renting movies, and walking to closer stores.

That's easy in San Francisco. We are an old-fashioned city of neighborhoods. Every district has its own residential sections ringing unique commercial strips. It's an extremely ethnic city, with an amazing diversity of people, bringing a correlative diversity of food, accents, fashion, music, assumptions, biases, habits, religions, beliefs, fears, hopes, and dreams.



The city acts as an enormous blender, smoothing all of this richness into a blended smoothie of many flavors. A cultural smoothie. Once you've tasted its sweetness, you can never go back to your own tribal parochialism.



Our differences are, quite simply, our beauty. See it. Touch it. Taste it.

-30-

Hot Nights, Hot Meals

If this is global warming, I need more ice. According to my car, it was 102 degrees outside today when I boarded my land craft back homeward from Golden Gate Park, where I was meeting with one of my clients.

Yikes. A heat wave. I couldn't help notice that most of the boys and girls in this city had shed 75% or so of their clothing while venturing outdoors and why not? We've gone from a coolish, fog-ridden, windy peninsula to a tropical paradise, without the tropics.

My housemates staged a big party yesterday and it went far into the night. Nobody wore more than a T-shirt or skirt and nobody was shivering. My 13-year-old son was extremely restless, wandering outside over and over; when I asked if he needed something he just said, "No," but seemed frustrated.

Heat, we have to remember, is a major physical stimulus to us humans. We all come from Africa, from the Savannah, and we all are hard-wired to change our behavior when the temperature rises.

My sense is that we recognize, in our survival mode, that hot weather means edible plants are growing, and indeed, last night and tonight, those tender green onions I planted some time ago are beginning to look rather yummy.

We also sense that water may be becoming scarce. It evaporates in heat like this. I found myself buying bottles of water in a store today and wondering why, until I got back in touch with my animal side, the part that seeks survival over all else.

And then there is that most sensitive of subjects -- sex. On this, even if I had an opinion, I would probably not express it. But let's just say that when the shorts and skirts grow shorter, the halter tops come out, and the smooth skin of youth is shown in all of its loveliness, and male animal ought to be forgiven for recognizing what any female animal should be forgiven for instinctively recognizing: This is the mating season.

Not for me. I am an elder. I may see it all, but I react to nothing. In this heat, I pray that no stroke or attack flattens me as the dance of life occurs all around me. Of course, I can see it. I hear the music and I appreciate the mighty impulses involved. But I am a mere observer now, wishing everyone else well.

My rich beef stew, so carefully cultivated in my brand new pressure cooker, bought by those who love me as a birthday present, beckons. Beyond the beef, and the stock, are onions, garlic, baby bok chow, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, a bit of red wine, soy sauce, spices, and white flour, some milk, and a few other ingredients, all of which aromatically infuse my flat, competing with the languid thick air that bathes our city, and drives our minds to frenzies.

Competing successfully. I might add. While others mate, or seek to mate, I eat. All is well.

-30-

Too Hot to Write

Not me, the day. Somehow, San Francisco reached 90 degrees today. Even at this hour, it's 88.

-30-