Sunday Memories of When Normal Wasn't A Luxury

This was not only or just or always luxury housing.

It is now.  Because something this beautiful is now only afforded by lots of money. 

Nowadays, you don't see this kind of place filled with the people I grew up with. 

But back then, it was where the guys working at the post office lived. My neighbor's dad was the short-order cook at Kozy Korner and then a maintenance worker at one of the buildings (that's the guy who does all the dirty work the super tells him to do).

The two sisters on the other side of the courtyard were secretaries, not administrative assistants. Secretaries did everything too, just got paid less and were called "the girl" more.

My father, Seymour worked his way off the retail floor by getting a Masters in Business at"NY-Jew" night school.  (Back then NYU was one of the few big universities to let Jews in so everyone called it NY-Jew.)

That Masters in Business, like the housing we lived in, was not a luxury item. That Masters was affordable too.  My father did not spend the next 30 to 40 years paying off student loans.  (I only have $25,000 to go!)

This was not an expensive view.

It is now.

But then, it was just my grade school.  Florence would stick her head out the window and yell down to me when to cross Columbia Street.   Depending on who you talk to, that school sucked (friends) or was normal (me).  I was just glad I was taught how to read without switching up everything and that I survived every fist fight I found myself in the middle of.  Honestly, I didn't think it was such a big deal.  It was... just normal.

These days, it's a great school.  It has computers.   I don't think they have fist fights anymore. 

This is now a edgie view.  Meaning that now that this comes with luxury housing, you also get a bit of industrial and street edge too.  On the other side are the city projects.   They are still not luxury housing.

I wonder how many new folks cross to the other side of the bridge and wander up Columbia Street.  Maybe they do. 

This is now a "Real New York!" photograph (as in "wow look at the authentic old man in the authentic law chair - only in New York!").

Didn't use to be.  Used to be just.... normal.  Because this is how everyone sat in the sunshine.

In fact, all the old ladies would drag out their lawn chairs and sit in front of their own buildings, talking about all the old ladies on the other side of the courtyard sitting in their lawn chairs in front of their buildings.  It was like a turf war, only with lawn chairs.

Not sure why my family didn't have lawn chairs.  Maybe because Florence was always practicing and Seymour was always reading.  When I hung out with my friends, we sat on the steps.

Even when the steps were as far as Florence could go, we sat on the steps.

Then it became luxury housing and lawn chairs were banned.

Officially.  Banned.

Six decades of people sitting on the steps of their buildings or in lawn chairs and suddenly it was too low-class to have a lawn chair out in front of the building to enjoy the green grass and the fountain.

At that point Florence sat in a wheelchair.  

Even the maintenance guys made sure no one fucked with us.

I miss sitting on stoops and running past old ladies in lawn chairs.

I miss it being normal for post office guys and secretaries to have beautiful gardens outside their front door and sky outside their windows.   

These days listening to fucking assholes hate hard-working Americans like my parents and my grandparents who were immigrants I really miss my mother.

I miss normal.  O.K. not the fist fights because they really did suck.  But the normal where anyone who needs a good apartment is able to get a good apartment.  I want the American Dream to not be a winning lottery ticket.  I want it to be a great job that pays well, has real health insurance and allows whoever the fuck wants to to be able to go to college and not have to still be paying it off 30 years later.

I want normal back.

So, fuck it all to hell.  I'm voting Bernie.

**
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In Memory of Cindy: The Land of the Quartchyard

Sunday Memories: Matthew 26:52

Memories of Sundays Spent in Jutta's Kitchen

Jutta on the move in her kitchen

It just felt normal to return to Jutta's kitchen.  Only with decades of hindsight do I understand how lucky I was.

Another in the series honoring Jutta Filippelli (1926-2016)

**

Originally posted February 10, 2009

Jutta's Kitchen Revisited

The elevator I rode since I was 13. Sometimes to her son...

...sometimes to dinner...

...sometimes to be painted....

...sometimes just to sit and talk...

...and sometimes to look and wonder and peer at light and shapes and paintings and sketches and wonder about the narrative that might interweave throughout our work.

**
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At the End There Is Nothing Left Except Love

At the End, There Is Nothing Left Except Love

The news came unexpectedly. 

Jutta was in the hospital and it did not look good. 

Pouring love into her exhausted hands praying for a reprieve did not bring a miracle.

But it did bring love.

So begins a series of past posts honoring beloved and so missed Jutta Filippelli.

**

Originally posted July 8, 2008

Jutta's Kitchen - Part Two

Even after Jutta's 16 year old son Marc and 14 year old me stopped dating (if you call listening to Sibelius's violin concerto while holding hands "dating") I still found my way to her kitchen several times a week for years after.

 Lots of times there was a gaggle around the small wooden table - me, Marc, the two Haitian brothers from down the street, the Korean prodigy alone in NY since he was like 12 and Chops the dog who had a blue eye and a brown eye. Whatever Jutta put on the table was a feast and the words and the laughter and the languages poured over meals and cigarettes and coffee and sometimes dessert.

I didn't know I was destined to live a life where nothing else matter except the attempt to tell a story with all my heart and soul. I didn't know until 35 years later that because her kitchen was a home for a bunch of motley baby artists, my surrender to my life was fueled by her example.

Why I Wish I Could Write Like Dana

Throw My Seashells Back

By Dana Schechter

1922-2016

Throw my seashells back into the sea
Cool the sting of memory
Sift the silt from my ancient dreams
Toss my pebbles back into the streams
The past within me has danced its dance
Now's the time for Now's romance


**
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Sunday Memories of Dana and the MTA

Sunday Memories of Dana and the MTA

Dana's adventures took her all over the world.



But nothing quite matched the night she took a ride on a New York City Bus.

**
Originally posted on September 3, 2009

BUS DRIVERS AND ME

This really happened.

Note to Readers: You gotta know a little bit about the Village, the streets and the buses. If you have any questions, just drop a comment...

"Standing in a downpour on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 14th Street, I boarded a limited bus that would at least take me to a few blocks near my destination. My hope was to end up on Sixth Avenue and Third Street by dismounting at Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street. Not great. But doable.

It was 5 p.m. and I needed to be at the movie theater by 5:20. The driver understood my anxiety and simply said, "Sit Down."

When the bus turned left on Eighth Street to Broadway, I was shocked.

It had actually taken me even farther from my destination.

"Last stop!" he announced to all the passengers.

I started to get up when again he said, "Sit Down."

Then he drove south on Broadway and turned right on Houston and right again on Sixth Avenue heading north.

I expected him to sail right past my movie.  I stood up and again he ordered me to "Sit Down."

I gave up, wondering if maybe he was kidnapping me.

Then to my utter disbelief, he stopped illegally at Third and Sixth. He had taken me to a spot across the street from the movie theater!

"Bless you!" I said.

"Bless YOU! he replied. It was the one time he didn't say "Sit Down."

**

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In Dana's World Everything Falls Into Place At Exactly the Right Moment

This is one of my favorite picture of Dana.

That's because she saw me raise my camera and then waited for the exact moment I snapped to stick her tongue out.

**

Posted as an encore on March 12, 2013

There's a lot of waiting when it comes to writing and sometimes it can feel like full out avoidance.  However, after a TV-watching-marathon of British women going into labor and giving birth to babies, perfect timing seemed to be more about allowing life to emerge on its own terms, rather than planning and making a schedule.  

Sure, there's lots you can do to help, like bouncing on a ball or screaming or eating chocolate pudding -  all strategies that work for both birthing and writing.  But, mostly you gotta bow to the forces that be, because they're just going to do what they need to do.

So, while allowing words to emerge, an encore about what Perfect Timing sometimes looks like.

**

Originally posted Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Perfect Timing 

Right before it all happened

The frame was too high on Dana's new bed. Getting up was like rock climbing and getting down was the Giant Salom but without the snow.

So we ordered a new one, thinking it would arrive in a couple of days.

But then the new computer system didn't work. So the frame arrived a week later.

We thought oh so we'll come down on that day.

But then Dana asked we come the next day.

I promised we'd be there at such and such a time, but of course we got there almost an hour later.

Then the Mariner couldn't get the frame to line up and I didn't help by insisting that one side was longer than the other when in fact it was just angled more like a trapezoid and he was trying to re-angle it in between me whipping out a 12 inch ruler once used in PS 110 by Dana's son to prove that in fact that side of the bed frame was longer.

Finally the bed fit perfectly and Dana could sit down on it without any athletic training.

She insisted we stay for lunch and have tea and kaiser rolls, herring and lox, cream cheese and butter, and lots and lots of rugelach. The apple pie we passed on.

There was no way we could use the frame that was too high. It was pointless to keep it. But it was a really good frame and no one wanted to throw it out. So the Mariner taped up and stuck a piece of paper on it that said "free bed frame! new!"

Before we headed down to the communal recycling room, Polly the cat needed love. "I want a picture of that!" Dana said. So the Mariner rummaged through my crowded bag of screwdrivers and shopping bags, found the camera case, pulled out the camera and took a picture. The second after he clicked the shutter, Polly had enough love and jumped down.

I forgot the right elevator was the shabbos elevator, stopping on every floor from 1 to 20. So we got off on the 14th floor and waited for the not-for-shabbos left elevator. The numbers let us know whoever had gotten on at the 12th floor was being detoured up to us.

We stepped in with our almost brand new but too high bed frame and there was an almost coordinated, neatly dressed, middle aged couple, laundry stuff in hands, annoyed their trip down had been interrupted with a brief trip up.

Until they saw the frame.

"Are you giving it away?" they both asked.

"Yes! Do you want it?" asked the Mariner.

"Yes! We need one!" and without much ado, he handed the couple the barely used, month old, too high bed frame.

**
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Days Like This

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What Time Is It? The Time Is Now

There is and never was a way to bottle the time spent with Dana.

Even with fierce scribbling in books and on napkins, the moment was never fully captured.  At some point, the only thing I could do was surrender and be there now.

**

Originally Posted March 3, 2011

Time Flies....

It was supposed to be a brief meal.

Four hours later, I was still laughing too hard to write down everything Dana said.

But she had been warned. When one encounters a better writer than oneself one can only rip off said writer in self defense.

On certain attempts of style:

"He combs his hair with a washcloth."

On the insults of aging and limited mobility:

"I could fool anything but a flight of stairs."

On the fact her doctor is moving her office right across the street from her apartment:

"I won't be late if there's no red light."

And last, but not least, on our favorite actor:

"He's a walking sex experience."

**
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Dana's Sunday Memories of Pots of Gold

Dana's Sunday Memories of Pots of Gold

No matter what, rainbows followed Dana.

**

Originally Posted September 29, 2009

Guest Artist Dana: The Pot of Gold

Marian and I had high expectations. We were about to go to see a one-woman theatre piece calls “the Amish Project”. It referred to the tragic murder of thirteen school kids whose Amish classroom was invaded by an armed lunatic.

At first I refused to join Marian in reliving such a terror. But word came from several critics of its unique value. Travel plans were finalized, and I was nearly dressed when Marian called at the last moment to tell me that there was a long, steep flight of steps from the street entrance up to the theater.

I am too disabled to manage those damn steps.

Marian decided to go alone. This was another time I had been rebuffed by architecture. Suddenly my missed evening struck me harder than the play’s tragic subject. I moped regretfully the remainder of the afternoon.

Stepping outside on my terrace to relieve the blues, I was thrilled to see a dazzling rainbow its enormous arc embracing the sky from mid-Manhattan to north Brooklyn, I began shouting to the strollers eleven stories below to “look up, look up, a rainbow!” But no one heard me. I was the sole beneficiary of the splendor. I was Finian himself.

**
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Dana Never Took Anything Lying Down

Dana Never Took Anything Lying Down

There was nothing more annoying than being seen as a "cute" old lady - the punchline of someone's limited imagination.   Dana was good at stopping those shenanigans.

Another in the series celebrating Dana's extraordinary life and rapier wit.

**

Originally posted September 30, 2014

Bedtime Story

Dana and Trudy are best friends. 

This is them when they were only 88 years old.

They're both a bit older now.

Just the other day, Trudy came down to New York for a visit and Dana wanted to get out of the house.  So they somehow made their way to Union Square.

They were sitting in the sun enjoying the day and each others' company, minding their own business, when a very posh lady, with a TV crew trailing behind her approached them.

Could she interview them for a television show she was hosting?

I think it was Dana who shrugged 'why not', since Trudy was a bit more shy.

"What did you do with your husbands that was 'hot'?" the TV host asked them.

Trudy was aghast, but Dana didn't miss a beat.

"Well!  We turned off the lights!"

**
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Celebrating Another Story from Dana

  
Another in a series celebrating Dana Schechter's life.

Dana and I had reconnected after Florence's memorial.  During visits over tea and apple pie, she began reading me her stories.  There was a daring and a fearlessness to what she was willing to put to the page and a willingness to walk her pen down dark sentences. 

**

Originally posted February 27, 2011

The Scent of Sandelwood

New work from Dana!


Whenever I travel to Europe, I feel I am walking in the footsteps of former inhabitants who lived in ancient towns before they became cities. The old ghettos, for example, are steeped in history and stimulate my imagination. I seem to be searching for my previous life in another century, a kind of deja vue moment. When George and I arrived in Seville, Spain, I found it.

We were directed to an old quarter, which formerly housed the ghetto where all of Seville’s Jews were once confined. Street names were ghetto names. But the ghetto itself had vanished. All that remains is a Kasbah-like warren of little winding streets and cul-de-sacs twisting and turning and literally swallowing us up in its labyrinth.

As night fell we began to feel ill at ease. There were fewer and finally no one on the dimly lighted streets. I may have recognized where I once had lived in another time, but now felt trapped in a time warp. I couldn’t recall the area outside of the ghetto, which was dangerous. After curfew, one risked arrest.

We walked by an open patio that seemed to beckon us in. Through the entrance gate sat a large brightly illuminated sofa, empty but waiting. For us? We whispered to each other “Don’t go in there."

Where was its light coming from? Was this some kind of entrapment?

We lingered on the sidewalk wondering at the sofa’s elegant invitation. I thought we should continue up the street. George noticed the seductive aroma of sandalwood, and refused to move.

We bickered for a few moments until we heard the rustling of a taffeta skirt. Upon turning our attention back to the sofa we were surprised to see a Matisse-like odalisque wearing that taffeta skirt. Aside from multi-colored glass necklaces she was utterly bare on top. Her presence explained the purposed of the sofa.

I knew from George’s glistening eyes what he was thinking. And it was obvious what he was feeling.

So, what the hell.

Yes, I walked on and somehow found an exit in the general direction of our hotel. Eventually, George did the same.

Back home, whenever I saw that glisten in George’s eyes, I'd put on my false eyelashes and a splash of sandalwood.

**
Sunday Memories of the Best Writer I've Ever Known

Sunday Memories Of The Best Writer I've Ever Known

Dana Schechter, after a long dance with life and delight, died today surrounded by love most of us have only dreamt of. 

During our last visit with her, me, David (a.k.a. the Boy Next Door) and the Mariner scribbled down the things she had said, with our usual mixture of envy for such brilliance and glee at such wit.

"We're ripping off your words, your language..." I told her.

"That's what the English did to the Irish," she replied.

Beginning today, and ongoing until it is time not to, a series of Dana's stories and the accounts of visits that always felt like they ended too soon.

**

Originally posted March 24, 2009

If I Bring Forth What Is Inside Me, 

What I Bring Forth Will Save Me***

This is Dana.

Her husband, before he was smart enough to marry her, had, as a teenager, a crush on Florence. When they all grew up, Dana and Florence and their husbands and children lived across the hall from one another on Lewis Street.

I knew Dana was the most beautiful woman I knew. And I knew this before I knew how to tie my shoe. I also knew she knew something about the world that would be essential to my survival. Perhaps it was the beautiful stones from Brazil she gave me after her trip there with her husband to help establish socialist co-op housing.  Or maybe it was the tiny little Bolivian dolls given after another trip to continue developing affordable housing in South America.  Or maybe it was the story book with real art as illustrations that told me there were more worlds beyond the wall of sound I heard every day from Florence's Steinway.

Whatever it was, what beamed from her heart and soul was a living example of utter enjoyment of every second of every moment to love, eat, laugh, talk, touch, live.

Today, at least 45 years after learning to tie my shoe, Dana is still the most beautiful woman I know. Or at least Number One of a very short list. And today she brought forth a story she had poured into devastating poetry. She said that when she wrote that story it saved her life. Once again, so many decades later, I learned of a world beyond the horizon of my own fear, my own pain, my own disbelief.

***The fortune cookie fortune Dana reads every morning as she fixes her hazelnut coffee.

**
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Word Travels

What better place for a bookstore to set up an outpost but at a really great bar. 

Especially if the bar is the KGB and it's the Wednesday night Fantastic Fiction series (there's also a night called Careening Drunk Writers...).

But Word travels.  At least from Brooklyn or Jersey City to the East Village where great writers get a chance to read great stories.

And tonight was no different, with Carola Dibbell reading from the acclaimed and heralded debut novel, The Only Ones and Gemma Files taking folks on a ride through hell with her Book of Tongues.

Well, like peanut butter and chocolate or jelly or whatever ones likes with peanut butter, writers hanging out in a bar having a great drink and listening to wild and thrilling stories and books on the back shelf like candy just waiting to be snapped up seems a hellava lot more fun than swiping right or left or screaming over a $20 martini.


**
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The Tailors

Felix's Tailoring - now on Allen Street

The small shops are still on the lower east side, only a few left on Rivington, one or two on Eldridge, a bunch  on Allen and the famous one on Stanton. 

For a couple of bucks those pillow cases can go from king to regular and the sweatshirt zipper can actually be made to work.  The lining of the thrift-store coat can be replaced cheaper than it costs to buy a badly made new coat sold by a chain. And the seam of those pants can finally be properly fixed.

All you gotta do is walk in. 

**
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Sunday Memories Of Deep Chills On Valentines Day

The view of a cold Williamsburg Bridge
from the warm side of the window

There was one Valentines day, years ago, where Second Avenue suddenly filled with thousands of young men, arms filled with thousands of roses, who poured up the street like salmon spawning.  I was attempting to go down the street to an internship at a hip art center where I was attempting to drown heartache with menial tasks.  

Nothing said loser more than having to push pass all those young men headed to the success of a relationship I could not for the life of me figure out.

"Winter unfailingly turns to spring," wrote the Buddhist monk, Nicherin Daishonin to the lay nun Myōichi in a letter in 1275, offering her encouragement in having faith that things would get better.

And indeed, winter turned to spring.  The lay nun was able to care for her children and despite hardships, hold dear to her faith and practice.

And indeed, winter (finally) turned to spring, filling days with unfamiliar joy.  And with that, Valentines Day stopped being the barometer of winning and losing.  It wasn't winter or spring.  It was just another good day. 

This year's Valentines Day, although no different than recent past ones, comes with warnings of cold that is "downright dangerous" and frostbite risks if you stay out too long. 

But I am not fretting. 

Happy Valentines to the Mariner.

And Happy Valentines to all.   Winter indeed does unfailingly turns to spring.

**
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There are times those 10,000 hours it takes to become even kinda good at my reason for being alive feels as futile as spitting into the wind.  Futile as in why do I even get up to do it again this morning? Why do I send my work out over and over again? 

Why do I keep leaping into unknowns, planting things that never seem to grow, showing up again and again and again?

Or....

I can keep keeping on, get the hell out of the wind and demand to be seen.

Like Katha Cato introducing the Queens World Film Festival.

And heard.

Like Elisabeth Lohninger, singing at a Monday night bar.

And counted.

Like Melvin Van Peebles talking to a theater full of filmmakers about making something that no one thought could be made.

A hellava lot better than spitting in the wind.


**
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Regrets of the Day

I didn't know until I walked by.

All these men were picking up pots and putting down pans and talking that fierce kind of talk that involves business and money and making deals and doing it fast.

I knew the place by its TV screens at the bar with every sports game on it and its outdoor seating where the whole neighborhood hung out during the summer with baby strollers and tons of hopeful little dogs under the tables.

I would pass by, looking for one of my favorite friends who often ate there during summer weeknights.   But I never ate there myself.

Perhaps it was fear of the onion rings. Or the noise of the street.  Or getting too involved with the game, or the little dogs.

Or the onion rings.

But just the other day, I looked at those tables outside (the upside of global warming) and thought, why not!  The Mariner and I should have dinner there some night!

Lo.  It is not to be.

Mumbles, after 22 years in the neighborhood, is packing up and another restaurant is moving in.  Lots of reasons, they told Town and Village, including rent and not enough people supporting family-owned/run neighborhood spots.

Well, the Mariner and I do, just below 14th Street.  Perhaps it was time to expand the territory. 

I watched more stuff get picked up and piled high and more men talk fiercely the way they do when they are making deals and talking money.  Then I spied the plants.

Are you taking them, I asked one of the busier guys making piles and deals.

"Oh yes, definitely," he said laughing.

So.  I did walk by too many times, never stopping by.  But who knows?  Perhaps one of those pots or the plants will begin a new life in a neighborhood restaurant.  And perhaps this time I'll stop by.


**
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We Regret To Inform: St. Mark's Bookstore Soon to Become a Sunday Memory

The store closes its doors Wednesday evening.

Everything is 50% off (except cards and consignment books).

Jeremiah's Vanishing New York documents its valiant struggles to remain one of the most important independent bookstores in New York here.

As Jeremiah said so well in his blog, there are no words left that could do justice to such a great loss.

St. Mark's Books
136 East 3rd Street
New York Fucking City

**
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Blessed Journey and Safe Travels

That man is getting on the bus because, even though she had just pulled away from the curb, that bus driver opened the door for him.

That's the kind of bus driver she is.

A few seconds of passing forward some good equaled a whole day of goodness for others.  I know.  I watched her the the entire way up from Fulton to 14th Street, saying hello to passengers, telling the man with the cane to take his time, answering the girl who was carrying on a simultaneous conversation on her phone about what stop was best to get to the hospital. 

And the one that meant the most to me - tell the crossing guard at 3rd Street not to rush the elderly man caught as the light changed.  "No, let him cross, let him cross," she called to the crossing guard and then she waited, because a light turning green or red was not as important as an elderly man who clearly couldn't walk faster than really slow but who needed to get to the other side of the street.

And because the bus driver told the crossing guard to let him cross, the crossing guard went out into the middle of the street and guided that old man safely to the corner. 

That meant the most.  All the times people helped Florence as she stumbled through a city she once ruled, suddenly beyond her disappearing capacities... bus drivers, train conductors, other passengers, passer-bys, Maria at the hospital who fed her.   New Yorkers heart and soul.....

"God is good," the bus driver told me as I got off the bus.

So are you, I said.

**
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An Encore of What's the Bottom Line: The Song Remains The Same, Revisited

At a social event, the Mariner and I found ourselves huddled with a man we had just met, talking in shorthand about the moments where nothing mattered except holding the hand of the person you loved.  

This man was holding his woman's hand a lot these days.  There wasn't much to say except a couple of yes's and fierce nodding.  

In honor of the only moments that matter...

Originally posted August 6, 2013 

I recognized the number of the four missed calls right away.   It was the ER.

Rushing through dark, summer streets was like listening to a familiar song sung by someone new.   Even if it was only a dog bite on the arm and the dog had had its shots, having to step back into old space that had been the many cracks of a broken heart required a calm that wasn't there anymore.

The place was packed.  And the night, just like all those past nights, began.

"We got 160 patients so we're a little behind."
"Full moon."
"Really?"

"Maxwell! Good news!  You don't have an infection."

"Can anyone spare a blanket, miss could I have a blanket oh god bless you..."

"No, it's not broken."
"Sir, it's broken."
"No, it's not broken."

 "Where are my Cantonese, Mandarin speakers?"

"I had him just a minute ago and I lost him."

"Martha?  Martha?  Is Martha here?  Are you Martha?  No?"

"Usually, Monday is the busy day, everybody in for their work notes.  Monday and Tuesday were very quiet this week and I thought, uh oh the storm is coming."

"Oh they have people much worse than me.  They just intubated someone over there a few minutes ago."

"Do you want some chocolate?"

"They were shooting nails at each other, I asked them why were you shooting nails at each other?"

"I stopped telling my parents what I see because then they say, this is what you went to school for?"

 "Can I have a glass a water, miss can you spare a glass of water oh god bless you..."

**
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The ER Visit - Part Two: The Walls Of Jericho

A Visit To The Hospital: Part One

A Visit To The Hospital: Part Two

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The Song Remains The Same
 Days Like This

Sunday Memories of Being at Home with Fish

After months of summarizing horrifying atrocities and political nightmares, returning home took weeks.  Even if I was already inside the apartment.

It was the gathering of pieces and reconnecting heart and soul molecules that took time.   Sleep helped but only so far.

Sometimes it was watching a British reality show where you could watch babies after babies after babies being born.   Sometimes that worked.

Other times it was watching documentaries about eccentric artists or stand-up comedians or visionaries.

But there was this one time, where the only thing that worked was curling up on a kitchen chair and watching every Barney Miller I could find on youtube. 

Morning coffee in hand, 12 hours would suddenly pass.  I did this for weeks.  Nothing much else happened.  Just heart and soul coming back together into a recognizable sense of self.

I didn't give much thought as to why or how or the deeper meaning.  I just soaked up every second of every story line, every actor, every character actor...

Just recently, in the midst of horrifying atrocities and political nightmares, every day announced another obituary.   It was almost like dominoes falling ... Bowie, Jean Stapleton, Paul Kantner, Glenn Frey, Alan Rickman...

...and then it was Abe Vigoda.  Detective Fish on Barney Miller. 

And why and how I had lived in Barney Miller for all those weeks suddenly became crystal clear.  

That show was filled with the accents, the rhythms, the grammar (or lack thereof) of all the people who were the adults when I was only a kid, the adults when I was only a young adult... the adults I was a peer with... 

It was where I returned to the city I remembered, the streets I ran a little wild in, the friends I missed.

 Like Det. Fish and Yemana (Jack Soo whose voice I knew intimately from my beat-up vinyl record of Flower Drum Song). 

They were where I could hear and see my New York again.  And when I was in pieces, they showed me the way back to that home, back to a heart and soul I grew up with. 

**
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