The Wizard of Oz and the Late Night Mass-Transit System

So I was watching a crappy tv show the other day before going to work and a character in said tv show made an interesting analogy. Somehow, the topic of the movie "The Wizard of Oz" came up in reference to growing up and moving away from home. For those of you that have yet to realize I've been writing about this very topic for the last few weeks, now is the time to perk up and take notice that I've moved.

Anyway, back to the show. I can't remember the exact phrasing used in the show, so I'll do my best to paraphrase. The point made was that the most famous line in movie history is "There's no place like home" from "The Wizard of Oz". And while in certain cases, this can be true, the movie actually proves the opposite. The feeling of sleeping in your own bed and eating food from your own refridgerator, and crapping on your own toilet are things that we may in fact take for granted. But if there is no place like home, then why in "Wizard" is home a drab, boring, black-and-white place where some crabby old broad wants to kill your dog.

Away from home is in technicolor. Huge buildings, lush greenery, flying monkeys and singing midgets. I actually haven't seen flying monkeys yet, and the midget I saw was actually tap-dancing in the subway terminal at Penn Station, but you can grasp my point. The one thing I haven't quite placed is that in Oz, Dorothy makes the best friends she'll ever have....whereas I'm sitting here typing on this damn machine and drinking alone. My friends are the thing I miss the most, besides my dog. So I suppose that analogy goes only so far.

On to more exciting fodder:
Late nights, riding the subway is possibly one of the most humorous experiences to be had in this city of huge design. Whether your amusement is derived from drunks, whores, bums, or drunk whorish bums.....the subway at 2am has what you're looking for.

I must look like a deer caught in headlights when riding the train, because I can't help but stare at these amazing creatures to see if they might do tricks. I think I even got propositioned by a "working woman" the other night on my way home from work. She was at least a good looking prostitute with all of her teeth, or at least I think it was a "her". If not, that guy paid a lot of money for a pretty good set of melons and to have his adam's apple reduced. No....it had to be a girl. I couldn't help but giggle when she proposed her idea of romance, which included a hotel room, room service and getting "Freeeeeaa-ky" (which was in fact broken up into several extra syllables than freaky generally has).

Another late evening included sitting in between a completely gorgeous Columbia University student named Katie and a horny, drunken Spanish guy named Emilio. I, having had only two beers due to both the expense of alcohol and my lack of financial abundance, was caught in the middle of a poorly executed hook-up attempt and the poor unwilling victim of said attempt. Apparently, I have "I'll be your fake boyfriend" written across my forehead because as soon as Emilio finished slurring his less-than romantic plea to Katie, she blurts out "He's my boyfriend." It was all I could do not to squeak "WHAT?!?!" and play along. Emilio, dejected and still alone, exited the train at the next stop and Katie used the tension-filled moment to thank me. Before I could even muster the courage to attempt to speak more than "you're welcome", the train came to yet another screeching halt and she was gone. Damn. As if I could magically have a ton of luck, just because it was 3am. Oh well.

If (and hopefully when) some of you people decide that it'd be cool to visit, we'll stay up late and ride the train somewhere and stare at all the people. It'll be fun. If you're lucky, I'll suffer through all the tourist bullshit with you too. It's funny that I've been here less than 3 weeks and already I'm totally fed-up with tourists.

Last story, I promise.....

I was walking up Broadway near Times Square (42 St.) and there had apparently been a car accident involving a taxi cab. The front-end of the cab was super-ultra-mega smashed up and that took me all of two seconds to realize. Unfortuneatly, the 350 tourists crammed on each corner of the intersection couldn't arrive at the same realization. It was too exciting for their tourist brains. So they just stood there with mouths agape and eyes bulging from their sockets like a pregnant woman's stomach somewhere in the third trimester. Even though the street sign clearly had a picture of a stick-person walking, signaling the hoards of people to actually shuffle their feet in an effort to move from the spot they seemed to be glued in, they stood in the same spots, each moron with his own perfect view of the crushed taxi that also hadn't moved in thirty-five minutes. Imagine my dismay actually having to struggle my way through the crowd, apparently being the only one with something slightly better to do.

The city is interesting to say the least.

"Getting Better all the time....."

Perhaps I was a bit hasty in my complaints of this, my city of dwelling.
New York has gotten much better in the last week!
While, for the most part, it has still been unpleasantly hot, the events of the last week have improved my opinion of both the city and my decision to move here.

I got a job.

Oh, and it ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am working as both a sound tech (John, stop laughing) and a repair guy at UltraSound Rehearsal. Today was my first shift and it was a long one. I got to work at about 12:30pm (the funny thing is I wasn't supposed to be there until 1pm.....me? early?) and I didn't leave until 12:15am.
I started my day burning vaccuum tubes.

For those of you aren't snobby guitar players, you probably have no clue what I'm talking about. The nicest guitar amplifiers and the very nicest bass amps still use vaccuum tubes for pre- and power-amp functions. Vaccuum tubes are an antiquated technology that first came to use in things like stereos and televisions back in the 1930s-60s. Since UltraSound only equips their studios with mega-nice gear, all of the amps have tubes. None of that solid-state, transistor bullshit. To get the nicest quality sound out of your amp, it helps to have a "matched pair" (and in some cases, pairs) of power tubes. In order to get that you have spend a ton of time on this machine called a "tube-tester" which is really just an old amp that is re-wired for such a function. For example, it took me five hours to test fifty EL-34 Power Tubes.

I then got a brief break and hurried to get some food. I returned to work to fulfill my duties as a tech. Basically they pay me to go into one of the 28 studios while a band is setting up and ask how many microphones they need and what amps they would like to play through. Then I turn up levels and get the roughest possible mix and then go wait around until someone messes something up. E-A-S-Y!

Now I sit here writing this drinking a "celebratory" Foster's Oil Can Lager which I proudly purchased at the 24 hour Deli just below my building.

When i get some more time, I'll detail how much fun riding the late night subway can be.

Oh, and you punks need to come visit me soon!!! I'm bored and have no friends. I hope someone can come.

~cpk

My Theory on "Getting Your Hopes UP"

You know when you were a kid, and you and a friend made plans to spend the night and one of your houses?
Do you remember how those plans were always contingent on your parent's permission?
Do you also remember that if you and said friend made plans that were too intricate and spent all day "getting your hopes up", that the decision-making parental unit always said "NO"?

Here's what I think. (Obviously since I'm writing this)

If you spend too much time thinking about something and how you would like it to work out, it almost always fails, miserably. This is called "getting your hopes up". And I have no idea why I keep placing that phrase in quotations, it just seems like it emphasizes my point.

So now that I'm in New York.....I'm quickly realizing that I got my hopes up. Granted, I've only been here for three days (creeping into my fourth as I type), but so far, everything has gone totally and utterly wrong. Things have gone the exact opposite of the way I "mentally strategized" them. I should have seen the flight cancellation as a bad omen, but that was hard because I got to meet Sam and Catherine and have a drink. (for more on that story, see my other blog on my other myspace profile)

So after arriving a day late and a buck short, I had to walk down to my sister's office to get some keys, then had to traverse this scary new place, just to find my door. I basically sat around and waited and waited for something to do, since I'm too much of a pussy to actually go do something by myself. Wednesday was supposed to be full of excitement. Alas, everything fell through. I couldn't meet up with either of the guys that could possibly help me find a job. I couldn't get in touch with my two new friends. I couldn't get my fucking debit card to run so that I could buy lunch.

Today was worse. I get up, excited that I could get done what had not been done the day before. I get showered, dressed, and ate breakfast and was about to go on my merry way when I realized that I was a bit short on ca$h. "No problem," I think to myself as I wander downstairs to the tiny little grocery store's ATM.

INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.

Try again.

INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.

What about in savings?

INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.

SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!

Run back upstairs, check my account balance: OVERDRAWN.
I'm officially screwed so I call the bank to see what happened. As it turns out my last paycheck never got deposited. That's definitely not good. All my bill payments will probably bounce and the best part is that I have $7 in cash and $2 in quarters for my next subway ride, should my MetroCard be expired. Dammit.

Then, perhaps out of sheer frustration, my body freaks out and my blood sugar drops like a mosquito that ran into a bug zapper. 45 mg/dL. I know that looks like something odd to most of you. But normal range for blood sugar is between 80-120 mg/dL. I get sweaty and think nothing of it, since it's like 95 outside and there is no A/C in the apartment. So, I finally realize that I'm shaking because of the low sugar and not because of frustration, only to realize that the only thing in the fridge is tonic water, tofu, and some weird type of kosher cracker. Nothing with sugar or carbohydrates.......oh, and I only have $7 (did I mention that this city is fucking expensive?!?!).

Somehow, I get everything sorted out. So I make my way to midtown, roughly 50th St. I decide to go down to Sam Ash music store and see if Rich, a friend of my friend Ray, is working. He told me to come see him when I got to town and he might be able to help me locate a job opening. I get to the store and ask to speak to Rich. His off-day is today. Son-of-a-bitch. Just my luck. So I decide to wander down to 30th to try and take a peek at Ultrasound Rehearsal. Basically another friend-of-a-friend that I'm supposed to talk to now that I'm in town. And of course, I can't find the place.
So I figure I'll call my friend and see if she wants to hang out. She says she's shopping in SoHo and I could come meet her. Great, only about 30 blocks to SoHo, I can just walk. So about half an hour later, I'm in SoHo, and I call to see where she wants to meet up. "Oh, I went back home." FUCK! I just walked from 50th all the way to 1st and then to streets that don't have numbers (10 points to anyone who thought I was gonna say "Where the Streets Have No Names") and she's not even here anymore?!?!?! What's the point.

So I figure that I'm close and may as well do the tourist thing and go visit Ground Zero. It's sad because the first time I came to New York in '97, I took the WTC tour. Got to stand on the roof and everything. Now, there is a big nothingness. It was incredibly sad. They have a wall with names on it and a timeline of the events of that tragic day. Hopefully, something more permanent will be constructed. I've seen the Memorial in Oklahoma City at the site of the bombing of the Federal Building, and cried like a baby because I was so moved. I'm sure someone will pay proper tribute to the Fallen Towers.

I could go on and on about crap that happened to me today. The retard at Burger King that wouldn't give me a fucking refill on my $2.50 SMALL drink because "this is New York City." Who cares? I'm thirsty, bitch! I'd feel bad if she were actually retarded. Anyway, perhaps I've done enough complaining for one night. I'm sure more crap will happen in the coming days and I'll feel obligated to bitch and moan on this wonderfully addicting website. I miss my friends terribly. I want someone to wander around the city with. I really miss my puppy. There are so many people here with dogs and I just want mine too. I'm in a really whiny mood right now, but I'm too broke to go get drunk and sleep it off.