Category Archives: slice of NYC life

Ten Minute Drill

“So are you working hard?  Busy?” asks one of my few living cousins, now in her ninth decade.  She means, I suppose, ‘are you still delusional?’   I tell her cheerfully that I’m working hard and busy, I describe the marketing and this week’s well-received unveiling of the new pitch I’ve been working on all summer.  I explain breezily that I’m currently focused on marketing, a necessity my team would have been working on all along, if I had a team.  The program itself runs very smoothly, done over 100 times now all over, without a glitch.   She likes this, a retired teacher, does not sneeze at it.  Tactfully avoids asking if I’ve made a dime in 2015, usually her husband’s second or third question.

“Still working alone?” she asks, and I cheerfully tell her that, except at the sessions themselves where I have assistants, yes, still delusional.

“And how is Sekhnet?” she asks cheerfully, and we’ve successfully negotiated the minefield of my difficult mission.  Now we are in the lush backyard farm that farmer Sekhnet lovingly tends for hours every day, before and after her long hours at work.  I can see that colorful oasis spread out under the window.  A paradise of color and deliciousness, brought forth from the dirt.  

Then, after talking about the organic fruits of this magical garden, and the health it brings, we’re on to raccoons, possums, feral kittens.  They have them too, in New Jersey and the Berkshires, plus a litter of baby skunks and their mother.  Luckily for everybody the mother skunk took her babies and left the garden after a while, there would be no need for any violence against them, just as the exterminator had predicted.

Downstairs almost all the components for garden fresh sauce are prepped, waiting in their metal bowls for the first pop of garlic in the olive oil and then the sauce making begins.   Sekhnet is out buying onions, we’ve used up the ones she grew this season.  I have to go down and pick some fresh oregano (delicious), chop it, get it ready for the sauce.  Two large bowls of perfectly ripe tomatoes, red, yellow and green, all zipped out of their skins, wait patiently for the Saucier to begin.

Life moves at its own pace, if you can walk calmly and excitedly with it, you’re blessed.  Ideas take time to germinate, must ripen into action.   At least this is what I have been philosophically brushing into my drawing book lately.  If you are in something for the long haul you must develop a philosophy that helps and doesn’t hurt your chances.  

That said, I need to get a few hours in punching the heavy bag of revising the pitch, starting on the next one, much shorter and sweeter, showing the fun and the therapeutic value of working in a creative team helping each other animate ideas, still objects miraculously taking life on a colorful screen while cancer waits impatiently outside, ready to continue its assault, pissed off to be outside waiting to return to the center of the merciless universe.  

A good thing, I believe, keeping that killer waiting in the hall for a while as kids and their families get a break, play, have some goddamn fun.  Now I just have to sell the excellent means I’ve invented to do that.

One Note Samba

I’ve noticed over and over that in our society the crime of not monetizing things that can bring profit is considered  even more heinous than proposing socialist sounding solutions to long-standing social problems.  It is not hard to notice, as everything around us is being constantly monetized, but every time I see a new example, like a bird hit in the knee with a tiny rubber mallet, I begin to tweet my sour one note samba.
 
“This is just a one note samba,” sings Sekhnet, rolling her eyes and walking into the other room whenever I begin the familiar song.
 
Several sweaty miles through 93 degrees with my laptop on my back the other day I stopped into the lovely mall at 59th and Columbus Circle to use the bathroom and enjoy the air-conditioning.  Last May I stood at a vantage point on the second floor balcony where I photographed out the high glass wall to the statue of Columbus and people coming and going, up and down escalators.  It was a beautiful shot of the city through floor to ceiling windows and a sea of humanity captured against this spectacular backdrop.  I shot a cool stop-motion movie from there and noted it as a great place to take vivid city-scapes.
 
I stood at the same place yesterday and saw with a shudder that some fucking genius has monetized that vast open space, two wide 40 foot tall banners advertising Glaceau Smart Water now block most of the view, though you can still spy Columbus propped on his pillar in the narrow slice of sky visible between them.  If you hold your head just right.
 
They’d be idiots to refuse the half million a year Glaceau pays them to advertise their product in that striking spot.  Why would anyone turn down that kind of money?   What would you rather have, a fucking view few even notice or a half million dollars?  Duh!

The Mick on the radio

I was nine or ten, listening to a Yankee game on the radio, when it started to rain and the game was delayed.  A year or two earlier, in 1964, the great Mickey Mantle had his last great year as the Yankees won the pennant right at the end of the season.  1964 was my first season as a Yankee fan and it would be the Yankees’ last pennant for the rest of my childhood.  

I remember watching the celebration on TV, black and white, the guys in their grey baseball undershirts dousing each other with champagne.  Joe Pepitone describing how earlier in the year, before he went on a tear and finally fulfilled his potential (for about the only time in his career) he had been ‘fustrated’.  Mantle poured champagne over him as he was being interviewed.  Everybody laughed.  Mantle later hit a couple of dramatic home runs, a total of three in the World Series to break Babe Ruth’s career record, and the Yankees lost in a dramatic game seven to Bob Gibson and the Cardinals.  David Halberstam wrote a great book about the 1964 season called October 1964, well worth a read if you’re interested in baseball, history and how the world changes.

Mantle was the hero of many boys in New York in those days and I would always take his side in the eternal argument against those who idolized Willie Mays and insisted Say Hey was a better ball player.   Sure Mays was a first ballot Hall of Famer, unquestionably one of the very best ever to play the game, a five tool guy who could do everything on a baseball field and make it look easy.   Mantle’s skills were the equal of Mays’, we’d argue, and he was doing it all on one leg.  Before Mantle got hurt he was faster than Mays, we’d say.  The argument for the Mantle guys was the mythic hero tragedy centering on Mantle’s limitless potential, his heroism in overcoming his disabilities  playing through pain, doing it all on one leg, on crutches, with the clock ticking, a career-ending injury always one play away.   It was a tragic position: imagine what Mantle could do if he had Mays’ health!  In the end their career stats, corrected for longevity, would be virtually identical with Mantle having a slight edge in a couple of categories (slightly better base stealing percentage, for example), Mays in a couple of others.   It was the kind of vehement, futile, idealistic argument kids love to have.

Unbeknownst to us, Mantle was getting drunk virtually every night during his playing days while Willie took care of himself.  The Mick would get shit-faced and fall down, get into fights, wind up in bed with a woman he didn’t recall meeting, was sneaked back into the Yankee hotel by teammates, the loyal press corps helping cover up most of his alcoholic episodes.   We didn’t learn until years after his star-crossed yet magnificent career that he had been his own worst enemy.  

Haunted by his father, Mutt Mantle’s, early death, and the early deaths of his uncles, he believed he was cursed to lead a short life, so why not have as much fun as he could getting shit-faced every night?  The irrefutable logic of the bottle, I suppose. Toward the end of his career, as his skills diminished by the day, he played on a series of very bad Yankee teams.  For one of the few times in their history the Yankees were a second division team, finishing last at least once during my childhood.

One day in 1965 or ’66, (could have been ’67 or ’68), there was a rain delay.   I listened to Rizzuto and Bill White (I think it was White– though it’s unlikely, now that I think about it– White was probably still playing, he played first base on that great 1964 Cardinals team.  Must have been Joe Garagiola) as they stalled, trying to keep fans tuned in during the delay.   Not long afterwards radio networks would cut away from the stadium during rain delays and return to regular programming, but in those days they killed time telling baseball stories and talking about how it looked like it might be clearing up, how the ground crew was about to take off the tarp, until it started raining harder again.  During this particular delay Mickey Mantle came into the broadcast booth and was greeted happily by the broadcasters.  

This was a rare treat, you rarely heard players on the radio, and never during a game.  But there was The Mick, loose and happy as could be, larger than life, talking with his Spavinaw, Oklahoma twang.   The subject of a recent fight on the field between two baseball teams came up.

“You ever been in a fight on the field, Mick?” asked one of the broadcasters.

“Well, I’m not really much of a fighter, you know,” Mick said in his aw shucks way. He was one of the strongest men in baseball, with muscles like few other players, and this disclaimer struck me as a great aw shucks statement.  “There was one time in Detroit that we got into it on the field, somebody got hit and people ran out of the dugouts.  When this happens I look for a friend on the other team, and so I found Norm Cash, me and Norm are buddies, and we kind of held each other and pretended to fight.  I kind of had Norm in a headlock and he says to me “hey, Mick, ever see a picture of your wife naked?” And I say “no.’  And he says “wanna buy some?””  

“We’re going to break for a commercial,” said one of the broadcasters (almost certainly not Rizzuto) quickly.  When they returned there was no sign of Mantle, nor even more than a passing mention of his visit to the broadcast booth.

Listening and the Woman on the Train

Dave Isay, creator of StoryCorps, a hugely successful oral history project that lets people interview each other about things that are important in their lives, received a million dollar TED prize in 2015 to expand this work.   His 2007 book of transcriptions from StoryCorps interviews, Listening is An Act of Love, was a New York Times bestseller, as were his other books on the subject.   Listen to Isay speak– though he has always been deliberate in keeping his voice out of the recordings of people he gives the mic to– and you will be convinced: really listening to someone is an act of respect, and hearing what they have to say gives them a rare gift.   Isay reports that has seen powerless, invisible people literally straighten their spines, infused with confidence in the face of the rare gift of finally being really listened to.  They shine as they are given the chance to speak, be recorded, and then edit what they have to say into a form that can be heard by anyone in the world.  Their interviews, mundane and extraordinary, full of candor and flashes of off the cuff poetry, all worth hearing, are cataloged in the American Folk Life Center of the Library of Congress.

A preacher in a violent neighborhood in Boston, trying to bring street kids into church, has a revelation one night after a boy who was shot ran to the church. He died 150 yards from the church, struggling to reach it.  Even though the lights were out, said the preacher, and nobody was home.  The preacher realized that if a dying kid runs to the church, the church needed to come at least half way to meet them.  The preacher began to walk the dangerous streets with a group every Friday night from 10 pm until 2 a.m.   Eventually the kids on the corners began talking to him and he discovered what he had suspected from the start, these were not violent monsters, just kids trying to survive.  He said he spoke to some of the brightest, wisest, most creative people he’d ever met, these kids trying to make it on the streets.   His initiative of listening to kids has spread to many cities, changes lives and won him awards.

We do not listen.   We have many good reasons: we are very busy, life is very stressful, we pretty much know what people are going to say, we can’t pay attention to everything, we have to tune out a lot of complete bullshit vying loudly for our attention in a nonstop attempt to sell us things we don’t need, the world is brutal and unfair, nobody fucking listens to us.  Fair enough.

Riding on the A train last night a very thin, artistic looking, slightly grimy young woman let an equally attenuated and dirty looking young man sit in the one seat that was left.  He sat gratefully and she stood over him talking almost without cease.  When the two seats next to me became available the woman moved with alarming quickness to claim them and the man slid in next to her.  The young man was next to me, clutching a nylon bag in his lap, the sharp corner of which protruded dangerously.  “I’m sorry,” he said, when I was first poked by it, but he seemed unable to make the slight adjustment that would have prevented it happening again.  I quickly learned to avoid it.

“I don’t like everybody constantly judging me,” said the haggard looking woman with a good deal of feeling, “I’m so sick of people telling me what they think I should do, people who don’t know anything about me or my life.  I purposely don’t confide in people, and I haven’t told you half of what I am thinking, even though we are very close.  You are about the closest person to me, I would say, but I will never tell you certain things.  I just can’t stand the way people look at me,” she added crossly.   I didn’t look at her, but not because I cared if she could stand it or not.  

The man, speaking with a heavy French or Italian accent, did his best to find out what was bothering the woman, but she was not having it.  “You know, if you don’t tell people what is wrong, what can they do to try to make it better?” he asked.  She had a quick, angry answer to this useless question.

Listening to their conversation,  I was slightly annoyed to be hearing it but also slightly fascinated.  It was like reading a grim but engaging short story about two desperate characters, trying hopelessly to connect but clearly being sucked down a tragic alley ending in rat poison and a decomposing body that would not be found for days. 

Listening carefully is not always the answer to the world’s lack of respect, but it can be.

Instead of anything productive today…

In spite of myself, could not stop until I’d written it all down:

The service department at Tekserve has a sign telling customers how much they want us to leave happy.   I left yesterday after a series of long ordeals, promised work still undone,  feeling thoroughly urinated on.  I will never set foot in Tekserve again, unless I am in the neighborhood and need to use one of their handy, clean bathrooms. Tekserve touts its independence and superiority to the famously superior Apple Store, though it offers perhaps the worst service I have ever been subjected to.  Their bathrooms, though nice, are no nicer than the ones in the Apple store, where, for all their sometimes attitude, the service is also much better.  Their technicians and managers do not misinform customers, nor, in my experience, are they untruthful.

I recently bought a new macBook from Tekserve and dropped off the current one to have a larger hard drive installed.  The current one was working perfectly, I merely wished to expand the hard drive space.  I explained to the service tech that I wanted to be sure the drive that was being replaced was fully backed up, I’d brought an external drive.  I explained that I needed the thousands of frames on the new hard-drive and wanted an additional back up as well.  I held up the external drive.  He told me Tekserve couldn’t perform that service but assured me I’d get the old hard drive back.  I pointed out that there was no way to access data from the removed drive.  He told me they could box it, for $40, and I’d have in effect an external hard drive.  I paid for this service, which was $75 when the labor was added.  I asked about replacing a rubber foot on the bottom of the machine.  He didn’t think they had the foot, but would make a note for them to look for one and replace it if possible.

When I returned the following day to pick up my laptop I got my ticket and was told I was next.  Twenty minutes passed.  It was now 20 minutes to closing time.  I looked for a manager.  Eventually one arrived and explained that the end of the day is the wrong time to come in.  He brought out my computer and the boxed hard drive.  There was no data from the prior hard drive on the computer, none of the files I needed were on the new hard drive.

“But you have them on this external drive,” said the manager.  He explained it was only a matter of a few hours to migrate them all over to the new hard drive.  I’d been there almost 40 minutes at that point and was peeved to learn I had hours of work to do in order to use the computer for my children’s animation program.   The rubber foot, still missing, was an easy fix, he said, something they did as a courtesy, but as the adhesive takes two hours to dry I’d have to come back for the computer the following day and wait again to pick it up.   I expressed reluctance.  

He offered me an Uber car to take me home and a generous $25 to compensate me for any inconvenience.  I declined both, pointing out that I hadn’t been informed at any point that I’d have hours of work to restore the laptop to usable status.  In the end he gave me the job “for free”, meaning he waived the service charges, in light of the misunderstanding, the incompletely done job and the hours of work they had given me to fix it.

The hours of work included a couple of extra hours manually updating every now non-functioning app the kids use and keeping my fingers crossed that the new version would be compatible with the one they knew how to use.   One of the main apps they use, iTunes, could neither be opened nor updated.  

I called Tekserve the following day.  I was told the manager was in a meeting and would call me back when he got out.  He did, and only 24 hours later.

When I explained the situation to Gary MacDonald, another service supervisor,  he read the service notes and insisted I’d been fully informed about the problem with the old drive and that I’d already had a generous discount and that, in essence, I seemed to have a negative attitude.   I managed to remain patient.   Eventually he expressed regret, admitted it shouldn’t have happened the way it did, that he wanted me to be happy.  He told me to bring it in, everything would be fixed promptly, the rubber foot replaced, use his name, ask for a blue ticket, I’d been seen right away, no wait, everything would be taken care of, I’d be happy.  He gave me his extension (464) and invited me to call when I was coming in so he could expedite things, also gave me his email address.

That he didn’t return my call was understandable.  I was just informing him when I’d be arriving to have the work done.  I used his name and was given a blue ticket, told I was next and, sure enough, my wait was only 15 minutes.  The tech guy behind the counter corrected me,  I hadn’t been given a “blank” hard drive, if it was blank it wouldn’t have had the Operating System on it.  I stood corrected, told him none of my data had been transferred, the old hard drive had not been mirrored, cloned or migrated to the new hard drive, that I hadn’t been informed of this til I picked it up, that I’d had to migrate the files and update all the apps myself.  That iTunes was now non-functional.  

His opinion was that this made no sense.  He assured me that iTunes was native to the Operating System and that it was no doubt my unfortunate unsophistication that made me unable to find it in the apps folder.  I invited him to open iTunes.  He was unable to.  This seemed to stun him.  He began looking for fixes on the internet.  He was as unable as I’d been to find any for OS 10.6.8, which Apple no longer supports.  He told me he still uses 10.6.8 and loves it.  I told him I love it too.  I suggested he get Gary MacDonald, the supervisor who was familiar with the entire situation.  He disappeared into the back. Five minutes later he returned with Gary, who had me retell the entire story.  

After some negotiation they agreed to reinstall iTunes and replace the missing rubber foot, though they were reluctant to commit to re-install the iTunes library as it could take a bit of time.   I assured them I could install the library as long as iTunes was there and that waiting two hours or so was no problem, and that I’d be about 20 minutes away.  They verified my contact number, promised somebody would call as soon as the machine was ready.  I thanked them and shook both of their hands.  The whole process had taken less than 40 minutes, not exactly an instant drop-off, but, under the circumstances, I was glad the thing was finally being done.

When two hours passed I called for an update, as the email from the service department had invited me to do.  I left Gary a message at his extension asking for a quick update.  I called to speak to someone in the service department, heard four minutes of music and was told nobody was available and invited to leave a message.  I did.  An hour later, having heard nothing, I headed up to the store.  I was determined to pick up my computer, make sure it was fixed, and leave without uttering a syllable.  I made one last call.

This time, after the four minutes of music, and hearing once more that nobody was available, I said peevishly that my next call would be to the Better Business Bureau.  At that exact moment I had a call waiting beep and it was the service department, 40 minutes prior to closing time, informing me that the laptop was ready to be picked up.  (The email informing me of this was sent 18 minutes prior to closing time, when I had already been waiting in the store.  You can read their punchy email at the bottom of this post).

The blue ticket meant I was next, after anyone else waiting with a blue ticket.  I asked to speak to Gary.  The kid told me he’d find Gary, but he was busy greeting others, giving them blue tickets, explaining that they were next.  He called a couple of other blue tickets who were next before I was next and finally turned to see me sitting sullenly in the last seat available, leaving Gary a message.  He pointed to Gary, at the counter behind me, along with three other Tekserve employees, helping another customer.  “There’s Gary,” he said.

I walked over to Gary who would not make eye contact.   After a minute of this I rudely interrupted. “I’m here to pick up the computer your service techs disabled.  I don’t intend to come back into Tekserve unless I have to piss (I pointed to the bathrooms) as you people have been pissing on me since I dropped off the laptop for repair two weeks ago.”   Two security guys prepared themselves for more.  I returned to the last seat in the waiting room.

Gary came over to where I was sitting.  He informed me that I cannot speak to him that way in front of customers.  I informed him ​that was a matter of opinion.  It was now 20 minutes to closing time.  He hadn’t called me, he said, because I said I’d be coming back in 20 minutes.  I told him he should learn to listen, asked why I’d come back in 20 minutes for a job that wouldn’t be completed for at least two hours.  Instead of an answer he said it was unfortunate that he couldn’t give me the good news about my computer because of my attitude.  

He went back to finish with the other customer and a moment later called me to pick up the computer and sign some paperwork.  He made minimal eye contact as he struggled to complete the paperwork, the laptop he’d started on didn’t seem to be working.

 I opened the laptop, noticed the battery was almost completely drained, and did not find iTunes on the dock.  He told me it was in the apps folder.  I asked him to put it on the dock.  He did.  I opened it, it worked.   “What was the good news about my computer?” I asked.

“It’s fixed,” he said.

“It’s restored to the condition it was in before I brought it to Tekserve, you mean,” I said, then tried the other apps the kids use.  Only one would later need to be updated. again.  I turned the computer over.  The rubber foot had not been replaced.  Gary had apparently had enough of my bad attitude by then and said nothing when I pointed it out.  It was now closing time.  I left Gary to sign whatever name he liked to the paperwork he was working on and headed toward the door.

I asked the security guard at the door for the contact information for the owner of the store, as nobody else seemed to give a rat’s ass about a customer’s very unhappy experience.  He had no idea, of how I could contact the owner, but listened to the bones of my story and took me over to someone who could help me. 

This fellow listened attentively and when I described what I’d write on Yelp told me that one of the owners personally responds to every (presumably negative) Yelp.  I asked for the man’s contact information, but this was not something routinely divulged.  I told the guy I’d hear from him after my Yelp, I supposed.  I was then given both David Lerner’s name and his top secret email address david@tekserve.com.

The worker, at as much of a loss for how to make things right as I was at the moment, suggested he could possibly extract an apology from the service manager, which I declined.  He urged me to contact David directly rather than tell the ugly story on Yelp.  I asked if he thought I owed David this courtesy.  He maturely declined to insist that I did.

Their service email is below, and reading it I discover: hey, they never sent me their survey!

My takeaway:  these guys are pretty much all assholes.  The culture in the store is an asshole culture.  Good marketing, very, very poor service.  Stay away is my advice.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Tekserve Service Department <servicestatus@tekserve.com>
Date: Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 7:42 PM
Subject: Your Tekserve Service is Complete (SRO #3-161-520)
To: fuckyoucustomer@asshole.com

SERVICE REPAIR ORDER: #3-161-520

The day has arrived! Your SRO is ready for pickup.

Please bring your receipt or a photo ID when you come for pickup.

We want to make your pickup as easy as possible. Let us know if:

  • you would like someone else to pick it up. Email us their name and we will add it to the record
  • you would like to have your computer or device messengered or shipped to you
  • you would like us to recycle a machine that cannot be repaired instead of picking it up

Contact a Service Manager directly at: servicestatus@tekserve.com and they will make the necessary arrangements.

Once you have picked up your order, we will send you a survey to find out how we did. We really do want to make sure we are the best place in town. Please respond to our survey with any feedback you’d like us to have.

Thank you for your trust in us.

Want to Make the Most of Picking up Your Computer?

  • Come to afree seminar or personalized training
  • Get a new case, printer, display, tablet, iPad, iPod, headphones or one of each
  • Ask us about Thunderbolt, Fusion Drives or any other new Apple-compatible technology. We love questions almost as much as we love answers
  • Tell us your problems. If a Mac can fix it, we’ll tell you how.

Store hours and directions

 

We Wuz Stars, yo

A couple of decades ago, when I still thought I’d make my living by writing a great book or something, I answered an ad in the New York Times and got a job as tutor to the stars.  It didn’t pay much, but it was a cool gig that took me to several nice hotels in different cities and for a while I had hopes of a song of mine being bought for an album by a number one recording group.  The lead singer, my student, dug the song a lot.  I’d daydream about hearing their version of it on the radio, cashing the fat royalty checks.  

It was also fun designing a custom curriculum for my student, as I’d just read Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (ghost writing a paper for my sister’s most oppressive grad school class) and was able to put its excellent principles directly into practice.  It was gratifying to see how well it worked, like water falling on a parched plant that suddenly begins to flower.

The reason the youngest member of the group needed a tutor is a law that apparently requires show biz kids under 17 (maybe 16) to have a tutor hired by the management company who is profiting off them.  It is an offshoot of the Child Labor Laws, I suppose.   My student and I, when in NYC, most often met in the conference room at Get Down Bitch Records, several floors above the lobby where Tupac was shot in the balls one dark night in a gun attack prior to the drive-by that killed him.

“Ordered by (insert name of mogul in charge of Get Down Bitch Records– not its real name) no doubt,” I said to my 16 year-old student one day.   He pointed in panic at the ceiling and mouthed words that led me to understand that the conference room was mic’ed, that the mogul could easily listen from his desk while smoking a blunt and having his knob polished by one of the fine looking women there who had no clear job description.   I caught on quick, “of course, everybody knows Mr (insert name) is a great man, a good friend of Tupac’s and had nothing to do with it, I know he’s looking for the shooters,” I added, quick and cowardly as a young Bob Hope.  My student smirked.  

“That ain’t gonna save you,” he said, laughing.  Then we continued discussing Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones, from the book we were reading together.

“Would I have heard of him?” my sister asked as we walked on a street in a fancy section of Boston.  We were passing a record store and, as I ushered her inside, on cue, my student Jason, all in white, was dancing across a wall full of TV screens.  Twenty or thirty graceful, glossy Jasons exuded charisma as their hit song lip synched its way over the excellent sound system.  “Wow!” said my sister.

For a short time these four talented and obnoxious brothers, my student the youngest, were plucked from obscurity and little Jason was, for a moment in time, young Michael Jackson.  It was like walking down the street with Elvis, when we ventured from Get Down Bitch to nearby Manny’s to play the sequencers there together.  I pretended to be his body guard when fans crushed in, ushering him quickly to some imaginary appointment I reminded him we were late for.

We joked, the road manager and I, that they should have a reality TV show (this was before such shows existed) called “We Wuz Starz, Yo”— never were four bigger assholes given a luckier break they were so comically intent on blowing.   I harbor no bitterness, mind you, heh, but these pricks were Grade A and they fell back to obscurity as quickly as they had risen to fame, and as justly.  The record company likely never recouped its million dollar advance, even with the platinum record, and when their second album tanked the company was glad to get rid of the four prima donnas.

I am thinking about them at the moment for a reason I’ll get to presently.  They came by their brutality and dysfunction the time-honored way.  They were raised by an enraged and upright religious fanatic who whipped the boys with wire hangers he straightened into whips, handles made of masking tape, the better to have a good grip.  The youngest, my student, had been spared at the mother’s insistence, I was assured.  He was the only one to escape the father’s rage in physical form.  The oldest had the whip marks burned into his back, like in an old black and white photo of a slave’s hideously scarred back.  It accounted for their savagery as a group, though one at a time they were nice enough young men.  

My favorite, aside from my bright, wise ass, Special Ed for no reason other than attitude student, was the oldest brother, Chris.  If I remember correctly his nickname was Choc, because he was the darkest of these Trinidadian brothers.  

We flash forward, past the weekend in Beverly Hills, past a second California trip that included a great time in San Francisco, past the great strides the bright, semi-literate Jason was suddenly making when he was engaged with what he was learning, past Chris telling me how much his brother Jason admired me, never stopped talking about me, past the fateful plane trip to Toronto where, after they’d fired the experienced road manager and put the sister in charge (to save money), we were promptly detained for hours at the Canadian airport for lack of the required paperwork the sister and former road manager had argued about.   There was no transportation arranged, and being the only one over 25 with a credit card, I was forced, after a call to the concern I worked for, to rent a van to drive them around in.  It was not part of my job, I was not paid anything for it, but I became these assholes’ chauffeur.  

It’s possible that as things escalated I may have found it necessary to ad lib the arguably anti-Semitic sounding “you assholes ought to make like the Jews and blow the chauffeur,” when I grew sick of their hassling and attempts to bully me.  Their threats heated up, they were going to trash the car, torch it, rip it up– it was on my credit card and I’d have to fucking pay.  Ha ha.  As the abuse became more feverish I told the other brother traveling with us to tell the other hyena motherfuckers to shut up, yelling grew even louder, objects flung at the driver, things got out of control.  I got back to the hotel, packed my bag and booked a flight back to NY.  “You bitches are on your own,” I informed them, driving the rented van back to the airport.

Things certainly could have ended better, I realize in hindsight.  No blood was spilled.  Sticks and stones and shit.  I’d lasted weeks longer than the previous tutor.  Wrote a short story about the experience, centering on the good looking and arrogant sister, and her delightful flirtation on a night flight back from LA, ending with her touchingly sincere, if way too late, voicemail apology for how things had ended.  She’d actually begged me to come back, said she understood if I didn’t.  It was a shit story, in any case.   My tune was never recorded.  C’est la guerre.

Decades ago, piss down the drain.  Funnily enough, a few months later I got a call from someone I’d met at Get Down Bitch, he had a new act, was I still tutoring?  Negotiated a deal for twice my old rate, the girl was smart, cool and very down to earth.  “Be nice to the people you meet on the way up, because you’re going to meet them again on the way down,” she told me one day.  A beautiful, talented girl, a wonderful student and very quick study, mostly a pleasure to work with.  Her mother, on the other hand, almost the complete opposite, destroyed the girl’s promising career before it could take off.  I managed to get paid in full before it all went into the toilet, though the mother did her best to beat me out of those last two paychecks.  Just another sad story in the Naked City.

Anyway, I’m on the A train last night, after midnight, riding uptown.  On the bench diagonally across from me was a guy I am about 75% sure was Chris, the oldest brother, the one with the driest sense of humor, the most intelligent.   Thought of saying “Chris” and seeing if it was him.  Looked at him a long time, couldn’t decide.  Saw him looking over at me, an old white guy who looked a lot different than when he possibly knew me.  It had also been 20 years, after all, years that had been a bit kinder to him than to me.   Besides, one has to be cool on the subway, it’s not a Starbucks in the midwest.   Weighed the pros and cons, couldn’t find enough pros, I suppose.  Closed my eyes and rested for a few moments.

I looked over later and he was lying down on the subway bench, staring up at the ceiling of the A train car.   I heard him singing suddenly– didn’t sound like much, but maybe he wasn’t trying too hard.  He was the best singer of the four, my student always said so.  Got off the train, walked up to my apartment.  Never will know if it was the guy or not.  Does it make a difference?

We wuz stars, yo.