The future I want is here

Seen recently on NYT: "Why Househusbands Are The Future". Choice quotes include:

"...why do older women get a call name like "cougars" while older men are just lecherous old coots?"

About the TV program Cougar Town: "This isn't about desperate middle-aged American women. It's about desperate young American men who are latching onto an older woman who's a good earner." Come on America, spread some of that thinking around the globe. I am fast losing any claims to "young man" status.

It's not the size, nor how you use it: "A study of online dating found that a guy who is 5 feet 6 inches tall can attract as much interest as a 6-foot-tall man — if he makes at least $125,000 more a year."

Then there is the passage on pads and armpits, that even I find too disgusting to use here.

I am waiting...

New York = No way

Boy am I glad I left New York. "Why?" you may ask. Or not, but I shall explain anyway.

As you all know, NYC is the most dangerous place in the world.
- When aliens invade, they come to NYC. Too many movies, but "Independence Day" and "War of the Worlds", for starters.
- When Godzilla wants to lay his/her androgynous eggs, he/she, ignoring all the fucking places in the goddamned-ly large Pacific Ocean, manages to seek out NYC. What a shameless, unpatriotic Madama Butterfli-zard(ess). On a side note, there is a beautiful island called Lanzarote somewhere in the Balearic, which of course translates to "Lizard".
- Monkey invasion (Planet of the Apes). Please stop being childish and pointing out apes are not monkeys. I bet you believe in "global warming" too.
- Mr. Deep Freeze, son of Mr. Global Warming, in that wretched, wretched movie "Day after Tomorrow".
- Post-apocalyptic blood suckers - "I am Legend"

You point out these are all movies, and many of them suck. To which I reply: many French people come to New York, IN REAL LIFE!!! They can often be seen sitting outside "alfresco" cafes sipping "espresso".

However, there is a divine (or perhaps moviemaking) sense of justness, as shitty stuff like Twister and the giant disgusting thing in Evolution manage to happen in Podunk or Bumfuck or somewhere hopeless and flat, just like... never mind, I promised my therapist no anatomical references.

So it is for all these reasons that NYC is already a scary place, but now it got even scarier:

DNA to be stored in NYC

Here is a movie we have not seen. Neo wakes up, and realizes he has been fooled. He is not human, he is the Predator, but denying all movie-logic, he is in love with his mortal enemy the Alien. The movies were all... LIES!! He then proceeds to commandeer a starship with many little green men with laser guns, destroys large swathes of New York, and steals the DNA so he can change himself and have passionate, carnal, out-of-this-world sex with the Alien. The Alien meanwhile, runs away with Ellen and some of the new manless sperm, so he kills himself. His now-unsupervised experiment goes awry, and all the little green men become monkeys and take over New York.

In the distant future, there is a furore because of a scene showing a monkey kissing a lowly human being.

Thank you, but I have to take my pills now.

The Parade

"You do realize there is a parade", messaged my friend (well his wife, actually), as we fixed our appointment in the UES for Sunday afternoon.

What parade? I thought a little, and forgot about it. Seconds after stepping out to go to the Village (see prior article), it hit me: Puerto Rican Day!! The crowds were already out in force on the streets, in the subway, families of mamis and papis, shorts, halters and bikini tops.

This brought back prior memories of the parade - which I'd never been to - of masses of Puerto Ricans on streets and subways, being, shall we say, 'rambunctious'.

As the appointment neared and I went uptown, I thought I'd walk through the park. But 5th avenue was closed. Even before I got there, I had to squeeze through very loudly yelling people, all men. Apparently, yelling is a Puerto Rican male-pride thing. I think it is rather stupid. Please write your elected representative that yelling be banned if ever PR were to choose to become the 51st state.

Everyone was decked out in the fPR lag - one draped like a cape, another's shirt or shorts in the colors of the flag, many carrying little flags, putting me on guard against an accidental blinding as they waved it back and forth. Wifebeaters were preferred outfits for men. Exceptionally large women were wearing incredibly tiny shorts - it was nice to see "non-conformist beauty" being embraced and displayed. Teenage girls were into tube tops.

All cross streets were blocked off along 5th, opened every 10 minutes to let the crowds across. I stood at the barricade, on the East side of maybe 60th street. A truck came by from the direction of the Metlife building, blaring music. Kids decked out in uniformed tights walked and danced behind it. Las chicas all around were dancing - they weren't even trying really, what amazing sense of rhythm!! It was utterly sexy.

At the next opening of the baricade, I crossed, only to find the Park pretty much closed. At the next interlude, I crossed back and went over to Madison to walk uptown. Ronald McDonald was approaching further down 5th. Sen. Charles Schumer had already passed, before the music truck.

The crowd swayed, and it was impossible not to stare at the effortlessly swaying hips of the women, sinouos, sexy, hypnotic. The famous latina hips, generous yet wired to swing, mocking gravity and Newton's laws. The sweet smell of booze wafted here and there, from the breaths of the rowdy youth. It was getting a li'l balmy in the rugby shirt, under a glorious sun and blue skies. Summer in New York!

Cops stood on every corner. Their primary occupation seemed to be to answer passers-by regarding hwo to get around the parade. I checked with an officer, making sure the streets were unblocked below 40th, or my cab ride later to Penn Station would have been a disaster. Cars were driving around with loud music blaring, and windows or tops down, flags on the bonnet. People on the sidewalk cheered, yelled, gyrated to the music.

White folk, both tourists and Upper East Side residents, looked curiously alien, some indifferent, some awed, some surely resentful.

I walked up to the Whitney, to the warm and prolonged embrace of my friend's wife. To think I had considered not catching up with them! We spoke of the parade - "these people don't wear (much) clothes" my friend observed.

"Yes, New York is an awful city!"

I think sake may be the perfect no-hangover drink. After an evening of Kasadela (3 carafes of sake and some good food), and several beers later at some nondescript bar but reliable bar ("We're open 24 hours!"), I still woke up by 9am. Then again, it might have been jet lag.

Anyways, with sufficient time to kill before the 1pm appointment, I went to - where else? - The Village.

Washington Square Park was open. Tents abounded - National Science Day or something, "Science Teacher Sarah" (as the notice-in-progress indicated) was setting up a booth. Scientific looking men were shooting large, solid looking smoke rings from a stage on to a just-forming crowd of children, from little cylindrical "canons" - probably dry ice. Poor things, destined to be geeks - no one likes the sciences anymore.

Quantum Leap, the veggie hangout, wasn't open. Readers may recall this is the place that serves healthful food that took a piece of my tooth, thanks to little pebble masquerading as a bean in a burrito. Shame on you, pebble.

So I took a seat on the sidewalk at Cafe Reggio, perfect for people watching. A copy of the NYT would have completed the lovely, sunny morning companionship, but I stuck with Slaughterhouse 5. The chilly weather of the previous night had persisted at the beginning of the morning, but the sheepish sun apparently had woken out of its slumber a few weeks late, in mid-June. The bars and most restaurants were closed, and thankfully there was no stench of vomit from the gutters. This was MacDougal, after all.

Along came a posse of kids from the direction of the park, led by a tall man with - are you ready? - a green plastic light saber held up high, leading said posse. He was wearing a greenish tweed jacket, khakis, sneakers, and possibly a goatee. Memories are so much more fun when you embellish them, don't you agree (but the green light saber and green tweed were true and unforgettable)?

He stopped a few yards off Reggio, and as the assembling schoolkids lumbered around him, switched on his microphone and said: "Yes, New York is an awful city!" (Presumaby responding to a lament from some Iowan kid) I looked at the middle-aged lady on the next table, and we just burst out laughing.

He went on to warn them about sitting on the sidewalk, and said something about Edgar Allan Poe having lived in the vicinity. Lady-next-table mentioned she knew Kerouac and others liued there. More kids walked by. "It is too early for this (craziness, was the unsaid implication)!", she noted. I thought I heard a snippet about Poe and Mormons. We had our eggs and coffee.

A lady in a white station wagon, double parked, went in and out of the next building, carrying stuff - that looked like it all needed to be in the landfill - to her new place, one assumed. An Indian trinket shopkeeper on the sidewalk was helping her.

A man came down the road, and his dog wanted to poop on in the middle of the street, but thankfully no one ran him over as he picked up the stuff. Thank god, or his epitaph would have been tragicomic: "Here lies Johnny Qwest, run down by a Mack truck as he was helping keep NYC clean!"

An old man whizzed by on rollerblades. A man in sweats walked back to his apartment with his Sunday morning paper and smoke.

A large group of seniors stopped across the street. The tour guide climbed up the steps of a brownstone, said that NYU was a private school, and that the NYU buildings were not open to the public. She then pointed out to Reggio - it is a venerable MacDougal institution, after all, and I felt like I was in a zoo.

After pondering over this line of thought further, I felt I was home too, looking indulgently at these gawkers, daytrippers, itinerant interlopers. At once home and zoo. I ordered another cup of coffee.

New York

All apprehensions about NYC melting away, with friends and Brooklyn Lager.

Cant figure out why there were reservatiions, anyway.

Belgrade in New York

On the Belgrade theme, a coupla years after the Belgrade trip, I was back in New York carousing into the late night with my friends - the same group that was with me in Belgrade, incidentally. After a long night of god-knows-what, we ended up somewhere (the Lower East perhaps?) in a Serbian restaurant. Needless to say we were thrilled.

Except this time, I had acquired "culture" and did not want to make an "exception", staying veggie. Hmm... perhaps a piece of Belgrade in New York called for loosening the strictures. No matter! A good time was had by all, as they say.

Except for the cows in my friends' burgers of course.

PS: Am pretty sure this is the place.

Alcoholic cravings

For a while now, I have been craving a peg of my favorite libation: Hendricks. It was fairly easy to come by in New York. It has been much more difficult to come by this part of the world. The barkeep at the Post Bar seemed to know of it, but only had a different premium gin, for which he warned he'd charge me double. It came out of a very old bottle and I wonder if any of a gin's characteristic flavor was even left behind. Finally, I found some relief at the Mo Bar at the Landmark Oriental hotel in Hong Kong, which my blessed employer insists we park ourselves at because "we need to clock in enough nights to keep our corporate rate". Hallelujah to the pointy-haired fools among us.

Flaws and Disorder

Ding Dong! That famous Law and Order signature ding-dong, frankly, is one of the best things on TV. I know, that is pathetic, but I ain't apologizing for that.

Anyway, you'd think with the number of Indians in the USA, the fucking writers could get the basics straight in a recent episode. Apparently they just smoke crack all day long, taking breaks to eat hemp cookies, and write stories based on names pulled from the index of old editions of the Jungle Book. Dick Wolf, you may be rich and successful, but your show is going down the drains.

So this is the plot. A very exotic looking woman called "Bella" - Bella "Khan" - cast in the mould of Benazir Bhutto fighting for Tamil independence in Sri Lanka, which we all know is attached at the butt to the Hindu Kush; her husband "AJ" who look like Omar Sharif; and her brother "Rani Khan". That's right, Rani as in "Queen", and "Khan" as in the old Mongol/Turkic surname that means roughly "King", which many idiot Afghans, wrongly, think is their martial birthright.

You don't have to be Indian to see how ridiculous this plot is. And Madhur Jaffrey, that annoying bitch that pops up every time an old crone with an annoying Indian accent is required in anything on movies, TV or milk cartons.

Shame on you Dick Wolf.

I am sleeping in the kitchen

The next time I visit New York. Check this out out:

http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/kitchen-tours/kitchen-tour-dutchs-renovation-done-right-045266