There Are No Words

Reverend Al and an unknown fan dance on stage (à la Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" video) as Spike Lee and Chubb Rock take pics. This has something to do with the death of Michael Jackson I believe.

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One more $5 Silk Pashmina and then we’ll go. One more snapshot of me in front of the giant Bowling Green bull and then back to the hotel. One more $12 framed black and white photo of the unendingly ironic “Gay St.” sign and then we’ll catch a cab to JFK. One more cup of coffee for the road - so long as it’s complimentary and instant - and then 6,000 miles home and maybe a blanket. I was waiting for the rain. Not like some cliché song but literally. Sitting and waiting for the sky to open up like missing pages in a large print biblical coloring book. A few miles from the giant shirt button. The wind was weaving so loudly through the branches it was neck and neck with the old copper Westinghouse fan in the kitchen sputtering; oscillating reluctantly, “I think I can.” The air was thick on the porch. We were all waiting for it to fall in one big bucket. Mouths open. Hands open. Hearts open. Crying out to the heavens, “Save us! Save our city!” Sacred cows sort of shuffled along. They knew when it was coming; they just didn’t really know how to warn us. They were all huddled by an old buttonwood tree. Imagine a bunch of corporate clock-watchers all huddled around the water cooler except instead of people sacred cows. She was a painter by heart. Artist by trade. Worked with kids. Real little. They loved her. Came up from D.C. with paint all over her hands, in her hair, in her smile. Eyes were not hers. She must have stolen them from the Park Avenue jewelry drawer of some Rockefeller-era Vanderbilt socialite; those all-knowing been-around-the-world-and-haven’t-even-left-my-mind eyes. Nurse’s voice. Warm hands. Sweet words. Red licorice for lips. Ballerina’s feet. Cardboard cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She had a big tote bag from the museum but all she carried inside was an apple. Checked her beauty at the door and sat on the floor. Rubbed her palms together to shake off the dirt like a true tomboy flirt. Came up from D.C. with nothing but a complimentary tote bag and an apple. She wanted “Hunan”. That’s what she called Chinese take-out. She loved those fried noodles they give you to snack on before the waiter takes your order. Duck sauce and hot mustard. Read that menu over and over even though you always order the same thing; that’s just what you do. I killed a mosquito feasting on my forearm. I know you aren’t supposed to kill the messenger but I wasn’t interested in the message he was trying to deliver. Return to sender. Back to the great unknown. Sweet mosquito heaven in the sky. I was outside the Yale Club when he walked up. I knew it was him immediately because of those Tiffany turquoise loafers. Only he could get away with those. He had just left Benchmark and Victor (and by left I mean stormed out in the middle of a board meeting - an incident they’d write two books about years later) and was dreaming of opening a coffee shop called Leaf and Bean. He wanted to talk to me about where I stood. Basically he wanted to know if I’d lend him an exorbitant amount of money. And I would but I still wanted him to go through the ritual of having to ask. Just because years ago he made me do the same. At the Harvard Club in front of an S.R.O. full of tufted leather cigars and navy blazers he made me defend my life. And now here he was with hat in hand in need of my help. It was hard for me to make the most of these moments. My conscience betrayed me. I was just too fucking nice. I couldn’t stand watching someone squirm. Even if they had no problem doing it to me. Must have been one too many Sunday mornings at Saint Patrick’s. “Turn the other cheek” and all that. I sat quietly in the backseat reveling in the silence only the sounds of the leather creaking and groaning as I adjusted myself and nervously played with the armrest ashtray. “Where are we headed?”, I asked without looking forward. I was being cinematic. I’d seen actors do this before where they sort of address their driver but keep their eyes trained out the window. Just then I realized there was no one in the drivers seat so I hopped up front. “Don’t mind if I do.” Put the car in drive and rubber to gravel and tried to the find the main road. I figured I must have been blindfolded for days. I turned on the radio and they were speaking Spanish and playing Edith Piaf.

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I find it funny that we, as in we human beings, stole the idea of flying from birds and now we want to kill them because they get in the way of our planes. The geese are like: "Motherfucker, who do you think gave you the idea to fly in the first place!?"

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Me I was in the corner sitting next to the guy ten cups of coffee deep and about half way through the sugar bowl. Granules in a haystack. I had my eyes on the bowl like the sands of time in the hourglass on that old soap opera. This is where the fuzzy Brooklyn logic comes into play. The type of iffy math and half-truths that get passed around in the middle of the day inside hardware stores and old world delis. Things like: "Did you know The Leaning Tower of Pisa was built that way on purpose?" The cat in the white v-neck undershirt and the salt and pepper Motown fro corrected him. For whatever reason, he wasn't going to let that one fly. Maybe because I was in the store and he could tell I was listening with one ear. So the term "soap opera" comes from the melodramatic radio vignettes produced by soap companies moons ago. Underwater organ and all. Not sure why The Leaning Tower of Pisa came up, though It may have been because there was a stack of VHS tapes that were sort of leaning to one side like a game of drunken Jenga. These are the types of things which come into discussion during the middle of the day under the shade of an awning and a warm breeze. I'm surprised all the history revision doesn't drive the deli cats to drink. I don't know about you but I couldn't just sit on that pile of Posts all day while these guys argued passionately about things that simply were not true - on either side of the argument. Then again, these guys squabbled for distance, not accuracy. This was their pastime. These are the guys who ride the bus at 11:30 a.m. on a Wednesday. "Did you hear?!", she said, running in as if on the set of Little House. "Yes, we heard", there was a collective and knowing sigh. People with little patience for those so late to the party in the instant gratificationism digital age. News becomes old news in mere seconds. Don't get caught talking about old news at the dinner table. Relevant is one minute ago. Anything more than that and you're just telling folk stories. I watched her circumnavigate the rind of a pumpkin orange clementine. He used to work for the Borough of Courts. His suits always smelled faintly of Murphy's Oil.

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Letter I Sent To WLTW Lite-FM

When I want to take my midday nap I normally turn to 96.3 WQXR. However, this past Sunday I wasn't in the mood for Dvorak or Sibelius and so I turned to WLTW. I wanted to relax to the soothing sounds of some "lite" hits. I wanted to feel like I was in the back of a black Lincoln being driven home on the FDR. I wanted to feel like I was in the waiting room of my orthodontist; I just wanted to unwind and drift to sleep. Just as I started slowly spiraling into the shallow shores of my sweet afternoon cat nap "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor came on. "Eye of the Tiger by Survivor?! On Lite-FM?!", I thought. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the radio. I thought my sleepy mind was playing a joke on me. Alas, it was not a joke. Suddenly, the relaxing Lite-FM was playing one of the most well known HARD ROCK songs of all time? The song featured in Rocky 3 as he prepares for the fight of his life?! The same song played at sporting events across the world to incite and foment a crowd? So here I was about to drift into a lovely cat nap when suddenly a call to arms came across the airwaves! Suddenly I'm dreaming of Rocky Balboa climbing the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and drinking raw eggs and punching cold slabs of beef in a meat locker. Why on earth have you added this song to your rotation? Whatever studies you did are obviously wrong. Trust that no one wants to tune to Lite-FM, the bastion of soft hits, and hear "Eye of the Tiger".

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Triple Cross

Fell asleep last night reading an advance updated paperback copy of "Triple Cross" by the one and only Peter Lance. Like his last two books, "1000 Years For Revenge" and "Cover Up", the cast of characters reads like a play - if only they were novels.

In this, the third volume in his investigative holy trinity of the bumbling ham-handed World Trade Center bombing investigation, Peter Lance once again rolls back the tape to where it all started: nearly a decade before that fateful fatal Tuesday morning in September.

Through tireless, and downright obsessive, research and interviews Lance has managed to unravel what was a perfect storm of collusion, carelessness and communication failure. Lance is unbiased and absolutely meticulous letting the excavated facts speak for themselves; at times so loudly the words themselves seem deafening.

Now I'm not one of these dolts who screams "Bush was behind 9/11" because frankly, and as you will learn, nothing could ever be that simple. However, the simultaneous occurrence of all these events which, taken individually, would be far less cataclysmic than the result of their chance combination, simply cannot be denied. To put it simply: the amount of people that had to fuck up for 9/11 to happen right under our collective nose is simply obscene and downright criminal; be it connivance, coincidence or diffusion of responsibility. And this was back when W. was still just the Governor of Texas.

As Peter begins in his introduction :

"If the measure of any nonfiction book is how the public officials cricitized in it react, Triple Cross has clearly struck a nerve."

Minor detail: a man named Patick Fitzgerald tried to kill the book. You may know Mr. Fitzgerald as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. You may also recognize his name from the Valerie Plame/CIA leak grand jury investigation, which led to the prosecution and conviction of Dick Cheney's then chief of staff Scooter Libby. Fitzgerald's office is currently investigating the alleged conspiracy to sell Obama's vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder which led to the arrest of Rod Blagojevich back in December. Oh, and in his spare time Mr. Fitzgerald has tried to have "Triple Cross" erased from existence. Hmmm... I wonder why one of the most powerful prosecutors in the U.S. Justice Department is writing 50 page letters to Harper Collins trying to have Peter's book silenced? Maybe its because Lance identifies Mr. Fitzgerald as the FBI official most responsible for allowing a senior Al Qaeda operative (and a close friend of Bin Laden himself) to remain operational and at-large under the auspices of our Government. Or maybe its because the truth hurts, and if you needed validation, well, there it is.

Sadly, the pangs of hindsight have never stung quite this hard and this time not only has it all come home to roost but its standing right in our living room with a smoking hot gun.

The updated version of "Triple Cross" hits stores on paperback next Tuesday, June 16.

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Current Affairs

From the mailbag of sorts:

Re: Barack Obama

"Did we elect an eloquent orator? A speechwriter?! Enough with the analogies - what have you DONE for me lately? What WILL you DO for me?"

"Has anyone else noticed Barack sounds like Jack Lemmon from "The Out Of Towners"? On certain words POTUS whistles the final syllables. Trust me, once you pick up on it you'll be hard pressed to ignore it ever again. You've been warned."

Re: David Carradine Found Dead

"Hang on a minute (no pun intended): David Carradine in Thailand. In a Bangkok motel room. Found with his hands tied behind his back. Hanging from the shower curtain rod... The man did not kill himself, folks. You don't need to be John Douglas to figure this one out. Check the Bangkok Yellow Pages under E for Escorts."

Re: Off-Duty Officer Is Fatally Shot by Police in Harlem

"Whether Omar J. Edwards or the cop who shot him was black or white is completely irrelevant. Omar was running down East 125th Street at night in his regular street clothes waving a gun around. Was it a tragedy? Yes. An awful accident. A horrible mistake. But race is completely irrelevant here."

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Fin de Siècle / The Secretariat

I. Fin de Siècle

"I been gone a while", as if acting in a movie he spoke cinematic and slow. "But now I'm here to stay. Got me a coupl'a friends and a place to lay."

"Well, that's good", I wasn't quite sure where he was going with this one so I held on. It wasn't like we were surreptitiously hitching a ride in the middle of the night on a freight car through Albuquerque but I didn't dare tell him that. He was on a roll and I felt like we were on the set of "Emperor of the North Pole". But now I'm thinking if he's Lee Marvin that would make me Ernest Borgnine and I wasn't quite ready to lay down with that one just yet.

I suppose for posterity's sake we should roll the tape all the way back to Bernalillo County; back when our dreams were still busy straddling the Río Grande. I was with a girl from Nuevo León by way of Washington, D.C. And yes, it gets even weirder. Except here by 'weird' I mean magical and by 'magical' I mean cinematic. Not unlike my man Lee Marvin who was still chewing on that same sweet cherry cigar he'd found on a trail inside Cibola National Forest (at least that's where he'd told us he found it. Naturally, I had my doubts.) I had realized, however, some time earlier that it was best not to ask where Mr. Marvin found his borrowed cigars. It was safer to just sit and listen and maybe catch a contact high - or headache for that matter.

"They just don't make Blinds To Go for a Murray Hill window", sure, she had a point and sure, I was listening, but my mind was distracted by this giant Caesar salad that had just been placed before for me and the piping hot sweet kugel she'd ordered. She was all raisins, cinnamon and sweet farmer's cheese behind fresh oven steam. Sugar and warm sour cream. "My boyfriend at the time was Jewish so I was trying to show him how a Catholic girl can cook like his grandma", table two were deep in conversation and I was enjoying every last warm noodle of their sweet volley.

"You can tell where you are by the garbage. In Bed-Stuy its empty boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes. In Chelsea its empty bottles of Riesling", she was cute the way she toyed with the ice in her iced tea. If only she knew just how gorgeous she was she probably wouldn't be sitting across from me but I wasn't about to get up and leave. And here I was drinking coffee faster than they could fill it back up but still they never wanna just leave the fucking pot on the table. I guess it gives them something to do when things are slow. I wish I had that problem.

I knew a guy who bought a star for his girlfriend. He was upset when I told him it was most likely a bunch of bullshit. I mean, sure its a sweet gift but how does he know the guy next door doesn't own the same fucking star!? That's like saying you own a raindrop or a cloud except with coordinates. And now you've gotta go out and find a refracting telescope or else whats the point of buying a star? These are the things that weave their way through my skull in the middle of the night. I must have left the screen door open because all kinds of storm was getting in my mind.

II. The Secretariat

I had a dream all the yellow cabs in New York turned on us and became kamikazes. One jumped the curb outside the Waldorf and took out 20 people. Another jumped the curb on 30-something and Madison and hit a crowd of people on their way to work. Two cabs drove right into a coffee cart with a long line near Houston. It was happening all over the city. Suddenly like roaches they were everywhere. A screaming yellow blur. Like zombies. People were diving into stores to avoid getting hit on the street and moments later a cab would smash into the store itself. There was no haven. No place of safety, shelter or sanctuary. At first people thought it was some mass cruise control GPS accelerator malfunction but it was happening everywhere and targets were obvious. Like bombs with wheels. Street level, sidewalk terrorism. The asphalt became the sky. 1010 WINS was advising everyone to head underground but people thought that was a trap, too. It was scary. And in my hypnopomp hallucinations I struggled to open my eyes and make it stop.

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Moros

Forgive me if this one comes to a bit cloudier than the others. I've just about run out of Will Shortz puzzles and I've been up all night.

I was living in Pequeña Habana at the time. Doing my best Haitian Creole with a heavy South Brooklyn accent.

I could still see the boxes of pseudoephedrine behind the counter in shackles. To this day I can smell the white leather in that idling Corvette. For those on the run, with no time or desire to eat, like most of us were in those days with white knuckles on old suitcases, a shot of café Cubano could revive the dead. I remember the sound of the heavy door on that old Corvette closing behind me. The big getaway. I thought we'd pulled it off. Figures it would turn out to be the last car door I'd ever close. Hell, it was the last Yank tank I'd ride in for a very, very long time but what a score it would have been.

The morning I'd meet my bride, Moros, I was having a leisurely breakfast at Versailles. It was no Café Tortoni but it was comfortable and the waitresses knew my face. I always sat in the same table and ordered the same thing: a tostada and café con leche. I'd usually break the tostada into pieces, then dunk it into the café con leche. Just like Americans would dunk their doughnuts into their coffee. I had to act the part. I could smell the smoky creamed ham croquetas from the kitchen, shaped in finger rolls, lightly breaded, and then lightly fried. Very little was deep-fried and there were few heavy or creamy sauces in the traditional Cuban cooking style but naturally I found and fell in love with the few that were. I always ended breakfast with a cortado and the check. Even though I'd spend the whole day having meetings at Versailles I'd pay for each meal one by one. It was my OCD. Must have jumped into my luggage before I left New York City a few years earlier.

The time of day between breakfast and lunch was a delicious gray area of pastelitos, croquetas, bocaditos, and empanadas or a media noche (that means midnight sandwich) - some sort of hearty meat with Swiss cheese and then topped with pickles and mustard on sweet egg bread. The midnight sandwiches were more addictive than the pseudoephedrine. Sometimes I'd have them bring out the congri before dinner. It was this white rice and black bean mixture that some people called "Moors and Christians", then came boniato in a garlic dressing, and maduros.

Next Up: Fin de siècle. The end of the century.

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You can hear me on two new podcasts this week, completely unrelated.

Issue Oriented # 42
Featuring FAKE PROBLEMS, GOOD OLD WAR, MANSIONS and, well, me.

ChickCast Episode # 32 May 6 Episode: Today we get nostalgic with an old friend from WNEW. You can also download & save it here

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