Bushwick Life

It's occured to me on more than several occasions that I haven't let any of you in on the visual aspects of life in Bushwick.

Well, that was partially because I hadn't collected any photos and mostly because I couldn't deal with learning how to upload them... But praise be, the folks at Blogger have made it easier.

So here we go, on a virtual tour of the 'hood as Spooge and I now know it.

Here we are at dawn, last April, tripping on ecstacy and making sure our bladders have been emptied before we crash.

Bushwick's aesthetic is as close to LA's as any New York neighborhood can get. This isn't the Upper West Side. This isn't "the village" (either one). Nor is it any part of Brooklyn where you'll find blocks of brownstones. No, Bushwick is something else. Something different. It's a collage. The landscape turns from industrial to quaint row-houses within the space of a football field. There are recently renovated loft spaces next to empty lots, which are next to stray Edwardians and Victorians, which are next to bodegas and L-train subway stops.

We used to be the beer capitol of the country. Hence the reason there is so much industry and why we have "Knickerbocker Avenue."

Last summer, of '07, we celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Blackout of '77:

The subsequent riots affected this area and the Bronx the hardest. That's part of why we have so many empty lots...

What's happening now is, the real estate whoremongers are building ugly contemporary apartment buildings in many of those lots, some right next to the projects, filling the neighborhood with a visual mixture of past and present -- but not in any historically conscious sort of way. The result is slapdash; happenstance. Very much like Los Angeles. Except here very few of us have the privilege of being able to drive past any of it. The "collage" effect that makes LA tolerable by virtue of its being a car town is lost, unless, ironically, one is capable of standing still and taking it all in.

Believe it or not, this is the view from outside my front door...

And this is the infamous live poultry store next door, featuring "Live Poultry and Polio!"

Blogger is being a pain in the ass, so I'll end this here. But I'll perfect the image skill and keep 'em coming...

I know it looks ugly, but there is such beauty in its cracks.

G

(My) Life (Or Something Like It)

Hey.

Just because you haven't heard from me lately doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about what to say next. Indeed, I've been thinking about saying alot of things. I just haven't gotten around to saying them. But rest assured (if there's one amongst you who's even capable of such an act), I've been thinking.

I've been thinking about karma and dhamra and life on this pesky little blue planet in general. I've been wondering exactly what it is I'm supposed to be doing with this thing they call "life."

"Life."

My "life."

What am I supposed to do with it?

Sound like an adolescent inquiry? Sound like the kind of thing most folks resolve in their 20s? Yeah -- I don't think so. I think this kind of question pops up again and again in life. And midlife is an especially opportune time for it to resurface. Hence the reason for the popular notion of the "midlife crisis."

Am I having a midlife crisis? Hard to say. So much of my life has been a crisis, how would I begin to distinguish one type from another? No, as a matter of fact, I'd say that at this particular moment in my life, the crises have -- at least momentarily -- subsided. That's what's given me the opportunity to reconsider who I am and what I'm supposed to be doing.

"May you get what you wish for," as the eternal blessing/curse says...

What have I gotten recently? Well, I'm at the 4-year mark here in NYC. I came here in the summer of '03 with a suitcase and $3,000 in an IRA generated from the mother-ship corporation that prints Better Homes and Gardens. Talk about a crisis. The "economy," as we Americans love to refer to it, wasn't doing well. Friends on both coasts considered my move to be "high risk," at best. But I went ahead with it anyway. I went ahead with it because my choices were: Stay miserable in LA, with connections and a home firmly in place; or, Move to NY (where I'd always dreamt I'd eventually live), "upping" the risk factor by only a few notches, when one really analyzed it enough...

I took a huge risk, and it paid off. It took a long time to do so, and in doing so, I had some tremendous support from several of the people whom I love most dearly. Erik (though he is no longer a part of my life) picked up the pieces that I'd left behind as I made my mad dash away from what had been my life. That included a dog, a cat, a car and a motorcycle. Ray helped him do so, AND he threw me one month's rent when I was renting a room in Park Slope and just beginning to figure out how to proceed. Ditto for Susan. I'll never forget how much their gestures -- and their checks! -- meant to my mere survival at the time. It took me over a year to pay them both back. They each get a kidney if they ever need it!

But soon after landing here and boarding with the ex-lesbian in Park Slope, I found my niche. Once I'd secured a "Devil Wears Prada" sort of job (much like I'd had in LA before moving), I made my way to the Williamsburg/Bushwick border. I must've had angels guiding me (cliche as that sounds), because it landed me here, at The Naughty Pine, where I not only enjoy reasonable rent (by NY standards), but I also frequently don't have to pay that rent. I get a month's rent credit for every apartment I lease out for my Hassidic landlord who doesn't own a computer or know how to log onto Craigslist. Talk about a golden goose...

But the golden goose requires feeding. She requires feeding, grooming, health care and exercise. So she's no golden ticket -- please don't confuse the two.

See, I have to feed, groom, take care of and exercise that golden goose in addition to working my full-time sales position in an internet software company. The job should be enough. Lord knows my boss thinks so. But if he were to really think about it, he'd realize he'd have to pay me quite a bit more before I could ever consider leaving the golden goose to her own devices...

All of which is to say, I work all the time. I've become the stereotypical New Yorker who thinks and talks of nothing but work. I sell for the boss and I sell for the landlord. And when I'm not selling for either of them, I'm selling myself and those around me on the notion that I'm here to get something more done than all this peddling.

Nevertheless, I feel as though I've accomplished something. I've accomplished more than just something, and I feel a few more "something's" on the horizon about to be accomplished, too. That's the blessing of subduing a crisis or two. You get to sit back, if only momentarily, and reflect upon what you've just accomplished -- and what you'd like to accomplish next.

Hence my reason for this midlife inquiry. It could've happened sooner; it could've happened later. For that reason I don't think it's a crisis. As I said, the crises have already presented themselves.

But it's an inquiry nonetheless. Once again, I'm forced to ask myself, "Who am I?," and "What am I supposed to be doing with my life?" Trite, I know. Questions so trite as to recently having been reduced to subway poster status. And yet...

In case you're expecting a revelation, or any sort of epiphany, I'll let you down as gently as I can right here and now... There isn't any. But there is -- finally -- a re-examination of what might lead to one.

Fair enough?

Hey -- it'll have to do for now.