Que? (no hablo Espanol.)

There's an old self-depricating U.S. joke that that tends to bring a smile to European faces. It goes:

What do you call someone that speaks two languages? Bi-ligual.
Some who speaks three languages? Tri-Lingual.

Someone who only speaks one language? . . . American.

Call it smug isolationism, but throughout most of the country, just English is enough. What if we happen to travel internationally? No sweat, everyone else speaks English too, so we shouldn't have to worry. And we wonder why the rest of the world thinks we're so smug and self-centered. Sure, we have mandatory language classes through elementary, middle, high school and higher ed, but it never seems to stick. I know this from a direct personal experience, I'm struggling desperately through an Italian level 4 class, as it's the only class I have left to receive my undergrad degree. And i'm terrible at Italian.

Anyway, it's for this reason that I'm quite grateful that many of my drivers speak Spanish. Some from Puerto Rico, some are Mexican, Guatemalan, Venezuela, Peru, etc. I'm sure we've all heard the negative stereotypes and angry tirades about Latin Americans taking American jobs, but just thinking about needing to learn to speak English while maintaining their native language at home is admirable. It is also a great boon to us born-and-raised American guides who find themselves at a loss trying to explain the complxities of the Grey-Line process to solely Spanish speaking tourists. This is when my driver is often more than happy to jump in and take over. Muchos Gracias.

I am now going to share with you a story imparted to me from another guide about a story she heard from a Spanish speaking driver named Cuba.

Some youngblood, a newbie guide stepped on to the bus, asked the driver his name.
"Cuba." He responded.
"Oh, you're from Cuba?" The guide asked. as it would have it, yes. The driver named Cuba was from the nation of Cuba. Presumably, his parents were somewhat patriotic.
"Yah. From Cuba." He said, somewhat wearily, having gone through this frustrating explination a number of times before.
"Oh, okay. . ." The guide reponded, "And you're name." The kid was clueless. So, Cuba decided to have a little from with him,

"My name is Penga."

And so, all throughout the tour at each stop, the guide would say:

"Driver Penga, if you would stop here" or
"Driver Penga, we some people to pick up." or
"Driver Penga, if you would pause here breifly so I can point out. . ." And the guide had no clue why the group of Mexican tourists in the back kept erupting in laughter. They got off at Battery Park, halfway through the tour at which point they decided to tell the guide the joke that the driver decided to play on him.

"You know that Penga means Penis is Spanish?" The guide's face turned beat red, and that night, decided he was going to start studying Spanish.

And on your left you'll see. . . oh crap. . .

It's happened to me once before. Someone I know spotting me on the bus. It was acutally quite karmic, every time I do a Night Loop and pass by the Bowery Poetry Club, I give a shout out to whoever's working there, often Pavel, I kid I knew from high school. This time, Pavel stepped out of the starbucks he works at day times in Soho on and shouted out to me. It's fun, it's a good way to let your tourists know that you really live in this city. This time, it was a little more awkward.

Coming up Pike Street, after the Brooklyn Bridge story transitions into The Expansion of Chinatown bit, I see a rather shapely and nicely tanned young woman in a tanktop and sunglasses jumping up and down and waving. Of course, my initial response was just to feel flattered that some hot New York babe was so excited to see a cute tour guide, (yeah, I'm a smug bastard sometimes.) But that was when I recognized her.

"Oh crap. . . that's my ex-girlfriend." I normally shy away from any expletives, even PG-rating, let alone going into my personal or romantic life, but it kind of cut me off guard. I moved on quickly, but the sighting stayed in my mind for the rest of the day.

Hannah and I dated briefly. Only about 7 weeks, which was actually the most substantive relationship I'd had in years. We met on a dating site. Big deal. We planned a rendezvous at Strand bookstore, where she would "accidentally" drop an Ezra Pound anthology on my foot. We would laugh about the clever nominal pun implied in the author's name and go out for coffee from there. She was very attractive and had a rent-controlled apartment in Chelsea, which was more than enough reason to stick with her, all though I was far too focussed on my own personal development to really make an emotional blah, blah, blah, I called it quits.

Regretted it sometimes, offered to her that we maybe catch up over a beer, which she proudly rebuffed, politely offering that although she had no grudge nor negative feelings toward me, she also had no interest in seeing me either. Then we glanced at each other on a crowded Williamsburg bound L-train on a Friday night. A shy smile and a wave were all we felt obligated to offer. But after her seeing me at work? In my "office"?? In front of my "clients"???? Oh, I wasn't going to let this one slide.

I had a maybe-date with a phone-tag-honey in the East Village later, but with no confirmation, dressed in my spiffy short-sleeve cordurouy jacket and punky-T & jeans, my bicycle at my disposal and Chelsea being on the route from the Grey Line office to EV, I think it was only appropriate to make a visit.

BUZZZZZ
"Hello?"
"Hannah? It's Gideon."
Pause
"Hannah? What're you doing on my tour route?"
"What are YOU doing at my apartment?"
"It was on my bike route. Come out to the fire escape."

I decided that if I'm ever going to make a serious commitment to a girl, it'll probably be after we'd already broken up once. For some morbid reason, it seems like you need that initial rise, fall, and period of reflecton before you can get away goofy romantic crap like this, that seem to only happen in John Cusack movies.

"Listen!" I think we should have a bottle of wine and discuss ways to avoid each other a little better, cause this way doesn't seem to be working."
"A bottle of wine?"
". . . uh. . . or beer?"
"Beer sounds good."
"Should I come up?"
"I'll come down."

Well, I'm glad she made it clear.

We went to a place called The Half King on 23rd & 10th. The only place around there that wasn't a gay bar or a chi-chi bar/restaurant. Made up to look like a Olde Fashioned Inn. A blues band in the back was wailing away and the drinks were overpriced, but good. I liked it immediately. They handed us a couple of menus that told us that The Half King was an Indian cheif who helped a young Liutenant George Washington in the French-Indian wars, among others, and was a military strategist and fierce warrior and leader, one that had greatly inspired and influence The Man Who Would Be President.

The conversation flowed smoother after the first round of Bourbon based cocktails. She was living the good life, graphic designing for the Absolut campaign, which means sometimes getting paid to party, and going to fabulous fashionista parties, sometimes for free. Her roommate also moved out, meaning she was now living in a two-bed in Chelsea, by herself, paying maybe 1/5 what the place would be worth on the market. Oh she looooved rubbing that one at me.

But she was a City-Gal. A corporate-artist in the world of the Beautiful People, which at 23 was not bad at all. I'm a Brooklyn-Boy, poet and hipster-kid working in the family business, entertaining for a wage that I can coast on, if not really save or spend extravagantly. If it were a race, technically she would have "won" but we both knew it wasn't like that. We both had good lives, we could share them, but we'd never want to trade.

It also might've worked. In theory, on the opposites attract front. A perfect lay-out for a romantic New York comedy, and maybe it would've worked here in the real world too. It just didn't.

"Oh, let me show you something." I once asked her to design a business card though. it's never a good idea to mix sex with business projects though, even if it is just a biz card. I produced one from my wallet and showed her the image I had described to her eight months ago.

"Oh. It looks good." She placed it down on the bar. Pause.

"You can keep it if you want." A slow, snake-venom grin crept up her Manhattan-lacquered lips.

"It's allright. If I wanted to see you, I'd know how." Yeah. ambushing me on my bus.

The night ended with a peck on the check and no expectation of another future encounter. The phone-tagger had left me a message while we were at the bar.

She made other plans.

The Day of the Dust Cloud (four years later)

Of course, it started like any other Sunday. Gratefully later than most of my other days, but still a day I have to work, the last day of ym five day week, a sunny, yet breezy morning, probably pants today, not shorts. Then over breakfast, my housemate Sean, also a tour guide for Grey Line says to me:

"The first tower was hit four minutes ago." My first response was a flashback. Of someone in my campus dorm, up in Western Massachusets saying something about a plane and a tower as I was brushing my teeth, still shaking the night's crust from my eyes. Of course, I came back to today, my second reaction being just an instant of "Oh no, not again." When of course, by the third instant I had caught his meaning, and remembered. Today's The Day.

And to be perfectly honest, I have no personalized reason to comemorate The Day. Meaning that I knew nobody in the towers, and knew nobody who knew anyone. My greiving was the public greiving oh acknowledging that my home and my city had been attacked, and in the collective sense, we were all sharing one large wound. I mourn my being removed from the scene. 200 miles away, going through the motions of classes and college routine for the next three days until I threw a handful of clothes into a pack and hitch-hiked my way down the I-495 until I was back in Brooklyn and could see The Dust Cloud personally, from across the Fulton Landing.

My life wasn't changed substantially, but the next three years being removed from my city made me feel like I couldn't experience how the city was dealing, adjusting, and preparing to move on. I remember on holidays, walking around the financial district wondering if it was just a psychological block, or if I was just so removed from the experience that I couldn't find the border of the clean-up, seeing the wreckage only once in it's still smashed-war zone state before I started bringing student and senior groups to the spot so they could snap photos and I could give my memorized speech of facts, events, and praise of our Heros.

I'm fifteen months out of college now, my first 9/11 feeling finally re-integrated into the rhytms of my city. Watching the rapidly gentrifying over-the-river spots of my beloved Brooklyn, taking part in the arts scene in Williamsburg, Greenpoint and the still-rebellous Lower East Side, trying to scream away the encroaching Starbucks' and six-figure execs. Laughing bitterly at the meager efforts of the democratic primary, wondering which clown is going to win the 4-runner rat race, just to crumble under Mayor Mike's billions in campaigning and pro-active approach to development and city improvement. Even if it is typical corporate-centric profiteering behind most of the public-works projects Mayor Mike is advocating, I have to say: one of the first things I look for in a mayor is compitence. And he exudes it a lot better than any of the Democrats.

New York City's evolution of the past 20 years has been astonishing, and the past four in particular have showed how powerfully the city has been reborn and continues to grow and evolve for the better. Except in that one sixteen acre spot between Church and West, Liberty and Vesey. A place that has remained for four years as a pit, both literally and ideologically. The tour bus drives past it one block removed. Which is a lot less removed than I feel some time. I ahve a New Yorker, yet I personally have no say what should be there. And I, just like those who are actually making the choices that will change the city permanently, seem to have no idea what should be there either.

$27 and "Goodfellas"

$27 dollars. How's it always come to $27 dollars? A random smattering of people from all over the world, placed on to the Grey Line line (is that just redundant?) in on order maintained only by their personal schedulesand the diligent managerial work of our dispatchers, brought here to New York on a schedule only semi-cross cultural, assuming school groups in the spring, families in the summer, older couples in the fall, and only lovers, historians and idiots in the in the winter.

These groups, or packs, pairs or cadres come to The Greatest City in the World each with different budgets, different concepts on tipping. (though it's pretty easy to tell- Europeans & Asians: Bad. Americans & UKers: Good. Australians: Varies.) So how is it, that in the end, atfer a countless number of smirk, hand-in-pocket and dash-out-the-door, a stack of one's, a handful of change, the occassional five and rare ten or twenty, my 50% cut and the end of a good tour, so often comes to exactly $27?

Now I need to define what I mean by a "good" tour. Being a tour guide is a performer's job, so either you're on, or you're not. If weather's good, preferably sunny/part cloudly with a nice breeze that's the first factor. I've got to be feeling good, which after a 3AM night at a Williamsburg rock show doesn't seem to kick in, that's factor two. An English-speaking bus helps, and one that's attentive makes three. Moderately moving traffic (the ocassional jam is expected, at which point you pull out your any-spot spiels. Mine are what the water-towers are all about, and where to get a good NYC slice and a dog.) is four. And five, lucky five? That's your opening bit. You need to let these people know who you are, and what makes their guide really a "New Yorker". Knowing the guide as a person who lives and works in this exciting city in which they're having a vacation is a good way to make them want to give you money. I start my tour sometimes with a Sinatra impression, a loud proud shout-out to Brooklyn and a reference to my 4 generations of history and heritage in New York City. If the eyes light up, it's smooth sailing from there, if not? Well, I've got a few more spots to get the juices flowing.

Anyhowz, I had a $27 10am run, which makes me happy and hungry by the time I step off at 12:30. ready for my self-reward of a big ol' salad from Carve on the corner, often consisting of corn, chicken, egg whites, blue cheese, and other randoms to mix it up, before I plop down in the theater. . . ah. It's an old Grey Line classic. Goodfellas. If it's ever a slow day, and nobody brought in anything good, we go with Goodfellas. An old NYC classic, giving all us workaday shmoes a moment of gangsta fantasy before we get back to the millstone.

Either way, there's one scene, about thirty minutes in, where they're all sitting in the restaurant, before the famous "Funny like a clown?" monologue that gets each and every guide in the semi-lit theater to grit his teeth, just a little bit. . .

"For us to live any other way was nuts.

To us those goody-good people who
worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks...

...and took the subway to work and
worried about bills, were dead.

They were suckers.
They had no balls."

Yep, we each all thought through our furrowed brows, until one of us inevitably said it:

"That's us guys. They're talking about us."

"Two Gentlemen of Verona" a review

My experiences at the Papp theater have mostly been good ones. The Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep 2001 performance of Chekhov's "The Seagull" was absolutely masterful (also including wonderful performances by Natalie Portman and John Goodman.) Being within a stone's throw of such A-list actors on a gorgeous summer evening in my beloved city's central oasis, all while not costing me a simple red cent was another great reminder of why I love New York City, even in the sweltering, smelly summer.

Just last year, when I found myself with quite a bit of free time thanks to a shattered heel bone (now recovered) I found it a wonderful use of that free time to lounge out in front of the Delacourt Theater to go see Sam Waterson (Law & Order) Kristen Johnson (Third Rock from the Sun) and Jimmy Smitts (The West Wing) in a graceful, elegant, yet at the same time, silly and playful faithful interpretation of the comedy "Much Ado About Nothing."

So when I heard that the summer's first play "As You Like It" was dull and all in all lousy, I had some lower expectations fore this summer. Although, the second play of the summer looked interesting. . . a musical version of Two Gentlemen of Verona. Well, for me, it wasn't a summer in NYC without an outing to the Papp Theater free shows in Central Park, so I was quite excited when Grandma called me to let me know she had secured me a ticket for Sunday evening's show. Going to the Papp with Grandma was also a summer tradition I was proud to upkeep. I went in with high expectations, which can often be a mistake, but I'm happy to say, was not in this case. The play was fantastic.

I'm not sure Will Shakespeare would agree, or even recognize the play as his own, as infused with Carribean music and dance themes (Even the conductor was a shapely woman dressed in a string bikini top and grass skirt) with bright, gaudy "Age of Aquarius" costumes and wild pop cultural references in their musical numbers. The plot is easy enough to paraphrase. Two friends are off to Milan from Verona, one of which (Proteus) has just professed his love to a Ms. Julia, sealing his passion with one hot night before leaving, resulting in an unexpected pregnancy. His friend Valentine swears off love all together, only to fall for Sylvia the daughter of the Emperor of Milan, who is engaged to a doofus, and also becomes the object of affection of the less-than-faithful Proteus. Madness ensues and everything ends up all right in the end.

Proteus is played by Oliver Isaac, a short, cute, curly-haired charmer who's shining moment is a Funky, Jamaican themed song about how he wants his friend Valentine to be happy, but not as happy as he. Valentine, also a wonderful performance by the tall, gorgeous, dark-skinned Norm Lewis, who becomes only upstaged by the hillariously seductive rump-shaking Renee Elise Goldsberry as Sylvia. Ms. Goldsberry has quite a few credits under her belt including Nala in Broadway's The Lion King and a recurring role in the now-ended series Ally McBeal.

Mel Johnson as The Duke of Milan also puts on a flashy performance including a scathing, obvious send-up of our "Commander in Chief" with a song all about sending troops out to war, and only bringing them home if he gets re-elected. His personal guards were dressed like Michael Jackson gang members from the Bad music video.

The play is a remake of of the original 1971 musical "Two Gentlemen of Verona" starring Raul Julia and Clifton Davis, which is why much of the sets, themes, and costumes seem so evocative of musicals of the 70's, including "Fame" and "Hair." It was also most likely coincidence that I saw a play fully infused with Carribean themed music, costumes, and dances on the day before the West-Indian day parade, but it was a welcome change from what we normally expect from a Shakespeare performance.

The references to 21st century pop culture were also quite a welcome laugh, including Sylvia's prodigal soldier-lover Eglamour (Paolo Montalban) a gorgeous and self-centered beefcake, who it seems radiates such studly confidence that he does away with the Duke's guards with a wave of the hand a la "Jedi Mind Trick." When faced with the two friends from Verona, all vying for Julia's love, he's joined by a group of black-clad ninjas , and when engaged in battle, leaps into a mid-air rotation (assisted by said ninjas, due to lack of CGI effects) obviously evoking the stop-motion scenes from the 1999 hit "The Matrix."

And no, the cheap laughs and unbearable cuteness don't end there. The greatest secondary-role-of-the-night of the night goes to John Cariani as Speed, Proteus' servant who does Shakespeare in a goofy California surfer-dude accent erupting laughs from the crowd with each bumbling shake of the head and bounce about on stage.

And of course, the dog. A sweet, obedient Golden retriever who coaxed laughs from the crowd for the five times in a row he looked away from his master, who bemoaned the fact that the dog showed no sorrow for his master's leave. Yeah, it was a cheap and easy cloy for laughs, but that was exactly what the audience was in store for.

I could continue ranting about the joys of the play including the one Hollywood name: Rosario Dawson's passionate Spanish rantings (Mira! Ay, Conyo!) Amidst her Shakespearean line. Or of course the absolutely juvenile song and dance number for Sylvia's fiance, the bumbling stooge Thurio in which the chorus goes: "Fuck-fucka-wucka-wucka-Cock-cocka-locka-locka-puss-pussa-wussa-wussa" but I need to air my grievances for one area which was severely lacking: The utterly two-dimensional blocking.

See, I had tickets for seats off of stage-left. And the actors, when engaged in dialogue, every time faced each other with their profiles to stage center, leaving everyone on stage right or left staring at the back of one head which perfectly blocked the face of the other actor. I know it's impossible to engage the entire audience at all times, but there should have been more effort, and more movement around to give everyone in the crowd the opportunity to see the actors' faces.

Even so, in a time of tragic circumstances both at home and abroad, a throw-classical-tradition-to-the-wind version of Shakespeare, gaudy, childish, goofy and fun was just what I needed after this sweat-soaked summer, and from the sounds of the rest of the audience, it was just what they needed too.

Labor Day Weekend (The Grey Line Journals)

I get to start late on Sundays. Which I think is the only plus side I can find to having to wokr on Sundays. That, and the traffic is light, especially on Labor Day weekend which now that I think about it, is the only thing good about having to work on Labor Day weekend. And the weather's perfect, so I decide I'm going to bike to work. The ride to Prospect Park is, as always, a wide tree-lined shelter of peace and tranquility, the Park itself being the athleticists nexus of Brooklyn. Tight-sinewed joggers and bicyclists in spandex-skinned packs, Ipods in palms or on wrists, their eyes and minds bonded to the road ahead. We peak right before Grand Army Plaza, the great green bronze Spirits of Army and Navy, the chariots and wavng sheets, which though looking lighter than air flowing atop the plaza arch, although probably weighs three times what I do.

Then it's down Flatbush avenue. I left the house at exactly ten, and I'm gunning down toward the Manhattan Bridge on this deadly driving thoroughfare, which because of it's unique direction, is the only option to get to the Manhattan Bridge directly. It's twenty after and i need to be at the offive before eleven. I try to envision being flanked by an enormous sports arena and apartment complex as i pass by the Atlantic Yards and give a nod of recognition as I pass the Williamsburg Bank, the "Beacon of Brooklyn."

I'm at the bridge, and for the first time since I learned how to get to it, pass under the bridge to get to the bike path on the North side. The one that lets out onto Division st, making it much easier for a bike to not get runover.

3rd avenue will probably be best. I give a nod to the dull friendliness of Murray Hill. The sports bars and D'agastinos, it's the closest to a white-flight suburban outdoor mall I think Manhattan will ever get. With the exception of a small handful beautiful people in sleeveless silk-screen T-shirts, the streets are empty. Labor Day Sunday. It's 10:50 AM Who the hell would be rushing about in Murray Hill of all places? I pass by a buxom young blond woman wearing a shirt that says "Not everything in Nebraska is flat!" And laughing as I sail past her, wondering if I can make it all the way cross town in five minutes I think with a slight touch of sentiment for this nation I am reluctantly part of, I think "it's going to be a good day."

Yesterday was madness. Busiest I'd ever seen it. The line at TS wrapped around the sidewalk planters and then around onto 47th st. and almost looped back around in front of the Starbucks. I'd take a day like today over a slow day anytime. Especially when it's nice out, there's nothing worse than standing around waiting for an hour on a yucky day. I change my sweat-soaked shirt into my uniform, wondering if there's any discreet way to dry them out on the bus siderails while I'm doing my tour. I conclude that there isn't. I clock in and I'm out in the square less than five minutes late. Safe.

I crank out three tours back to back like it was nothing. Marathon man here.

Actually, that's not exactly true. I was a BP deadhead for the first two. BP stands for Battery Park, the half-way point where usually large numbers get off for SOL and EI (Statue and Ellis) any good tour guide should have his tip-speech ready to roll by the time we pass the Wall St. Bull. There were so many tourists up at TS that if there were less than ten tourists on the bus after BP we'd empty them on to another bus and take the West Side Highway back up to the Square. Orders from the Big Boss who was supervising that day. Half as many tips as I would've recieved, but much, much easier to deal with.

So first time back I took care of my Brooklyn College Italian class homework and the second I had lunch and did some bustop yoga. After my third run the crowds died down and I had done my fair share, time to see what's going on in the theater.

"National Treasure"? . . . Oh yeah, there's supposed to be some reference to early New York down by Trinity Church. Good enough for me.

4/5 of the way through the theater when they finally make the one thirty second reference to NYC history my cell phone starts ringing.

"Gideon? It's Grandma. Poppop and I got tickets to Shakespeare in the Park tonight, I'd like you to join us." I smile. Sounds like a good Labor Day Weekend to me. I tell her I'll be out in an hour and I'll come right up.

(Next: A review of "Two Gentelmen of Verona" at the Delacourt Theater)

Waiting. (The Grey Line Journals)

It's another steamer today. A not-unbearably-hot-but-the-humidity-makes-it-all-the-worse one. Here in TS, it helps the smell of streetmeats, cigarettes, car fumes, and the unimaginable amounts of trash that this one district produces cling to your uncreative, over-worn and generally unpleasant work clothes. (White Polo shirt and dark cargo shorts. I have about three sets.) And I was late for my tour.

So, instead of taking the extended Waldorf Downtown Tour, called so because the point of it is to pick up the early risers at the Waldorf Astoria before the full DT loop. It's late in the summer, they're looking for people to screw up to thin the ranks for the fall, and I can't afford to not get a full-time fall schedule. (Called a "bid") So, I'm out to the one block that we refer to as Times Square, at least when it comes to reporting to a bus. It's Broadway between 48th & 49th, in front of a Starbucks and a designer sunglasses and perfume store. They're all air conditioned.

But as you can imagine, with handfuls of Guides, Drivers, and Dispatchers all hanging around the same block, day in and out, the idea that we could just "wait inside till our bus comes" is utterly preposterous to the owners and operators of said shops. Well, we get away with Starbucks pretty often, but that's because we tend to patronize it with business much moreso than the other two. Blocking the door is also a big no-no, but on steamers like today, many try to gather close enough to soak in as much cool as we can when someone walks in or out.

There's an average of five of us here at a time, and I've been waiting an hour. See, those on a bid, (and there on time) get priority, and if they're lucky, get on their bus within 20 minutes of when they're supposed to. Extras and lates can stand there for over an hour. I'm talking with an old-timer, not to say that's he's particularly old, but he's been here a few years, so got seniority when it came to choosing bids. Youthful energy, very animated. Probably a great guide. (That's the most description I'll give here. I'd like to keep most of my characters anonimous) Like most smart Grey Line vets, he chose an Extra bid. As long as he shows up, he gets paid. Which means on busy days, he could do 3, 4, sometimes even a murderous 5 runs. Slow days, he could just sit in the back of the theater all day long.

"I gotta tell you, I love this job." He says, as we've both been waiting nearly an hour as Bid Guide after Bid Guide go on buses, filling up 3/4 full with late-summer tourists maybe one every fifteen minutes. "I sit around twelve hours and do one two hour service order, and by the end of the week, I'm collecting overtime. And oh my God, this two hour service order was a group of European and South American Au Pairs!" Here we go. Tour Guide Bragadoccio.

"I chat them up, and then this one girl from Brazil, but said it like: 'Brathil' as if what she was really saying was. 'I want to. . ." I'll leave the rest to imagination. Told me they were all staying at the 63rd st. Y. I glanced at my watch and wondered how much more time I would be standing or sitting around waiting to get on a bus.

The conversation shifted to Grey Line Gossip, and the latest outrage by the company. The big buzz recently was that a Guide had just been fired for moving a bus. A young guide, friend of mine actually, 25, Latin American, charming, smart. Well, if he was so smart, what the hell was he doing getting behind the wheel of a bus? The Guides' gut reaction to the news was outrage at the company. "Should've just suspended him!" or "It was only ten feet!" Mack stared at us, sweat beads accumulated on his large round forehead doing all he could to keep his lips tight.

Mack is the head dispatcher at TS. Hefty Guy, bald and black, with a goatee, glasses and a postive disposition. He's friendly and professional, even on steamers like today when he doesn't have the fortune to go back to the AC'd bullpen & theater. Even the top of the bus is better than here. The air is moving, you get some respits from Urbanity when passing by Grenwich Village or Central Park, not to mention a seat. Mack is standing on that curb every day, radio and clipboard, managing the chaos day in and out, hours at a time.

All the Guides eventually shut up and listened to what Mack had to say on the issue:

"If I was here when ----------- was driving that bus, I would have removed him myself and handed him to the cops! He did not have a CDL (commercial drivers license) he had tourists on the bus, and it doesn't matter if it was ten feet, or a joyride down to Florida, if he had hit someone? That'd be it. Done." The guides sat back, swallowing their brash opinions, not realizing that it had happened in TS, surrounded by tourists, dispatchers, guides, and quite possibly the company owners & managers who like to check up on us this time of year.

"Well, I think he was showing initiative. What if that bus needed to be moved?" the Bilingual Bragadoccio asked before Mack stared him down into the pavement.

"How long you been working Grey Line?" He asked

"Since. . . '98."

"And have you ever, in that entire time NEEDed to move a bus?" Point and match.

The Guides scattered a bit, adjusting their bags and glancing around the all-too-familiar scene, The garish neon to our Right, (facing the buses, of course,) the Crowne Plaza to our left, and across the street from the enormous brown hotel, the construction site for a rising set of steel and concrete floors and a billboard in front advertising "Luxury Condominiums, coming soon!"

And with nothing much to say, we fall back on one of the quite overused conversation starters of the area.

"Can you believe this thing? Who the hell would want to live right here?"

Brooktopia: A native reflects Pt. 2- Biking to Bay Ridge

"Yeah. This definetely qualifies as 'way-the-Christ-out-in-Bay-Ridge." My brother Matt says to me as we convene on 68th st. ad Fort Hamilton Pkwy, using his prefered replacement of explatives.

There was this event posted in Nonsense, which is the first and foremost of a collection of 'net athourities for underground and unconventional events in New York City, the kind that don't exactly fit into a Time Out NY category, nor would attract the TONY crowd. Things like subway parties, head-phone dance parties, pirate parades, condiment wars, and so forth. This one caught our eye: Futurist Vegan Dinner-Party. And it's way the Christ out in Bay Ridge.

How'd that happen? Nonsense is occassionally Manhattan, but mostly Williamsburg, sometimes Greenpoint, DUMBO, or LIC, (particularly in the Queens pioneering art-house The Flux Factory) but with the occassional mass bike ride to/from Coney Island, there's never anything down here, and especially ot out in The Belly.

It was o some obscurely named street which tend to pop up and unexpected intervals, breakig up the monotony of consistently numbered streets and avenues, and Matt knew it was around the 60's and late teens. Ovington's the name, and as we found out, it comes in two flavors: Ave and Court. It also disappears for a little while and then reappears after the Gowaus Canal. I know it sounds horrible, but we were able to gague the neighborhood borders through a little racial profiling.

Heading West from Flatbush it was easy: First came the Pakistanis along Coney Island Avenue, complete with kebab shops and Baliwood video stores. after Ditmas ave became 18th, I was booking through Borough Park. Suits and Hats, one and all. Swirls of Payes flowing from the front of all the mens and boys ears. They relief themselves from summer heat by shaving the tops of their heads instead. Almost as if preparing the young ones for male patter baldness sure to come later in life.

Out of Borough Park, into Sunset Park, Brooklyn's own personal Chinatown, except the elevation is lower and the real estate wider, like everything has been squished down and stretched out. buildings, of course, but it feels like streets as well. The sky's much wider here, and it doesn't feel like everyone and everything is reaching toward it. Lotsa double-parking and big fruit and vegitable stands. Oh, and Mexicans.

And soon, Bay Ridge came. Ah, the Italians. Muscle T's over Biceps so big that the arms dangled a good four inches removed from the torso at the elbow-line. Hair greased down and slicked with a fine-toothed comb. Hey, cliches are cliches for a reason. And that damn Ovington wouldn't sit still. It kept shifting with the grid plan that looked like a toothline maintained by a Civil War era orthodontist. I had to stop to ask for directions twice now, and by this point I found myself envisioning a big art-infused courtyard party with a wide table full of delicious animal-product free food, music, varied forms of lighting and various homages to the machine-sex-and-death obsessed Italian futurists. A striking blow to the North-Brooklyn centrists to prove that all the other 'hoods down here got something to prove to!

It was a stupid presumption. The party ended up being a dozen vegans sitting around an apartment with no furniture eating peanut butter-banana-raisin&nut concoctions before the main course of plain rice and vegitables. We discussed the futurists briefly between courses before my brother and I gave each other a nod that it was time to go. There was a long bike-ride home ahead of us.

No offense to all the vegans out there, but I've rarely been to a vegan-hosted party that wasn't mellow and dull.

Maybe it was because it was way the Christ out in Bay Ridge that did it.