Greetings from Astoria, Queens, Everyone,
A hard rain's falling as I write, playing steady high hat to the bass line rhythm of the trains on the "N,Q" Elevated Subway line. Its Sunday morning, so the trains are running a little slower, slowing the tempo of the song even more. I don't want to go anywhere today. Those of you who live or are keen on Queens subway weekend travel should understand. It took me two hours to get to Brooklyn yesterday. And this gray rain just wants to make Sunday a blues tune. But I will forge on and keep the day in the world of Jazz magic. Oh, Astoria, the land where anything can happen.
And anything does. I've been in and around Astoria - the western and northern most area of the burrough of Queens - for years now, but never spent a great deal of time immersed in it until now, this passed month where I've been couching it with friends while I figure out what the hell to do with my life after I finish performing in...
***SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT INITIATE***
"Trousers" by Dan Monaco
Produced by The Straddler and performed at IRT
Performed by Marty Brown and Todd Pate
March 24th thru April 9th
154 Christopher Street, 3rd Floor
NYC, NY
Here's the link to buy tickets!
http://irttheater.org/developing/trousers/
***SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT DISENGAGE***
I've had a wonderful time here hanging out with good friends, enjoying their hospitality and trying to repay with good will and a small footprint. Its been a little over a month and 1 couch and 2 air mattresses and 3 initially suspicious yet ultimately friendly Greek landlords later, I feel a tiny bit more comfortable about commenting on the neighborhood of Astoria, so I will. Ladies and gentlemen, the Olympians are alive and well here on the western most tip of Long Island, just across the East River from Manhattan. Manhattan, where the Gods have merged, blended, just like the neighborhoods, and the ultimate philosophy is the dollar bill. Maybe Manhattan's not completely like that, but Little Italy is just a few blocks on Mulberry Street now. A lower east side tenement flat requires a master's degree or a trust fund. The Irish, Italian and Jewish poor that created that neighborhood couldn't afford the furniture and nick nacks that the current residents discard as unwanted trash. It is a wanted neighborhood now, and there's no longer room for the unwanted that had no choice but to live there back in the day. You still see the rements of those "immigrant wave"generations, huddled in the rent controled apartments in those astronomically expensive faux-hemian neighborhoods, and the realty buzzards are soaring in circles above them, just a waitin' to eat up the real estate when they die and poop out $2500 studio apts. There's no mistaking Chinatown, consuming Canal Street and running out in the cavernous streets off it. But try to rent there. Its a place for money makers to live. And Koreatown's just to industrialized, situated down deep in the shadows of The Empire State Building. Manhattan is a constantly blending island, I should know, for this Texas honky lived in Spanish Harlem for 3 years. I lived in the lower east side too, where I lived in a smaller apartment and paid more $$$ in rent in one year alone. That was the only year I lived there, and boy was it shiny and "the best night ever" was available every night to anyone who could afford to drink there and the walk of shame in the morning was never too far a walk because "Hey, I'm in Manhattan! Life is good. Life is fast."
Life is slower in Astoria. Its still fast, but slower. Yes, it is a blended neighborhood. Lots of young people and lots of energy, EVERYWHERE in NYC has a lot of energy, that's what makes it great. However, Astoria is Greek town, and no matter how many and different people move in, it is unmistakably Greek. This neighborhood has held onto its European identity more than the ethnic Manhattan neighborhoods, which I believe is due to its distance from Manhattan. The diners are Greek, the nightclubs are run by young imposing men who are unmistakably Greek. Young guys from the neighborhood, but loyal to their parents and grand parents who were loyal to theirs. Every generation is present in every generation out here. You got Olympian murals on the walls, Greek lettering on many of the businesses and the diners exude a brilliant Mediterranean aire. Every street has about ten old graying men wearing driver's hats fiddling about outside their apartments at any given moment. They look at you as you walk by and they know if you live here or not. They're not rude, but they know.
I was walking to my friend's house the other night, passed the various and sundry Greek American Men's clubs, under that Kraken's spine that is the "N,Q" train line that rattles the walls as I type, and I see an elderly man locking up the doors to his tiny print shop. "Print Shop?!" I gasp. Yes, "Print Shop," Zeus answers. "He's been there a long time," Zeus, in his profound white toga and olive branch crown, continues, "the Staples Office Supply Store down the street didn't put him out of business when it opened 10 years ago, and the internet won't put him out either." I look down the street. Zeus was right, a Staples, that dinosaur of retail "the office supply store" was just down the street from this old man and his print shop. Zeus tells me to go into the Staples, and I obey. I walk into the belly of a dying mysterious sea creature. Empty aisles, sprinkled with pens, paper, folders....objects that are disintegrating due to the computer, and this mysterious sea creature's digestive process. I look to the wall on the left and see all the computers, where I see all of the employees, helping all of the customers. Zeus taps me on the shoulder and says, "See, this place is dying, not the little Greek man's livelihood. He will be here long after this silly little experiment will." Zeus and I walk out of the Staples and I turn and ask him, "Ok, but how does the little Greek man keep his print shop open? The computer is killing his..." But Zeus is gone, and in the air I hear the faintest thunder. I am left to ponder.
So I ponder, I love to. The waitress's face, the lady who waited on me earlier at a diner, popped into my head and helped me find the answer. There wasn't anything special about the diner, or the waitress, she was rather indifferent to me during the whole business, yet did a great job and when I said goodbye she smiled and said goodbye and thank you right back. I knew she was grateful that I ate there. She exuded gratitude, more so, she looked happy. She went on talking to the guy behind the counter, went on with her day, without concern if I heard what she was telling him or not. This is her livelihood and she's surrounded by people she knows in her neighborhood. She lives her life and she is among her fellows, her people. Getting paid comes with that, not the other way around. Everyone in her community plays a part in the community. She will be taken care of, as long as she plays her part in life. She wants me to come back, whether its on the front of her mind or not. Why not, its life. And I think that is what's the difference here in Astoria. That old world sense of communion that has all but disappeared in the universal struggle to make a buck.
A self contained community finds roles for all its inhabitants. In older barter and trade communities, or indigenous communities, banishment was the worse thing that could of happened, being forever condemned to roam the plains alone. We live today with ideals of "self sufficiency", "stoicism", and in some financial circles its honorable to have many enemies while succeeding at a high rate. We go it alone here in the New World, and the founders of online dating are so happy for that. We have dogs locked in apartments all day, and walk them twice, pick up their poop then eat handfuls of "Cheeze-Its" and take shots of longing in front of a TV transmitting an interview with Charlie Sheen and whisper to ourselves, "boy, he's in a bad state." There were places in society for crazy people back in the days of barter and trade and teepees. They would babble out by the watering hole and no one would mind and every now and then they let out a zinger that the others would question and allow to help shape a little more of their community. The babbler had something to say and the people would listen. The babbler was right! So is Charlie Sheen when he said, "funny how sleep rhymes with sheep." Nowadays we have safe homes for the babbler, places they belong: padded rooms, prisons and the streets. Home sweet safe homes. Safe for us, that is, the "normals."
Astoria has a place for this little Greek man and his print shop. It is his contribution to life. It is his livelihood. And when something is one's livelihood silly little matters like money do not matter. Only the fear of losing money runs people out of business. I have a feeling that this little print shop here in Astoria will close when that little gray and wrinkled 2oth Century man's heart stops beating, leaving the high hat rain and the bass line train and the other heart beats filling in pockets of the beat...then they'll be another heart to take its place, and it will know who's place its taking.
I have a grand view of the phenomena of Metropoli Homogenization by calling NY my home. Grandfathers and fathers die and prejudices, blatant and some we never even conceived of, get faced and hopefully get tossed into the East River and flow out into the ocean for that legendary Kraken to devour. But like memory, who we come from is always there, and I believe should be. However, we need to live in our times to see how we need to change them. I don't believe in "going back to the good old days". One man's good old days are another man's slavery. Yet, we may wanna rethink this race to make money. Hey, I like money and I love its smell and my current circumstances are a result of my having it, but when I was a kid I was told by my cute elementary teachers I could do anything I wanted to do because I live in the USA. Then when I was older my teachers and professors told me that I should look at the industries that are paying well. I took a look at all the people that were telling me this and saw they were all people who were all working just to pay the bills, they loved their weekends and their vacations, times when they could do what they want. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Didn't life create money, not the other way around. Everyone I know is in debt, or got out of it after a long trial with it. What about you? So we work harder and more. But that little Greek man in this little Greek neighborhood is alive...engaging his livelihood in his community. I know money is not going to go away until an asteroid slams into this planet and the gophers finally get their chance to rule, but what if we focused on finding our livelihood, everyone of us....hmm?
The customer is not always right. In fact, after years of working in online and telephone sales, they are wrong most of the time and seek pleasure in your admitting, succumbing to that falsehood. Tell 'em they're wrong and if they don't like what you have to sell they can go down the street to one Staples or another. But if you are alive, engaged in your community and livelihood, people will want what you have to offer, whatever it is.
Enjoy the rhythm of the rains and trains,
Todd
