May 15, 2015--New York, New York: Cat On the Run

"Is that a cat racing around the book stalls at the Strand? I mean, not a street cat. It has a collar."

"I can't see it," I said, straining to look through traffic to the other side of Broadway.

"There, under that bookcase," Rona stretched to point. "Darting back and forth as if possessed."

Finally spotting it, I said, "I've never seen anything like that. Only feral cats here. And even that's unusual. No one in the city lets a cat out on her own or takes one for a walk or anything."

Now the cat was heading toward us, zigzagging in a attempt to avoid the cars and trucks that were slamming on their breaks to avoid hitting her.

About ten yards behind the cat a man raced after it in hot pursuit. The cat was running hard and it took all he had to keep up with it. He too was almost run down by a careening motor cyclist.

Reaching our side of the street, the cat raced halfway across a plank that spanned a construction site, over a deep cut in the sidewalk, and then came to a halt, panting visibly, but feeling protected as if she knew it would not be safe for the man to walk out on the plank. It was not secured and would likely, with him, tumble into the excavation.

He too was panting. We had stopped to watch right at that corner, quite close to where he stood, half bent over, gasping for breath. The cat, though quivering, still glared at him.

"That yours?" I asked.

With two head pumps he nodded, still bent over and panting. Sweat and saliva dripped from him.

"I wouldn't go out on that board," I advised. "Looks dangerous."

That seems to mobilize him again and he defiantly, as if to show her and me, tapped one toe tentatively on his end of the plank. It wobbled, almost coming loose from where it had been placed by the workers who were nowhere in sight.

"Fuckin cat," he muttered, spitting toward it. The cat, clearly familiar with him and his behavior, rose on its haunches and looked as if it was planning also to hiss and spit.

"So it must be yours," I said, not knowing what to say to be compassionate or helpful. It was hot and we wanted to get to the Union Square Market before some of the vendors were sold out.

"All she does is eat, drink, and piss. Shits too."

"That's what they all do," I said, Rona was tugging on my sleeve. "That's all any of us do when you get right down to it." I thought to try something that, if not sincere, felt philosophical.

"See that over there?" He pointed halfway up the block toward 13th Street.

"Can't say that I do."

"Well, that's where I live."

I looked up the street and didn't see anything but commercials buildings and street-level stores.

"Not up there but down there." He pointed at the sidewalk about 30 feet north of where we were standing. He launched a glob of phlegm toward Broadway.

I still wasn't following him. By then Rona was pulling hard on my shirt and whispered, "I want to get to the market before some of the vendors leave."

The cat stayed put. As if to taunt him, she began licking herself.

"Without her I have nothing going for myself."

"I'm not following you." I was sincerely confused. No longer feigning interest.

"That's where I live and, if you want to call it that, work." He continued to point toward the sidewalk.

"I'm not . . ." But in truth I was, and so stopped stammering.

"No one would even stop to piss on me if it weren't for her." He snapped his fingers at the cat but she didn't move. She kept licking herself.

It dawned on me finally that he "lived" on the sheets of cardboard spread on the sidewalk. Next to them was a plastic garbage bag full of his few things. And a bowl for water for the cat and what looked like an upturned cap in which I imagined there would be a handful of spare change.

As the weather had warmed up recently, a number of streets near us had filled up with homeless people, some with rather elaborate setups. We must have walked by him numerous times on the way back and forth to the market, always, as usual, with eyes averted.

"It's a life," he said, shrugging his shoulders as if to explain or apologize. "And the only reason any folks toss me a quarter is because of her. They care more about the fuckin cat than me. But I get it," he wanted to say more, "I'm nothing to look at and she can be pretty cute. Especially when she's hungry. Which is all the time."

"I think I understand," I said feeling contrite.

"Think about it--people care more about cats and dogs than humans. Not that there's that much human about me." It felt as if he wanted me to join him in feeling sorry for himself.

"They leave their savings to the ASPCA when they die but won't even send a check to programs for the homeless. Not that I think about myself that way. Homeless I mean. Though to tell you the truth I don't know what else to call the way I live. For Christ sake I sleep on a fuckin refrigerator carton and beg for nickels. Not much of a home."

He was doing it again and so I was happy to see the cat raise herself up, stretch, and then dart toward him.  Once more back across the plank.

He lunged at her, trying to scoop her up in his arms. Again, he almost tumbled into the excavation. Leaping off the plank, the cat cut sharply north up Broadway with him again in literally hot pursuit. I was beginning to think he would give himself a stroke or heart attack.

But just as he was seemingly about to collapse, the door to a 7-Eleven opened and the cat darted into the shop. He ran after her and though the sun was glinting on the windows, making it hard to see what was going on inside, the fact that agitated customers were pouring out suggested that the cat and the man were creating havoc.

"Can we go now?" Rona again asked. "Why did you have to get involved with that? I mean I'm sympathetic and all that but you know I'm not feeling well today and want to get our shopping done and then back into bed. I mean, on any other day, I'd be the one who would need to be dragged away."

 Which was true.

By then things seemed to have calmed down in the store and in the next moment the door swung open and he stepped out onto the sidewalk, into the sun. In his arms he was cradling the cat, who was audibly purring, and as he got closer to us I could see he was sobbing.

May 21, 2014--Local News

I'm a TV news snob.

I have my issues with the so-called network news as well as the way national and international news is reported on CNN and other cable outlets (for their sensationalist and entertainment audience-building agenda); but I am particularly snobbish when it comes to local news.

We watch too much TV while in Florida and occasionally check in with local news reporting, particularly when there is the threat of bad weather. We otherwise tend to actively ignore it, tune it out, because we know what we will see--mainly people of color being arrested or shot down while robbing convenience stores. We know this is dog-whistle stuff--how the "news" reminds us about how "these" people behave in our midst.

Occasionally an ultra-rich guy after a polo match runs someone over in his Bentley and that gets covered. There is a strain of schadenfreude that permeates our culture that likes to see the rich and famous come crashing down. Justin Bieber comes currently to mind as does Alec Baldwin.

But mainly on Florida local news we see houses disappearing into sinkholes, Burmese pythons infiltrating the Everglades, fatal car crashes, and of course endless robberies, more and more caught by surveillance cameras. Mainly black guys in hoodies beating up South-Asian shopkeepers. Best, every once in awhile, the person behind the counter has a hidden baseball bat or gun which he uses to pound on the perpetrator or pump a couple of shots into him.

When we watch Florida local news, we gloatingly say, "Wait 'til we get to New York. At least there on the news they cover art exhibits and what's playing on Broadway."

Not so much.

The other day on the local CBS station the lead stories included a video of a taxi jumping the curb and mowing down shoppers on the Upper Eastside; pictures of a SUV crashing through the plate-glass window and all the way into a Nassau County pet store; an iPhone video of someone falling off a subway platform just as a train was about to pull into the station; and then more surveillance-camera images of an Asian grandfather being stalked by an African-American thug before being slammed to the ground and stomped on, dying from that a day or two later.

"I guess we'll have to look in the Times to see what's on Broadway," I said, trying to muster a little self-depricating humor.

But then WCBS turned to its version of national news, again it was wall-to-wall bad news--the tragic wildfires burning their way across San Diego County in California and the discovery of a second case of the Mers virus in the U.S. Wouldn't you know it, in Orlando, Florida.

October 8, 2013--Stagehands

"It's not that I'm antiunion," Stan said, which surprised me. He tends to take conservative positions on most issues of public policy.

"But from what I'm hearing about your stagehands, I'm not so sure."

"My stagehands?" I looked at him quizzically, "I'm a bit confused. I don't have any." We were sitting together in a booth at the Bristol Diner, with the sun streaming in, whiling away the morning.

"Well, you are New Yorkers, aren't you?"

"Still, I'm not following you." At times Stan tends to speak elliptically. Or playfully when tweaking us about being from the Big City. "Stagehands?"

"Don't you read your own paper? The one you're always writing about?"

"The Times? The New York Times?"

"There was something there, I think on the front page, about how they were on strike."

"I've been busy and somehow must have missed that."

"Not for more money but because they were insisting that Carnegie Hall hire more stagehands to work for the new education program they're planning to launch."

"What does the work entail? Traditional stagehand work? Moving props and scenery?"

"I don't think so. The Carnegie Hall people say it's mainly moving chairs and other lightweight chores. And so they want to hire people who will work for less money than the stagehand's union requires."

"What kind of money are we talking about?"

"I think that's why the dispute wound up on the front page."

"So, how much? As I said, this is the first I'm hearing about it."

"I'm glad you're sitting," Stan said with a broad grin. He leaned across the table to make sure I couldn't avoid making eye contact.

"On average, $400,000 a year in salary and benefits."

"What?" I was incredulous.

"You heard me--400 grand. More than most Carnegie executives make and a lot more that any of the musicians in the orchestra."

"I can't believe this is true. I know they have a strong union and at times have gone on strike and shut down Broadway theaters. And I know they make a lot and . . ."

"Here's how I think it works," Stan said, cutting me off and getting out his pen, using his napkin for scratch paper. "They get whatever their base is. For working 9 to 5 Mondays through Fridays. Like the rest of us. But since everything at Carnegie Hall is at night or on weekends they get paid for that at double or triple overtime."

"So you're thinking that even though there's not much to do weekdays during the day, still they come to work then and wait for after hours for the actual work to kick in and at those times they make a lot more than they do for the first 35 hours?"

"It's gotta be. Otherwise how does it add up to $400,000 a year?"

"And there's probably no way for Carnegie Hall to change the deal. Or on Broadway, for that matter, where it must be pretty much the same situation."

"I don't know about that," Stan said, "But about Carnegie Hall I only know what I read in the paper."

"You mean my Times?" I winked. "I didn't know you read that."

"My son-in-law, who knows my views, showed it to me on-line. Probably to make me crazy."

"So," I couldn't resist poking at him, "If it was up to you, you'd let them stay on strike while not just resisting hiring more $400,000-a-year men for the new program but also demand all sorts of givebacks from the current stagehands? To bring their compensation into line with management and, more important, the musicians?"

He smiled back at me in answer.

"They'd probably stay on strike forever," I said, "if the Carnegie board insisted on that. But I take your point about union overreach. I'm pretty liberal . . ."

"Don't I know it," Stan said. This time he did the winking.

". . . but this doesn't do the union movement any good."

"You're right about that," Stan said. But then, as he occasionally does, he surprised me, "Look, there are only four or five stagehands at Carnegie Hall and this is not a typical union situation. In fact aren't you surprised that your leftwing paper made such a big issue out of it? About four or five people making a ridiculous amount of money?"

"Good point," I said.

"This will be all over talk radio tonight. Another thing to make people feel they're being taken advantage of and that everything's unfair. There are many unfair things," Stan continued, "But not everything is unfair. It doesn't help to simplify things this way. If we want to dig out of the mess we're in we need to be smart. And blowing this all out of proportion makes us stupid."

I nodded. "What's more, it distracts us from looking at what's really unfair. I know we'll disagree about most of that but at least we'll be talking about the real problems. Not sideshows."

"That's why I love you Stan. So much so that I'm paying for your coffee."

"For today or the whole week?"