JUST ANOTHER SUBWAY STORY

Posted on August 24, 2024 by xaviertrevino

I was recently exiting the subway when I saw the funniest thing ever. There was a fellow vaulting the turnstile. That’s nothing unusual in New York City, must happen hundreds of times a minute throughout our vast subway system. The thing that was unusual was that the fellow was a well to do white guy in his thirties. Not that only people of color jump the turnstiles, I’ve seen white college girls and white grungy boys do it. Most young people don’t pay.

So, there’s that- a bespectacled, balding thirty-ish white guy in khaki pants, tucked-in pressed oxford shirt and shined dress shoes braces his hands on the deck of the turnstile and prepares to vault. He pushes off with his feet, tucks his legs up, and with a mighty grunt launches himself over the turnstile. Except he doesn’t.

At the apex of his vault, when he should have cleared the turnstile bar, the toes of both feet catch the bar. I know what that’s like, many years ago when I was in the army I had to parachute out of a helicopter. It was my first chopper blast, and I was terrified, so I made a “weak exit,” meaning I didn’t put enough oomph into pushing myself off the deck of the chopper. My toes caught the skid of the Huey, and I pitched headfirst into thin air, instead of feetfirst. A memorable sight.

Fortunately for Mr. Yuppie he didn’t pitch face first onto the hard concrete of the subway platform, he was able to catch himself on the pillar of the turnstile and sprawled awkwardly across the bar. As I passed him, I couldn’t help but to burst out laughing at this tangled pretzel of a human. He might have turned red, but like any New Yorker I was in too much of a hurry to stick around for the whole show.

As a senior citizen I pay half fare, so I’m signed up to pay for a monthly unlimited card. It doesn’t matter if I use the card to buy a ticket to get on the select bus or not, the city still gets its money. I usually do, but don’t if I think I might miss the bus. The times I didn’t get the ticket I would be filled with anxiety about encountering an “EAGLE” team. EAGLE stands for evasion and graffiti lawlessness eradication, you know, those retired police officers in blue windbreakers and ball caps that say MTA on them and ask to see your bus ticket. My guess is they threw in the graffiti to get a catchy sounding acronym. There used to be a lot of them, and the one time I did not have the ticket, which was last fall, they didn’t even bother asking for tickets. Policy changes.

When I was young and penniless, I would often go through the exit door of the subway without paying, waiting for the shout of “PAY YOUR FARE!” to come from the token clerk. I would cringe at the shout, trying to pull my head into my body like a turtle as I scurried away from the door.

Back then plainclothes policemen would hide in the utility rooms near the turnstiles and surprise fare beaters, giving tickets if you had ID and arresting those without ID. Policy now is to look the other way. You can jump the turnstile in front of a cop and most likely they will say nothing. That’s policy for MTA staff, don’t engage with fare beaters. Too many of them have been verbally abused and even assaulted for doing so and the union pushed to protect their people.

COVID broke the back of our transit system. Making the buses free opened the floodgates to mass fare beating. How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they’ve seen Paree?

Some people may not be familiar with that expression, but I trust they can figure it out.

The average working stiff in New York still pays their fare, I know I do. I look with resentment at those that don’t, especially at guys like the pretzel-yuppie who can well afford to. But in the end, there’s nothing I can do about what others choose to do, so why sweat it? After all, it’s none of my business if others pay their fare or not.

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OPEN REHEARSAL AND A MATINEE

Posted on July 28, 2024 by xaviertrevino


Being retired I have to think of creative ways of filling the day. Being on a fixed income makes it more of a creative pursuit. Fortunately, this being New York City there are plenty pf low-cost things to do. Some are even free. In the past two weeks I’ve seen three movies for half price, gone to the Goatham opening day in Riverside Park, and attended a “Relaxed open rehearsal” at Lincoln Center. Today I scraped and painted a couple of ancient lampposts in Riverside park- but that’s another story. “TK,” as they say in publishing.
The movies I know about because I look up any senior discounts that are available in my sphere of activities, and AMC theaters have a senior discount. Matinee showings are 25% off every day.
Some theaters do a Tuesday discount, so you can look for that if you’re interested. So, with my senior discount I was able to see “Touch” for $7. I paid $9.95 last week to see Kinds of Kindness because I bought the ticket online and had to pay the service fee- something I won’t be doing again, knowing there’ll be plenty of seats available for the 10:30 or 12:30 show. There were five people at the showing of touch I went to. I was the only male. I went to the 10:30 for Kinds of Kindness because it’s almost 3 hours long.
Before seeing Touch last Tuesday I went to an open rehearsal at David Geffen Hall. I thought that would be empty too, so I was surprised at the amount of people not working at 10am on a weekday morning. I found out about the open rehearsal because I get regular emails from Lincoln Center. I did not know what to expect, but it sounded more interesting than the third hour of Today.
I’ve always loved classical music, since the first time I heard a chamber orchestra when I was in the fourth grade in P.S.270. Not as much as rock music, but enough to know something about it and appreciate it.
Tuesday’s program was to be a rehearsal of Beethoven’s 6th symphony, the “Pastoral.” As a rehearsal there would be stopping and starting, and comments. Sounded like fun, to see behind the scenes, so I reserved my free ticket online and showed up early.
As I went in, I was offered either noise cancelling headphones, or a rainbow-colored silicone bracelet called a “fidget.” I had no idea what a fidget is, but it’s smaller than the noise cancelling earphones, so I took that. I wondered why anyone would wear noise cancelling earphones to a music concert and why they were even being offered. I figured out what to do with my fidgit once I sat down.
I went in and found a seat near the stage in the orchestra and looked around. I expected mostly older folks like me and was surprised to see quite a lot of younger people. Some made sense-groups that looked like day camp kids or school groups, and young moms with their babies or small children who want to get out of the house. The orchestra was tuning up, as more and more of them filed in wearing everyday clothing- shorts, T-shirts, sneakers and the like.
Presently a woman took the stage and outlined the program. The one interesting thing I heard, beside that I might hear people talking aloud or moving about was that the auditorium was a “no shushing zone.” “If you feel uncomfortable for any reason, please feel free to go out into the lobby and sit. You can come in or out anytime during the rehearsal.” I wondered who would come to a classical performance to talk aloud and move around at will.


When she was done, she introduced Jonathon Heyward, the conductor- a young man in a blazer with a nice mass of curly hair. He gave new meaning the expression “longhair music.”
Once he took the podium it was all business. The orchestra launched into the piece and played without interruption for the full length of the symphony, 16 minutes or so. Save for a crying infant in the row in front of me it went well.
After they played, there was discussion on the stage, I have no idea what was being said but there was a lot of gesturing and scribbling on the music sheets, much nodding and acknowledging. Then they’d play a minute or two of a movement, stop, discuss, repeat. It was interesting but I really wish I knew what they were saying. After ten or so minutes, they launched into the piece once more in its entirety. Then more discussion and rehearsing, and the woman with the crying infant finally left.
They played the piece one last time in its entirety, and after watching and listening to the snippets I appreciated how it was all tightened up and came together.
It was interesting to note that since most of the musicians were in casual attire I was able to watch closely as the muscles of their arms flexed and rippled as they played their instruments. All you can really see are the strings from the orchestra section, I could see a bit of the bassoon peeking out, the bell of the French horn in the space under someone’s elbow. I did have a good view of the flautist all the way in the back.


In the bathroom after the show, I could see why they were loaning out noise canceling headphones. A good part of the audience was either autistic or mentally challenged young people. I’d put my fidget on as a bracelet and took it with me. I would have given back the headphones, of course. Then I went to the movie conveniently located a few short blocks to the north of Lincoln Center and caught the 12:30 movie. It was a good Tuesday.
So, if you have nothing to do, and don’t want to spend it staring at either a computer or television screen all day, look for free or inexpensive things to do online. Then get dressed and get out there!

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FERRETS AND CHOPPED LIVER

Posted on July 24, 2024 by xaviertrevino

Yesterday afternoon I was wondering what I was going to do today, having no commitments scheduled. Being retired and alone (my wife’s away) I’ve come up with some creative ways of filling time, writing being one of them, but I always make it a point to get out of the house.

In the past week I’ve seen 3 movies, one open rehearsal at David Geffen Hall and attended the annual Goatham festival in Riverside Park. Didn’t do much writing outside of personal journalling. Mañana, as they say in my native Mexico.

So that was the plan, do some writing. Then I got a frantic call from one of my clients, who said “My sink fell down! But I can still wash dishes.” I tried to imagine that scenario, and I couldn’t so I just told her I’d go by in the morning and have a look. Here was my getting out of the house reason. Plenty of time to write later.

This morning, I got some tools together and took the bus down Broadway to 151st Street, where Tina owns a co-op apartment. The sink had indeed separated from her granite countertop. I wondered if it had just been glued on or something.

After taking numerous pots and pans out from under the sink I figured out the sink had come loose from the four clips that held it in place. After putting a healthy dose of silicone around the rim of the sink I managed to secure the clips back on.

Happy to have helped someone out and making a little money while doing so I headed to Broadway, thinking I’d walk down to the Mexican store on 146th street to pick up some tortillas and ginger, then going down to Fairway to maybe buy some meat. Starting down Broadway I heard someone call my name. It was my friend Cheree hailing a cab. Where are you going? I asked. “Downtown.” A cab pulled up just then, and I said, “Hey can you drop my on 146TH?”

“Sure, hop in.” She said.

I got in with my tools in tow. Cheree had a big shoebox with holes in the top in her lap.

“What’s in the box? An animal?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s a ferret,” she said, lifting the cover so I could see inside.

It was indeed a ferret, a cute little creature nestled in some paper. The ferret looked up at me with sad eyes. Ferrets are very pretty animals, and this one was exceptional with those little eyes that begged for succor.

All I could think of at the moment was the scene in the Big Lebowski where the leather clad Germans break into the Dude’s apartment and throw a ferret into the bathtub he’s soaking in nude. This little creature looked just like that one.

“What are you doing with a ferret?” I asked.

“Well, my friend Athena found this poor little animal lying in the street this morning. Around 4am. And she watched as the ferret crawled over to a couch abandoned in the street. He hasn’t eaten anything yet. I’m taking him down to an animal rescue place on Columbus and 86th.”

That was close to Fairway, so I asked if I could stay in the cab till then. “Sure. Don’t you want to

come with me to the place? Are you in a big hurry?”

So, from having nothing planned for the day I was now recruited into an animal rescue.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll come with you. How do you know it’s a boy? Did you look to see if he has a pee-pee or something?”

“No, I didn’t look.” She harrumphed.

I didn’t try to look either, but in petting the creature, who seemed quite docile I could tell it was in distress. His body trembled and his hind leges seemed paralyzed.

“Where exactly are we going?” I asked.

“The Wild Bird Fund on Columbus. They said they’d take him.”

The cab pulled up in front of the place and we approached the volunteers sitting at a triage table in front of the place.

“What have you got?” One of the women asked.

“A ferret. He seems to be injured, probably someone’s pet they threw out.” Cheree explained. I figured it was a pet as well, since it let us touch it without cowering or biting.

“Oh, we don’t take pets.” The woman said.

“But somebody on the phone told me to bring him down.”

“Yes, but we only take wild animals, if it’s domesticated, we can’t take it. Go across the street, they’ll take it.” We looked across the street where there was a storefront with birds in the window. The sign said Center for Avian & Exotic Medicine.

They were a little more helpful, the young woman at the front desk told us to have a seat and she’d get someone to help us. We sat on a stone bench, and I watched the birds flit around in the big plexiglass enclosure behind the front window. It was a pleasant, inviting place, it felt safe. I was already feeling protective towards our helpless ferret friend.

A young woman with a severely short haircut and some severe tattoos and piercings came out to help us.

“Let’s see,” she ordered. Cheree opened the box and Melissa; she’d told us her name was Melissa- reached in and gently picked up the ferret. The ferret seemed to clutch at Melissa’s chest with her front paws and looked up at her gratefully. With her free hand Melissa felt along the ferret’s back and hind legs, I could see for myself the hind legs were not reacting to touch in any way and it made me sad. But I could also see this woman genuinely cared for animals and felt she would do anything she could to help. Holding the ferret up with both hands for a thorough examination she told Cheree to take pictures.

“This little girl is definitely hurt, she’s a girl by the way- I’m not seeing any reflex action in either back foot.”

Melissa went on to explain the protocol about reclaiming a pet-why she had Cheree take the pictures- and mentioned that ferrets are illegal to keep in New York. I knew someone who had a pair of ferrets that lived in her couch many years ago, and I remember she’d said something about that.

“But you never know, someone might claim her. If not, we can put her up for adoption.”

After an exchange of numbers and info we left. Walking down Columbus Avenue Cheree said she felt like crying. I did too, but just said, “you did a good thing today.”

As we walked over to the subway on Broadway, we passed Barney Greengrass, the sturgeon king.

“Hey, wanna have breakfast?” Cheree said. “I’ve been up since 5 this morning and haven’t eaten anything.”
“I’ll come and sit with you.” I said and we went inside. When Cheree saw how expensive it was, she decided to get a bagel to go instead. “And some chopped liver. I love chopped liver.” If you’re going to buy chopped liver, Barney Greengrass is the place to go.

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TRIP THE LIGHT FANTASTIC

Posted on July 13, 2024 by xaviertrevino



I just watched the last episode of “The Deuce,” on MAX, a totally underrated show if there ever was one, perhaps because of the sordid subject matter. In the final scene Vince, played by James Franco who is in New York for a wedding, having left town sometime in the past, walks along 42nd street, “The Deuce,” for the first time in a long time.
As he walks through the brightly lit streets of today’s tourist central, he encounters the ghosts of all of the people who died on the show as a woman with a smokey voice sings “The Sidewalks of New York” in a halting, dirge-like way. It made me cry, evoking all of the people in my life I’ve lost to death, some through just plain life. I looked up the singer- the voice was eerily familiar, and it turns out its Debbie Harry. “Blondie” is credited on the soundtrack.
I never really listened to the lyrics of that song, but the way Debbie sings it, slowly and sadly made it the quintessence of what New York means to New Yorkers, and our relationship to the streets we inhabit and walk on daily.



To make it doubly poignant, today is the 47th anniversary of the blackout of 1977. It was something I watched happen. I was standing on the corner of Washington and Lafayette avenues in Brooklyn on a payphone, actually looking at the Manhattan skyline just beyond the Brooklyn Navy Yard some blocks to the west. It was just getting dark and the Empire State building was lit.

I was calling my girlfriend at the time Anna, who worked at the Beekman Theater on 57th Street to tell her I was on my way to pick her up. Anna later turned out to be one of those life losses a few years later.
I got the theater manager on the line, who said, “Can’t talk now, the lights are going out,” before the line went dead. That prompted me to look at the Manhattan skyline, and watched as the lights in the Empire state building went out floor by floor, then the rest of Manhattan, then the streetlights in Brooklyn go out block by block until the corner I was standing on went dark.
Almost immediately there was screaming and people running up and down the street, total bedlam.
I made my way down the block to a friend’s building, a brownstone on the corner of Willoughby Avenue. He was a Haitian immigrant named Eddie, and there were already a couple of other friends there. Eddie had cold beer, and another friend Tony had weed, and we sat on Eddie’s stoop with a couple of baseball bats for protection and watched the world go mad around us.
Someone brought down a transistor radio and we heard the reports of looting and burning and could hear all the trouble over on Myrtle Avenue a long clock away.
Eventually we ran out of beer, weed, and interest and I walked down to my apartment in the middle of the block armed with a spare candle Eddie had given me. I had to walk up the four flights of stairs since the elevator was out. Having no TV to watch I fell right asleep, only to be woken around 2AM when Anna had finally made it home.
“How’d you get to Brooklyn?” I asked her.
“The manager gave us all cab fare and I finally caught a cab willing to come over the Bridge.”
I was glad she was ok.

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TOFURKEY FOR DINNER

Posted on July 7, 2024 by xaviertrevino




Sometimes a notion strikes me, and I have to act on it as soon as possible. An idea I’ve known about for a long time and never seemed important (or doable) but it suddenly seems of great consequence.


Years ago, I went to this place called Freeman’s Sporting club, which is actually some kind of expensive young bro clothing shop somewhere downtown to get a haircut. Freeman’s was a clothing store with a barbershop in the back. I mean, how hip is hip, bro? Clothes and hair? I went there because it was written up in the Times as the new place to get old haircuts. Like the ones every man on Boardwalk Empire was sporting. Short on the sides, long on the top, just like the Nazis liked it.
My dad wore his hair like that, slicked back with a ton of Brylcream. I decided to try it out. I made the trek down to Freeman Alley on the Lower East Side for my Nazi haircut. After a two hour wait watching hip young bros get their beards trimmed and hair slicked back, I got in the chair.
“That’s not gonna work for you,” said my tattooed, bearded barber. Your hair’s just gonna fall down. He gave me a short haircut I could have gotten for half the price at a local barber, and I didn’t look like an extra on Boardwalk Empire. He also suggested I not wash my hair. “Takes all the natural oils out of your hair.”
I wondered what it would be like not washing your hair with a ton of “product” in it, but since I don’t use “product” that’s about as far as I got, wondering. I tried it, not washing my hair; and by the third day my head was so itchy I went back to shampooing. That was 14 years ago.
A few weeks ago, I was about to put shampoo in my now thinning hair and thought, “wait a minute! I know what I did wrong.” I thought not washing your hair meant not getting it wet, like I’ve seen women do. Then I remembered the guy saying, “put a little conditioner in once in a while.” A revelation in the shower. I proceeded to wash my hair, but not shampoo it. And it worked. No itching, no natural oil loss.
The next day something else clicked, I don’t need to eat so much meat. My doctor has been after me to start taking statins, despite telling me that my numbers were good. I think he’s just trying to sell drugs like any typical American doctor, so I begged off. But my cholesterol is borderline, and the first thing I did was stop eating so much cheese. Then I started cutting down on eggs. My cholesterol got better, but the doctor still talked about “preventive” measures because of my age. That got me thinking, what else could be preventative without taking any sort of pill? Less meat, of course!


For years I’ve limited my meat intake, I went from having eggs and sausages for breakfast (who can resist huevos rancheros with chorizo?) and any kind of meat sandwiches for lunch and topping it off with a meat entrée for dinner to just meat for dinner. But I figured I can do more- like maybe no meat at all for the day. I’ll never give up meat completely, but I will eat less of it, I can do that.


Years ago, in my early recovery days a bunch of us would fellowship after a meeting by going to this place called “The Sanctuary” on First Avenue in the East Village. It was run by the Here Krishnas and vegetarian. Not my first choice but since I was sad and lonely and needed company, I bit the bullet and went along. After all I’d probably had meat for lunch or breakfast, and it wasn’t going to kill me not to have meat for dinner.
The Sanctuary was where I discovered Tofurkey. Not exactly like a nice greasy turkey thigh but it didn’t make me throw up and it was chewy enough. But only for special occasions.
Last week I was in Whole Foods, and I decided to check out what kind of meat substitutes they had. There’s tofu, of course, but what else? I’ve heard of the Impossible burger, so I looked at what’s in the box. When I read “methylcellulose, cultured dextrose and Food starch modified” among a dozen other ingredients I wondered jus how much better than meat a highly processed substitute is. I give the Impossible burger a pass.
I found something called Abbot’s plant-based ground beef, and reading the label there was nothing modified or methylled, just plain natural ingredients, so I figured I’d give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised, the texture was almost exactly the same as ground beef, and the taste decent. And it cost just as much as real meat! Imagine that!


There’s more of course. After seeing a picture I posted of my ground beef substitute dinner I posted on Facebook a friend sent me a recipe for mushroom and walnut meatballs that “really slap.” I can’t wait to find out how hard. But this being Fourth of July weekend, tonight I’m going to make myself a couple of real beef burgers for dinner. With homemade French fries. I’ll think about tofu tomorrow.

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ADULT TOYS

Posted on February 3, 2024 by xaviertrevino

I ran into a streak of work the last half of January, and realized I’d have some extra money.

Not a whole lot, as Charley Varrick once said, but more than I was expecting to have. A windfall, you might call it. Of course, I had to work for it, the emails and phone calls just came in a sudden torrent for the work.

The work ranged from replacing the valves on an old (and difficult) shower body on the Upper West Side to changing lightbulbs and setting up an Amazon firestick down in the Village. Along with five non-consecutive days of plastering and painting in SoHo, I was looking at some disposable cash. Of course, the bulk of it I planned to set aside for the next mechanical crisis our ancient secondhand car is going to throw at us. But I knew I’d have a little spending money left over.

There were some things I’ve been meaning to buy but was reluctant to spend money on, like an airbrush. I intend to actually build some of the model airplane kits gathering dust in my closet,

And I’ve been toying with the idea of creating actual art with an airbrush. So that was the first thing that came to mind.

I’ve also been wanting to get myself a pair of Thursday Boots Chelsea boots. They cost $200, and never on sale according to their website. But it’s a nice-looking boot, and I wouldn’t be wearing Blundstones like everyone else. When I sold shoes many years ago, Jimmy Breslin came into the store. Actually, he’d been dragged in by his wife Ronnie, who was paying for the shoes.

He asked how much the shoes were. He was trying on a pair of Allen Edmonds shoes, which ran about $100 in the mid-nineties.

“This style is $95.” I told him. Then he said, “Xavier, I pay $20 for a pair of shoes. Tell me why my wife wants to pay $95 for these?” Well, I could have told him that his $20 shoes probably didn’t make it to the end of the year, or that I really didn’t believe him knowing what he wrote about shoes in The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. I just explained to him he wasn’t going to find a quality pair of shoes for less than $75. He actually wrote about it in his Newsday column that week.

But back to my windfall and the toys I bought with it.

After working every day in one capacity or another for 2 straight weeks I finally had the day off last Friday. I had some of the money, but I didn’t even have time to spend it. But by Friday I had all my spending money. I wanted the airbrush badly, but I didn’t want to get price gouged at Blick. Besides, they didn’t have the one I wanted in stock.

I went to The Complete Sculptor’s website and they only had the Iwata airbrush, reasonably priced but after reading the reviews I saw it isn’t the one that would be good for my purposes. Time to order the airbrush online.

But I couldn’t leave The Complete Sculptor empty handed! I’d waited two weeks for some gratification. I was proud of myself that I hadn’t spent every night on Amazon clicking away like some demented old man watching HSN. But enough was enough and I needed to have something to hold, the airbrush would be on its way but not tangible yet.

I got, in no particular order, a mini hacksaw. A wire brush for my Dremel. Superglue accelerant. A glue dispenser for the styrene glue.

Well, now I needed the styrene glue to go with that! Luckily Blick art supplies has a store not 2 blocks from The Complete Sculptor, so I dropped by them for that. And a pair of detail scissors. And a new cutting mat. It all came to about fifty bucks.

Feeling good about not going crazy, when I got home, I ordered a knife sharpening set from Amazon. I’ve been meaning to do that since Danusia complained about how dull our kitchen knives are, so no guilt there. The knife sharpening kit reminded me of my days at Yorke Dynamold shoes in Queens, where I famously sharpened an expensive pair of Wiss scissors on the grinder and ruined them. I didn’t know you only sharpened the cutting blade, not the backside blade, and I sharpened both.

I know a bit more about sharpening now, and our knives cut right through the tomatoes I bought for the test.

But I’m going to wait till my next billing cycle before ordering those boots.

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THE RED CABOOSE IS CALLING

Posted on January 20, 2024 by xaviertrevino

The Red Caboose is a self-proclaimed “hobby shop” in the basement of a commercial building at 23 West 45th Street, in the heart of the diamond district. Damn, I should be writing for real estate brokers! Their website proclaims that while they “still do have trains in a variety of scales,” they are also “strong in die cast planes, cars, and have a vast supply of hobby supplies: paint, tools, glues, etc.” The Red Caboose is a dying breed. They should actually call themselves “The Last Hobby shop in Manhattan.”

There used to be dozens, and by the time I was frequenting them, in the 90’s there were still some left- Jan’s Hobby shop on the Upper East Side, a place I think they called The Model Center in the Empire State building, and my favorite, Ace Hobbies on 32nd Street just off of 6th Avenue.

Ace was a hole in the wall shop, literally just a bare loft space in Little Korea with stacks of military styrene model kits on sheet metal shelving. Planes, tanks, ships. Some racing cars for the car aficionados.

That was after the gulf war and it sparked interest in all things military, at least in me; and gave new hope to the fellow Lew who owned the place. And to the plastic model industry, of course.

Lew was a chain-smoking bald man in his late 40s who wore a wispy mustache and was prone to fraying white shirts and skinny ties. He looked like he could play a washed-up Madison Avenue Ad executive in some Jaqueline Susann movie. Well, a movie based on a Jaqueline Susann book, I should say.

One of the reasons it was my favorite was that Lew chain-smoked cigarettes, and so did I at the time. That and he also had a rack of the latest modeling magazines, plus Aviation week and Military Aircraft Journal. Nobody else had those things. He was also amenable to ordering a particular kit for you if it wasn’t in stock.

I would go to Ace Hobbies several times a week and spent a lot of time and money there with other model freaks. By doing so I ended up with a collection of over 500 plastic model kits. I probably built 50 or 60 of them until I got divorced and had to get rid of most of them.

I was really into the model building though- I strove to build “museum quality” models and came very close. I read “how to” magazines and bought the right tools and honed my skills.

That’s how I came to visit the Red Caboose sometime in the late 90s.

The Red Caboose had the best diorama supplies in the city. People that do model railroading are serious about their dioramas. They were the only ones that carried miniature colored and clear lights and lenses, essential even for airplanes if you want something to look authentic.

After finding out about them I made the trip to 45th Street in search of tiny glass lights. The place is in the basement of a four-story building, almost lost under “we buy gold” signs that overflow West 45th Street.

They had their own characters, some even wearing the de rigueur pinstriped railroad engineer caps. They had their own Lew- a tall thin African American fellow with granny spectacles dressed in chambray and denim that everyone called “The Professor.” But there was no smoking here.

I was fascinated. The dusty little shop was a warren of die-cast passenger airliners and cars. A good amount of plastic car kits. And of course, tons of HO scale trains.

I found my little lights, along with miniature chains and lichen. Bottled rust and oil stains. I was in heaven.

Of course, all of that went by the wayside when I got divorced and there were more important things to do besides building little airplanes. But somewhere along the line, I found an old Bakelite aircraft recognition model of a German bomber from WWII. A great find except the two tailplanes were broken off. But it’s tough for me to throw away anything that rare, much less an airplane, so I’ve toted it around from one apartment to another for the past 25 years.

Last year in the spur of the moment I hung it above our bed, flat against the wall. Danusia objected.

“Why don’t you like it?” I asked. “It looks like a cross.” She answered. It was getting a little Freudian for the both of us, I thought.

I took it down when we painted a couple of months ago, and I thought, “how do I get this to look less like a cross?” Why, fix the tailplanes, of course!

So here was the conundrum: The model itself is made of Bakelite, an outdated plastic they used to make telephones from in the 1940s. Some of us are familiar with the hard black substance.

The material I needed to make new tailplanes would have to be polystyrene card, and the only thing that will join the two is cyanoacrylate glue. Superglue, to the uninformed. This is work, as the dried glue is harder than either the Bakelite or the polyurethane. I would need all my skills to make blend in three disparate materials.

The second part of the conundrum was making an accurate representation of the twin vertical stabilizers. Just my luck there were two verticals and two horizontals, a twin-tailed plane.

I managed to track down some 1/72nd scale plans for the Do-17 online, made some sketches, and went to work with my trusty miniature saws and Dremel.

I did all this right after Christmas, which brings me to the kindness part of the story.

Right after the holiday we were invited to one of Danusia’s friends’ home up in Greenwich. She is a single mom with an 11-year-old boy.

“Do you think there is some activity you can do with Wes?” Danusia asked. “He can use an adult males’ attention…”

I thought about it, and about the 20 or so unbuilt model kits in my closet.

“Does he like to build things?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. He likes Legos and things like that.”

“How about I bring an airplane we can build together?”

“But all you have are warplanes. His mother wouldn’t appreciate that.”

“I think I can find something unwarlike.” I said.

I looked through my stash and found an old 1/72nd scale FROG kit of the Grumman “Goose.”

The Goose was a seaplane designed before the war as an 8-passenger commuter plane specifically for the wealthy Long Island crowd. Fly to New York Harbor and skip the LIRR! They must have proclaimed. The kit I had was of course of a plane pressed into service by the RAF during the war, but there was no need to paint it or put the decals on so it could just be the passenger goose. Wes and I had a blast putting the goose together and it inspired me to get off my ass and fix the Dornier with the broken tail.

As you can see by the pictures, I was successful. I want to tackle more of the kits in my stash, but I need more polystyrene glue. I left the bottle I had with Wes in case he feels like budling more kits. The bottle I gave him I bought at Blick art supplies, where I got the sheet plastic. But it comes with a little brush and is not as good as the professional glue dispensers from Testor’s, which is what I always used. But I know they have them at the Red Caboose.

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Holy Guacamole

Posted on December 31, 2023 by xaviertrevino

Guacamole is a staple of the Mexican kitchen. It’s become an American favorite, an essential for Superbowl parties and fourth of July barbeques. Guacamole has become as American as apple pie, so to speak. And like apple pie recipes, there are endless variations.

I learned to make guacamole from my mother, who grew up in the mountains near the city of Puebla in Mexico. In our kitchen my mother kept a mortar and pestle, which she called a molcajete.

She used it to grind down spices and garlic to use in her cooking. It was carved from volcanic basalt and looked ancient. For me it represented a connection to the ancient past of the native American peoples of Mexico that represent 41% of my DNA. I have no idea what happened to that molcajete, but I wish I’d taken it with me when I was the last person to leave my childhood home after my mother died in 1977.

Returning to the subject of guacamole and the present, I make guacamole for most dinners we invite people to, Christmas, Easter, birthdays. I also make it as a bring-with dish to any potluck I’m invited to- in this case my friend Wayne’s New Year’s Day open house this coming Monday.

I have to mention that I have my own molcajete, Danusia gave it to me for a birthday ten years ago or so. But it’s made from granite and doesn’t have the patina of history my mother’s had.

I cherish it not just as a thoughtful gift with some meaning to it, but as a kitchen tool I like to use. Just the appearance has mystical qualities. I’ll be using it Monday to crush up some dried Aji Charapita peppers for a special guacamole for my friend Wayne. He’s Jamaican and takes great pride in Jamaican Scotch Bonnet peppers, which are pretty hot. So, when I discovered these Peruvian Aji Charapitas I thought of Wayne, and this will be my opportunity to share some heat with someone who will appreciate it.

My mother’s guacamole was pretty spicy. She used a combination of jalapeño and habanero peppers, onion, and diced tomatoes in her guacamole. A pinch of salt, the juice from a whole lime and her secret ingredient, a big dollop of mayonnaise. When I was old enough it was my job to dice up the peppers, onion, and tomatoes for her.

“Not small enough,” she’d say when I thought I was done. “Chop more.” So, I have the skill required now to chop the ingredients to proper size. I could use my food processer, another gift from my lovely wife, but there’s something visceral and spiritual about using my 8-inch kitchen knife.

My recipe is a little different. After making a chili for a group picnic many years ago that was so hot only the most courageous of my friends would eat, I realized I was going to have to adjust for the American palate. But how could I make it interesting? Different from the pablum available at Whole Foods without sending everyone running for the water faucet? Ginger! That’s how.

My mother never cooked with ginger, as a matter of fact I didn’t discover ginger until I was an adult and began to sample various Asian cuisines. But ginger has been a staple of my cooking for the past 20 years. I put it in everything. Beans, stir fry, stews; anytime I marinate meat.

So, here’s the recipe:

2 or more ripe avocados. If they are black, they are ripe. No squeezing, please.

½ cup of grated ginger. I use a regular box grater with the next to smallest holes.

1 large jalapeño or serrano pepper. Or you can go crazy with habaneros or even scotch bonnets! How courageous are your friends? Do you still want to have friends after they try it?

½ or less of a small red onion. The peppers and onion will have to be diced small, like my mamma said.

The juice of half a lime. More if you use more avocados.

A pinch of salt, and lastly, a dollop of mayonnaise.

I cut up the avocados a bit in the bowl before adding the finely chopped ingredients. Makes it easier to mash and mix everything together after. And there you have it! Please let me know if you try it.

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THE SECONDHAND CHRISTMAS TREE

Posted on December 24, 2023 by xaviertrevino

One of my earliest memories of buying a Christmas tree was when I was 9 years old. My mother and I went out to get the tree on Christmas eve. “It will be cheaper then.” My mother said. “They don’t want to get stuck with any trees and we’ll get a good price.” Was her reasoning.

So we went to see the tree man, a rare white man in Bedford-Stuyvesant in 1963, and looked over the remaining trees. My mother chose one and asked how much. He said $4 and my mother offered two. He let it go for three. She and I carried the seven-foot Douglas fir home.

The past couple of years the price of trees has been astronomical, so we haven’t bought a tree since 2020, when I paid $45 for a 4-footer. In 2021 we went to a place in Kingston, where we’d been visiting friends and got a bunch of free branches, the cut-offs from big trees and Danusia made some kind of green arrangement on the wall. We did the same last year with local cast-offs.

This year Danusia asked the local tree seller on Edward M. Morgan Place (where I got the $45 tree) How much the 4-footers were. They said $100. No way we are paying a hundred bucks for something we have to throw away in a few weeks. I reluctantly started planning for another fake tree. Then something interesting happened. I overheard my good friend Tommy, the housepainter arguing with his wife on the phone.

“What was that about?” I asked curiously, though it was none of my business.

“Sarah doesn’t like the tree I bought.” He said. “What’s wrong with the tree?” I had to know.

“Nothing. It’s a great tree. It’s an awesome tree.”

Sarah had just come home from work to discover the not tall enough tree in her Livingroom and had called Tommy to complain about it.

“So how come she doesn’t like it?” I asked.

“She says it’s too small. Says she’s taller than the tree.”

“How tall is the tree?” I asked.

“It’s six feet! At least I think it’s six feet. Taller than me.”

Well, Tommy is about an inch shorter than I, and I’ve shrunken to 5’8 ½ (the half inch is important to someone that used to be 5’10) but Tommy hasn’t reached the shrinking stage yet. Neither has Sarah, who happens to be taller than Tommy. So, I can see her point.

“What are you going to do about it?” I asked.

“Get another tree, wadda think?” “What are you going to do with the tree Sarah doesn’t like?” I asked.

“Get rid of it, I guess.”

“Can I have it?”

“If you come get it you can have it. When you gonna come?” I had to think about that. Tommy and I were at a meeting in the East Village, close to his home on East 4th Street. But I live on 156th Street and Riverside Drive. I would have to drive our car downtown to get the tree. And there was the problem.

Normally the solution would be to ask my wife Danusia to drive down for the tree, it is after all her car. But Danusia was in Kentucky on a job. If I wanted the tree, I was going to have to do it myself, and that was a scary proposition. It’s scary because the last time I’d driven in the city alone was in 1982 and I was drunk at the time. Wasn’t thinking about the consequences. I didn’t think of the consequences when I said to Tommy “I can come in the morning.”

“Early, come early, Xavier.”
“I’ll be there at 10.”

Of course, that night I didn’t get much sleep, thinking about having to drive the car all by myself the next morning. You see, I just got my license 9 years ago, at the age of 60. And since then, the only driving I’ve really done is when we visit friends upstate, and then only on fairly empty country roads. I can’t have more than a total of 10 hours behind the wheel, and almost all of them with someone by my side saying, “watch out!” every time I make a mistake. The thought of running the errand was daunting.

I lay in bed thinking of NYC traffic and NYC drivers, remembering the onslaught of cars jockeying for position on Delancey Street when I took driving lessons from Mr. No at the Far East driving school nine years ago. Mr. No shouting “You go! Go!” When I didn’t react fast enough.

I finally fell asleep with the thought I could still punk out in the morning, call Tommy and say I wasn’t coming. I thought of asking him to bring the tree up in his truck, but I knew he would just laugh.

Saturday morning, I got up and told myself to grow up. “Just get in the car and go get the tree.” I said to myself. What could possibly happen? Then a million things that could happen rushed through my mind, none of them good.

The fastest way down would be to take the Henry Hudson, and the entrance to the HH is just a left turn and 200 feet from the driveway of our garage. But driving on the highway with the maniacal New York drivers going faster than they should scared the shit out of me. So, I got on my computer and mapped out a route going down Riverside Drive and then whatever local streets I could use to get to East 4th Street and Avenue A. Why couldn’t Tommy live on the West side?

I went down to the garage level with the car keys and my homemade directions I’d scribbled on a piece of paper. I got behind the wheel and steeled myself for an adventure. I managed to back the car out of our space without hitting anything and found myself on 158th Street heading east.

The worst thing that happened to me on the way down was not realizing the 11th Avenue splits at 40th Street, the right 2 lanes keep going down to 24th Street where I planned to make a left and go across to 7th Avenue, my gateway to the East side. So not knowing that and being in the far-left lane I ended up on the nightmare of 40th street, with all of the tunnel traffic and signs and little streets that go God knows where. I kept praying I wouldn’t end up in New Jersey. I managed to make it to a light on 9th Avenue, where I was suddenly accosted by the squeegee men. Squeegee men! I thought Giuliani had gotten rid of them! But no, here was one throwing dirty water on the windshield.

“Hey! Stop! I don’t have any change!” I shouted. I half expected the guy to say he takes Venmo, but he just scowled and walked away leaving me with a sudsy window. I now know better than to drive on 40th Street.

After getting to 7th Avenue, it was smooth sailing. I made a left turn on West 4th and was actually able to answer Tommy’s frantic text messages of “Where are you?” while waiting for a red light somewhere between there and 1st Avenue. “Almost there.” I texted from somewhere around the Bowery.

I pulled up to a fire hydrant just short of Tommy’s building and called him. I assumed he was upstairs waiting for my call.

“Where are you?” He asked.

“By the fire hydrant.” I replied, and in an instant, he sprang into view with the tree on his shoulder. He’d been waiting in front of the building.

“You’re late. I’ve got pancakes on the stove!” I looked at my watch and it was 10:10. Only ten minutes late, but I wasn’t going to get into an argument over it.

The tree was semi-wrapped up in blue painter’s tape, after all the guy is a professional painter, so it was that much easier to get it into the back of our “Sports wagon,” as the manufacturer likes to call it. I call it “little blue,” since it’s small and dark blue. I had already put the back seats down, so we wrestled it into the car, and I was off to my less stressful trip home. I stopped by a guy selling trees on Hudson Street and bought a green plastic tree stand, I’d thrown away the red and green metal stand we’d had for years when we’d decided trees were too expensive in 2020.

I got home without any further drama and was grateful we live in a building with an elevator to the garage. I took the tree upstairs, gave it a “fresh cut” with my power saw and set it up. It may be second hand, but it sure is beautiful, like Tommy said. But I’m glad it was too short for Sarah’s taste.

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FIVE MINUTES IN THE WATER

Posted on September 5, 2022 by xaviertrevino

 
Before I realized I’d said it I inadvertently suggested to Danusia “Why don’t we go to the beach?” Last Friday. We’d been talking about Labor Day weekend and maybe doing something special, and I know she’s very fond of the beach. I am not, which is why I was surprised I’d said it.
This would be the second time I’ve been to the beach this summer, we’d been in the spring once or twice to fly kites, but that didn’t involve wearing a swimsuit or going in the water.
The first time for me this summer was a few short weeks ago, when she wanted to take a friend to the beach one last time before her friend moved back to Poland. I donned swim trunks, and besides putting my feet in the water I didn’t even bother to take off my shirt. I spent the rest of the time safely ensconced beneath the nifty beach umbrella Danusia had ordered on Amazon.
A definite improvement over the cheap umbrella we’d gotten at a CVS in the Rockaways last summer. I don’t remember what happened to that one, I just remember having to chase it down a few times after the wind ripped it out of the sand and sent it flying across the beach like a spear.
This one has its own screw in post and is bigger and made of heavier cloth than the last one. It will not fly away and my fears of impaling a stranger with our flying umbrella have subsided.
I still have other fears, like the fear of displaying my more than middle aged body in public, gone are the days of cavorting naked at the nude section of Jacob Riis beach. I fear getting sunburned, eaten alive by biting flies or mosquitoes, sand in ridiculous places and drowning.
These fears are shaped and reinforced by past experience, the worst being almost drowning in Far Rockaway when I was 11 or 12. Then there was the time I caught some kind of skin fungus in Coney Island the summer I turned 14 through an open cut. I had lesions on my skin for a year after that.
My father loved the water having grown up in Tampico, Mexico- a costal beach town if there ever was one. So trips to the beach were a requirement of growing up in my family. But after I moved out of the house and started my own adult life the only way I went to the beach was because a woman in my life wanted to go to the beach.
Of course the woman in my life now is Danusia, and she loves the beach every bit as much as my dad did. But she, unlike my dad, does not insist or require that I accompany her. She usually goes with friends or her niece, Kasia.
“Let me call Kasia to see if she and Ritchie want to come along,” Danusia said after I’d sealed my fate. Kasia and Ritchie indeed want to come along.
Saturday morning we got up early and I made sandwiches and Danusia made enough three-bean salad to feed an army and we dragged all our stuff down to the garage and loaded up the car. We drove to Brooklyn to pick up Kasia and Ritchie.

It was a great day for the beach, we decided on Saturday because we both had stuff scheduled for Sunday and rain was forecast for Monday. It was partly cloudy; high wispy clouds that held no rain but diffused the hot sun nicely, the hot sun bearing down relentlessly is one of the things I hate about the beach- and a nice cooling breeze was in the air. A high of 85° was predicted and the weatherman did not disappoint.
I had already decided that I was going in the water; I decided that right after my inadvertent blurting of let’s go to the beach. A voice inside said, “be brave, go in the water, and don’t be a stick in the mud.”
As soon as I erected the nifty new umbrella and we set up the pop-out “tent” I bought from “Today’s picks” on the Today show- it’s a really cool tent that springs into shape but a pain in the ass to try and get back into a flat round shape I was ready to go in the water. I’d even taken off my shirt encouraged by some of the flabby out of shape old man bodies milling about the beachfront. But first, we all had a bite to eat. That old don’t eat before you swim myth is just that, a myth.
Eating done, Danusia announced, “I’m going in the water!” “Me too,” I said. “Us too, said Kasia. And the four of us waded in.
The water was cold, I had hoped it would be a little warmer, but I sucked it up and braved the cold. I went in up to my chest, and then a big wave came and broke over my head and it was no use trying to keep my hair dry. I let the fears go and enjoyed being in the water and bouncing in the waves the way I’d done as a child. At least now I know to stand sideways against the tide so I don’t get knocked over and under the way it happened so many years ago in the Rockaways.
Besides the four of us there weren’t may people in the water. “Look!” Danusia said. “More people are coming in the water because of us!” And they were, now. I was just beginning to relax and enjoy it when there was a frantic whistling from the shore.
“Out of the water! Everybody out of the water!” It was a young woman in a bikini holding one of those white lifeguards floats under one arm. “There’s sharks in the water! No swimming. The drones have spotted sharks in the water.”
Damn! The first time in years I’m digging being in the water in years we get thrown out of the water. It was a little more than five minutes, I think more like fifteen, but I fulfilled my own promise to myself.
Later that night we were watching TV after taking showers and eating dinner. Danusia suddenly kissed me and said, “Thank you,” while looking deeply into my eyes. Puzzled, I tried to think of what kind of good deed I’d done to merit such a special thank you, I said, “For what?”
“For going in the water with me today,” she said.
It is the little things that count.
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