ADVENTURES IN MEDICATION

Posted on March 31, 2015 by xaviertrevino

i'm new

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you might have read A GROWING PROBLEM, about my BPH symptoms. If you don’t know what BPH is, you can look it up, but you probably won’t be interested in that post or this one. Then again you might just appreciate the humor and irony of it.
I’ve had it for almost 15 years now and have learned to sort of live with it; something that at times is not easy.
For a long time treatment was pretty routine, I saw my doctor once a year; he examined me, told me to get PSA tests, made recommendations and prescribed meds.
In the 5th year of treatment he wanted me to start on something called PROSCAR, what PROPECIA is actually called. It was supposed to shrink my prostate, but instead just diminished my sex drive and ability to perform. It didn’t grow any hair on my head either; I continued to lose hair at a steady rate.
Last year, the last time I saw my little Philippine doctor with the shiny black shoes and slicked-back black hair (I now wonder if he dyed it) he made a big deal about the size of my prostate.
“It’s very big,” he told me after looking at my sonogram. They do sonograms of your bladder and prostate nowadays.
“No kidding,” I wanted to say. What I said instead was,
“Since it hasn’t shrunk after taking the Proscar for 5 years, I think I’m going to stop taking it.”
“No more Proscar.” He said, nodding sagely at my logic.
“But it is very big and you must be very uncomfortable, and we should do something about it.”
“Well, I doubled up on my dose of Tamaflousin,” I said. Tamaflousin is the name for FLOMAX, an alpha-blocker. I always thought alpha-blockers were for psych patients, but apparently they can be used to improve your flow.
“OK, some people do that. I’ll adjust your dose. But I would like to do the laser prostate surgery as soon as possible.”
I agreed it should be done, without any intention of getting back to him on it. I was pretty happy with the way the medication was working, and I’m a great believer in “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

I wish I was as free as this hawk.

I wish I was as free as this hawk.

The whole scenario changed within weeks of that meeting. I lost my job, and within a few months, my health insurance. Due to a fluke in the CVS prescription system, I was sent a three-month supply of the pills at the same time I was picking up pills from my local CVS. I took care to fill as many prescriptions as possible before my insurance ran out.
By the fall I was running out of pills, and started having to pay full price for them. I went from paying less than $20 for a month’s supply to paying $171 out of pocket. But I needed those pills, so I paid. I also did nothing to straighten out my uninsured status. I figured I still had refills, I am making some money, and I’ll worry about that when the time comes. Sometime around then I received a letter form my doctor that he was retiring.
The time came two weeks ago, when I discovered there were no more refills, and I had maybe ten pills left. I immediately started taking one pill a day instead of the two I’d been taking for almost a year. I felt the difference right away, and it scared me.
It scared me enough to go to the doctor’s office, it’s a place on 19th Street and 3rd Avenue with a bunch of doctors, and I figured one of them had picked up my doctor’s caseload. I was terrified of what the outcome would be, I imagined sitting there for hours waiting to tell my sad tale to some doctor and then being shown the door.
It actually only took 5 minutes to speak to a nice young woman named Clauda (not Claudia) and she gave me an appointment to see a new doctor the following week. Then she asked,
“Are you all out of medication?”
After I said yes she gave me a week’s supply of samples of another alpha-blocker. Of course she also informed me that it would be $275 to see the doctor, and it would be like a first time visit. I agreed, after all, what choice did I have?
The following day, last Wednesday I went down to the V.A. Hospital to see what kind of help I could get from them. I’d been toying with that idea for months, ever since my medical insurance had lapsed, but had done nothing about it.
I knew I was in their system, I’d been on their methadone program for 9 years a long time ago, and this fall I’d received some kind of card from them that I could use at a private doctor if I couldn’t get treatment within 30 days at the V.A. Hospital. Again, for some reason I expected to be thrown out on my ass (I’m used to that) but what happened was that a very nice woman with very long and elaborately painted fingernails updated all of my information and advised me that I was “Good to go.” Except I have to wait a month to see a doctor.
But at least that’s done, and as they say, it’s better late than never.
Yesterday afternoon I had my appointment with my new doctor, and just in time as I took the very last sample pill in the morning.
He was a young guy, in his late 30s, handsome, blond, and gum chewing. I’ll call him Dr. Girardi, like the guy from the Yankees, on account of he’s Italian also. He was like a more erudite Tony Soprano, with his easy smile and matter of fact manner. We spoke about my history and the medication; he said he’d give me the tamoflusin. The he had me lie down on the table and did the sonogram thing.
“Your prostate is very big. Four centimeters, it looks like.” I think that was the same thing the other guy said, but at least this guy wasn’t making me feel ashamed about it.
“Allright, drop your pants and bend over the table,” he said, donning his vinyl gloves. He did the required rectal exam.
“At least it’s smooth, that’s a good sign. Look, I do a laser surgery right here in the office, I do about 10 of them in a month, and I guarantee you it will help you with your flow. I put the laser up there and remove tissue from the prostate, it’s like coring an apple.” I thought about having Tony Soprano core my apple, and it was a little more appealing than the last guy’s pitch.

Not quite a cored apple, but you get the idea.

Not quite a cored apple, but you get the idea.

“I’ll think about it,” I said, already knowing I don’t have the money to pay for that procedure.
“You do that, and give me a call. Your prostate is only going to keep getting bigger.” We shook hands, I got my prescription, and left.
Well, at least I accomplished that. Now to see what the V.A. doctor has to say in a month. At least I’ve got a year’s worth of medication on file now at CVS.

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NEW YORK FRUIT TREES (a photo essay)

Posted on March 28, 2015 by xaviertrevino

NY fruitHamilton Heights has a lot of trees, and they bear a fruit unique to the city. This is a man-made fruit, of a few varieties.
There are the brightly colored balloon fruits, like the one in the picture at the top of the post. I took this picture about two months ago, maybe more, when the fruit first appeared on 155th Street in front of the Prince Albert Hall Masonic temple.
They have withered away, but the remains are still up in the tree.

same balloons yesterday.

same balloons yesterday.

There are a lot of plastic sheet fruit, these are all over the place, and I’ve seen them on Broadway, on my block, on Amsterdam Avenue. But this tree on 133rd Street between Broadway and 12th Avenue has the most plastic sheets.
Also on this block is a whole row of newly planted trees with these cute little signs on them:

i'm new
I wonder what kind of fruit they will bear? Not apples, for sure.
This thing looks like either a wee-wee pad or an adult diaper; take your pick.

diaper

I know the balloons are easy to lose, a child wants to hold their big bundle of helium-filled balloons, and let go the minute they are distracted. So I understand the dozens of clutches of runaway balloons.
But the plastic sheets? Where do they come from?
Plastic bags are understandable. Even if one properly throws an empty plastic bag into a garbage can, the wind can easily rip it right out and send it on its way to the nearest tree.

plastic in tree

Years ago I saw a movie, with Elliot Gould called Little Murders. Vincent Gardenia was also in it and it was pretty funny, if you think New York in the ‘70s was funny. Elliot Gould played a passive, depressed photographer who took pictures of dog shit. Taking pictures of garbage in trees is a step up, I think. While it’s still pictures of crap, the rubber and plastic draped in trees have a certain beauty to them, or at least I see some beauty in them. At least they didn’t make it to the ocean where some poor sea animal will swallow it and die.
I have concerns about the environment, and I wish I could see real fruit growing on the trees on my block.
My brother told me a funny story about one of my distant cousins in Mexico who made a living picking up the mangoes that fell from the mango trees on his street and selling them to tourists leaving the airport. He bought beer with the money. Too bad there’s not much call for acorns. The Trinity Church Cemetery down the block is covered with acorns in the fall. I could make a killing.
I wish I could do more besides make sure I dispose of plastic properly, I even take cloth shopping bags with me (my wife Danusia insists that I do) when I go shopping. And my nifty Whole Foods shopping cart. That saves on a few plastic shopping bags.

Stuffed to the gills.

Stuffed to the gills.

Fairway still uses the plastic bags. I heard San Francisco has outlawed plastic bags, but if we outlaw plastic bags, then more trees will have to be cut down to make more paper for paper bags. The Ying and the Yang of responsible living. It’s like, use artificial sweeteners, don’t use artificial sweeteners.
Eat broccoli and don’t get cancer.
Keep smoking and do get cancer. It gets a little too complicated for me.
So, what to do? I guess I’ll keep trying to do the best I can with what I am able to do, and not worry too much about the rest. And I’ll keep looking for beauty wherever I can find it, whether it is politically correct or not.

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AFTER AN EARLIER INCIDENT…

Posted on March 26, 2015 by xaviertrevino

no train

Just as I turned on my computer to write this the transit report came on. The young woman on NY1 announced that there were delays on the downtown F train.
I planned to write about the recent spate of subway delays and deteriorating service, but finding out there was a new, current problem just drove the point home for me. I just watched Lauren Scala of NBC news talk about how there are delays and service changes on the 1, 2, 3, and F trains. She did not elaborate.
NYC transit doesn’t do much to elaborate either, and we all stand around wondering whether the next scheduled train will arrive or not.
I’m just going to lay out what I myself experienced in the past month on the subway system. On Sundays I go to a self help group on the Lower East Side, and I take the D train from 145th Street to Broadway-Lafayette Street and change for an F train. The group starts at 6 and the ride to Second Avenue takes 40 minutes, provided that the F train is on schedule.
I think once in the past five months since we moved up here was that the case.
So I’ve learned to give myself an extra 20 minutes, the average wait time for an F train at the Broadway-Lafayette station on a Sunday at 5:30 PM. All to go one stop, to Second Avenue.

I saw this train at Second Ave a couple of months ago. I couldn't decide if it was a ghost or a mistake.

I saw this train at Second Ave a couple of months ago. I couldn’t decide if it was a ghost or a mistake.

Two Sundays ago, March 8th, I left extra early, I was at Broadway-Lafayette at 5:20, and I figured I’d catch the F train I usually missed by a minute or so.
I was doing the Thursday NYT crossword puzzle on the train on the way down, and I was halfway through when I alit at Broadway-Lafayette.
By 5:30 the train had not arrived, and more and more people filled the platform.
Another D arrived, the one I’m usually on, discharging more people. Seven minutes later another D arrived. The platform was getting really crowded. No announcements were made.
Yet another D train came at 10 minutes to 6, and I thought about walking the 10 blocks to Avenue A. But the hope that the F would finally arrive kept me glued to the platform.
I could hear a constant stream of announcements from the 6 train platform at the end of the station, but there were no announcements on our platform.
On the other side, the uptown side, the D and F trains arrived on schedule, every 7 minutes. By this time I had finished the crossword and had nothing left to do except to time the trains that did arrive.

No train a comin'.

No train a comin’.

At 6PM I decided to walk. This train wasn’t coming anytime soon.
As I reached the stairs at the end of the platform, I passed two transit workers who’d been waiting for the F and overheard them talking. One of them had a radio.
“There’s a stalled F train at Second Avenue and they’re sending the F down the A line to Brooklyn. Wanna take the D and walk?”
Too bad they didn’t share this information with all of the other people on the platform.
As I walked up the stairs, I could here the announcement that was being made on the 6 platforms.
“Because of a stalled F train at Second Avenue, all Brooklyn bound F trains are being re-routed down the A line to Jay Street-Borough Hall…”
If there had been a way to push the whole NYC Transit system in front of a train at that point, I would have done it.
Yesterday I was coming home from a job in Park Slope on the B train. The plan was to switch to an A train at 59th Street if there was one in the platform, otherwise stay on till 145th and either switch to a C train which puts me one block closer to home, or walk. If I got an A I might overtake a C train and get home faster at best, and at least I wouldn’t have to walk up the stairs at 145th Street to change for a C train.
The train pulled into 59th Street; I was making good time. No A train, so I remained seated. Just as the doors closed, an A pulled in. Damn! Maybe the doors would open again. But they didn’t.
As my train pulled into 125th Street there was an A train with the doors open on the platform. I got up and got ready to bolt across the platform, praying for those doors to stay open. Our doors opened and with dozens of others I bolted the 20 feet or so to the open A train doors and got on. It was crowded and I had to stand, but that was OK because I was only going one stop, it would take three minutes at the most.
The B train doors closed and it left the station, and my heart sank. I realized the A train wasn’t going anywhere. I peeked to the end of the platform to see if the light was green or red, and it was green. So what was the problem? NYC transit did not let us know. I waited, and waited. I was seething again.
Four separate times in March the A and C trains were delayed or suspended because of “a rail condition,” whatever that means. And I’m not talking about 10 or 20 minute delays, I’m talking about total I was an hour late delays. The fare’s gone up and the service gets worse.
I have a picture somewhere of track workers working on a track in front of my window when I lived on Flushing Avenue in Williamsburg. There was one guy on his knees doing the work, and six guys who just stood there and watched. And you know these guys were clocking big bucks, it’s “skilled labor” and it was a Sunday. I wish I could make big bucks watching someone else sweat. There’s something wrong with this picture.

This train was stalled at the Myrtle Ave station in Bushwick for a half hour last summer.

This train was stalled at the Myrtle Ave station in Bushwick for a half hour last summer.

So yesterday, after standing on that A train for 10 minutes or so with nary a word from the crew or any announcement over the station P.A. system, the doors closed and we pulled into the tunnel. We’d barely gotten out of the station when the train stopped for another 10 minutes. It continued to 145th street like that, in fits and starts, turning a 3 minute-trip into a 28-minute trip. Yes, I kept looking at my watch. Again, not a peep from the crew.
When I got off at 145th, I hoped against hope a C train would be approaching, and that’s when I heard the first announcement.
“After an earlier incident, uptown A and C trains are now running with delays…” I went up the stairs and walked home.

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LAST GASP FOR SNOOPY

Posted on March 21, 2015 by xaviertrevino

snoopy222

I guess I jumped the gun with my feels-like-spring post on Tuesday, judging by yesterday’s weather. Of course spring snowstorms are nothing new, there was a big blizzard on April 1st in 1997, the April Fool’s blizzard. There was also a pretty good late March storm in 2002, a special present for me, as it was the last night I was working the night shift when I was a night porter. I had to shovel snow by myself.
I seem to remember an Easter snowstorm when I was a kid, I think in 1967 or ’68, but I can’t find a record of it.
Let’s not forget T.S. Eliot’s admonishment that “April is the cruelest month.” We’ll see about this April.

snoopy

When I heard about the approaching storm on Wednesday I thought, well, at least I get to wear my warm leather “pilot hat” from Fur Hat World in Canada. I got it in the beginning of the month, and I’ve only worn it once since I got it. The day I wore it a friend dubbed it my “Snoopy” hat, and I guess that’s the way I’m always going to think about it from now on.
When I was in the army we were issued “Hat, cold weather,” that looked like this:

cold weather hat

And yes, the Drill Sergeants used to refer to them as “Snoopy” hats.
Back then, in basic training, which I took in the winter of 1979, we were given haircuts at the reception center in South Carolina, then another “Infantry” haircut two days later in Ft. Benning Ga., and when we were informed we were getting another haircut not two weeks into our 90-day residence at Ft. Benning I’d had enough. We were required to pay for our haircuts, (deducted from our paychecks) and I decided to take matters into my own hands.
I borrowed an electric razor from another trainee and with that and my Bic razor I gave myself a Mohawk haircut in the bathroom. It wasn’t much of a Mohawk, as I had about a quarter inch of hair. But it was enough of one to incense my drill Sergeant who screamed “What is that shit on the top of your head?” when he saw it. He instructed me to go upstairs and “get rid of it.” As if the humiliation of shaving off the mustache I’d had since birth wasn’t enough, now I had to shave my head.
Two days later I found myself on a range shooting my M-16 rifle for the first time. Coincidentally, and I love telling people this, my first M-16 was made by Mattel under license from Colt Firearms during the Vietnam War. That’s right, the war was fought with stuff made by a toy company. And they wondered why the M-16 jammed so much.
It was early January and it was 22° in Georgia. I though the south was warm, but 22° is cold. I had my Snoopy hat on underneath my helmet.
“What is that shit on the top of your head?” Oh, no, not again. Different Drill Sergeant, same question.
“My cold weather hat, Drill Sergeant.”
“Well get rid of it. It’s not part of the uniform of the day.” You were supposed to wear only what was on the “uniform of the day” list.
If you’ve never worn a helmet, the way it works is that there is a leather band that fits around your head attached to web straps that support the helmet liner underneath the steel helmet. So only an inch of leather touches your head, and the rest of your scalp is exposed to the air.
Not only was it cold that day on the range, but there was a stiff wind blowing down from the North pole. The wind went up into the airspace in my helmet and totally froze the top of my head. I couldn’t wear my snoopy hat and I wished I had at least that quarter inch of hair I’d had to shave off.
Of course, last night wasn’t too cold, but it was cold enough for my new hat. This hat is leather and “Sherpa” lined, Sherpa is cloth, not fur, so I wonder how Fur Hat World gets away with selling it. Sort of like fish fur in Russia.

Real fur

Real fur

That’s what I wanted, though, I already have an aviator-style fur hat, my Coyote lined Crown Hat company hat I got on sale at Sak’s 5th Avenue some 10 years ago. That hat is so warm It had to be under 20° to wear it. And I can’t hear anything if I put the flaps down. So I needed a lighter, but still warm and aviator-stylish hat, and this one fit the bill.

Of course this hat didn’t do much to keep the snow out of my face, and for some reason the snow is always blowing in my face no matter what direction I walk in. It’s almost like the wind knows which way I’m going to walk and adjusts itself accordingly. But the choice was stylish aviator hat or practical baseball hat and hood, and style won out over practicality. One can’t look cool and stay dry at the same time.

spring snow
The city looked pretty once again, a blanket of white always looks good on top of the grey and black of hard concrete and asphalt. Makes the ground a little softer, too.
It was soft only for a couple of hours yesterday, though, and then it turned into either hard-packed ice, or wet slush depending on where you were walking. Some people put out salt, others did not, and the temperature on sidewalks varies depending on what’s underneath.
Well, it looks like the sun is coming out, and it’s still cold enough to wear my Snoopy hat today. I wonder if I should break out the YAKTRACS? I sure could have used them on some of the streets I was walking on last night. But I can’t think of everything, can I?

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HERE COMES THE SPRING AGAIN…

Posted on March 17, 2015 by xaviertrevino

broadway snow

A perfect day for a parade without floats, since it’s pretty windy. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, all those who indulge! For myself, not being Irish, I’ve never been to the parade. Then again I’ve never gone to the Mexican Day parade either, though I did once inadvertently get caught in a Puerto Rican Day parade. I was born in Mexico, in case you don’t know.
I have gone to Veteran’s Day parades, and twice to the Thanksgiving day parade, freezing my ass off both times.
I’ve gone to Fleet Week, rarely missed one of those in 20 years, to see the parade of ships.

DSC_0099.JPG

Well, enough about parades. What I really want to talk about is spring. Or the end of winter, actually, since spring doesn’t start till next week.
As George Harrison said, “It’s been a long cold lonely winter.”
Well, not lonely, I am married to a wonderful woman, but it was pretty cold and snowy.
Sometime in late December, or maybe it was early January, there was an ice storm. When I left the house in the morning I almost fell three times on the way to the subway. Danusia did manage to fall somewhere on St. Nicholas Ave.
The next day I ordered a set of YAKTRAX from L.L.Bean; they were on sale and that’s what pushed me over the line.

yaktrax

Of course there were no more ice storms, just a lot of snow, and I never got to wear my Yaktrax. But I’m ready for next winter.
All winter I had to cross at the crosswalk on my corner, the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and 152nd Street, because there was so much iced up grey and black snow all the way down to Broadway. I didn’t see the curb in front of my building till this morning. 152nd Street looks like this now:

glacier trail

This is what I imagine a glacier trail was like, except glaciers left rocks and trees in their wake rather than empty bottles and dog shit. But of course the street sweeper hasn’t been by yet.
So today, instead of going to the parade, I went to do the laundry down the block, and for the first time all winter I was able to cut catty-corner across Broadway without having to climb any ice mounds. Ah the joys of jaywalking!
I also made it down the block without getting stuck behind some enormous person waddling down the block in the narrow path shoveled by the neighborhood-building supers. The whole unobstructed sidewalk has returned!
I have to admit I’ll miss the snow-covered Trinity Cemetery; it was very beautiful all winter.

snow in graveyard

After I did the laundry I headed to Fairway-on-the-Hudson for some much needed fizzy mineral water. We’ve been subsisting on club soda for a few days because I haven’t been able to get to Fairway since the Wednesday before last.
If you read my blog that week you might remember my talking about a very angry woman riding the bus. Today’s experience was a lot more heartwarming.
After going to Fairway and determining there was no more ice on the Hudson, I braved the westward wind that tried to blow me back towards the Hudson as I walked up the long hill to Broadway.
I was lucky enough to catch an M 4 bus home, and even luckier to sit across a woman reading a book to her 5-year old daughter. It was much nicer than having to listen to an angry rant.
I took a picture, surreptitiously, of course; but since the woman and child are unidentifiable I’m posting it here:

reading on the bus

When my son was small, I would read to him as I put him to bed, a bedtime story. I don’t know why it was I and not his mother, but I’m really happy it was me. It’s something the both of us will remember forever.
Watching the woman read to her daughter, a pretty little girl with a huge grin on her face, she was clearly digging it made me happy to be alive. It made me feel like spring is here.

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AT THE MOVIES

Posted on March 15, 2015 by xaviertrevino

01f.village.east_.cinemas

Last night we went to a “Living Room” show at someone’s house in the Village and saw our friend Tammy Faye Starlight cannel Marianne Faithful. She had Barry Reynolds, who wrote a lot of songs for Marianne Faithful on guitar, so it was a double treat.
On our way down to the show, we were talking about movies, and somehow I remembered how we saw a movie at The Sunshine on Houston Street a few years ago and sat two rows behind Michael Musto, the New York writer of note.

michael-musto-93696_0x440
I was sure it was he; I’ve seen him around at other events and who can mistake those eyebrows and distinctive glasses. This was a couple of years ago, in 2012, I think, and we were watching either Magic Mike or Django Unchained, but I think Magic Mike would have been more apropos.
That got me off on a tangent about other famous people I’ve seen movies with.
The earliest famous person I remember watching a movie with was Ed Koch. I was with my 16-year-old son Javier, on our regular weekly visiting day. We almost always went to the movies on visiting day, and we’d gone to the Union Square Theater to see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It was an early show and the theatre was pretty empty. We’d taken seats near the front when an elderly man in a white shirt, sports jacket and suspenders peaking out from under the lapels came in, escorted by a younger man (middle aged) who made sure the older man was seated and then left. The old gentleman was Ed Koch. The suspenders were a dead giveaway.

This is what he looked like when we saw him at the movies.

This is what he looked like when we saw him at the movies.

I nudged my then 15-year old son and said, “There’s Ed Koch.”
“Who’s Ed Koch?” Was his reply.
“He was the mayor of this city once. Oh, never mind.”
After the show I made sure to follow him down to the street, and there was the other man waiting by a big black car illegally parked on 13th Street. He opened the door for Mayor Koch, who got in the back seat by himself. The guy closed the door, and got in the driver’s seat and drove away. A unique New York moment no one else seemed to notice.

The next time I saw a movie with someone famous was also with Javier and it was at the Village East Cinema on 2nd Ave. This was in 2009. Again it was the first show, we were seeing the last Indiana Jones movie, the one with Shia LaBeouf in it. There was a woman I instantly recognized buying a ticket in front of us.
When she spoke my recognition was confirmed, there’s only one person in the world that sounds like Brigid Polk.

This is from Brigid's Warhol days, when she was heavier.

This is from Brigid’s Warhol days, when she was heavier.

I would never have known it was she if it weren’t for a documentary I’d seen on channel 13, coincidentally not two weeks before. I knew about Brigid from my Max’s Kansas City days, she was one of the Warhol Stars and she famously recorded the last Velvet Underground gigs at Max’s on a little cassette recorder.
Back then she was pretty hefty, and in the documentary she spoke more about going to Weight Watchers and Key Lime pie than about Warhol and the whole underground scene. The woman in front of us was considerably lighter by 70 pounds or so, and I would never have recognized her if I hadn’t seen the documentary.

Brigid in 2009.

Brigid in 2009.

She bought a ticket for The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull too. If Javier had no idea who Ed Koch was it wasn’t even worth mentioning Brigid Polk to him, but I did tell Danusia when I got home.
Danusia was with me in 2009 when we sat next to Garrison Keillor at the IFC Center on 6th Avenue. The three of us were the only ones occupying the second row for a showing of one of the Red Riding movies. Danusia recognized him first; he looked familiar as I stood to let him into our row (we like to sit on the aisle) but Danusia made the positive ID. He munched on some candy during the movie.

garrison_keillor_1_0
Those are the movie famous people, but I’ve encountered others.
When I was 20 I was working for the Audio-Visual department at Pratt Institute, and one day I had the job of setting up a sound system for a dance troupe that was giving a performance in the new multi-million dollar gym, the ARC building. The dance troupe was called the Chuck Davis dance troupe and it was African dance.
After setting up the equipment in my socks, you were not allowed to wear shoes on the new gym floor; I sat next to a very pretty middle aged woman who looked vaguely familiar. She smiled at me when I sat down, and we watched the performance together. I couldn’t stop looking at her out of the corner of my eye; I felt I knew her from somewhere.
At the end of the performance Mr. Davis thanked the audience, thanked Pratt, but gave special thanks to “Miss Joanne Woodward,” who happened to be the woman I was sitting next to. She too was shoeless, her nyloned legs tucked demurely beneath her skirt the whole time we’d sat on the floor. My mouth dropped open when he identified her, I was truly in awe.
I wasn’t so much awed a few years later when I stood next to David Bowie at CBGB’s watching either the Ramones or Patti Smith, I was pretty much in a daze all the time back then and don’t remember which, but I do remember David Bowie. Nobody else looks like him.

Tammy Faye sings "Guilt" to an Italian man sitting in for a priest.

Tammy Faye sings “Guilt” to an Italian man sitting in for a priest.

Which brings me back to last night, Tammy Faye is a great tribute artist, I’ve seen her do a spot on imitation of Nico, and last night it was Marianne Faithful. And she always stays in character during the performance. We had a great time and it’s good to have great memories.

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DON’T MISS THE BUS

Posted on March 6, 2015 by xaviertrevino

M4

Wednesday I made my weekly trip to Fairway-on-the-Hudson. To get there I take the M4 bus on the corner of 152nd Street and Broadway, south side of the street.
The M5 limited also stops there, but the M5 makes a right turn at 135th Street and goes down Riverside Drive from there, and Fairway is on 133rd Street.
I checked the Bustime App on my phone and it said the next M4 would arrive in 7 minutes. I waited patiently, and more people joined me at the bus stop.
There is a hill just north of the bus stop, so you can’t see the approaching buses until they are a block away, the bus suddenly pops up over the hill and pulls up at the stop providing it doesn’t catch the light.

At the top of the hill.

At the top of the hill.

Right on time, a bus appeared at the crest of the hill, except it wasn’t the M4. It was an M5. I decided to take it and walk the extra 2 blocks; it was too cold to wait for the M4.
The bus pulled up to the stop, and just as I was about to get on, an M4 crested the hill and pulled up right behind the M5, but way out in the middle of the slush covered street. I and a few others scurried over to the M4, but as I reached the end of the idling M5 a woman who’d gotten there first was yelling,
“Over there? We gotta go over there?” Apparently the driver of the M4 was pointing to the bus stop, opting to wait for the M5 to pull out so the M4 could pull in to the proper spot. We all scurried back to the right place, and the M5 pulled away.
The woman who had shouted at the bus driver was on a new tack.
“What the fuck do they think we are? Over there! Why we gotta go over there?” She sounded angry and strident, so I let her get on the bus before me.
She wasn’t even fully on the bus before she unleashed a stream of invective at the driver.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? You think I’m some kind of piece of shit, having to run over here?” It continued even after she paid her fare and made her way to a seat in the middle of the bus.
The driver had done the right thing not to open the doors in the middle of the street. It’s just not safe, and a driver can get written up if a supervisor had seen that. She’d only pulled the bus up because she wanted to beat the light.
I have to mention that both the driver and the shouting woman were both middle aged black women.

Trapped inside.

Trapped inside.

One of the things I’ve noticed riding buses in this city is the sense of community that most black folks share in public, last mother’s day I was riding a bus in Crown Heights and almost every black woman of a certain age who got on the bus wished all the other women a happy mother’s day. It made me feel good to be human.
But the ride to Fairway on Wednesday was nothing but a gut wrenching, cringe-worthy 18 block ride to 135th Street. The woman who felt she’d been slighted did not let up on her harangue for the entire ride. She used every curse word she knew and criticized every inch of the driver’s anatomy. I always wonder why women use body criticism as a weapon. More often than not women describe romantic rivals as “ugly,” even though to me they both look about the same. Men generally don’t comment on another’s looks, they go more for strength or intelligence.
Clearly this woman had some issues. Having to walk a few extra feet is no reason to go on such a tirade, but she did it.
Any job where one has to deal with the public at large is a hard one, especially in this town. I sold shoes for a number of years and I can tell you stories about dealing with crazy people.
I really felt for the driver, and I was going to do what I always do when I get off a bus, say thank you. I always smile and greet the driver when I get on as well.
Sometimes they smile back and say hello. Some drivers just grunt, others totally ignore me and some even scowl. But I just do what I need to do and go find a seat or a place to stand. And I say thank you getting off, if I use the front door.
Sometimes drivers switch at 135th Street, there is a big depot in 133rd Street.
This was the case Wednesday, and the driver took all of her belongings and left the bus as the new driver got on. I guessed I wasn’t going to be saying thank you to her.
There was another woman on the bus, in a school crossing guard’s uniform. She stood near the driver and spoke to her quietly; I guess she rode the bus every day and they knew each other. She also got off at 135th, and as did she loudly wished the angry woman a nice day.
“Have a nice day,” she said, with as much sarcasm as she could muster.
“Fuck you too, bitch. Mind your own fucking business.”
It’s funny how different “have a nice day” sounds with the right spin. Ah, New York.

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IS THIS THING REALLY NECESSARY?

Posted on March 2, 2015 by xaviertrevino

ammo box

Saturday night I got a call from Segundo the super. He asked me if I wanted to work Sunday. It was a slim past two weeks work-wise, so I said yes. At least it was Sunday and he would be off, so I most likely wouldn’t be subjected to his musings about his sex life.
I knew it was going to snow, I figured maybe the guy that called out sick didn’t want to shovel snow or something, but hey, money is money.
When I got to the building with minutes to spare he did not answer his phone. I have to call him to get the keys on the weekends for two reasons:
One, not being a permanent employee I don’t have the keys, and two, on weekends there is no one else there to open the door for me. He did not answer, and a tenant I knew exiting the building let me in.
The first thing I noticed was that the elevator that goes to the basement was out. Bad new for me, I use that one to bring the garbage up or down. There was a little sign from the management company about an elevator re-build. Fourteen weeks starting February 17, so only three more months to go.
I got tired of hearing Segundo’s message, so I rang his buzzer, woke his ass up.
I took the working elevator up to his apartment, where sleepy-eyed and in his drawers, he informed me he’d forgotten I was coming. I got the keys and went to work.
There wasn’t a lot to do in the morning with the elevator out, so I got a dustpan and broom and went on dead roach patrol. The building has a very large storage room and bike room in the basement, and plenty of dead water bugs. The first time I’d met Segundo last spring he’d made a big deal about them.
“The tenants don’t like to see the dead bugs, even though they are dead. It’s our job to prevent them from getting upset at the sight of a dead water bug. Make sure you sweep them all up.”
There are worse things to do than sweeping up water bugs, so I got my dustpan and broom and headed to the storage room.

Stuff

Stuff

The first thing I noticed was the addition of some new “cages,” open storage cages with locks on them in addition to the grey steel locker bins already there. Lots more stuff, but a remarkable scarcity of dead water bugs. Not even one live one scurrying around.
When I worked at 144 and had to show apartments to people, one of the first questions a prospective tenant asks is “Is there any storage space?” Followed by, “Is there a bike room?” The answer was always no, and no. No storage, no bike room.

closet
There was a time when I was jealous of people who had storage space. Who doesn’t want room for more stuff? Of course, that was a time when I measured success or happiness with how much “stuff” I had. And man, did I have some stuff.

And more stuff.

And more stuff.

When I got divorced some 15 years ago my then wife was so eager to get me out of the apartment she told me I could leave my stuff there for a while until I got settled in. My stuff consisted of over 500 un-built model airplanes and about 30 or so completed ones in boxes. Within two weeks after I’d moved out she was on the phone harping about when I was going to get my stuff out.
I’d moved in with my dad, who didn’t have a lot of stuff but his wife who’d gotten Alzheimer’s disease and had gone back to Brazil (permanently) did have a lot of stuff, and it was all still there. It took me two weeks and around 30 large black garbage bags to dispose of all her stuff, mostly clothing and cloth remnants she’d collected. Then I was able to bring over my model airplanes.
They didn’t all fit; I had to rent a locker at Manhattan mini-storage. One of the women I dated when I started dating again looked at all of the boxes and asked what was in them.
“Model airplanes,” I’d said.
“You gotta get rid of them,” she said.
A couple of relationships and a smaller apartment later I had gotten rid of most, and it wasn’t till Danusia and I moved into our present apartment that I let go of more. I’m down to maybe 30 kits.
Danusia read some book about downsizing when we moved in, and we went through our stuff, CDs we no longer listen to, books we’ve read and will never read again, books we’ve never read and never will, clothing we haven’t worn in over a year, ditto shoes. There’s a lot more room in our apartment now.
It wasn’t too hard letting go of stuff, there was a time when I was 25 that I was homeless for a while, and all I had were the clothes on my back. When I joined the Army all the other recruits had luggage.
I had a paper bag I’d gotten at Fort Hamilton with a tee shirt, a pair of Levi’s, a windbreaker that said “Albany Skydiving Center” on the back and a pair of Chuck Taylors with holes in them. I threw the bag in the garbage just to see the look on the Drill Sargent’s face.
That Army experience came back to me yesterday when I was doing the recycling. I go from compactor room to compactor room (one on each floor, 12 of them) and empty out the recycle receptacles. (Say that three times fast)
When I got to the fourth floor I found of all things an ammo box for machine gun bullets. Empty, of course, but I’d always wanted one. Now, after all of these years I had one!
Even in the Army I liked collecting things, I had two belts of machine gun ammo that I was going to wear across my chest some Halloween, I had two smoke grenades, one red and one green; a dye pack I’d stolen from the inside of a Marine Corps Amphtrac during a joint training exercise, and a British army pistol belt I found in Germany. One day a guy came running into the barracks to warn us of a “surprise” inspection for contraband.
We all took our live ammo and smoke grenades, some of the guys even had tear gas grenades, and we hid our stuff in the woods.
The inspector never materialized, but when we went into the woods to retrieve our stuff it was all gone, every last bullet.
I took my new ammo box downstairs, and was wondering how to get it home. It’s a steel box, and not light. It was snowing pretty hard outside, I’d already done some salting and shoveling, and I pondered the wisdom of carting this thing home and having to get rid of it once Danusia saw it.
I put it up on the little box each room has to put used batteries and CFLs, and I took a picture. That doesn’t take up much space, just a few megabytes. And those are not heavy at all.

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PRIVILEGE

Posted on February 24, 2015 by xaviertrevino

150223-sean-alejandro-0410_42a27808e72f33b63dac80bc23bfb463

When Sean Penn announced the best picture Oscar by saying,
“Who gave this son-of-a-bitch his green card,” my instant reaction was one of revulsion.
But of course, it had more to do with the things I have heard directed at me as a Mexican-American than it had to do with Sean Penn’s infantile sense of humor. It was, in essence, a moment of resentment.
The next day I posted my disgust with his crass statement on Facebook, and a lot of my white friends commented that “It was just a joke,” and “They are close friends.”

Best buddies. But what's inside?

Best buddies. But what’s inside?

That still doesn’t lessen the sting of a statement that highlights white privilege in the worst way, and adding to the pain is the realization that the white people uttering those sentiments see nothing wrong about it.
“I’m only joking!”
Why does mention of the man’s race and immigration status have to be important?
When I was younger and less enlightened, I took great pleasure in the failures of others, and it was a great joke to me. As I’ve aged and matured I realize that the pain of others is nothing to laugh at, I’ve learned a little bit of compassion.
I used to like to put people down; in anyway I could. It was mostly because of all the put-downs I’d endured.
The victim becomes the bully in the right circumstance, and it is a self-perpetuating cycle of viciousness. This in turn leads to the low-self esteem of minorities, who in turn lash out at the perceived oppressors, i.e., white people, in any way they can.
In the bigger picture, on a worldwide scale, the horrors of ISIS and ISIL are based on their feelings of lack of respect from the western (read Judeo-Christian) powers. They are essentially saying, “We matter too.” Where does it end?
And before Rudy Giuliani condemns me for apologizing for the western powers I have to say that what ISIS and ISIL do is beyond horror, it’s inhuman.
But the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was inhuman. Not murderous like ISIS or ISIL, but inhuman nevertheless. Again, the victim becomes the bully.
When I was a kid I watched a lot of black and white movies from the ‘30s, and a pronouncement I heard more than once from a character on the screen was, “I’m free, white, and twenty-one.” And I knew instantly that when I reached the age of twenty-one I wouldn’t be uttering that statement of total self-control.

I'm pretty sure Ann Dvorak uttered those famous words in Three On A Match.

I’m pretty sure Ann Dvorak uttered those famous words in Three On A Match.

I also heard a lot from working with white men (and the occasional woman)
“Do I look like a n—-r to you?” When I asked them to do something.
The world has changed a lot, but the message is still there, subliminally, “We are up here and you are down there,” and until that changes there will continue to be resentment, strife, and war throughout the world.
In response to the people who said it was just a joke, don’t be so sensitive, I say; I’ve heard stuff like this all of my life. The most recent example was a couple of years ago. I’d been in the U.K. and when I came home I answered an email from a white friend of mine.
“I was in England, I don’t know what happened,” I replied in response to something he’d asked.
“Oh, they let you back into the country?” Was how he prefaced his reply. I’m sure he though it was hilarious, but to me it was just another example of “We are up here and you are down there.”
I’ve always ignored statements like that because I needed the job, or needed to stay in someone’s good graces, but inside I seethed.
Chevy Chase would open his SNL Weekend Update segment with,
“I’m Chevy Chase, and you’re not.” It’s actually pretty funny, but it brings into focus the privilege some folks feel about their race. I just hope enough of those folks start using that privilege in a more responsible way. Then maybe we can all start being equal.

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NIKE AT THE BANK

Posted on February 22, 2015 by xaviertrevino

bank2

A week ago today it was cold as hell, and I spent most of it outside. I picked up a nice gig from my friend Van doing a load-out at the Williamsburg Savings Bank on Broadway. It was also the first time over the Williamsburg Bridge since we moved to the city.
Despite the cold, it was a great experience, my first time working an IATSE job. I was put down as a carpenter, though the only thing I had to do with wood was to carry the pieces of the set out to a truck.
I saw the bank from the train as I passed it; saw the huge rigs parked in front and the crew loading them. I got the feeling that I was late, that I’d missed a lot of the action, but there were still 10 hours to go. My friend Van had been there since midnight, I had been willing to show up at midnight but was told to report 8AM on Sunday.
I always wondered what the bank looked like inside, it has a beautiful dome and I would look at it every day as I passed it going over the bridge every day. So Sunday I found out.
From talking to the other guys and my friend Van I garnered that whomever owned the building had spent $34 million on the restoration, and it showed. Marble walls, glass, and brass all like it was when the bank was built in the 1800’s. Even the wall sconces were original; they had been gas lamps when the building was new, and now wired for incandescent light.

bank1
The floor was like a terrazzo floor, except with little mosaic tiles instead of multi-colored pebbles. It was majestic and beautiful, and I was really glad to have experienced it.
The work was hard, I started by carrying out the pieces of the set, like I said before, and it was a lot of wood with staples and nails sticking out of it. And I had to do it all wearing a heavy coat, as the doors were open and we had to take all of the wood out onto a platform that was purpose built over the front steps of the bank.
The wood was then deposited onto the blades of a waiting forklift, which carried it to a waiting truck.

The platform.

The platform.

After the wood came the boxes of equipment, dozens of them. We made a line, there were probably 20 of us on the crew pushing and carrying. Some boxes took 2 men to push, others only 1, but it was very well organized, the only times we had to wait were when one of the Semi rigs was filled and we had to wait for it to pull out so a new empty one could take it’s place. There were also three different companies that provided gear, and the boxes had to be separated onto the proper trucks. I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with organizing that.

Waiting my turn.

Waiting my turn.

At 10:30 our foreman, Bill directed me to go downstairs for coffee. We actually had craft services, and the two doughnuts and energy bar that I’d brought along stayed in my knapsack.
I had coffee, a croissant, and some cut up fruit.
We went back to work, and there were other crews doing different stuff.
The event had been some big party and basketball clinic sponsored by Nike, it was to promote $400 sneakers to kids that can’t afford them. Nike must be doing pretty well at that because the bill for the stagehands alone had to be astronomical.
There were these custom made backboards with hoops and nets; three of them; and whatever production crew had put them up were taking them down. We were instructed not to touch their stuff.
That crew were all young college kids, hip boys and girls with scene hair, knit watch caps and screw guns hanging from their belts.
My crew was mostly all men, and even our young guys were blue-collar “Carhart guys.” Needless to say, there was some tension between us. The word “scab” was bandied about under breath.
At 2 lunch was called, and by then Van had gone home along with all the others that had been there since midnight. I ate lunch alone while I did my crossword, not knowing anyone else. Then it was back to work.
I wish I had stop motion footage of the whole thing, because when I got there the huge main hall was filled with equipment, and there was wall to wall carpeting on top of Masonite covering the whole floor. After the equipment was cleared we started cutting up the carpet and taking it out on the platform. There was a 20-foot Ryder box truck picking up the carpet. One guy in his 40’s with a big sheepskin trapper hat supervised two college kids in loading up the carpet.

bank3
Then came the Masonite, which we loaded onto giant 4X8 dollies. These where picked up by the forklifts and loaded onto the trucks. All very efficient.
With the building cleared, the last hour was spent outside in the 10° air taking down the platform. When we were done it was like we had never been there.
But I’ve got the pictures to prove we were. And the next day I had the bruises and muscle aches to prove it too.

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