WAKE ME UP BEFORE YOU GO

Posted on December 6, 2014 by xaviertrevino

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Wednesday night we went to Avery Fisher Hall to see Itzhak Perlman. It was a wonderful concert, and though I did yawn a few times, I stayed awake the whole performance.
At my age that’s not always the case, even when I like and I’m interested in what I’m watching.
Two weeks before I attended a screening of “Burroughs: The Movie,” and despite the fact that I love William Burroughs and my friend Jenny’s ex-husband Stewart introduced and was actually IN the movie I managed to doze off several times. Burroughs is great reading but can lag a bit droning on about his childhood.
Somewhere in between then and now Danusia and I went to see a play at a black box theatre that a friend had done the set design for and I pretty much slept through most of it. And we were sitting in the first row, so the cast had a chance to see they were putting me to sleep.
But Wednesday night I sat on the edge of my seat in rapt attention for most of the two-plus hours of the Maestro’s performance.
It helped that we had seats in a box on the third tier and if I sat back I would have only seen the end of the grand piano, but I was so keen on watching every moment of the performance that I would have been on the edge of my seat had I been sitting front row center.
I’ve been at Avery Fisher Hall before; I’ve seen a few recitals and concerts there.
But Wednesday night was special, I remembered watching Perlman on the Ed Sullivan show as a kid and being impressed by his virtuosity then, and I’ve seen him on TV various times and always liked watching him.
When Danusia asked me a few weeks ago if I would be interested in seeing him I immediately said yes. She told me she was surprised I would be interested, and some of my friends were surprised I would even attend a classical music concert (those that don’t know me well, I’d guess) but I’ve loved classical music since I was a kid and my drunken father would stand in front of our record player directing the music of Beethoven, Strauss, and Stravinsky with his imaginary baton.
I like show tunes too, as well ask Rock and Roll, Blues, Soul, Punk Rock, Blues-Rock, Mexican Banda music, Norteño music, Regge, Ska, K-Pop (to an extent) Rap, World music, in short I like music.
There was a time in the ‘70s that I was obsessed with Ravel’s Bolero, I used to play it while having sex before Dudley More did it in the movies, to me it was the perfect sound track for an act that should start slow and build up to an amazing crescendo. It was fitting (and exciting) that the last piece on the program was Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Major, and all the while during the piece I thought how remarkably like Gershwin it sounded. I did a little research the next day and discovered that Ravel hung out a lot with Gershwin when he toured the States in the 1920’s.
When Mr. Perlman came out I was surprised to see him wearing a brightly colored purplish tunic, something akin to what I think of as a “Cossack” shirt; but I think it speaks to Mr. Perlman’s charm and humanity. That’s what makes him great, not just his virtuosity, but also his warmth and humor.

playing
Years ago when I worked at Pratt I was in charge of preparing the auditorium for the once-a month Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra performances. The day of the performance, always a Sunday afternoon I would open Memorial Hall, roll the grand piano out of its protective locked plywood box onto the taped marks on the stage floor, and roll the conductor’s podium to its position.
Then the orchestra members would arrive; we’d set up the seats and wait for the great man, Martin Kandilakis.
He was a dour man who’d had a stroke at some point and never smiled. He yelled at the orchestra members, at me, at the audience. I never enjoyed even one note they played.
But I enjoyed the shit out of Itzhak Perlman’s performance Wednesday night.
It wasn’t just watching his nimble fingers on the violin or the beautiful sound that came from it, it was also laughing at his jokes and the faces that he made. He made the audience laugh without saying a word.

banter
It was the simple things, like the way he maneuvered his scooter to just the right spot on stage, swiveling his chair sideways to face the audience and putting the brake on with a flick of his thumb before tucking a white handkerchief under his chin and placing the violin in position.
Watching him play was fascinating, most of the time he did not even look at his music. Why should he? It would be like someone looking at a map to drive home from work every day.
The pianist had to look at his music, but he too was wonderful. His name is Rohan De Silva, and he’s from Sri Lanka. There was a third person on the stage, a young Asian man who turned the pages for Mr. De Silva. I wondered how he knew when to turn the pages, I have to assume he’s a musician too and is following along, knowing where they are and when to turn.

Page turner

Page turner

It was interesting to watch from our perch in the third tier, we were behind Mr. Perlman and I could see his bald spot from above. But when he did turn to speak the audience I could see his face in profile. It was amazing that his words were clearly audible without any amplification; I guess that’s what good acoustics are all about.
After the Ravel number, they took a bow and left the stage, but came back for another half hour, playing things Mr. Perlman chose and announced from the stage. That was the most fun part, the encores, because of Mr. Perlman’s humorous patter and interaction with Mr. De Silva.

Finnis!

Finnis!

The last time they came out he did not have his violin, and I knew it was time to put my coat on. I was a happy chappie on the long trip down from the third tier.

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IDENTITY CRISIS

Posted on December 2, 2014 by xaviertrevino

Peter Pan Live! - Season 2014

Thursday night Allison Williams will star as Peter Pan in a new version of the classic on NBC TV, and it will probably spawn a lot of confusion on a lot of unsuspecting little boys.
In 1963, when I was 9 years old, I watched Peter Pan on TV for the first time on out brand new Philco black and white TV that perched by the window in our living room. We were living in the Lafayette Gardens housing projects on the seventh floor of one of seven new buildings that had opened the year before. My dad had a new steady job, the rent was low, and we had credit for the first time, and that meant new bunk beds for the kids, a bedroom set for my parents, and a big Philco TV for the living room.
We (the kids) were excited to see the Peter Pan special, and the night it played we stretched out on the floor in front of the TV on pillows ready for our very own trip to Neverland. We, my brother, sister, and I, watched enraptured at the big adventure, and I fell in love with Peter Pan.

Nice legs, no?

Nice legs, no?

Peter had great legs and a beautiful face. I felt stirrings I’d never really felt before watching Peter fly across the screen and sing and dance with the rest of the cast.
The memory and feelings persisted long after the show was over, and I started to wonder.
Of course, being a good Catholic boy at the time I immediately was racked with feelings of guilt and shame for lusting after a boy. I prayed and worked hard to wipe the image of those great legs and pretty face from my sexually active brain.

Julie Newmar in "My Living Doll."

Julie Newmar in “My Living Doll.”

In time, other TV images such as Julie Newmar as Rhoda the robot replace Peter as an object of lust, and I forgot about Peter, until reading the TV guide one day when I was 12 or so I discovered that Peter Pan was a woman called Mary Martin.
My dad had a record collection of cast albums of famous Broadway shows and there was one called South Pacific that my dad listened to relentlessly and I realized the name Mary Martin was familiar because I’d seen it on the album cover. I went to my dad’s stack of records and found South Pacific, and there she was, Peter Pan! What a relief, Peter Pan was a girl! I was normal; it was OK to lust after Mary Martin, because Mary Martin was a female.

Mar Martin washes a man out of her hair.

Mar Martin washes a man out of her hair.

Actually, it was probably not OK, lust is a sin and you’re not supposed to lust, but lusting after a girl was normal and lusting after a boy was not, some priest imparted that bit of wisdom on me at some point or the other.

cyril ricard
In that production, Cyril Ritchard played Captain Hook, and the thing that struck me about him was that he was very effeminate. Of course later I found out he was married, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t homosexual. As a matter of fact he was referred to as “queer as a coot” by none other than Noel Coward. I’m not gonna touch that one.
The new Captain Hook is Christopher Walken, and I love Christopher Walken. I might watch this production just to see him; Allison Williams is not exactly my cup of tea. I’ve seen enough of her on “Girls.”
My favorite Christopher Walken performance beside his very short turn In Pulp Fiction (five long years he wore this watch up his ass) is the one he did for Fatboy Slim in “Weapon Of Choice.” Here’s the video:
http://youtu.be/XQ7z57qrZU8

So if you have kids, especially boys who are going to be watching Peter Pan Thursday night, make sure tell them that Peter Pan is a girl, and that it’s all right to have the hots for her, even if your kid is a girl. After all, it is a new day, and we’ve come a long way from 1963, haven’t we?

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REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

Posted on November 29, 2014 by xaviertrevino

ezra & jenny

I missed posting last Tuesday because I had to work; I got a week’s worth of work at my friend Tommy’s building. I don’t particularly like the job, but since my unemployment just ran out I couldn’t really say no. The rent still needs to be paid. So I’m grateful to Tommy and his beautiful wife Sarah for thinking of me when I lost my previous job and hooking me up with this one.
On Thursday my friend Albert posted a sort of greeting card on Facebook where he said he was thankful for all the wonderful friends he has in his life and a whole bunch of names were on the card and Danusia and I were amongst the names. I like Albert too, and I’m grateful for his generosity and friendship. His list made me think of making a list, but I’d be here all day; so I’ll just say if you are my friend I’m grateful that you are and that you are in my life, and don’t be offended by not being mentioned, like my friend Ezra was last night at dinner. I know he was joking, but I have to give him special mention for his help and generosity in my time of need.
When we moved out of Williamsburg suddenly it seemed an almost overwhelming task, there was just so much to do in a limited amount of time. But thanks to friends like Ezra and Michael Dee and others too numerous to mention Danusia and I got it done.
I had dinner last night with Ezra and his girlfriend Jenny, the erstwhile Jenny Moradfar Meyer, and Joyce. Joyce was mentioned in last Saturday’s blog post and she was buying me dinner last night because I’d helped her out by taking out the trash for her elderly parents last week. She found out I’d mentioned her from another friend and wanted to read the blog post.

Joyce at dinner.

Joyce at dinner.

“If you read my blog regularly you wouldn’t have to hear it from someone else,” I said. But of course most of us are only interested when we are involved.
That’s when Ezra chimed in,
“You didn’t mention how I helped you carry all of that heavy stuff down the stairs when you moved out.” I should have said, “How do you know? Have you been reading the blog?” But he was right, I never wrote about that, mostly because I was too busy with the move.
So here it is, a belated acknowledgement of Ezra’s help when I moved out in October. He showed up one day to help me carry down an 80- pound king-sized mattress and the box springs, and two large pieces of furniture. I really appreciated the help.

Ezra and Jenny M M.

Ezra and Jenny M M.

Ezra was a friend, not a real close one, but became closer when he started dating my REALLY close friend Jenny M M. I’ve known Jenny for almost 15 years and we became close about 7 years ago when she separated from her husband. We became even closer when our mutual friend Maggie Estep died suddenly last February.
Five years ago Jenny and I rode to another friend’s funeral in New Jersey, our friend Andy the skateboarder. He was a closer friend to me than to Jenny, but in time of need we are all close friends.

Andy Kessler

Andy Kessler

And of course, all of my friends are friends with my wife, the lovely Danusia. That’s right, Albert, the lovely Danusia. I know she is more than just lovely, my best friend, in fact; but she is so lovely everyone else wants to be her friend too.

The lovely Danusia

The lovely Danusia

And I have become friends with her friends; we had Thanksgiving dinner at her friend Elaine’s home the other day, with another friend, Jennifer.
Having all of these good people in my life makes me very cheerful, as well as grateful. But I thought cheerful was a better word in the title, sounds more like the old Ian Dury song, and I love song references.
There was a time when the only friends I had were those who wanted something from me, or I from them. Now my friends are friends because we genuinely like being with each other, we love each other and do anything within reason to help each other out. It’s a much better deal. And for that I am eternally cheerful. And grateful. Happy belated Thanksgiving, my friends.

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ANOTHER PART OF THE ISLAND

Posted on November 22, 2014 by xaviertrevino

red egg 1

The other night I did my friend Joyce a favor and traveled down most of Manhattan from my home on 152nd Street to Wooster and Broome to take down the garbage for her elderly parents. Joyce was working in upstate New York and couldn’t do it, so I volunteered to do it.
Her parents have been living in this loft in Soho for many, many years; they are part of the original wave of artists who pioneered loft living in the city.
I had a friend who lived in a loft on Greene Street in the 1980s, and I remember there was nothing there at night.
I myself lived briefly in a loft in Williamsburg in the early ‘80s, I’m going to have to write a whole other blog post about being a loft pioneer, but I only mention it because part of loft living was where do you put out the garbage?
Lofts were commercial spaces, and as such did not get a city sanitation department pick up. So if you lived in a loft, you either had to get a contract with a commercial garbage hauler or sneak around throwing your garbage in city trash cans. Or find a residential building close to you and put your trash with theirs. I got a ticket for doing the former once in Williamsburg, and that wasn’t too long ago.
After I took the long train ride down to Broadway-Lafayette Street from Hamilton Heights I walked down Mercer Street to Spring, then across to Wooster to go south. I’d forgotten their cross street, but I knew the building and would find it as long as I walked south on Wooster.
I passed all the fancy Soho stores, Agent Provocateur, Ralph Lauren, Barbour, stores I’ve never even heard of and couldn’t afford to shop at anyway. I was amazed at the bright sparking quality of the new Soho as compared to the Soho of years ago when you actually weren’t supposed to be living there.

agent-provocateur-soho
My neighborhood, by contrast is filled with dingy bodegas and decades-old Spanish restaurants serving mofongo or cuchifritos. There is a C-Town I Broadway I went into once and I don’t think I’ll ever visit again. But it is pretty up here, and the architecture is amazingly beautiful.
We live a block from the Trinity Church Cemetery. Ed Koch is buried there and the other day I went to visit him, ask him how he was doing.
Here’s the pic:

ed koch
There are trees and leaves everywhere, and I like that, the feeling of green.
But I also like the feeling of opulence, and walking down the streets of today’s Soho is an exercise in opulence. I can’t have it, but I can at least look at it.

leaves
When I got to Sal’s home, (Sal is Joyce’s Italian dad) I rang the bell and he came down to get me on the elevator you need a key to run. It’s one of those old fashioned things with the brass accordion gate and Sal took us up to their floor.
“I just made some pasta, you want some?” He asked. I begged off, knowing I was meeting friends in Chinatown right after. I did use the bathroom; it’s a long ten-mile ride on the subway down from Harlem. After using the John and saying hi to Joyce’s mom I was ready to perform my task. Sal led me to the area in front of the elevator where all the recycling and trash was piled up. There was a large metal filing cabinet that looked like it weighed 100 pounds.
“Is that going too?” I asked Sal.
“Oh, no, just these bags here,” he said indicating one black trash bag and a couple of white ones with either paper or glass and plastic, and a few boxes.
We propped the door open and I started loading. We went down to the street level and Sal almost got knocked over by the spring-loaded accordion door. I can imagine what might have happened if I were not there and he were trying to do this alone.
I took it all out placed it on the curb where Sal told me to, shook his hand and went on to Chinatown to meet my friends.
Now I was in another Manhattan neighborhood with it’s own quirky flavor. When I was a kid Chinatown started on Canal Street, but now it’s spread its tendrils into Little Italy, Soho, and The Lower East Side.

red egg2
I got to Centre Street and turned downtown and saw a place called The Red Egg. The sign fascinated me, both the painting of the girl holding the egg at the top of this post and the neon one below that was in the window. Across the street from the Red Egg was a different kind of Chinese restaurant, a giant buffet-style place with big plate glass windows that let you look into the brightly lit tables crowded with neighborhood regulars having a cheap dinner. A lot of Chinese immigrants that work and live in Chinatown live in places they can’t really cook, so these buffets are a lifesaver for them.
That’s what I love about living in the city, the wide variety of people, cultures, and things to see. When I lived in Williamsburg the daily train ride over the bridge on the J or M train reminded me of the beauty and vibrancy of my hometown, but being down on the ground in three different parts of the island in the space of an hour is a pretty good reminder too. And I could always hop on a Brooklyn bound J train and have a look form above if I want to, can’t I?

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STEAM HEAT

Posted on November 18, 2014 by xaviertrevino

leaves

When we moved in to this apartment a little over a month ago we had a few cold days but the heat hadn’t been turned on yet. We kept all the windows closed.

One of the first things I noticed when we moved in was that work was being done on the boiler, it looked like they were rebuilding the whole thing, a boiler company truck was parked out front everyday for almost two weeks and there was a lot of welding and banging going on. It was a race against the cold weather and the mandatory turning on of the heat.

It did come on, and the first night the heat was on it was so hot in the apartment (85°) we had to open some of the windows, lest we sweat to death. The heat even came on in the middle of the night, something most landlords won’t do.

When I worked at 144, the boiler was slaved to a computer that made sure the heat did not come on at night. It would stop somewhere around 11PM and kick in again at 6AM. If somebody complained the agent would say, “tell them to put on a sweater. It’s 68° in their apartment, and that’s all we need to give them.” The agent knew it was 68° in the apartments because there were sensors in selected apartments to monitor the temperature, and he got email alerts.
I always wanted to say, “You should tell them,” but I would have lost my job a lot sooner.

There was one woman, the un-serene yoga teacher who would call down to the front desk and shriek, “we’re cold up here! Send up some heat RIGHT NOW!”
And I would always say, “yes, right away, immediately!”

Of course there was nothing I could do, the whole system is on automatic, and it was up to the super to go down and fiddle with the boiler and risk getting yelled at by the management company’s chief engineer, who got an email every time someone messed with the boiler. I’m really glad I don’t have to listen to that woman’s shrill strident voice complaining about how cold she is anymore.

Last night, the coldest night of the year so far, was the first time the heat did not come on in our apartment. The windows were shut and stayed shut. There was hot water, so I knew the boiler was working, but the radiators and riser pipes in the kitchen and bathroom were ice cold.

The down pipe.

The down pipe.

When I got home yesterday afternoon I noticed a couple of Con Edison trucks outside, part of the boiler upgrade I believe was converting to gas from number 2 bunker oil. When the heat didn’t come on, I figured they’d slaved it to the computer and we’d get heat in the morning. We have a very warm quilt and an even warmer down comforter, so it was no big deal, and besides, the chill air puts you to sleep faster than a hot room.

Radiator

When I awoke this morning it was chilly as hell, 71° in the bedroom (there is a thermometer on my bedroom clock) and I remembered the unfeeling agent’s proclamation of “you’re getting 68°.” Hmm.

At six as I was in the living room doing my morning ritual of hot Bragg’s apple cider vinegar followed by coffee and a banana and waited patiently for the hissing and banging that announced the heat coming up to my floor. All I got were a few feeble burps and faint clangs from the radiator in the corner of the room. I could hear the wind outside and feel the draft from the edges of the window just inches from my perch on the couch. I got up and put my hand on the radiator, and it was ice cold. I tried the pipe in the kitchen and that was cold too. I went into the bathroom to do the same thing, and almost burned my hand on the pipe.

The pipe that almost burned me.

The pipe that almost burned me.

So, the heat was on, but it wasn’t getting to the radiators or the return pipe in the kitchen. I had a problem.
I checked the radiators and they were warm near the valves, but nowhere else. I was going to have to call the super.

In our old apartment we had a burner right in our apartment, and a thermostat to control it. No mater how high I set that thermostat, it was always cold in the apartment. The burner was connected to baseboard heating elements, and they get hot water, 200° at the most, and that does not compete with a steam radiator.

Having our own burner meant paying for our own heat, and when the apartment is as drafty as that one was, it can get expensive. So now our expenses are down, but I’m cold again and can’t even turn on the heat myself the way I used to be able to, no matter how weak it was.

I called Pedro, our super at 8AM. He said, “OK, I’ll call the owner and she can call the company to fix the boiler.” I didn’t want to say it seemed the boiler was working fine; it’s the radiators in my apartment that have a problem.

Maybe it's the valves.

Maybe it’s the valves.

I’ll have to wait and see if they can fix it, but I hope it happens before tonight.

I love the fact that I don’t have to wear a hoodie at home anymore; I don’t love the fact that I have to depend on someone else to fix things. I guess I’ll have to be patient.

You know what else I love? Walking through dead leaves the way I used to do as a kid. I haven’t done that in a long time, there were no dead leaves on Broadway in Brooklyn, since there were no trees. There are plenty of dead leaves here.
This is a picture I took the other day of me walking through the dead leaves by the Trinity Church cemetery around the corner:

Walking in the leaves.

Walking in the leaves.

I love the sound the leaves make as I shuffle my feet through them. It’s the small things in life, I guess.

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WRONG EXIT TO HARLEM

Posted on November 15, 2014 by xaviertrevino

liegh shoes

Like I said in my last post on Thursday I mad a stupid mistake in the wake of successfully completing a job last Wednesday. This is a typical New York cab ride story, or maybe not so typical.
Wednesday I got into a cab on 9th Avenue and 53rd Street and told the driver to take me to 152nd Street and Amsterdam Ave. I didn’t pay much attention, focusing instead on counting my money and then he asked,
“52nd Street, mister?”
“I said 152nd Street. Uptown.” Realizing that he’d made a turn onto 10th Ave and was crawling up in heavy traffic I said,
“Take the West Side highway please.”
“This is the Bronx, mister?” he asked in his Indian or Pakistani accent.
“No, it’s in Manhattan.”
“One-five-two Street? One-five-two is in the Bronx, mister.”
A cab driver that thought Manhattan ends on 125th Street. I should have gotten out right then, but the thought of lugging my tools out of the trunk somewhere near 57th Street made me explain to him that there is a 152nd Street in Manhattan.
“Is the Triborough bridge mister?” This was getting stupid. He was looking at his little laminated map, and asked me to show him. Of course his map only had Manhattan up to 125th on the front of it, the rest of Manhattan was on the back. I found that part and showed him where 152nd Street is.
“Just go up the West Side highway and I’ll tell you where to get off.”
“OK, mister.” We were already at $8 and hadn’t gone ten blocks.
He got on the highway and we headed uptown, and I relaxed. I’m not sure which exit to get off, I know for certain there’s a 157th Street exit but I figured there’d be one at 145th Street, and that would be best. I saw the sign for 125th, and got ready. That’s when I made the mistake.
“Get off here,” I said, spotting an exit. That’s when I realized we were at 125th, not 145th. Oh, well, we’ll just go up Riverside drive, I thought.
When we got to 11th Avenue under the trestle for the Metro North the cabbie said,
“This is Triborough Bridge, sir.”
“It’s not the Triborough, it’s the Metro North.”
“But sir, you said Triborough is on 125th Street.” That was true; I mentioned that when he thought it was on 152nd.
“It is, but on the East side, this is the West side. Just make a left here and go up Riverside drive.

View of New Jersey from Fairway.

View of New Jersey from Fairway.

Except you can’t make a left on 11th Avenue. You have to get back on the West Side Highway or go to Broadway. As we were figuring out what to do I saw a big white truck with the words Lehigh Safety shoes on it. Then I saw a parking lot, and a giant building on 132nd Street that said: Manhattanville Bus depot. We’d also passed Fairway, which ironically was my next destination after dropping off the tools. I briefly toyed with the of just getting out of the cab here and going straight to Fairway (we needed milk) and ditching the cabbie who didn’t know shit. But the thought of tools plus groceries kept me in the cab. We finally got back on the Highway and made it to 157th Street and shortly after, home.
I dropped off my tools and walked back to Broadway to catch the M4 bus. At least I was certain the bus wouldn’t get lost.
I got off at 133rd Street and made the long walk down the hill to Fairway on 12th Avenue. That’s when I realized I was walking by the giant Manhattanville bus depot, and at the end was the parking lot with the Lehigh safety shoes truck I’d seen before parked in it. There was a line of MTA workers waiting to get their new shoes.

shoe line
I remembered an article in the papers a while back about EMS workers getting written up for not wearing their Lehigh Safety shoes, a job requirement.
I can understand track workers having to wear them; they have steel toes and insulated soles, but EMTs? And bus drivers?Broadway

When I was in the army, I bought a pair of Cochran jump boots from a guy in basic training in anticipation of becoming a paratrooper. I wasn’t required to wear Cochran’s, but they were cool and I wanted to. I had a sergeant who refused to buy a pair, just wore plain combat boots with his dress uniform.
“If the army wants me to wear something, they gotta give it to me for free,” he said by way of explanation.
The city issues these shoes to their workers, and that’s what I was witnessing. I’m glad I don’t have to wear any special kind of shoes, because these shoes are pretty ugly.
Anyway, I got to Fairway and got my milk and whatever else I needed. It was my first visit to this Fairway, and if you’ve never been, I suggest you dress warm. The part of the store with the meat, fish, and dairy is like one giant refrigerator. I froze my ass off in there.

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BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

Posted on November 13, 2014 by xaviertrevino

dishes

I’m missed Tuesday again this week, for those of you who are paying attention, (or not paying attention) but last week I blew off a second post altogether. At least I’m catching up today, Thursday.
And no, I’ve not become a secret Bokonist; I have actually been so busy that I wasn’t able to write a post last Tuesday or this Tuesday. But I can see how it can all relate to being a Bokonist, and if you don’t know what that means read Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Last Tuesday I replaced a floor beneath someone’s toilet, a dirty job that took most of a day, and I was so exhausted I didn’t even consider writing a post when I got home. On Wednesday I started on another job, I thought it was going to be a cleaning job, and some of the work did involve cleaning, but it was more of a “clean-out” job. I had to help empty the apartment of a man who had recently passed away. The gentleman was a writer and a professor; so he had a lot of books, well over a thousand, I would say. I wasn’t going to count. He also had three complete sets of china, and even some stoneware. Stoneware weighs three times as much as china, I discovered.
He also had tons of silverware and pots and pans, enough to cook for and serve a platoon. There was also clothing, Tupperware, paper clips, electronics, all of the stuff that makes modern life livable but is useless when we go.
But the books were the thing, the priority, they had to be taken down off the shelves and dusted off.

This is the old building I was working in with the clean-out job. Beautiful.

This is the old building I was working in with the clean-out job. Beautiful.

The sad thing about life is that the things that are important to us are not necessarily important to anyone else, and when we go so goes our stuff. I did most of the heavy work, carrying many bags of garbage and recyclables down to the basement.

View of 8th Avenue during the day.

View of 8th Avenue during the day.

Thursday I started a new job, preparing an apartment for a couple of guys moving in. I swapped out their light fixtures from the old apartment to the new, put some bars up in the closets, re-caulked the bathroom, put up a door on their door-less linen closet, painted the door, took down the shelves from old apartment and put them up in new apartment, etc. The door was the hardest because it was too wide for the opening and I had to plane it down bit by bit till it fit. This job took five days, Thursday, Friday, Sunday, part of Monday, and yesterday. I would have finished Tuesday but I had to go back to the old professor’s apt to dust and sort the rest of the books, and there’s still a couple of hundred up on the shelves.

The last of the books.

The last of the books.

And Monday I got a call about putting up a window blind. This job was on Central Park West, so it was easy to go there before the guys on 8th Avenue.
I’d left most of my tools at the 8th avenue location, not wanting to lug this stuff up and down the subway stairs for five days, so I told the woman on the phone I had no tools.
“Oh, I’ve got tools, honey. Don’t you worry about that,” she’d said on the phone.
Sure enough, she had a Black and Decker plug in drill, and the right ceramic drill bits for drilling into the plaster and cinderblock wall. She even knew it was plaster and cinderblock. She was an older woman in her ‘70s named Joan, and she said,
“I used to own a house. If I was younger I woulda done it myself.”
Well, I’m glad she asked me. I’m always happy to be of service.
I finished with the 8th Avenue guys around three, and I treated myself to a cab ride home with my forty pounds of tools. There’s an interesting story there, but you’ll have to wait till Saturday to hear it. On Saturday I have to install a showerhead, lock cylinder, and some shelves for another friend. But count on me getting my blog post in before I head over to the Upper East Side.

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THE LAND OF HILLS AND CHURCHES

Posted on November 8, 2014 by xaviertrevino

shrine

Exactly a month ago Danusia and I moved from Williamsburg Brooklyn to Hamilton Heights, Manhattan. The neighborhoods are worlds apart, but they each have their own interesting character. That’s what makes New York such a great place to live, you cross a street and you’re in a different world. Cross a river and you’re in a different state of mind altogether.
The pace here is a lot calmer, and Danusia remarked after a long bus ride through most of the Bronx last week (she was on the way to a job) that the people on the bus seemed a lot less angry than the people in Brooklyn. I still see people yelling into their cellphones and I heard a woman tell her 5 year old sitting in her car “I will fuck you up” yesterday. But in all, I don’t feel as tense up here.

There are lots of hills, the day we started our move (it took three days, more if you count having to go back to deal with that mattress) we were in my friend Michael’s station wagon and found ourselves at the top of a very steep hill somewhere on Amsterdam Avenue. It went way down for six or seven blocks, then rose back up for six or seven blocks, and it was probably a hundred-foot drop to the lowest point.

A river runs beneath it.

A river runs beneath it.

When I stand on the corner of my street and Broadway and look west I can see the Hudson at the bottom of the hill, and New Jersey beyond. From my block it’s a short walk to see either the Bronx or New Jersey. It’s a lot more interesting than the projects and industrial parks of Williamsburg.
There are also a ton of churches, there’s the Anglican Methodist Church of Africa on 153rd and Amsterdam, (all races welcome!), and there is the Luke A.M.E. Church right on the corner two doors down from us. There is also a Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall on Broadway, and dozens of others. Williamsburg has a bar on every corner and Hamilton Heights has a church on every corner. There is also the Prince Albert Masonic Temple on 155th and St. Nicholas, not a church, but close. I had to explain to Danusia what a Freemason was, and that I wasn’t aware that there were black Freemasons. I learn something new everyday. I was taking pictures this morning for this post, and my camera died when I was getting to the church part, so this pic of the Trinity Church cemetery around the corner will have to suffice.

GRAVEYARD
I also got this picture of a little mysterious store on the corner of 152nd and Broadway; it’s a Mexican store with Mexican products. At first glance it looks like a dirty, dilapidated little place that I wouldn’t buy chewing gum from, but the other night I passed by and it was open. Out of curiosity, and the need for some mineral water, I went in. If they are Mexican, they will have Jarritos, a Mexican soda brand. Jarritos does make a mineral water, so I gave it a go. Inside there were racks of dried chilies and cans of Mexican goods, and of all things, a wooden bin filled with hand made cowboy boots. There was a kid in there, couldn’t have been more than 15, and he was in charge. He had the mineral water, but he didn’t have change, I had a twenty and my total was $5 for two bottles of water. I looked and I did have four singles.
“I’ll just take one,” I said. The kid took the $4 and handed me the bag of two bottles, so now I owe him a buck.

Don Panchitos. Vegetables, fruits, and cowboy boots.

Don Panchitos. Vegetables, fruits, and cowboy boots.

I’ve been so busy I missed posting something on Tuesday, so my apologies to anyone looking for it. My teacher Charles said the other night,
“Xavier has a blog, but if he misses a week people will forget about him.”
I don’t think so, but I can’t help but to keep writing. Besides fixing things, my day job, writing is what I do. And do come and visit Hamilton Heights if you need a little tranquility and a respite from a bar on every corner.

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ACROSS THE SEA TO WONDERLAND

Posted on November 1, 2014 by xaviertrevino

harbor sky

It was actually across the New York harbor, but that’s as close to the sea as I can get without a VERY long subway ride. The ride from 155th Street to Fulton Street on the C train was long enough. Then there was the walk to Pier 11 from the subway station. I was on my way to IKEA, a sort of wonderland.
The first time I ever encountered IKEA was sometime in the early ‘90s, on East 57th Street. I was working at a shoe store on 53rd and Lex and would wander around the streets at lunchtime. There was a Daffy’s on 57th as well, another cold day hangout.
The first thing I ever bought at IKEA was a wooden wall hanging of a green and red dragon that I bought for my young son’s bedroom. He loved that dragon so much it figures in some of the drawings he did as a child. I’ve still got one somewhere, but since we’re not done unpacking, I can’t find it to post a pic.
So 23 years later I’m still shopping at IKEA, though it’s not as convenient as it used to be. When we lived in Brooklyn we would take a train and a bus, and the B57 bus on Flushing Avenue delivered you right to the front door of IKEA in about an hour and a half, about what it took for me to get there on Tuesday from Hamilton Heights.
I love going on ferries on the river, ever since the first time my mother took us on the Staten Island ferry, which we did for fun, as we didn’t know anybody on Staten Island. I’ve gone to Governor’s Island on the ferry, but that’s a really short ride.
In the early ‘90s the Williamsburg Bridge was closed for a couple of years and we (my first wife and me and the kid) took the newly commissioned Williamsburg ferry for a while, though it was a bigger hassle than the G train to the L train; because it was more fun. I love being on a bouncing boat on the water feeling the water spray on my face and the wind whipping my hair around.
I didn’t get to go up top on the way there Tuesday, as the first bunch of people charged ahead and filled it up right away. I rode inside and took a few pictures; saw a ship with a lifeboat like the one in Captain Phillips:

lifeboat

There was only one cargo ship docked on the Brooklyn waterfront. When I was a kid there were dozens, if not more.
The N.Y. Water Taxi that has the IKEA contract made its way south, past Governor’s Island, past Brooklyn Heights and the big Watchtower building, past the abandoned loading docks and piers, and finally to our first stop at Fairway Brooklyn. I briefly toyed with the idea of getting off at Fairway and then walking to IKEA, after all, I did need lettuce. But a head of lettuce wasn’t worth the long walk
to IKEA.

ikea
As we pulled out and turned south again, our intrepid pilot had to stop to let some fueling boat try and dock in a slip just around the corner from Fairway. Of all the time and water there is out there he choses here and now to dock his ship.
It was called the Scotty Sky and the Scotty Sky’s captain couldn’t quite manage the maneuver and had to back off and try again.

scotty sky
Our guy tired of waiting, and with a mighty roar of our jet turbine engine he pulled away and took a long hard turn around the Scotty Sky, our wake bouncing him around some.
I was going to IKEA to get some shelf brackets primarily. I liked the shape and look of these:

ekby-lerberg-bracket__0118574_PE274444_S4

They cost $2 apiece. At Home Depot something similar was $11 apiece, and not as nice looking. That’s the great thing about IKEA, their clean and simple design, something worth traveling for.
I also got this, a glass shelf for the bathroom:

grundtal-glass-shelf__0185529_PE337537_S4

And I found a fabric blind for $14, a comparable one at Home depot was $70, if you could find the right size. The custom cut it for you for $98 apiece, luckily at IKEA they had the right size for my window, pre-cut.
What I didn’t find were hooks for my kitchen steel bar rack, I needed extras and they sell them separately, but the bad thing about IKEA that it’s so immense and the stock is in so many different places that I got frustrated trying to find the hooks, and besides, I didn’t want to miss the ferry and wait 40 minutes for the next one.
After I paid for my stuff and deducted the $5 ferry fare from my total I headed to the food department, it’s been our habit (Danusia and mine) to get a bag of frozen Swedish meatballs every time we go to IKEA. We love them and they’re good to have for a quick dinner in a pinch. Now they even have big Swedish hams! I got some smoked salmon as well, cheaper than anything at either Fairway or Whole Foods. I hope it’s not too salty. I always pass on the IKEA honey buns, though they are good. When I worked at the building anytime an IKEA furniture assembly crew would come they always gave the staff a big package of honey buns as a tip, that’s how I know.
But I did get some chocolate.
I only waited 15 minutes for the next ferry, and this time I went up top. The bad thing was that the sky had darkened and it looked like it was going to rain any minute. The wind had picked up and it was cold on deck. I wanted to take more pictures, but I shot a ten second video and my phone immediately died. That will be the subject of my next post, replacing my 2-year old iPhone that doesn’t hold a charge anymore.
On my way back to the train with a very heavy blue IKEA bag I spotted a Key Food across from the train station. I got my lettuce and boarded the train back uptown, hoping to beat the rain home.

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ADVENTURES IN HANDYMANING

Posted on October 28, 2014 by xaviertrevino

neo-metro-metro-urban-toilet_im_366

I got a text from a friend last week asking me if I could fix her toilet, which had broken. She sent me a couple of pictures and I knew right away how to fix it. I texted her back that all I needed to do was pick up a replacement for the broken part and swap it out. We agreed on a price and set a date for the next day.
I looked up the part, and found two models that would fit,
This one:

fluidmaster_691_70
Fluidmaster push button toilet flush lever;
And this one:

amstan-trip-lever-738100-0020a
American Standard pushbutton toilet flush lever.
Home Depot’s website said they carried the Fluidmaster, so I planned accordingly.
The next day I got on the train and headed downtown to Home Depot on 23rd Street, and the plan was to pick up the part and head over to her house to do the installation. Simple, no?
Then reality sunk in. I looked at all the flush levers in stock, they only stocked two, really, and neither one was the Fluidmaster push button. I asked a sales associate for help.
“Oh, no, we don’t carry those. We used to have them at the Northern Boulevard store when I worked there, but we don’t carry them here.” There is no way I’m going to Jackson Heights for this thing.
I knew there was a hardware store near her home, so I got on a crosstown bus and started making my way down to the East Village. Turns out True Value didn’t have it either. I called her and she said to try again the next day.
I know of a place where they boast carrying even obsolete and discontinued plumbing parts, New York Replacement parts on Lexington Avenue and 94th Street. When I worked as a handyman at 144 I was a regular there, the super would send me there to get stuff, including the elusive push button flush levers, as we had Toto toilets in the building that used them. They would have it.
So early the following day I made my way down to 96th Street and got on the crosstown bus to Lexington Avenue. I got to NY Replacement and got in the long line of plumbers, handymen, and supers waiting for service.
NY Replacement parts is one of those old-timey places where blue-collar guys in blue tee shirts behind the counter help you get what you need. When my turn came I told the guy what I needed.
“For what kind of toilet?”
“It’s called Neo-Metro urban toilet.”
“I never heard of that. You got a picture?” I showed him the picture my friend had sent.

tank
“That’s an American Standard.”
“OK, I’ll take one.” The guy went to the depths of the store for my part. He came back seconds later.
“I’m all out. We stock them, but I’m out right now. Call me Friday afternoon.” He gave me a business card and wrote down the part number. I called my friend with the bad news.
“That’s OK, call me when you get the part.”
That was on Wednesday, and on Thursday Danusia and I went to a Russian friends’ wedding reception, more of a small gathering in Long Island City. I looked for plumbing stores in L.I.C. on line to see if maybe I could kill two birds with one stone. No luck.
The party was in a common area on the roof of the building and I got these great pics from up there. The groom, a guy named Nicolai made some awesome skewers of beef and vegetables on the grill.
Friday I went out to far Rockaway with Danusia to clean an apartment and throw my dad’s ashes in the Atlantic Ocean, so I never got to call the plumbing store, but I did check on line and the Home Depot in the Bronx Terminal market claimed to have the part.
Saturday morning I got on the Bx6 bus to goo across the Harlem River to the Home Depot there. Of course, they didn’t have the push-button lever.
I did find a regular lever that would work, you see this toilet not only uses a rare lever, but the lever is mounted on the side, not the front. But Home Depot had a side mounted Kholer lever in chrome that would work. I bought it, thinking that it would at least fix the problem until I could get the real thing; it looked more and more like I was going to have to order it on line.
I made it down to my friend’s apartment just as she was leaving for work, and I explained what I was going to do, and she said fine.
It took a little fine-tuning with a hair dryer, the plastic lever was the wrong shape for the tank and I had to heat and bend it at just the right angle for it to work.
Satisfied, I put the cover back on the tank and left.
I got a call later from my friend, and she said; “that’s a different lever, it doesn’t push in.” I guess she didn’t listen carefully to my explanation in the morning. I told her that I was ordering the right part and would swap it out once I got it.
I ordered the part from Amazon yesterday, after first checking with N.Y. Replacement parts.
“No we didn’t get them yet. Try again on Wednesday.” Right.
So now I’m waiting for the part, and some advice to friends remodeling their bathrooms.
Some toilets are like foreign cars; they are hard to get parts for. They might look cooler than run of the mill American cars (or toilets) but be prepared to spend extra time and money if you have a problem.

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