WHAT THE HEART WANTS

Posted on February 11, 2014 by xaviertrevino

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            I was debating about what to write about today, I have a piece I wrote last week about the overdose death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman and how his celebrity made a drug overdose front page news. Hundreds if not thousands of people die from drug overdoses every day all over the world and they rarely make the newspapers.

My teacher Charles Salzburg suggested I sent it to the times instead, and I did, but they passed on it. I imagine there was an overwhelming tide of opinion about his death; all you have to do is look on facebook to see that. So I guess that ship has sailed.

The other big celebrity story in the news is the renewed attack on Woody Allen’s supposed sexual abuse of his adopted daughter Dylan some 21 years ago. It all started during the Golden Globes awards last month with a twitter attack on Allen from both Ronan Farrow and his mother Mia. And it’s been in the news ever since, intensifying first with Dylan’s open letter to the NYT and then Mr. Allen’s own rebuttal in the online section of the NYT.

I first heard of Mia Farrow when I was a kid, when she made a big splash in Rosemary’s Baby, and when she married Frank Sinatra. As a kid I couldn’t have cared less, but it was in all the newspapers and on TV, so it was unavoidable.

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I’ve watched Woody Allen films all my life, and I have to say I’ve always liked them. I think I first got hooked on his movies when I saw Play it Again, Sam in 1972. I think he is a brilliant writer and filmmaker, and an iconoclast of the modern age. He gave voice to the doubts and insecurities that lie within all of us, whether we care to admit it or not; and that’s one of the things that makes him special.

In the end, Mr. Allen is still a man, with all the flaws and warts that come with being a human being. In reply to Dylan’s question “what’s your favorite Woody Allen movie” I’d have to say it is Crimes and Misdemeanors, because for me it shows what Mr. Allen really thinks of morality and what a smart man should make of it.

I remember when Mr. Allen and Ms. Farrow had their famous custody battle in 1993. It was all over the papers and I found it to be very tantalizing, the way someone gloats over someone else’s misfortune. I was a different person back then, I don’t gloat over any of this stuff now, all of these people are suffering and they should all take a step back and stop it.

That he took nude pictures of a teenager is an indication of what he thinks is appropriate. As he points out, they are not blood relatives, but hey, isn’t that splitting hairs? What about the spiritual responsibility that comes from being in a relationship and being honest with your partner?

The kind of attitude he has is the jailhouse lawyer’s attitude: prove it. And he is smart enough to make sure there is no proof.

Mia herself is no angel. She broke up Dory and Andre Previn’s marriage at the age of 23, engaging in an affair with a married man. And her admission that Ronan could “possibly” be Frank Sinatra’s son, conceived at the height of her 12- year relationship with Mr. Allen is just the icing on the cake on just how warped the thinking of people of privilege can be. A look at a picture of Ronan tells me he does not resemble Woody Allen.

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It was a painful affair for all involved, and prolonging that pain, or revisiting it, makes no sense to me. I don’t know what kind of satisfaction Ms. Farrow can possibly get from seeing Mr. Allen squirm.

The fact that he is squirming, and the proof is in the self-serving rebuttal he wrote for the Times tells me one thing- he feels guilty about something.

He was already legally exonerated in 1993 by the Connecticut DA’s office, so why does he need to defend himself again?

I think that lust and sexual attraction is something in all of us, and how we handle it is what makes us what we are. I remember a guy I know talking about the allure of a young woman he’d just met (he was a married man). He said: “If she serves it up on a platter and I say no, does that make me a punk?”

To me, the difference between a man and a child is the ability to say “no”. So no, my friend, it does not make you a punk to refuse to react viscerally to lust, it makes you a man, who know the difference of what the heart wants and what it needs.

In the end, I think the truth of the whole Allen-Farrow affair lies somewhere in the middle, and only they know where the middle is. 

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CIGARETTE MONEY

Posted on February 8, 2014 by xaviertrevino

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            Last week a woman gave me $20 for helping her load the last of her dead father’s possessions into a cab. I usually get two or three dollars, but she gave me twenty. Of course, I’d been helping her for a while, a couple of boxes here and there, and maybe she saw it as cumulative, and since it was the last time, a twenty was appropriate.

            As I put it in my pocket I remembered the first time I saw my mom tip somebody, I was probably 10 years old and some neighborhood kid that was probably in his teens had installed our new washer in the kitchen. My mom gave him $2 and said “cigarette money.” And I’ve always thought of tips as “cigarette money” though I haven’t smoked for some 12 years now.

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SALEM, the brand I smoked for almost 30 years.

            $2 would have bought that kid a whole carton of cigarettes in 1965 when that happened, $20 would get me two packs today if I went to a discounter like Duane Reade or CVS. For some reason the big drugstores always had these 2 for one or special prices to undercut the exorbitant and in some cases prohibitive taxes on the cigarettes. I always went to Duane Reade.

            Once a friend asked me why I would walk a couple of extra blocks to a Duane Reade when there was a CVS right across the street.

            “Because CVS is not a New York store.” I replied.

            “What difference does it make?” He asked. I found it hard to explain to him how the set up, the geography of a Duane Reade is quintessentially New York in comparison to Rite Aide, Walgreen’s and CVS, all giant retailers from outside of New York; so I just said, “I dunno. But I like Duane Reade better.”

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            One reason I quit smoking was the steady rise in price and taxes. When I first started smoking at the age of 19, cigarettes were 50 cents a pack. When I joined the army a few years later, in 1979, they were up to 65 cents a pack, but in North Carolina, where I was stationed they were only 45 cents, and on post, at the PX there was no tax at all and they were 35 cents a pack, a bonanza for a two to three pack a day smoker like me. I was buying 3 or four cartons at a time.

            Coming back to New York was a shock to my addictive system, by the early 80’s they were almost a dollar a pack, and I discovered that drugstores, Duane Reade in particular had them for a nickel cheaper than most bodegas or newsstands. I guess that’s where I developed my Duane Reade loyalty.

            This was a constant as prices went up, the drugstore discounts. They were my friends, an understanding entity in the corporate world that saved me a few pennies every time I needed to slake my tobacco habit, which had by then grown to monstrous proportions.  I coughed a lot and had trouble breathing sometimes. My back hurt and I didn’t know why. My teeth were brown and my fingertips were stained yellow. The skin on my cheeks was yellow. But I went to Duane Reade every day to get my fix.

            I quit in 2002, when cigarettes were approaching $8 a pack. That meant that at the time I was spending almost $20 a day just on smoking, $140 dollars a week, almost a quarter of my salary at the time. How I quit is a different story, it would take a little longer than what I can fit in a blogpost.

            Which brings me to the present. Cigarettes average $12 a pack in NYC right now; and I’m REALLY glad I don’t smoke anymore. Then on Wednesday I opened the New York Times and found to my surprise a full-page ad from CVS stating that they would not sell cigarettes or tobacco products (including e-cigarettes) after October 1st, 2014. It was a shock, but a good shock.

            Even though they stand to loose 2 billion in sales annually, CEO Larry Merlo stated that “Put simply, the sale of tobacco products is inconsistent with our purpose.”

Bravo, Mr. Merlo and the CVS board of directors, for having the courage to put principles before profit. If only other large corporations would only do the same. But maybe the example of CVS will encourage (or shame) others to do so.

In a world where we pay a hundred times the price of manufacture for things like razor blades and printer ink cartridges, it is gratifying to know there are real people running some corporate entities, real people who care about others, rather than just the bottom line. Form now on I’ll go to CVS exclusively for anything I went to Duane Reade for. 

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WALK AND CHEW GUM

Posted on February 4, 2014 by xaviertrevino

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            It snowed again and garbage removal has been suspended again. That means my street; Broadway in Brooklyn (as opposed to Broadway in Manhattan or worse, Broadway in Queens) between Thornton Street and Flushing Avenue will be extra dirty for a while. It got really filthy after the first big storm, what with Christmas trees all over the place and recycle trash and just plain trash all over that the sanitation workers just couldn’t see, because they were so busy plowing out the Upper East Side to get the new mayor’s ass out of the sling. I’ll bet Park Slope wasn’t as dirty.

            Mr. de Blasio talks about a tale of two cities, and he is right. During the Bloomberg administration the streets in Manhattan (and Park Slope) were relatively cleaner than my strip of Broadway on any given day. People in the projects (and we do have a lot of projects in the area) don’t vote. And tourists don’t frequent this part of Billyburg. Unless of course they are looking to buy drugs.

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            My house, the one with the graffiti on it.

            Years ago I lived on the Lower East Side, in the 80’s. The LES was pretty dirty back then, maybe the DSNY was too scared to go into the neighborhood for fear of getting assaulted, or the then mayor decided that drug addicts don’t vote.

            Some parts of the LES haven’t changed.

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            Corner of Chrstyie and Rivington Streets.This garbage can lay there like that for a week.

            So, since it snowed yesterday I guess I shouldn’t put out the garbage for a few weeks. And it was just starting to get good, I was starting to believe in the new mayor; the recycling was actually picked up this Saturday as opposed to sitting on the sidewalk for a week or two.

            OK, I understand that it takes a lot of time and effort for the DSNY to prepare for a snowstorm and then clear the streets, but does it really take them so much time to go back to picking up garbage? Are they like Gerry Ford, they can’t walk and chew gum at the same time? I knew a guy who couldn’t walk and talk on his cell phone at the same time. Maybe he was a retired sanitation worker.

            Speaking of snow removal, I noticed the streets in Manhattan were pretty clear yesterday, but sidewalks that belonged to the city were not. Getting to the Broadway line at 72nd Street was downright treacherous. I guess that would be the NYCT’s responsibility, the entrance to the subways, but then again it might be one of those “it’s not my job” things between city agencies. The only reason the snow in front of the entrances turned to mush was the sheer number of people walking on it. But the little park leading to the street was a slippery hard-packed mess. They could have at least salted a path to the street. I smell some lawsuits coming the city’s way.

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            It looks like this is going to be a snowy winter, the past few years were relatively snow free so I guess we’re due some snow. I just hope our new mayor is true to his word and starts providing equal services to all parts of the city, not just

the parts the tourists and rich people see. It’s more than just stop and frisk- if people perceive they live in a shithole they will act like they belong in a shithole.

            What I see most in my neighborhood are angry people. Angry that they are poor, angry that they must live where they live. If the city can take care of that place a little better, it just might take away some of that anger, and perhaps they will treat their surroundings a little better in turn.

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Monster Coat Habit

Posted on February 1, 2014 by xaviertrevino

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Last spring I bought TWO coats at J. Crew, both on sale, both at a great price. I still have one, this one:

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It’s a herringbone tweed topcoat, just like the one my dad used to wear. I’m sure the ones he wore didn’t cost as much, and weren’t of the same quality, but they looked the same. It’s a classic coat, a man’s coat, and since I’m nearing the age of 60 I figure it’s time to dress like an adult. I got it for $125, a THIRD of the original price.

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The other coat, a snorkel type coat in cotton with a Sherpa lining in the hood, looked great on the mannequin but looked like a green horse blanket on me. Cut like a box, but it sure was warm. I sent it to my son in Omaha, Nebraska. He’s pretty happy with it, as I’m sure he was cold.

 

For Christmas 2007 when my son Javier came to NY for a visit (he was living in Santa Fe with his mom at the time) I gave him a cowboy Duster from Western Spirit in Soho.

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It looked like this and he loved it. I figured it would work great in Santa Fe. At the time I paid almost $300 for it, the most I’d ever paid for a coat and it wasn’t even for me; but the look of joy on his face was worth it.

I’ve always been a coat freak; I usually have more than one.

The first time I ever bought a coat for myself was when I was 15 and in high school, I had my first job helping renovate a brownstone on DeKalb Ave in Brooklyn and I decided I wanted an army field jacket.

I found one I could afford on my 15 year-olds salary, an imitation U.S. Army field jacket for $19 at Hudson’s Army and Navy Store on 3rd Ave. The real ones were twice as much. The first time I wore it in the rain I discovered it had a bad smell when wet, and I vowed never to buy an imitation again.

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Ten years later, at the age of 25, I got a real U.S. Army field jacket for free, courtesy of the U.S. government when I enlisted in the Army. That was in 1979, and I kept that field jacket until it fell apart in 2003. I replaced the zipper twice.

It wasn’t real warm, but at least it was authentic, and free. I always wore a Sherpa lined hoodie with that jacket, which is actually described as a “coat, cold weather man’s field” on the tag sewn into the neck of the thing. Now all of these hip clothing companies try and sew imitation spec tags into their imitation military style clothing. I love looking at coats on the subway with all these dumb patches like “521st Air division” or some shit, things that don’t exist. Or with the chevrons sewn on upside down.

I bought a series of coats at the old Canal jeans in 2000-2001, right after I got divorced. I’d come into a lot of money and had no one but myself to spend it on, and I also lost a lot of weight that winter.

I bought a leather pea coat (Shott) that was way too big once I lost 115 pounds. Then there was the black leather coat with the faux fur lining for $49 that I couldn’t resist the price of. It was like a pimp coat, and I gave it to an Italian guy who liked looking like a pimp. The Shott I gave to a friend who was way bigger than me. I ended up with a black duffle coat, after seeing some pictures of Bernard Montgomery in one at El Alamein. That’s a picture of Monty up in the banner.

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It was wool felt, and only had two patch pockets on it. Again not very warm; and with only two patch pockets, it was a suck coat.

In 2005 I scored a great Diesel coat at Atruim for a third of the original price. It was listed at $499, and that being a particularly warm winter, they couldn’t give coats away. It was black cotton with a hood and Sherpa lining throughout. It was warm and had lots of pockets. I loved it.

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            This isn’t the coat, but it’s a reasonable facsimile.

I waited till the price dropped to $199 in late January and bought it. I had that one till this winter, when I gave it to housing works. I also donated a black down coat from Onassis, a fancy Soho store to housing works. That was another suck coat, with feathers that stuck me every time I wore it and a Snap-On hood that snapped off more often than it stayed on. I got it on sale a couple of years ago, but since I only wore it three times it was a waste of another $199.

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This winter I was looking to replace the J. Crew horse blanket, and I saw a really great coat at Scotch and Soda, but it was $399. But I love it; it is waxed cotton and has the “fishtail” back that’s very popular this winter, another military imitation.

Last month Scotch and Soda had their winter sale and I got it for half price. So that and my dressy herringbone tweed topcoat should do me for a while.

That’s when I sent my kid the horse blanket coat, but since he’s way taller and bigger than me, I’m sure it will fit him better. I wonder what he’s done with the duster.

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FAR AND HARD TO REACH

Posted on January 28, 2014 by xaviertrevino

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This one’s down the block from the one we tried to buy, but it looks the same.

To my regular readers and friends, it’s official; we’re not getting the Far Rockaway bungalow. Cow says moo, dog says woof, bank says no.

Well, let me clarify that- the owner of the house was asking 125K for the house, and the appraiser for the bank appraised the house for 80K. Since we don’t have an additional 45 thousand dollars lying around, we are going to have to call it quits.

It’s a great deal, the value will increase and all of that, but it just isn’t going to happen for us. I can’t say I’m deeply disappointed, the thought of riding the A train for almost three hours a day was not heartening. And while my wife, the lovely Danusia loves the beach; I’m not really a big fan of it. Too much water and sand for me, not to mention the sun.

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The beach at the end of the block.

I know a couple of real estate people, after all I am in the business in a sense, and they all say the same thing- don’t get emotionally involved in a property when looking to buy. The seller can smell blood. That’s easy for me, I’m a pretty self-centered detached sort of person that looks at the money value of things rather than the sentimental value, and that’s a good thing when buying property. When I first saw the house, with the big hole in the kitchen floor and the damaged baseboard heaters I was not impressed. That, and the fact that the whole house could fit into my 1150 square foot Williamsburg loft apartment with the 12 foot ceiling in the living room made it that much harder to like. But Danusia immediately fell in love with the house, and that set in motion an adventure and learning experience.

We’ve looked at houses before, two in Bedford-Stuyvesant a couple of years ago. One had been abandoned at one point, they were asking $350,000 but it looked like it needed another $200,000 just to keep from falling down. Another was on Lafayette Ave., the street I grew up on, and that was a nice house. It was $550,000, and the VA, which will be underwriting any loan I get, will only cover $240,000. So this Far Rockaway house would have been perfect.

I knew the VA would not approve a loan in the condition the house was in, so we talked about fixing it up to the point where it was livable. The owner said he was out of cash and couldn’t do anything else. He’d had the roof re-done and there was a new bathroom. My wife had some money and we hired a guy to fix the floor and whatever else needed to be fixed. Once I turned on the water I found out it was quite a lot. The baseplate of the water meter was cracked, probably froze after the hurricane. There were also numerous burst pipes in the house, notably one in the kitchen ceiling and two on the baseboard heating elements. I paid the contractor an extra $100 apiece to buy and install new ones.

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The big hole in the kitchen floor.

The burner and hot water heater were new, and they were in a shack out in the back. There was a burst pipe in the feed line to the burner as well. The contractor fixed that too. We were ready to schedule an appraisal.

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After the contractor fixed it. Nice job, huh?

Danusia had found a nice banker at a Chase bank near her job, in the Village; a guy named Glenn. I went to my union and consulted a lawyer, Jim. Great thing about my union, free legal advice. Jim talked us through the whole process, and gave us good advice. He drew up the agreement where we fixed the house and would get the money from the owner in the event we did not get the mortgage. There were lots of paper signing and phone calls and long trips out to Rockaway Beach, including one where I had a friend help me take a GE washer-dryer to the hose. A tenant in the building had moved out and given it to me. Then came the appraisal. I took the long train ride out to meet the owner and the appraiser, who looked around, took pictures, and asked questions. A week later the bank called with the bad news.

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One of the new heating elements and the floor with poly on it.

The owner sent us an email where he said the house would increase in value, that the banks were unfairly undervaluing property, etc. But in the end, we just don’t have the extra money to get in on this golden opportunity. Some people like us, we gotta work.

So, I’m sad that we missed out on an opportunity to own property that will one day increase in value, but glad I don’t have to move into a tiny place that could fit in my present home. Danusia’s been looking at condos and co-ops now. I like that idea better, but it would be wonderful to find a house in Bed-Sty or Crown Heights.

Best of all, I learned that far from daunting, buying a house is just a little tedious, with all the paperwork and meetings and such, but not impossible. It does, however come with a price tag. I spent $525 on an engineer’s report (he said the house was practically falling down) and another $325 on the appraisal. Plus the $200 I gave the contractor for the heating elements and the $45 for the water meter bottom plate I went and bought myself on the Lower East side. That’s money I will never get back.

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Not the actual machine, but it’s the same model, less than 4 years old.

But hey, if anyone’s interested, I’ve got that washer dryer. It costs around $1500 brand new. I paid $100 to get it out there, and we can talk about how much it’s worth to you.

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Blind Luck

Posted on January 25, 2014 by xaviertrevino

 

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When I left work last night, a couple of minutes early thanks to my co-worker Ralph; I walked quickly through the 15 degree air to the A train on Central Park West. There’s nothing like 15-degree air to help you walk fast. I made it there in record time (4 minutes) and was pumped to be catching the 10:52 to Lefferts Blvd. instead of the 11:05 to Far Rockaway. Saturday nights are the worst night of the week to ride the subway, the wait times are long and the trains are crowded with drunk kids looking for a party, or going out to clubs or wherever it is drunk and stoned kids go nowadays. Factor in the cold weather and the over-abundance of ripe homeless people stretched out wherever they can and it’s not a fun ride.

           

As I descended the stairs to the 86th Street station I was greeted by a disembodied voice bellowing up from the downtown platform, the one I was headed to.

“WHERE’S MY FUCKING TRAIN? I WANT MY MONEY BACK!”

Oh oh, I thought, trouble on the tracks. It sounded like a white guy’s voice, so it was definitely trouble. I stopped short in front of the turnstiles, monthly Metro Card in hand. Should I stay or should I go? (I love that song, comes in handy all the time.)

There was an older gentleman just inside of the turnstiles, a white man with a grey beard and black Astrakhan hat, and apparently he’d been inquiring of the token clerk where the train was also.

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An Astrakhan hat.

“WHERE’S MY FUCKING TRAIN? IT’S BEEN 50 MINUTES! I WANT MY MONEY BACK!” Again, the disembodied voice bellowing from down below.

            The token clerk, a frazzled looking middle-aged African-American woman keyed her mike and yelled back:

“SIR, YOU CAN’T GET YOUR MONEY BACK! THE TRAIN’S COMING! THE TRAIN WILL BE COMING!”

Leave it to a token clerk to yell back at a disembodied voice. I don’t envy token clerks, it must be the worst job in the world, definitely high stress, with all the people yelling at you and making demands and spitting ay you all of the time. I remember once there was even a guy going around trying to set token clerks on fire. But if the MTA has its way token clerks will be phased out soon. People in my neighborhood will be shit out of luck, not being able to buy cards from a real live person or having someone to argue with. That happens a lot at the Flushing Ave. Station where I live.

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               Have a nice day!

I looked at her and asked: “No trains?” But she was no help, she was too unnerved by the disembodied voice; and just gave me a blank stare. Suddenly the uptown train pulled in, and people got off and started heading for the turnstiles. Something automatic in me set into play, I had to swipe my card and get in before I was blocked by the exiting passengers. It’s a war between those getting off and those trying to get in, especially if the train that is discharging is the one you want to get on. I’d run over an old lady if I had to. Well, maybe not an old lady. But anyone else is fair game. Except maybe a pregnant woman.

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I swiped my card just as the first person reached the turnstiles; I’d won. Except I wasn’t getting on the uptown train, I had to go downstairs. But maybe I should get on this train, go up to 125th Street and catch the downtown D if the A was out. Better to go downstairs and scope out the situation, I thought. The man in the Astrakhan hat decided to go back downstairs too.

As I started descending the stairs there was a man at the bottom of the stairs, a white man in all black, black coat, pants, big cowboy hat. Was this the bellower? I walked past him and found the platform was packed with people. I listened for an announcement but there was none. I think the PA system at 86th is out, usually when waiting for the train I hear “ladies and gentlemen, the next downtown train is now approaching 86th Street”; but I haven’t herd that in a couple of weeks. I made my way to the edge of the platform and peered down the tunnel. Just then I saw the glint of the light of the approaching train on the curve of the tracks, the light at the end of the tunnel. This was just blind luck, I thought.

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The train pulled in, full of drunken kids and homeless people, but I was never so glad to get on the train with the drunk and the smelly.

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My Patti Smith Story

Posted on January 21, 2014 by xaviertrevino

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This one’s for my friend Bill, who loves my old New York rock and roll stories. He was in Florida back then, so he can only hear stories about it.

I was 20, I think, it’s hard to remember what went on back then because I was in such a state of flux that even I didn’t know what was going on with me.

I had my first camera, no, actually it was my second camera, a Minolta 101. My first camera was a Leica, not an F, but close to it. I didn’t like it because it was a rangefinder and I found it too difficult to use. I didn’t know shit about photography (or cameras) then. I bought the Leica for $25 from some girl in the dorm (she promptly used the money to buy pills from me) and later sold it for $200. I bought the Minolta for $100 from some other desperate Pratt student.

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This is what my Leica looked like.

Around that time little black and white flyers started popping up all over campus about a show, or a poetry reading, rather by a girl named Patti Smith. I’d heard of her, of course, being hip and artistic and literary and all that. I remember seeing her around campus even before I went to Pratt (I lived nearby and hung out on the campus as a teenager). She had a very tall, skinny and very pretty boyfriend who wore a tight black leather jumpsuit. She was very pretty and exotic looking too. She wore big t-shirts and no bra. It was always a thrill to see them around, even if I didn’t know they were Patti Smith and Robert Maplethorpe.

The flyer said Patti Smith would be reading poetry at the student lounge one friday afternoon. I took my camera, because who wouldn’t want pictures of a pretty poetess?

There weren’t a lot of people there, probably 20 or so in a room that easily held 100. The couches and easy chairs had been pushed against the walls to form a seating space in front of the performance area. We all sat on the floor.

There was a small fender amp set up next to a microphone, and then a girl who was the student rep or something came out to introduce Patti. She’d been sitting on one of the couches with a tall skinny guy with glasses and an electric guitar. They sauntered up to the mike and amp.The skinny guy plugged in and Patti started talking, or reciting poetry. The guitar guy did some psychedelic sound effects.

Suddenly Patti launched into a song, “Paint It Black”, by the Rolling Stones. She started prancing around like Mick Jagger, and shaking her hips. This was pretty cool, I thought.

I’d taken a couple of pictures, politely, at first, I didn’t know if she was going to say “no pictures”, but she said nothing so I kept snapping pictures of Patti standing at the mike.

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The Minolta with the loud shutter.

Unfortunately, the 101 had a really loud shutter, and when she was just doing poetry every time I took a picture and the curtain went up and down it made a “thwickup” sound.

Thwickup, thwickup, thwickup. Every time I did this a girl sitting on the floor just in front of me would turn around to give me a dirty look.

When Patti started singing and moving I got up, I started following her around and getting as close as I dared. She seemed to be digging it, looking straight at the camera, she was a rock and roll star now. I even got some accidental shots of the braless breasts when she bent over and you could see up the collar of the loose white tee shirt. She had nice ones.

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See?

 The shirt had a picture of someone’s face on it, one of those Kodalith  things, but I can’t remember who it was.

Everybody was digging the singing, even the girl with the dirty looks who finally stopped starring at me.

Patti ended with “Pale Blue Eyes’ by the Velvet Underground, one of my favorite songs in the whole world, and I knew at that second that Patti knew rock and roll. I would love her forever.

A few years later, not many actually, Patti was headlining at CBGB’s one night. I was tight with the bartender at CB’s at the time, my friend Roxy, and I got in for free to most gigs. I practically lived at CB’s when i was 24.

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I was broke at the time, and I hit on a brilliant idea. Sell the pictures of Patti to Patti. I got a manilla envelope and filled it with a bunch of 8X10 prints I’d made of Patti’s Pratt performance.

At some point before the show, I made my way back to the dressing room to talk to Patti. After all, we’d been this close to each other at the student lounge, and she was a cool, liberal woman, we were practically friends. I hadn’t counted on the tall skinny guy with glasses and a guitar. His name was Lenny Kaye, I’d found out.

Lenny was standing at the door to the dressing room, I could see Patti somewhere in the back talking to someone, but she paid no attention to the door.

“Can I help you?” He asked.

“Yeah, man, I got some pictures of Patti I took a few years ago at Pratt, and I thought she might be interested in buying them.” I thrust the 8X10s at Lenny, who took them out of my hand and started leafing through them.

I was pretty stoned on pills, so I’m not quite sure how my pitch came out, but at least he was looking at the pictures. Them he would show them to Patti. He finished looking at them and handed them back.

“No thanks.” He said.

“But you haven’t shown them to Patti.”

“She’s busy, but I’m pretty sure she’s not interested.”

“But there’s some of you, too, aren’t you interested?”

“Get lost before I call the bouncer.”

I walked away dejected. I didn’t know how to feel about Patti now. I knew the Kaye guy was a prick, though.

I lost the pictures along with everything else I owned not long after that.

One of the bouncers at CB’s was a woman. I used to do whippets with her at CB’s when my girlfriend wasn’t around. I later married her, and now I think it would have been really weird if Kaye had called a bouncer over and it had been her. Life in the fast lane, huh?

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Goodbye, Sallie Mae

Posted on January 18, 2014 by xaviertrevino

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Tuesday I finished paying off my student loan. I got the money starting in 1972, when I enrolled at Pratt institute. I got stipend money every month from something called HEOP, higher educational opportunity program. It’s still around today. HEOP got the school to waive tuition for qualified students, and then we were provided funds for living expenses and materials through a combination of grants and loans. In total I received $5,000 in loan money over the course of 3 ½ years. I quit Pratt just shy of the last semester.

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The engine room at Pratt, run by Conrad. Last I heard, he’s still there.

I started getting calls from collection agencies not long after I left Pratt in 1976, and I remember one memorable call where the person on the other end of the phone told me he would “ruin my credit,” and that would “ruin my life.” I really didn’t need any help with that one; I did that very effectively all on my own. At least for a while.

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I wish I could have paid with one of these.

“You owe $5,000, how much can you send us today?” Would be the way one of those calls started. In 1976, at the age of 24, $5,000 sounded like an unattainable amount of money, I was never gonna have it, and they were never gonna get it; it was as simple as that. The concept that I could pay it off a little at a time was something I could not wrap my head around. So I just avoided answering those phone calls, and there came a point where I didn’t even have a telephone, so it became easier not to think about the money I owed and paying it off.

On the rare occasions where I was due a tax refund, I found out that the government, which had guaranteed the loan in the first place, had taken whatever refund I was due in order to satisfy the loan.

My credit was indeed ruined.

In the mid 90’s, when I was married to my first wife and we were raising a child in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, she showed me a little ad in the paper about house buying. It was for a seminar, where you went and found out it was actually a sales pitch for some mortgage company selling sub-prime mortgages. Actually, at the time I didn’t know that, I just knew that I was a veteran and I was entitled to a V.A. homebuyer’s loan. The people running the seminar sat down with us, ran a credit check and looked at our finances.

When the woman got the results of our credit check she looked at us like we were from Mars. She explained that we had to pay our bills, and pay them on time with some regularity before we could qualify for any kind of mortgage.

“You guys don’t even have any credit cards.” She said with real wonder.

After we got divorced, in the year 2000, I started to learn how to take care of myself, and one of the first things I did, after getting a real ID card was to open a bank account. Then I applied for a “secured” credit card. With one of those, I opened a charge account at Macy’s, my very first real credit card.

Of course, after being off the grid for so many years, I thought the loan people had forgotten all about me, but they hadn’t.

At work, my job changed. I went from being the night porter, whom most people never saw and cared little about, to the day doorman.

One day, I think it was the first month on the job, I got a phone call. It was them, the loan people.

It wasn’t the actual people who’d made the loan in the first place, it was a company that had bough the debt and was now determined to get their money. They are called Sallie Mae Servicing. I spoke to the woman on the phone at length, and she kept asking me, “How much a month can you pay?” At the time I was in the midst of child support payments, IRS payments, and for paying for an apartment by myself for the first time. Everybody wanted money from me. I felt very lost and afraid, and I wished that I had paid my debts in a timely manner so I wouldn’t be getting these horrible phone calls.

We settled on $73 a month. When I started making more money, and I paid off some other outstanding debts, I started paying $100 a month. This was in 2003, 11 years ago. It took me 11 years to pay off the debt. But I paid a lot more than $5,000. With interest and penalties, I estimate I paid double the original amount to Sallie Mae. They made a handsome profit, 100% interest. And they say this country has usury laws. But I guess it was better than owing money to a shylock.

I pay my bills on time now, with regularity. My wife and I are in the process of buying a house, and my credit score was no problem. I have a very high credit score, something I never dreamt I would ever have. And all because I pay my bills, and pay them on time.

In a way it was kind of lucky we didn’t get that house loan in the 90’s, it was definitely a sub-prime sort of deal, and we would have lost the house. Or worse, she would have gotten the house after our divorce and I would have still had to pay for it.

When I decided to avoid paying for that loan so many years ago, I was a very self-centered young man. I felt since I hadn’t graduated Pratt, because it was too hard for me to compete with more affluent students, why should I pay? I felt like a victim, but it turns out I was the victim of my own fear and self-pity.

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This was I felt about my Pratt experience.

I’m glad I’ve learned some stuff since then, and I won’t ever have to pay anyone 100% interest for anything ever again. I wish I could have learned that lesson a little earlier, but like they say, better late than ever. I’d hate to imagine what some 24 year old who’s doing the same now for the same reasons is going to have to pay. I hear tuition’s pretty expensive nowadays. 

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TRASH! Oh, pickitup…

Posted on January 14, 2014 by xaviertrevino

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The Department of Sanitation of New York was great at plowing the streets after the last snowfall, pushing all that snow against parked cars that then had a hard time getting out. Let’s see, that was January second, two weeks ago. Garbage pickup was suspended because of the snow.

The DSNY also announced that we could put our Christmas trees out on the sidewalks after the first, devoid of all tinsel, decoration, nylon rope, or plastic bags. I put mine out last Monday, the 6th. It’s still there, along with all the other trash I’ve put out since then.

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My tree and my trash (and my neighbor’s trash) in front of my building on Broadway.

Whenever I tell a tenant where I live (I live in Williamsburg!) they smile knowingly and say, “Oh, you’re so cool, Xavier.”

            “It’s not the nice part of Williamsburg,” I tell them, “I’m right on the border of Bushwick.” That’s right, cross Flushing Ave. and to the North you’re in Bushwick, to the south of Broadway you’re in Bed-Sty.I live right in the point of the triangle.

Of course garbage pickup in these neighborhoods was never a priority for the DSNY, even under mayor Mike. He didn’t care about the poor, let them eat Twinkies, and throw the wrappers on Broadway.

At least 86th Street in Manhattan was cared for under Mayor Mike.

Then came January 1st, and the new Mayor, Mayor Bill.

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Mayor Bill dutifully came out to shovel snow on the second day in office, showing his liberal affinity for the workingman, his appreciation for the DSNY and all  other unionized service organizations. After all, they’d been big supporters of the liberal Mr. DeBlasio, friend of the poor and destroyer of the tale of two cities. I think there may be an ACORN somewhere in Mayor Bill’s background. Come to think of it. There’s an ACORN in my background, but that’s a story for another day. A very juicy one, stay tuned.

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But after the snow was gone, the trees and garbage still remained.

On 86th Street.

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On Chrystie Street.

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Everywhere I go there are abandoned Christmas trees waiting to be picked up.

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Some have migrated to the middle of crosswalks.

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Others have taken up position in parking spaces.

I wonder, is it that the DSNY only has one wood chipper? Is it up in the Bronx somewhere slowly making its way down to Brooklyn?

No, wait, Manhattan is always first, I forgot.

Maybe it’s broken, and waiting for a city mechanic (or two) to fix it. Who knows?

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What I do know is that there are trees and garbage everywhere. You’d think the DSNY were on strike. But they’re not, every time I pass by the Bed-Sty diner on the corner of Thornton and Flushing there are always a couple of DSNY trucks parked in front and the hard working guys are enjoying a cup of coffee and some pie inside, while my tree and garbage waits to be picked up. Eventually they’ll get around to it, I guess. Hopefully in the next week or two, after the DSNY enforcement guy gives my landlord a few more tickets.

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The Flexible Flyer

Posted on January 11, 2014 by xaviertrevino

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When I got off the train to go to work last Saturday I had to fight through the crowds of families trudging eastward to Central park, all with children (and some adults) clutching their brightly colored plastic sleds. It was a little after 2 P.M., and I wondered if there was any snow left for them to sled on, after all, Thursday night’s snowstorm wasn’t all that snowy, I think they got eight or nine inches in the park, but I’d guess that’s enough.

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If there weren’t so many of them, and if I wasn’t getting smacked by parts of brightly colored sleds wielded by self-centered Upper Westside kids focused on getting to the slopes before anyone else, it would have been enjoyable, but being an obstacle to some kid’s fun is not an enjoyable pursuit. At least they weren’t carrying the old-fashioned wood and metal Flexible Flyers, or I would have been in trouble.

When I was a kid, I went sledding once in Prospect Park, on a cardboard box. Some kids were lucky enough to have garbage can lids that they’d managed to break the handles off of. My piece of cardboard didn’t last too long, it got wet and fell apart. I was reduced to sliding down the hill on my ass, which got wet pretty quick as well. The kids with the lids were not willing to share.

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Plastic sleds.

When my son Javier was five years old, in 1992, we were living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I was working in a shoe store on East 55th Street, and one day while I was having a smoke break by the service entrance to the building we were in, I watched the porter putting out the garbage. One of the things he tossed onto the pile of black bags was a wooden and metal sled. It was old and worn, and in faded letters it said “Flexible Flyer”, and had an arrow painted on it just in case you didn’t know which way to point it. The Flexible flyer has a little steering bar on it, which controls the separate front-runners, that’s why it’s “flexible.”

“Are you throwing that away?” I asked Jose, the porter.

“Yeah, you want it? Take it.” And I took it home for my son Javier, just in time for the big snowstorm of 1992.

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Not Javier, but this picture is so cute I had to use it. It’s my friend Elaine’s son Wes.

The Sunday after the snowstorm I was finally able to take Javier to McCarran Park to do some sledding, unfortunately for me, there are no hills in McCarran Park. I had tied a piece of rope to the sled, and I was going to pull him around on it. When we got to the park it was packed with kids making snowmen, snow angels, and parents like me pulling their kids around on sleds. Some even had the new plastic sleds. But we had our Flexible Flyer.

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No hills on Rockaway Beach either.

I had tied a piece of rope around the front steering bar so I could pull the kid along on the snow.

It was a big snowstorm, 18 or so inches, I remember people skiing down 8th Ave. the day I took food and milk up to my dad who was stranded in his apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, and all of the cars abandoned in the middle of 47th Street. I kept walking into them; it was hard to see them in the blizzard. By Sunday it was sunny, but there was still plenty of snow on the ground. We got to the park and went out to the big expanse of white that was normally a baseball field. I put Javier on the sled and started to pull.

“Go faster, daddy, go faster!” My kid commanded. I did, I wanted my son to have fun, but after awhile I thought I was going to keel over.

In 1992 I was 38 years old, I weighed 285 pounds and I smoked two or three packs of Salems a day. I was diabetic, as well. I wheezed as I pulled my five-year old along, and listened with dismay at his exhortations to “go faster!” I wondered what my five year old would do if daddy suddenly keeled over in the throes of a heart attack and started convulsing.

It didn’t happen, but it could have. Lucky for my kid I’ve got a pretty strong constitution, and I’m still here to tell the story. Pretty lucky for me too, I guess.

 

 

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