Christmas Day 2009

Christmas Day 2009
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Christmas Eve New York 2009

Christmas Eve New York 2009
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Christmas Eve New York 2009

Christmas Eve New York 2009
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Christmas Eve New York 2009

Christmas Eve New York 2009
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Christmas Eve New York 2009

Christmas Eve New York 2009
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

POET'S WALK

KABOOM

Susan comes over with a bottle of wine and a bag of spinach.  I play Christmas choral music from the Pandora website.

We sit side by side on the sofa and page through the art book I recently bought through Amazon, "The Messiah". The book tells the story of Christ through the history of art.  Aroo (the cat) stretches over both our laps. Susan thinks that most of the classical paintings depicting Christ are corporal, sensual, sexy.

"Look at those shoulders! Those legs!"

We play "Name That Tune" using pandora.
We eat yams, spinach and organic turkey bacon.
We barely touch the wine but when Susan goes, she leaves her winter coat (hanging in the closet) and her cellphone (on my coffee table).

Susan must be in love.

The next night I bring her coat and cellphone to her apartment on West 95th and Central Park West.
Susan borrows a neighbor's bike and we ride the loop of Central Park in the cold December night.
The New York skyline chaperones our joyride through the brittle, leafless park.

At "Poet's Walk" we peddle past statues of Robert Burns, William Shakespeare, and Sir Walter Scott.  Susan asks me if I'm related to each statue we pass (referring to an earlier blog entry I wrote about being related to Oliver Ellsworth). This, I find hysterical.

Before we split up at west 72nd Street, we're stopped by a young man with a thin face, long hair, and a serious expression. He needs directions to the east side. Susan is all over it and the young man takes his time with us as if he wants to spend time with us.  He thanks us and is on his way.

I tell Susan that that could have been Jesus. Looked just like him. He was testing us and we passed.

Susan says "imagine if we'd been rude?" and then she pantomimes lightning striking her. "Kaboom!"

HAND

Today I can't turn the key in my mailbox. It takes several tries. It's cold. But still I've never experienced that before.

ELOISE AT RIVERPLACE

The night before Christmas Eve, Jackie comes over at around nine. The knock, knock, knock on the door. "Come in Jackie!"

The door is open and I am at my desk.
I had a little wine but poured it back in the bottle. I wasn't in the mood.
Christmas activities take energy and focus.

I sit tucked into my desk with a box of thank you cards and a wad of twenties.

Jackie and I go through the list of River Place employees (left in our mail boxes) and decide who I should give money to.

I ordered an extra box of organic fruit from Urban Organics with my weekly box of vegetables. We line a cardboard box with red wrapping paper and arrange grapefruit, oranges, apples, kiwis and rolls of cookies in the box. We make a sign to tape to the box. I print it out in big red and green letters from my printer.

It reads,

"Happy Holidays!

To the staff of River Place

Organic Fruit from Urban Organics

Thank You!

Charlie
apartment #916"

Jackie gasps at how perfect it is.

"Oh Charlie. This is bea-ooooo-tiful.! I mean gor-g-ous! I can't believe how beautiful that sign is Charlie!"

Her reaction (like she's staring at a new born baby) makes me laugh.

I ask Jackie if she'll carry it down to the front desk. It weighs a lot.
Jackie is totally willing, totally into it. She's high on the pre-Christmas flurry.

Jackie is "Eloise at Christmas Time" and I am the more sober Aunt.
I guess I'm Kay Thompson? And actually, our apartment building is kind of a great place to be at Christmas time. The lobby is bustling with people carrying gift wrapped packages, toys and christmas trees. It kind of reminds me of the illustrations in "Eloise at Christmas Time".

When Jackie returns from delivering the box of fruit, I ask her to get the stack of chocolate bars from the kitchen.

"Jackie, I'm sorry to boss you around but will you get the candy bars I bought at Ikea? They're stacked near the cans of soup."

"Charlie! Don't apologize. I NEED direction. I'm like an actress on the stage. I don't know where to go unless someone tells me."

Jackie brings the candy bars over to my desk crowded with unsent Christmas cards, gift wrap, scotch tape and unpaid bills. I order Jackie to get rubber bands from the secretary in the living room. We use the the rubber bands to attach candy bars to the thank you cards (which have folded twenty dollars bills inside).

Then Jackie deliverts the few Christmas cards I managed to write (I used the free ones you get in the mail from CARE and HABITAT FOR HUMANITY) to the mailbox in the lobby. Before she goes, Jackie asks me to wrap a gift for for her son-in -law with my IKEA red wrapping paper. (I got four rolls of paper at IKEA for one dollar. This impressed Jackie hugely. She is devoted shopper of the 99 cent store).

When Jackie comes back, I write the gift card to her son in law.  Jackie (like most of her generation) has lovely loopy handwriting. Mine is graphic, chicken scratch but Jackie insists I write the card.

"You're handwriting is great, mine is HORE- able." Jackie makes a comically tragic expression when she says this.

When I'm done, after I attach the card to her package, Jackie again coos, "this is beauooo- tiful!!  He's going to love this Charlie, I mean it, he will LOVE this!"

Jackie has some gifts for me. This was unexpected. I would have got something for her but I can't seem to think ahead. And I can't just walk into a store so .... I don't have much to give this year.

Jackies gifts are undisguised re-gifts: a miniature portable (lime green) bible - Jackie inscribed my name,
love Jackie, and the date, on the first page, a bar of bitter-sweet chocolate,  a cd of classical musical that someone gave her, (Jackie tells me that she wasn't raised with refinement but that I was so I'll appreciate it), a bottle of vanilla extract, and a book, "The Purpose Driven Life".

I page through "The Purpose Driven Life". There are several passages that have been underlined with a blue ball point pen. I point this out to Jackie and Jackie feigns shock. She insists I read the passages that were underlined over and over to her.

"Things don't happen up for nothing Charlie. This is a sign. I'm supposed to hear this. What does it say?
Read it to me. Read it again!"

It's time for our movie.
I've netflixed "Holiday Inn" with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire.

We get a bottle of sparkling cider from my kitchen and a bag of potato chips from hers and watch the movie at her apartment.

When we get to Jackie's apartment, we can't find the DVD of "Holiday Inn".
Jackie leaves me on her settee and  goes back to my apartment for to search for the missing movie.

She returns fifteen minutes later with the lost DVD.

"Turns out I left it by the mailbox when I mailed your Christmas Cards. The guys at the front desk think I'm crazy!"

THE TRIP TO GABRIEL

The trip to Gabriel is dangerous. The roads are slick with snow.

___________________

During my craniosacral session, I use prayer and visualization. I speak to my body, spirit and mind.

___________________

At six-thirty, I bike to the Music Box (on west 45th) to see the Broadway play "Superior Doughnuts" by Tracy Letts. When I see a play from Chicago,  I feel a pang of longing for college, for lost opportunities.

I stagger through the ticket line to the box office. People in line talk about me carelessly, loudly, as if using two canes goes (hand in hand) with being hard of hearing.

"Look out! He has a cane!
"He's going to fall!"
"Get out of the way! I think he needs the wall."

I keep my expression plain. I'm both righteous and vulnerable.

Once inside the Music Box, I ask the house-manger if there is handicapped seating.
The house-manager puts me off suggesting I use a private staircase to the balcony with less stairs.

An usher guides me through a red velvet curtain by the apron of the stage to a set of narrow steps.
I crawl (on hands and knees) up these private steps.

Watching me struggle, the kind usher suggests I take the nearest seat; a private box hanging over stage-right.

I sit separate and regal -a lone, visiting dignitary. I feel important. I notice someone in the audience looking up at me so I sit up straight and refrain from touching my face or hair. When the play begins, I feel superior to the rest of the audience (I am so close).

"Superior Doughnuts" is entertaining and totally sucks me in. It's expertly written (I think). I realize I love a (one set) play.  This play reminds me of "Two Trains Running" by August Wilson I saw at the Signature (or maybe Fugard's "Master Harold" and even Inge's "Bus Stop"). I decide I will deconstruct Lett's play and use it to write my own.

_____________________

When the curtain comes down, I wait for most of the audience to leave and then cane my way (with patience and prayer) over the icy sidewalk of west 45th street - back to my electric bike. It takes fifteen minutes to unlock and mount my bike.

I bike home through sludge and demanding traffic. I'm not able to choose my route. (It's hard to describe, but the traffic forces my navigation because if I bike into too tight a corner - I can't back up, or get off the bike, or make a sharp turn. I must go with the flow).

I'm afraid the wheels of the bike will slip under a moving a car.

I get pushed by the angy traffic to west 44th and Tenth to a gas station. My tires are low so
I use this forced opportunity to fill them.

I see a sign for the pump. The air is free. There are cars in line. I get in line with my bike.

When it's my turn, I ask the man in line behind me to asssist me. This man (with a black, tired sedan) is cordial but shady. He pumps my front tire but selfishly moves on to his own car.

I object.

"Hey, my back tire! What about my back tire."

What can I do?  I'm weak. My voice is weak. So I relent. I sit on a snow bank and sulk (like a kid whose toy was snatched by a bully).

When this man is done, he hands me the hose and I fill my back tire (on my own). But the valve stem won't connect to the hose. Instead of filling the tire, I release the remaining air. The tire is (now) completely flat.  There is nothing to be done. I have a flat tire.

(My bike is too big to put in the trunk of a cab).

So I walk my bike home in the cold, New York, night. It's a ten minute walk to my apartment building but it takes me well over an hour. I worry about frost bite. (My circulation is bad). I worry I am destroying remaining muscle.


_________________

At 44th and eleventh, I ask a man (pushing a cart) for help. We are alone on a street dressed with snow, lit by two or three florescent lamp posts.  The man is fifty. The man is Hispanic. The man looks down and says "Hey, it's hard all over".

"No" I say, "I'm not asking for money. I just need help getting my bike over the ice onto the street."

"Sorry man, I didn't understand."

We slowly get my bike off the icy sidewalk onto the eleventh avenue.

When we're done, I thank him.  He asks where I'm going. I point to my building.  He says he'll unload the boxes from his cart and then catch up with me. I tell him it's okay - I'm fine now - I just needed help getting onto the street.

We wish each other Merry Christmas and I continue on my journey, alone.

______________________

I stop and sit on a fire hydrant.

I look up and see my apartment building prominent in the night sky. I can see a window of my apartment (maybe). It seems miles away. My sense of distance has been distorted. I'm a small bug or rodent on a freezing, nameless street - helpless. I'm having a Kafka moment.

____________________________

When I reach the front of my building, Spiro (my doorman) runs to meet me.
He takes hold of the handle bars so that the two of us are now pushing the bike, inching our way toward the lobby entrance. This slow procession leaves room for intimate discourse.

Spiro fills the emptiness by reassuring me I'll be okay.

(over and over, he says "don't worry, you'll be okay" - I didn't ask).

He says, "You'll get better, sir. Keep up the good work. There is a Chinese man in apartment 626 who had a stroke" he says. "When he came back from the hospital, he couldn't walk, but now he is better. Every day he tries and every day he gets better and better."

Through the cold, through my exhaustion, I confess to Sprio, "It's not like that for me Spiro, my problem is worse than a having a stroke".

Spiro says nothing.

_____________________

I'm in the lobby. James Taylor sings "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" from a boom box nestled near the big artificial Christmas tree.

I stop. I stand frozen and listen.
I feel my losses keenly; to be able to walk, to be able to sing.

The Music Box

The Music Box
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

ARNOLD STANG

Arnold Stang died yesterday.

I did my first commercial  with him (a cartoon) in 1974.
It was for a cereal called "Norman".

Arnold Stang was the voice of Norman. Norman was a caveman? (I think).
I voiced the boy in the spot.

We had a little dialogue.
It went something like...

Norman-    "Hey, how bout trying a little cereal?"

Kid -          "What kind of cereal?"

Norman -    "Norman"

Kid -            "Norman Cereal? You gotta be crazy."

Then we sang a little jingle.

"You'll be wild about Norman,
You'll be nuts about Norman,
You'll be nuts about, you'll be wild about,
You'll be nuts about...
Norman!
Part of a complete breakfast by Nabisco."

We recorded it in a studio in midtown.
There was a big orchestra.

Back then, there was a pack of little kids doing all the commercials.
They were from the city or New Jersey and they all had New York accents.
(Remember the Mikey kids from the Life Cereal commercial? That was my era).

When we started the session I decided I should use a New York accent. All the others kids had one. I figured it would make me sound more professional.

So standing on a box, leaning into a microphone, wearing headphones for the first time, I stood across from Arnold Stang and sang...

"Yule be wild dabout Noah-min.
Yule be nuts about Noah-min.
Yule be nuts about yule be wild dabout
Yule be nuts about Noah-min.

Pawt of a complete breakfast by Nabisco."

After a few takes, the advertising executive took my mother aside and explained to her that they hired me because I didn't have a New York accent; please see if your son would use his natural voice.  My mother  then clarified this to me, "they didn't want whatever accent you're doing, use your own voice honey" - the ad exec hovering nearby.

I was embarrassed and a little hurt, but it was also kind of cool, because it was the first time I understood myself as a marketable entity.

Oh! I get it. I'm the kid WITHOUT the New York accent.

At the end of the session I apologized to everyone in the studio for holding things up.

Later on the street, my mother told me I didn't need to apologize and she (of course) was right.
I've never escaped the angst of letting people down (in show business). Whether it's a commercial, a little film, or a play, I should be faultless. My performance should be easy, happy, light as a feather, and smooth. I'm hirable because I'm perfect (a professional).

This is far from true- and not such a great idea... so acting (even for a simple voice-over) can be painful (for me).

I remember I didn't know who Arnie Stang was but I could tell he was important.  I'd never seen an adult like him before.  His funny voice was like magic, his cartoonish face, exotic.  He understood exactly who he was and why he was hired and all the other adults in the studio backed off.   At aged ten, by working with Arnold Stang, I got a little glimpse of a semi-famous professional at work.

Arnold Stang didn't pay much attention to me. I was "the kid" hired for the spot. He probably had five other bookings that day.


_____________________________________


Arnold Stang, a character actor whose bespectacled, owlish face and nasal urban twang gave him a singular and recognizable persona, whether on radio or television, in the movies or in advertisements, or even in cartoons, died on Sunday in Newton, Mass. He was 91 and lived in Needham, Mass.

United Artists, via Photofest NBC, via Photofest

Arnold Stang showing a plane to Milton Berle and Zsa Zsa Gabor in 1956.

UNited Artists, via Photofest

Mr. Stang with Frank Sinatra in the Otto Preminger film “The Man With the Golden Arm” (1955).

The cause was pneumonia, said his son, David.
Mr. Stang considered himself a dramatic actor who could play serious roles. But even he was aware that with his signature heavy glasses and a manner that could be eagerly solicitous, despondently whiny or dare-you-to-hit-me pugnacious, his forte was comedy.
Like Wally Cox, who was a friend, and Don Knotts, Mr. Stang was a natural for roles requiring a milquetoast, a pest or a nerd. At 5 foot 3 and never much more than 100 pounds, he once said of himself, “I look like a frightened chipmunk who’s been out in the rain too long.” And in a story he frequently told, after an auto accident in 1959 that left him needing extensive plastic surgery, he said to the doctor, “For God’s sake, don’t make me look pretty.”
His memorable moments as an actor were oddly varied signposts of popular culture. He was the spokesman for Chunky, the candy bar, in the 1950s, delivering the slogan: “Chunky! What a chunk o’ chocolate!”
In Otto Preminger’s 1955 film about drug addiction, “The Man With the Golden Arm,” he played Frank Sinatra’s pal Sparrow in a performance that is often cited as a precursor of Dustin Hoffman’s turn as Ratso Rizzo in “Midnight Cowboy.”
On “Top Cat,” the animated television series of the early 1960s, he was the voice of T. C., a k a Top Cat himself, the leader of a mischievous cat gang. (The character was based on Phil Silvers’s Sergeant Bilko.)
He was one of two gas station attendants (Marvin Kaplan was the other) who witness the destruction of their station by Jonathan Winters in the 1963 lunatic film comedy “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.”
Most sources indicate that Mr. Stang was born in Chelsea, Mass., in 1925, but according to his family, though he had relatives in Chelsea, he was born in Manhattan on Sept. 28, 1918. His father was a lawyer until the 1929 stock market crash and earned a living afterward as a salesman.
The Chelsea story was one Mr. Stang perpetuated himself; he told interviewers that he got his first job in radio in 1934 at age 9 after he wrote to “Let’s Pretend,” a New York children’s radio show, and asked for an audition. Told he could audition when he was next in New York, he took the bus from Boston, alone, the following Saturday and was hired.
“We were married 60 years and I never managed to get him to correct that,” his wife, JoAnne Stang, said in an interview Monday.
The truth, Ms. Stang said, was that her husband grew up mostly in Brooklyn and graduated from New Utrecht High School. He wrote the note asking for an audition from Brooklyn, and he was older than 9.
He began his show business career as a teenager — his first radio appearances were on the shows “The Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour” and “Let’s Pretend” — and he went on to perform on dozens of radio programs in the 1930s and ’40s, including soap operas, mysteries and comedies, and was often called on to play more than one role.
He was probably best known at the time for “The Goldbergs,” the long-running family series set in Bronx on which he played the character Seymour Fingerhood, the teenage neighbor to the title family, and later as a sidekick to stars like Eddie Cantor, Jack Bennyand especially Milton Berle.
Mr. Stang was a regular on “The Henry Morgan Show,” a showcase for Morgan’s astringent satire, often playing a complaining, goofball New Yorker named Gerard who traded banter and one-liners with the host. After Berle moved his radio show to television, Mr. Stang appeared from 1953 to 1955, bringing along his character, Francis, a pain-in-the-neck stagehand who bugged the star relentlessly.
In addition to his wife, whom he married in 1949 (Wally Cox, a skilled goldsmith, made their wedding rings, she said), and his son, who lives in Cambridge, Mass., Mr. Stang is survived by a daughter, Deborah Stang, of Brighton, Mass., and two granddaughters.
Mr. Stang landed on Broadway three times, the last being a revival of “The Front Page” in 1969. He was a regular on the 1960s comedy “Broadside,” a short-lived, distaff version of “McHale’s Navy,” and was a guest star on numerous series, including “Bonanza,” “Batman” and “The Cosby show.”
He was also the voice of many cartoon characters, including Nurtle the Turtle in the 1965 film “Pinocchio in Outer Space.” Other film credits include Otto Preminger’s 1968 gangster comedy “Skidoo,” with Jackie Gleason; “Hercules in New York” (1970), a comedy withArnold Schwarzenegger; and “Dennis the Menace” (1993), with Walter Matthau.
“He loved the cartoons, and he liked doing commercials, too,” Ms. Stang said of her husband. “But most of all, he loved radio. It offered him such a span of roles.”

Blue Skies

Blue Skies! Charlie here.

I hope you're in the Christmas spirit!
The snow (here) is great but I'm moody.

I'm still riding my bike, but my legs and voice are weaker.


(Rats)


Friday (before the storm) I rode down to Whole Foods on 24th and 7th. When I finished shopping and caned my way back to my bike, I had to ask a stranger to help me lift my leg over the bar! (The bar is pretty low).


Last night, I went to the Symphony Space on 95th to hear the Brandenburg Concertos... fantastic!

(I had to use two canes for the first time).


I've been off Rilutek this month. I'll be back on it in January. Maybe that's why I'm weaker?

I feel like I can meditate and pray my way out of this ALS. Am I nuts?

I read every day and go to the Christian Science Church in SOHO on Wednesday and Sunday. (My father's family were Christian Scientists). I was brought up a lax Episcopalian. I started going to the Christian Science Church after my diagnosis. It's been helpful, mind opening.

This morning I read a book called "Miracles"; a small book about tapping into the universal energy of G-d. I also read "Strunk and White's Element's of Style".

Both books stress the importance of clarity.

Daily, I put off researching. I'd rather get on my bike.

But I made progress today. I was on the phone with Medicare, Medco and Mitzumoto's office trying to set up a new prescription for January. I think I'm all set.


For the New Year?
I will research.

-Charlie

snow

snow storm West 42nd Dec. 19 2009
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

LUCILLE LORTELL

Before the snow arrives, I cab to Christopher Street to see a matinee of "So Help Me God".
Maurine Dallas Watkins wrote the play in 1929. This is its first production.

I love old plays but this one needs work: cutting, shaping, focus. And the Lortelle is the wrong theater for this play; the sound is dead; the sets are cramped. It needs a classic old Broadway house.

Kristen Johnson was hilarious (Tallulah Bankhead by way of Carol Burnette and Charles Busch) .

The play's message - (it's all about money and survival in the theatre - in life?) - is an ugly truth all theatre folk face.

Christopher Street

Christopher Street NYC DEC 19 2009
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

patients medical

patients medical
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Lyceum

Lyceum
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

AT THE LYCEUM

Tuesday night I bike through noise and traffic to see the play "In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play" by Sarah Ruhl.

I love a new ambitious play on Broadway. "In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play" is the kind of play you expect to see in a black box. The Lyceum, where it's currently running, has a history of housing risky, less mainstream (less profitable) plays.  The theater is old-world and elegant, but because it's closer to Sixth avenue and a small world away from "Phantom" - the rent's probably cheaper allowing less commercial plays a chance at a run (is my guess).

"The Vibrator Play" was produced by Lincoln Center and technically, it's as good as it gets. The sets, props, costumes, acting, lighting and sound, are without fault. We are presented an historically correct parlor and operating room (in the next room) in a house in New York City at the turn of the last century. The sets and costumes alone made my mouth drop open - my eyes widen like a five year old watching an animated (turn of the century) puppet show. The design team ensures that every detail is supported and made effortless for the audience. Like a short stay at an elegant old-world hotel,  you're very body delights at the careful attention.

(If only the boorish audience (with their loud talking and musical cell phones) and the barking ushers corraling people to exit the theatre (seconds after the curtain fell) were also committed to art. The  house managers were so loud and blunt, I felt like I HAD watched something unseemly (something pornographic) about vibrators.

The play made me (and a lot of the audience) giddy with laughter (embarrassment). What's funnier than watching a person have an orgasm for the first time and not being able to comprehend what it is? But her play isn't naughty, it's spiritual. I wondered (as I left the theatre) how many people in the audience were going to home to help their partner have a great orgasm - (in the sprit of wholesomeness and love).

The play explores how the physical orgasm helps you find yourself, your identity- sex as a way of becoming whole (again). Masturbation is both self love in the physical and spiritual sense. Sharing an orgasm with your lover helps you discover love and who you are.

In Ruhl's play, the american middle class is in the dark (about sex). Men get their sex without emotional connection. Women simply put up with it to have children.  In one scene, an African American wet nurse explains to the white women that the physical sensations they describe - sound to her like "when I am intimate with my husband".  This is a revelation to the women.

The men in the play (for various reasons) are clueless too.

At the end of the play, the doctor and his wife step outside into a winter garden. It's snowing.
(This was a gorgeous effect but I knew it was coming because little snowflakes fell from the fly-space all night). The woman wants to experience sex outside (in a garden!)
She undresses her husband. She's says she's never fully seen his body before. The woman is in control. The man (the actor) is naked, vulnerable while she remains fully dressed. She asks him to lie down in the snow and makes snow angels. He follows direction and she lies down on top of him.

The ending left me breathless.

Ruhl fills her plays with imagery and intellectual ideas. It's jam packed. The invention of electricity, elephants, art, umbrellas, snow angels, genesis. But returning to eden is (kind of) a conceptual idea. Having the woman want sex in the garden seemed a little convenient.  If I'd read the script I would have thought this ending seems performance arty and cinematic. (Also) I guess I think a great play shouldn't change the set for the final five minutes.

But I really loved the play. The world Ruhl conjures is historically fascinating. Her characters are complex but seem historically accurate.  Her play forces us to look at progressive ideas about love, and (satisfying) sex through the lens of a terribly oppressed era and culture. That's really cool.

The construction (however) sometimes withers. Ruhl paints herself into a corner having to have her characters retrieve lost hats and gloves to get them back on stage. And I wasn't ready to take on the male artist who appears in the second act. Entertaining yes, but theme wise, my mind was too busy with the new invention of electricity, onanism, umbrellas, elephants, genesis and snow angels.

I biked home after the play. This is why living in Manhattan is so great.

Ernest Hemingway

James Madison

Samuel Morse

Oliver Ellsworth

Winslow

RL at JEAN CLAUDE on Sullivan
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

TINY TIM

Winslow and I sit (knee tight) by a Christmas tree. It's after eight and Jean Claude is crowded.

To get to Jean Claude,

http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/jean-claude/#ixzz0ZJy4PWf8

I took a cab to Houston and then caned my way down Sullivan Street.
As I got closer to the cafe I could see Winslow through the window.
(He got here, first like last year). We waved to each other as I hoisted myself with my cane through the weather flaps at the front entrance.

We embrace and order.
We agree to a french bordeaux. I get the chicken, Winslow gets the duck.
We put our menus down and face each other.
Winslow starts.

"How are you?"

"I'm great!"

How I am of course is anybody's guess. I'm illusive. That's how I am.

I smile at my cousin. “What can I say?”

I take my cousin in - my cousin with his Clark Kent hair, his beaming corporate wholesomeness - and fainlty wonder if I can get away with avoiding the subject of my illness.

“You look great by the way” he says, “I didn’t know what to expect and you really look great.”

I look at Winslow.

Winslow looks like Tom Cruise (that grin, the warm eye contact).
Winslow is handsome. We don't share the same genes, just the same lineage. Winslow was adopted.
There is glaring irony here. My adopted cousin was brought up in no-where Wisconsin. He was adopted but is clearly more in touch with our background than I am. I was raised around New York City. I rarely saw my grandparents.
Winslow went to a state college. I went to a top University. Winslow is a self-made millionaire. I am on public assistance.

"I'm great! But I'm a little irritable, irate, even. I took a cab here, I would have biked but I knew we'd be having wine, my legs get weaker when I have wine. Anyway I asked the driver take the west side highway... makes sense right? I live on the highway. But he turns to drive toward midtown - and again, I have to tell him to "please take the highway". So he gets on the highway, but when we get to west 30th he puts his signal on to turn left, back into midtown!

So... I had to make a decision. Am I going to get angry? Or should I just be all flaccid and forget about it? And... I went for it. I mean, I lost it. I think he thought I was some docile handicapped rube. I said to him, I said, what do you think you're doing?! Why would you get off the highway to drive into the mess of midtown? He says the traffic is worse on the highway. That's preposterous! I used the word preposterous. I told him, I said... I've lived in the city for 25 years and this just stupid, this is just silly."

Winslow lets me go on. Maybe he's adjusting to my garbled voice. Maybe he's thinking about the cane I just set under the Christmas tree.

"Too much traffic on the highway!!!! That's absurd. There was NO traffic! The traffic is controlled by the lights. There aren't any cross streets to make traffic. The cabbie says "you're upset, it's the holidays, the season is making you tense."
Can you believe that?

"Besides", he says, "there are no exits off the highway for SOHO. Where would he get off?"
I could have kicked in the back seat. I made a show of writing down his taxi ID number, belligerent the whole way, huffing and sighing. I mean I don't know how cabs work, I don't know how they tabulate their fares, I never take cabs. But he took us off of a nearly empty highway into midtown traffic! Sorry. I get carried away."

Winslow smiles. He counters my moody disorder with sober tidiness.

"They don't really make money in slow traffic. They make their money when the cab is moving freely. Actually, they make MOST of their money when you initially get in the cab, so if you got in the cab and drove around the block, and got out of the cab and then got right back in again, they'd make a lot of money. They’d make a fortune!"

"Oh. I wouldn’t know. I never take cabs."

(How a cab makes money doesn’t interest me. At some point I made an unconscious decision to discard all details (about almost everything). My mind is (now) a card catalog of names and topics. I have all the subject headings -"Beware the Taxi Cheat" -but any supporting facts will have to be retrieved from a location independent of my brain. This irecent self-realization is a great disappointment to me. My lack of (a point of view), of understanding of the world around me, becomes clearer to me when I'm confronted by people who value their own research, who've developed their own positions.
Like my cousin Winslow.

"I've got something for you."

Winslow pulls out a manilla folder and hands it to me over the wine glasses.
The Christmas tree twinkles.
It's the Christmas season and my good cousin, my caring cousin, Winslow, comes baring gifts.

The envelope contains old photographs of me and my grandparents (our grandparents). Pictures of my grandmother and me by the fireplace in their summer house on Lake Michigan. There is a hollywood style portrait of my Aunt. There are snapshots of my brother and sister as toddlers.

"Charlie, there are boxes and boxes and boxes of this stuff. Do you want any of it? The family were pack rats. There are boxes that haven't been opened fifty years. Just passed down from one house to another, unopened. Oil paintings, sets of china, photographs, letters. I have literally hundreds of bundled letters written by Bumpa to Mimi of from Antie Babe to Edna."

"Wait, Bumpa was Mimi's (our grandmother’s) father, right?"

"Yeah Bumpa was Frank her father and Etta was her mother. Mimi was the oldest. Did you know that? For some reason I thought Mimi was the youngest. Not so. I'm just figuring all this out. I open a box at a time and it's really overwhelming but it's pretty cool too. Like I just pieced together that our great Uncle Clem never married or went to college but he was sent to this extremely elite prep school .”

(My grandmother Mimi (Clem's sister) went to boarding school in Boston. It was connected to Radcliffe. Mimi played the piano beautifully and spoke fluent french. This was pretty unusual I would guess. She grew up in the middle of Wisconsin.)

"Charlie, I'm finding out so much going through these boxes. The Jackmans in particular were connected to some notable types. We're directly related to Oliver Ellsworth. Do you know who he was?"

I nod yes but say no.

He was one of the first United States Supreme Court justices.

"Wow."

"And there’s so much more. It would take a lifetime to go through all this stuff. I mean, each letter is pages and pages long and there are hundreds of them. I'm too busy collecting my own stuff.

"Me too. I have a couple of trunks of letters and postcards sitting in a friend's house in Connecticut."

I bring it back to the past.

“I just read a book about Admiral Perry's trip to Japan in 1853. Our ancestor William Bemis was on that trip. There's an etching of William demonstrating the telegraph to the Japanese." (I want to add that his mother (my Aunt) gave me William's silver snuff box before she died last year but I don't want to bring up anything that might sour the evening.

"Charlie, you won't believe what I have. I have a photograph of William on that very trip wearing a kimono holding a big sword.

"Really?"

"And I opened up a box and actually found the actual kimono and the sword he’s wearing in the photograph.”

(There could be a museum devoted to the Jackmans and the Drapers. We have documents from James Madison and Ernest Hemingway. Last Thanksgiving I found a xerox of a personal telegram from Samuel Morse to yet another dead relative. Turns out Winslow has the original telegram at home).

"Do you want me to send you the photograph? I framed it. It's sitting in our living room."

"No. Why don't you just send me a copy. Or take a digital picture of it."

"I have something else for you."

This whole scene is feeling very Dickension to me. Two cousins (the same age) who meet for dinner every year, one rich and handsome, the other creative and poor ... and now ill. Winslow might be "Fred" the happy prosperous nephew. I’d be both (resentful, isolated "Scrooge") and (sweet, sickly, "Tiny Tim") - me with my weak voice - me with my meek laugh.
Me with my apple tree branch cane.

"I found this in a box of grandfather's things.
It has his name on the back."

Winslow puts an elegant vintage watch on the table. My grandfather had excellent taste. Carry Grant might have worn this watch with his oversized black framed eye-glasses.

“It's a Movado made in the fifties I'd guess.”

The gift worries me. My grandfather was a stickler for the best money could buy. I have lost every watch I have ever owned. And I realize my grandfathers attention to natty materialism has paid off. Here we are, his descendants, ritualistically passing his remains in a chic restaurant on an elegant block in SOHO thirty years after he passed. He is with us.

"Thank you Winslow."

“You can give it to your brother if you don't want it."

"No this is great. Thank you" and I grip his hand in gratitude.

I leave the watch next to the knife and spoon.
And as we talk I make a mental note to never wear it. I will husband it away in a dresser drawer.
If I lost THIS watch, I’d need years of therapy.

We eat our chicken and duck and talk about the kind of things you talk about to someone you see only once a year; love, G-d, meditaion, Christian Science, what it feels like to lose your parents, what I've learned about life from this past year, how to take care of the needy, and, the health care debate.

Here again - I have no substance. Winslow on the other hand has a carefully wrought argument why the government should only get involved with healthcare for the most needy. He says that both Republicans and Democrats sicken him. The health debate could be resolved quite easily if we dropped the political fighting. I say timidly that I thinks it's wrong to make money from people's illness. I believe in a free market but when it comes to health, I have socialist leanings.

"Without a free market there would be no development. The government has no interest in competitive growth. Health research would dry up."

"But there is no money to be made my from what I have. So how does a free market help me?"

"Anyway, turns out I’m a victim in this healthcare mess. I had to switch to medicare from my SAG insurance.
There is only one medication that is FDA approved for my illness, that insurance will cover.
I paid around sixty dollars a month through SAG.
Medicare can only offer it to me at around five hundred dollars a month. So I stopped taking it."

“Charlie if you want to take that medication let me pay for it. Five hundred dollars a month is nothing to me.”

We finish up. No desert or coffee.

Winslow asks if I need a ride home.

"Sure let's share a cab."

"Don't worry about it. I have a driver."

We walk outside of the small cafe onto the cold cobblestone street and there is a driver hovering patiently.
It was waiting the whole time.

"I thank God for my handicaps for, through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God."

--Helen Keller

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

--Albert Einstein

"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful."

-–Buddha

PERFECT

perfect, whole, entire, intact mean not lacking or faulty in any particular. perfect implies the soundness and the excellence of every part, element, or quality of a thing frequently as an unattainable or theoretical state -a perfect set of teeth-. whole suggests a completeness or perfection that can be sought, gained, or regained -felt like a whole person again after vacation-. entire implies perfection deriving from integrity, soundness, or completeness of a thing . intact implies retention of perfection of a thing in its natural or original state -the boat survived the storm intact

Chelsea Barbers

Chelsea Barbers
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Chelsea Barbers

Chelsea Barbers
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

GOD BLESS US EVERYONE (please)

Before I leave for the dentist, I read a thread on the "PATIENTS LIKE ME" website about "aspirating during the removal of fillings -lungs getting infected" and then "a rapid demise/progression".

I'm having four amalgams replaced at eleven thirty.

I cab to West 68th and Broadway, and Jackie (my 72 year old neighbor) comes along.

My dentist looks nervous.
She smiles but it's inert.

(Later, she admits she's never worked on anyone with ALS).

Once again, I panic and submit.
It goes fast.

Hands in mouth. The stick with the little mirror prodding my tongue to the side. A wedge forced into my bite to keep my jaw open. The oxygen mask. The lame piece of gauze placed on the back of my throat. Suction. I gag on the gauze, I reach in and take it out. They (one of them) puts it back in. The assistant insisting "open, open, OPEN " resolute, confident, dominating.

The dentist drills.

I picture Mary Baker Eddy beside her.

When it's done, I go back to the waiting room and sit with Jackie. I try to release forty-five minutes of fear.
Half of my head is stiff from the novacain. I have an irrational fear that I will choke on my own saliva.
So I decide to wait in the the little reception area until it dissipates.

Jackie (sleepy and loose) is reading "The Purpose of Christmas".
She offers it to me (and in my floppy state) I accept without resistance.

The book is about the G-d's love for us, and why Christ died for us.
Because I'm thinking hard about everything these days, I give it some thought and realize I've never really considered it.
Why does G-d love us unconditionally?

I put down the book and ask Jackie what she thinks.

Jackie is gently tearing out a page from US or PEOPLE and says, "the thing that kills me, that really bugs me" (and here she puts her pointer finger in the air to let me know she is quite serious) Why did Jesus have to suffer so MUCH on the cross. I mean, I know he had to die, but did he have to go through all that pain? This!? I don't understand. I'm going to have ask my priest about it ... that's what I'm going to do... I gotta remember to do that".

My face is still stiff, so to pass the time, I google the ten commandments on my i-phone and test Jackie.

The thing I like about Jackie is when I test her on the commandments she doesn't hesitate or question what I'm up to.
She jumps right in, like it's perfectly reasonable to test her recall of the ten commandments as she's thumbing through GOOD HOUSEKEEPING.

"The first one is, I can think of is ... though shall not kill... and then there's .... don't covet your neighbors wife?"

Jackie's gets all of the commandments except one, the second one.

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.

"It seems weird that G-d admits to being jealous" I tell Jackie. "That doesn't seem right."

"Well, I don' think it's literal. You have to think around it, Charlie. Maybe he's being a little tongue-in-cheek."

We're joined by a handsome young man with silver hair. He's wearing a dingy white t-shirt (like James Dean).
He's coyly grinning, open and flirty.

My dark side assumes he's coming onto us. (This is sad).

"How old do you think I am?" he grins. He show us his teeth but his eyes look to the floor.

The guy looks a lot like Anderson Cooper. (Later Jackie asks him if anyone has ever told him he looks like Montgomery Clift). He is clearly cute and his cuteness changes the energy in the room. Feeling threatened by his dominating handsomeness, I make an exit for the bathroom but Jackie jumps right in (like a flirty yenta), like she and Anderson Cooper had been talking for hours. "Well, you could be twenty or you could be thirty. Why? What's the problem? Are you having girl troubles?"

____________________________

I buy lunch for Jackie at Nanoosh (organic Mediterranean) http://www.nanoosh.com on 68th and Broadway.

Jackie tells me she likes this part of town.

"It's upscale, not as fancy as Park, but nicer than Times Square."


We sit at a communal table and drink organic coffee and lunch on organic chicken salad.
Waiting for the bill, we fill out a customer satisfaction survey. If we complete the survey, we could win a free lunch.

I read Jackie the (15 or 20) questions. We have to answer each question by circling, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Adequate, or Poor. We take our time with each question like we're the judges on some reality show. Sometimes we debate our joint answer and end up having to scratch out "Good" and replace it with "Very Good".

When it comes to the survey question about the fairness of prices Jackie makes me circle "poor."

"Charlie, the coffee was $2.50!! That's bananas. And don't get me started about Starbucks. Starbucks is bananas too.
Circle "poor". I mean it".

___________________________

We go to the GAP next door.
I hold onto Jackie's shoulder as we navigate Broadway.
I tell Jackie that people are staring at us, me with my cane, my feeble walk - Jackie, short, with her bright blond hair.
"You're paranoid, it's all in your head."

In the Gap, I look for a stylish coat.
Jackie helps me try on a few from the sale rack.
I've lost mass from my upper body so the coats hang oddly.

______________________________

We're standing in front of the Lincoln Plaza Theatre. It's next door to the GAP.
We consider seeing Disney's A Christmas Carol 3D IMAX.
I'm pretty certain I'll hate it, but we're here and it IS the Christmas season so we take a chance.

The movie is great. It's amazing!
The animation is gorgeous. The 3D effect is like live theatre.
Ebenezer Scroodge's transformation puts a big fat lump in my throat.

Ten minutes into it I turn to Jackie and say,

"This... is fantastic."

and Jackie says,

"Charlie this is unbelievable. I can't believe this! This is the closest thing to actually flying. I fly, all the time, (in my dreams).
But THIS? This is much better."

John 5

Veronika, Australia -

The healing at the pool of Bethesda (see John 5) has helped and inspired me to no end. Step by step it led me to inner freedom from dependency on sitting and waiting until something outside of me changed (the moving of the water). Then, I was told by the presence of Christ, to get up and take up my bed and walk. This meant to me, to stop thinking I was an invalid on a couch, who was yet again waiting to be healed at some future time, when I was whole and healed now. Since then I have never felt again that I needed to return to the “five porches” (five senses) to get information from them about my state of being. I have let go of sitting around at the pool and am getting on with my life (which is God), and as a result I have experienced healing from a very persistent illness of twelve months. Veronika, Australia

As is the human body, so is the cosmic body. As is the human mind, so is the cosmic mind.

Healing comes about when we lose the fear of change because we discover a part of ourselves that is beyond change.

Dentist Office

Dentist Office
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

LOVE ACTIVATOR

My dentist and I set a day to replace my mercury fillings and today is that day.

I spend most of the day with Jackie (my 72 year old neighbor).
We'll meet in the lobby at two. But before we meet, I bike to the vitamin store on west 25th and 7th to buy charcoal. Charcoal (might) bind mercury that (might) fall in my stomach. I would pass it (in theory). This is a suggestion from a random website. (My days are filled with hunches and guesses).

Jackie is waiting for me in the lobby of our gigantic apartment building at the very end of west 42nd Street.
I'm happy to see Jackie and Jackie is clearly excited to go to my dentist appointment.
It feels like a holiday (or) we're off for a weekend.

Jackie and I talk about movies in the cab.

Jackie is quite knowledgeable about the movies. She knows intimate details about the lives of even the most remote movie stars. She loves Fellini. She loves "The Bad and the Beautiful". She loves Lana Turner and John Garfield ("The Postman Always Rings Twice"). She wants me to see "The Letter" with Bette Davis.

"Charlie, you've never seen it? It will break your heart. It's one of those films..." and here she becomes speechless. When Jackie talks about the movies, she projects confidence, intelligence, a sense of her own self.

I tell Jackie that Val Kilmer is making a movie about Mary Baker Eddy. Val Kilmer is a devout Christian Scientist.

"Just like Tom Cruise!" says Jackie. "And you know what Charlie, I don't see why you go down all the way to SOHO. You should go to the branch on 46th and Broadway. They're always inviting everyone in!"

"That's Scientology, Jackie, that's the Church of Scientology. I'm talking about Christian Science. I don't know anything about Scientology but I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with Christianity".

This bugs Jackie.

"They're both churches! Right? They both have Science in the name! I mean... really! Could there be that big a difference?"

When we get to my dentist office on 68th and Broadway, I give Jackie my biography of Mary Baker Eddy to read in the waiting room. There are plenty of glossy magazines to read, but Jackie insists on reading my book. She wants to support me. It's dry reading but she ignores People and USA TODAY.

My name is called.

When I sit in the chair, I tell the dental assistant I'm worried about exposure to mercury.

"Do you know why I'm so concerned?"

She smiles.

"I know you have some reservations... but nothing beyond that."

I tell her I have a neurological disease but that is all I manage to get out because my dentist enters.
She's upbeat and prim.
She looks like she's been mentally preparing for me, that distant smile, that lovely professional grace.

"Hello Mr. Roberts."

I can tell my dentist doesn't buy into this whole mercury removal thing. Her office isn't set up for it (the way I've read it described on the web). I should have researched "green" dentists. But my mind, my spirit, has no edge, no ability to brace itself, to seize the day, to find the best possible solution. I deal with what's in front of me.

So here I am.

I go into my fragile state. I timidly check to see if my needs will be met.
They have the oxygen.
We test my breathing.
She puts a piece of gauze in the back of my throat to keep it closed.

I tell her I think I should be sitting up. I checked on PLM, and that's what they recommended.
She says they have this wrong. Sitting back is better.
I feel like she's just tying to win points.

Once the drilling starts there is no going back.

They drill away.

I can smell the mercury.

It stinks.

I keep saying the word "nose" (in my head) to remind me to breath through my nose,never with my mouth. With all the noise and confusion, I can't really tell how I'm breathing. I concentrate and let go. I am both focused and defenseless.

My sight is obstructed because of the oxygen mask. I am both intimate and far, far away - lost in a cavern of thoughts, stuck behind these teeth, this mouth, this dome.

They take care of it quickly.
After they're done, I stay in the chair and decompress.

I go back to the waiting area. Jackie is reading the Mary Baker Eddy biography.
She struggles with it. She changes position, she squints, she sighs.

I tell her I want to stay here in the waiting room until the Novocain wears off.
Jackie is fine with this. She's delighted to be out on the town away from the apartment (I guess).

There is a man (late sixties) sitting next to Jackie. He has a deep receding hairline. His remaining hair is puffy and clearly shaped.

I tell him, I offer, that I've just had my amalgams out.

He says "Good! and stay away from fluoride too!"

He has a thick New York accent like Jackie's.

The man pulls a tooth out of his mouth.

"It's made of wax. I made it myself. Pretty good, huh?"

(Jackie is impressed).

"I would never have been able to tell. You don't even notice it! You'd really have to open your mouth wide to even see it!

(It is a delight for me to hear two New Yorkers converse in their old fashioned Manhattan accents. We become instant waiting-room friends).

He then hands us a card with a geometric figure on the front and tells us to put it under our pillows at night and sleep on it.

These words are written on the back of the card.

____________________________

Sacred G TranceNdance

www.wishforlove.com

David Shore

LOVE ACTIVATOR
___________________________

"It will change your life," he says.

Jackie takes Mr. Shore at his word and tells him she doesn't want the card.

"My life is fine just the way it is. How do I know this thing won't mess everything up? I sleep very well, thank you. Is this thing going to mess with my sleep? I don't want anything messing with my sleep!"

This frustrates Mr. Shore. He tries to tell jackie that it will only make her life better. She may experience some difficulties at first, but this will pain will help her evolve. This pain may lead to happiness.

But Jackie isn't buying it.

"I'll take card but you're not going to convince me to put it under my pillow."

Finally Mr. Shore tells us that through sacred geometry he is focusing on forgiveness these days.
He is trying to let go of anger and resentment.

"But it's so hard. It's nearly impossible. I'm really having a very difficult time with it."

"Tell me about it" say I.

________________________

I take Jackie to dinner at Ollie's (next door). This is my tradition.

I tell the counter person that I want the (MSG free) menu. She tells me that everything they make has MSG in it.
The only thing that doesn't have MSG is steamed vegetables. So I get steamed vegetables and Jackie gets shrimp fried rice.

As we eat, we look at pictures of Michael York on my iphone. Jackie thinks Michael York has "salt and pepper."
This time, Jackie loses me.

Jackie is excited to open our fortune cookies.
Mine says,

A smile is the most
effective medicine.

Next we go to Pottery Barn. It's decorated for Christmas!

I hold onto Jackie's shoulder. We make one big circle around the store.
We study a sectional that would be nice for my apartment. We sift through ornaments. We look at glass jars with numbers painted on them (1 to 24). The numbers represent the days leading up to Christmas. Jackie and I decide (numbers on jars) aren't very Christmassy.

We cab home.

Jackie does my laundry and helps put my groceries away and then we go to Jackie's apartment to watch Obama on her TV.

Jackie's apartment is bare. She discarded all evidence of her twenty year marriage. She owns a futon, a couple of chairs and a TV console. This is the way she wants it. She told me she threw away a brand new vacuum because it had too many parts.

Above the futon, there is a collection of thrift shop paintings of flowers. The biggest one is a field of daisies painted in a sixties marimekko style. I really like it.

We watch the president's speech.
O'bama; aritcuate, resolute, compelling, is my age. How is he capable of understanding these complexities?

Jackie is irate Obama is sending more troops to Afghanistan.

"Didn't he say he would bring troops home? Isn't that what he promised? Am I crazy or what?!"

At nine o'clock, I go back to my apartment, four doors down the hall.

Jackie texts me as I walk in the door.

"Thank you Charlie, I had a nice day."

"Thank YOU, Jackie" I text back.

Bay of Soul

Bayofsoul died today. He lived in New Zealand.
He emailed me last week.

______________

hi Charlie, thanks very much for mentioning your battery operated bike - what a great idea. I really want to give my bike a go, but I know I'm going to get stuck sometime. The battery version is such a great option. I can work when I can and cruise when I can't.

thanks

Bayofsoul

Cape Cod Golf Course (Thanksgiving)

Cape Cod Golf Course (Thanksgiving)
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

joy troubles me

It's cold and dark. We're tired. It's late.

My sister and Elliott put me on the train home. I cane my way over the gap between the train and the platform and lean into the glass and metal partition in the little train-car entry way. The inside of the train is warm and crowded.
I steady myself with my cane and my sister puts a spinach salad in my hands but remains on the train platform, like she's pulling something off.

"Thanks, I got it, I'm good." I slur. (I must sound drunk).

Elliott pops just his head in the car, "Hey, you!! (addressing the passengers) Can you move over? Is that an empty seat?"

"Hey Elliott, please, stop ... I can still speak."

My sister blows kisses.
The doors close.
I lean deeper.
I am fine.
I know this. I've ridden these trains all my life.

The train glides away and I am relieved. I am alone again.

"Can I help you find a seat?"

The conductor (meaty with mustache) punches my ticket.

"Sure! I'd love it! (I am guileless) but it looks pretty packed." (A year ago I would have just sat on the floor).

The conductor finds a couple on a three seater (napping as one) and wakes them. Their unknotting is slow but when they've upright, the conductor signals for me.

I stare down the crowded car. The vacant seat is about 25 feet away past jutting legs and elbows.
I don't dare risk it.

The conductor walks back down the crowded aisle to ask if he can take my bags.

"Sure!"

What have I done to deserve this? We should all carry canes to experience such kindness.

After I sit, I don't unzip my coat. I don't eat my spinach salad. I sit and I don't move.
I sit frozen in my seat like the new kid in class who arrived late and doesn't want to draw attention.

_____________________

We are at Grand Central.
As we exit the train, a young woman asks if she can help me but I smile and shake my head before she finishes her offer.

I need to focus. "Man on Wire".

I use the side of the train to steady myself but sometimes there are gaps. These gaps require extra attention.

I stop and calculate the distance between the train and a recycling bin. The distance seems impossible.
I laugh at my situation. How can this be that six feet away seems to risky to walk? When did this happen to me?

This is a genuine joyful laugh and this joy troubles me.
I wonder if something biologically is happening to me, a genetic button pushed to rescue me from depression.
Everything seems funny to me.

My conductor spots me frozen in my calculating. The other passengers have long gone.
I stand by the train eyeing the recycle bin. Grand Central' s main terminal shines in the distance (like Oz).

My conductor faces me. I look him in the eye. He reminds me of a gifted character actor. There is quiet charisma here,
a thinking man in a working man's outfit.


"You know you can order a skycap. If you let them know ahead of time. They'll meet you with a wheel chair and get you to a cab."

"Oh, I didn't know that." I feel shy and caught.

The conductor stays with me. He watches me move. He feels compassion for me. I feel distant from this compassion.
He might assume that this difficulty is something I've dealt with my whole life. I want to say to him that this new to me, that it would never occur to me to have a wheel chair greet me at Grand Central.

But I don't say anything.

I move but the conductor stays where he is. "Are you sure I can't help you in some way?"

"No, I'll be fine." How can he help me? How can anyone help me? This is something I must endure.

He nods okay.
He turns and resumes his speedy conductor's pace.

City of Conquests

I watch the movie with Elia Kazan that Jackie lent me.
It's called "City of Conquests" and stars James Cagney and Anne Sheridan.
The movie was made in 1940 and is totally entertaining until the second act when
you can see how it's all going to work out.

The movie takes places in the West Village but was clearly shot in the Paramount back lot.
The opening scene is on the Williamsburg Bridge.

A young sexy Anthony Quinn plays the villain.
Elia Kazan is excellent.

At one point, Cagney says to Ann Sheridan that he'll make something of himself and get them out of the Village so they can move somewhere decent, like the Bronx.

Ayurvedic Wisdom

I use memories, but I do not allow memories to use me.
(bondage vs. freedom)

Origins of diease are not the origins of health.
Health is not the absense of disease, health is a state of vitality, creativity, a higher state of consciousness.

Blue Skies

Hi Blue Skies,

I'm not sure what to think (for myself) about staying off PLM. I'm working with issues of denial.
I need to jump in (I guess) and understand it more. (Maybe).

My Dr. Wang, is Doctor Gui-tai Wang on 141 East 55 #7F. 212-980-2844.
Shabby office, family run. Hal Prince's son goes to him.

I also do craniosacral therapy. I think that's pretty cool. I can give you his name too.

I've done acupuncture before and it does help me. I know this sounds weird but I think the Chinese are the best acupuncturists.

I'm off to the Catskills for a weekend of meditation!

I was reading GQ. Clint Eastwood said he's been meditating twice a day for 40 years. So does David Lynch. He even wrote a book about his life of meditation. I smell a huge film career for me (after this weekend).

C_R

HAIR TEST FOR TOXINS

Tarantula Arms

I bike to my dentist on Broadway and 69th to discuss replacing my fillings
The last time I was there, I biked on my old Schwin.
Today I get there on a battery operated bike with a cane strapped to the back.

My lady dentist is cold and kind, pretty with a frozen smile - like a popular girl putting up with a loser.
I am vulnerable and ingratiating to gain favor.

I go through the preventative information I've gathered from the web.
She listens. I appreciate this. There is serious protocol to follow.

After I'm done with my spiel, she tells me she knows I'll be fine because she removed an amalgam from my mouth last June.
I did not know this or did not understand this. We took no preventative measures (that I can remember).
I am down the rabbit hole.

___________________________________


I bike to APPLE on 14th and Ninth. My iphone is broken.
The store is awash in young, materialistic, prettiness.
I can't breath.

_____________________________________

When I get home, Jackie comes over and we complete my hair test.
The hair test is a mail order exam that checks for toxins.
It requires you to cut a lot of your hair, as close to the scalp as possible, from all over the scalp.

I sit in my one rickety antique chair (my back aches because my lower and mid back muscles are wasting).
I take the shade off the table lamp so that Jackie can see better.
Jackie gets the scissors from the secretary and starts cutting, chunks at a time, leaving holes in the back of my head.

The first few cuts we do wrong. We haven't read the directions correctly. We put the hair in the trash and start over.

There is a little aparatus that comes with the kit, a sort of makeshift scale, that shows you when you;ve cut enough.
We have to keep cutting and cutting to fulfill the test's requirements.

I finger the hair on the table.

My hair is black and grey and very soft. I don't recognize it. I picture a whole different look and texture (for me). This hair isn't bad, just foreign.

Jackie says, "I'm ruining your excellent haircut, it's a very good haircut and I don't want to ruin it."

This is generous. My hair looks crazy, dry and shaggy. I haven't seen Max, my russian barber, in months.

"Don't worry about it, just cut!"

My vanity is gone and good riddance.
My legs are the legs of the undernourished. My face is a constant rigid expression that says "get out of my way, something is happening to me., I'm not sure what, but get out my way."

After we're done, I fill out the paperwork as Jackie looks through the Medicare Book. She wants to see if Medicare will pay for this hair test. I assure her that they won't, but Jackie's not convinced.

"They just might Charlie, and why pay for it if they will. And you know what? While I'm at it, I'm going to look into getting a free pair of glasses for the BOTH of us. Medicare DOES provide that. You can't choose your frames though, you have to get standard issue frames."

Sometimes I picture Jackie and I as a re-imagined Jimmy Stewart and Thelma Ritter in "Rear Window". Jackie wouldn't like that comparison, however. She doesn't like to think that she is old or that she has a thick New York accent, which she does.

Before Jackie goes, she lends me a movie that has Elia Kazan in it.

I see Elia Kazan's biography in the bookshelf and say,
"Oh, Jackie, you should read his biography, it's great. There's a lot about Marlon Brando in it."

(Jackie loves Marlon Brando. According to Jackie, Brando has "salt and pepper" = (SEX APPEAL) and so does John Garfield, but Gregory Peck or say Tom Cruise? Well, they don't have "salt and pepper". She's quite serious about her male movie stars and who has "salt and pepper". John Garfield has the most "salt and pepper". When I asked Jackie about John Garfield, she talked
a full two hours, I nearly had to push her out of my apartment.

I retrieve the Elia Kazan book and Jackie puts the shade back on the lamp where we were cutting my hair.

"Enough with the bare bulb! I can't take this bright light anymore, it's too much!"

'You're reminding me of Blanche Dubois, Jackie, another Kazan movie."

And without missing a beat, Jackie says to an imagined listener,

"Straight? What's 'straight'? A line can be straight, or a street. But the heart of a human being? "

(and)

"Tarantula was the name of it!!! I stayed at a hotel called the Tarantula Arms!!"

UNDRESSED

I am told to remain upright for as long as possible, reduce and eliminate toxins, change my diet, work out, don't lose weight -better yet, GAIN weight... and most important -  remain positive.

(I'm dancing as fast as I can).

This morning is lost to cooking, coffee and the paper.  The kitchen. I don't want to clean it, I want to tear it down and build a new one. The shallow sink is always full - the white tiled floor, filthy - the plastic counters, wet and crowded.

After brunch, after my first gulp of vitamins,  after JUICING! -

I massage my body with vata oil, an Ayurvedic method to detoxify the body. The oil has " a synergistic blend of 9 herbs, including ashwaganda, bala, passion flower and jasmine. Traditionally prepared in a base of organic sesame and olive oils, it warms and lubricates the delicate vata system, restoring calm and providing strength".

 I read and meditate.

My daily schedule to save myself is huge.

I want to sit on the couch and drink coffee.
I want to eat crackers and go to park.

BUT!

I have an appointment at 1 pm to see Gabriel, my cranialsacral therapist. I will be late.

I shower and dress. Dressing involves the frustration you might feel threading a needle with shaky hands (and time is of the essence) - I curse!

I step over kitty litter, old newspapers, dirty clothes

I surrender to DOG PATCH. And with Aroo daintily stepping over a lost sock, I realize I am brewing my own GREY GARDENS.

Before I go,

I strap on my leg brace and check for;

Keys, phone, wallet, glasses, sunglasses, cane, nuts and an apple, books, notebook, bike keys, bike battery, camera memory chip, nikon camera, mini video camera, gaffers tape. (I will tape the video camera to the handle bars of my bike today).

I swallow my second round of vitamins - the ones that need to be taken on an empty stomach.

I put on my dated periwinkle-blue Patagonia coat, and bike to the mess (where east meets west) in the lower thirties.

When I get to that thick traffic, the unique grainy cloud of New York that can't be replicated in movies made in Toronto or LA -when I get to 115 west 30th - a round hispanic teenager (part thug, part shy little guy) lifts my bike onto the sidewalk (the six inches in too much for me) and escorts it to a post twenty feet away. I follow with cane.

This act of kindness is a surprise for him (not for me, I'm getting used to being waited on).
He hadn't expected to be acting with mature charity.  His look says both shame and pride.
I am immune to his transformation. I am tired and resigned and foggy voiced.

I thank him like a worried old man.

Locking up my bike, I run into the same college friend I ran into last week! He's on his cell phone. He grins and pantomimes - "I'm on the phone,  I can't talk" also implied is - "this  is embarrassing! We ran into each other last week! and we didn't have much to say then, and here we are again!"

On the 12th floor of 115 west 30th (the floor filled with quiet creative start-ups) I peer into an open lofty room with one orange wall and racks of kid's clothes and toys. The business is called (something like ) "Organic Kid Scape".

I pass other inspired companies until I reach Backbone and Wingspan, where my craniosacral therapist works.

Gabriel is quiet when I greet him. Our last session was so successful, perhaps he doesn't want to mess it up with small talk.
He does comment that he likes my cane.

This time, we are silent. There is no speaking in tongues. I silently release my pain to him and it's almost sexual. I am good at letting down my guard when I need to (I think).

During the therapy, my mind dances. Some ideas I plan, and some I don't.

My body- I imagine it to be an aquarium - and went Gabriel speaks to my body (to my soul) and asks it communicate through my voice, I  picture the whole underwater world poised and listening, interested.

My body pleads, please don't do any more harm. Please don't say negative things or do negative things to this aquatic world. We ask you to be gentle.

I imagine the my body filled with cells, happy and angry. The universe (I posture) is mostly filled with smiling cells but my body is filled with a majority of angry, unhappy cells. My unhappy cells need to be turned over - need to change, release, allow the universal power, the strength of the divine eternal - star wars power - to aline happy... in my aquarium.

I don't have to hurt myself, stress out... to be me.
I am a part of divine perfection.  Are you listening Me? Leave me alone.

Afterwards, Gabriel tells me that he felt me open up in a way that he hadn't before. "Good!" he says.
He says he senses a deeper peace, a deeper understanding from me.
I feel my ego.  I am feeling sage-like and guru-ish.., me on my very special journey.

I tell Gabriel about the woman on the elevator who said "Its a good life unless you weaken".
Gabriel's interpretation is more positive than mine.
He takes it to mean weaken spiritually, not physically.

I bike to Whole Foods and the vitamin store to shop for healthy fats and vitamins.

There is a beggar on the corner. She wears a kerchief on her head. She asks everyone that passes her for change but when I pass her she just smiles. And she smiles at me with naked recognition. I feel undressed. We are equals.

I find a dollar and hand it to her.

SUNDAY (a view or Jersey City from Manhattan)

SATURDAY

Saturday at noon, I bike to Patient's Medical (on 42nd and Second) for glutathione, lipoic acid IVs and my B12 shot and I feel better. I am more my self. I feel centered and energized.

(I can't afford these treatments)

huh.

The glutathione induces a happy, angry, edge, like a cup of black coffee during a mild argument.
The glutathione  revs me up.

My apartment will be an inspiring creative haven! A streamlined home/factory! - to write, photograph, design, and edit!

I will derail this disease!

This disease has nothing to do with me or my plans!!

________________________

Write a short story!
Write a play!
Write a one act  or any essay!
Write an actor bio (for the future) describing how I beat this terrible disease!
____________________

Once home, I swim.

And then I turn on NPR; Garrison Keillor, short-stories read from The Symphony Space.
The readers are Mary Stuart Masterson (I kinda know), Cambell Scott, and Marian Seldes.
Marion Seldes - always compelling - reads "Number 10"  by Edna O'Brien, a story that embraces magical realism with wry humor.  An upper class wife willingly sleepwalks and discovers (through her dreams) the true nature of her marriage.

I like radio. It feels pure and communal. It doesn't suck up the room like T.V or the internet.