BUSY DAY - BUSY NIGHT

Whatever I suggest, mom says "sure!" and we're off.
So, we cab to Central Park.

The park is packed. The weather is perfect. It's sweater weather.
We rent a pedicab. (Like a horse and buggy, but instead of a horse, there is a man peddling a bike).

It's competitive for the drivers. As soon as we show an interest, two or three of them hound us, shouting "follow me". We take the one we spoke to first. We say yes without negotiating a price (stupid). We pay $60 for one hour.

I could tell it was the right thing to do. This will be fun.
It feels vintage and smart.
Like you're on a carnival ride tailored to your tastes.

My mother calls my aunt on her iphone, "Guess where I am? I'm on a rickshaw with Charlie riding around Central Park!" The tour guide talks over my mother.

"MOM! Perhaps we can call them AFTER our tour!"

Our driver/tour guide, is twenty-five and kind of cute. His name is Bronco. He has thick calves and an unintelligible accent. Bronco is from Serbia. He studies landscape design.

"How great that you get to work in this beautiful park!" I interject.

This is his third summer on a sort of exchange program?
Later I wonder if he made up his major to win points - (to get a better tip).

As we circle the park, Bronco fills his patter with movie trivia. Apparently the park is mainly of interest because of its use in american movies. He mentions movies like Elf, Night at the Museum, and Home Alone 2. (I was an extra in that movie traipsing around the park for two or three days one cold December. I don't tell Bronco this. I don't want to mess with his rhythm).

* I also shot an NYU film at Poet's Corner. This was around 1992. It recently resurfaced in an in-house film festival for the USA network in the city. A friend who works at USA emailed me).

Bronco tells us many things. Here are a few that I can remember.

1. The land originally used for the park, was swamp land.

2. The east side is old money and the west side is new money. My mother finds this funny.

3. The Dakota and the Plaza share the same architect, Henry Hardenbergh. When the building was completed, most of the upscale apartments stood tens of blocks to the south, so the legend goes that the elite remarked that they could as well have built this residence in the Dakotas. Bronco told us that the Dakota has it's own (never used) subway station in the basement. This seems dubious.

4. The San Remo was the first building with twin towers in the city.

5. The Beresford only has three towers on the the top, it's missing the fourth because the builder ran out of money.

6. The opening shot of the TV Show FRIENDS is supposed to be the Cherry Hill Fountain.

7. The center of the park, by poets corner, is filled with hundreds of gorgeous elm trees. These trees escaped Dutch elm disease (in the sixties?) because of the protection from surrounding sky-scrapers.

8. The center of Central Park (by that angel statue) is actually the center of Manhattan as well. (really?)

9. Daniel Webster gets a statue because he was the first congressman to fight to end slavery. (This elicits the confusing conversation of who Webster of Webster's dictionary is).

10. Bronco tells us there is croquet club (owned by the British) you must wear white, you have to be over sixty-five to join, and it costs us 4 thousand dollars a month to be a member.

I ask Bronco, "is there anything in Serbia like Central Park?"

"Belgrade has a park but it is not nearly as big. I've traveled all over Europe and the most beautiful city I have seen by far is Prague."

"Prague is beautiful" my mother agrees "and Venice!"

"Have you seen any of the US?"

"Only New York and Boston, but next week I visit my sister in Chicago. She studies graphic design there."

"Oh, Charlie went to Northwestern!"

"Mom, Bronco doesn't know about Northwestern. Bronco doesn't care about Northwestern."

As we return to  Columbus Circle he points to a public bathroom. He tells us during the civil war it was a jail. My mother uses it.

Bronco looks like he had a genuine experience with us. He trys to look us in the eye and thank us for our enjoyable tour but my mother and I drop our outgoing personalities. I lamely shake his hand. My mother gives Bronco a $12 tip and Bronco is history. We cab to the Frick.

The Frick feels cold, and lush, and rich, and snobbish.
The museum-goers are preppy and reserved.
The security people don't respond when we say hello.
The paintings which are numerous and important are also recognizable.

And there is the fantasy of living in this mansion in the early 1900's on 5th and 70th.
The Frick brings up socialist stirrings.  Should we congratulate this capitalist by visiting his sumptuous home where he hoarded all this art? Still, the grandeur and elegance appeals to my pretentiousness. And ... if not Frick, than someone else.
(Perhaps in a hundred years, people will be visiting the homes of Bill Gates or Oprah).

(Again) I lean against my mother for the tour.

We see paintings by Whistler, Gainsborough, Stuart, Turner. Whistler is compared to Rothko.  Our two museum visits are connetcted.

Frick was a big industrialist. I find out (through a search on the web) that he was one of the men responsible for the Johnstown Flood. He founded the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, along with Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon. That club was responsible for the deaths of 2209 people. I know all about that flood because I used to do summer stock near Johnstown.

My mother and I sit on a bench in the closed garden sanctuary. We sum up.
My mother's favorite painting is a religious one by a dutch painter. It features Christ and the apostles.
He is teaching them the beatitudes and the Lord's prayer. There is a windmill in the background.
(I love that. The dutch painter knew better but couldn't resist).

"The (very rich) used to collect art. Paintings used to be a big deal. What do rich people collect now?"
I wonder aloud.

"Painting and art was a big deal even when I was a child" my mother says. "We all had our portraits painted. It was something you did."

(My mother sat for a portrait when she was a teenager. The painting is rustic. Folk Art -ish.
Later, in the sixties, she commissioned another portrait in New York. This portrait, makes her look like a blowzy movie star. Her hair is puffed up and blond, her cheekbones pastel streaks.

We leave the Frick for the the theatre district.
We grab dinner at Daniella's on 45th and 8th Avenue. We get the veal.
I eat my mother's veal too because I'm afraid of losing weight.
(Imagine wandering around the city with ten pound weights on each foot.
This is the energy I expend to move around).

At ten of eight, we meet Jondon and Ross in the lobby of the Imperial Theater on 45th Street.
Ross was in "Pippin" at this theater, sometime in the '70s.

Jondon and Ross look amazing. Jondon has just had his haircut. He looks cute and craggily. Like Robert Redford on a good day. Ross also looks so good! (Has she had work done?) When I told my mother their age, even she, who won't give into my requests for amazement, paused and exclaimed, "THEY'RE in there SIXTIES?!"

Our seats are excellent but (a little) far back in the orchestra.
The show begins slowly and seems somewhat prosaic, by the book (for me) at first.
But, they have to take their time to set up the story. And like fireworks, the ooh! and wow! numbers arrive.

The plot turns on the plight of the coal workers, 300,000 men out of work.

I get it.
It's sad for them. It will change their lives. Ruin them financially.
But I wonder (quietly) ... is that SO bad? These dramatic songs about a world lost.
How bad is it? Compared to my situation. (I'd gladly switch). Still, I give. I empathize.
At one point, I get a lump in my throat. You can't help but get teary eyed at a good musical.

I know a guy in the ensemble.
I've done voice-overs with him.
This brings up feels of inadequacy which I suppress.
I think... I would love to live a life in the theater. I tried.
It's hard (though). Maybe it's better just to observe and tend to your own life musical.

At the end of the show, the little boy playing Billy Elliott sprains his ankle and is replaced by another little boy for the last three numbers. The replacement is far superior. I worry about how all the little Billy Elliotts compete with each other.

After the show, Jondon drives us home in his SUV. We laugh about the stuff our Serbian tour guide made up. We hug.

At home, the cat meows, " Where the HELL have you been?"
He spends the night playing musical beds, first me, then my mother, back and forth.