Pay No Attention to That Man on the Debate Stage

Baby, it was actually cold outside today—below the seasonal norm for a change. I could feel the chill as I ambled through Van Cortlandt Park alongside dozens of squawking geese soaking up the ample sunlight. I pondered the state of the nation, the world, and the fact that single-use plastic bags won’t soon be available to me. To get a jump on what’s to come, I carried on my person—and in my pocket—a vinyl orange-colored “green bag,” a rare gift from the city mothers and fathers. I will say that I do feel a whole lot better on matters green since I learned that actor Joaquin Phoenix is re-purposing his custom-made tuxedo. 

In other news, an Upper West Side mom-and-pop hardware store shut its doors after 120 years in business. Its present owner cited a precipitous drop in sales as the reason. In these contemporary times of big-box retailers—Home Depot, Loew’s, et al.—and the sprawling Internet, the little guys on Main Street, Broadway, and Amsterdam Avenue really don’t stand a chance.

The venerable shop’s demise wasn’t, too, helped by the virtually snow-free winter to-date. Thus far, I have shoveled up an inch of the white stuff, if even that. In fact, this makes three consecutive years with below-normal amounts of snow and ice, which translates into a lot of lost shovel and ice-melter sales.

In past harsher winters, stores often couldn’t stock enough shovels and ice melter to meet the unceasing demand. I remember a particularly bad one in the mid-1990s when there was a widespread ice-melter and rock-salt shortage. Price gouging was commonplace on the limited supplies available.

So, what better thing to do on a chilly winter’s eve than tune into the theater of the absurd, also known as politics. I must admit that my previous youthful and lost fascination with the sport of politics has returned in 2020. I even subscribed to an online political magazine that once upon a time—a long time ago—received in the mail.

Politics is such an interesting, unpredictable, and unsavory spectacle at this unique and critical moment in American history. The man in the White House pardoned some swamp rats this week, including a former Illinois governor, “Blago,” whose main claim to fame is attempting to sell a U.S. senate seat to the highest bidder and, of course, his hair. I'd wager the Orange Man envies that head-healthy ‘do of his.

I actually watched the entire Democratic debate a couple of nights ago, which proved to be a simultaneously entertaining and painful experience for me. You see, I was wishing and hoping that New York’s former mayor, the ever-haughty Mike Bloomberg, would prove himself worthy of his considerable investment. He didn’t and then some!

During Bloomberg’s past mayoral campaigns, he didn’t impress many with his debating dexterity. But debating skills and governing ones are two different animals. That said, Mayor Mike’s performance in Tuesday’s debate was agonizingly bad. Watching him squirm and squirm some more, I was reminded of the Wizard of Oz, specifically the scene where the shadowy wizard gets unmasked. “Pay no attention to the man on the debate stage!” The wizard is on the commercials.

Why, pray tell, would Mike Bloomberg walk onto that stage so ill-prepared? He had to have known he would be the target of relentless incoming fire? And, Mayor Mike, please cease and desist with the pathetic, half-hearted apologies for your “Stop, Question, and Frisk” (SQF) policy, which you were defending whole-heartedly until you decided to run for president. Why not just say that it was a well-intentioned policy aimed at reducing crime, which it did, but ultimately got out of hand and was ended? And another thing: I don’t understand why you didn’t tout your generous philanthropy on matters like climate change and gun control, which are very important to voters in the party in which you are now a member. If you are keeping score, Bloomberg’s currently a Democrat. I’ve known him as an Independent, Republican, and Democrat on two non-consecutive occasions.

It’s unquestionably an intriguing spectacle to behold: Hectoring Bernie Sanders, the socialist septuagenarian, shouter par excellence is the front-runner of a party in which he doesn’t belong. And he had a heart attack several months ago! Old Bernie’s waging battle against a septuagenarian troika: the aforementioned Mayor Mike, old Joe Biden who is way past his prime, which wasn’t anything to write home about, and Elizabeth Warren, who has less Cherokee blood coursing through her veins than I have French (thanks Ancestry.com).

The torch should be passed to a new generation, I guess. As a civic-minded citizen, I tried to grease the skids in this regard when I sent “Steve Bullock for President” twenty-five dollars. All that got me was a never-ending series of e-mails asking for more. Now, with the Bloomberg off the rose again, I’m seriously contemplating chasing Amy and praying for a better return on my investment. In the meantime, it's dinnertime. To be continued…

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Once Burned

In what has to-date been a near-complete seasonal misfire, it was winter-like around here yesterday. And because we’ve had so few really cold days, it felt colder than it actually was. As I gazed out a subway car window into the chilly ether, I thought about Richard Kimble pondering his fate and seeing "only darkness." But then, he was on his way to death row. I was merely heading to Dyckman Street. 

There are, of course, meteorological reasons why it’s been an especially mild winter in the Northeast. It’s that famously fickle jet stream and not necessarily the by-product of human-induced climate change. Still, it’s pretty unsettling to learn that January 2020 was the warmest January—the world over—on record and 2019, the warmest year! There is a scientific consensus here. The debate, I suppose, is whether or not we should be seeing only darkness.

I’d like to think that there is some light at the end of the tunnel. But as I wander around, I see litter all over the place—much of it of the plastic variety. Exactly two weeks from today, single-use plastic bags are going the way of the Passenger Pigeon in New York State. Now, I am old enough to remember when plastic bags slowly but surely began replacing paper bags in supermarkets and other retailers. A lot of people were upset about that. I can still picture my mother hauling multiple paper bags full of groceries in her two hands—chock-full of glass and aluminum cans and bottles—from Bohack’s, a local supermarket just down the block. There were no handles on the bags with the big Bohack's “B” on them.

After a while, though, one and all acclimated to plastic and came to view such bags with affection. They were a great convenience and we soon couldn’t imagine life without them. Almost four decades later the bags are omnipresent. They are also in places they shouldn’t be—like the oceans and trees—with the closest thing there is to eternal life. We will eventually adapt to life without these ubiquitous plastic bags and be better for it. We lived without them before and we can do it again.

A now for another stroll down Memory Lane: I just read an article that compared the positively benign politics of the 1990s—when Bill Clinton was president and Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House—with today’s Bizarro World. The 1990s were a decade when the federal government ran surpluses—imagine that! It was a less paranoid time, too—pre-9/11—before cameras were everywhere and a thing called social media existed. The latter being the most anti-social, noxious playground ever conceived, a guarantor of never-ending nuttiness and perpetual bile.

It’s funny to think that Bill Clinton is a veritable pariah in the contemporary Democratic party, a Me-Too Movement poster boy for bad behavior. What a difference a couple of decades make! What a difference several years make! Four years ago, I felt the burn, as it were. When I pulled the lever for Bernie, it was my primal scream moment. Don’t get me wrong. I like Bernie and agree with a lot of what he says, particularly when he rants about Big Pharma and such. But I can see clearly now: I didn’t appreciate the party establishment’s coronation of Queen Hillary four years ago. And Bernie served as the ideal protest candidate.

But then was then and this is now. I am four years older and so is Bernie. I, though, am not recovering from a heart attack and pushing eighty. At the end of the day, too, I really don’t want an avowed socialist as president leading a revolution that most people don’t want. Lo and behold, I find myself supporting another guy who is pushing eighty—a guy that I voted for three times for mayor but had become disenchanted with because of his Nanny State mentality. I even wrote a blog essay entitled “The Bloomberg Is Off the Rose” in 2010. Boy, I’ve been doing this for a long time.

It’s 2020 now, not 2010, or even 2016. Once burned, I’ve thrown in with the billionaire with the financial wherewithal to defeat the wild-eyed socialist, who, I fear, would more than likely lose to the dangerously dishonest, vulgar, ignorant incumbent. Now, that's a guy you don’t want to see unleashed and pushing eighty in a second term! Life has so many its twists and turns. I guess it all boils down to this: One never knows…do one.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Egg Sandwich Story

This morning the Number 1 train, due to track work, was running in two sections. Bad news, of course, for passengers looking to get from section A to section B. Sure, there were free shuttle buses bridging the gap, but they prove time and again—to me at least—that nothing in life is free.

Despite this inconvenience, one and all soldiered on. Sitting directly across from me as my truncated ride commenced was a woman consuming what appeared to be a plain egg sandwich. I know it could have had something else on it, like cheese, but that’s neither here nor there. What this pedestrian sandwich sighting triggered was an image of two old ladies, one deceased and one still among the living. Their egg sandwich connection, however, goes back a few years when both were roaming to and fro this earthly plane.

As one gets older, there are naturally more and more moments residing in the memory bank—some rather dramatic and profound, but most quite mundane and trivial. It’s also an infinite repository for ancient slights and petty grievances. And so it’s back to The Egg Sandwich Story and a pair of senior citizen protagonists named Anna and Louise.

Anytime and every time that old Anna’s name was brought up in the presence of old Louise, the latter’s brain would promptly and without fail retrieve the egg sandwich episode. You see, Louise didn’t much like Anna. She felt that Anna was a neighborhood gossip par excellence, a wagging tongue that was into everybody’s business. And as if that wasn’t a bad enough character reference, she ordered an egg sandwich from a diner—a half-a-block away—for delivery! Louise couldn’t fathom why anyone would order such a sandwich when one could, rather effortlessly, crack an egg or two open at home, fry them up, and put them between two slices of bread. Then, of course, there was the icing on the cake—or egg sandwich in this instance—of having it delivered! What’s the matter with her legs? She can’t walk to the diner and pick it up?

When I first heard about Anna’s notorious delivered egg sandwich, I honestly didn’t view it as a character buster. From my perspective, any breakfast-type sandwich tastes better when prepared outside the home. I’ve made ham and egg and bacon and egg sandwiches that just don’t compare to the local diner equivalents. So, how could I find fault with Anna for choosing the diner over homemade?

And now, the rest of the story: After hearing about Anna’s notorious delivered egg sandwich for the hundredth or so time, I had some new information at my disposal. Anna had actually ordered an egg salad sandwich from the diner. This isn’t something that the average person prepares at home on the spur of the moment. That piece of critical filler would not have mattered to Louise. She had Anna’s number and no egg salad sandwich was going to change that.

If there is an abiding moral to The Egg Sandwich Story, it’s this: Be ever vigilant of what’s piling up in your memory bank. Because one day soon you might be triggered to recall a certain person ordering a certain panini from a certain place, like Le Pain Quotiden. And, god forbid, having it delivered via DoorDash. Let The Egg Sandwich Story be a lesson to you.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Practice Makes Imperfect

There’s nothing quite like visiting a neighborhood family practice—a “land of doctors,” if you will—that accepts and encourages walk-in business. It’s not a fun place to be on the best of days. This morning the joint was jumping with people of all ages, sizes, and backgrounds. A cacophony of coughing resounded through the waiting room, but only one person—a non-cougher—wore a mask. Her name—I learned—was Angela. She asked a receptionist if anybody in the room had the coronavirus, because she was desperately afraid of contracting it. This prompted Jonathan—a Star Wars convention attendee-type—to mutter aloud, “How would they know?” Jonathan, you see, had no inner-monologue and, too, difficulty checking in at an electronic kiosk.

The icing on the fruit cake was the appearance of this couple—two for the price of one, as it were. I had seen them on the streets from time to time and always wondered about the nature of their relationship. Were they husband and wife or brother and sister? I could always say with absolute certainty that the pair wasn't playing with a full deck between them. 

The better half of the zany duo appeared to be well known at the practice—a clamorous Chatty Cathy and simpleton familiar to the staff. Her mate, with a comparable IQ, was definitely the more nefarious of the two. When I encountered them in the great outdoors, they invariably were bickering like wacky sketch characters from a Saturday Night Live skit. Suffice it to say that it’s best not to be confined—if at all possible—in a room with this peculiar twosome. What mostly troubles them, though, I don’t believe is contagious. As for the coronavirus, I just hope and pray Angela emerged unscathed.

Yes, everybody has a story. Sometimes even a breakfast sandwich has one.

A few days earlier I was in yet another medical waiting room. While it also had its share of characters, this one at least had a nice view.

Sometimes it's the little things that help get you through the day.

Watching the planes coming and going from LaGuardia Airport is a nice diversion for a couple of hours. But after that the law of diminishing returns sets in and the feeling is "Seen one plane, seen them all."

Happily, there's more to life than visiting doctors. This weekend I noticed the Best Deli & Grill erected a new sign, which you can see from outer space. Remember: the best never comes easy.

Dreary start to February of a rather uneventful winter thus far. I am not complaining.

No matter the time of year, it's imperative to know right from wrong, especially on the streets of New York.

And, too, that time waits for no man and no woman. It's hard to believe that this year will be the fortieth anniversary of my high school graduating class. I wasn't yet eighteen on graduation day, which was my entire lifetime. I've since lived another two rounds of eighteen and then some.

I take solace in the fact that life remains ever-mysterious with so much to more to learn and uncover.

Solace, too, in discovering good pizza.

I don't suspect bird brains ruminate on such matters of life and death.

So, let off some steam, I say, but do it in the privacy of your own home and not at a doctor's office—please.

When I was eighteen, I was loath to wait on line for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. A five-minute wait might have been tolerable to me back then. Now, I'm down to zero minutes, even if the waiters and waitresses sing and dance while serving hamburgers and BLTs. 

You know you accomplished something in life if somebody made Way for you in death.

I wonder how old they are?

No need to: Absurd has embraced us.

And so I've lived to see the death of the subway token and birth of the MetroCard. OMNY, contactless payment, has now arrived.

And I fear the beginning of the end of the MetroCard is upon us.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)