nyc

perhaps the cool part about Tompkins Square Park is that it was featured in cut-away scenes on NYPD Blue. or that it is found in a corner of town in the Alphabet City neighborhood. or even that it is just a park to sit down in for a respite from everything else in the city. for me it is all of the above. plus the crowd. with everything in a vacuum, the people most certainly differentiate nyc from any other place on earth. I think that's their tourism board's tagline...or at least it should be. but it is pretty true. at least they don't try to lure tourists with false hope and promise of great shows at reasonable prices - neither of which exist on that whole island.
that said, Tompkins has a unique make-up of people who frequent its benches and walkways.
I couldn't possibly tell you every type of individual there...partially because the resident schizophrenics recycle personalities too often. but also because there are more types of people in nyc than anywhere else in the world. true, it sounds hard to believe. but once you see it for yourself, then begin to accept that that statement is fathomable - well, the truth is really self-evident at that point.
an old college roommate of mine, Dave, once said something that I whole-heartedly believe: everyone in new york is an exhibitionist.
just start to comprehend that thought and blend into it the mix of cultures, despair, hope, anger and a lot of sexual tension and you will begin to grasp it like words from the Sages that you were told of from childhood. back to that another day.
so I'm sitting in the park on a sunny Saturday morning enjoying the beginning of my jaunt to my old turf. quite a good feeling that was to be back, basking in the glory days when I occupied a small piece of real estate for an unreal rate.
there's a line of all types of people. literally - people lined up single file in the park. [another note about the populace: nyc is not a melting pot. in a melting pot you'd have a bunch of different people's cultures and ethnicities melded together as one in a grotesque display of the extreme possibilities of a special effects studio that would result in the completed product of 'amalgamation man' (or at least that is how I'd think upon it if given the visual leaway, which you all have so graciously allowed me to do). the city is actually a multi-cultured blob of cultures living on top of each other. again, more on that later.] there's a youngish woman about 30 or so sitting with a shopping cart who was outfitted in not the cleanest looking attire which was complimented by what I could tell was a single tooth protruding from the grin on her face that came from the conversation she was having on her cell phone. I usually like to live by the motto 'simple pleasures,' but here she was beating me to simplicity. good for her. next are the random joggers with their dogs who make in a week what the common folk of the park need in a year. then I see some others who are sitting around gazing, much like myself. there are a bunch of homeless-looking people, too. and then there are the Chinamen. or peoples descending from the People's Republic of China, whichever is the preferred nomenclature, depending on where and when you're reading this. so there was a decent-sized family, or families, of Chinese right in front of me. it was pretty amusing: the kids were playing games with each other as their family(ies) waited in the line that was amassing in front of us along the row of benches on the central avenue in the park. what got to me the most was that the eldest boy, perhaps 7 years old, kept play-fighting his female comrades, daunting them with a pair of kindergarten plastic scissors. SCISSORS!? where are your parents? oh yeah - in that long line of people waiting. for something. such a riot. so this is what pops in my head: when a Jewish boy is transformed into a man during his bar mitzvah, it is customary for his family's congregation to present him with various coming-of-age presents. a prayers book, a prayer shawl, a ceremonial wine glass. So in the same vein, when a Chinese boy is confirmed in the doctrines of...Christ, Confucious, Mao, you name it...does he receive a set of Halloween PJs, starter scissors and karate slippers? 'cause this is what this kid had and it seemed like he knew how to move too. all that was missing was his beta tape of Enter The Dragon, which was probably cued up in his family's moving slideshow machine. now, I'm not the most racist person by any means (well, I should probably say the least at this point) but these cultural observations are funny to me. why does this boy grow up with the prowess of Bruce Lee's magic ballet-like death moves instilled in his heart? maybe all boys grow up in a Pekin fighting stance...I dunno.
so I turn to the old Chinaman on the bench adjacent to mine and ask him what the line is for, my curiousity finally catching up to my vocal chords. he doesn't hear me. no turning back though.
"hey man - excuse me! sir! hey buddy!" he finally turns slowly, obviously on his own clock.
so I repeat my question and he says: "Fi meenut to twel"
greeeaaat. I almost began to repeat the question yet again, but then realized that it was to no avail.
I guess that's the best I was going to do.