Pre-Trip Musings

While walking today I met a neighbor on the next block who asked, "Hey, I haven't seen your wife in ages. How is she?" I had to break the news to him that she passed away 7 weeks ago. While hoofing around Manhattan I will not be asked such questions.

Perusing websites for visitors to New York gives me the distinct impression tourists are not welcome. New Yorkers posted rules such as, "Do not stop to look up at the tall buildings; we're trying to get from point A to point B so don't slow us down." "Do not wear sneakers; only tourists and dorks wear sneakers." "Do not under any circumstances take pictures of, or walk up to, any famous people you happen to see." Nuts. I was hoping to accost Woody Allen while wearing my Nikes between gawks of sky scrapers.

A book about travel in New York suggested I ride the bus rather than the subway since I won't see much of the city when underground.

My mother told me about seeing this 1853 painting by Ingres at the Metropolitan Museum of Art during one of her trips back east in the '80's. She was so enthralled by it she purchased a small copy to hang on her wall. The MET will be my primary destination (along with MOMA, Museum of Natural History, Algonquin Hotel where Perelman, Parker, Benchley and Ross cracked wise, Statue of Liberty, Harlem, Birdland, The Carlyle where Woody plays clarinet, Greenwich Village, the offices of the New Yorker, take a tour of the NY Harbor where my maritime dad used to work on tugboats, and my old neighborhood on Staten Island).

I recently watched Anything Else by Woody Allen wherein a character accidentally left a manuscript on a taxi. Loosing anything on a taxi would be a nightmare for this northwestern boy who has never ridden in a NYC taxi. 

From time to time I day dream about my chances of surviving in The Big Apple if, for some odd reason, I was abandoned there with nothing but a pencil. No cash, no credit card, just a pencil. And my wits. In this fantasy I play the "bigger and better" game where I draw a caricature in a bar on a napkin and trade it up for drawing paper. Then I leverage drawings on real paper for a Design Marker LLF 225 and glossy paper. Then I really crank 'em out at $10 per nose. I eat and sleep in a Gospel Mission. I keep this up for a number of weeks (finding the touristy places to snag the impulse buyers) and stash my cash in my socks while frequenting second hand clothing stores, cheapo diners, and soup kitchens. This madcap frenzy continues until I can rent my own room. Once my hygiene and wardrobe needs are met, I draw 10-15 magazine gag cartoons and make the rounds to the Saturday Evening Post, Life, Look, Colliers, and the New Yorker hawking drawings on "look day" to the cartoon editors (in my day dream it's still the 50's, the golden era for gag cartoonists). At the same time I build relationships with attorneys, pastors and local therapists (I'm still working out these details) who learn of my knack for conflict mediation and they put me to work (between caricature gigs) helping parties in conflict reach negotiated settlements. This generates enough income allowing me to upgrade to Park Avenue. All the while I'm keeping a journal in the S. J. Perelman vein with drawings in a Hirschfeld style and I call my book STATEN ISLAND HA! which sells like hotcakes and I get invited to the Algonquin Round Table to schmooze with Dorothy Parker, et al. and I, the amateur theologian, sneak in a couple of witty existential zingers that keep the crowd in stitches and Martinis squirt out Harold Ross's nose. This probably isn't going to happen on this trip, but I do hope to visit the Algonquin and day dream.