The tireless techies at Blogspot (Google) have upgraded the Blogger toolkit and made it possible (once you get over the shock of arriving one day to discover that someone has changed your entire office without warning) to do all kinds of nifty new things like change fonts, colors, move and resize pictures, and a bunch of other things I haven't figured out yet.  And I had this post all ready to go last week, but decided to add pix since it's now easier (and better looking) than before.  

I wonder if all these new gizmos are going to inspire me, distract me, or make me a lazier writer.  Time will tell...

Working every day in the Times Square area in Manhattan...

...I’ve become generally oblivious to the garish cacophony that makes this the world epicenter for neon, (actually it's all digital now) noise, and non-stop Uber-urban stimulation—but I’m always sensitive to the brief moments of human interaction happening all around me like little one-act plays acted out by a cast of thousands in a multitude of colors, accents and flavors to produce a real world Big Apple Circus. And here’s some of em.


Deli/restaurant. Mid-afternoon.  Teenage girl (Caribbean? African? ) with older couple (parents?) at hot buffet counter. Apparently unfamiliar with our customs, all three are sampling the feast and taking nibbles of turkey, shrimp, beef stew, pasta etc. while the rest of the customers look on in surprise and mild horror. Employee finally comes to tell them that they can’t do this…but the three don't seem to be getting the message--seems they think they’re being chided for using the large serving tongs, utensils, and fingers-- rather than the proper implements—which they are now trying to ask the employee about providing for them. I leave before it’s all resolved, but the fact that they still don’t seem to understand the protocol makes them appear almost comically innocent and appealing. They weren’t taking big bites anyway…just enough to “get a taste.”


Trim, intense guy in jeans and tailored sports jacket wandering up the street looking dazed and confused. He’s obviously looking for a building address and failing to spot it.
As I get closer I realize that it’s Terence Stamp, the British Actor. I ask if I can help, he says he’s looking for The Brill Building (where I happen to do much of my own post-production work) and so I confidently point out to him that it’s across the street (in defiance of the address numbering system of odd and even numbers on opposite sides of the avenue) and he and I share a quick laugh about the “oddity” of this fact. He says thanks, and I say “ My pleasure Mr. Stamp”…and he bows to me as if to acknowledge my recognition while at the same time tacitly acknowledging the possible advantage his fame may have played in his “lucking” into a helpful passerby. But I would have helped him anyway…cause he really looked dazed and confused.



Lively group of 6-8 theater-goers coming out of the Show Wicked (in a theater that occupies the ground floors of the building I work in) all standing in the middle of the street looking up into the sky. I look up too. I don’t see anything. They’re laughing and pointing and joking around and pointing up to the sky over and over again as if they’re reading funny skywriting. Again I look up and see nothing. I have to know, so I ask them what they’re looking at—and gleefully they help me to focus my attention on a window of the hotel across the street. In the window is a woman with a camera…and in her birthday suit. They know her, and she’s taking pictures of them on the street and laughing with them—and enjoying the reaction that her nudity is having on her pals. I wave to her, she waves back—and I thank the group for solving the mystery for me.



Middle age couple. Can’t place Accent. Norway?
“ Can you how we go Rockefeller Center?”
“ Yes, two blocks, that way.”
“ Can taxi go ?”
“ It’s only two blocks, you can walk there in 3 minutes”.
“ But Taxi can go?”
“Sure.”
“ We get Taxi here?”
“Well, if you do, you’ll be going the wrong way and the cab will take you way out of your way to get there”
“Get where Taxi?”
“Well, you can get one on the next block over, but then you’ll be only one block away.”
“One block?”
Ahha. The problem is the word “block”. For the next minute or so I’m totally at a loss in trying to communicate the meaning of “Block”. I’m doing Charlie Chaplin imitations and pretending to look at my watch and snapping my fingers to indicate “ in short time”. I’m a total failure (and was never good at Charades) and they smile at me as if they had mistaken me for a sane person and slowly walk away from this manic New York weirdo.


Guy is there almost every day—except when it’s very cold or raining. Sits on a milk crate or some such—playing old beat up Fender Strat plugged into small Pignose amp.
He’s black, lean, early 50’s maybe and never sings, but talks to himself and mumbles as he plays. And what he plays are licks, vamps and riffs and only licks vamps and riffs—over and over and over again. Jimi Hendrix riffs. Classic soul and Motown riffs. Song intros, vamps from famous songs—but never the song itself. And it occurs to me that he’s on to something. He knows that most people just walk by and don’t stop to listen—so he’s gonna make sure that when they walk by, they’ll hear something catchy and familiar and hot. And it works! I watch people walk by and smile as they catch those two or three familiar bars of a Stevie or Smokey or Aretha tune—and they drop a dollar or loose change in his gig bag. I’ve never spoken to him, but we know each other by sight and I often give him a salute as I pass—and I think he knows that I’m on to his secret formula.



New York has it’s variation on the Rickshaw…and it seems there’re more and more of em every year. It’s a Pedi-cab and they’re ubiquitous in the area just after the Wednesday Matinee gets out. Most of the drivers are young (it’s hard work peddling those things all day in traffic) but they seem like a fraternal bunch and not as hard-boiled as one might assume. I had an appointment cross-town and couldn’t find a cab—so I flagged one of these guys down. I hop aboard and off we go. He says something that sounds like “ You Mike Katz?” The traffic is loud, and I ask him to repeat the question.
“ You like cats?”.
“ Oh, uh, yeah, cats are cool” I reply expecting to now hear a story about his fondness for felines…but Nooooo. Seems I didn’t really understand the question, because between 7th Ave and Lexington Ave I’m treated to a solo performance of a medley of songs from (what he announces is “the greatest and longest running show in Broadway history). You haven’t lived till you’ve been serenaded with:

“...if you touch me, you'll understand what happiness is...”

from an aspiring Broadway star peddling through the exhaust fumes and horn honkings on a mid-Manhattan mid-week afternoon.