Walking Tall And The Heights Of Fashion

I’m 6ft tall, so whenever I meet a woman who is taller than me, for a moment I feel a sense of distortion and unspoken questions race to my mind like “Where in the WNBA draft were you selected?” or “What part of Wonder Woman’s home island did you grow up on?” Now some men eroticize vertically empowered women while others are intimidated, perhaps feeling that not having to be asked to reach for something on a shelf diminishes their manhood, but despite these challenges tall girls stand above it all, mostly because they have no choice.

In some relation to this subject, as I write this New York’s Fashion Week is near conclusion. You can always tell it’s Fashion Week because of the extra amount of attractive women (some very tall) riding the subways or racing through Manhattan for the next show.  Fashion can be a polarizing subject, some find it frivolous while others treat it as a religion. As someone who does not spend a lot of money on clothes and is in no danger of posing for GQ anytime soon, it would surprise some people to hear me say that I think that fashion at its core is very important. What you wear and how you wear it can be the most important form of expression you exercise.  Show me what kind of t-shirt a man is wearing and I will tell you what’s in his heart. Fashion is a form of communication in which we consciously or unconsciously tell the word how we feel about ourselves and each other.  From tattered sweaters to designer suits and borderline haute couture dresses, clothing can give insight to low or high moods, or symbolize the bottom or heights of our aspirations.  So watch how you wear it

 

Voiceless

 

It was announced less than a week ago the Village Voice would be no more, gone forever, at least for now. It was just last year that the publication ceased producing a weekly print edition and went strictly digital, but apparently this is truly the end. The Village Voice for sixty years played a vital part in shaping the culture of New York and the lives of many of its residents. I remember the first time I bought my own copy of the Voice when I was a teen. It felt like a very grown-up thing to do and with all the racy ads of a sexual nature on the inside and outside it felt like a scandalous thing to do. But the Voice was more than vice, between muckracking journalists holding city hall accountable, critics with deep examinations and explorations of arts produced in and out of the mainstream, and shining a light on the marginalized of society, the Voice was indeed a voice, and being a dedicated reader felt like a lifestyle choice, a choice to listen, learn, accept, and celebrate humanity.

The era of Greenwich Village Bohemia has long been gone but the Village Voice remained a thread woven through counter-culture past and present, with the Village Voice I could feel a connection with dead poets and old folk singers of Washington Square. New York got cleaner and safer but the Voice reminded me of the old grime of the Lower East Side, and those uptown kids that birthed a new culture with rhymes. Downtown became more straight and narrow, but the Voice never let me forget drag queens, or the guys and gals chilling on Christopher street. Now the Voice is silent, but what it represented still speaks loud to many, still speaks loud to me. Goodbye Village Voice.

Street Walker GPS

 

When I was fourteen years old and just a school boy freshman. I had an experience with a trio of ladies elegantly dressed in assorted work uniforms of  leopard print,fur,leather, and fishnets. I went to high school in an evolving gentrifying Hell’s Kitchen when it still had just a singe of the devil’s flame, and we were only blocks away of course from Times Square, where not all vice had been conquered yet.  It was one of those early September days that mistook itself for July, and as I walked the sidewalk towards the subway and probably eager to get home to play a video game, I saw this small group of women looking like they had walked off the set of Taxi Driver stopping strangers to ask them for directions.

A few took a judgmental quick look at these women, dressed in their street walking best and moved away as quickly as possible from them, while others simply said they didn’t know.  As I continued along my way, they turned to me to inquire on the location of their desired destination. “Hey cutie, can you help us?” one of them said. Now being a male teen, this daytime proximity to these ladies of the night made my inner teen wolf howl. As sweet and polite as anyone could be they asked if I knew how to get where they wanted to go, with one eye still nervously on them (puberty hormones don’t fail me now) I took a glance at a piece of paper with an address written on it that one of them held, and with more confidence than James Bond and John Shaft combined I told them how to get there.

They returned my display of supreme urban navigational skill with heartfelt thanks and as I watched them walk away a schoolmate came running up to me and said “Hey, what’s wrong with you? why were you talking to those prostitutes?” I said “they needed help” and that was the end of that conversation. Now if there is a moral to this story that moral would be always be willing to point someone in the right direction, but the point of me sharing this story wasn’t to convey some greater good. I just wanted to reminisce.

What Ever Happened To The Man With The Knife On The Train?

 

Over a year ago I decided to record a podcast on a regular basis. This was done after many starts and stops in the preceding years, and also getting over the terror that the sound of my own voice often gave me.  For my first episode I decided to share the story of an incident long ago on a subway train not far away from memory. It was the story of a deranged man with deranged Don King looking hair, wielding a knife after throwing accusations that someone had took his wallet.  I’ve witnessed many things growing up in New York, but this was one of the most vivid experiences because it managed to be a frightening incident that afterwards I found very hilarious (you had to be there).

But recently looking back on that story, I wondered what happened to that gentleman. Did he continue to lead a life of violence? Perhaps he was ashamed of his behavior that day and went on to become a practitioner of non-violent mediation and mindfulness meditation ? Maybe he decided to follow his true passion and become a sushi chef?  I have no idea but if there is a point to anything I’m saying right I guess I should get to it, and that point is that lives our bigger than the fleeting moments they may appear in. It may be easy to see others as side characters in the continuous moving story of our existence, but I believe that on the grand stage of the universe we’re all  stars.

 

You can listen to the Mann From New York podcast on Apple podcasts, Google Play and Spotify.

Goodbye To A Queen

 

How do you say goodbye to a queen? How do you bid a proper farewell to a monarch of  melodious human emotion.  Aretha Franklin died today on August 16th ( the 41st anniversary of the death of Elvis ). She was an indelible force in the course of American culture. Every pop diva giant, chart topping soul siren, and aspiring idol for the past 50 years has one way or the other tried to be Aretha. It feels more than appropriate that this daughter of a minister raised in the ways of the church, who first hit high notes in Jesus name became a prophet of soul music.

Grace was never far from the secular in Aretha’s delivery. Like Ray Charles before her, Aretha Frankin made it possible to feel the divine even in the most butt shaking of grooves.  How do you say good bye to a larger than life voice that was the soundtrack a generation and an overwhelming influence on subsequent ones ? You can’t.  In 1955 the jazz legend Charlie Parker also known by the nickname of Bird died at the age of 34. Shortly after the news broke scrawls of graffiti in Manhattan appeared saying “Bird Lives” a testimony to the impact that his sound and style had on a generation of musicians and fans. So, when it comes to Aretha Franklin, I say onto you, the Queen is not dead, long live the Queen, Aretha Lives.

Photo by Tookapic on Pexels.com

Buzz

I found myself in a blue mood for no apparent reason one afternoon, but the sounds of bouncing basketballs on the weathered concrete I heard from behind felt like a comforting groove as I sat on a bench looking at traffic streaming up 6th avenue. The overcast day gave a melancholy hue to what was otherwise a pleasant day.  I watched a tall young lady with sunglasses bigger than her face and wearing a short tennis skirt make her way from Houston street and marveled for just a second on the confidence of her strut. She moved like a runway model heading solo to a battle against an unknown army, but before my people watching imagination could scribe a mini narrative about this attractive stranger I was interrupted by a fellow taking a seat. The grunts he bellowed signaled pained and discomfort as he politely asked for a dollar.

 

My willingness to give when confronted with a panhandler or street beggar is often dictated either by my mood or resources and this man’s friendly and polite tone, and me having a single dollar readily available in my pocket was a perfect match. The man spoke about just getting out of the hospital and being on so much pain medication that he could barely function, and without revealing the source of his current affliction he then revealed that he was an alcoholic, and now I found myself suddenly baptized by the streets of New York as priest hearing the confession of a troubled man. He then spoke of wanting to stop drinking and having many friends in rehab and mentioned he was going to start going to Alcoholics Anonymous, but before that he needed a haircut, and that made sense to me.  

If I was going to begin a new chapter of life or embark on a new endeavor getting a  haircut would seem like the first logical step. I would want to hear that baby like roar a clipper makes as it approaches follicles as prey. I would want to sit in a barber’s chair that offers infinite possibilities with each swivel. Haircuts when done right are just not a creation or establishment of style, they can be a cleansing, washing away old troubles, and they can also be a promise to oneself to expect a better tomorrow because no one needs to look good for yesterday.

 

Now haircuts when they are done wrong can feel world destroying. When I was five years old my mother took me to a downtown barbershop with implicit instructions to the elderly barber to just cut it a little short, however minutes later this overzealous hair shaving fiend left me bald. My mother was angry and I was horrified. There I was, a baby Kojak with no lollipop, Jordan but with no air. Later that day at my grandma’s house I looked back at the reflection from her giant bedroom mirror to see the monster I had become. How could I go on?  I tried on my step-grandfather’s flat cap, which hung oversize on my head like a flying saucer over skyscraper, I even put on my grandma’s flowing wig for a second, but Times Square street pimp was a look only few adolescents could pull off.

My life was completely ruined for at least few days, but then my hair start growing back. however, that event would remain a powerful memory,but as a teen and then adult, haircuts always made me feel more confident ready for whatever was next. Me and the man on the bench chatted a few more idle minutes before he thanked me for the dollar and then departed. I don’t know if he got that haircut or got the treatment he needed but I like to imagine that he walked into an AA  meeting looking fresh and already halfway to be being clean.

REWIND: TAO Of The BBQ ROAST PORK

The post below was originally written in summer of 2017 after a visit to a local NYC restaurant.

 

 

Life has its ups and downs and as the summer begins a slow unwind at the beginning of August, a melancholy often associated with the autumn air can make an early appearance. This feeling or mood can be a byproduct of the dusk of waning longer days or the disappointments pondered during the still short nights. It is a feeling I’m too familiar with, an emotion that knows me by my first name. But today at a treat of a lunch outing from my sister as part of an early birthday celebration, we visited a nondescript but popular Chinatown eatery endowed by many bonafide foodies with authentic praise.

My order was a combination of BBQ Roast Pork and BBQ Roast Chicken, and while the chicken was okay, the BBQ Roast Pork was a dancing delicious attack on my taste buds, and with every savory bite a sprinkle of genuine delight touched my soul. Now it may be hyperbole or just outright ridiculous to speak of a simple meal that way, but we live in ridiculous times and I proudly claim my right to partake in our new national pastime. Now back to food, it was tender, it was sweet, but most importantly is was a simple reminder to me that moments of joy are always available if we’re ready to accept them. If this sounds too new agey or silly to you, I suggest you try the BBQ Roast Pork at Great NY Noodletown, then talk to me.

 

Hello Again

 

It has been five years since I’ve posted anything on this particular blog. Now this blog was created back in 2013 as part of the work for a college course I was taking  and It was only meant to last as long as the duration of that class, but for some reason I never deleted it. There were a couple of times where I wondered to myself why keep it online and almost put in the electronic trash, but never did.  In the time since I’ve occupied myself with other corners of the internet from social media to even doing a podcast for past year, and focusing on photography. Now in the world of Instagram, Snapchat,and Facebook, where the concept of beginning a blog seems less relevant than it did a few years ago, restarting a blog that has been inactive for half a decade might seem a waste of time, but I argue that having a forum to express yourself is never a waste and when it comes to the mechanism of writing, the blog is still the thing.

Now I’ve had a relationship of conflict with writing most of my life. I loved writing down stories when I was a kid, when I went to a vocational high school specializing in graphic arts and advertising I was able to have a concentration in creative writing, but as adulthood as gone by, the act of writing seemed laborious, and so many countless evenings and days trying to finish up up essays and reports for college left me with residual anxiety. I had ideas and I had thoughts but actually sitting down and putting it to electronic paper seemed pointless, besides who the hell was going to read it. I put aside those stories running through my brain, and occasionally posted an opinion longer than a tweet through another “medium.” In fact had decided to reconcile with myself that I was not a writer, that I was a person with a lot of imagination but no fortitude in the direction of this. But things change, recently I’ve rediscovered the urge to write, and when I did sit down type into my laptop I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time, a since of peace about the whole damn thing. It didn’t feel like work or torture, it felt like home. I don’t know what this means long-term, but for now I’m gonna write, I’m gonna blog, I’m going to have my way with the written word, or the written word is going to have its way with me. Everything from fiction to non-fiction, and there will be photos, something prominent in the original name of this blog and alluded to in its new. So, Hello again.