Ring out the old...

Ring in the new.

I'd rather hurl out the old and pull in the new but whichever works really.

The holidays have been difficult this year.  I don't really know why.  There hasn't been anything especially good or bad about them.  I've just been extremely emotional.  I finished reading Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking" last night and now I'm semi-convinced that I'm bipolar and need electroshock therapy and/or medication.  I'm never really manic though.  Maybe I just need/want to spend some time in a peaceful, pretty mental facility where I can sort out all the crazy thoughts in my head.  It was strange reading about that thought because yesterday I also finished reading the book "Of Lena Geyer."  Towards the end of the novel, Lena collapses onstage from sheer physical and mental exhaustion.  She goes into a coma, briefly, but then takes years to recover.  And I kind of feel sometimes as if I need years to recover.  From what?  I don't know exactly.  All I can say is that life is hard.  Sometimes, most mornings, it takes most of my energy to get out of bed in the morning and come in to the office and get things done.

The blessing and curse of my current situation is that I have nothing work-related to accomplish.  So I've spent the past few weeks finishing grant and fellowship applications.  There's been a lot of essay writing and I feel as if I'm applying for college all over again.  But it's made me really examine my work and life as a director.  I'm certain there's nothing else I should be doing but the question remains: how to do it full time and make a living?

I've also applied to be a New York City Teaching Fellow.  I read the signs in the subway every morning so I figure I might as well give it a shot.  I've been passed on to the interview stage.  So the first weekend in February I have a day-long process to go through.  I need to figure out a five minute lesson plan.  I mentioned it to mom at dinner the other night and she was too excited.  "Your father and I always thought you should go into teaching.  But you had to try this for yourself and it didn't work out..."  Well, it's not that it hasn't worked out, Mom.  It just hasn't really been easy.  But I've been looking for teaching jobs for over a year and that's not easy either.  I want to, ideally, teach on the university level.  But I could deal with high school.  I need to figure out a five minute lesson plan to teach at the interview.  Did I say that already?  Well, I do.

The "ring out the old, ring in the new" always makes me think about "Sunset Boulevard".  That was the first show I took Present-Ex to see.  I call him Present-Ex because even though we've been broken up for some 7 years now we were together almost as long.  After breaking up we made a real effort to stay friends because although we were no longer in love with each other we certainly loved each other and had a profound effect on each other's lives.  Plus we were so intertwined in each other's families it was impossible not to be.

We met in Philly through a mutual friend while I was home from NYU on summer break.  We started dating late in the summer and continued long distance (well, 90 miles away) from there.  

Present-Ex was terrified of my parents because I came out upon meeting him and he was convinced they thought he made me gay.  And he totally did.  So there.  But I decided to take him up to NYC with me for a few days because he had never been and it was the beginning of the semester.  Mom, Dad and I drove to pick him up at his apartment.  It was awkward and forced.  Mom offered him some bagel and OJ but Present-Ex politely declined.  Later on the bus he said it was because he was afraid my mom had poisoned it.  He wasn't kidding.  We exchanged an awkward goodbye with Mom and Dad and hopped on Peter Pan to NYC.

I took Present-Ex to my dorm room.  It was a two-person suite on the penthouse level of the dorm on 10th and Broadway.  I loved this room especially because the old RA had given us a key to the door at the back of the room that opened up to the rooftop.  We spent many nights here on the roof, looking down at the traffic.  The steeple lights for Grace Church were placed on the roof here and I would look up at the steeple and the sky for what seemed like hours.  It was truly a beautiful sight to behold.

Present-Ex and I dropped our bags and headed out to grab some sandwiches at Bagel Bob's on University.  It was a beautiful late summer day and I was thrilled to be back in NYC and in love for the first time with someone who loved me back.  We took our sandwiches and sat in Washington Square Park and watched the people go by.  What did we talk about?  I'm not sure.  I can be really quiet most of the time and I wonder if I was this day.  Or maybe we talked about seeing the show that afternoon.

We hopped on the train to Times Square.  I was already familiar with "Sunset" from the movie and the original London cast recording with La LuPone.  I was excited to see the show and to see Betty Buckley.  I was not disappointed and I don't think I could have picked a better first show for Present-Ex to see.  Talk about spectacle.  First of all, Betty Buckley's voice is a beautiful instrument and as difficult as she is to work with, her performance was commanding.  The diva gets to sing in Sunset and sing she did.  Physically, Sunset was a towering production.  When the mansion set rose in the New Year's Eve scene to reveal the tiny, cramped apartment of Artie Shaw it was sheer theatrical genius and spectacle.  I probably gasped and applauded along with the rest of the audience.  My most vivid memory of the production was the very end.  Norma came down the stairs and spoke her infamous "Mr. DeMille" line and the curtain came down.  But as the curtain came down there was projected upon it the film of a younger, laughing and smiling Norma Desmond in her youth.  Well, it just gave me chills.

Sunset played in the barn that is the Minskoff Theatre.  Our seats were way up in the mezzanine, which has no center aisle it just goes straight across and our seats were way house right.  But I was leaning so far forward I might as well have been onstage.  I miss that excitement.  

These days I feel as if I'm trapped on an island of my own and even though I can see everyone else I can't make passage to them and they can't make passage to me.  And in my head the image of the curtain going down on a laughing, smiling, younger version of myself plays over and over again, haunting me.

Back in NYC

Driving through the Holland Tunnel today, in the back seat of my parents SUV I couldn't help but think of the past.

My first semester at NYU I went home almost every weekend, no matter the situation.  College of Arts and Sciences had no classes on Fridays so I would either hop on the bus Thursday evening or first thing Friday morning.  Please keep in mind, I was 17 years old.  I had absolutely no friends here.  I had a large extended family and circle of friends still in Philadelphia.

Those Peter Pan buses were horrible.  They smelled of piss and dirt.  The Philadelphia crowd was a mixed lot, but most of them seemed angry.  Perhaps it was the piss and dirt scent.  The best thing about each bus was that they were each named for something from Peter Pan: Tinkerbell, The Ticking Clock, Neverland, etc.  I thought that was pretty cool.

I wouldn't do much at home.  Hang with my friends, see my parents and grandparents.  My mom's parents were always a second set of parents to me.  And they lived right around the corner from the street I grew up on.  So I was always over there.  It was just about the time that I went away to NYU that I realized they were mortal.  Every time I would say goodbye to them and then go to the bus station I would do so with tears in my eyes, certain I would never see them again.  Well, Gram lived 'til I was well into grad school and Pop is still around, although minus a voice box and he's 94.

In my second semester at NYU I found a theatre troupe: The Washington Square Players.  They gave me a purpose.  Suddenly, there was a community again.  One I had been lacking.  So I started to find myself, as it were.  I started venturing out to Broadway shows.  I started to make friends with my roommates and people in the dorm.  I started to grow up.  Soon, I dreaded going home.  I was having too much fun being this stronger, thinner, independent young man I was becoming.  I was afraid going home would cause a relapse.  It didn't.  It strengthened me in many ways and in other ways it strengthened the pull in me that exists today between seeking security and independence.  That's a battle, I fear, that will never find peace.

However traveling back from Philly on the Peter Pan bus I would look for the sign that I was back.  About halfway through the Lincoln Tunnel you pass a tile marker that says: New Jersey/New York.  As soon as we passed that line, I breathed again.  Then I waited for the bus to round that long curve in New Jersey and show me the island with the Empire State Building lit up and welcoming me; a beacon like the green light across the water in "The Great Gatsby."

Now, I don't feel at home in New Jersey or in New York.  I don't feel completely at home anywhere.

I couldn't shake off an undefinable sadness this Christmas season.  I found myself on the verge of tears a lot but for no apparent reason.  I wanted the holiday to be over but I wanted the days off to extend but I didn't want to be at my parents or in NYC.  I'm restless.  A change is needed and a change is coming.  Something's going to break soon.  But when?  And what will appear when the pieces get swept away? 

Will this island that seems both too big and too small still be able to hold me?

Merry Merry

Watching CNN while Mom and Dad cook in the kitchen.

The dog is perched on the couch behind my head.

There's so much I want.

Merry Christmas.

Christmas Time

Thinking about my first Christmas season in NYC as an NYU student.

My friend Daria and I had dinner at her dorm on 5th Ave and 10th Street.  I call her Daria because she is very much like that MTV cartoon character.  She is smart, dry and often dressed in the same type of clothes, down to the thick, heavy, chunky black boots.  Daria's voice never modulated much and unless she was anxious or scared and she made me laugh to no end.  We were both misfits.  Her roommates hated her and I, for the most part, didn't want to socialize much with mine.  But, then again, I always have had a way with picking the misfits to hang with.  Daria, born and raised in North New Jersey of mixed race parents, has an open face covered in freckles and a smile that lights her face and subsequently mine.  She also has a devious sense of humor.

So Daria and I finished dinner and decided to walk around and take in some of the holiday spirit.  Window shopping was one of our favorite past times.  We would often meet for lunch in the dining hall across from Washington Square Park (The Jumping Dorm since so many committed suicide by jumping there) and after lunch we would stop and watch the dogs play in the dog run and then decide to skip class in order to walk around the city.

So on this cold, wintery December evening we decided to see what NYC had to offer us in regards to Xmas shopping.  We walked around the Village a bit and, uninspired, decided to head back to her room to watch a movie or something.  Standing on the southwest corner of 5th Ave and 10th Street, we were about to cross and go into the dorm when suddenly there was a crash and a flaming mattress came hurtling out of a third floor window of the dorm.  There wasn't nearly as much chaos as one would have suspected. for a flaming mattress coming from a window and landing in the middle of 5th Ave.  Luckily there were no cars coming at the time.  We stood, transfixed.  Some students trickled out of the dorm to see what was happening.  A security guard came out, talking frantically on his walkie-talkie.  The sound of fire engines echoed in the distance.  A pair of student came over and stood next to us.  "Do you know what happened?" I asked.  "Some kid dropped his menorah on the bed.  The mattress caught fire and, well..." and she gestured to the bed sitting sadly with a burned black spot in the middle.  The pair wandered off and we stood watching the firemen race down the street and hop out of their engines to see the effects of Hanukkah in a private university.

"What happened?" a voice behind us asked.  I turned and there, walking their cute little dog, were Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker.  I had been told they lived in the area but had never seen them.  I gasped a little bit and then quickly recovered, pointed at the mattress and caught them up on the story.  I don't think I possessed the ability to look them in the face when talking to them.  They laughed, wished us a happy holiday and walked on.

Daria and I decided that these were signs that the night held something special in store for us and could not be wasted hanging around in the dorm.  So we ventured uptown and caught all the holiday decorations in midtown.  Nothing beat a flaming mattress in the middle of 5th Ave.  It was it's own little island out there in the storm.

Pal Joey

Saw "Pal Joey" on Broadway yesterday afternoon.

It was interesting being in a theatre again after having started this blog.  My instincts seem to be heightened.  It amazes me that going to a see a show has now become old hat.  There's rarely a sense of anticipation anymore.  Mostly because when you see so much, so little of it is actually as good as you want it to be.  I remember when I first started going to see shows, I would be sick to my stomach for the half hour before the show started.  What if the actors messed something up?  What if they forgot their lines or missed a dance step?  What if they weren't as good as they should be?  It was a generalized anxiety with no real root in reality, which is symptomatic of many issues in my life.

However, as a youth, these performers always pulled through and surpassed my expectations.  For two hours or so I was utterly transported and I despised the 15 minute intermission.  i wanted them to just keep going.

I was thinking about this yesterday afternoon waiting for the curtain to rise at "Pal Joey."  I looked around the audience, one of the biggest blue-haired crowds I've ever seen.  Were they excited to be here or was it work for them too?  There was no buzz that awaits an eagerly anticipated production.  There was no hostility either.  It seemed as if people were just idling away a snowy Sunday in December.

There were certainly magical moments in this production.  I loved the set.  I hate that to be the first thing I say about a show but when the lights came up on it, I was impressed.  The El tracks rushing out at us from the back of the stage were a powerful image, although too similar to the design of Mantello's "Assassins" in the same theatre just a few years ago.  That was a roller coaster, I believe.  

Martha Plimpton was simply fantastic.  She takes the stage, unafraid to act, and is having the time of her life up there.  Stockard Channing plays the world-weariness of her character just right.  And you understand why she needs to fall for someone like Joey.  It provides her with an escape from the unhappy routine of her daily life.  

The costumes were almost cookie cut-outs of the costumes for "Cabaret" and I found that disappointing.

When intermission came, I wasn't disappointed.  The first act stalled in regard to dramatic action about a third of the way through and I thought, "Are they presenting this without an intermission?"  Then the lights came up and I looked at my watch, barely an hour and fifteen minutes had passed.  Not a good sign.  I did not feel the desire to leave.  I wanted to see more of Martha and Stockard.  But I wanted the show to be better all around.  Even the script itself.  It's just not very compelling.  Of course I thought, "Well, if they'd asked me to direct it I would have to say 'yes' too."  But, in my case, beggars can't be choosers.

The first time I left a show at intermission I felt an incredible sense of guilt.  Would the actors notice?  What if the show suddenly became fantastic in Act Two?  Well, I soon learned time was precious and show's that were bad in Act One rarely got better in the second act.  And now I feel no guilt.  In fact, I sometimes find myself looking forward to it.  Isn't that sad.  Instead of theatre now being an escape, it's become something I wish to escape from.  That's the problem when you your dream becomes a reality.

The Gypsy in Me

These yearly trips to NYC continued.  We saw "Me and My Girl", "Sweet Charity", "Anything Goes" and "Gypsy" on the bus.  My parents also started taking me up the week between Christmas and New Year's for a matinee.  I planned my life around these trips because it was the only time I felt like I was actually living.  Everything else was just biding time.

On the "Gypsy" trip we took my cousin, The Actress.  The Actress and I have always been close and our relationship probably blossomed around the time of this trip.  If I was 13 or so at the time so was about 11.

"Gypsy" took my breath away.  Tyne Daly gave one of the most amazing performances I've seen (I stand by that today) in a musical or a play.  I remember getting chills during her Rose's Turn and I still do when I listen to it today.  Plus, there is no better recording of the Overture.  The trumpets just go wild in the 'strip' section.

After the performance at the St. James Theatre I remember getting on the bus and waiting for The Actress to join me so that we could commiserate about the show.  There was a buzz amongst the family.  The Actress had disappeared.  Where was she?  Should we be worried?  What do we do?  Then her mother calmed everyone's nerves with a "Don't worry.  She went backstage."  I almost threw up.  She went backstage?  How did she do that?  Where did she go?  Was she talking to Tyne Daly right now?  Was Gypsy Rose Lee showing her how to strip?  I wanted to run off the bus but my mother held me back and gave me a look that said, "We don't do that.  We weren't invited."  So I bit my lip and sat down.

After what seemed like an eternity, the Actress came strolling out of the Stage Door with a shit-eating grin on her face.  She had walked across the stage.  She had run into members of the band and the cast.  She had done it.  She had gotten on Broadway.  I could have killed her.  Of course now I didn't want to hear anything she had to say but I had to hear all of it.  All of the family were commenting on how brave she was and how clever.  Cousin Vinnie got on the mic at the front of the bus to announce that the Actress had made it to the Broadway stage.  As the bus broke into a chorus of "The Best of Times is Now", I crossed my arms over my chest, thrust out my lower lip, sank deep into my seat and pouted.  The Actress had bested me.

Thus began the Actress's own infatuation with the Island at the End of the World.  Her path, like mine, has been a bumpy one.  But we've both done it.  We've both worked on Broadway.

But more on that later.

Snow Fall

As snow falls on this chilly, grey Friday morning I think about my first year at New York University.  At the merest hint of any sort of precipitation my mother would get on the phone, from Philadelphia, and call my dorm room at around 7am to tell me to bring an umbrella because it was raining/snowing/sleeting there.

My brother attended college but he lived at home while doing so.  My mother did not quite understand what dorm life was like and how, in a suite of 5 people, a 7am phone call is not appreciated by anyone -- especially 5 young men smart enough to get into NYU and who can look out the window before leaving and notice the weather.  Well, that's an overstatement.  Not all of us who lived in that room had the awareness to look out a window.  I have a feeling some still haven't really looked out.

The Texan who was a close friend for many years, and who I have now fallen out of contact with, had many odd proclivities.  When I would go home or away for a weekend, I would come back to the dorm room to find all my movies posters turned around and re-pinned to the walls.  Posters included: Slaves of New York, True Romance and Interview With the Vampire.  I would also find my bed unmade.  Turns out the Texan liked to bunker down in my camp while I was gone too.  Odd.

The strangest thing he ever did was spend a weekend homeless.  I'm still not sure why.  He did grow up in the rich city of Austin.  His parents seemed very hands-on but I could tell from overhearing phone calls that he very much wanted to please them.  He was a film major and I'm sure there are reels and reels of me acting out scripts in our dorm room and around the city somewhere out there...

Anyway, he spent a weekend homeless, wandering the streets of NYC.  He slept in Grand Central.  He would occasionally make phone calls to the room to his other friends to keep them aware of his status.  The Texan very much wanted to be noticed and wanted.  He wanted to incite concern and hysteria and have people beg him to come back to the safe confines of our little concrete rooms on 10th and Broadway.  I don't remember when he actually relented but he did come home smelly, dirty and exhausted eventually.

He had his own relationship with the Island to work out.

Snowy days make remind me of those crazy, innocent years we lived shielded in our dorm rooms downtown.  And of my mother at home worrying that I'd go out and get cold and wet; become a victim to the elements.

Why I blog.

The purpose of this blog came to me as I was writing those first few entries.

I am looking to rediscover the initial joy and rush I felt when first introduced to New York.  Lately, I find myself lost in the grind and push of it.  I'm not running the same race as everyone else around me seems to be running and I'm afraid I'll get trampled in their wake.

When I moved to New York at the age of 17 to start undergrad at New York University, I was terrified of this city.  Terrified at the possibility it presented.  Everywhere I turned there seemed to be something to do or see and I wanted to take part in all of it.  When I needed to slow down, I would leave my dorm on 10th and Broadway and walk.  I would walk the streets for hours, usually at night.  

My first stop out of the dorm was at 10th Street and 5th Ave.  I would wait for the light directing the downtown traffic to go red and I would stand in the middle of 5th Ave.  First I would look uptown.  The building got taller.  The lights sparkled in the night.  Why were lights on in office building at 10pm?  Who worked that late?  I would then turn my back on the traffic and look downtown.  My favorite view of the city.  There was the Washington Square Arch.  Lit from below and surrounded by fencing so that people didn't break more the crumbling facade.  Then the fountain so beautiful and asymmetrical in its placement (please don't get me started on the re-positioning of it) and there in the distance the Twin Towers rising high and mighty in the night, alive and shining.

The city has changed more than I can say since that fateful day in 2001.  And we have changed with it.  Although we go on, I don't think any of us have truly recovered and I think some of us are on edge waiting for the next attack.  In these uncertain economic times we do everything we can to get by, day-to-day.

That view down 5th Ave is gone now.  Forever changed.  I am not 17, wide-eyed and awestruck anymore.  But whenever I'm near 10th Street and 5th Ave I look longingly downtown, hoping for a glimpse of that old view and a glimpse of the old me.

I need to reclaim my island.

My first time: Part 3

The bus pulls away from the theatre and we go off to dinner.

I wish I could remember the name and location of the restaurant.  It must either have been in midtown or the Village.  It was small, intimate and down a set of stairs.  In retrospect, it could have even been Joe Allen's.

We were seated at tables throughout the restaurant and it was mainly just our party there.

We were leaving the restaurant when my cousin Vinnie races outside to grab me and my mother to bring us back in.  "I want you to meet someone," he says.  Vinnie leads me over to a table where an older woman with striking, full white hair sits in a black pantsuit.  She is dining with a female companion.  Vinnie says, "Johnny, this is Alice Faye.  She's a movie star and a singer."  I shake her hand and notice the perceptible glow emanating from her.  "Ms. Faye, this is my cousin John.  He wants to be a movie star too."  She looks at me -- a fat, short, awkward kid with big glasses and puffy hair -- and says, "Then you will be!"  

She signs a napkin: To John-Vincent.  With love, Alice Faye.

As we're getting up to leave Vinnie stops and looks at her.  "Miss Faye.  Will you sing something for us?"  She smiles and nods and we kneel next to her.  She very quietly sings the song "Rose of Washington Square."  I look over at Vinnie and he has tears in his eyes.  I don't know who this woman is, or what this song is, but I am certain I am privy to something special.  She finishes the song, kisses our cheeks and we leave.

Vinnie is still crying.  He puts his hand on my shoulder and whispers, "That was very special."  We get on the bus and leave the island at the end of the world.  But I know that I'll return soon.

My first time: Part 2

I promised myself that I would write every day and already I think I'm a week behind.  I'm on the hunt as well as working on applications for fellowships and grants.  The future is filled with so much hopeful uncertainty.  But I never went into this business expecting permanence.  I think that's still hard for me to accept as well as my bf, The Loved One.  The erratic nature of showbiz combined with my own erratic nature has made the past few weeks trying for both of us.  I am exhausted and looking forward to the holidays.  I wish I was one of those lucky people who seem to have the whole next two weeks off.  I envy them and I need that time myself.

However, I was in the middle of a story.

The bus had arrived in New York.  It dropped some of us off at the South Street Seaport and some of us off at a local bar.  My parents and I were at the Seaport.  To this day, that section of Manhattan remains an anomaly to me.  It feels as it must have when those Dutch settled it.  The buildings are brick and low (outside of the financial district).  There is a large masted ship docked in the harbor.  The smell of salt air is prevalent if you catch the right angle and breeze.  At that time, the fish market was busseling.  The cobblestones were filled with ice and guts.  The stench hung in the air.  That's all gone now.  But then, it was electric.  Add to that the enormous number of tourists and an odd shopping mall and you're in Oz -- a non-romantic version of Oz.

My parents and I strolled the Seaport.  There wasn't much for a kid to do.  Look at the big buildings downtown.  There's the Brooklyn Bridge.  Here's some ugly street art.  And I was aching for it to be 2pm when the show started.

Finally we boarded the bus.  We picked up the drinkers at the bar and made our way back uptown.  As we drove through the Village I felt something in me stir.  This was where I wanted to be.  Young people everywhere.  Houses mixed with big buildings.  A small park, mostly concrete, with a giant arch and a great fountain.  Stylish and yet laidback, this was somewhere special.  This was the Emerald City of Oz.  Greenwich Village.  Even the name sounded romantic to my 10-year old ears.

Finally the bus reached the Gershwin Theatre.  We were seeing Singin' in the Rain.  The marque boasted the name written in jagged pink letters against a baby blue background.  I was soon to have a matching t-shirt.  We entered the theatre and my heart leaped in my chest.  The pounding was almost unbearable.  A huge marble wall loomed in front of me with two staircases going up either side.  People were milling about, talking, laughing.  My drunk uncles were singing the title song already.  And the excitement was palpable.  I wanted to be a part of this experience, whatever it was, forever.

Our tickets were ripped and we made our way up the staircase to the main lobby.  Here was the Musical Theatre Hall of Fame.  My parents held my hand and pointed out pictures of people whose names an faces they recognized and whose work they could tell me about.  Already I was fascinated by the faces in the sepia portraits, striking glamourous poses.  Or the stills from Broadway productions from years past.  This was my home now.

We went up another flight of stairs to the balcony.  Here we were led down to the very first row.  I sat upright in my seat but a bar extended across the row, hindering me from a clear view of the stage.  Who would do that and why?  I was awestruck by the sheer size of the theatre.  I looked down at the people in the orchestra and I wanted to scream, "Look up here at me!  Look at me!"   But I contained myself and waited.  Finally the orchestra struck a chord, the overture started and the lights went down.  People did not silence themselves quite quickly enough for my liking but they eventually caught on that something amazing had begun.

I can't tell you much about what I saw in the first act.  I can't describe the sets or the costumes or the lighting.  I know that it must have been glamorous.  I know that the stage must have seemed impossibly crowded to me.  I know that there was singing and dancing the likes of which I had never seen before.  The real moment that converted me for life occurred in act two.  Don Correia the actor playing the lead began strolling along the foot of the stage in a grey suit.  Suddenly, it began to rain.  On stage!  The rain began as a light drizzle and then it turned into a downpour.  The stage itself tilted up so that the drops poured down from the back and Don sang, danced and jumped in the water without a care in the world.  This was spectacle.  This was theatre.  This is what made a little fat Italian kid from South Philly decide to do this for the rest of his life.  The moment was lasted for an eternity and for an instant.  It was over but I wanted it to go on and on.  I wanted to get up and jump and dance and sing in those puddles.

The show ended and a great sadness descended upon me.  What experience could ever top that?  Why did it have to end?  How could I possibly go to school on Monday in my suit jacket, tie and slacks after that experience?  We filed out of the theatre me torn between a state of ecstasy and despair.  We packed ourselves on to the bus and got ready to pull away.  As we circled the theatre there was suddenly a great chatter on the bus.  There coming out of the back door, or the "stage door" of the theatre was Don Correia and his wife Sandy Duncan.  Now Don was God in my mind and I didn't know who Sandy Duncan was but Cousin Vinnie made the bus driver honk his horn.  The group pounded on the windows and waved.  Don and Sandy smiled and waved back and I understood.  These were ordinary people like me who had the power to make magic.  I leaned back in the seat, closed my eyes and danced across the stage with the rain pouring down on me.

My first time: Part 1

I first came to Manhattan at the age of 10 on a loud rollicking bus trip.

My cousin Vinnie (right?) and his lover Gene would rent a bus, pack us in -- along with their ex-wives, children, friends, colleagues, etc. --  and head north from Philly on the New Jersey Turnpike. Cousin Carmella made pepper and egg sandwiches on hoagies rolls for everyone, including the driver.  Many others supplied the booze.  Vinnie would emcee the entire trip from the front of the bus, using the driver's microphone.  He had a giant boom box that blasted show tunes for the two hour plus ride.  It was my job to look for the Statue of Liberty.  That meant we were almost there.  I pushed my face to the glass and waited, songs from shows I had never seen washing over me.

After many mistaken spottings of Lady Liberty, my patient mother finally pointed her out to me and I officially made the announcement.  We had arrived.  Vinnie cued the boom box and the bus erupted in a rendition of 'The Best of Times is Now' from La Cage aux Folles that can never be rivaled.  The third time through, the bus driver got a solo.

As we trundled through the Lincoln Tunnel, the dull dirty tile walls flashing past, the world went silent.  I was filled with anticipation.  I'm certain I held my breath waiting for the revelation of the 'city that never sleeps' as the song playing in the background penetrated into my consciousness.  I wondered how any place could be that exciting.  Finally, grey light began to push its way through a curve in the tunnel.  I moved to the front of the bus and asked my step-grandmother if I could sit on her lap.  She HAD to have the front seat on these trips.  It was the cause of a lot of conflict among the other older ladies who also HAD to have the front seat.  She pulled me up between herself and my grandfather and I put my head against his chest and waited.

The bus rounded the curve and the grey light intensified.  We came out of the tunnel and there, right in front of the bus, was a wall.  We followed the turn of the street and lingered at a red light.  The Port Authority, cold and black, loomed over our heads.  Another bus idled in front of us.  Cars to the left and right.  A dirty man with a bucket and a brush tried to wash the windows of our vehicle and the bus driver turned the wipers on and cursed him.  The light changed and we turned onto a narrow, dark street.  I certainly couldn't see what all the fuss was about but I could feel it.  There was an energy here that was lacking in Philadelphia.  The people walked differently.  The sounds of rushing traffic were more insistent.  The smell should have turned me off; stale, rank, ripe.  But it energized me.  I wanted to walk around this city.  It terrified me.  I wanted to embrace the grey.

I had reached my home, the island at the end of the world.