"the taking of the Sealy 123"

It was  a Friday night in July on  Stanley Ave. We were in the 8th grade. So we did what any 8th grader would do, we decided to  get a bottle of wine. There was a guy who hung around, named Chan. he mustve been in his 20s, he wore a black bandana on his head. I think he was a wino. We would give him money for some wine and a quarter tip for him.  He used  to drink Gypsy Rose port wine, or Fleishman's something or another.  We stuck to the "good stuff".. it was either  Ariba or Thunderbird.  As i write, i could  fondly remember that taste.  and the theme song. "whats the word?"
"Thunderbird"
"what's the price?" 40 twice"    yeah i think it was  80cents a  pint.  It would get a young kid pretty damn drunk.  So we drank 2 of them down fast. Shared it amongst the four of us.  It was me Mooney, Hal, Jeff and me. We decided to take a walk  down to  Snediker Ave and visit  a friend  of ours.  We get their drunk, I had a gripe with this guy for stealing my clarinet, but  we got involved with other stuff that night, and that wasnt brought up.  The guy we met was named Red. Flaming red hair, with a big pompadour. He had a great idea.  Now, mind you , we were drunk and  the dumbest of ideas sounded good.  He  had a  fold up cot bed. One of those metal fold up things with wheels.  And he happened to  have a steering whell from a truck laying around. So , we rolled the bed outside.  And  Red said , hey lets  drive this thing down Linden Blvd.  Linden Blvd was treacherous  over in that area, near Van Sinderen. Alot of sharp turns, broken road and speeding cars.  We put our feet in , to choose who would be folded up in the middle of the bed. We did "engine engine number nine, going down chicago line...." it was a choosing thing, like "sky is blue how old are you  or  eenie meenie infancheenie ,,,". anyway  I won.   YAY!  ummm I won the honor of getting folded up into the  cot bed. My hands were the imaginary gas and brake pedals.Palms up and the "driver" would  step on them.  The steering wheel post when down into the crack between the mattress and someone controlled the  steering wheel , which did nothing.  and  two guys were pushing the bed.  They start pushing onto Linden Blvd. It was night time, and we had no lights on this "vehicle".  We seemed to be going pretty fast , actually faster than the guys who were pushing it.  Holy Shhhhhhhhh....!!!!!  We were going fast on Linden Blvd, cars honking, people yelling at us, and there I am trapped in this folded cot in the middle of the biggest street in East New York( excluding the Belt Parkway). There are no brakes, the guys on top can jump off, that would leave just me  with my head out one end, and my feet out the other end, ready to crash into a pole or a truck or just tumble over and get run over.    We were approaching a major intersection, Pennsylvania Ave, and  the  two bed-pushers caught up and were  able to stop the  speeding  bed. It was  like Pelham 123, except it was  like  Sealy 123.  They stopped the thing thank goodness. No one got  hurt, except one guy pushing fell and cut his knee..  We were laughing afterwards,  all drunk and stuff. I had to   remind them to let me out. It was crazy being  trapped in that bed . It was a very fast bed.  Next time  I'll wear a helmet. Years have gone by, and I haven't  even thought about  a  next time.
    Afterwards, we went to the Galaxy Diner for some roast pork on garlic bread and  some Cherry Cokes.  Another exciting adventure in East New York.

East vs West

As I sit and look at maps of the world, and examine flight maps from  New York to Asia, I have come to the conclusion that  the East is the West and the West is the East.  It is much shorter to  go West to get to Asia. In logic terms, I am travelling West, therefore I will end up in the West.  Of course, if you  travel far enough West you will end up back at start, but that's a whole nuther blog. Anyhow, Asia, which we refer to as the East, is really the West.  So, I give praise the the TV show Kung Fu with David Carradine, because  this really was  an "Eastern"  not a "Western".  I think all Kung Fu movies should be called Westerns.  We here in the US  are from the "East",  WOW that puts a whole new perspective on Eastern philosophy.  So, next trip to Tokyo, or Bangkok, or Hong Kong, or Phnom Penh remember you are  travelling West and going to the West.  I wont start to bring Australia into the equation , because that gets too confusing.  G'day Mate

forget about it

I was speaking with a friend today, and we were trying to remember some people from not too long ago. I said, "lately I forget things that just happened or names of things from not too long ago, but I don't forget things from a long time ago." He says something about, we forget  nouns first, and we say things like ," I had to replace the  ,  ummmm , the  ummmm  "water pusher" , what he meant to say was  "pump".  Anyway, then I realized I forget things that happened a while ago too, and some other things, Basically,
"I forgot  what I forgot"
                          To quote a secretary I once had " I think you have Ol'timers disease"

fun in the projects

The 2nd floor hallway in our building in the projects stunk today. All the neighbors on the floor were holding their nose. Of course I knew the reason it stunk, my mom had taken this  huge  cow tongue and put it in a giant pot.  Did you ever see the size of a cow's tongue?  I doubt if my mother thought I was going to actually eat that thing. Anyway, that plus some cabbage dish she was  boiling, you could smell  all the way to Ashford St. It didn't stop us from  throwing the Spalding (pronounced Spaldeen) high bounce rubber ball against the wall and  catching it. The wall happened to be the other side of the Napolitano's living room wall.  The only thing I had going for me was when Big Eddie came out to  yell at me for throwing the ball against his wall, the stench from mom's beef tongue drove him back inside.   On rainy days we'd find alot to do right in the building , like throwing balls against people 's walls, playing "blind man's bluff " in the hall. That was a game where you blindfolded someone and they would have to  grab one of us and  say blind man bluff 1-2-3. Then that person was blindfolded.  Another favorite, fun thing was to ring someone's bell and run away and  watch them looking around. Seems  dull and stupid, but it would crack us up.  The elevator game was a good one, mostly because it was dangerous.  You would  ride up in the elevator and when you were between floors, you pull the inner car door open, pulling it hard to the left. Now the outer hall door, was tricky to get open.  You had to stick your hands in along the  door frame, and feel for the latch to unlock it. It was a safety feature so, a person wouldn't be able to open the elevator door and fall down the shaft if no elevator was there. We would open the second door and  jump out onto the floor.  It was scary but cool. Under the elevator car was a light bulb with a pull string.  Sometimes we would open the doors between the first and 2nd floor, so that there was a big space under the car, and we could  jump down and  find money  that fell down there.  It was dangerous, if the elevator went back to the first floor because we'd be trapped. There was a big spring or shock absorber to keep it from crashing .  Alot of fun, not approved by parents.  Years later, when heroin became an epidemic in the projects, junkies would stash their "works" on top of the elevator, thru that  secret door.  Anyway, we also used to like to check out the roof, there was a big sign on the door to the roof "Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted- Do Not Enter". That's like saying, "this place gotta be good".  So we went  up to the roof, there was a  little fence around to keep us safe.  We'd like to spit down and maybe hit someone in the head, or  throw stuff off. and hopefully we wouldn't hurt anyone. Every so often, like  once in ten years, you would hear about kids playing  Superman, or playing with paper parachutes and they fly off that roof and never be heard of again. 2 kids in my 5th grade class got in big trouble for  being responsible for one of the  Superman kids jumping off.  The 14 story buildings had even a better view, was good place to go in the summer and watch the fires of the tenements on Blake Ave burning.  We would hear vendors screaming out their wares in the hallways, "Sunshine Bleach:"  Sunshine Bleach"  "bleekwater, bleekwater",,,then the  Dugan's guy would be yelling  "Dugan's  cupcakes , donuts, bread" ,, there were lots. The milk man was quiet and he'd leave the bottles of milk in this little metal box outside our door.  There was even a  jeans sales guy always outside the building , G&M, selling all sorts of jeans.  I can;t leave out the  knife guy,who would come around and all the  women that were home would come running with their knives to get them sharpened.  The old man, with the  old horse, pulling the wagon with the bell, that was the :"junkman". People would hear the bell and come running with their junk.  Hell of a  business. There was  Andy's hi-flyer, a truck with this rocking thing. We'd call it the  rockin-ride. I think it cost a dime or a quarter. He'd come around loud it with 15 kids and  make it rock. We'd rock and rock until our brains were bangin' around in our skulls. Oh the  things we'd do for amusement.   When we were a little older , maybe  12 years old and 13, we would sneak into cars, behind Joe and Eddie's candy store , and push them and jump in and ride them down into the empty lots down the hill.  Not a good thing to get caught doing. But we never got caught.
Then we had the club, the midnight riders.  I think there were 6 of us. Maybe once a week, one of us would be elected to  steal our father's car keys and we'd go for a little ride around the block. At night so noone would see us.  One kid's father  had a 1953 pontiac that was stolen a bunch of times, and it was easy to start.  Johnny, had permission to smoke, he was 12 1/2 and smoked Lucky Strikes.   My mother wasn't crazy about  all of my friends. Anyway,  their was foil in the cigarette pack and we'd be able to  cross the wires and start the car without keys , and take it for a ride.  One  incident, of a kid stealing his father;s car, was when  a  guy named "Crutch" took the car out for a spin and floored it.  He was doing fine, until he crashed it into a pole. He couldnt lift his foot off the gas. Crutch,  had Polio, a paralyzing illness.
     Hey we weren't always doing things that would get us into trouble.  Yes, we liked pea shooter, blowing hard split peas at people's heads, or taking hangers and  rubber bands and making sling shots, and shooting at the poor defenseless birds. Oh yeah, carpet guns,  we loved those. Take  a couple of boards, maybe they were 2 x4's, maybe smaller. We  would attach, nail,, clothes pin, bottle cap,,and thick thick rubber bands, we'd pull that rubber band back so there was alot of tension. Then we'd place a little square piece of oil cloth (thick linoleum) floor covering like vinyl. Release the clothes pin and  POW, shoot that  oil cloth,if you hit someone it would hurt.   We'd also make useful things like  scooters. A wooden milk crate, 2 by 4 , roller skates nailed to the bottom of the  2 by 4, bottle caps for decoration and  we had a scooter.  Did i mention the  carriage room?  There was a room, it said  Perambulator Room,  wtf  does that mean anyway?  We called it a  carriage room, because people would store their baby carriages,(which were huge) and bicycles there. Sometimes locked on a chain sometimes  not. A hacksaw took care of cutting through the chains if we wanted to  "borrow" a  bike.  We were about  12 or 13 and we'd take bikes, girl's bikes , boy's bikes  , it didnt matter. We got into the thing of painting them orange.  So we had lots of orange  bikes. We created a bicycle built for many. First it was the standard bicycle built for two , but i think we got it up to  7 or 8. We would take the front wheel off a bike then connect the  front fork to the rear axle of the bike in front and tighten the  nuts. We would keep doing it, until we had a bicycle built for  4, 5, 6,7, 8.  * was a little much, when you turned a corner  the end bikes would  break off. So  4 worked fine, We looked really cool on our orange "super bike".
    Yes living in the projects was exciting , always something to do.  I'll leave some of that for another story. And kids, if you're reading any of this.  Don't try this at home.
      

Saturday movies in ENY

My first recollection of seeing a 3-D movie was Charge At Feather River, it was a western, cowboys fighting indians. I always was a big fan of the Indians. The spears and arrows were coming  right at us, I remember ducking about   100 times.We had these cool cardboard glasses with a red lens and a green lens. I think I was 5 years old or maybe 6. I loved the smell of the theatre, and it was  so dark, except for those dim lights along the aisle. The 10 Commandments was  a favorite at the time(1956). Finally me and my best friend Sandy got permission to go to the movies by ourselves.

I am amazed at what age I was allowed to go to the movies without an adult. I think it was  9 years old.  What were my parents thinking?  The theatre of choice  was the Biltmore on New Lots Ave. It was the closest theatre to where we lived. We would usually walk up Van Siclen to New Lots Ave. make a left and the Biltmore was  a few blocks up. We made sure we stopped in Judy's Sweet Shop first, i'd get Chocolate Babies, and Sandy would  usually get Chicken Corn. Thinking back it's so bizarre to be eating the  heads and  legs off of Chocolate Babies.  And Chicken Corn , wtf is that.  It was  triangles of orange , yellow and  a white tip of this sugar corn starch thing,,i think they still sell these things. Well maybe not the Chocolate Babies.  Ok now we pay, I think it was  25cents to get in. 2 movies, 25 cartoons, and a news reel. Of course there were coming attractions.  No advertisements like today. The theatres were big, there was a  big aisle in the middle splitting the theatre in half. That was called "the break". That was the best place to run fast through screaming and yelling when we got bored with the movie.  So we walk in, and the movie theatre is so dark. They had mean old ladies, called matrons, and the meanest guy ever, maybe he was called an usher.  They were armed with flashlights and meanness. We find seats right behind the break, It was real exciting to  be in the theatre watching great movies like The Crawling Eye, The Attack of the Mole People, The Blob, X the Unknown where the main character wore wrap around shades  and when he took them off rays shot out of his eyes. totally awesome. There was a movie I liked with Sal Mineo called Dino, about a juvenile delinquent kid,  oh yeah and  Gunfight at the OK Corral that was a great film. I think at 11 there was  Tom Dooley and another movie with Marilyn Monroe called Some like it Hot. The list goes on and on,but the  Chilly Willy and Woody Woodpecker cartoons were my favorites. Hmmm Tarzan and Abbott and Costello, were good too.

We would walk in while a movie was playing. I dont think there was a such thing as movie times. We would leave when the film reached the part where we came in or we would sit through all the movies again.  We would buy popcorn in the popcorn containers that would  fold flat. We would throw these up into the beam from the projector to the screen. We called them flying saucers. After we threw ours, we would go on a mission and gather  a bunch of already thrown ones. It was a  flying saucer fest. Of course we had our candy to throw also. I think between ages 9 and 13 there was alot of throwing things in movie theatres going on. Some of the older kids would be smoking cigarettes in the theatre,  the matrons were always walking around  shining the flashlights in  their faces or in our faces for throwing things. We were truly fightened of these mean people.  The  mean usher guy got really scary, after a car accident he was in. He  was then  in a wheelchair and semi paralyzed , very scary dude.  Noone was quiet during the movie. We would always be yelling at the screen. Telling the actors what to do.  Or just yelling out  wise-cracks. The movies were a fun place, and  the film itself was the least important part about it. It was so dark that when people left through emergency exits the light from outside was bright. After watching a movie and sometimes  a double feature plus cartoons, your eyes got used to the dark. But when we left through the emergency doors the daylight blinded us. A very memorable feeling of blindness and  just getting over the fear of the  Vampire in the movie we just saw.  Yes there were times when we were  12 or 13 when we would create such a ruckus during the movie that we would get  thrown out. That was always fun. Anyway , our first  meal out by ourselves without our parents was after the movie. We went across the street to Nino's. We had the best veal cutlet sandwich ever. No cheese on it. If i remember, they didnt even have it available with  mozzarella. We would  split the sandwich and get a soda. The waiter was a singing,tipsy old guy.But a very good waiter. Miller High-Life was what most of the adults seemed to be drinking. The bill came and it was  70 cents for the sandwich , with the tip and all it was about $1.50.

We felt  pretty grown up, going to the movies by ourselves and  going to a restaurant without parents. Meanwhile we were 9 yrs old.  That is  crazy.

Mr. Chow Wow

We enter Mr. Chow's, a very famous hot restaurant in New York City. They tell us they are all booked. So as we are leaving, they call us back. One of our party is mistaken for a famous rockstar, so we get a great table.The name implies, Chinese Food, but it's kind of a mix of Italian, Chinese, and  who knows what.
The Waiters are all Russian. The waiters also try to rip you off any which way they can. So if you go be careful what you order.  The first thing the waiter asks is if we want  Cristal or Dom Perignon,  we  say what year Pelligrino do you have?  Then he proceeds to take our food order. He wants to do the ordering for us, but we stop him and say  we will tell you what we want. We continue to order a bunch of stuff from pasta, to  scallops, to dumplings and fish and more. The waiter shows up with extra orders of  each, instead of 1 order of scallops there are 2, instead of 1 pasta there are 2 1/2,,, anyway, the scallops arent scallops at all. it is tofu shaped like a  scallop shell.  I say" this isnt a scallop" he says  yes, that's our scallops, see they look just like  a scallop".   Then in a while the check comes.  There is a $15 charge for green vegetables, which we never ordered and we never got. We say to the waiter" excuse me, but we never ordered greens, and we never even got the greens we didnt order and yet you charged us $15 for them."  He says, in a thick Russian accent, " Listen my friend, it is cheaper this way, if I didn't put it on the bill it would be many more dollars."  I say, "  wait a minute. You are telling me, by getting charged for the greens we didnt get  and we didnt order, we are saving money?"  The waiter  promptly, says loudly "EXACTLY!" ,,,, do I say WTF  here.  I still cant believe it..  I put up a stink, and demanded $15 dollars taken off the bill ,because this is the most bizarre thing I've ever heard.  It's a good thing we didnt get charged $300 for the Dom Perignon we didnt order or get.  Anyway ,,, the waiter  goes over to the computer to adjust our check. He is there for quite some time,,, It is apparent he is having a problem,,,,  He can't figure out how to  adjust the bill.... He comes back with 15 dollars cash and hands it to me,, It just cracks me up.