What's Happened to The Checkers

Here’s One I Prepared Earlier.

 

 

So, I have to apologise, for my lack of blogs in this space for a while now. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the lockdown. It has more to do with the last few pieces I have written for this space have ended up elsewhere. Mark Twain with a Martin G28 and I Can’t Dance both went to Hot Press Magazine. Writing a Crime Novel is Like Jumping off a Diving Board appeared on the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine website and, The Genesis of the Abbey Road Graffiti appeared on the Irish Times website.

I promised myself that the next one would be for my own website. But then I discovered this piece I wrote in November 1997 BB. (BB as in Before Blogs.)

It concerns a visit I made, while I was clearly under the weather, to NYC. I’d been mugged in NYC (which I wrote about in Mugged in Manhattan Blues - a 2015 blog) but I was clearly also distracted on this visit.

Until the next one - which will be appearing very shortly, I promise, to celebrate the release of a new FRUUPP compilation CD by those very nice people at Esoteric Records - please stay safe. Anyway, here it is, exactly as it was written in November 1997.

Cheers

pc

 

 

What's happened to the Checkers?

 

 

 

I've been wandering around the streets of New York City this time, trying to figure out what's wrong. Yes, I am feeling a bit ill and, agreed, I'm missing a new love, back in London.  But I don't mean wrong in that way. I mean, what's wrong with New York City?  The smell is different. The street scents no longer gouging recklessly at the insides of your nostrils, while making your heart beat faster as you search in vain for that rare fresh air.  NYC now smells like a European city; no good, or bad, thing I think.

 

The street attitude is definitely still there, but no longer as threatening.  I was mugged in Times Square a few years ago on what was 'til then, one of my frequent visits to the city and, to be honest, I'd never felt ill at ease until that time.  Maybe it was because the musicians I was hanging out with were nice people and this was their city and they went out of their way to make me feel welcome.

 

Broadway's many cinemas seem to have been razed to the ground to make space for the likes of the Virgin Megastore and the Waldorf Hotel.  On the other end of the scale and the opposite side of Times Square, I see that Paul Simon, a very fine songwriter of the parish, has a musical, 'Capeman', opening very soon and I find myself making a mental note to try and blag a pre-release cassette of the music from a friend at the once elegant Warner Bros. This will have to wait a few days, until I visit the other side of this ginormous (an Ulster word combining the largeness of gigantic and the power of enormous) country in the City of Angels, a location now more favoured in my itinerary.

 

But back to New York City and what's wrong with it.  Even my trips to Coliseum Books and Colony Records were a let-down this time. At this point I should admit to you, normally, on reaching my hotel in Manhattan one can hear two thuds. One; my case hitting the floor and two; the door closing after me as I rush out of the hotel, high on adrenalin, to visit the aforementioned shops of words and music. And again, usually having a mental fight as to which one I'm going to visit first. This time it took me nearly forty-eight hours before heading in their direction, and in the end, although with good intentions, I didn't even manage to make one of them at all.

 

True, Coliseum Books had several titles I wanted to purchase but I decide my trip will be easier, luggage-wise, if I don't flex the plastic until I reach Hollywood, the movie capital of the world. My eye was caught by a few titles including another tasteless JFK expose, a true-crime book called Big Trouble - a Very big book at that, with 875 pages, and, the new Michael Connelly, Trunk Music, which I’m really looking forward to. In fact, my solitary purchase in Coliseum Books was an audio version of 'Wobegon Boy'. Audio Books in reality are not great for in-flight distraction, although I mostly purchase them thinking they are going to be exactly that and end up listening to them while walking about Regent's Park and Primrose Hill.

 

What else was there? You know, I can't recall now, but I do remember that there were at least half a dozen I resolved to purchase in Book Soup on Sunset Blvd and have my friend ship them back to me in London. I did, however, notice a couple of 'Conversations with God' (Vols 1 &  2). The author, and father of nine children (you'd think he would have at least created his very own set of apostles by going for the full dozen) Neale Donald Walsh does look like a chap who would have a conversation (several in fact) with God - good luck to him, is all I'd like to say. I searched for a new Robert James Waller (sadly there was no new volumes to be found) I do like his conversational style of writing.  I searched for 'I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass' and didn't find a copy, so I comforted myself with two thoughts. One, they were probably sold out and two, I now didn't have to embarrass myself in public by moving it to the front of the shelf!

 

Apart from that, the staff didn't seem as friendly as they appeared twenty years ago, but then the world is not as friendly a place as it was twenty years ago, so what are you going to do about it? Mope? In which case, I really do need to get out of the house a bit more. But you know, really, I think bookstores are places like doctors' surgeries; lawyers' offices; accountants' paying desks; dentists' waiting rooms; restaurants; hotels and undertakers' parlours where you need to be able to talk to the staff. Not the owners, just the staff.  The owners treat you like you're part of the whole wide world and not actually an individual.  No, you need to be able to be involved in more of an interface than the one which came over the Public Address system when I was in the shop.

 

'Would Mr. Johansson ... who is from Sweden,' then a pause for you to fill in your own snigger. 'Please come to the cash desk, where his wife,' another well placed pause for some more sniggering, 'is waiting for him! Thankyou!'

 

Was his wife Swedish? Had she forgotten what her husband looked like? Couldn't she go looking for him? Was she afraid she might find him in the dirty books section? Or worse still in the Jeffrey Archer section?

 

The final words I heard on placing my prized audio, 'Wobegon Boy' on the sales counter was, '29.95 plus tax.' Then, with the aid of a calculator, 'That will be thirty two dollars and forty two cents.' And that was it, well unless you count the additional words on the receipt as communication.

 

'Absolutely No Cash Refunds!!!!' (their exclamation marks not mine) 'Store credit with Sales receipt within one (1) month of purchase.'  And, 'I agree to pay the above total amount according to the card issuer agreement.' Yeah, and if I don't they'll give me back my money, but they can't can they? 'Absolutely No Cash Refunds!!!!' That was it, apart from, just in case you're interested, the fact that my sales assistant was in fact Clerk No. 1 and finally (I promise) 'Pub Overstock (Yellow Label) 10% Off. Thankyou!!!' (I think they were also probably suffering from a computer overstock of exclamation marks!)  'Please come again.'

 

Well after doing exactly that for just over half a lifetime, I'm hardly going to stop, am I? Assuming, that is of course, I come back to NYC at all.  Such thoughts of non-return fill my head as I take off in the general direction of Colony Records. Colony records is the very shop where I collected my original US Beatle vinyl, (very different from the UK releases) some of my Dylan non-catalogue releases and my mint Gilbert O'Sullivan 'Himself'', a genuine classic and the very heavy vinyl made me feel that the extortionate price I paid may have been justified after all. This list would, and surely does, run.  But it won't be added to on this trip. I'm not in the mood. I give it (the shop) a wide berth and I continue to wander around, filling up the time until my next meeting.

 

I decide to make my way up to Fifty-Eight Street and Avenue of the Americas. What a grand name for a street... Avenue of the Americas. Why couldn't O'Connell Street in Dublin be called, 'Eire Avenue'?' or Oxford Street in London be called 'The Street of England'. Mind you, there is a quaint street which borders Primrose Hill with Belsize Park Avenue called, 'England's Lane'. Lovely. Anyway, back to New York City, as I was saying I made my way up to 58th Street in search to a chemist.

 

I was not looking forward to my flight over America, a cold-cum-flu bug I'd had before leaving London had left me pretty blocked up. Landing at JFK had been anything but pleasant. So unpleasant I would have swapped five visits to the dentists to avoid it... let me tell you about dentists some time, soon, perhaps. I don't feel we know each other well enough yet) I literally thought my head was going to blow open. I sucked a sweet. When that didn't work, I sucked my thumb. When that didn't work, I yawned. When that didn't work I sucked another sweet.  On and on it went for an excruciating twenty seven and one half minutes; I think I counted every second of it. So to say I was not looking forward to my flight to Los Angeles is in fact something of an understatement.

 

I rang my friend in Los Angeles. He’s a very excellent manager of one of my clients to boot. I told him my problem. He thought about it and then recommended this herbal (plus) tea called something like 'Clear Head'.

 

'The only problem with it,' he explained via our inter-continental call, 'is it will make you a bit argy, a bit hyper, but it will definitely clear your head.'

 

I had a problem with that. Basically, I don't like taking medication of any kind because I don't trust what the meds are doing to the rest of your system to make one part of it feel better.  I know it doesn't make a lot of logical sense, but there you have it. I've been like that all my life and I'm less inclined, if anything, to change now.

 

'Okay, I hear you. There's this other thing I've just tried,' he continued. You see, there, in that one sentence you have the reason why I like the man so much. He is always the first person on the block to know about new things.  He turned me on to the Walkman, to Gameboy, to Rumpole and to fruit crate labels. I mean, the list really does go on and on but anyone of the above would have been more than enough for me.

 

'Yeah, there's this new thing they developed for astronauts that's just come on the market and they're called "Ear Planes".'

 

One thing you learn to do when you are desperate is not to laugh at your friends, besides in the fifteen years or so I'd known him he'd never let me down.

 

'Aha.' I tried to sound enthusiastic but it's hard you know, I mean "Ear Planes". Please? Come on.

 

'Yeah, they're like plastic things your put in your ears, just before taking off and they protect you from the change in pressure. Not all chemists have them.'

 

Now there's a surprise. This thought I kept to myself though as we discussed where I could get them. Basically with the help of the hotel concierge, one hour later, I enter Windsor Chemists and was heartened to find they have friendly, helpful staff. The assistant advises me that they do have "Ear Planes" and they do work. He'd used them three times (successfully) himself.  As I wait for him to fetch me three packets (hey, if they work that well they'll make great Christmas presents). A French man came up to address the other assistant who was equally friendly.

 

The French man explained he had a bad cold and with the sound of his voice and all his coughing and spluttering, I'm inclined to take his word for it and divert my gaze in the opposite direction.  That's a funny thing you know, well it's not funny really, more like strange, you know, how come people who work in chemists don't get every disease under the sun? They have to stand close to all these bug-infected people to discover the ailment and then, hopefully, find and sell them a cure. I wonder what sick leave is like for employees of chemists. So, the second assistant goes into this pitch on Mycinetes (sugar free lozenges). I mean I was prepared to believe they could do everything short of curing cancer. Hey, you know that's probably how chemists’ assistants stay healthy: they all take Mycinetes.  Good enough for chemist assistants, good enough for me! So, when my chap returns, I order a pack and a tube of Nivea Cream.

 

I didn't need Nivea Cream you have to understand but I happen to believe it is the wonder drug of our times.  I'm convinced if I could find a way of applying it to the inside of my (very sore) throat it would heal my ailment over-night, if not sooner.  So, a happier man, a much happier man, I depart the Chemist and continue my search to find out what's happened to New York City.

 

On the corner of the next block, I discover exactly what it is. In fact, I am very nearly run over by what it is not. I'd better explain, hadn't I? I was very nearly run over by a taxi, a New York taxi, but not the New York Taxi.  No, since my last visit, the famous Checker has been replaced by new Fords, Ford Crown Victorias to be exact. Still yellow, like the Checkers, and even though not one of them is yet a year old, they all have several dents about their frontage.

 

You can imagine the drivers in the car showrooms buying their new cabs, can't you? You can further imagine the John Cleese's Fawlty Towers' salesman wringing his hand in glee as he offers, "Wonderful vehicle, complete with the signature egg crate grill, powerful and efficient Continental Engine and don't forget the vital double rear, fold-down, jump seats. I can guarantee multiple bangs for your bucks with this particular model, Sir." "Yes, they're all lovely, but do you have one with a dent?" the buyer would ask. To which Basil Fawlty would manically reply, "No Sir, but just give me a minute while a fetch a hammer and I can add two dents for the price of one for you. Yes, here we go. And where exactly would you like the dents? How about here, Sir?" Smash, wallop. "Yes, that's it, that'll do great. I'll take that one please." the happy cabbie would grunt as he signed on the dotted line.

The Checker Marathon, to give it its full title, was manufactured from 1960 through to 1982. It was truly a head turning motor vehicle, but not head-turning in an Exorcist kind of way. No, not at all, but, alas, it will turn heads no more.  

 

The Checkers are all gone! 

Apparently, a few do remain venturing out only at night, but New York's second (to the Empire State Building) tourist attraction is gone and I'm absolutely gutted.  New York without the Checkers is like London without the black cabs; Dublin without a friendly greeting; Liverpool without the Beatles; Edinburgh without the castle; or, Morse without the Jaguar. A client and friend of mine, Loudon Wainwright III owned one, a Checker that is, and I suppose I'd become quite attached to the iconic vehicle. 

 

I also remember this one great Thanksgiving where The Roches borrowed Loudon's Checker to drive a bunch of us up to their parent’s house in Rochester for dinner. Everyone in the Checker, with the obvious exception of myself, was female and it was the first time I had experienced girls enjoying just a great, old, day out.  I couldn't work out if it was a sign of the times or merely the influence of the good old Checker. But now the Checker, Loudon's and New York's, were gone and it just wasn't, nor would ever would be the same.

 

I left New York City the following evening, happy and sad.  Happy because the "Ear Planes" worked perfectly and I could now tick a few friends off my Christmas present list. Sad because the yellow wonders were all gone. I wondered if they were gone for good, (that's a hell of a lot of cars to get rid of) or would public opinion force them back on to the street. The Louise Woodward case showed us just how powerful people-power has become. Will Checkers make a comeback in a few years’ time, appearing on the Letterman Show or on a U2 stage set? I don't know.  But I do know that their disappearance is one in a growing number of reasons why not to hurry back to New York City, Ear Planes or no Ear Planes.