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.
