Off train at Penn Station 1 p.m., up escalator onto 7th Avenue, madhouse on sidewalk, coupons for free ink cartridges, brochure for doubledeck bus tour, big-screen billboard for Madison Square Garden, FREE LIGHTER WITH PACK OF CIGARETTES, left on 7th, you work and work in this town and one day you wonder who you are, don’t walk backs up the tide on the sidewalk, walk washes people over the street, sketches of Stallone and Will Smith five dollars, hot dogs and pretzels, kebabs and knishes, 42nd Street and no Billy Joel but Peruvian pipers like the ones in Harvard Square only louder, Hard Rock Café, giant M&Ms, TKTS booth, Naked Cowboy (not really – white briefs) supposedly busking for dollars, mainly posing for pictures, WEST SIDE STORY, right on 51st, steak salad 19 bucks, second Coke free, people don’t want to talk to travel agents anymore – they just want cheap, right on 6th Avenue, officially Avenue of the Americas but nobody calls it that, Rockefeller Center, scent of scorched hot-dog water, sorry sorry, excuse sir, is this the 30 Rock?, Radio City Music Hall Neil Patrick Harris Hosts Tony Awards June 7, cabs honking, guy strolling down sidewalk with full set of golf clubs, renegade pigeon flying at eye level, sax man on corner playing “La Isla Bonita,” JON & KATE MARRIAGE DRAMA, black limo tinted windows slick as the Batmobile, right on 33rd, doorman like an extra from Buckingham Palace two doors down from PEEP SHOW, say man can you spare 50 cents, back to Penn Station, Ink Cartridge Guy still there, down the escalator, onto the train, pulls out 6 p.m., skyline in the window, wow.
Dawgs on top
It was pure luck that I happened to be in Athens, Georgia, on Nov. 8, 1980. I was on the