For the ones who had a notion A notion deep inside That it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive I wanna find one face that ain’t looking through me I wanna find one place I wanna spit in the face of these badlands
One constant throughout all my trips to Jersey has been frequent visits to that great American institution, the humble diner. To most Americans, diners are ubiquitous. They are little regarded everyday elements in a complex landscape. To us foreigners, however, Hollywood and TV have afforded the diner a certain exotic mystique and even a window into the American psyche.
Upon screens, both large and small, countless dramas have played out in the booths and at the counters of a bewildering variety of diners. From the New Mexico Badlands to the mean streets of Chicago, New York or LA, the diner has been the backdrop for murders, break ups, and deals gone wrong on shows as varied as Twin Peaks, the Sopranos, Fargo, and House of cards.
For this – perhaps dubious – reason, a visit to an authentic American diner was high on my list of things to experience in New Jersey right from day one. I think Jersey girl was a little perplexed by my enthusiasm, but since she had a favourite place in Clinton Township, the Station diner, where she often took the kids for a treat, there was no problem working out where to take me first.
And so, just a few days after my arrival in New Jersey, I had my first authentic American diner experience. This is one of those larger restaurants with several sections (one being a repurposed train car from which the diner presumably takes its name). It is also the home of the “Mt. Olympus”, a 50 LB Burger worth $178 that, if you and 4 friends can finish entirely in 3 hours or less, will net you $1000 courtesy of the owners.
For that first visit it was just Jersey girl and I and we had a fine lunch of impressive (though not Olympian) proportions. The food was wonderful, I had a (regular) burger and she her favourite wrap, however, the coffee was really, really awful. In fact, it was this coffee experience that launched my quest to find a decent cup of Joe in New Jersey. Ironically, after hunting high and low, I eventually found it in the very town where my quest began (at the Riverside café in Clinton).
In the years since, I have discovered several other places which also do good coffee (none of them diners unfortunately*) and my caffeine anxiety has been mostly assuaged.
Clinton has three fine diners which I have now made the acquaintance of. The Station remains the favourite with the kids, but my tastes lean towards the Towne Restaurant situated on Main Street; more of a classic diner vibe.
Where ever we go, I’m always on the lookout for the perfect diner experience. I’m not convinced I’ve found it yet. I’m actually in no hurry to either; I’m very much enjoying the hunt.
This unfortunate relic of better days near Whitehouse station is not far at all from Jersey girl’s house.
*It seems to be an inviolable rule that all diner coffee must be truck stop quality or less.
I do not know who the image used in this post belongs to. If you have any information regarding ownership, please let me know so that I can credit appropriately.
I can’t sleep so I lay awake listenin’ to the sounds of the city below I get dressed and walk the streets but I got nowhere to go Tonight it’s you I miss Tonight my only wish is Oh-oh, tonight
Someday we’ll be together And the night will fall around us This love will last forever Someday you’ll be mine
For me, life has always been a quest. I’ve been a seeker for the entire of my existence. And the thing I’ve been searching for is not hard to divine given the nature of this blog.
As a teen, while my friends talked endlessly about “getting laid”, I fantasized about finding that one soul, that woman who would look at me and truly see.
See what, you ask?
See me, the raw and naked I; flawed, damaged perhaps, but vital, and willing to pour all of myself into the vessel of the heart. At that time, and for many, many years after, it was a vain hope. I was not yet enough myself to be properly perceived by another; still caught as I was in the trap of seeking validation from others.
I did not love myself or like anything about who I was. How then could I ever have expected another to find in me a worthy object of their devotion?
We don’t recognize how incomplete we are until our souls begin to ‘fill out’. As life lends us experience and challenges to overcome, we begin to appreciate our own qualities and inner resources. Only at that point do we begin to become who we truly are.
That is when love; true, real, burning love, finds us. At least, that is when love found me.
After decades of uncertainty and self-doubt, I had finally reached an acceptance of myself and who I had become. I had acknowledged that after the second long-term relationship of my life had ended (rightly), I might just spend the rest of my life alone.
This prospect no longer frightened me. I was comfortable in my skin and happy in my own company. If that was to be it for me, if all the romantic relationships of my life were now behind me, then I was willing and able to live with that.
In truth, none of the relationships I had experienced had ever lived up to my internal expectations anyway. Perhaps it was better to live in solitude than in a state of constant disappointment.
Of course, that’s when she came.
She was a laser, blasting into my eyes all the way through to the back of my skull. She invaded my core and laid waste to all considerations of solitude or a quiet life. She found the kindling I had tucked away in my heart and set blaze to it.
In that instant, my quest, long delayed, found its goal. I had reached my golden El Dorado.
And I discovered that the quest itself is not purpose, but it can lead you to your life’s purpose. It can lead you home.
His words of truthful vengeance They could pin us to the floor Brought a few more people on And put the fear in a whole lot more
David Bowie, Song for Dylan
Still not convinced about the similarities (sonic and thematic) between Bowie and Springsteen? Take a little journey with me through the songs below and see if I can change your perspective a little.
Sonically
Thematically
Then I got Mary pregnant And man that was all she wrote And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat We went down to the courthouse And the judge put it all to rest No wedding day smiles no walk down the aisle No flowers no wedding dress
That night we went down to the river
They pulled in just behind the bridge He lays her down, he frowns “Gee my life’s a funny thing, am I still too young?” He kissed her then and there She took his ring, took his babies It took him minutes, took her nowhere Heaven knows, she’d have taken anything, but All night She wants the young American
With my blackjack and jacket and hair slicked sweet
Silver star studs on my duds like a Harley in heat
When I strut down the street I could hear its heartbeat
The sisters fell back and said “Don’t that man look pretty”
The cripple on the corner cried out “Nickels for your pity”
Them gasoline boys downtown sure talk gritty
It’s so hard to be a saint in the city
So I lay down a while
And I gaze at my hotel wall
Oh the cot is so cold
It don’t feel like no bed at all
Yeah I lay down a while
And I look at my hotel wall
But he’s down on the street
So I throw both his bags down the hall
And I’m phoning a cab
‘Cause my stomach feels small
There’s a taste in my mouth
And it’s no taste at all
Shared influences
OK, I think I’ve provided enough for you to chew on. To me it seems pretty clear that despite the obvious cosmetic differences, these two were brothers from different mothers. They should probably have ended up much better friends than they did.
Now pray for yourself that you may not fall When the hour of deliverance comes on us all When our hope and faith and courage and trust Can rise or vanish like dust into dust There’s a kingdom of love waiting to be reclaimed I am the hunter of invisible game
If you have already read part one, you will not be surprised to read here it was with considerable relief that I put my back to the WTC. My encounter with the 9/11 monument had been strange and disquieting. Fear porn was the phrase that kept coming into my head the whole time I was there.
Reading back over it, I realise that I didn’t even mention the ‘Freedom’ tower at all in the first part. I’m not sure why I omitted it, except that I really dislike the design and the way it imposes itself upon the skyline. It’s what I like to call totalitarian architecture, maybe you’ll get what I mean by that; maybe you won’t.
I did photograph it (actually it was while I was doing so that my camera died on me for the second time), but it’s a strange building to capture from up close. It reflects the sky in such a way as to lose definition and when you are shooting up from ground level, it looks more like a pyramid than a tower. Generally speaking, I found it pretty ugly and mast-like. To each his own I guess.
Hitting Broadway as predicted, I headed uptown. Due to the still oppressive heat, I was intending to stick to that Avenue all the way, but I spotted what appeared to be a stylistically unusual public building a block over and detoured to check it out.
The building, I later learned, was the Manhattan Municipal Building, a truly unique, almost quirky piece of neoclassic indulgence. Sadly I only had my phone by this point, but I took what pictures I could and tried not to dwell on the poor resolution.
United States District Court.
Rather than backtrack, I kept walking up Lafayette for a block or so past the Supreme and District Court buildings. I don’t know what was going down in Manhattan that day (apart from a sudden plunge in the markets that had the money monkeys on Wall Street pissing in their pants), but there were at least thirty armoured Homeland Security SUVs lined up across the street from the court buildings. I would have taken a picture but didn’t fancy getting my phone confiscated.
I turned back towards Broadway at the next convenient intersection. I’d have stayed on Lafayette if I’d known then that Bowie’s penthouse was along there. I would have loved to check out the building where he lived, but I wasn’t privy to that fact at the time. And yes, I am indeed a big enough Bowie fan to want to walk by his building, as I believe I covered here.
The message on the wall.
Back again on my chosen route, the heat was now seriously messing with me. I should have stopped walking and taken the subway, but I can be a stubborn SOB sometimes and I wanted to stay above ground. You don’t come to New York to look at tunnels.
At some point, I realised that I was moving into the realms of heat exhaustion. It was at that point I came upon a group of black youths handing out free Coke Zero cans to passers-by. Normally I would never touch soda, especially of the diet variety, but I gratefully accepted a proffered can and downed it immediately. OK, I told myself. You need to get re-hydrated – now.
At that moment, a man on a bicycle rolled up and the youths tossed an entire carton of sodas into the basket on the front of his bike. In the broadest Aussie accent imaginable he exclaimed “jeez thanks, guys! This city is just awesome!” I kept walking choosing not to identify myself to my overly enthusiastic fellow countryman.
He was actually the second Australian I’d knowingly encountered that day. Earlier I’d been walking past some swanky-ish hotel when a fairly beautiful woman in her twenties had come barreling out the doors and bumped right into me.
“Oh, sorry darl’” was all she said, but the accent was pure Melbourne. Actually, I didn’t need the accent to tell me she wasn’t a native New Yorker, the fact that she acknowledged my presence at all, told me that.
From then on, at any street vendor I came upon, I bought bottled water and just kept drinking. And though it never got comfortable – my face was nearly purple from overheating – I started to feel a little steadier on my feet.
Recounting all this, I realise what an idiot I sound like. I literally hadn’t prepped for the heat at all and when it dawned on me how affected I was, did virtually nothing to safeguard myself. At the time, I just figured typical male pigheadedness would carry me through and, ultimately it did, but I’d taken a dumb risk. There’s a reason the phrase stupid tourists is a well-worn one in almost every tongue. I’d like to say I’ve learned a valuable lesson, but…
Union Square seemed like a good place to grab a little shade and reflect. I found an empty bench and sat down to watch the passers-by for a bit. There was a generally relaxed mood in the park – that is until a very odd little group came stalking in. I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything quite like them.
They were two men, a woman, and a large dog. All were wearing heavy combat jackets, pants, and boots; completely incongruous in the intense heat. All had hairstyles of the shaved and dreadlocked variety. And all were carrying big backpacks from which protruded coils of twine, crumpled newspapers, and other street jetsam. Even the dog, an intimidating beast, was wearing a vest festooned with stuffed pouches.
They were obviously street people, but they had taken urban homelessness to a new level. They looked like post-apocalyptic warriors and it occurred to me that, for them and millions of others, the apocalypse has already arrived. They’re living ahead of the curve in the world we all secretly fear is coming. Their collapse is simple history for them and now they survive, living off the bones and detritus of that collapse.
They could probably teach you & I some invaluable survival skills, but it might cost us our wallets.
The mood in the park chilled considerably upon their arrival, and people began to get up and leave. Reading the wind, I decided to do the same. New York is an expensive place to get yourself stabbed. It’s possible I may have misjudged those grim looking folk, but when you’re on unfamiliar turf it’s usually a good idea to err on the side of caution.
We all come up a little short and we go down hard These days I spend my time skipping through the dark Through the empires of dust, I chant your name I am the hunter of invisible game
I felt much better for my short rest and was pretty certain I hadn’t actually developed sunstroke. I did, however, realise that I had neglected to eat anything all day and so, once I was back on 7th, I searched out a pizza joint and had a tasty NY slice. I’m a man of simple tastes in many ways.
Soon I was back at Penn Station, boarding my return train to Jersey and my girl.
The trip home was uneventful enough except that, apparently, the further you travel from the city, the shorter the station platforms get. After a certain point, the conductor starts making announcements that people who need to alight have to move to a car that actually has doors on the platform. I ended up traversing half the train to get to my door. That may be common in Jersey, but I’ve never encountered it in Australia.
Well I awoke last night to the heavy clickin’ and clack And a scarecrow on fire ‘long the railroad tracks There were empty cities and burnin’ plains I am the hunter of invisible game
All in all, it was quite a day. I was wrung out emotionally and exhausted by the twelve kilometers (roughly seven and a half miles) I’d walked in crazy heat. I’d been, by turns, thrilled, amazed, and horrified; not bad for one day.
The sky was falling and streaked with blood I heard you calling me then you disappeared into the dust Up the stairs, into the fire Up the stairs, into the fire I need your kiss, but love and duty called you someplace higher Somewhere up the stairs into the fire
I had been more than eager to return to New York ever since that first visit. The city holds a strange magnetic attraction for me and I was hungry to experience more of her charms. Somehow I never got there in either winter or fall; two times of the year that would have, I suspect, really brought out the beauty and drama of that great metropolis.
Determined not to miss out again, I chose a day when Jersey girl was working and took NJ Transit into Penn station. I arrived at about 10.30 am and surfaced on the exact spot on 7th Avenue that had afforded me my first sight of the city nearly two years earlier.
It was all as I remembered it, the electric bustle, the constantly moving crowd like some amorphous beast, the looming towers; all precisely as remembered. I’d brought my camera, only to discover as I was about to board my train that the goddam battery had completely died. So the first order of business was to find a camera store and purchase a new one.
I found a store uptown a bit on the Avenue of the Americas where the staff were pretty helpful and (ninety bucks lighter) was soon back on track. My plan was to walk to the site of the 9/11 monument taking in as much of downtown as possible. There were certain spots I wanted to hit, the first being the amazing Flatiron Building. The route I chose took me over to 5th. I took some more pics of my favourite building, the Empire State, and then headed south.
The Flatiron Building did not disappoint. What an amazing feat of creative innovation. I loved everything about it.
I followed 5th until it terminated at Washington Square Park, it was a very warm day and children were availing themselves of the fountain for a bit of fun and relief from the climbing heat. I captured the image below and, when I looked at it later, was reminded so much of 1950s street photography I’d seen that I decided to monochrome it. I’m extremely happy with the result.
After biding for a short while in the park (reputedly a favourite hangout of David Bowie) I cut through the NYU campus and the backstreets of SOHO (South of Houston).
It was there I snagged this little vignette of street life.
Again, I was very pleased with the way it came out. I would have been snapping away like a madman, but for the fact that new camera batteries are sold half charged and I knew I only had a finite number of shots before my camera died again. After that, I would only have the crappy 4 mega-pixel camera in my phone.
I’d now reached the extremely hipsterish Tribeca district (Triangle Below Canal Street) which is a pretty interesting little slice of the big apple. It was here I captured my next iconic NY image (from an amateur photographer’s perspective that is).
I love New York very much; it’s a shutterbug’s wet dream. There’s just so much to point your lens at. I’d now walked about 6 km and the temperature had risen to 87º. I could feel I was a little dehydrated, but I was so close to the WTC that I decided to keep going and find something to drink at the site. That was probably a mistake.
By the time I arrived at the old US Post Office building, I was feeling pretty woozy. There were vans selling food and drinks on the side of the road and so I bought a bottle of water and just about downed it in one.
In retrospect, I probably should have realised when it barely made a dent that I was seriously dehydrated. Not recognising that fact is probably one of the signs that you are moving into the red. I got to the monument and began taking it all in.
I’d expected to be moved or even overwhelmed on an emotional level, but to be honest, the whole place felt a bit like a circus. There were a lot of people in ‘patriotic’ garb talking in loud voices and acting kind of like assholes.
To make matters worse, there were guides regaling people (some of whom were sobbing in tears) with the horror stories of individual victims. It was gruesome and ghoulish and seemed designed to keep the visitors’ outrage and disgust at the events of over a decade past very much front and center.
I tried to think about those unfortunate victims in the towers, the office workers, police officers, and brave firemen running up the stairs to their doom, but found myself instead thinking of the million or so in far-flung lands who have died since, due to some extremely vague perceived connection to events that occurred on the spot where I was now standing.
The design of the actual monument really didn’t help either. If you’ve never been you won’t know what I’m talking about, but the whole thing had an almost occult feel. Picture two deep pits that exactly match the footprints of the twin towers. The bottom of each pit is a pool of water fed by cascades that come down all four walls. This is all fine, but at the center of each pool is another square pit into which all the water is pouring. And those pits are black as pitch.
It looks, not to put too fine a point on it, like two black voids sucking all the energy around them down into oblivion. It gave me the creeps and along with my dehydration, was making me want to throw up. I controlled the urge, but I knew I needed to get away from this place and quickly.
I started heading in what I guessed to be the direction of Broadway, figuring I could follow that street back to familiar territory. Along the way, I came upon a small oasis amid the concrete and heat; St Paul’s chapel. This is Manhattan’s oldest surviving church and dates back to when the colonies were still British.
On that terrible day in 2001, the grounds were inundated with dust and debris from the collapse of the towers, but the chapel itself was entirely undamaged and became a center for relief efforts. Now, the tiny grounds have been completely restored and a modest monument to the lost rescue workers – a bell, appropriately enough – has been set under the shade of the churchyard’s sheltering trees.
I entered the cool of the grounds and sat on an old wooden bench where many of the rescue workers must have taken their repose in the weeks following the attacks. It was there that I began to feel the weight of those events. There, away from the swarming crowds, I felt the emotions of that enormous and world changing event. I feel it now – half a planet away – as I think back on it to write these words.
You gave your love to see in fields of red and autumn brown You gave your love to me and lay your young body down Up the stairs, into the fire Up the stairs, into the fire I need you near but love and duty called you someplace higher Somewhere up the stairs into the fire
If I hadn’t stumbled upon that chapel and taken advantage of the cool shade and the silence, I may never have reached that moment of understanding, my epiphany. I am so grateful to have been given that.
The whole world has carried the scar of that day deep inside for so many years. It has been one of the most difficult events to make sense of and therefore to fully feel and process. As I sat there, I did feel, I felt grief and loss for people I’d never met. I felt their terror, confusion and, also, their incredible courage.
Ordinary people did extraordinary things that day. Ordinary New Yorkers and New Jerseyans ran up the stairs while others were running down. Brave souls went into the fire and never came out. I understand now what that sacrifice meant.
We collectively have done a lot of terrible things in the name of that day. In the months and years that followed, so many more were sacrificed on the altar of hate; too many.
But on that day, the sacrifice that was made was an act of love.
May your strength give us strength May your faith give us faith May your hope give us hope May your love give us love.
You say, my baby, all this time in between drives me crazy I want a life on fire, going mad with desire I don’t wanna survive, I want a wonderful life (All my sins were born in a kiss on a night like this calling all lonely hearts) I want a wonderful life
Now that we’re back to communicating via screens, I miss those days last summer, so much. I miss the sights and sounds of Jersey. I miss playing with those goofball dogs. I miss the kids explaining the plots of their crazy cartoons to me. Most of all, I miss her.
I have her in front of me every single day, I can look into her eyes, read her every mood, watch the things I say play out in subtle reactions across her face, but I can’t touch that face. When she smiles, I just want to kiss those lips. When she is sad, I want to brush her cheek. When she laughs in that throaty chuckle she has, all I want to do is squeeze her so tightly.
Currently, I can do none of those.
Here’s the thing, though, the physical screen through which we must now view one another is far less isolating than the mental partition that existed between me and every other woman I’ve known. I could touch all of them whenever I wished, but I could never get close enough to any. And none ever really got near me.
This woman has been the one exception in my life. Something in her and something in me acted like a key and a lock from the first moment. Were I asked to define it, I would struggle to do so, but if pushed I would say, there are hidden frequencies to this life; a near infinite number probably.
We all vibrate in accordance with the frequency that is the essential us. I’m not speaking here of our subatomic vibration, I’m talking about the vibration of our consciousness’, of our souls.
Mostly, the people we encounter operate on frequencies that are too differently tuned from our own. We may find them pleasant, fun, even compatible where certain ‘note’ clusters resonate or perhaps harmonize with our own, but over the longer span, their frequency will inevitably diverge from our own until we are hopelessly out of tune with them and they with us.
Occasionally, however, we meet someone whose frequency so mirrors our own that it almost creates a sub audible hum, like a beacon. This literally seems to happen at that unconscious level of pure vibration. In such instances, the two frequencies become one and something fundamental unlocks in both parties.
I think I just might be describing the music of life. It may all be happening at a pitch even a dog couldn’t hear, but it is the most beautiful music I’ve ever known, because you let it in, not through the ears, but through your heart.
Image used in this post is mine. Meme author unknown.
Yesterday I went shopping buddy down to the mall Looking for something pretty I could hang on my wall I knocked over a lamp before it hit the floor I caught it A salesman turned around said, “boy, you break that thing you bought it”
Sir Edward Burne-Jones, “Saint Cecilia”, 190o. Stained & painted glass panelFrank Lloyd Wright, “Tree of life window” 1904. Stained glass panel.
And now on to the classics and antiquities (sorry, I don’t have descriptions for all the pieces).
Guernico, Saint Sebastian, circa 1632-1634Follower of Hieronymus Bosch, “Christ before Pontius Pilate”, Ca. 1520 (detail)
Capital from the Church of Sainte Madeleine, Vezelay, 1140sMedieval and Byzantine antiquities hall.
This relief is Assyrian which has to make it the oldest artifact on display.Roman and EtruscanI loved this little centaur. Greek, possibly Athenian. Ca.530BC.
Eventually, we had to leave. None of us were keen to go, but I knew we’d be back at the first possible opportunity. As we walked back through the campus grounds the clouds were closing in and the paths were empty.
In the car, it was Pony Face that sang us home.
All pieces are from the collection of the Princeton Museum of Art. All photos are mine.
Runaway American Dream 