Park It Here

I packed a banana into a guitar case and headed for Manhattan, a mere 40 miles but a seeming continent away from the suburbs.

After riding the Metro-North train in from Westchester to Grand Central Station and taking the #1 subway to the Christopher Street stop, I intended to walk directly to Washington Square Park in the West Village rather than exploring any nearby avenues or streets for fear I would lose my way.

But there was a commotion halfway down Christopher Street and I headed in its direction wearing a squint in an attempt to look hard and dangerous, as though I hadn’t just come from my mother and father’s big house on top of a hill in my pleasant, comfortable town of 7,000.

A tall man was laying down three cards on top of an upside-down 5-gallon joint compound container perched on a large empty box. The cards were beat-up and the man barked “Red card’s a winner, red card’s a winner!” A fellow from the crowd correctly guessed which card was red, and I saw the tall man hand over $20, just like that. He laid down another three cards, and again, a man from the crowd guessed which one was red and collected money.

I felt sorry for the barker; he had no shirt and didn’t look as though he could afford to lose his pants, too. But he’d been beaten fair and square, and since a game was offered, I decided to play. The third time the barker shuffled and laid down cards, I spied the red one in the middle, thought quickly, and hesitated.

A low voice next to my left ear startled me. “It’s in the middle,” a battered, elderly man whispered.

That was enough to convince me, and I laid down my entire bankroll---a 20 dollar bill---to bet. In a split second, the barker turned over a black card and the money that was supposed to last me the entire weekend was gone, and in another moment the entire game was broken up, crowd dispersed and the mob around the corner faster than you can say “You’ve been suckered into a three-card-Monte game, and the men in the crowd who supposedly had won cash were shills.”

In massive shock and grief, I hugged my instrument close to my chest, staggered back to 7th avenue and stood in Sheridan Square, wondering what I was going to do now. I ate my banana and took a minute to plot, keeping an eye on the street hustlers, bums and drug dealers, who didn’t seem so glamorous anymore. I finally dragged both palms down the front of my face, recovered, pointed the guitar east and headed off to Washington Square Park.

Ellis Hooks was a tall, lean, light-skinned black guitar player with some visible Cherokee in his cheekbones, a perpetual Iguana parked on his left shoulder and, most of the time, a Stetson on his close-cropped noggin. Delivering his own made-up-on-the-spot soul and blues songs mixed with Wilson Pickett, Stones and Bee Gees, he’d gathered a crowd of about two dozen passers-by, adoring women, drug addicts, students, street people and dancing children in Washington Square Park.

I had developed an allergy to most street guitarists I’d seen in my short, chaperoned trips to Manhattan, the majority of which were guys pawing 6 strings in public because they had no hope of ever getting a gig indoors. But Hooks was a young black Elvis, gyrating, barking, moaning and screeching in tune, and he was irresistible, raw, fun and sexy. After he’d finished a song, a young girl hoisted his open case in the air and walked through the crowd while the grinning guitarist hitched his jeans and made the perpetual pitch:

“10-4, ladies and gentlemen. Cash, check, American Express, airplane tickets.” The case came back full of dollars, fives and a few tens. I figured it couldn’t be too hard to do the same myself. I knew more chords than Ellis Hooks did, I reasoned, so I claimed a spot elsewhere in the park and started my own show.

I got a few glances but no stoppers; I was green, shy and obviously milk white without a teaspoon of soul. I needed money and I wanted to play, though, so I didn’t leave the park for the next 8 hours, hammering out the hundreds of tunes I knew, delivering each one to see if each had any effect whatsoever. Most or all were ignored. I was a musical embryo in this element, and there was no way to hide that. I was also deathly afraid of people and the city and was hardly a good-time glad-hander performer, like Ellis Hooks. Ellis barked a song from his gut, his veins and his heart. I didn’t know how to do that, didn’t even know there was such a thing. We were not the same and I was not “better” than he was, I had to concede.

Ellis Hooks wasn’t the only competition in the park, either. Several times a day, a performer named Tony Vera gathered a crowd of at least 100 underneath Washington Square Park’s arch, watching him spit lighter fluid from his mouth over a torch. This made a ball of fire spew 20 feet in front of him, and he never failed to collect, by my count, at least 100 bucks a set and he did at least 4 sets a day.

As evening approached, a battered, crack-addicted comedian named Charlie Barnett gathered crowds of almost equal size in the park’s dry fountain by walking in a circle and shouting “Show time! Show time!” When the crowd was big enough, he delivered a semi-scripted but mostly improvised set of deadly funny riffs on race, drugs, sex and life. When Tony or Charlie appeared in the park, any gathering of people I pulled in would drain like water from the tub right in the middle of my act. I’d shut my case until their sets were over, after which I’d start again and try to catch the spillover.

Simultaneously, at any given time, assorted lesser acts of one, two or more delivered music, monologues or dance around the park, all competing for dollars and attention. All performers at all times were surrounded by homeless men who drank and drugged and smoked through the day and got by on the change they could scrounge, and who saw others only as a means of getting the next meal. These people took a shine to me, and occasionally repelled the few who eventually stopped to give me and my act a chance. Any invitation for the bums and loonies to find another guitarist to attach themselves to, however, was met with belligerence and a reminder of what country we were in, and that was that.

I collected about 10 dollars over that day and into early evening, mostly coins, $4.75 of which was enough to cart me back home for a shower and a week’s recovery period. My father, rather than discouraging me from street performing, was delighted, and wanted to hear all about Ellis Hooks, the petty drug dealers, the street people and the cops who looked the other way as deals went down, men fooled around with each other in the piss-soaked bathroom, weed was smoked and cheap hard liquor was guzzled. Dad even wanted to come down and check me out, but I discouraged him, wanting the space to be no one from nowhere, and his appearance would have spoiled my fantasy.

The above story will be told in three parts. The next installment is Thursday.

Josh puttzon his race-face for MS

By the time I get to Tarrytown

dear readers of captain bananas by the time u read this i will be on a bicycle maybe in the rain riding over the tappan zee bridge to benefit multiple sclerosis i will see you when i get back love to you all

Bike MS/Tappan Zee Bike Ride September 28, 2008

Feel free to leave a msg of support in the comments section thank you from captain bananas

Josh M. rates teachers

An article titled "Judgement Day" in the Sunday, 9-21 issue of New York Times magazine talks about how online "student ratings are becoming an influential factor in academic promotions."

Like anyone, I've had outstanding, good and terrible teachers. Here are my ratings and comments:

Diane Cusic, 1st grade

She of the bouffant hairdo and Jackie Kennedy whisper-voice, Mrs. Cusic was my first true love, and I would have married her if I'd been 3 feet taller. She never asked and I never explained why I couldn't speak in her presence, or why I couldn't eat in front of her. A+

Joan Weinstein, 2nd grade

Margaret Hamilton circa 1939 lookalike, soundalike, talkalike, walkalike. Made careful list over several weeks of all the things I'd done wrong in anticipation of the first parent-teacher conference of the school year.
Me, second grade

Among other transgressions, I wandered into the bathroom during a lesson, took off all my clothes sang into the mirror for 20 minutes. A conference was called, and Weinstein's list was produced.

My father looked at it and asked, "Where is the list of things he does right?" which evoked a look similar to Ralph Kramden's when asked "Who is the author of 'Swanee River?'" on "The $99,000 answer."


Mrs. Weinstein also tortured Ross Lipton, who'd been purposely, absent-mindedly dribbling spit into one of his workbooks during a lesson. She loomed over Lipton, 7 years old, and demanded he spit and spit and spit.

"I don't hafta!" Lipton cried, meaning his mouth was now dry. Mrs. Weinstein did not relent.

Damn, I still remember her witchy face. (shiver)

F-, with 5 lines under it.

Marcia Neighbors, 3rd grade

The first to encourage my writing, which resulted in "Blinkertoo The Mouse". Invited me over to her house to swim in her pool, too, and she was one of the few adults I completely trusted not to take me in the woods and kill me. Tall, regal, one of the most liked teachers in the school and one who never gave me the slightest amount of grief for anything---and she easily could have. A+

Richard Devir, 4th grade

Played a mesmerizing "Alice's Restaurant" on a nylon-string guitar. Bought pizza for students. Didn't stop Darryl Tinsley from hitting me in the mouth or do anything about it after the blow. Shoved tables into impossible, unruly students. Refused to discuss class or any of its students when contacted years later for "Confessions of an ex-seeker." C-

Lois Burke, 6th grade

One of the worst, she called me "just a bouncing ball of blubber," and "two-ton". I was 4'11, 121 pounds and by that time, almost completely silent in school, making note of how few words I could actually get away with during the course of the day. I counted 9 once, my all-time low. The 9 were:


"I don't know, I don't know, I don't know."


Burke sent me to the Principal's office for possessing a copy of Abby Hoffman's "Steal This Book", which described how to gyp the phone company, shoplift, grow marijuana and make molotov cocktails, among other things.

My father---again---came to the school for a conference.

He was asked, "Do you know your son is reading this?"

Before "reading this?" was out of the Principal's mouth, Dad replied, "He can read any goddamn thing he wants to."

(When going through my father's wallet, retrieved from a pair of his pants on the floor of his apartment after they'd taken his body away, I found his crumpled Bill of Rights. In the last year of his life, he would whip it out and recite from it when someone tried to tell him what he could and could not say. The man did fly 38 missions over Normandy, Belgium, Germany and France, after all.)
Mrs. Burke: D

Dad: A

Richard Heinhold, 8th grade

Gave me an "A" for writing a riff on Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" (after verifying that I'd written the essay myself) told from the point of view of one of the policemen. May have had writer aspirations of his own, as indicated by patches on elbows of tweed coat and moustache and beard.

Sent me to Principal's office when I punched Geoff Ryder in the chest for screaming "Jew!" after seeing me pick up a penny I'd dropped. When confronted by my father later that night after he'd been notified I'd been suspended, I told him what had happened.

"Next time hit him in the mouth," my father said.

Mr. Heinhold's nickname was "Mr. Heinie-hole".

Heinhold: B
Dad: A+

Robert Laub, 11th grade

All-time best teacher award. Gave me A-pluses for first-person, stream-of-consciousness prose, lyrics and poetry. Came to one of my public performances; I was shocked to see him drink a beer. A+

A Night At The Met

"Monday will mark the first time the Met's glittering opening-night gala will be beamed to distant fans by high-definition broadcast, and enthusiasts from New Jersey to New Mexico are digging out dinner jackets and evening gowns for the occasion," said the Associated Press. This was the 125th anniversary of the Met.

And so I took my seat next to my decked-out, gorgeous bride, and beheld on a beautiful, cool night.

The programs---"La Sopresatta", "Man-o-man" and "Cappucino"---excuse me, “La Traviata,” “Manon” and “Capriccio"---were easy to digest, and the singers---

Renee Fleming

Ramon Vargas

Thomas Hampson


---all entertained, no cracking, no messing up words. (What the hell do I know?)

The New York Times subsequently said of Ramon Vargas, the chubby, short favorite of mine, "The tenor Ramón Vargas was an impassioned Alfredo," and, regarding "Manon", "Mr. Vargas, as des Grieux, was again in ardent form." Dude, the cat sang his cojones off for 2 hours---ya think ya can spare him a few more words than a measly 18?

I'm all about Vargas, now---little dude singing at the one of the top gigs in the world.

I hadn't known if I could last the entire evening, but as one does not stack pizza slices on top of each other and eat them all at the same time, so I ingested small portions of Opera, each satisfying and understood, before moving onto the next.

And there I was, in the heart of Manhattan, under the stars, a feeling of melancholy as the weather chilled and the eventful summer of Goodyear Blimps, Lamborghinis, upstate hotels, Model T Fords and Al Hoffman recordings came to an official close.

On America, Richard Wright

"Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of neccessity."

Richard Wright, 1945

Expert texperts--not.

The author of this New York Times article about the physical dangers of texting ought to have accompanied me to Washington Mutual last week.

If my bank was going down the pipes, as WaMu is, and I was the boss, I'd circulate a memo: "Please do not text while handling clients' hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of transactions today."

The problem at my bank is that the supervisors, who have come and gone as fast as a patron of a Times Square peep show in the 80s, aren't any further along etiquette-wise.

If you ask a question and they don't hear you, for example, the response is "What happened?"

If I make a withdrawal larger than what I would consider average, they ask what I'm going to do with the money. And, of course, eyebrow, lip, nose piercings are left in because you want to know people who work there are wasssuuuuuup? Waz at da club las' night yo.

Hell in a handbasket? Nah. A free and open society, where trends start and are or are not absorbed by the mainstream, after which they are perceived as normal, and people like me who pick on others who say "Awesome!" every two or three words are seen as odd.

Besides, my teller with the pierces and text messages is a car lover who knows what I do, and we talk while I judge him. He'll find his real vocation one day. I actually avoid that WaMu, which is 3 blocks away, because it is dirty, slow and the tellers text and frequently appear to be hung over. If possible, I go up to Riverdale where the pros are.

I also leave my neighborhood to go to the Post Office, supermarket, stationary store, to eat at restaurants and have dry cleaning done for all the above reasons.