SMASHED ROCKETTES AND GRAVY - PART I (Child’s Play)

I had an amazing Thanksgiving weekend. Amazing. Inspiring. Transforming, I would go so far as to say. Almost. Almost, because where those four days were a whirlwind, filled with new exciting experiences, (From orchestrating a 90-yard touchdown drive, to hopping a train in Queen, to having drinks at two in the morning with a handful of Rockettes) I sit here today relatively unchanged. In fact, the events of the holiday weekend have made me realize that my outlook, the way I see my place in Life, hasn’t really changed much in Thirty years. I may have learned to cover myself a little better than I could when I was five, but the basic point of view has stayed the same. A life lesson learned, as most of them seem to be, from my nephews.

First, I need to emphasize that I love both of my brother’s kids equally, and would never favor one over the other. However, as they get a little older, it’s becoming more and more clear than where Blake is just like his father… Justin, the younger one, is a lot more like me. Blake is a very resourceful young man. Cool. Collected. Already learning to balance his natural leadership skills with the tact necessary to work well with others. You leave Justin by himself, he’ll wile away an afternoon singing songs and throwing rocks in a puddle. I used to be the same way. Who am I kidding? That’s how I spend most of my days off.

So my nephews are very different. Night and Day. Apples and oranges. Red and Blue states. On Thanksgiving we played football in the back yard. Two hand touch. Blake and Justin –vs- two kids from the neighborhood. It begins with everybody deciding which NFL player they’re going to be. Justin’s Tiki Barber, from the Giants. He’s hanging pretty tough at this point. He thrives in the World of Make Believe. It’s real life that can seem mundane. Pretending you’re a real football player? He’s all over it. He also enjoys it when you throw in some simulated play-by-play, “…Justin’s in the endzone… All tied up… No time on the clock… Touchdown!!” I think it’s the roar of the crowd that drives him.

The nephews were on Defense first. I overheard the huddle and Blake’s like, “Okay, Justin. All you have to do is count ‘Three Mississippi’ and rush the Quarterback. Okay?” Yep. So the other teams about to snap the ball and Blake yells, “Time Out!!” Justin is facing the wrong direction, crouched down, hands in his pockets, staring at something in the grass. Not completely detached from the game, he is already singing, “Ooooh… one mii-suuuu-sip-pee, twooooooo mi-su-sippppeee” Mentally, he’d already left the field and was headed down the tunnel.
Before they go to bed at night, they have ‘Reading Time’ Here’s another facet of their lives when their different personalities emerge. Blake’s reading skills are getting more and more proficient. In a year, you’ll look on his nightstand to find Dale Carnegie’s “How To Win Friends and Influence Other Six-Year-Olds”. He’ll sit down with his book and meticulously concentrate on sounding out the letters. Justin throws the book open and pours out the entire story, with great feeling, complete with different voices for all the characters. Pages flipping, his finger flying across the text, in no way hampered by the fact that he can’t read a lick. Not important to the story.
Justin takes it pretty slow. He gets caught up in the details and while he’s taking time to smell the roses, he’s apt to forget to get back on the path, altogether. Same with his Uncle Mark. I have gotten a little better at focusing for short periods of time. Mostly, I’ve just gotten better at creating the illusion.

And this past weekend, that would be tested. I spent the Holiday with my family in Jersey, and made plans to go into the city to hang out with some friends for the weekend. My sister-in-law was kind enough to go online to figure out my quickest route from Jersey to my friend’s place in Queens. She came back with a scrap of paper and says, “Okay, you have to take the Jersey Transit to Secaucus, where you’ll catch another train to Penn Station. Walk the twelve blocks to 42nd and Broadway. Pick up the ‘Yellow’, you want either the N or the W, headed Uptown.” (“Ooooh… one mii-suuuu-sip-pee, twooooooo mi-su-sippppeee”) I was a little nervous. It’s just that somebody’s always been with me that knew what they were doing. This was going to require serious, extended concentration. With my personal safety hanging in the balance. Tune in next week to hear about my Adventure in the city with the Rockettes. When I demonstrate that I can in fact be cool like Blake… despite the fact that, at heart… I’m still all Justin.

SMASHED ROCKETTES AND GRAVY - PART II (Ticket to Paradise)

I got to the train station, waved goodbye to my sister-in law and went to get my ticket. The office was closed, due to the holiday I guess. But there’s an automated thing where you buy your ticket. It’s a touch-screen thing and it has a little voice that says, “Touch anywhere to begin.” Well, I touched everywhere and nothing happened. I even tried to just stick money in to jump start it. Nothing. So I walk out to the tracks and there’s not another person as far as the eye can see. (You would think two days after Thanksgiving, there would be tons of people out. But no.) My train wasn’t supposed to arrive for another twenty minutes, so I was just standing there thinking of nothing other than that I’m about to try and board a train for I have no ticket. Finally I hear some voices behind me. This group of Asain women are gathered around the ticket machine tickets and I’m watching to see if it worked for them. It didn’t. They seemed as perplexed as I was. I couldn’t understand them, but I thought they were still discussing it when they passed me I said, “It’s broken. The machine… is broken…” And I mimicked what I imagined it must look like to put money in and get a ticket out. They looked at me for a second and continued chatting as they went on their way.

I watched them walk up like twenty yards, take a bridge over to the other side and wait over there. It only then occurred to me that trains were going in both directions I had no idea which one I was supposed to be heading. And I didn’t have a ticket to head in either. The train to Secaucus only left once an hour. If I missed this one I was screwed. I walked up to the yellow line and leaned waaay out to look in both directions, like I might just see the Statue of Liberty waving me in from one end. No. So I called out to my new friends, “Excuse me… do you know if this way is Secaucus? …Secaucus? No?” I must’ve been getting frantic, because I hate it when people do this, but I noticed that every time I said it, I sounded more Asian myself, like they might better understand. “Uuuuh… yoo kno …Se-caw-kiss? Yoo rikah hewp me? Preeze?” They wanted no part of it.

Somehow, with minimal assistance, I made it to my buddy’s apartment in Queens. He mentioned we’d probably be hanging out with his girlfriend and her friends… all of whom are Rockettes! As in The Rockettes. Sure enough, I walk in, it’s a small apartment, and they’re everywhere. Wherever you looked all you could see is legs and hair. (Not together…) But the party’s already going, somebody hands me a beer and before I know it, we’re all squeezed on a futon, critiquing the dvd of them dancing in the Thanksgiving Parade. I thought my head might explode. At one point, Mel, on my left was like, “Oh, I look so fat there.” All I could muster was, “You’re not fat. You’re tall. …‘n pretty. ‘n tall.” Not my strongest conversational performance. But after a little while, we’re hangin’ out, having a few laughs. Turns out hey’re just like anybody else. We even went out to watch the USC-Notre Dame game. Had a great time. It was packed in the bar, though. Sure sucks to have to be the guy that’s like, “Yeah, I’ll have a Heineken and another round of drinks for THE ROCKETTES at my table.” Yeah, I was on fire. All night long we’re catching trains. I’m hailing cabs. “Yo Ta-Xeee!!” (They don’t really respond to well to that actually.) Not the point, though, because by the end of the night, I was a regular New Yorker. Two o’clock in the morning, I’m eating a pastrami sandwich going, “Awright Mel! Be good! …Tammy, You better wave to me New Year’s Rockin’ Eve!” I’m telling you, I came back from that trip a different person. I don’t know when it happened. I’m guessing somewhere around Secaucus. All I know is I was one kid when I boarded that train in Jersey, but after a day or two in the city… I came back a different kid altogether.