Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Plus-Sized Porn, Drugs, Debauchery ...
On very last minute deadline for a grueling business/technology article that pays a buck a word, I decide it is more crucial to move my car to a good spot for the next day than to write. I hop on bike to get to my car (only in NYC). A mile later, I lock my bike to a fence, race into my 11 year old Acura and just when I am about to pull out and beat the 5 p.m. rush, there's a CLANK, CLANK, CLANK on my passenger-side window. I look over to see this guy who looks like that cop on Hill Street Blues who bites perps staring into my window. He is whirling his finger round and round to get me to open the window. Yeah, right.
"What?" I scream, raising my shoulders old-Jewish-grandaddy style. No window opening.
"I have a question," he screams. Those Acuras really are solid. I can barely hear him.
"Go the f%#ck ahead," I shout back.
He starts whirling his finger around again. I didn't need Annie Sullivan the first time to get that he wanted me to open the window. I buzz it down a quarter inch.
"What?" Now I would rather be writing about tracking customer trends on the Internet.
"I'm shooting this video. I live in this building right here." He points behind him to what could be the last broken down building left on the Upper West Side.
"Now I get it," I am thinking. The rolled up woollen hat, the dingy, gray pants-coat with the pushed up sleeves. He's doing some late '80s/early '90s period piece and he wants to use my decrepit car as a prop.
"It's a Victoria Secret video," he shouts. "And we need a perfect size 14."
I start laughing. "I hate to tell you buddy, but size 20 is NOT the new 14, and I gotta go." I am rolling up the window when he forces his stubby finger in at the top.
"No it's you, you'd be perfect," he says.
Now he's manhandling my car.
"What do you think, this is some fucking After School Special and I'm going to follow you into your nasty apartment to get my big break?"
I am picturing me in my 4 o'clock ABC movie. I am the fat, sorta pimply teenager who just wants a boyfriend. Hell, I'll even settle for a real friend. I follow him into his dark, dirty apartment with the long, pale white hallway that leads to a bare room in the back. I lean against a stool and he takes up his camera: "Beautiful." He takes a few shots and then, "Baby, take off your shirt. Really, it's ok." And because I can't make it on the cheerleading squad, I do. I have a copy of "Go Ask Alice" in my back pocket.
I roll my eyes at the guy.
"I'm not interested."
"How do you know?" He's quick.
"I have two kids to pick up, I haven't bought Halloween costumes yet, and I have a very exciting article about why Wachovia Bank customers tend to visit the BMW site often. Can you get off my car now?"
"Oh, sorry," he grumbles, and backs off.
Musta been the Halloween costumes that freaked him out.
I quickly find a spot on the correct side of the street, and I can't seem to make my way out of the car. I am stuck remembering being 15 years, drifting down Broadway near 72nd Street on a cold, rainy night. I am shoving M&Ms in my mouth by the handful. My mother is at home breaking up with my other mother. My mom has found out she is sick and my sister is helping her apply for welfare. I don't know exactly where I am going, I am just walking and looking at all the Columbia U folks in their perfectly fitting Levis. I want a pair, but I'm already too big for regular sizes. I stop on the corner and some older hippie chick in a Guatemalan sweater comes up to me.
"Where are you going?" she asks, tilting her head like Bambi.
"I don't know. Just walking around."
"I am having a party upstairs. Do you want to come?"
"Ok." It looks like I could kick her ass pretty easily.
She shoves a flier in my hand. It spells out phonetically "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo" several times in a row. I get up to this Upper West Side apartment where there are all these unfulfilled actors sitting around in various rooms chanting. There are altars in each room. Some 40-year-old chick with hair dyed the color of orange saddle leather is telling me that she doesn't have to worry anymore because chanting lets her know that the universe will bring her what she needs. She even got a spot in a commercial this week. She tells me she is newly pregnant and the father is a fire chief who has a full family in the Bronx. She will raise her son alone in a room she rents on the Upper West Side. Wow. I want to pay her child support ... or give her an abortion myself.
Forty minutes of daydreaming later, I'mm still in my car, and I call my sister to tell her about my brush with plus-size porn fame.
"My God, how much of a lost soul do you look like today?" she asks.
"I don't know. I guess very," I answer, leaning my head against my car window and stuffing another handful of pretzels in my mouth.
"What?" I scream, raising my shoulders old-Jewish-grandaddy style. No window opening.
"I have a question," he screams. Those Acuras really are solid. I can barely hear him.
"Go the f%#ck ahead," I shout back.
He starts whirling his finger around again. I didn't need Annie Sullivan the first time to get that he wanted me to open the window. I buzz it down a quarter inch.
"What?" Now I would rather be writing about tracking customer trends on the Internet.
"I'm shooting this video. I live in this building right here." He points behind him to what could be the last broken down building left on the Upper West Side.
"Now I get it," I am thinking. The rolled up woollen hat, the dingy, gray pants-coat with the pushed up sleeves. He's doing some late '80s/early '90s period piece and he wants to use my decrepit car as a prop.
"It's a Victoria Secret video," he shouts. "And we need a perfect size 14."
I start laughing. "I hate to tell you buddy, but size 20 is NOT the new 14, and I gotta go." I am rolling up the window when he forces his stubby finger in at the top.
"No it's you, you'd be perfect," he says.
Now he's manhandling my car.
"What do you think, this is some fucking After School Special and I'm going to follow you into your nasty apartment to get my big break?"
I am picturing me in my 4 o'clock ABC movie. I am the fat, sorta pimply teenager who just wants a boyfriend. Hell, I'll even settle for a real friend. I follow him into his dark, dirty apartment with the long, pale white hallway that leads to a bare room in the back. I lean against a stool and he takes up his camera: "Beautiful." He takes a few shots and then, "Baby, take off your shirt. Really, it's ok." And because I can't make it on the cheerleading squad, I do. I have a copy of "Go Ask Alice" in my back pocket.
I roll my eyes at the guy.
"I'm not interested."
"How do you know?" He's quick.
"I have two kids to pick up, I haven't bought Halloween costumes yet, and I have a very exciting article about why Wachovia Bank customers tend to visit the BMW site often. Can you get off my car now?"
"Oh, sorry," he grumbles, and backs off.
Musta been the Halloween costumes that freaked him out.
I quickly find a spot on the correct side of the street, and I can't seem to make my way out of the car. I am stuck remembering being 15 years, drifting down Broadway near 72nd Street on a cold, rainy night. I am shoving M&Ms in my mouth by the handful. My mother is at home breaking up with my other mother. My mom has found out she is sick and my sister is helping her apply for welfare. I don't know exactly where I am going, I am just walking and looking at all the Columbia U folks in their perfectly fitting Levis. I want a pair, but I'm already too big for regular sizes. I stop on the corner and some older hippie chick in a Guatemalan sweater comes up to me.
"Where are you going?" she asks, tilting her head like Bambi.
"I don't know. Just walking around."
"I am having a party upstairs. Do you want to come?"
"Ok." It looks like I could kick her ass pretty easily.
She shoves a flier in my hand. It spells out phonetically "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo" several times in a row. I get up to this Upper West Side apartment where there are all these unfulfilled actors sitting around in various rooms chanting. There are altars in each room. Some 40-year-old chick with hair dyed the color of orange saddle leather is telling me that she doesn't have to worry anymore because chanting lets her know that the universe will bring her what she needs. She even got a spot in a commercial this week. She tells me she is newly pregnant and the father is a fire chief who has a full family in the Bronx. She will raise her son alone in a room she rents on the Upper West Side. Wow. I want to pay her child support ... or give her an abortion myself.
Forty minutes of daydreaming later, I'mm still in my car, and I call my sister to tell her about my brush with plus-size porn fame.
"My God, how much of a lost soul do you look like today?" she asks.
"I don't know. I guess very," I answer, leaning my head against my car window and stuffing another handful of pretzels in my mouth.
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