I LOVE this! It's beautifully and evocatively written. I also extremely recklessly threw myself into NYC in 1998. I had $800 and my former college roommate was in the musical Cats and holding a bedroom for me in his apt on 102nd and Amsterdam. An introvert in a tiny apartment full of Broadway actors and Broadway actor wannabes! It was intense. Sometimes I'd wake up and I couldn't walk for all the people strewn over the floor, each sleeping on one of the sofa cushions. I did find a job at Henry Holt as an editorial assistant but then my actor friend, it turned out, was not paying the rent and decamped for Chicago to play Harry Houdini in Ragtime. I had three days to get out. My mother said she'd send me a plane ticket back to Detroit but wouldn't give me a cent to stay in NYC so I squatted in an abandoned building on 109th and Amsterdam while I saved as much as I could from my $1600 a month salary. Eventually I found a room in the East Village, friends, lovers, short stories,etc etc. I do not regret a SECOND of that experience. It was absolute magic.
THANK YOU. As you know I am a BB fan, so I’m deeply appreciative. All of the above (of which I’m sure there is much, much more that I hope you’ll share) is, of course, Writer’s Gold. I am not at all surprised you had such (mis)adventures. Very glad you got lucky. I’m realizing ever more that is no small thing.
You're such a good writer, Robert. I have plenty of memories that would make good -- even exciting -- tales, but I fear I lack your prodigious skill. Having grown up in Southern California in the 60's my early life was packed with episodes of sex, drugs, rock & roll, smuggling adventures, even guns. Like you, I can't complain since it all brought me where I am today. New York has been a big part of the story as well. I love the quote “Memory has its own story to tell.” And I love everything you write.
Thank you so much, Stephanie. I dearly hope to hear some of your stories (!!!) down the pike. And don’t underestimate your own skill. I bet if you began committing some to the page, you’d surprise yourself. I’d love to read them.
Great tale well told. Wonderful details. Not sure about the adrenaline part—maybe. The main thing is, yes, memory is a very fickle master revealing things with its own logic, never easy to discern.
I feel I can speak to that with some authority, as, enough older than you to have pondered it a bit longer, I note, with some amusement, that mine is actually pretty good. (Without naming names, it’s considerably better than that of a few others younger than I.)
In any case: You never fail to make me happy with your life. Well led, it always seems, and increasingly well articulated. I look forward to reading the larger work I assume this is only one small part of.
As ever, Robert, you post quality when you post. The poor-boy-in-the-big-city memoir is an overcrowded (and overwrought) field, but your poetry stands above, and equally, you emerged as one of the survivors. How many of the others? - like Harry and Melody - did you see arrive in New York with big dreams but so quickly succumb to the powerful drag of the city's negative elements?
This may not be the moment for me to impose my own memories of arriving in NYC but there are some amazing similarities: falling in love with the place and deciding it was home. $500? I used to DREAM of $500... Awkward late-night sofa entanglements that made for uncomfortable next-morning kitchen encounters? Oh yeah, swapped London for New York pretty swiftly on that score. And the kindness of Jim Fouratt? Hell, yeah. The man was a patron saint to so many... There WAS the initial period where he began to set me up in NYC's gay scene but then he too, came to the realization that I like girls. Thanks for sharing these Robert. And your story of seeing through that miserable winter is one I trust you share with any young people who likewise think of giving up.
I LOVE this! It's beautifully and evocatively written. I also extremely recklessly threw myself into NYC in 1998. I had $800 and my former college roommate was in the musical Cats and holding a bedroom for me in his apt on 102nd and Amsterdam. An introvert in a tiny apartment full of Broadway actors and Broadway actor wannabes! It was intense. Sometimes I'd wake up and I couldn't walk for all the people strewn over the floor, each sleeping on one of the sofa cushions. I did find a job at Henry Holt as an editorial assistant but then my actor friend, it turned out, was not paying the rent and decamped for Chicago to play Harry Houdini in Ragtime. I had three days to get out. My mother said she'd send me a plane ticket back to Detroit but wouldn't give me a cent to stay in NYC so I squatted in an abandoned building on 109th and Amsterdam while I saved as much as I could from my $1600 a month salary. Eventually I found a room in the East Village, friends, lovers, short stories,etc etc. I do not regret a SECOND of that experience. It was absolute magic.
THANK YOU. As you know I am a BB fan, so I’m deeply appreciative. All of the above (of which I’m sure there is much, much more that I hope you’ll share) is, of course, Writer’s Gold. I am not at all surprised you had such (mis)adventures. Very glad you got lucky. I’m realizing ever more that is no small thing.
You're such a good writer, Robert. I have plenty of memories that would make good -- even exciting -- tales, but I fear I lack your prodigious skill. Having grown up in Southern California in the 60's my early life was packed with episodes of sex, drugs, rock & roll, smuggling adventures, even guns. Like you, I can't complain since it all brought me where I am today. New York has been a big part of the story as well. I love the quote “Memory has its own story to tell.” And I love everything you write.
Thank you so much, Stephanie. I dearly hope to hear some of your stories (!!!) down the pike. And don’t underestimate your own skill. I bet if you began committing some to the page, you’d surprise yourself. I’d love to read them.
Gorgeous faded memories, brother.
Thank you! I feel ever more fortunate to have them.
RW:
Great tale well told. Wonderful details. Not sure about the adrenaline part—maybe. The main thing is, yes, memory is a very fickle master revealing things with its own logic, never easy to discern.
I feel I can speak to that with some authority, as, enough older than you to have pondered it a bit longer, I note, with some amusement, that mine is actually pretty good. (Without naming names, it’s considerably better than that of a few others younger than I.)
In any case: You never fail to make me happy with your life. Well led, it always seems, and increasingly well articulated. I look forward to reading the larger work I assume this is only one small part of.
Say hello sometime: varneyvic@gmail.com
Take care,
Vic
PS:
You can still get Wheatena on Amazon.
It’s interesting to read this because unlike you, I can never remember when things happened.
The writing is just gorgeous.
…and this is just a fraction of what I recall, particularly of “Melody.”
I still think I might have been hiding in bed that day. But maybe it was when Harry moved in, not you. See!? I can’t remember shit!
Thank you, my dear. My good memory is a mixed blessing of course.
As ever, Robert, you post quality when you post. The poor-boy-in-the-big-city memoir is an overcrowded (and overwrought) field, but your poetry stands above, and equally, you emerged as one of the survivors. How many of the others? - like Harry and Melody - did you see arrive in New York with big dreams but so quickly succumb to the powerful drag of the city's negative elements?
This may not be the moment for me to impose my own memories of arriving in NYC but there are some amazing similarities: falling in love with the place and deciding it was home. $500? I used to DREAM of $500... Awkward late-night sofa entanglements that made for uncomfortable next-morning kitchen encounters? Oh yeah, swapped London for New York pretty swiftly on that score. And the kindness of Jim Fouratt? Hell, yeah. The man was a patron saint to so many... There WAS the initial period where he began to set me up in NYC's gay scene but then he too, came to the realization that I like girls. Thanks for sharing these Robert. And your story of seeing through that miserable winter is one I trust you share with any young people who likewise think of giving up.