2002-04-12 - 2:24 p.m.
Friday, 04.05.02
Breakfast is at one of the lesser tourist-trap diners near the hotel. I say "lesser" because of the celebrity photos on the wall; whereas the Carnegie Deli might have Al Pacino or Jerry Seinfeld, this place gets third- and fourth-tier celebs like Rip Taylor, Erik Estrada and that chyk who�s on Sex and the City (not Kim Cattrall or Sarah Jessica Parker, one of the other ones).
If Tom Green has his mugshot up on a restaurant wall somewhere, remind me never to eat there.
***
There�s only one truly cheesy tourist activity I want to do while in New York, and that�s to go to the top of the Empire State Building. Particularly in the wake of 9/11--I�ll be damned if I�m gonna let Osama bin Laden make me afraid to exercise my God-given right as an American to wear Bermuda shorts and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt and act like an obnoxious ass on top of one of the world�s great man-made structures.
OK, well, it�s way too cold for shorts, and that 300-pound guy next to me pretending to be King Kong swatting at biplanes is being about a hundred times the obnoxious ass I could ever be in my life, but you get the idea.
It is here, however, that I have my first post-9/11 "holy fuck" moment. I have no prior frame of reference for what the World Trade Center towers looked like from here, but I can tell a gaping hole in the skyline when I see it. The sheer ... gone-ness ... is thought-provoking and ultimately frightening.
Thankfully, before my brain gets too meta, King Kong starts waving his flabby arms at imaginary airplanes again, allowing me to halt my angsty ruminations about the Fragility of Existence and fantasize instead about hurling this guy over the railing to see if he cracks the sidewalk on impact. God bless America.
***
From there I make my way to Times Square and suddenly find myself in the crossfire between rival Mideast demonstrations. The pro-Palestinian demo is larger, but the pro-Israeli counterdemo is louder and, to me at least, seems more potentially violent. From my vantage point the former looks composed mostly of scrawny NYU grad students and gray-haired old lefties each carrying a sign for his or her own personal splinter-group of the Freedom Socialist Labor Yadda-Yadda-Yadda Party ("Oh, look, Martha--socialists. How quaint.") with a few Arabs mixed in for credibility�s sake. The latter, meanwhile, look like they�d be busting heads already if the police weren�t there to restrain them.
Prudently, I decide to take the long way around them and take a cab back to the hotel.
[begin Mideast rant]
Over the years I�ve gradually gone from being staunchly pro-Israeli to just as staunchly "fuck off and die, all of you" when it comes to the Middle East. Yes, the Israelis have the only democracy in the region but I have a hard time cheering them on when they use that freedom to elect extremist nutbars like Ariel Sharon ... which they do because Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians have a habit of repeatedly making nonnegotiable demands and then blowing people up when said demands are in danger of being met ... which they do because it�s easier to blame their problems on the Israelis than on their Arab brothers, who are full of talk about solidarity but who in reality don�t give two shits about the Palestinians except as a source of cheap labor and a convenient club to bash Israel with.
The history of the Middle East is like the history of Ireland or the Balkans: The more I learn about it, the more fervently I come to despise everyone involved. Even more so, because the stupid shit in the Mideast is older by at least a full millennium. The fact that we call the area "The Holy Land" just proves that God has a great sense of irony.
[end Mideast rant]
***
After that I�m in a sour mood, so I go see the Gerhard Richter exhibit at MOMA. No matter how pissed off I am at the state of the world I always find it soothing to look at art. Even disturbing German art.
Then it�s off to the Museum of Television and Radio, where I spend a couple of hours watching as many of the Dr. Loveless episodes of "The Wild Wild West" as I can find in the archives. A bit narcissistic of me, I know, but I�m feeling the need to relive past glories.
I can�t find any MST3K at first, but then this museum employee named Todd works some mojo on the computer system--breaking my gaydar in the process--and manages to find "Invasion USA," which is notable mostly because it also includes "A Date With Your Family," one of the best MST3K short subjects ever. ("Emotions are for ethnic people.") During this time we also share our favorite MST riffs of all time and conclude with a brief rendition of the Fugitive Alien Forklift Song. Big shout-out to Todd.
***
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