graceland's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frontin' I've come to the conclusion that at the moment, I am defined as a New Yorker. There's just no way around it. In my 8 years in the City, I have lived through historical events that are so great in magnititude, before this time period they came 30 years apart if not at all. I lived through the Subway series. I survived the Yankees winning the world series in '96, '98, '99, '00 and '01. The '96 win was touch and go as a body on the streets, you pretty much held onto your bag and hoped some drunken, rowdy stranger didn't pull you down onto the sidewalk with him when he drunkenly mauled you with joy as you pieced together what was happening from the strains of crackling radio reports streaming in synch out of every open doorway and window. I survived the Blizzard of '96. That was one of the most insane, beautiful times I've been a part of in NYC. It was exquisite and solitary. I beat the Eastside rapist, who attacked 5 girls on my block. I survived the deaths of John and Carolyn Kennedy, although I must admit, I part of my New York heart died with them on that summer day; I remember thinking to myself upon hearing the news that there was nothing left for New York to look forward to. Forever gone was that magnanimous couple, both so gorgeous. Him, tall, dark and handsome; her, the winsome fashion plate who never spoke. She was the woman who held herself away from New York as she gave herself to us. When John and Carolyn were living there was anticipation and excitement to being in town, on the off chance you might run into "them." A sighting could occupy conversation for years. Perhaps I was right in my thinking after the Kennedy deaths, that there was nothing left to look forward to in New York, because it was a few years after that New York was attacked. And so it happened that I sat at an early meeting in a high rise office building located in midtown when first one and then another commercial airliner was intentionally piloted into the Twin Towers. I saw a news report about the crash, climbed up to a terrace on my building and watched the smoke rise before the second tower was hit. I watched the smoke grow as the second tower was hit and a short while later, I looked down at the street and watched thousands of terrified people covered in white soot, out-run cars on a 5 lane avenue heading uptown, like a scene from a Japanese monster movie. Later, I joined those people in the exodus uptown. Some of my friends died in those buildings. I lived through the massive search for missing persons, on foot all over this bastard cement island. I lived through the years after that, which were more of a struggle than I ever could have dreamed. The insecurity of going through the motions of your day-to-day life, learning to cope with the stark realization that you may die at anytime regardless of physical condition. Working jedi mind tricks on the theoretical plans of terrorists. Maintaining your own sanity. Learning it's ok to be alive when others died. Life's basics. I survived the skyrocketing cigarette taxes and the climbing city tax and the outrageous personal income tax. I just barely survived the smoking ban. I survived a political assassination at the Court House. And now we can add the Blackout of 2003 to my litany of New Yorker qualifying events. I did it and not by choice. Yet again the gods chose to place me on this godforsaken island and see if I could handle their wrath. Bitches. God forbid I be out of town during the residency challenges. Instead, I have to be in my office building on my phone, staring at my computer and the skyline through the window behind it, as a loud ZAP! sounded through the office and my screen went black and my phone line died. Air conditioning off, and for a second, I think the entire city fell silent. I didn't wait to process that second, as others took that second to look out their window or to the person next to them, I grabbed my cell phone and redialed the number I had just been speaking with - my brother. "What just happened?" I asked him, as people all around New York asked the person next to them. And that's probably why, I had the only line open going out of NYC for the next 30 minutes. And that's how, as people started to process that something bigger than just our office was going on, and as they stared at the confused faces staring out of the financial firm buildings and embassassies that face us on our midtown block, as some of them started to panic and even cry at the thought of another terror attack, I was able to calmly report - it's just a power outtage, a Blackout. A few minutes later I was able to report that Toronto and Detroit were also out and nerves were calmed at the knowledge that it wasn't just us again. To be on the safe side, I decided I'd prefer to be street level, so about 30 minutes later, I took my flashlight that I keep at my desk, my emergency bottled water and my whistle and began the 45 block trek home. It was eerily reminescent of that trek on September 11, although ironically, that September day was blessed with extraordinary weather. The urgency wasn't there for me during the blackout. I stopped a few times on my way home, looking around at the thousands of people walking with me. I stopped just under the 59th Street bridge and looked up to see thousands of people on foot, taking over the bridge, marching with a purpose. I finally made it to my local bar and joined the small group of local friends who had made it before me. And so it went. Me and a large group of people sitting around candlelit tables and talking about the blackout. Sweating in the dark, rapidly drinking the beer before it skunked on an IOU system, smoking outlawed cigarettes and putting off the climbs to our hot, dank apartments. Others laid outside on the sidewalks, some on their furniture that they had moved outside and others laying on broken down cardboard boxes. Suddenly we were a classless town in more ways than one. Batteries and flashlights outranked Park Avenue and Central Park West addresses. The sun rose and the city started to stink. I laid sweating in my bed as I heard my roommate try futilely to switch the fusebox, CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK and then again CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK until she verbalized the obvious, "The power is still out." And so we sat on the ninth floor of our apartment building with no food, cash, radio, TV or cell phones, working out a plan to get ourselves out of this. We climbed the pitch black, airless stairwell to ground level and scavenged local businesses for food. Staring at the nonperishable premade baked goods left on the barren shelves, a woman hissed to my roommate, "You've got to take what you can get!" as we stared, horrified, at her, thinking, "Is this what it's come to?" Have we New Yorkers turned into a pack of wild animals, fighting to stay alive in this city that seems to be hellbent on breaking down her people? This weekend I pondered what might be left for me in this Residency championship? What final test is left for me? A serial killer? Natural disaster? And so even as I fight my identity as a New Yorker, as I work to not actualize it and in fact, abandon it, here I am, back in her fold. Everytime your name was brought up I would act all nonchalant infront of an audience Like if you was just another shorty I put the naughty on But uh, truth be told you do me for a loop, this Hov I'm too old to be frontin when I'm feeling Denzel And you acting like you ain't appealing but you are Stuting like you ain't my only girl but you are (I was just frontin) I'm ready to stop when you are I know that I'm carrying on, nevermind if I'm showing off I was just frontin (you know I want ya babe) I'm ready to bet it all, unless you don't care at all But you know I want ya (you should stop frontin babe) 9:49 p.m. - 2003-08-18 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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