NYC Honey

I am going mad for this honey I bought at the Union Square farmers' market. It is made from hives on NYC rooftops. It is the very essence of spring flowers in the city, and it is driving me quite insane...

Naming the Cart

Many things are happening. Chief at the moment (in terms of energy expenditure) is catering. I worked nine hours today and I have to work from 7:30 to 10 PM tomorrow. It won't be too bad -- It's broken up in the middle and the second half of the day is at the party (again at studio 450). I can do it without too much pain if I can get four hours sleep. I get to sleep in on Sunday with Molly. Wheee! It's been too long to remember the last time we got to sleep in together.

Chief on my mind, of course, is the cart. We are close in now: thinking dates for the premier. We're down to June 13 (Friday the 13th, no less), and June 20. If all goes right [knock on wood] ...

It has been creating an odd schism -- I am working at Cleaver, but I find myself forced to talk about the cart nearly constantly. It is getting a little embarrassing. Molly points out that I am preparing to substantially change my relationship to Cleaver. I am not going to leave, but as a "freelancer," I will have another, more important gig.

Many people have been asking about the name of the cart. I have been hesitant. "Food to make you happy" is my (loose) organizing concept, and I want to use the catch-phrase "Eat and Be Happy," but neither of those really is a name. Does a foodcart need a name?

I don't think I will be able to name until I have seen what it feels like to be on the street. My fellow cook Abe suggests that I make it "something to do with the night-time or something to do with New York."

42 Broadway

Well we've gotta lotta lotta lotta hard work today
We've gotta rock at the government center:
Oh make the secretaries feel better
When they-a put those stamps on the ledgers.

And they've gotta lotta lotta great desks and chairs
Uh-huh, at the government center:
We've gotta make those secretaries feel better
When they-a put those stamps on the ledgers.

-Jonathan Richmond (& the Modern Lovers), "Goverment Center"

Anyone attempting to do business in NYC must learn to love 42 Broadway. To be precise, the 5th floor of 42 Broadway -- the Department of Licensing and Consumer Affairs. Today the God of Small Rules smiled upon me, and that certainly helps.

All of the business that occurs in the city eventually passes through this department, and it runs like a well oiled machine. Get in the line, ask your question. For most business, you get a slip with a number, like at a butcher shop, or a Jewish deli. The guy behind the desk is as quick, and as smoothly polished, as anyone at a deli counter. Sometimes your question gets answered so fast you don't even know what happened, and by the time you remember your follow-up, you have wandered away from the counter and have to get back in line. It's OK, though, because he keeps the line moving fast.

Next, clutching your ticket, you head into the next room, where there are vinyl-covered chairs and the bureaucrats sit behind three walls of plexiglass windows. A female computer voice calls the numbers: "Now serving /number/ /one//ninety//eight/ at window /eleven/. Now serving /number/ /one//ninety//eight/ at window /eleven/." Some of the bureaucrats are impatient and punch the button repeatedly, six or eight times before the person can even get to the window.

There is a TV on NY1, which some people watch fixedly, even though ninety percent of the programming is repeated every ten minutes. Some people doze (we watched a really cool woman sleep like a hibernating bear while her young daughter climbed all over her), some sit more or less alertly, others stand at the island in the middle of the room, reviewing instructions for getting licensed for a horse-drawn carriage or filling out forms to be certified as bail-bondsman. There are other rooms off the main one, one for fingerprinting, another darkened, for reasons I don't yet understand (although I love the crinkly-eyed woman who is its mistress).

There is a column against which photos are taken. It goes thus: you wait until your eyes glaze over, then they call your name, you stand in front of the column, they shine a blinding light in your eyes, wait and wait until the exact moment you've slipped into a hypnotic stupor, and then photograph you through an inch of plexiglass. I can't wait to see how my picture looks.

People are remarkably well-behaved. They wait patiently, holding onto their dreams of selling home-made candles on the street or opening a restaurant, carefully keeping track of their papers. Some come with briefcases, some with manilla envelopes, some with accordian folders, some simply clutching them loose in their hands. Some people are there on their own behalves, others are smooth middlemen or lawyers in sheer dress socks there as agents of unseen powers. Some find what they are looking for and some find only frustration, but they are all in the game, and to me, they are all lovely.

Today I was lucky. I'd been sweating bullets all weekend because my license (my personal Vendor's ID License) has not arrived yet. I need that license to get the license for my cart from the Health Department. I have already put off Ali, who holds a permit (which I also need in order to get the license for my cart), for the month it took to get the cart built. He has not seen any money yet -- in fact, he is losing value on his permit -- and he has extended his trust to me, a complete stranger he met only once, all solely on the strength of my word. It is hard to believe, and if I had to ask him to wait another two to three weeks...well, it was going to be hard. I stayed up for almost two hours last night figuring out with Molly exactly how I was going to tell him if I had to.

But I have been saved the difficulty. The lovely (and impatient) man at window number 10 told me what I was hoping to hear: for the purposes of the Health Department inspection, the receipt for the license was enough. Calloo callay! Frabjuous day!

And later on I got to make the happy call to Ali -- we are a go. The cart will be finished by Monday, he can call the Health Department and set up an appointment for the inspection as soon as Wednesday. It rolls along!

Our Banner

And it shall be emblazened on our banner:
FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEED.

Trust Molly to always remind me of the important words. We were having a discussion about bodies and their development. We had talked over many specifics, including our preference for Tai Chi over Yoga (though we practice neither), and come to an absolute opposition between ways of regarding the body that say "this part of me is good, this part of me is bad" and ways that explore the relations of mutual support and work to strengthen them. And then she hits me upside with the ultimate one-two punch, the finest summary of communism ever offered.

FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEED.

"It implies the absolute unfolding of the individual, and the unconditional support of each and all," she says, and I love her. "And it gives you something real to think about and hold onto. What can I do? And even just to overcome learned helplessness, to find out what you need, and to know that you can get it." This is why I am a communist, this is why I love Molly.

Transportation Without Destination

It is a queer time to be alive. So many doors are open, and so many lead to the open desert.

TRANSPORTATION WITHOUT DESTINATION

Where do you want to go today?

Anywhere you want...for a price. What place is worth the price?

Movement is an anesthetic, a simultenaity of tension and release. Push and go... The long walk around Manhattan has been my best painkiller in the years I have lived here. But it is a painkiller with a tragedy behind it. All motion must come to rest. Although the desert is large, space is not, finally, frictionless. Legs give out, or feet, or back. Hunger sets in, or fatigue. Sleep will not be forever abated.

I had a friend who believed that sleep was unnecessary, weakness, retreat. He read restfulness as "low-grade depression." He would go until he dropped where he stood. One morning I found him lying in the hallway near my apartment door, under him the crushed remains of a partially eaten cheesburger and a handful of fries. He wore his contacts for months at a time and regularly talked himself hoarse. He took cocaine, but he was not a cocaine addict. He was addicted to perpetual movement, and he used anything he could get his hands on to keep his kick going. He popped with energy, his veins stood out, it was hard to get a word in edgewise. He picked fights for the pure rush of adrenaline, made friends and alienated people, lived here and there, kept on the go. We could not, inevitably, remain friends for long. He only felt I was honest with him the one time we faught. Our relationship, too, would be rendered for fuel.

The left is still enmeshed in a philosophy of escape, of leaving. While the bipolar construction of the globe in the Cold War epoch offered much to get away from, further repetition of the lesson is excessive. We have learned, we are away. There is no need to look for the desert, the desert is here.

People like cool things

Apparently I am not the only one who likes the defunct elevated line...

My Life in Kitchens: the Grind

Roll on the day.

Morning is 6:00, 5 for prep shift. Morning preps lunch, lunch preps dinner. Night out like a flat dream on 5 cups of coffee.

I learned about the night when I worked at Veselka. First job, first principles. Fill in: move up from soup counter (I was borcht red from knees to nose the first shift) to pick up 2 night shifts. Sat and Sun, 12 to 7. Wed, Thurs, Fri, 8 to 4. Roll on the day. 6 for 7 sleep shift. It works but you got to stitch it together.

Next job, straight evening. 5 days by 8 hours (plus the odd one). OK but where's my life? Eeking it out from the corners. Home-time stretches, fills in, gains consistancy. Sleep or sense suffers. I broke out of that iron coccoon and took some time off on the money.

Then school. Short but not short enough. Students do not need to rely on each other, so nastiness is essentially unrestrained. Something happened, which I have tried to lay out faithfully in zeropride. At any rate, school has nothing to do with cooking. School has nothing to do with anything, except school.

Straight from school into the Monkey Bar. I carry a clipping from Adbusters in my wallet called How To: Sell America To People Who Don't Like America which quotes Jim Ferguson in Advertizing Age: "I would hire a guerilla marketing unit. They could have fashion shows there. The could have movies, dances. They can teach them our decadent way of living, how the infidels live over here and why it's so much fun. We could recreate the Monkey Bar over there and invite them in..."

Of course, I was only in the dining room three times when I was there: 1) when I entered the building the first time and missed the service entrance, 2) at midnight on New Years when the sous-chef Erwin demanded European right to bang pots and bowls and hoot as we line-danced through the seated guests, and 3) when my boss tried to talk me out of quitting. Entrees cost 20-30 dollars, dress, I am lead to believe, is formal. The cooks worked in the basement.

It was at the Monkey Bar that I really started to learn about the Grind.

Hard work five days a week, sometimes six, for $12/hr. Take-home barely beats 400. All evenings, in all probability both Friday and Saturday, almost certainly one or the other. 8-10 hrs/shift, depending on season and day of the week. You are responsible for your station, a responsibility ususally shared with one other person. Either of you, however, is on the hook for a full portion of shit if you run out of anything. Each Menu Item has 6-10 ingredients, each of which must be prepared throughout the week.

I started on the fish station, poissonier, under Erwin. He taught me the ropes. When I could hold down fish, I started learning Meat and filling in on Garde Manger (cold appetizer station). Soon I was picking up a few at pastry.

This was hard work, turning back and forth all night -- refrigerator to stove, stove to plate, start again. I developed a nasty limp, and a plantar wart like a stone on the ball of my right foot. I stayed on until I quit.

Then Sardine Can. New restaurant, I'm hired as brunch chef. Fill in, fill in. Two days where I set the menu, pick up one shift. New Hours, new grind. All electric kitchen I worked hard to develop new menu items and made brunch work. A few days we had people waiting out the door for a table. Ultimately, they hated me for my success. They were short of cash, and could only see that I had to spend x dollars a week at the local "C Town" Supermarket to buy my ingredients. Recipts show that my shifts are expensive, right? Cut back on brunch and save the restaurant x dollars, right? Bad business, one of three bosses leaves defending me. The grind again, from a new side. The dollar mill grinds slow, but it grinds fine...

It is at the 'Can that I first dream of the pushcart, dream of escaping the grind, or at least making it workable, of leaping out of the kitchen on a roll of surf, of floating on the sea-level, of feeding the hungry here and there...

Fired. Fill in at the Cleaver Company. New schedual, new grind. It's Catering and I'm working part-time, trying to get the pushcart together in my spare time. But the work is unsteady, and when the shifts come it's hard to turn them down. The desparation grind. It tramples my week when I let it. With help from Molly, I learn how to say "no" to shifts. Protect Mon thru Wed for the cart, and slowly it comes.

Now it is almost here.

Godard: Plan and Schedule

You cannot possibly make your own plan if somebody else controls the schedule!

Jean-Luc Godard has taught me this, and sometimes I have to remind myself. Like this week...

So Monday rolls and I sleep in. I figure I've deserved it after alla them double shifts.

Mom calls, at noon, say, and my rest is shot. I fall backka sleep, but there is no rest left. Bad dreams call. Still, an hour is an hour -- in my business you learn that. Sunday's promise to see her Tuesday; gotta straighten out the upset from last week. But she's pushing the schedule.

Tuesday rolls and I make an effort at pushcart work. A few calls, straightening out the Health Department rules. The issue now is the commissary, where the cart is serviced and stored. I do the task but there is no planning energy. I meet with mom. OK. I cut loose a little in the evening, but I still feel behind shedule.

You cannot make a plan if somebody else controls the shedule! Interruptions set you back. Rest is easily destroyed. Ask any poet.

Wednesday rolls and there is still no rubber gripping the pavement. I sleep in 'til eleven. About 2:00 there is a break -- I realize that if every commissary is licensed, and the health department will probably give me the addresses. The beaurocracy is a mess (and the web site is worse than useless), but with a little insistance I find a woman who will read down the list of commissaries and read me the ones she thinks are on the lower east side. Good enough. I know from Emed's place that they are almost impossible to find from the street. I'm back on time.

Jean-Luc Godard taught me that it does not pay to rush into a project. It is a waste of budget, and you can't waste your buget if you want your movie to work. There must be enough time to get together the players, to figure out roles, to structure tasks.

Filmmaking is all schedual, so is poetry, so is work. The shot schedual, the speed of langauge, the timing of interruptions, the coordination of breaks.

/cut/

The first green is gold

"The first green is gold." Robert Frost began a poem like that. The rest of the poem is crap, but I have always been taken by that line, particuarly as spring gets underway. The cherry tree has lost its flowers, and the golden leaf buds have since turned vivid green.

A lot has happened since I last blogged. The cart's construction is under way. The plan of the cart has been finalized. The down payment has been made. Now it is in the capable hands of Andy Hor.

The down payment has been made. A simple statement behind which there is a story. Money is not just money, least of all between parents and children. Suffice it to say that there were freakouts all around. But it worked -- the machine continues to gain mass, moving money and metal.

The second half of the week was hell on wheels, and when the wheels came off, it crawled on it's belly. There were parties aplenty to cater, and particularly with the loan I'm getting from my parents, not to mention the incidental costs of the cart, I find myself unable to turn down work. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were all double shifts with early starts. Sunday began at a cruel 6:30, with parties going out at 8:00 and 8:45. Prep-wise, there were at least fifteen parties this week, six of them for over 150 people. The 3 evening shifts I picked up were spent on-site at the parties (which is easier work and pays better).

Two of the party shifts were spent working at a peripheral event of the Tribeca film festival -- a GM-sponsored "drive-in" on the Tribeca piers, which, oddly, had bleacher-style seating. A real drive-in would have been cool; this was lame. They showed When Harry met Sally and Diner. We catered the VIP's on a houseboat docked at the pier. The rocking of the boat (which was constant) was alternately disorienting, sickening, and exhilirating. Dramamine and Grey Goose vodka flowed in equal measure. On Thursday, the sunset over Jersey looked crazed.

There was also a Wedding reception at Studio 450, a top floor/rooftop party space on 31st street overlooking the train yards and the upper part of the dead elevated line. The other end of the dead line is at the Chelsea markets, so there is a connection. No other way to make sense of grilling a massive quantity of chicken, lamb, and seafood in the whipping wind on a converted industrial rooftop, blowing smoke and ash over the drunken guests. There was way too much food, and grilling became almost impossible after the sun went down.

It is done now, and done OK. OK -- "zero killed"; Godard says that is the origin of the famous acronym, and this week it is important to remember. I missed Molly terribly; she missed me more. Because for me the time was always full -- work time filled with tasks. For her, free time, open time, which needs to be in contact with the ones you love and work with. Held apart from other people, free time "fails to thrive" -- that's Molly's phrase for how it felt.

Now we're back together.

Oh my god!

I could not be more excited. I keep breaking out in spontaneous giggles.

Ali just called me back. He was out playing soccer with his team when I called earlier. We have exchanged promises -- he will hold the permit for me, I will buy the permit for six grand. AAAAAAAAAAA! This is really going to happen!

Tommorow my dad and I venture to Andy Hor @ Cyber Metal Tech. We will finalize the pushcart diagram and make the down payment. I will call Ali back and finalize the dates. He will call the city and make the appointments. I will do a dance. This will happen. This can happen. I love this.

Andy Hor & hyper

The "Chineesee man" from Indonesia Malaysia, the welder by the abandoned pool. My man at Cyber Metal Tech. I will go back. He is beautifully pale and I am going to have the money to commission a piece of his work.

When I explained, as best I could, what I wanted, he said: push it? and shrugged, doubtful.

A pushcart. My friend did it.

How far? he said.

Ten blocks, I said.

Maybe. he said.

Yes, I said.

Maybe? he said and flipped through his book of designs. He stopped at what seemed like a random point, half handing it to me and setting it on the counter. The designs all looked huge. This couldn't be my cart!

Not so wide! I said in alarm.

Only 28 inches. he said, and I realized I hadn't been seeing the drawings.

They were technical drawings, and I had looked for vanishing points. Lines of depth, which had seemed grossly distended, were now stout and adequate. Depth is come out to speak it's native tounge, nothing disappears into the distance, nothing is too far away to describe -- Is it any wonder the Soviets pioneered technical design?

X-ray reveals hidden surfaces with dotted lines. Cyber Metal Tech.

Maybe like this one -- you make hot dogs? he said, calling me back from my reverie.

No. I said. No hotdogs.

Maybe like this one without this? [covering pretzel box] No pretzel. Starts to draw lightly with a fine pen. He sarts with the dimensions, one box, two, three.

Grill Here, he says, lightly dashing the right side.

You need two water tanks. he says. it is true, I have read the code. The health department has made it very expensive.

Hood on 3 sides. continuing the sketch.

how does the hood work? I ask. Passive or...fan?

"Bullshit" says Andy and shrugs. he knows as well as I do that a passive filter is a contradiction in terms. but the health department says so. Water tanks too... "you going to wash hands?" and he chukles.

[a brief note to the uninitiated, who doubtlessly reel in horror at his joke--
--food businesses, particularly poor ones like food carts, have to be sanitary if they want to survive. you lose your customers and go out of business quickly if you handle food poorly. only a restaurant with rich backers could afford to gamble. for every flash in the pan yuppie shithole there are two tight-margin miracles. these establisments survive only with a reliable staff and a coherent sanitation plan.
--washing your hands is a dubious plan in a pushcart. most of the good carts I have seen do most of their handling with utensiles -- tong, spatula, fork-- and careful use of plastic gloves. (although perhaps you could use that sanitizing gel that doesn't need water -- alcohol or sanitizing solution would be too hard on your hands. I will look into this)
--In a truck, you could wash your hands. but the total amount of water you would have to use to wash your hands for a full shift (no doubt calculated to the x gallons mandated by the city) would be impossibly heavy to push. a pushcart worker has to do a variety of dirty tasks -- including the dirtiest of all: handling money.
The Health Department is absolutely remiss in not mentioning the filth of money in their food protection course. Money is more likely to carry dangerous germs than any other thing that comes into a restarant. this includes E. coli (from shit), which is more prevelant on money than it is on toilet seats.
money is filth. credit is really the only way to fly.
perhaps with the pushcart I sould take only exact change -- and say "pay me back next time" to the rest. strange and risky, but when have I been anything but?]

/cut/
//back to the plot//

Andy expains:

you have to meet code to get the plaque, you have to keep it up to code to avoid fines. The city needs money. This is the code: this is the price.

"Bloomberg?" I query.

he shrugs effusively, smiling. "the city needs money, it doesn't matter who it is." A true Daoist. What is, is; and with certainty. Where there is a way, there is a way.

I share his certainty, at least in part. I know what this cart is, and is becoming. this knowledge suffuses my atmosphere. It is my air; I have mutated and part of me will die without it. The Parks Department suffocated one part of me, one of my own children, one of my beautiful own. I will not forgive them until my grievance can be heard.

I am shocked by my new power to breathe.

I may be hyperventilating.

Season -- the new air

It came on rather suddenly -- I am now breathing pushcart air.

I didn't notice until tonight. Tonight when I could unwind a little. Tomorrow I don't have to go in until 10 AM. Today, Sunday, I was in at 8 AM. Saturday before 8:30. Thursday: 9:00.

This is what my job has become for me: a series of numbers on a punch-clock. A punch clock which has still not been adjusted for daylight savings, creating bizzare time fissures. I go there. I return. Things happen. There are events. Yes; but I am not there.

Thursday during lunch I really wasn't (see previous entry "May Day"). The worker's holiday, no less. God, I did more work on that day than any other this year. I met several people rather briefly who, collectively, hold my brightest hopes for the future.

The blog entry stops oddly for reasons I can't entirely remember, and the photographs have somehow disappeared from our digital camera's memory chip. Alien abduction? You tell me. So I will have to fill in gaps as best I can.

I definately had an excellent sandwich at my favorite hero shop, called, simply, "Hero Hero." Or maybe that's just what it says on the sign. But it definately is on 46th street, and it definately is the best. Loose but full, with a nice variety of meats, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, (no hots), oragano, salt, pepper, salad oil and vinegar. Molly and I share one. There is powdered soap in the bathrooms (and apparently no light in the women's).

This happened. This is true. We went on to pick up the perfect keyboard Molly's mom promised me for my birthday (and we were only 6 months late). She is a lovely little bird, Arla is. And we did it. We went and got it on Wednesday, the same day Mohammed told me about Emed.

That was only wednesday! Four days! Four days and I live in an entirely new atmosphere.

Then there was the finance hard talk with my folks, dragged out over thurs and today (which has now become yesterday, it being 1:13, and my sunday of rest-- ha ha). Talked figures in and out. My father has made a spreadsheet. He wants to get it down on paper.

Mom has been tired -- almost too tired to speak. To love her is to be worried. I find the two in an inescapably equal ratio. Involvement means uncertainty, but she is seems to tired even to lean. Tired so that sleep is what she needs. I had a truely happy moment watching her sleep the day after the Youth Party. The Youth Party is has inexplicably been left out of the blog. A time for explaining, a time to refrain from explaning. But: a successfull party in my parent's apartment, which made my mom ultimately very happy, both to have had it and to have it done. And she slept. And she was beautiful and happy.

But that was all weeks ago, in a different season it seems. The weather is so wild in the city. So many different climates, different environments, different ecologies. The cave dweller Emed.

And, of course, Cyber Metal Tech, the workshop of Mr. Andy Hor.

May Day

Happy May Day!

The city is magical today, and I have been travelling in it.

I took an hour off from my job to meet up with Emed, a stooped giant with a lead on a pushcart permit. He works at a coffee-cart commissary on 29th street between 10th and 11th Avenues. Mohammed, my new friend and guide in all things pushcart, says that he sleeps in the garage, which might explain his crumpled posture, his pinched demeanor, and his unusual color. Things have been gaining momentum at a slightly alarming rate, and the magical cast to the city may be partly due to sleep deprivation.

The block of 29th west of 10th is strangely composed, with a equal number of storage facilities, delivery services, and chic art galleries. I missed the commissary on my first time down the block, despite Mohammed's instruction that it was "left, halfway down the block." The second time, I asked a delivery man if there was a pushcart place and he gestured at the next lot, where I could barely make out a dark cavern behind dirty plastic flaps.

This week I have been learning the difference between confidence and momentum. Confidence is like momentum without brakes, and eventually without purpose. Momentum, on the other hand, I am coming to understand as a phase in the work process. I am learning to take the ride, where appropriate. There is the plan, there is the implementation. Planning has to be slow, and in our current culture, which places almost no value on planning, it seems as though very little is getting done. Planning requires a distension of the senses to their utmost, reaching out the fibres of the nervous system to feel out where things are beginning.

Implementation, the second part of the experiment, is fast and hard and blinding, and you just gotta hang on until its done. I guess. I'm still trying to lay this shit down. I've had to do a lot of work on plannning, and there are many new things in the air. But as best as I can figure, you have to keep collecting data until the end of the experiment. Then back to the lab to study the results.

We are under the sway of forces larger than ourselves.

Today those forces have met me up with Emed, and a Middle Easterner named Ali, who has a pushcart permit he wants to sell, and fast. I am struggling to keep up. Emed said I should get the pushcart before I try to get the permit. Ali seemed more poised. I asked where was a good place to get one fast. Emed told me about the "Chinesee man." Ali said the guy was really Indonesian, and that his shop was up on 60th street between 10th and 11th.

I bought some Camel cigarettes, lit one up, and called my boss back and asked for a second hour off from work. He said OK.

The way uptown on the far west side is lonely and beautiful. There are striking views of the city from the low-rise periphery. The day, which had been clammy, was turning to muggy. I took off my coat. On 60th street itself, there is an abandoned pool, as beautiful as it is sad. And then, there it was... (more text and pictures to follow)