Entries in The Big Bagel (6)
New York in the Rain
Po, a packed romantic place in the Village.The other night I was thinking of an old friends birthday party which we celebrated at the excellent Cornelia Street restaurant Po when I was 19. It was raining then and my ladyfriend, two of her friends and I were navigating the village in the downpour. Our nice clothes getting drenched. By the time the last of the wine was poured into our below-legal-age glasses, the rain began to clear up and we met a friend and listened to live jazz in an underground club which only served juice. I've wanted to get back into that restaurant ever since. I remember someone taking a scandalous picture of the ladyfriend and I who were induced (under the influence) to take a picture like a magazine ad for perfume. Where is this picture?
These memories were brought back to me as I drove into New York City while on my way to my new pavement city err Northern Virginian home. The rain and fog lay thick over the Harlem River and as I crossed from the Bronx into northern Manhattan over the Henry Hudson bridge I looked to my left and I could have sworn that all of New York was lit by warm candle light. I went to my friend's improv show and we retreated to the Triple Crown - a nearby sports bar. I sat at the bar in order to enjoy some food and a gin and tonic as my friends talked and joked with each other at a table behind me. Think about this: Watching highlights of the Mets game (they won that night), eating some innutritious bar junk, drinking gin, avoiding the rain, my sport jacket fetching looks from the only two single women in the bar, and hearing my friends laughing (without having to actually interact with them). I could have ruined my good mood if I had stayed with the thought too long but something drifted into my mind.
"I turned me to another thing, and I saw that under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favour to the skillful: but time and chance in all. " - Ecclesiastes
And the rain falls on the just and unjust alike. Even in New York City. My friend Tommy would buy the next round.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in The Big Bagel, Under the Influences
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New York in Fall, Camel Hair, Ryan Adams and Po.
Elizabeth Street in the Fall.For some reason I’ve thought that putting my name on things on the internet would not hurt my aspirations to freelance a little in my adult life- as my writing improves. So al over the internet you can find my half-formed thoughts, typo-ridden comments. It’s awful. In that spirit I offer another failed piece of creative non-fiction.
New York in the Fall
You just have to run through some leaves on the Saw Mill Parkway then down the West Side. Or after class you roll through the carnival streets of the South Bronx – blasting with alarmingly loud music and syncopated walking. Then over one of those tiny bridges to the East side. Maybe you don’t drive and take Metro North instead. Putnam and Westchester are all leaves and the future rich kids of the Upper East Side or Ridgefield Ct. You are rocked into the most pleasant train nap until you arrive in Grand Central. It is New York in autumn. Your friend’s dad has a building in mid-town. You mention your friend’s name and get free parking two blocks away from Times Square. His father never gave permission really – and he’s going to be angry when he finds out.
The summer food (more accurately: grub) is thankfully gone. No more hot dogs or barbeque. Now you make reservations at Mark Joseph steakhouse on Water Street. Or you can do better – maybe Po on Cornelia Street. Stop blowing your money on Coronas – and get some Stella or Irish beer. Wine too – no more Rosé - McLaren Vale Shiraz. It is time to trade in the seersucker and – especially after Sept 31 – find the camel hair jacket.
The sense of normality returns. The tourists are no longer high school science teachers from the mid-west. The young, promiscuous interns are gone .Corn fed blondes at the bottom rung of publishing/fashion/television need not apply. A real man wants to sow his seed or at least his fantasies with a real New York girl. And if it goes poorly the sophomores are lurking around 14th street with their fake Maryland driver’s licenses – which they bought for fifty dollars. They’ll be here until finals.
Read On
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in The Big Bagel
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Best Friend Blogs
My best friend started a blog in the genre "young hot and single male in NYC" . We've seen this before in such great blogs as Manhattan Transfer and D-nasty.
But my friend adds to the great tradition of these blogs and keeps it real.
Check him out- and don't associate our views with each other- it would be a disservice to both of us.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in The Big Bagel
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The Rich and NYC
New York Magazine printed a solid article
on the economics of New York City and the influence of the
“super-rich”. In my own lifetime New York City has changed drastically.
It’s cleaner, safer, prettier, snottier etc… places within eyeshot of
Times Square that were little urban hell-holes now are inhabited by the
meritocratic gentry. Many of my friends have moved into the city
and even with the cost of living shooting up around them, are able to
keep up. They have access to theatre, to restaurants and to an endless
supply of other young people. After spending a good portion of my week
in the city, I can feel it pulling me out of my chair in Putnam county.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in The Big Bagel
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Exciting Week
Tuesday was my birthday. I took the chance to go down to the city. I
was planning on getting to the fashion district and purchasing some
white bucks, partially to help inspire the creation of a long planned
exhaustive essay on white buck shoes. But I stopped by my
friend’s apartment and ended up on a reality television show instead.
The next night I went down to the city again, to meet an acquaintance at
Cooper Union. There was to be a meeting. “Is there a new
blacklist?” was the question. McCarthy’s ghost was ceremonially
summoned to scare the audience. Four brave souls of the right showed up
to remind these relics of the New Left what dissent means. Our feelings
alternated between disbelief and raw anger. A cold shiver, then
laughter, then booing, then knowing glances shared amongst ourselves.
Afterwards we repaired to bars on the Upper West side. I got soused.
Someone took pictures of me looking like a fool with a wine glass.
Someone who just met me described my thinking as that of a “slave”. I
think we disagreed on the Enlightenment. I’ve never while drunk found
disagreement over something so profound (yet to most people so arcane)
, to reveal itself within the first five minutes of conversation.
Later, he and I found reason to agree on the mating habits of NYC
women.
Then tonight after work I went and saw Roger Scruton, the eminent
English philosopher, speak at NYU. There I met John Zmirak.
Afterwards I found myself in Cafe Dante sitting two feet away from the
cordial Scruton. The four of us that accompanied him there peppered him
with questions - one unrelated to the next, about foxhunting, Kant,
James Joyce, House of Lords and the free market.
I’ve had a hell of a week. I will, as soon as time permits, write
more extensively about each of these events - although I can’t report
everything from our subversive activities on Wednesday.
If I knew, when I was younger, that conservatism could mean the mocking
of authority, soused dancing on the Upper West Side, and the most
withering scorn on the right side of Voltaire - I would have signed up
ages ago.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in The Big Bagel
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Manners on the Train
A few weeks ago, after peeling myself out of bed at 5:45 a.m., dragging myself to the Southeast (formerly Brewster North) train-station for a 7:12 train, I was asleep again. I nodded off with my new leather briefcase under my arms. and a magazine curled in my clammy hands. I was barely rustled when at the Chappaqua stop, a youngish lady sat next to me. The train rocked me back to sleep instantly. She fell asleep, and at some point, unconsciously, she leaned over to my unaware shoulder.
As my travelling companion and I were awakened, after a good 45 minute nap, we looked at each other. “Here I am sleeping with another woman”, I thought. She smiled. I smiled. We both stretched and smiled, with a gauzy look that said “Mmm, that was a nice nap.”
It was an intimacy by space and circumstance only, and as we shuffled off the train, into the brisk walk that characterizes New York subterrania, a pang of guilt hit me. Wouldn’t a proper gentlemen have at least asked for his sleeping partner’s name?
It was too late, for I was headed for the Shuttle to Times Square. She, ahead of me now, scampered to the 4,5,6.
My small conscience crisis was not due to any deliberate sin. The collision of human nature, mass transit and the rigors of wage slavery made us into “temp” sleeping partners.
I hope I discharged my temporary duties well, and that she wasn’t slighted when I didn’t ask for her name. Being from Putnam County, I’m only just getting used to these new social arrangements.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in The Big Bagel
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