Nocturnal emission in the city that likes to go to sleep
SAN ANTONIO — Few things are as good as blasting through the darkened quiet of empty nocturnal city streets.
Having no people, no cars or no bikes around — even if just for a few blocks — lets one’s mind wander a bit. It lets one’s eye focus on the shades of orange and green of the artificial light. The red and blue neon lights of the disposable and anonymous sports bars flicker past, their patrons standing on the sidewalk or shooting pool visible through hand-printed windows. They smoke, flick cigarettes, talk on cellphones or stare down to bright, little screens navigating the short-term future, which they may or may not remember in the morning.
Buses sway clumsily through the narrow streets as their daily service nears it’s end. The last few runs are modified downtown and have the buses parked for something called lineup.
A block later, green light spills into the darkened orange of the street, but farther in under strings of lights, laughter and conversation echo out into the empty street.
A block north, through a few cycling traffic lights and after pausing for stop signs people gather. A couple make their way slowly in a horse-drawn carriage illuminated with festive lights and a paid for smile from the driver. The clock, clump, clock, clump of the hooves fades into the night behind me and again, all I hear is the sound of tires rolling on asphalt, concrete and the odd stretch of cobbles.
Around a corner, left, right, stop, go. Families and friends looking for parked cars or where to meet other people walk quietly on the sidewalk. A jowled head above a stretched t-shirt watches a bike rider with a film camera around his neck roll past on a bike with no brakes, red and white lights blink interrupting the shadows.
A silver Volkswagen rolls past with a blonde girl int he back seat. She waves to me and smiles. I wave back and take a photo before slowing behind them, passing on the left and hurtling toward the darkness on a street with a name I can’t remember.
Over an orange overpass, under an orange underpass, through an orange intersection to a darkened orange sweeping right turn with a shadow from trees on the left, I wasn’t sure if I could turn off the street before it became an onramp for an expressway. Around the corner, a darkened right hard appeared, which took me right back toward South Alamo Street. Back to the pedestrians, the planners, walkers, seekers and those who are lost but wearing the clothes of those who are not.
Around and around again, straight, left, right, stopping, going, rolling quietly and full-bore sprints, few things are as good as solitude and otherworldly energy of night time.
Ram, the Indian business man
MANHATTAN — I met an Indian man named Ram late at night in Union Square one chaotic evening. He has an office set up in an empty subway car with blacked-out windows, hurtling darkly under the city.
Ram has a four cellphones which all work in the subway. Mobile phones generally don’t work underground, but he is a man of commerce with important business so his always works.
“I never answer my phone,” he told me. “Important people never answer their own phones.”
His four lines from three area codes and two country codes are for calling other people. No one calls Ram, he calls them.
He makes no plans — nothing he shares anyway. He has no past and leaves no shadows. I don’t know his whole name, only Ram. He uses no last name, speaks many languages and deals only in foreign currency and domestic weapons.
“Americans make the best weapons,” he admitted over 24 year-old-scotch sipped from dirty glasses sitting on wooden rifle crates stamped with Cyrillic markings. “The Americans may make the best, but the Chinese make the most and make a reasonable facsimile for a much better price.”
“The Swiss have more guns than anyone, plenty of money and no one thinks twice about large transactions in cash between people who keep secrets,” Ram said to a contact calling from Davos. “Fuck the Dutch and the Canadians, they can deal with the Germans for all I fucking care.”
Ram has contemporaries and associates of many stripes for many reasons, none of which concerns anyone. His main concern is business and his personal dealings.
Ram has a strange sense of elegance and style.
Ram has the unique ability to be a Ghost of Union Square but also appear other places, generally in the company of non-English speaking Asian women who are intoxicated on rare blends of sake reserved for deities and royalty. He is neither.
Ram runs a banana plantation in Brazil and a coffee farm high in the misty peaks of Jamaica.
He is in contact with people from all over the world, including Basel, Switzerland. Some say he has a doppelganger in every major city on the planet, and a few minor cities as well. I heard Ram drank home-made moonshine with Franklin D. Roosevelt in FDR’s last days in Georgia. Yes, it was during Prohibition. Ram had a strong distribution business at that time, which doesn’t make sense given it was 70 years ago. He grimly shakes his head with a look of disdain after I asked about that.
He is a business man of questionable origin who retains the ability to seal any deal, negotiate anything without ever revealing who he is or his real intentions.
The subwoofers
SAN ANTONIO — Sometimes the only cure is to find some disposable electronic music and turn it all the way up, past where the common sense of 36 years says to hear it. These times, the only way to do it is with the subwoofer all the way up, the volume on everything at 11. Loud, shaking, at the edge of distortion or possibly beyond.
Combichrist “God Bless” is good for this. It’s clearly a cheap manufacturing job based on what bands like KMFDM, Meat Beat Manifesto Front 242 and Ministry did 20 years ago.
Sometimes my snobbery must be set aside.
A fine late autumn day in the city of the violet crown
AUSTIN — Austin is a good place to ride a bike compared to anywhere else I’ve ridden, except New York City. Sort of. New York is an odd exception in that it’s both awesome and horrible at the same time.
This specific day, December 18, 2010, was an average day in Austin. I stayed at my friend’s place in the northern end of the city and rode downtown, which is about 12 or 15 miles from her place to Cesar Chavez and Congress Avenue. South Congress and elsewhere is a little farther.
I normally stop by Juan Pelota, the cafe inside Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop on 4th and Nueces Streets for a chai. Sometimes I buy bike stuff, sometimes the chai, sometimes both. This time I bought some Gore Wind-Stopper gloves (they actually had my size and they’re very comfortable) and a copy of Rouleur magazine, issue 20. It has a feature about Japanese Keirin that is just awesome — great photos and wonderful writing giving some great depth into a rather secretive and exclusive sport.
I finished my chai on the patio as I gave the hefty magazine a perfunctory look-through while being distracted by the goings-on around me. As I began to leave, I saw a woman with Christmas lights on her bike walking it onto the patio. It was a green Surly Crosscheck with battery-powered lights wound around the top tube. She said they were from a ride or something earlier as she flicked the switch on the battery pack in a small, black seat bag.
After I left Juan Pelota, I rode around a bit, took a few photos. I rode past a Royal Blue Grocery on 3rd Street. It was more like a small urban grocery store than the other one across the street from Juan Pelota and I never knew it was there. I sat at a sidewalk table and looked a few things online. This location doesn’t have free wifi like their Nueces one does, but that didn’t matter much since I had the Sprint 4G mobile broadband thing with me. I decided I needed a hotdog and remembered Frank was right around the corner, confirming it online. I rode over, walked in and was seated immediately. The waitress was outrageously gorgeous (even by the high Austin standard of hotness) and very nice. For some dumb reason I had a bacon-wrapped hotdog with cheese and a side of poutine. Delicious, delicious regret.
I rolled myself out of there and out to my locked bike on the sidewalk. I thought I needed some coffee to blast all that grease and starch through. I remembered I’ve been meaning to go to Halcyon for a while. They have good coffee and make a motherfucker of a chai (yes, two in one day). The place has free wifi, a heated patio, comfortable seating that is loungy on one side and more like a bar on the other.
As I walked out to the patio with my coffee, I saw two people walking to a parked car on the Lavaca side of the place. The curb is very high — maybe shoulder height if my memory serves me well — and the car was parked close to it. The girl who was going to be the passenger waited as the driver moved the car out a little. I leaned over my locked bike (there are a few easy to lock places on the patio, which is really a wide, elevated sidewalk) and said she could come up there, jump over the railing and land in the passenger seat of the car through the sunroof. But I cautioned to aim carefully as to not become intimate with the gear shift. Yea, I got a sideways look for that …
I moved from the Lavaca side to the 4th Street side — the place is on a corner and has some funky and wonderfully dangerous stairs leading down to the street corner. They are round with a pole in the middle. I sat at a table on the edge of where the radiant heaters reached. I had my coffee and magazine and was almost reading it. Two girls and a guy — all dressed in Austin “I need to be seen here, dressed like this” uniforms — sat down sort of next to me. The guy was a very gay hair dresser at Bird’s Barbershop in Austin. He had coping issues. The two girls sort of repeated what the other said. They all held on to their predictable stereotypes with heroic tenacity.
“I need to be single for a while. I need to drink whiskey,” said the hairdresser about dating a guy 20 years older than him. He was sort of upset about it and everything else not fabulous. He told one of the girls he couldn’t even handle his little dog and had to give it to a friend for a while. At first I was trying to ignore them, but then I was completely eavesdropping, it was too crazy and funny not to.
A different guy walked up the worn concave steps from the street with a cardboard box in his arms. I saw as he walked up the stairs a large trophy protruding from the top of the open box. When he got closer I saw either a wig or a human head taking up most of the space around the trophy. He walked into Halcyon.
My paper coffee cup was empty for a while before I went back in. I had no intention of staying but I figured I would I would check out the inside of the place and see what their chai was all about.
Guy at Halcyon said chai is similar to the Hebrew word for life after I told him it was the Arabic word for tea. I told him whiskey comes from a similar Gaelic word meaning water of life. We both learned something. The chai came with two animal crackers and they had soy milk.
I took a seat on a couch after resting my chai and it’s large porcelain cup and saucer on the table without spilling a drop from the cup, which astonished the hell out of me.
The chai had the multi-layered, spiced and smooth flavor I expected but without the syrup-like consistency of the chai from Greenbeans Coffee. Starbucks chai can be a little weak. Juan Pelota, the coffee and gift shop in St. Davids Trinity Center and Halcyon do it right.
At some point I went to South Congress to look for Christmas presents at the small art thing there on the weekends. I spoke with a few people, bought a few things. I spoke with Jake Bryer, who had a very busy table selling photos printed on wood blocks of different sizes. He runs a gallery with photography but limits whom he represents to a geographic area around Austin. I packed everything into my well-worn, 10 year old Timbuk2 canvas messenger bag and headed back to the north side of the river. I think this is when the gastric assault began.
Some hours later after inspecting the nearly-finished Pfluger Bridge and the surrounding area, I headed over to the Nueves location of Royal Blue. Of all the photos I have of everything when I’m on my bike, I don’t have many of the bridge, at least the end of it. I’ll work on that. I went in looking for rootbeer and chocolate. I don’t remember the brand of root beer, but it was good. Not IBC, Virgil’s, Milligan’s Island, Maine Root or any I remember. I washed it down with a Kinder Bueno Bar.
Inside two girls were doing some sort of last minute gift shopping. They wanted to buy the very large jar of pickled red peppers on the counter. An employee said they use that stuff for their mayonnaise, but maybe it was for sale. He asked the other employee to try zapping it to see if it was in the system. It wasn’t. I suggested some sort of large cured meat product to one of the girls as they kept brainstorming for ideas. She asked the first employee about a large salami (no, not in a porno sense, although that would have been funny) as I walked out the door with my snacks.
I relaxed watching Austin go by in the quiet intersection of 4th and Nueces Streets as music played overhead. I headed back to my friend’s place shortly after.
7th Avenue green tide
I miss the 7th Avenue green tide and the usual 36-block double rush at top speed; spinning a 79-inch gear on a brutal steel bike with no brakes, just to the edge of control.
New York City is organized chaos seemingly on a crash course with itself, moments from a catastrophic implosion under its own weight, weakened by its own vibration and energy … a calm city of solace as well as a violent, ripping hurricane of a place, waging and defending from a fevered attack. It’s a city stronger than anywhere else, faster and more nimble; tougher, meaner and more eloquent. A city where the same people who help you up when you fall will push you right back down – and somehow it’s all fine.
I miss feeling oddly alone jammed shoulder to shoulder with 300 strangers, all pretending to ignore each other while listening and watching.
People of all stripes and reasons everywhere, but oddly nowhere at the same time. Everyone is chasing a dream or carrying the burden of survival, even if the dream is to do nothing and survival means leaching parents’ wealth. The locals know where to get a good $5 lunch from the best street cart in town and $500 jeans from a guy in Brooklyn for the best deal around.
I miss feeling as if I’m in familiar company and among friends jammed shoulder to shoulder with 300 strangers, pretending to listen to each other while ignoring and looking inward.
The sidewalks and cafes of New York City, as well as the streets, subways, high rises and brownstones have all sorts of people whose lives intersect as part of a larger fabric, made into a larger garment, on a rack in a large store where people from all over the world shop.
I miss knowing anything can happen at any time for any odd reason — or none at all, for good or ill.
Spinning fire in South Austin
AUSTIN — Opa coffee and wine bar on South Lamar in Austin is a pretty good place. The patio tables are covered by an enormous oak tree, the service is stellar and they make a slammin’ soy chai latte.
Better yet, Friday nights they have performers who light the Austin night up with fire. Sage Jacote, Natasha Kouri, Echo and Zarah take turns spinning flaming poi and batons while they gyrate to the music which fills the warm night air.
Sometimes they set themselves on fire, sometimes they are too loud — usually they’re not and their passion, dedication and practice shows. But, whatever happens, you’ll have a good time.
Sage
Sage
Echo
Echo
Zarah
Zarah
Zarah
Zarah
Zarah
Zarah
Zarah
Zarah
Zarah
Echo
Echo
Sage
I have more photos on the way. Also make sure to go to Opa yourself. You’re in for a good time.
An evening at Carmens de la Calle
SAN ANTONIO — Flamenco dancing at Carmens de la Calle, San Antonio, Texas. I never thought I would shoot photos of flamenco, and especially not in San Antonio. I need to edit this post with the names of the singer and the dude doing percussion. Actually, I need everyone’s name.
The man singing did so with a passion that drew me in, while I had no idea what he was saying. It could have been complete rubbish and I would have been drawn in anyway. The whole thing spun and moved around some unseen but very melodic, sad and beautiful rhythm that tore at the listener’s soul. At the same time, it had an uncertain energy that made it difficult to stand still.
The place is on West Mistletoe Street, next to a Jamacian jerk barbeque place that looks promising, just enough of a dump to have “character” and the friendly owner of the place outside. I don’t like barbecue so for me to want to go to a barbecue place it has to be good.
No one is waiting for me
Chloe waits patiently at her perch for Brendan to come home, she keeps her vigil watching over the front of the house. I don’t think she waits like this for me.
Still others wait for the ride home, or maybe to work. Maybe they’re just going anywhere their whims take them and they don’t mind the wait — maybe they like it. Sometimes waiting gives one the time to make a game plan, or to relax and recharge for a moment. Waiting isn’t always bad.
Looking down the tracks for the train, waiting. Some people pace about nervously, others lean over the edge of the platform looking for the lights and distant illuminated number of the subway. Some people read, others chant. 59th Street and Lexington Avenue stop.
While others are just waiting for bats to fly from under a bridge, dinner or maybe a package to arrive. Some are possibly waiting for a plane to arrive start a new adventure. We’re all waiting for something, but no one is waiting for me.
Brendan waiting for a package to arrive by FedEx.
Waiting for the different buses that circulate to and from the Kel-Lac bus station in San Antonio.
Airmen on their way to follow-on training after recently graduating basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base. They’re waiting for a pre-dawn flight at San Antonio International Airport. Waiting, sleeping … waiting.
Waiting in a Manhattan Starbucks for the rain to clear and for that friendly face to emerge through the door, through with the city’s cacophony of uncommon speed and commerce slip through with a growl and a whisper. It’s a small city with a large population and everybody is waiting for something. She was busy with her book, punctuating her reading with looks to the street, but, she wasn’t waiting for me.
Dusk falls in Austin, waiting for the bats to fly from Congress Avenue Bridge as they normally do, but not always. Many people wait on the shores of the river, some wait in boats floating below. Still, they’re all waiting.
Ghosts of Union Square
Certain people I only see in Union Square. They seem to vanish once they cross Broadway or 14th Street. Sometimes they disappear into the clutter of Gramercy or the Garment District once they cross 17th Street. Sometimes they emerge from the dark shadows in the first warm day of spring, after hibernating for the cold winter. Sometimes they appear in the orange-hued darkness of night.
I don’t know, they may be real people, but they may not be. Maybe only I can see them, maybe there are more who are only visible to you.
Michele Bayard and his pinhole photos
Dave, never in the same jacket twice
Some people I saw nearly every day, and maybe have some sort of contact like with Dave. Other people I only saw a few times, but from a distance and never had any contact.
The break dancers were good and an odd group of people.
They’re ghosts as well.
The break dancers
There were others who had multiple roles in Union Square, like me. Nick was a bike messenger but also a tattoo artist. He was from Philadelphia, and last I heard, had gone back there. As for me, I may have been a ghost as well, on some days.
I spent my fair share of time in Union Square while working as a bike messenger. One company, Dragonfly Courier, had me start and end my day in Union Square, roughly. The area I covered was surrounded by the square, so I returned there when things were slow.
Like Dave, I was also a photographer there. I mean, I was before NYC and after (I still am now), but it was one of my roles in Union Square. It’s how I met Dave and Mickey and Natasha and Kasha and other people whose names I can’t remember. I met the ghosts with whom I communicate because of photography.
Nick and me, our bikes and newspapers
Natasha, Hoop Girl Extrordinare
Hoop Girl
And then, there are the ones who passed through one dark night and never returned.
Probably Kasha
I have no idea what her name is
T shirts and art late night in Union Square
The girls sold shirts, the guy stunk
Irina
And of course there are the ones who drift about in their own world.
He always had a mouth full of chewing gum
Random guy interrupting Dave and Melissa
He was obnoxious
What’s on your mind?
The places I love the most have a promontory.
I used to sit on the vacant lifeguard chairs in the night-time fog of the late summer night of Narragansett, RI. The fishing boats would pass in the channel close to my perch.
I would sleep in my car and awaken a few hours later to watch the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean. These times, these mornings there by myself I knew everything would be right.
Maybe our thoughts were echoing with each other, maybe they passed each other like the training exercises of the F-16 fighter pilots who roar from the runway close to my office; rattling windows, engines growling with anger and fury as they punctuate the Texas sky. (I forget about the purpose and environmental issues of such planes and remember to be in awe of the speed and grace at which they fly.)
Here I have no promontory. Well, maybe I do now that I think of it. I watch the sun rise over the runways of an Air Force base where the insanely huge C-5′s are parked.
Do you ever think your thoughts and mumbled questions into the quiet of the cold night ever reach listening ears? I wonder about that sometimes. I wonder if maybe a discarded idea of mine finds its way into a mind that uses it better making it into a good plan or delicate prose of poignant delivery and noble ideals.
What’s in your mind, muttered from your lips upon this perch from which you survey hither and yon?
