One of the great things about living on the Upper West Side, a half block from Central Park West, is being able to let the dogs off leash before 9:00. It does mean you have to wake up insanely early to get out there by 8:00 a.m. but it’s worth it, even when you’ve had a 2-show day the day before. When you make the effort to do so, you don’t have insane pent-up energy dogs in your 400 square foot apartment. I learned a lot from Cesar Milan. People dis the Dog Whisperer, but to me, he’s the shit.
We moved back to the Upper West Side after 4 years of living in Westchester. I don’t even know if I want to go there. I could, but suffice it to say, Kim’s family lives up there, and I wanted to honor my wife. It wasn’t all bad, actually. Ok, I’ll go there for a sec. The 2 places we lived, Somers and Katonah were extremely different. We actually moved to a fucking retirement community in Somers when we left Brooklyn. Heritage Hills. Everyone kept saying, “Oh, no, it USED TO BE a retirement community but they forgot to file the paperwork one year, and their status lapsed. Now they let anyone under 55 in.”
The truth is, at orientation, they give you LIFE LINE PACKETS. There are 5 outdoor pools and you can use any of them, until you realize that they are all heated to a comfortable bathwater temperature of 88 degrees. You hear ambulances in the middle of the night. No one goes outside in the Winter.
2 years later we moved to Katonah. I tried to convince myself that it would be an easier commute because the Metro North was right behind our house. That’s just it…THE METRO NORTH WAS RIGHT BEHIND OUR HOUSE. Train whistles every fucking half hour. But I have to say, we rented a fantastic apartment on the second floor of a CASTLE, I mean it. It looked like a castle.
The rent was astronomical, but we thought it was worth it, especially since we later found out that it was in the movie VALLEY OF THE DOLLS!!! It’s seems that in the movie, while they portrayed Anne Wells visiting her hometown of Lawrenceville, Massachusetts, it was actually KATONAH , NEW FUCKING YORK. I wish you could see the video of me trying to control my wife Kim to get the best footage, but you’ll have to make do with a picture.
The rent was astronomical, but we thought it was worth it, especially since we later found out that it was in the movie VALLEY OF THE DOLLS!!! It’s seems that in the movie, while they portrayed Anne Wells visiting her hometown of Lawrenceville, Massachusetts, it was actually KATONAH , NEW FUCKING YORK. I wish you could see the video of me trying to control my wife Kim to get the best footage, but you’ll have to make do with a picture.
One of the two gay men who live in the town and own the only decent restaurant in the village, told us about it. So of course we rented the movie and took a picture of the frames our house was in.
The charm stops there. One day there was a fucking bat in the apartment. Then I got pneumonia from running myself ragged going back and forth to NY every day. The power went out in the whole town every time there was even a medium-sized storm.
We moved back to Manhattan. And we actually REDUCED OUR RENT by 700 fucking dollars. We figured we’d live in a tiny one-bedroom because we’d go to our house in the Catskills more often. Miraculously, they accepted our 2 dogs and 1 cat, too.
My friend for 35 years, Beth, got us the apartment in her building. Beth is one of the most interesting people I know. She got a Masters from Yale as a classical guitarist, worked to pay off her student loans by stripping in seedy New Jersey strip clubs, and now is a top Executive Management Consultant for CEOs that run REALLY LARGE AND IMPORTANT corporations. She’s got an amazing studio apartment with a garden twice the size of her apartment. She is definitely the smartest person I know. She does the NY Times Crossword in minutes (any of the days, even Friday and Saturday…I can only do up to Thursday), can talk intelligently about any subject you might bring up, and regularly gets her next door neighbor (world renowned Economist Jeffrey Sachs) to speak at our Buddhist functions. For these last 4 years, when we were living in Westchester, I would have no place to go between shows at Jersey Boys. Beth gave me keys to her apartment and I would nap on her couch while she worked at her computer, probably creating the next big strategic marketing plan for KPMG or AMERICAN AIRLINES.
Today I was going downstairs to chant with her. We’re both Nichiren Shoshu Buddhists, which means we chant the phrase Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo. I’m not going into it right now, but just know that it’s a religion where you don’t have to die to find out if it has worked.
When I get downstairs to the ground floor from our 4th floor walk-up, she is somewhat distraught. She has the altar ready, and her beads and book are out, ready to chant.
“Do waterbugs scream?”, she asks me.
Now, for a person as brilliantly intelligent as Beth is, there are very strange places her brain doesn’t work in.
“Why?” I ask, stifling my laughter.
“The cats kept me up all night with something that they were torturing and I didn’t know what it was and I was afraid to look.”
“So you thought it might be a cockroach with vocal chords?”
I have to leave for the matinee now, but I’m glad I live in Manhattan again. I’d rather live someplace where waterbugs scream than any other place in the world.