Looking lost in Chinatown
In New York on day four of a six day work trip. It took a few days of humidity to finally explode in a proper rainstorm, the kind that brings lightning and thunder and endless rushes of rain you somehow think you might be able to dodge if you run fast enough but of course it never works out.
I love this kind of weather, even if it's a bit misplaced for mid-September and feels more like July.
With the exception of some dear friends I managed to see this weekend, everything I love about New York is now either missing or closed for renovation or closed completely. Places I used to go no longer exist. Lou Reed and Bowie are dead. Clubs and restaurant svanished. As someone said, "The thing about New York: All the stuff you want to last always closes, and all the stuff you wish would close always stays open."
I've spent so much time here for work and travel and even briefly living here over the years, that the allure has long since passed. I first experienced New York in the late 80's as a tiny kid. It was still fun and threatening and unpredictable. The 90's Giuliani years were a mixture of scary drugs and clean up. The early 2000's were fun drugs and predictability although I seemed to have had the misfortune of being in many taxi cab accidents, thankfully none serious. The day I was in two different accidents in two different cabs was the day I'd had enough.
The last time I was here was eight years ago and it was the singlehanded best time ever, so much so it changed my life for the better 100 percent and completely. So it'd impossible for New York to ever live up to that again.
I want to believe the city realized there was no way to better the situation ever again, so it didn't even bother trying. If anything, it's been mostly underwhelming. The Bowery roaches are the same, if not a bit bigger. Chinatown's rotting fish stench more pronounced. The dismal glare of the San Gennaro festival lights illuminating a blend of crotch-grabbing Jersey bros, overweight tourists in sweaty, wrinked New York Fucking City t-shirts, the perpetually drunk party-goers shouldering the oblivious hunch-backed teens staring at their smart phones are more or less the same. The new part since I last visited eight years ago are the charging stations everywhere, and the people plugged in for a free charge in exchange for their data, of course.
Perhaps that's not quite fair, but impressions are important, and perhaps once I go down one path, that path doesn't change. I did enjoy one or two moments watching NYPD's finest taking a chance on a carnival game, not to mention the cannoli hawkers yelling at the top of their lungs. This morning's walk across the Manhattan bridge for breakfast was nice, too. I even got caught in the rain befor it became torrential.
The title of this post is from Luna's "Chinatown," off their masterpiece Penthouse. I can't hear Chinatown without thinking about this song.
In the tiny tiny hours
Between the evening and the day
We have placed our final bets
We have come out to play
Fancy drinks a lucky toasts
I like this time the most
You're out all night
Chasin' girlies
You're late to work
And you go home earlies
Lookin' lost in chinatown
Why are we hidin' from our friends
Rushing 'round in taxi cabs
Is it time to make amends
You'll get yours and i'll get mine
Can't be lucky all the time
You're out all night
Chasin' girlies
You're late to work
And you go home earlies
