Slapping Watermelons

The problem with wandering is that if you do too much of it, your routines get out of whack.

It pushes you off your map, stretching your consciousness and forcing you to metabolize new thoughts and emotions and facets of reality you hadn't seen before. That takes time and energy to process... If you push too far the soup gets thick and funky.

So the wise wanderer alternates between the worlds of routine and play. Asleep and awake. Day and night. Inside and out. It is appropriate to break your patterns.

But because we are in thrall to Apollo, god of Line-Goes-Up, we over-push our positive ROI habits and business routines, missing opportunities to refine that come from time away in another place. I think this is why most people find wandering suspicious and frivolous. LINE GOES UP!

I've been grinding lately, trying to make up for several years worth of work/wander deficit, and trying to upgrade my work routines and environment, so when my old friend Tze texted and wanted to meet up on Friday night, I said yes.

I left the house on Friday morning and I was gone for 36 hours and it was delicious fruit. Every time I wander like this I have a shift in perspective, sometimes big, sometimes small, and I'm not sure this one has ripened yet, but here's the juiciest watermelon I could find so far.

Hope you enjoy.

My sonar isn't working.

I walked out the door around 10am, heading down to Essex Market to meet a family of four for a Bagels, Dumplings, Pizza, and Tacos tour.

They were lovely people from Austin, with bright eyes, big energy, and good curiosity. Exactly the kind of folks I love to show around.

We walked down to Kossar's, had a bagel and a bialy, then went to El Cabron and had some Tacos al Pastor.

Then we pushed down into Chinatown and passed through Dimes Square.

We cut down to Henry Street and had some dumplings at Jin Mei. Should mention it was like 100 degrees. Hot af.

Showed them some sights in Chinatown, grabbed some sponge cake at Kam Hing, then walked up to Nolita Pizza and then over to Freeman Alley. 👇

Art is a conversation. It's scaffolding for other people's reality - especially on the street - or as a writer - you should expect and want people to add on/alter/steal/deface your shit. But this one made me sad. The two on the right are from the 23rd of July, the one on the left from the 25th of July. I thought this was a really nice piece by Motomichi but maybe just too many big blank targets.

Said goodbye to the BDPT folks at Freeman, then walked over to Avenue B to get my hair cut.

My barber Michael is from Tashkent, in Uzbekistan, and when I walked in he was watching a music video shot in Samarkand in 1978. I found the actual video.

After I got my haircut I took the L over the 6th avenue and walked south, looking for a spot to chill before my evening tour.

Spent a few hours working on my phone at the Waverly Diner, hiding from the rain and the heat, then sat in Father Demo Square for an hour before my 6pm Village Nights tour.

Met them in front of the IFC center. Lovely couple from Cleveland and their charming adult daughter. It's rare to have two such awesome groups in a single day. Also, Love Cleveland 5th best city in North Am.

Ran into D. who was also leading a group at Pommes Frittes - especially fun because he's also from just outside Cleveland. I love it when our groups cross paths. He's masterful at making it a fun moment for both groups.

Took my team to Old Rabbit Club. Their bathroom is covered in tags, doodles in stickers.

We cut into Wash, then went over to look at the spot where the Triangle fire happened, then walked over to 7th avenue where we had a slice at Two Boots and a taco at Taco Mahal.

Left my lovely evening group at Christopher and 7th, and walked up Bleecker to meet D just after 9pm. Work day was done. I'd been on the street for 11 hours, walked 9 miles, and had a great day mixing it up on the street. Guiding in NYC takes a lot of energy, but it's easy when the guests give it back. Super fun.

Tried to convince D to come to Brooklyn with me to meet Tze, but he'd already given three tours in the heat, and had three more the next day. We took the train together a few stops, then I peeled off and headed to Williamsburg, and he continued home, deeper into Brooklyn.

I got off at Marcy Ave, walked down the stairs, and back towards the East River, headed to a bar called Rossi's where Tze told me to meet him.

Tze and I drank a couple beers out front of the bar, then this beautiful Egyptian woman came over and asked to sit with us and tried to get my attention, but she was super boring so we walked up the block, got an Uber, and went to a psytrance event at Silo in Bushwick.

Silo is in an old Quonset Hut which as a tripping Alaskan made me feel right at hoooome.

We danced for awhile but then my body and mind began to drag heavily and I went outside and called Rhonda real quick who's been too busy for me and ate some tacos and gassed up some Trumpers so they'd share their weed with me and then went and found Tze and we went through this comical 20-minute negotiation about leaving. Felt horrible for making him go but I was fukt from walking a full day in the heat and just generally being a sloppy old dude.

Around 2:30am we got in another car and headed out towards Tze's place in Richmond Hill.

Tze and I met in Guate many years ago when we both lived in this Korean guy's house. He has a professional degree but bailed from his Caribbean life to travel around Central America, then ended up here in the city. He used to run really successful bars, but now he teaches some of the most underserved kids in the city. He is the only person I know who has wandered further than I have. Maybe not more, but he's definitely been deeper into worlds that as a big dumb white guy I am so far not able to access.

These days we both look like desk cops, but there's a lot of circuitry hidden under the burlap, and it was really great to have this night to clear the pores. Just enough to squish the balloon. Love hanging with him too because his mind is big and weird and he's a good reflection for me, what it's like for most people dealing with someone who has no fear of wandering off on their own.

After about 20 minutes in the car, into an area of the city I do not know, he asks the driver to stop in the middle of a road, surrounded by forest on both sides.

We get out of the car, and walk into the woods, winding a few hundred feet up these little paths to a little clearing.

Tze started dancing and said something about how amazing it was go to from that club to this quiet, dark place in the forest. Fucking agree.

We kept walking, and stumbled out of the trees and into a neighborhood full of some BIG houses.

New York will never not surprise you with what sorts of lives can be lived inside it.

By this point I'm kinda dying. Still in a great mood but I've been drenched in sweat for the better part of a day and my ribcage is starting to feel a little too small for my heart. When we go into Tze's building, I almost sit down in the elevator because it's so fucking hot.

Tze says this was supposed to be the hottest day of the year so far.

He's got a really nice apartment. Clean and quiet and spacious. A far cry from my place. We sit in the living room and he plays me some videos I'd never seen of the DJ work he was doing after I left Guatemala. It blew my mind.

Then he played this:

Held on Bastille Day, 1990. Apollo's triumph: the activation of Haussmann's Axe Historique at the fall of the Soviet Union. Probably the largest concert ever held, with more than 2.5 million listening in on the boulevards lined with speakers.

When we get back to it remember to kill the bull at sunrise.

Eventually the sun came up and Tze made some amazing ceviche with salted cod and a noodle dish.

Fell in love with my boots while he was cooking.

At one point I looked in his refrigerator and it was super clean and organized and full of vegetables and I got kind of disgusted because that's not what my refrigerator looks like. I told him to go fuck himself and went in the other room and looked out the window at his incredible view of the park. And it worked. It helped me to hide my disappointment of myself from myself.

Tze is moving in a few days. He'd been there for 5 years. Both of us glad that I got to witness the spot before he left. He has a really outstanding view from the bedroom. Said it's spectacular in the wintertime, when the snow falls on the trees. I could not get over how quiet and peaceful it was.

We slept for a few hours around 8am and in the air-conditioned room Tze graciously invited I take, I was finally able to cool down and my chest stopped hurting.

We got up around 12:30 and headed out, walking back through the forest from the previous night. The shine had boiled off, but the glow was still there. I sat down on this log and smoked a joint.

While I was sitting here I noticed this eye looking back at me. 👇

Tze walked over to the tree and noticed there were actually two.

There's good research to suggest that eyes watching us influence our behavior, even if those eyes aren't attached to an actual organism. Putting eyes on something is a good way to subtly discourage unwanted activity. Or sometimes it's art. Idk.

This is a fucking whale eye though.☝️

We met this chipmunk. 👇

And these mushrooms. 👇

Job!!!! It's Job!!!!!! 👆👆👆

Really starting to love Queens.

We walked over to Kew Gardens, past the spot where Kitty Genovese was murdered. He got a beer and I got a coffee and we poured them into ice cups and walked towards Forest Hills, planning to meet up later with our friend Marie.

We took a little detour walking north on Queens Boulevard, before swinging back south.

Tze pointed at the building on the left and said, "They got it going on. Look at those balconies and the cross ventilation." Then he pointed at this monstrosity on the right. "Who wants to live in this stank stale air?"

The massing of these buildings hits different in Queens. While much of it is relatively low to the ground, you frequently stumble across these massive residential buildings sprouting from the ground like new hills. I think lot-size and road layout has a lot to do with it.

Once you walk under the LIRR tracks and enter Forest Hills Gardens, you leave New York and enter a pocket universe full of manicured homes and parking restrictions. Like Beverly Hills, you cannot park on the street here, which effectively keeps unauthorized motorists from lingering in the neighborhood.

Tze and I sat in a private park at Borage Street and waited for Marie. I took off my shoes and put my feet in the grass.

The unripened part of this wander is the dialogue. Tze and I talked almost nonstop for 24 hours. We bicker about fatalism and free will, but agree about almost everything else. He's a realist, I can see over the fences. We might have a dozen conversations in a minute, because New York finds a way to steal your attention every 5 to 10 seconds.

We're both old wanderers and know how to make friends so we're good vibes to cross paths with, but exhausting to be around unless you're a particular kind of freak.

Which, Marie is.

LIRR station in and Forest Hills Gardens behind it, with Queens and Manhattan in the distance. Forest Hills Gardens were built with a collection of pre-fabricated shapes. It gives the area cohesive feel, and you can see the types of houses in this mosaic.

We met Marie at the corner of Queens Blvd and 71st Street, and walked down to Azal which is a sparkling and delicious and very loud Yemeni coffee shop.

Marie is 6 months pregnant. We made a weird team. Tze and I up all night, her coming from a birthing class. We got the coffees to go and walked back into Forest Hills Gardens.

My phone died right after I took this arch shot and I was sad.

A few blocks later we stopped and waited at the curb for a car. In less than a minute we talked about two different body parts falling off the body. And also Job's full-body scab. In front of a pregnant woman.

The car took us to Flushing on the Van Wyck Expressway, which is dotted with graffiti and signs and strip malls and over-sized apartment buildings busting up out of the tree cover. I'm still mad I didn't get to take any pics.

In Flushing we went to this dive bar Tze likes. Marie had been there on a date last year, and watched a fight develop over the dart board. We sat at the end of the bar, and Tze and I drank gin and argued across Marie and her unborn child and her poorly-made mocktail.

My phone was dead for about 3 hours but I got a bit of charge while we were griping at Kelly's.

Took a pic of the front door as we went out. As we walked away, As we were leaving Marie held her stomach and said, "I think it's cool all the things they've already been exposed to," which is just a great way to approach life.

We walked up Roosevelt Avenue to Murray Hill. Didn't get a picture but saw this woman slapping watermelons out front of a grocery store, trying to find the ripest one. She was really skilled at it and it was both practical and ridiculous at the same time.

Amazing how sound is such a good indicator of when something is ripe.

I'm of the opinion that every housing unit should have an outdoor space. These balconies are huge quality of life.

Few blocks later we saw this. I was tempted to go and slap it.

After some wrangling, we found a place to eat. There are 50 Korean bbq joints out there and I want to go to all of them. But we found a vegetarian place because Marie has ethics. Tze and I drank some soju, I had some sushi, Marie had a bowl of ramen. Tze ordered octopus but it never came. He managed to not eat the entire day.

After a long dinner, we caught one more car from a Pakistani guy who came here in 1988. He showed us a picture of himself in a leather jacket and sunglasses on top of Tower 2 in 1989, looking cool af. He and Joe got to talking about chickens and then Marie jumped in speaking to him in Hindi asking him if he spoke Urdu (I think?)

His license plate said Letts Go. "My name starts with T so I added an extra one in there," he said. "It makes it more romantic."

Later he said, "If you're making money, keep going. If you're making babies, keep going." He had us dying. 5 cool humans rolling through Queens.

We dropped Marie in front of her building, and Tze and I walked from there. I was gonna get the LIRR, but some workers were putting plastic over the track, so definitely no train was coming. Walked back up the block and got the E to 7th Avenue to the uptown D.

36 hours. 20 miles walked. 100 laughs. 1000 little moments of joy to sweeten the juice in the watermelon sitting on my neck.

I can think of no better way to spend my time than exploring with friends. Especially those yet to be born.