When I left work yesterday, there was a steady rain. I ducked and weaved between the raindrops and made it to rotten old Port Authority relatively unscathed. We came out of the Lincoln Tunnel on the Jersey side and it had stopped raining. We turned a corner and I saw this:

Boy, if this isn’t a metaphor, then I don’t know what is. It was vibrant and bright. The picture doesn’t do it justice. By the time I got my camera out we had shifted position but when I first laid eyes on this, it came down directly onto Times Square. A direct hit!

This may be bad poetry, but Manhattan has always been the Emerald City to me. And in my world, Times Square is what lies at the end of the rainbow.

I had this friend, Klinger, who was one of the all-time great schemers. He had a million ideas for cutting corners and gaming the system.

My favorite grift was the one he pulled on the post office. He and his Chinese girlfriend, Fun, decided to throw a dinner party. This was long before the internet invaded our lives in any meaningful way, so they sent the invitations via the post office (which now seems quaint and unsophisticated).

He took all the invitations, addressed them to himself and put the invitees return address on the back. Then he deposited them in various Manhattan post offices and letter boxes, but didn’t affix any stamps. Every single invitation was delivered with “RETURN TO SENDER FOR INSUFFICIENT POSTAGE” stamped in red on the front. Genius.

We both kind of liked the same girl in that special way, if you catch my meaning. An actress named Mimi. (I was a sucker for actresses in my youth.) Mimi took up with a successful artist who had a place out in the Hamptons. She would go there for the weekend and Klinger and I would sit in Manhattan and stew in our rejection. We’d spend the weekend insulting his talent and manhood and question Mimi’s taste in men.

Klinger tried his hand at acting, writing, stand-up comedy, directing and promoting, all with limited success. He eventually broke up with Fun and moved to Los Angeles to try his luck there. I wonder what ever happened to that guy?

I’m a big Roy Lichtenstein fan but the Morgan Library does him no favors in the Black and White Drawings 1961-1968 exhibit currently up through January 2nd. Pop art has always been criticized for not being “serious.” In my mind, that’s a load of horseshit. The works that Lichtenstein, Warhol, Damien Hirst, Red Grooms, et. al. have produced are fun to look at. Does it have to be deep all the time? Lighten up, snobs!

One criticism is that pop art lacks originality. Well, they naysayers may have a point. Lichtenstein made a career out of reproducing already existing comic drawings and rechristening them as art. The Morgan takes some of his work and lays it side-by-side with the source material and do you know what? It’s kind of disheartening! He really did just copy comic panels and call it art.

In addition to the Lichtenstein exhibit, the Morgan also has a juicy Degas: Drawings and Sketchbooks exhibit through January 23rd. It’s just 20 drawings and two sketchbooks, so it’s easy to do both the Lichtenstein and Degas exhibits in just one visit.

It’s worth your while to take a few minutes and click though the online exhibit of the drawings. They’re so beautiful. There’s a few haunting self portraits.

The exhibit includes prototype sketches of his little dancer sculpture.

I don’t have a damn to write about. I think I might have writer’s block. Perhaps something sufficiently entertaining/horrifying will occur over the weekend. Until then, here’s a beach post from summer that’s been languishing in drafts for a few months.

Here’s the giant, Plexiglas Alfred E. Neuman statue that’s mounted on the roof of a carnival game. He use to have something in his hand—I think a shovel or an ax—but it’s long gone. I grew up on a steady diet of Mad Magazine and when I saw this for the first time I almost wept. Some little animals have thrown mud balls on his face. Bastards. It’s like spitting on the Mona Lisa.

This game causes a TONS of controversy every summer. Shoot the Guido. You rent a paintball rifle and shoot at some guy who runs around dressed like a Mafia don. There’s a large segment of the Italian/American community who deeply resent the term “Guido.” They feel it’s a derogatory racial term. Their argument is that this is no different than if the game was called Shoot the Kike or Shoot the Coon. I hate to sound like I don’t have a sense of humor but I see their point. I’m Italian and am not bothered by the term Guido, but they make a pretty convincing case, don’t you think?

Midway Steak is one of my favorite food kiosks. It’s got all the major beach food groups: cheese steaks, Italian sausages, burgers, cheese fries, etc., etc. Urp.

That afternoon, we were lucky enough to stumble across a performance by the fabulous rock-a-billy hellcats, The Razorbacks. Good Christ almighty, they’re great musicians. The guitarist/vocalist is astonishing. I honestly have no idea how anyone could NOT like rock-a-billy. They were playing one of the sports bars on the boardwalk. The music poured out onto the beach and I had to wander in for a listen.

Geeze, this post is making me miss summer a little bit. And it’s only October! I’m screwed!