One of the few places my dad took my brother and I when we were kids was the professional wrestling matches in the old, now demolished, Cleveland Arena on Euclid Avenue. The Cleveland Area was the site for Alan Freed’s Moondog Coronation Ball, which is considered to be the first rock and roll concert. The show was oversold and ended in a near riot (of course).

The Arena might have had historical value, but by the time we were going to wrestling matches there, it had become a broken down hulk of a building in a terrible neighborhood. One night, we saw some poor guy get hit by a car that must have been going 60 mph down Euclid. It happened right in front of us. He was knocked high into the air and was spinning with his arms and legs spread out like a pinwheel. He was carrying a box of popcorn and he never let go. He hit the street and the popcorn flew everywhere. My dad said, “Do you guys want to go have a look?! We said no thanks, dad. I knew he wanted to.

My brother and I were big wrestling fans. We watched Championship Wrestling on channel 43 and Big Time Wrestling on channel 61. Going downtown to see our heroes do battle in the flesh thrilled my tiny 12-year old bones to the very marrow. I had NO IDEA the fights were fixed and the outcomes predetermined, and I was embarrassingly old when I finally realized it.

This was Bobo Brazil

A massive black man. A face. (That‘s what they called the good guys.) During one match we attended, Bobo’s head was smashed into the turnbuckle by the heel. (That‘s what the bad guys were called.) While he was shaking his head and regaining his senses, the heel snuck a metal folding chair into the ring and smashed Bobo over the head a few times. (The ref didn’t see the chair. That should have been my tip-off that something was up.)

A huge black woman sitting right behind me started crying hysterically. Real tears and weeping! She stood up and started screaming at the top of her lungs, “Git up Bobo! Git up!” Our seats were so far away that there’s no way he heard her.

Of course, Bobo got up. (They always got up.) And, boy, was he pissed about the metal folding chair. Every wrestler had a signature closing move that got him out of a jam and Bobo’s was the Coco Butt. It’s an exotic name for a head-butt. He applied a few Coco Butts to the heel and the woman behind me started laughing and shouting, “That’s RIGHT Bobo! That’s RIGHT! KILL him! KILL HIM!” It was fantastic.

This hairy bastard was Wild Bull Curry.

A heel. During one match at the Arena, someone about 20 rows up held up a big, cardboard sign that said, “BOOOO! FAKE!” I was incredulous. What do you mean fake!? Wild Bull was even angrier. He climbed out of the ring, ran through the crowd, up into the stands, grabbed the sign and ripped it to shreds. I suppose it was a plant but it was real drama to me at the time.

This was may favorite heel. Pamparo Firpo, the Wild Beast from the Pampas.

When he appeared on TV, I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. He had a voice like gravel and would punctuate his sentences with, “Oohhhh YEAAAAHH! He would drool and dribble all over his beard. He would taunt his opponents while petting a shrunken head (shown above). His closing move was the Claw Hold. He would clamp his big hand on the top of his opponent’s skull and squeeeeeze. His opponents would howl in pain. God, I loved it.

This was Johnny Powers, The Man of the Hour. He was the biggest face in Cleveland. A pretty boy. A star.

His closing move was the Power Lock (shown above). He’d get his opponent’s legs all twisted up and they’d be in so much agony they’d slap the mat and end the match. But then disaster struck. A heel (I forgot which one) discovered a COUNTER MOVE to the Power Lock. (You roll over.) It was a sad Saturday afternoon when that happened.

Power’s arch nemesis was Reginald Love. He and his brother, Hartford Love, were The Love Brothers.

They were the heel’s heel. They dressed in hippie beads and psychedelic wrestling tights. I later discovered that in real life, they weren’t actually brothers. And Reginald and Hartford weren’t even their real names! They said they chose those names because they “wanted to sound like snobs.”

Once on Championship Wrestling, Powers was admiring a wristwatch that had just been presented to him for his birthday from the Cleveland chapter of the “Johnny Powers Fan Club.” Reginald walked into the studio, made fun of the watch and called Powers “a donkey.” Powers said, “I have something you don’t have…fans.” Reginald countered with, “Well, I have something you don’t have…A HAMMER!” He took a hammer out of his back pocked and smashed the watch to bits. They started wrestling on the studio floor. Excellent! I read in a Powers interview years later that he had no idea Reginald was going to do that. It was completely unscripted. He really was angry that the watch had been smashed.

This was more than a decade before Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage and all those pussies. It lost something for me when it became stadium-spectacular. The only wrestler from that era worth a damn was Brutus the Barber Beefcake. His closing move was to knock his opponent out with a sleeper hold and give them a really shitty haircut before reviving them. That took balls.

Another evening on the way home we stopped off at the L&K Diner for sundaes. My dad started flirting with the much younger waitress. She asked how he wanted his coffee and he said, “Blonde. Like you.” and he winked. I was embarrassed.

The latest tourist shakedown is to dress up in popular animated character costumes and stroll around Times Square. The kiddies insist on having their picture taken with them and the parents surrender a few bucks. It must be lucrative because they’re all over the place. Lots of Sesame Street characters. Dora the Explorer. Hello Kitty.

They aparate out of nowhere and roam the streets. I was passing the 42nd Street subway station and stumbled upon a guy preparing for a hard, hot day inside a costume.

He was annoyed that I was taking pictures and stopped walking up the stairs. He wouldn’t move until I left, so I did.

Another hidden facet of the city that I know nothing about. Wheels within wheels.

I met a friend for drinks last evening. Interesting guy. The grandson of iconic American director/ screenwriter/ producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz. He always has good stories to tell. We met at a casual outdoor venue but as soon as we got there it started to pour rain. A biblical deluge!

We dashed into the closest indoor bar, which happened to be in the Bryant Park Hotel. It’s not my scene but it was convenient. Lots of after work suit-and-tie corporate types. Thumping club music. A bit of a meat market. And crazy expensive. A round of drinks for the two of us was $33.75 (before gratuity). We were drinking premium liquor and eating free hot bar appetizers, but still.

As we sat talking, a guy walked in and sat a few tables away. Upper management, from the looks of his tailored suit and manicured nails. Probably in his late 50s. Not fat but kind of soft around the edges. Average looks and aura. To shamelessly borrow from Bukowski:

there he is:
not too many hangovers
not too many fights with women
not too many flat tires
never a thought of suicide

not more than three toothaches
never missed a meal 
never in jail
never in love 

7 pairs of shoes
a son in college
a car one year old
insurance policies
a very green lawn
garbage cans with tight lids
he’ll be elected

Ten minutes later he’s joined by a stunningly beautiful Asian woman. Early 30s, if that. She sits next to him—not across the table. Peck on the cheek. Chat-chat-chat. He reaches down and produces a small, elegant shopping bag. She opens it, takes out a pretty box. It’s a watch. He liberates it from the stubborn packaging and slips it onto her delicate, porcelain wrist. Kiss.

This struck me as the oldest dance steps from the oldest book ever written. I wish them well and hope they find happiness. And if it doesn’t last, perhaps they can find some moments of peace and comfort in each others’ arms.

I bought David Sedaris’ first book Barrel Fever when it was published in 1994. Prior to its publication I was in a writing workshop with him and the stuff he read in class was far superior to what everyone else was doing, so I knew the book would be great. And it is.

No, they should not.

Do you remember my story last year about the book I published for Nick Hornby and Bruce Springsteen? It had a happy/sad conclusion. After several years of fits and starts, it was finally printed, bound and sold. The end result was very satisfactory little letterpress chapbook and a check for nearly $16,000 for a school for autistic children in London. The sad part was that it annihilated the great friendship between myself and the printer.

Flash to now. We had reconciled via email at the beginning of 2011. This week, he visited New York. It was the first time we’d met face-to-face since the Thunder Road kerfuffle. Miraculously, (or, perhaps, not so miraculously) it’s as if nothing bad ever happened between us. There were no aftershocks. Nothing! We picked up our conversation right where we left off and spent the day yammering like two old hens. What a relief. What a gift!

I put on my tour guide chapeau and we spent the day scouring the museums, art galleries and rare bookstores of Manhattan. I don’t know anyone who has a deeper knowledge or greater passion for printing than this guy. His enthusiasm is infectious. We visited the Morgan Library where there are printing samples ranging from Egyptian stone scrolls through to a Gutenberg bible, a Shakespeare first folio, to handwritten letters by Hemingway where he liberally drops the “F” bomb and concertos penned by Mozart.

We saw the Weegee exhibit at the International Center for Photography and after a walk on the Highline we ducked in and out of a dozen art galleries in Chelsea. I was wondering how I could parlay a day like that into a lucrative career. Here’s a small sampling of what we stumbled across in the art world. [Sorry, iPhone users. You’ll miss out on some terrific film clips.]

This piece of brilliance is BIT.FALL by German artist Julius Popp. A stream of water is released in once second intervals. As that “section” of water falls, a word is projected onto it. The text is generated by a statistical algorithm that randomly pulls words from the current stream of news on the internet. The illusion is that solid words dissolve into nothing.

There’s some deeper meaning about the impermanence of cultural information but, honestly, I don’t care about that stuff. This is simply a very clever, fun piece.

This summer’s outdoor public art exhibit at Madison Square Park is Pet Sounds by California-based artist Charles Long.

The candy-colored sculptures look like great globs of silly putty that drip off rails, tables and benches. They also have a very effective interactive feature.

Each sculpture makes its own, unique, sound. You might have to turn the volume up a bit but I was able to capture the “pet sound” as I caressed it. It also vibrated as I ran my hand down its back. Probably not the most sanitary exhibit I’ve ever seen but if you’re frightened by germs, then this city probably isn’t the place for you, anyway.

It has come to my attention that my last few posts have been fairly dreary affairs. Musings on my advanced age, suburban ennui, the ills of our gun-toting society and scars from my youth do not make for pleasant reading. (Although my comment section has been on fire, so perhaps that’s what people prefer.)

Going forward, I’ll leave that stuff to Jimmy Bastard. (May he return to us soon.) As penance, I offer this photo montage of our recent trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We visited specifically to see the annual summer rooftop sculpture extravaganza, but I’ll leave that for another post. Here’s the flotsam and jetsam that I found in my iPhone when I got back to New Jersey.

In this accidental perspective, John Graham’s Celia seems to be patting 6-Year Old on top of her head. Noguchi’s Louros is her dance partner and Calder’s Mobile stands in as the mirrored disco ball. I don’t think she enjoyed the museum all that much. She seemed bored at times. But I think the exposure is important. When she’s older, she’ll have a level of familiarity and won’t feel intimidated by broad-concept art.

I asked 10-Year Old why she was taking a photo of Monet’s Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies and she said she needed a new screen saver for her iTouch. The apple never falls far from the tree. That’s both good and bad news for her.

Mrs. Wife and I are big advocates of getting an early start in the morning. This especially comes in handy when visiting the city. Driving through an empty Lincoln Tunnel and having entire galleries in the Met all to yourself is worth the loss of sleep. Here, 6-Year Old works out Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) and doesn’t have to peer through a thicket of legs.

We look like a set of matryoshka dolls. This is Anish Kapoor’s fantastic sculpture Untitled. It’s a series of hexagon mirrors that curve out into a bowl shape. Mrs. Wife can’t stand in front of it for too long because it makes her nauseous. I love his stuff although I’m on the fence about his ArcelorMittal Orbit observation tower he constructed for the London Olympics.

In Morris Louis’ Alpha-Pi, all roads lead to the center, so I though it’d make for an interesting shot to plant here there. It also establishes a perspective on size.

I’ve been reading a children’s book about the story of Degas’s little dancer to her for years. We must’ve read that damn thing dozens of times. She’d been constantly haranguing me about taking her in for a visit and this is her first look. As she gets older, wish fulfillment will become more complex.

Surrounded by The Houses of Parliament (Effect of Fog), Rouen Cathedral: The Portal and Haystacks (Effect of Snow and Sun), she is sandwiched between tens of millions of dollars worth of wood, paint and canvas by Monet. Change one letter and Monet becomes Money. If we had arrived one hour later, we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near these works because of the throngs of tourists. Early on is the way to go!