Crowded and muggy on the subway platform during rush hour yesterday when a train rolled into the station so I decided to wait for the next one. I stood back from the open doors and let people jam their way into the car. I looked inside the open door and saw Seth Gilliam, an actor I know as Ellis Carver from “The Wire.” He was looking at the ground, just another guy sweating in a crowded subway car.  When he looked up we made eye contact. I mouthed “Thank You” to him, pressed my palms together and bowed my head. When I opened my eyes and looked back at him he smiled and nodded. The doors closed and the train pulled out of the station.

When you are on a show like “The Wire” I’m sure you never really escape it. Anyhow, I didn’t say a word to him but I know he knew what why I was thanking him.

In the spring of 1996, my friend Mike took me to A-1, a record shop in the East Village. I looked through a couple of crates of records and then started a conversation with a blond-haired kid who was hanging out talking music. An hour later we were still talking.

Mike had been looking through the $2 dollar bins on the floor and he came up with two steals: Ice Cube’s Kill at Will ep and BDP’s By All Means Necessary.

Right there, I knew the difference between a dedicated beat digger and me. I liked the music but didn’t have the stamina to go through the entire store for a bargain.

That fall, the Yanks won the World Series and I went to Los Angeles for four months on a job. The next time I went to A-1 the blond-haired kid, Jared Boxx, was working there.

It wasn’t long before he left with two co-workers to open their own record store, The Sound Library. And when the partners there split up, Jared co-ran Big City Records.

Now, The Sound Library and Big City are history but A-1 is still around.

And wouldn’t you know it but my friend Mike works there. Seventeen years after he first brought me in I stopped by to say hello. Bags came along with me and took some pictures.

DJ’s aren’t buying vinyl like they used to. And now A-1 sells a lot of rock albums. Mike said they can’t keep records by Blondie, The Talking Heads of Led Zeppelin on the shelf. He blames the video game Guitar Hero.

It was great catching up, hearing some music, and seeing my old friend.

Whadda ya want from me?

The Wife on 34th street last night. (It’s gotta be the shoes.)

I e-mailed with a friend yesterday about James Agee so I went to my bookshelf this morning and picked out an old paperback copy of Letters of James Agee to Father Flye. The pages are yellow and brittle–I think I got it in high school–and I haven’t looked at it in a long time. I read through the book on my subway ride to work. After about twenty minutes I noticed something lodged in between the pages–a personalized bookmark that my father had made for me when I was a little kid. It features a drawing by my uncle Fred.

Dad had stickers with his name that he put in all of his books and he was proud to make stickers for my brother, sister, and me. I remember having a stack of them, held together with a rubber band, like they were baseball cards. I loved peeling off the back and sticking them on things, not just books, and I quickly depleted my stock.

I have no idea how one of them–an original, with the backing still attached–found its way into the Agee book, but it was like finding a tiny, intimate treasure.

I saw a pregnant woman on the subway this morning. I was standing and tried to make eye-contact with her. If she looked at me I’d ask if she wanted to sit and then I’d see if someone would give up their seat for her.  There was something girlish about her though her hair was completely gray, cut right around her shoulders and she dressed like a woman not a girl. In one hand she held a cup of coffee, in the other, she gripped a bagel with jelly. I wondered if she’d be embarrassed if I asked someone to get up for her.

She ate the bagel like she was mad at it. But she didn’t look annoyed just ravenous. It was amusing, even arousing, and I imagined making a video of her. It would be a family joke for years to come.

But I didn’t know her so I just admired her eating the fuck out of that bagel.

[Photo Credit: jkingsz]

I was in a cab last week. The driver was from Afghanistan and we got to talking. He told me about the political history of his country since the early part of the 20th century. Sometimes it was hard to hear him so I leaned forward in my seat. After awhile, I asked how long he’s been here and he said twelve years. Then I asked him what he likes most about America.

“Freedom of speech,” he said. “Where I am from you look but you cannot see,” he covered his eye with his left hand. Then he put his hand over his ear, “You listen but you cannot hear.” He touched his forehead. “You think but you cannot speak.” He looked at me in the rear view mirror.

“I am a passionate man. Here, I can speak my mind and not be afraid of going to prison.”

I felt aware of how I take the freedom of speech for granted. But in that moment, I appreciated it like never before.

I was standing on the uptown platform of the 7th Avenue line at 42nd street last night with a friend when we heard a young woman’s voice. It was clear and also annoyed. She was climbing up the stairs from the 7 train. “We’ve been in New York for a couple of hours and we’ve already walked five miles.” She was holding a McDonald’s cup and she stomped up the steps, looking ready for a fight.

Not everyone from New York enjoys walking. But it sounded so strange to hear someone bitching about it. I just take it for granted that this is a place for walkers. Then again, when my sister and I were little we complained about having to walk all the way from 103rd Street to 96th to McDonalds. Our babysitter used to make fun of us. But we were four-years-old, so I’ll give us a pass.

Waiting to cross the street last night in my neighborhood, guy walks up next to me, late forties, early fifties. We see a car nearby looking to park. Guy says to me, “He’s not going to find a spot. I just came around the block, nothing, drove around again and found one. I always have luck since I came here.”

I ask where he’s from and he says California.

“I always find a spot and after the hurricane people would be waiting hours for gas, I went, twenty minutes I was done.”

He was bragging. The light turns and we cross the street.

“Well, it’ll come around and even out,” I say. “Karma does that.” I don’t mean to use to word Karma but that’s how it comes out.

“No, I’m a good person so I’ve got nothing but good Karma. That can never touch me in a bad way. Just remember if you are a good person you’ll always have Karma on your side”

I thought of saying something else but let it and him go.

[Photo Via: Eye Heart New York]

I got a package in the mail a few days ago from my friend in London. He sent books. And a letter.

I mean, talk about making my week. How cool is it to get an actual letter never mind British editions of American books? Hot damn.

The first date I had with The Wife was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in January, 2002. Home field advantage I figured. Little did I know that painting and drawing don’t move her. So I took her on a tour and she smiled as I talked and talked. She was probably bored silly and finally she was hungry. Still, she was too polite to stop me and I was so nervous I kept talking.

As she tells it, “You talked until I was limp.”

She has not been back to the MET since. Until this past Saturday. This time we didn’t look at paintings or drawings but we went through the Japanese collection–The Wife loves the Japanese aesthetic. She wasn’t bored and we left before she was starving.

Progress.

A Heppy Ket.

Cloud City at the Roof Garden.

My twin sister loved Marilyn when we were growing up. As much as I loved David Bowie or the Stones or Woody or anyone else I ever loved.

Sam had Marilyn posters on her wall, had Marilyn books, and of course, saw all of her movies, or at least the ones we could find on videotape. I remember going with her to a double feature of Gentleman Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire  at the old Regency Theater on 67th Street and Broadway. This must have been in the mid-80s sometime. I pretended not to care about Marilyn or worse, put her down because Sam dug her, but I remember that day, sitting in the balcony watching those two movies and enjoying Marilyn just fine.

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of Monroe’s death.

Last night I sat in a barber’s chair in the Bronx. The rain had stopped. There was one customer in the place, the sound of an electric razor buzzing filled the room. So did the voice of one of the barbers. He sat in his chair, feet propped and talked into his cell phone.

My barber smiled and looked at me in the mirror. Maybe he thought I understood Spanish better than I do but I didn’t need to know what was being said to understand he was arguing with a woman.

“His girlfriend?” I said?

“Maybe,” my barber said. “Maybe her boyfriend.”

We both grinned.

While the buzzing and the arguing continued to the right of me, I heard Vin Scully’s voice coming from the television set to the left of me. The Dodgers and Phillies were in extra innings and the game was on the MLB Network. Vin sounded tired. So did the crowd. I remembered The Simpsons episode when Homer goes to a game and doesn’t drink: “I never knew baseball was so boring.”

But it was boring in a soothing way. Soon, the buzzing stopped and so did the arguing. The room felt still in that heightened way of quiet that occurs sometimes just before you fall into a deep sleep. The only sound was Vin’s voice. I felt calm and happy.

[Photo Credit: Flick River]

Sunset in Manhattan. I remember walking up Broadway during the summer as a teenager. As I crossed each block, I’d look down past West End Avenue and chart the sun lowering in the sky until it had disappeared beyond the Hudson River and the sky was pink and orange. It was like a walking flip book. Then the lights from the stores and traffic signs and cars popped on the city street. Magic hour, that surreal moment between night and day when everything seemed like it was out of a movie.

[Photo Credit: Atenacius via This Isn't Happiness ]

Pass the mustard. This one is too much fun.

I once worked with a post-production coordinator whose husband did the sound for this movie. They didn’t use stock sound effects libraries back then. The screech of the train at the end came from the shower curtain dragged closed in the sound man’s bathroom. Also, you know the woman hostage on the train with the two kids? Her daughter babysat for my twin sister and me when we lived at 875 West End Avenue.

[Photo Credi: The Lively Morgue]

At the Uptown Sports Complex the other day taking BP with pals Adam and Eric.

Best piece of advice to any old bastards like us: take two Advil before you go hit.

It’s hard to figure that it’s almost been five years since my Dad passed away. I got to thinking about him on the subway this morning when a man came on the train with a bible in his left hand and started talking about Jesus. The man through the packed car slowly and was ignored by the passengers. I smiled as I remembered something Dad once said to a subway preacher. Dad looked up from his book when the preacher got close, looked up at him and in a loud, clear voice said, “Sir, your arrogance is breathtaking.”

Ah, the old man was a good one.

Check out these blog posts about how people organize their books. I’ve arranged my books by topic but am too lazy to do it by author within a topic. Sometimes, I do it by size, or I clump together one author’s titles.

Once a year, I might be inspired to clean the mess up but maintaining it is another thing. Plus, I’m forever running out of space so things tend loose any sense of strict purpose. What I need is more space (the New Yorker’s lament), or less books, or a nook or a kindle. But I can’t imagine not collecting more books. It’s how I was raised and I don’t see it stopping.

Course, there’s also the books that are stacked on my night table, but here’s a look some of my library.

Nine years ago today I wrote the first post here at Bronx Banter. It was about Bill James and the Red Sox. Hard to believe it’s been nine years. The beauty part is I’m as happy writing and blogging at the Banter as I’ve ever been.

Thanks for showing up and coming back.

[Photo Credit: Jeremiah Cox]

My cousin’s too big for trick-or-treating, but he was still bummed that Halloween was cancelled. Downed power lines, still rippling with electricity, all over his town. Kids had to stay inside, munching from the family stash.

In our neighborhood, it was business as usual, a rare time when Halloween in the city is better than the variety just across the Bridge.

We have a candy exchange in a big park. The scene is both efficient and chaotic as you can fill your pumpkin in minutes, but the total experience pales in comparison to the coordinated march from house to house that I remember from my childhood.

Luckily, we have a few local spots that give my kids an idea of how it’s supposed to be…

By Ben Belth

“Bring the wiffle-ball bat,” I say to my son, Luke, but he wants the aluminum one. “Let’s bring a few tennis balls,” I say. He shakes his head. He wants the hard balls. I admire his courage, but I take a few tennis balls anyway.

When we lived in the city, we would walk a block to the park, find a quiet corner and take BP. He always insisted on running bases, a tree for first, a hat for second and his mitt for third. “He’s like a Boarder Collie, run him out,” our family counselor Ronda tells me. “He needs it to regulate his emotions.”

We live in the country now, and there’s no park down the block. Our yard is too small, so we get in the car and drive to the school field. But it’s Sunday and the soccer leagues are in full blossom. Kids in orange or green jerseys swarm on the field. The parking lots are crowded with parents and expensive cars. We don’t know any of them yet. There’s no room for us.

We go to each ball field in town and find the same scene. Luke’s getting sleepy in the backseat (when he feels out of place: he dozes). So I take him down to the park by the river – a long stretch of landfill on the other side of the Metro North tracks. It’s dotted with families, mostly Latino. There’s plenty of room for us.

“What if I hit the ball in the river?” Luke asks. I give him a wink. He’s good, got a natural lefty swing, but he’s not that good. He slashes the ball to all fields but rarely hits it in the air. I’m not worried about the river.

We start in with the hardballs. “Baseball is a hard game,” I say. He tips the ball, fouls another, and misses a lot. “Underhand,” he says. He gets into one but it’s off the end of the bat and the vibrations unnerve him. He drops the bat and runs to me in a sobby bundle. His hands hurt but it’s more than that.

“I quit. I wanna go home.” he tells me. I repeat it, like Ronda taught me, “You wanna go home.” He looks directly at me. “No I wanna go home. Where my friends are. Where we can walk to the park and where I used to hit home runs.” I nod. “You miss the city,” I say. He falls into my chest, letting it all out.

I want to tell him everything will get better, that he’ll meet new friends, and that next year, he’ll be playing soccer with all the other kids. He’ll find his spot and this will start to feel like home soon enough. But he’s only seven-years-old. So instead I bring out the tennis ball and urge him back to the bat, which is not easy because I just want to keep hugging him. “That’s coddling”, Ronda says, “It makes you feel better, not him.”

“Bat up,” I say. “Plant that back leg.” He follows the directions.

“Coming overhand,” I say and let one go. He drills it, right back to me. A smile breaks across his face. I take a few steps back and throw another pitch, this one with a little more heat. He fouls it straight back. “Got another one,” I say, holding up the hardball. I let it go and he pounds it into the ground, the foul side of first base, but nice. It hits a stone, veers right, pops over a rock, and disappears into the Hudson.

I look back at him, my eyes wide. I’m silly happy but he doesn’t notice. He’s too busy running the bases.