Today’s soundtrack:
they got him sitting with his back to the door
now he won’t be my fast gun anymore
Today at 8:52pm: opening my messenger bag for a cop


Since 9/11 I’ve dutifully escaped the city on each major holiday, on the off-chance Al-Qaeda gets their shit together and pulls off another “spectacular.”

This year, for July 4th I was supposed to be straight sitting on my ass outside a friend’s cabin in the wilds of Pennsylvania, but I didn’t make it. Getting backed up on projects and, well, inertia kept me in the city.

I crossed my fingers and even headed down to the Seaport to see the fireworks around 8pm. Type of thing that’d be nice to go to with a chick, but the only girl I wanted to bring was out of town.

I don’t know what I’m doing here. I can’t stand crowds and this is in direct violation of my avoid-terrorist-targets philosophy. The area around the Seaport was packed. They closed the southbound section of FDR Drive for fireworks viewing, and I was treated to the odd site of throngs of people walking up an on-ramp normally occupied by whizzing cars and banged-up taxis.

There were cops everywhere. Tall cops, short cops, fat cops, thin cops. Chick cops and dude cops. Black cops, Asian cops, Latino cops, white cops. You get the idea.

The cops at the bottom of the on-ramp performed perfunctory bag-checks, about as thorough as the bored airline clerk who asks if you’re carrying any explosives. After passing the checkpoint I too headed up the ramp.

FDR Drive was, like a Snickers bar, packed with peanuts. Any pleasure I derived from the novelty of walking on a space normally forbidden to pedestrians was offset by the sheer density of people. Most seemed to have staked out their spots hours ago, some had lawn chairs, beer coolers and defiant expressions that told you they weren’t moving.

I walked what felt like half a mile, through (mostly orderly) mobs before I decided I’d be more comfortable down by the water. Also I wanted to see the fireworks with the Brooklyn Bridge in the foreground, and from up here I couldn’t get the angle.

Twenty minutes later I’d doubled back and was now underneath FDR, in a slightly-less-mobbed area by the water. My timing was perfect; I snagged a spot by a pole (to brace the camera against) just as the fireworks started.

The thing about New York--or any big city, I suppose--is you can be totally alone in the middle of thousands of people, as I was here. I like that. Headphones and the iPod set on “My Top Rated, random” provided the soundtrack to the lightshow:

“Alta Noite” - Marisa Monte
“White Lines” - Grandmaster Flash
“Angel Eyes” - Ella Fitzgerald
“Liberte” - Gipsy Kings
“The Music Sounds Better With You” - Stardust

Multicolored bursts of light, accompanied by somewhat tardy thunderclaps. I tried enjoying the show, but I can’t help thinking about how these thunderclaps are entertainment to us, yet across the globe there are people running from our thunderclaps. There is something...obscene about this.

Took some flicks of the fireworks (which is tricky, so most of them came out crappy). A teenage couple was standing in front of me, and I think the guy thought I was taking pictures of his chick. He shot me the crooked eye and I saw he had four of his boys to the right of him, all tightly-wound bundles of testosterone.

For a second I thought I was going to have the distinct pleasure of fighting my way out of a pack of rabid sixteen-year-old boys, but it didn’t come to pass; he looked me up and down and apparently decided I wasn’t a threat.

After the fireworks was over the crowd dispersed, but I hung around by the water’s edge while everyone shuffled past. Lugging barbecue grills, folding tables and lawn chairs. All seemed in a pretty good mood.

I looked out over the river and had a cigarette. The dark water lit by the bridges looks really pretty, until you look down and see all the garbage floating by. Flotsam and jetsam. Got some and get some.

On the way back to my building I accidentally spoiled a prank.

On Canal Street I passed the local firehouse, Engine Company Number 9. I know the number because a sign announcing it hangs from the front of the building, and every time I pass it I hear “Engine, engine, number nine” in my head.

So as I walk past I see a bunch of firemen hanging out in the open garage bay. Then something catches my eye up high, and I see Spider-Man perched on top of the building. Crouching on the edge of the roof and peering down towards the entrance. Only he’s not dressed like Spider-Man, he’s dressed like a fireman and he’s holding a bucket.

I assumed the bucket was filled with water (or maybe hydrochloric acid, who knows) and that he was waiting to dump it on a buddy. But one of the fireman hanging out in the garage spotted me staring upwards at Spidey, and he said something to his boys, and they all backed away from the entrance.

Here’s to hoping the fireman on the roof doesn’t know it was me who spoiled his prank. With my luck my building will catch fire tonight, and he’ll be the guy who breaks into my bedroom to save me. Then he’ll see my face and be like “Hey, you’re the guy who tipped Frank off that I was about to dump a bucket of hydrochloric acid on him. I ain’t saving you!” and he’ll jizzet.

I guess it couldn’t have been hydrochloric acid, ‘cause then it would have burned through the bucket. Well, maybe it was a special bucket. You never know with these things. Firemen are crazy.

At least NYFD get paid, I think the ones outside the city are truly crazy. I mean you’ve got volunteer firemen--people who will run into a burning building to save people they don’t even know, for free.

I think I’d only run into a burning building to save someone I knew, and knew well. And if you offered to pay my health and dental it might put some spring in my step.

If you ever want me to pull you out of a burning building, you should scream something like “Hey Hipstomp! I ‘friended’ you, jackass!”

Sending me to Canada can reduce tartar buildup by 45%.
I also kill the germs that cause bad breath,
but I do most of that in New York.