You May Know This Guy

He exploits his own vulnerabilities so forcefully, so carefully and with such purpose that nearly everyone imagines they are in love with him. But the illusion will finally leave everybody and himself with a terrible, terrible emptiness.  So lonely you could die.

You've got something he wants and suddenly he's in your life like a brother or a father or, if he needs to be, a mother.   But when he gets this thing he wants,  he's gone like a ghost.

You may have seen him nearly every day for months.  But when it ends, it comes to a dead stop.  There are places where you can go to learn this stuff, where you have to learn this stuff to survive.  But the price is high and very few would choose to pay it.

The Dinner Partners

We arrived before they did.  About an hour before.   They were coming from Brooklyn and it turns out that there is almost no way to get from Brooklyn to the Bronx.  Even the best maps of the two areas show that Brooklyn and the Bronx are only connected in the strictest sense of the word.  The maps are nearly useless and our normally flawless GPS system seemed close to a nervous breakdown, constantly "recalculating" because we or it had failed to notice the amazing number of hidden exits that suddenly jump out at you on Pelham Parkway or another place called Shore Road.   Nonetheless, even with heavy traffic, we made it to City Island in an hour and a half.

When we finally hit City Island Avenue, the island's one true boulevard, both our cell phones had messages from the woman of the couple informing us that they had gotten lost somewhere near Astoria, Queens!   This is so much in the wrong direction that I have actually used an exclamation point there, something I've made it a rule not to do.  But as far as I can tell, there is no route from Astoria to the Bronx.  Not one the average map reader can find.

Finally, however,  Tom and Connie did arrive at the restaurant.  The restaurant we had picked out with the extra hour we had. Looked like a nice place.  Right on the water.  The only problem was that it was obvious the couple had been fighting, and from the tone of it,  for the entire two and a half hour trip.

"I'm not in a good mood," Connie whispered to my wife in a voice I could hear.

The greeter told us when we arrived that there'd be about a twenty minute wait for a table. Tom wanted a glass of water.

"I need a glass of water," he said, with some force.

"We'll have a table in five minutes," Connie said,   "Why don't you wait till then."

Tom straightened up. "If it was you," he snarled in a tone of voice my wife and I had never heard or seen from him before. "If it was you, you know damn well you'd throw a shit fit if you didn't get exactly what you wanted the very instant you asked for it, no matter how insignificant the issue."

"Get away from me," Connie snapped.

After that exchange, Tom and Connie barely acknowledged each other's existence for the next hour and twenty minutes, while we ordered, ate the thawed out fish, got the check and left for the parking lot.

I was in the car and ready to head for home while Tom was still in the rest room.   He arrived back at the front of the restaurant,  just seconds before I pulled away, thrilled to be leaving the whole empty evening behind.

After about ten minutes, my wife broke the silence.

"I'm depressed," she said.   But it wasn't dinner that was depressing her.

"Why don't we go for a walk?" I asked.

"In Astoria?  At ten at night?"  She said.

"You've got a point there," I said.  

The Cult of The South Sea Islanders

The following is adapted from Richard Feynman's famous Caltech commencement speech to the class of 1974.  I have always loved this as an object lesson.   I fooled around with the language a little bit, but most of Feynman's words are intact.  Still, on the chance that I have made the thing worse, in deference to Feynman, I am not using quotation marks.


In the South Seas there are people who follow a quasi religious practice known now as the cargo cult. During the second world war these people saw airplanes land, carrying lots of wonderful cargo, western goods that the Islanders had never seen before and naturally they wanted the same thing to continue when the planes had gone.  And one day, the planes were indeed gone.


So they decided to take fate into their own hands and made long, straight pathways scratched out in the dirt, pathways meant to serve as runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, just like landing lights and to make a wooden hut for a control tower and to put a man inside the hut, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas. And there they waited for the planes to land. 


They are doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks much the way it  looked before.  But something is missing.  This is called "cargo cult science", because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing the key point and, of course, no planes will ever land. 

Courage

You risked your life, but what else have you risked?  Have you ever risked disapproval?  Have you ever risked economic security?  Have you ever risked a belief?  I see nothing particularly courageous about risking one's life.  So you lose it, you go to your hero's heaven and everything is milk and honey 'til the end of time.  Right?  You get your reward and suffer no earthly consequences.  That's not courage.

Real courage is risking something you have to keep living with.  Real courage is risking something that forces you to re-think your thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness.  Real courage is risking one's cliches.

Metaphysical Books. Rip

On Friday afternoon April 16^th at about 3pm, Joseph Benzola locked the door of Metaphysical Books and Tools in Sag Harbor for the last time, and walked away.  Forever.   After eight years Joe could no longer afford to keep the store going.   In the last few weeks of the store’s life Joe had put everything on sale, slashing prices in half. 

The store, which had been Joe’s lonely outpost for many months suddenly teemed with excitement, people walking away with armfuls of books or CDs, incense or the  wood icon of a Hindu goddesses. They bought large candles for a dollar and “The Films of Ingmar Bergman” for twenty and on and on and on.  When the sale ended Joe Benzola packed the remaining stock into several boxes and then into a station wagon until the store was entirely bare. 

How did it happen?

Metaphysical Books was open for business at 83 Main Street, six days a week for almost 30 years.  It was one of many local businesses that made Sag Harbor’s commercial center different from  other towns in the Hamptons.   No chain stores, no flagship stores for large brands and other designer stores that exist only to display items that will be bought elsewhere..  And, after a long battle, no 30,000 square foot CVS where the Seven Eleven stands.

The question is was Metaphysical Books the leading edge of a trend or simply an anomaly of poor timing and bad luck.

The movie theater is for sale. Romany Gallery was approached by Starbucks. Other stores have disappeared and some have limited hours because they have few, if any, customers out of season.

In the case of Metaphysical Books the reasons for its early success and ultimate failure are fairly straightforward. 

“A thirty percent decline over the last twelve months and a sixty percent drop in the winter combined with the financial crisis.  It was a perfect storm of bad news for the store,” Joe Benzola said, 

And then there is the internet.  “Internet sources like Amazon and iTunes took away business  by offering books and music at enormous discounts, often well below my wholesale costs,” he said.

Had something about the store changed, I wondered.  What had he done with the store after he bought it?

“When I bought the store, I changed it from a typcial new age store  to what became a cultural center for artists and lovers of the arts who enjoyed discovering uncommon items.  An Albert Ayler or John Coltrane box set or films by independent film makers, the likes of  Kenneth Anger or rare recorded performances by blues players from the first and second generation of that genre.”

The store was, for many people, the singular source of uncommon books, art, musical instruments, incense, rare cd and vinyl recordings, candles, crystals and more.  An eclectic array of merchandise not usually found in stores of its type.

There was always music playing softly in the background when you walked in.  Often music you hadn’t heard in a long time, if ever.  And the stuff was all there, out in the open, where you could touch it, read the liner notes or a few pages of a book, smell a scented candle or soap and sometimes talk to Joe about whatever it was.   The store was a mirror of Joe’s own wide ranging interests and he was usually able to discuss the items in question and the field they covered.

And there were the people you’d run into in the store.   People you knew or complete strangers.  People with a passion for Buddhism or an ear for Mingus or an interest in some subject you’d never heard of.   People often talked to each other in Metaphysical Books.  It was, many felt, an oasis, away from in the maelstrom of  the Main Street scene.. 

But much of the new age stuff didn’t sell well.  The incense sold a bit.  But less so books about telekinesis or Angel Charms made of soapstone.

Another issue Benzola raised were the rents.

“Sag Harbor is turning into what East Hampton was,” he told us.  Rents suddenly going from  $11,000 a month to $30,000”

I talked to other store owners along Main Street.  Most were under some financial stress.  It had not been a great year for anybody.    But most were determined to persevere.

As for Joe Benzola, his immediate plans are uncertain.   He said he would take a breather and then, maybe creating an online store, dealing in some of the same items that the store was prized for. 

Soon enough, there will be another store to take the place of Metaphysical Books.  A clothing store is rumored.  But for now all that remains is a spooky emptiness, where only yesterday the shelves were overflowing with wonderful stuff.

Community Service

I got a speeding ticket on route 27.   It happened where the road goes suddenly from 55 mph to 35mph in the space of maybe two hundred yards.   A state trooper pulled me over and gave me the ticket.   I had to appear in person in county court at Hauppauge, which is a bit more than an hour away.   I was going so fast that I plead not guilty because a guilty verdict would mean points on my license or the suspension of it.   My punishment was 35 hours of community service.  

They hand you a card with community service choices. There was the South Hampton museum, the town Dump, something I can't remember and the Senior Citizens Center in South Hampton.   I knew the museum was not going to make me a curator and the dump would probably be just as bad as it sounded.  That left the Senior Citizens Center which I chose because I thought it would be great to work with the old people. Lots of wise talk and memories, I thought.  When I called to set up my service I told the lady who answered that I even played the guitar, which I thought would be great for the old people.

"Your guitar," she said.
"Yes?"
"Is it water-proof?"
"Why?"
"Because," she said, "you're gonna spend your 35 hours washing dishes."

Secrets of the Hamptons Revealed

"When you’re a failure in the Hamptons you feel as though you’re in the witness protection program.  Best not to make much of a fuss or become too visible lest we be unmasked for the person we truly are." 
                                                   

Britain granted independence to India and Pakistan.   Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in his X-1 Rocket Plane.  The LP and Silly Putty were invented within weeks of each other.  The Yanks won another world series and Gentleman’s Agreement took best picture.  Gasoline was .15 cents a gallon and a new house could run as much as $6,000 for something really nice.   Oh and Harry S. Truman was president.

Into this world was deposited one Robert Austin, at your service.  The odds that this beautiful baby boy would ever find himself in a venue to communicate with an audience of many live humans defies all the laws of probability. Even my mother, who always told me I could do anything (even when she knew better) would have drawn the line here.

Yet here I am, fifty years hence, with a place to write and readers to read and prepared, come what may, for rejection or acceptance and ready, for all the world, to treat those two impostors (rejection and acceptance) each the same.   Sorry about that Rudyard.

This piece, it seems, wants to be about the  Hamptons  themselves.  Sag Harbor in particular. Austin's home almost all the time.  Robert Austin had what he thought was just the thing for such an undertaking.  Once on the Jitney to Manhatten, he had leafed through several Hamptocentric magazines.  He skimmed and wondered, wondered and skimmed about the Hamptons nobody ever writes about.  The article you never find in any publication.   Pieces with titles like  “The Hamptons On .50¢ A Day”,  “Down and Out in Amagansett” or  “Lifestyles of The Badly Beaten and Doomed”.

These people, who are never written about are, in fact, the dominant population here at “The beach”, the extremely irritating term used by seasonal visitors or renters, trying to sound casual and totally relaxed about the scene.  But this isn’t really the beach now, is it.  We are miles from any beach clean enough to swim in.

When not busy ignoring the Flagship Stores of East Hampton or the luxury showrooms that dot Montauk Highway as it winds through South Hampton, we’re hunched over our Formica  table, our spouse at our side, trying to decide for the life of us,  which, if any, of the cascading stack of bills can possibly be addressed, still leaving enough left for Moo Shoo Pork from the Chinese Take Out next to the Seven Eleven in Sag Harbor. 

Natives will sometimes tell visitors that this restaurant or that is perfectly fine, good, even very good.  Our advice is not to check your brains at the door.  Look at what other people are eating.  Does it look familiar?  A good sign.  But flacking for restaurants is part of the wider conspiracy to support local businesses.  It turns us all into flacks.  Lying flacks.

But why the long faces?   Things can’t be that bad, they say.   There’s always something new and exciting just around the next corner, they say.  Jesus. 

It happened like this.  We bought our homes when we were flush.   During days we thought would never end. We were fine for a long while and so was everybody else.  Now we cannot afford even to maintain these homes, except through the labors of men who fall a wee bit short of fully apprehending the art of landscape design.  They cut the grass and after that you're left, abandoned, in a sea of dandelions.

Of course we still like to play.  But now when we want to play,  it is not tennis at the club.  It is the re-run of last night’s Yankee game on the old square screen.

Then too, we are no longer consumed by the pressing need to re-grout the Egyptian tiles which frame the pool. We go to the beach, if we must, and, if they day is warm enough, we may go into the water, or, if we have children, we may inflate the plastic thing we used last year. 

ADVERTSING POINT OF DIFFERENCE:

Unlike those bulky white marble rectangles with Life Sized Statues of The Buddha facing the deep end, inflatable pools are so portable they can set up anywhere on the little patch of crab grass behind the shed (You do have a shed, of course).

Now an abbreviated  tour of several Hampton towns revealing some interesting facts and useful information.  

East Hampton.   Best appreciated on a rapid walk, in good weather, down a couple of blocks, where you will pass what remains after the blight that turned this sweet little village into a ghost town.  And, even if you find an open store, entering an East Hampton shop begs an awkward exchange.

“May I help you?”

“No thanks.  I’m just browsing.”

“May I ask your size?”

“Doesn’t matter.   Like I say, I’m just browsing.” 

“I understand, but the tops on that rack are a size 1.”

You have not been a size 1 since the cradle and are therefore embarrassed and upset by the ever helpful and smilingly overbearing staff in most of these stores.   Why do they talk?   Leave me alone.  Please. We’ll ask if we need something.  Sound like a plan?  

And this is a pointless exchange in any event, since there is not a chance in hell you can purchase the top or whatever it is.  After all, it would likely run you several months of salary.

Sign in the window of an East Hampton Antique Shop:

 “For the price of a small house, you can own this beautiful chair.”

Now some of the stores in East Hampton are only flagship stores, not really intended or staffed for the sale of anything.  Merely a displaying of the cream of an absurdly expensive crop for purchase elsewhere.   Entering such a shop is a recipe for the kind of deep depression that only heavy meds or shopping itself can abjure.

And no visit to East Hampton would be complete without a drive past the densely privitted  homes of Georgica Pond, homes with gates and dogs. Homes one cannot even glimpse from the car, but which are the haunt of Steven Speilberg Jerry Seinfeld, Martha Stewart and big money men whose names we’ll never know.

One very well known resident of this exclusive community is known to call all the people who tend her grounds, “Mexicans.” regardless of where they actually come from.  “Where are our Mexicans today?” she has been known to ask.   She does this even when the Mexicans are Japanese, African American, Filapino or Guarmian.

Then there is South Hampton, noted for its banks and jewelry stores.  Here you will discover another good place to nuke the nest egg.   Overheard in South Hampton:

“When the Jews start wearing plaid, you know it’s time to get out.”  This sentiment still reflects the charming legacy of an earlier time, when the first English settlement was taking root.  And Jews are a relatively new item on the menu.  Used to be you had to have had a direct ancestor who came over on a Mayflower and then came to own a home in South Hampton.   

There are, of course, Indians surviving all over the Hamptons.  Especially adjacent to South Hampton, where you’ll find the  Shinnecock Reservation and a strip of bodegas selling cartons of cigarettes at wholesale prices.  It is primarily during these exchanges that most of us ever get to actually speak with a real (live) Indian.   Should you decide to take this side trip to the reservation I strongly urge you to avoid sounding solicitous, asking questions about the history of these or any other native people.  It has the same flavor as getting into a taxi with a black driver and beginning a conversation with something like “Joe Louis. Hell of a fighter; Hell of a fighter. Under rated, if you ask me”

There are also a few other towns that are sometimes considered part of the Hamptons.  These towns may include West Hampton, where summer rentals to gum chewing executive assistants were invented.  Or Quogue, which, as it turns out, nobody has ever visited.

All in all, the Hamptons are still a happy place.  We do have our beaches, fishing boats for hire and many beautiful automobiles cruising Main Street in the summer months. 

We do however share one trait for which the Hamptons are well known.   It is smugness.  It’s just that in our case it’s the smugness of knowing which valves are the critical ones during those precious first moments of a catastrophe. The better not to flood the kitchen with sea water or fill the house with carbon monoxide, a real bummer even on Georgica Pond.