Tuesday, November 08, 2005








Andy Rooney, Did You Ever Notice…
“Did you ever notice how buildings are? The sides go straight up, at right angles to the ground. The floors are flat. Plumb and square is the trade term.

“So what about that Frank Gehry, you ask? A lot of his designs (and a lot of those by some of those stunt architects these days) like to make things look like a tumbling teetering stack of blocks or some other jumbling jig-saw. From the outside, anyway. I’ll bet you my last eyebrow hair that somewhere under all those eye popping surfaces and odd shapes there’s a structural foundation that still follows the ‘ol plumb and square rule.

“Ok, but what about the Leaning Tower of Pisa? It was originally put up straight and only over time has it slipped to its present “must stop there to get a picture when in Italy” status. But isn’t why it is such a curiosity mainly about that it is slipped off from the vertical to such a precarious degree?

“And, ok, there’s the Guggenheim, too. The floor just keeps going up and up at a slow angle — it’s not flat! And the whole thing is round, not square. (Is that the only thing that Mr. Wright designed that wasn’t all horizontals and verticals? Oh, yes, the S. C. Johnson building…sort of.) I’ll leave the climb for you young folks to enjoy. And l’ll get there on the elevator. Straight up I go! Meet me at the top.

“I don’t have the time or inclination to keep trying to make this point about architecture. You either see my point or you don’t. And I certainly don’t want to cover all the apparent exceptions to the rule. In fact there aren’t any that I can think of. If’n you want it to stay together and stand around for a while, you got to have some plumb and square in there somewhere at the very heart of it.

“If you don’t follow my drift, that’s ok. Just don’t be making any plans to go building your own house any time soon.

“Did you ever notice that when a chicken lays an egg, it drops straight down?”

Follow Up and Viewer Mail…

“A viewer writes…’ Dear Mr. Rooney, Did you ever notice that, just like any other physical structure on this beloved Earth, the human body also has to obey the same laws that apply to those buildings you talked about last week? The pull of Gravity dictates that the human body has to obey the same kind of plumb and square in its makeup just like that office building you sit in and make up all those curmudgeonly rants every week. And, did you ever notice that almost nobody is very much built along the plumb and square that one sees in the anatomy textbooks or that the laws of Gravity would suggest is a normal arrangement. How come? If you were a building what would you be? The Empire State Building or a crumbling old barn? I’ll let you answer that one in private.’

“Well, my friend, you make a point, don’t you? When I look around I do notice that most everyone is out of balance in the simple architectural definition of sound structure. We wouldn’t have that in our homes, so why do we have it in our bodies? I’m not a scientist so I’m not going to get into the whys and wherefor’s. Could it be that being out of balance is so common that it goes unnoticed? Could it be that Gravity is so constant that it too goes under the radar too?

“I’ll bet you that if you asked a fish how the water was, he’d probably say, ‘what water?’ So if I asked someone, ‘how’s your relationship to Gravity?’ I suppose they would think I was all wet.

“Something’s fishy here.

“If all life sprang from the sea, and if Gravity is to humans what water is to fish, where will mankind find itself when it makes its next great evolutionary leap?”





Next week … Puzzle for future archaeologists … who put all that gum under the tables?






Facts about Water






One glass of water shuts down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University study.

Lack of water is the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.

Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.

A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen.

Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.


Are you drinking the amount of water you should every day?

Monday, October 10, 2005



What’s This
About
Gravity
Balance
and
Your Body?


There is an ineluctable relationship between 1) the quality of your life, 2) the force of gravity, and 3) the balance of your body. The head to toe balance of your body determines whether gravity is friend or foe. How well you relate to this force has consequences for the level of your health, well being, performance, and expression.

The human body, just like every other structure on this earth, is subject to the effects of gravity. It is the single most potent force the human body has to deal with. The energy field of the earth exerts a downward pull on all physical bodies. No one is exempt. The operation of gravity is a prime ecological fact. It is always there. Yet, because it is so constant, it operates under our awareness. We take it for granted.

When the body is in its correct natural balance its major segments stack up vertically and horizontally. We know from Anatomy that the structural design of the body calls for it to be centered on what is called the “central vertical axis.” For most individuals, however, this center line is not fully present. In the average person it is only virtual. All but the rare few are out of balance in respect to the practical demands necessitated by the pull of gravity. True balance around the center line of the body—which is the same as the line of gravity—exists for most of us as an undiscovered potential. Did you know that some visionaries consider balance around the center line of the body and the resultant harmonious relationship with earth’s energy field to be an important indicator toward the direction of human evolution?

Most of us live with the centers of gravity of the major segments of our bodies slipped away from the central vertical axis. Since our bodies are broader at the top than below, when imbalances exist, gravity tends to bring us down. Then we have to work to keep ourselves together. The human body is not a static, solid structure. It is a segmented and designed to operate in a dynamic balance. Moving around counteracting the downward pull exerted by gravity diverts vital energy and limits our range of functioning. We become habituated to this as part of our usual experience of living. We experience this losing fight with gravity as chronic pains and stress, limited performance, and inadequate expression. We don’t live up to our potential and settle for less than what is in us to be.

Why do so few of us enjoy living at what basic Physics and Anatomy indicate as normal for the architectural design of the body—symmetry and verticality? What is obvious is that we automatically get bigger and stronger as we grow up. Proper structure, however, doesn’t come about spontaneously. That is learned. In this regard we are mostly self-taught. We grow up learning to use our bodies mainly through trial and error. We each enter adulthood with a shape which bears witness to our unique history. We may have come to define ourselves from our familiar physical sense, itself based on a complex pattern of compensations ingrained into our flesh.

How we are is the result of a unique mix of many factors—modeling adults who often aren’t good examples of appropriate structural balance themselves, insufficient training, bad habits, accidents, and traumas. These all get integrated into the very fabric of our bodies. They become so familiar we take the situation for granted. Compounding this is that being out of balance in the makeup of our bodies is so commonplace in those around us that it goes unnoticed and under-diagnosed, as such.

Are we not an integrated unity of body, mind, and spirit? It is easy, nonetheless, to miss the connection between the difficulties we have in living our lives and the lack of “understanding” we put up with in our literal flesh. We take how we are as given. We make do, resigned to “that’s just the way I am.” Nothing can be done. We focus on treating the local chronic symptoms of pain and stress with palliative remedies. We can even be so attached to our familiar patterns, as ineffective and inefficient as they may be, that we bristle at being told that change is desirable, let alone possible.

Doesn’t it ring true for you that things would work better when the head to toe arrangement of your body is balanced so that you live integrated within the field of gravity? Can you imagine how such balance would be advantageous to your health, well being, performance, and expression? That said, isn’t growth not only about recognizing good ideas but putting them into practice so they become actual realities in our lives? We have a clear choice in this matter.

Structural Integration is the name Dr. Ida P. Rolf gave to her definitive approach to train individuals into a balanced relationship with the gravitational field of the earth. David D. Wronski is a Certified Advanced Practitioner of Dr. Ida P. Rolf Traditional Method Structural Integration. He offers expert individualized assistance to evolve the arrangement of your body to a balanced, unstressed, effortlessly upright stance.




xxx
Rolfing New Jersey
Rolfer New Jersey
Structural Integration New Jersey
Rolfing Montclair, New Jersey
Rolfer Montclair, New Jersey
Structural Integration Montclair, New Jersey

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Welcome to the _OTEL CHELSEA

XX
Welcome to the _OTEL CHELSEA



On its current web site [this article originally written May 2005] the Chelsea Hotel in NYC bills itself as "a rest stop for rare individuals." I came to live there in the Fall 1979, feeling rather "rare" myself.

At the time the Chelsea was just a place for me to get into without all the usual apartment hunting hassles. As I said, my marriage had ended and soon later my career in advertising would evaporate. Let's just say that the handwriting on the wall said that it was time to look into the perennial questions. I was (and certainly felt) quite literally down and out at the Chelsea Hotel.

The Chelsea Hotel is a sanctuary. Even in this update in the year 2022, with all it's fancy renovations, the spirit of the place surely remains intact. In fact, from my own experience living there for a year, it just could be a portal to another dimension, completely removed from the bustling world outside. 

When I lived there in 1980, after leaving a marriage and family and a career as a Big Shot VP Ad Biggie on Mad Ave, it was my sanctuary. Days spent aimless by myself,[Like my Nephew Christopher who I'll tell about later] I watched TV, rolled Tobacco cigarettes, and drank coffees from the nearby deli ... going over and over in my mind just how the F I got there. And in that situation. No family, no career, no friends; loosed from all the roles that I thought defined me. The inner journey lay in front of me. Unambiguously. And, whatever destiny would confront me. Not only did a chapter end, a whole book in fact. Like it says on the plaque on the front of the building commemorating Dylan Thomas ...


I arrived there with my Godson Christopher firmly in tow. He was then an aimless youth and had been living with me before my marriage breakup. When I left connubial bliss, naturally he was sent packing with me. He's a good man, married with children, with his own advertising agency. Let's hope his creative sense has improved, however. 

One day I left him in charge of painting the kitchen alcove in our cozy 4th floor apartment. Left the choice of color to him (artistic sensibilities, and all). Well, when I came home in the evening from work, there it was — the fiercest and brightest orange in the world. Just to walk past, it was like being instantly transported to Amsterdam. Quite a head trip, literally. It certainly was in the punk spirit of the Chelsea; but, maybe only for a young punk like Christopher. For me, no way. I immediately had him repaint to a nice, neutral shade of light green. (That was pre-Martha Stewart mind you. But, she would be happy to know that others out there share [some of] her taste.)

As you probably know the Chelsea has a reputation as the stomping grounds of many of the famous in the arts. When I resided there I was vaguely aware of that fact, but looking from the inside out at the time it was just a crummy hotel to me. The "H" on the neon sign outside was not working during my year there, hence the title of my story.

The lobby was a high traffic area, a dozen or so steps from the outside glass doors to the front desk. The manager, Mr. Stanley Bard, in special cases, accepted original art in lieu of rent. The lobby hosted an eclectic jumble of a collection. This shows the lobby circa 1972, but much like I recall it looked when I lived there.


One day I was hanging out watching the parade of people in the lobby I was seated on one of the benches that faced the front doors. In came a certain other resident of the hotel. I never got his name and my interactions with him were, how you say, weird. This is him in a photo from that time.

Photo Credit: Claudio Edinger

The photo was taken by another resident, Claudio Edinger, who took many resident's pictures on his way to creating his 1981 book Chelsea Hotel. He photographed me also; but, alas, fame eluded me. (Claudio, if you still have the negative — that's me wearing the varsity "D" letter jacket — I would love a print.)

So here I am sitting in the lobby and this drama unfolds. The strange fellow I just referred to (who had the look and aggressive bearing of one of the Blue Meanies from Yellow Submarine. He wore thick black eyeglasses repaired with the requisite white tape.) stops in the middle of the lobby just in front and to the left of me and begins to purposely insult and taunt the desk manager. After some back and forth from a distance the manager comes racing out from behind his glass partition at the front desk and gets eye to eye with our belligerent friend. They were on the exquisite cusp of something very ugly and potentially very violent. I have no idea what it was about except that they seemed to have some nasty history between them. Just in the nick of time someone else from the front desk gets in the middle and pulls the irate manager back to his station. The other guy slithers away, seemingly pleased at being able to plug the other guy into such a rage. I remember being rather relieved that nothing further occurred. Or did it?

I need at this time to say that in the short nearly a year that I stayed at the Chelsea, I came to regard it as my home. It is a fond part of me and I feel (even if there's no plaque on the front entrance with my name on it) I am a part of it. That "Red Bitch" on 23rd Street, as I sometimes called the Chelsea Hotel, had an unique essence of its own. A soul. It was alive. Certainly haunted. I'm sure that anyone who has spent some time there would agree.

Anyway, continuing with the tale, the next morning following the incident when I came down to the lobby something amazing greeted me. There on the very spot where the two fellows were doing verbal battle with one another was an oval tin waste basket. It was black with a big red rose painted on the side. Someone put it there to collect water(?) dripping down from the ceiling just above. The very spot.

True story.

When in NYC, after doing the #1 must-do attraction (walking across the Brooklyn Bridge from the Brooklyn side) stop in at the Chelsea Hotel (better yet, stay there). Take the elevator to the top floor and walk down its beautiful 12 flights of stairs.

Apparently, I am not the only one who was enchanted with that staircase:



So many times I enjoyed going up and down on those stairs. I'm remembering a time walking down those steps when I rubbed elbows with Stanley coming up. In his eyes as we passed ... pinwheels. I'm pretty certain he was an aficionado of the strong stuff; Williams Burroughs strong. His famous comment to me from one of our chats ... "Drugs of choice." Think about it. How we drug ourselves. One way or another. 

After descending the staircase to the ground floor, immediately turn left into the El Quijote restaurant, sit in a booth, and order Cod Fish in Green Sauce. That's the complete Chelsea experience.
[Update: the El Quijote, alas, since this was originally posting this has closed on March 30, 2018 after nearly 90 years.] [Lastest update: It's back!]

PS... Also remembering my time at the Chelsea there was an old musician by the name of Tex. He played a jazz guitar on the street with his partner who played a slide guitar. Tex wore a beat up old cowboy hat; his partner, a fedora (in a way that suggested Tex wore his 24/7). 


Story is that Tex for some undisclosed reason was blackballed from the music industry. Bad karma, dog. Tex and I used to BS in front of the hotel, smoking cigarettes, sharing our world weariness together. Last time I saw him was over drinks at El Quijote when I paid a visit to the old digs some time later. I spotted him there and sidled up at the bar for a Dos Equis. 



I asked him what was up? "Back from the dead," he said. He looked real enough to me; but that may have in fact been his ghost, who knows. And, oh yes, he was wearing the cowboy hat*** that I gave him, only now nicely broken in; a look even better than that old poser, Ralph Lauren, could achieve.

*** The hat was given to me as a parting gift from the advertising business by clients from an Idaho based company. I got the hat (never felt like it was my kind of thing) and a great send-off-from-MadAv luncheon at a swell place called the Brussels. Lobster ravioli with shaved white truffle garnish. Go fuck yourself!

When I lived in my 4th floor apartment one of my neighbors was Stella Waitzkin. She, as I have come to learn, was one of the artists in residence. I visited her apartment and it was full of shelves of books, all made of resin. An environmental (of) art. She was very kind. At the time she was a nice neighbor. Take a look at her work.

Ms. Waitzkin has cited as saying, "Words are lies". It seems as if her resin sealed books were in some sense to ensure that those lies wouldn't get told. 

Them's were the days. The hotel in itself is great. Then, there's those that lived there.  

PPS...[Can't stay away] Even later, I had a most unique visit back to the Red Lady. Happened that I drove some Swamis and musicians to the hotel for an evening meditation intro at the apartment of the SUPER STAR, Viva. It turns out her daughter and mine were schoolmates at Laguardia High School, NYC. That didn't come up. What did...the notorious lady and I had a brief moment alone together in the kitchen, and — hey! — she was checking me out. Still pretty hot, after all that time.



Viva! Chelsea Hotel!

PPSS... And, oh yes...I left the hotel owing some rent (evidently, a select but large club). As collateral I left Stanley Bard a piece of jewelry, a silver pendant (abstract, articulated human face) I bought in SoHo from a designer/owner store on West Broadway; also, a dirty old Iranian tribal rug (from a SoHO antique shop), and my Nikon FTN and lenses in a custom case.

I can't quite place the time of publication, but Smithsonian Magazine did a piece on the Chelsea Hotel in the mid-1980s; in a photograph of Stanley sitting at his desk behind him there's an open cabinet with — Holy Cow! — my camera case. When I finally came back to pay my bill Mr. Bard didn't even remember the debt. But I paid it. You don't want to leave anything behind at the Chelsea.



I retrieved the camera set. No idea where the pendant and the rug had gone to, however. (If anyone has those two items, please give them back. They are paid for, free and clear. You don't want me haunting you, do you?) 

There was film still in the camera and I finished the role that day. First picture, looking south at the Flatiron Building with an outdoor sculpture by Rhonda Roland Shearer in the foreground. I didn't know her well at the the Chelsea Hotel; but, I did know her well at Johnny Jupiter (another one of my stops along the way). More on that in a later post.


Just to say that at one time after seeing Rhonda's exhibit at the Wildenstein Gallery in 1989 my comment on her work of that period was that it looked like "garden ornaments." Offputting, no doubt. She didn't want an unvarnished opinion from me, evidently. But, lo and behold, there is that thing right there on the island at the intersections of 23rd, Broadway, and 5th. Outdoors. Ornamental. And, isn't NYC a garden after all, really?



Maybe I know a thing or so about art after all! Start preparing a plaque for outside the entrance.

PPPSSS...  Also remembering one Neon Leon, a fellow resident at the Chelsea. He is alive and well as you can see:


PPPPSSSS... Once there was something very special that happened one day in connection with being a resident of the Chelsea Hotel. I found out that there was a memorial service for an illustrious resident of the hotel in the Village, just near Washington Square Park. Mr. George Kleinsinger had passed away after spending the last 25 years of his life in residence at the Chelsea. We were contemporaries only; I often saw him passing through with his entourage, self contained as if in some rare creative other world. At the memorial service I noticed this handsome, dignified older man and had an instant recognition.

When I was a young boy there was a television show called Mr. I-Magination. The eponymous host would arrive sitting on a small scale train wearing a striped engineer cap and matching overalls. He would sing sweet songs and talk to a magic (talking) mirror. I was entranced. I only saw the show a few times, then it disappeared. I pined for its loss. So here I am and I walk up to this gentleman, introduce myself, and say... "You're Mr. I-Magination, aren't you?" Indeed, so! Paul Tripp was an associate of Mr. Kleinsinger and was there to pay his respects.

Just such a lovely blast from the given-up past! Thank you, Madame Chelsea.










Thursday, May 26, 2005

It must be jelly, 'cause...




Pฤ…czki, pronounced "Poonch-key" is the name of the famous Polish jelly doughnuts. It's so good that it makes you want to go-nuts!

When I was a boy in high school being shaped up by the Jesuits my cousin Kenny moved from Harper Woods, Michigan to Orange County, California. He was henceforth known as the "California Kid;" so dubbed by our Uncle Phil. (Kenny currently lives near Orange County so the experience must have been formative.)

Uncle Phil was a baker; in fact, he owned and operated a few Polish bakeries in the Detroit area at one point in time. I was a rather shy kid and I remember his withering greeting. He was missing the first to joints on his right index finger. How this happened I never learned. When I came by his home to visit he would invariably shake my hand and rub the stump into my palm. It was a soul draining experience. I'm sure he meant nothing by it except to tease me. I'm glad he stopped there and didn't give me a goosing for good measure.

Uncle Phil had a wicked sense of humor. At our summer cottage a fly once found its way into my ear. Phil quipped, "it probably went out the other side." On another occasion, I had persuaded my folks to buy me a pop gun, the double barreled kind that shoots corks.  I went with my mother to the Dime Store to buy it. I was attempting to show her how it worked. The gun had to be cocked by breaking at the breach. The spring action was very tight; and, as I struggled to cock it, it slipped my grasp and caught me in my little private personal part. Ouch! The store was a few blocks away from Phil's Northtown Bakery and I was taken there first before going to the hospital. Uncle Phil grinningly speculated that it might have to be cut off. Tough love. Later, at the hospital, that prospect was all I could think about. Imagine this little innocent boy nervously asking the doctor if it was going to be cut off. Phil!!!

Years later as a young man I visited with him and we had some real conversations. He was a good, hardworking man. Phil spent most of his time working hard in his bakery, cigar butt clenched firmly in his teeth as he kneaded dough. He became quite well to do, living in a beautiful house on Lakeshore Drive in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, just down the road from HFII (that's Henry Ford II, of automotive fame).

His wife Genevieve was my father's sister.  Aunt Gene was so beautiful in every way. Always most kind to me, kind in reverse proportion to Phil. She is the only human being who was allowed to call me Davey. (RIP Aunt Gene, 2014.) To all others, it's David, if you please. They had a badminton court in their back yard and I loved to go there to play. Also, to go across the street to the Farms Pier to swim in Lake St. Clair during the summer; to skate on the frozen lake in the cold Michigan winters.

I vividly remember one time I was invited for lunch. They had these trendy colorful anodized aluminum tumblers. I got a nice ice cold lemonade. Trouble was, it tasted like 50% dishwashing liquid. Big time. Tact and timidity prevented me from pointing that out. Years later I now surmise that dear cousin Marlene put that mickey in my drink. Marlene!!! A chip off the old block? Well, later I evened the score. Once we went to the beach for a swim and Marlene was going into the water just ahead of me. I was the first to notice that her one piece bathing suit was not zipped up. Wicked little Davey starts running after her, yelling at the top of his voice, "Marlene, Marlene, get into the water, quick!" Everyone on the beach was put on notice. Marlene was embarrassed, of course. (As planned.) She admonished me that I could have been a little more discreet to tell her. She never suspected that I did it on purpose. Hah! How's that for quick on the feet?

But, I also remember Marlene was the one who took me aside one day to teach me the gentlemanly art of opening a door for a lady and helping with a seat. Also, how to dance the au courant Chicken. Thank you, Marlene! But... gotchya!

When cousin Kenny left for California his job at the bakery came open and I stepped in. Every Friday afternoon after school I would go directly to the bakery, arriving at around 4:30 PM working through the night until 6:30 AM. I would take a half hour meal break at around midnight. My job was to assist the other bakers in preparing many of the baked goods for the big Saturday sales day. This schedule was particularly gruesome during the summer school recess period. I learned about the blues going on the bus to the bakery on those hot, humid summer Friday's.

After arriving and putting on an apron my first task was to peel a half dozen large Bermuda onions and chop them fine in an empty 5 gallon can (the kind that fruit fillings came packed in bulk) with a dull table scraper. I would season the chopped onions with salt and poppy seeds. This was the topping for the onion buns. They were great fresh; hard as rocks the next day. I was allowed to do this job pretty much unsupervised and was impressed that they would entrust the blending to me. They were keeping an eye on me though; once I put in too much salt and was admonished to ease up.

All this time the bakers were kneading dough into individual loaves. Uncle Iggy (he wasn't my uncle, he was Ken's; but I called him that anyway) was a stone serious tool of a man. He had a gray color about him. Austere. I assisted him in moving various rolls and loaves to the proofing trays (which Uncle John, Ken's father, had made special for the purpose — he was a carpenter by trade). Iggy was quite adept at making kaiser rolls and seemed to keep the knack of twisting the dough coil into the right shape a secret from me. He did, however, attempt to teach me how to cut the slashes in the french loaves. I seemed to always cut too deep and he would bluster and fume in his exasperation with my lack of skill. I don't know if I was a good student, but I know that you don't encourage learning by highlighting the student's ignorance. May he rest in peace.

Then I had to help my Uncle Zawodski (that was his last name and that's the name he was known by, "Zawodski") load the large oven with hundreds of loaves of bread. He was a short robust man, and bald. Think Mr. Clean. He had forearms the size of hams; very strong. He also lived in Grosse Pointe (there's money in bread) and took great pride in his lawn. It was manicured like a world class putting green. He had a special mower, the kind used to trim putting greens. It was very hard device to push, and he would trim all the edges by hand on his hands and knees. Polish folks are known as hard workers. All his bushes were trimmed in a simple geometric topiary style; just so. There were deer on the lawn and a gazing ball on a concrete pedestal. Wow!

When the bread was ready to come out of the oven my job was to stand to the side at a large wood top table. Zawodski would shovel about 8 loaves at a time from his peel onto the table. That peel must have had a 10 foot handle, long enough to reach to the back of the oven. You learned right away that you couldn't stand behind the baker when the bread was coming out of the oven. It went so fast that handle must have been moving at 80 mph. I had a few near misses. My job in assisting with the finished loaves was to brush some of the tops with a corn starch and water solution. This would glaze the crust and give it a little crispy, crackly texture. Then with thick heat proof gloves I would stack the loaves onto wire racks to cool.

It seemed that most of the bread was Rye. Plain and Seeded. The latter was called Russian Rye, loaded with caraway seeds. There were an assortment of White Breads: French style hand shaped, some baked in in pans with round tops, and some Pullman style baked with a heavy cover on top to make a square slice. There were also the Challahs. These were in one, two, and three pound loaves. This bread is braided from three dough coils. The dough itself was rich in egg yolks which were delivered to the bakery in 5 gallon tins. My job around this item was to open a tin of egg yolks, stir it up, and brush the proofed loaves gently (Iggy would flip if I pressed too hard.) The smell and sight of hundreds of fresh egg yolks at around midnight would make me woozy. It was stomach wrenching. Some loaves were also covered with a streusel topping. The bakers pronounced it "strizzle." Never knew the correct term until years later. It was also a mystery what it was made of— tasted mildly sweet, crumbly, with a buttery orange note. Music to your taste buds, anyway.

A vivid memory was when my brother's first child, Christopher, was born and my dad stopped by the bakery in the middle of the night to tell me. I was particularly impressed that he took the trouble to come over to tell me personally.

The other bread that I would be remiss to not mention is the behemoth, the Godzilla of all breads, the 5 pound Russian Black Bread. It was black, man. This was sold by the pound. My job was to smear some stuff that resembled cement on the top just before it went into the oven. It made a nice crust. I was the pinochle of the baker's art.

The very last thing that I did before the end of my shift was to assist with the Pฤ…czki. In the back of bakery, behind the great oven, there was a large vat of oil heated to fry the doughnuts. My mentor for this procedure was one Mitchell Mazur. He was a dead ringer for Ely Wallach, and quite the jokester. From him I learned the answer to that age old puzzle, "how many wrinkles in a bull ass?" Trust me, you don't want to know. (Or, bend over and let me count.)

One time, to impress me I'm sure, he spit into the hot oil to test if it was ready. I knew that the heat would kill any untoward bacteria. But people did seem to smile after taking a bite of Mitchell's doughnuts, so maybe some of his jovial essence remained. When the Pฤ…czki were done on both sides (he used a stick to flip them over) he would lift 2 dozen at a time out with a wire rack previously set into the bottom of the vat. We must've made some 12 dozen in all. After the doughnuts were fried I would prepare a large bowl of sugar glaze, a bowl of granulated sugar, and a bowl of powdered sugar. Then I would load the jelly dispensers with 1) raspberry jelly, 2) prune butter (that's "povidla," pronounced "povidwa" in Polish — or also known as "lekvar") — my personal fave, and 3) custard — a close second preference. These contraptions could hold around 4-5 quarts of filling each. They had a plunger attached to a handle and a spigot at the bottom.


I would take each still hot pฤ…czek, spike and load each one with the designated filling and toss them top side down into the appropriate sugar topping. This was a multiple challenge. First the doughnuts were still very hot. And, you had to handle them very delicately or they would scrunch up. Iggy had gone home by now but the mere thought of screwing up brought me eye to eye with wrathful Ignatz. The sugar glaze was also quite hot and it would cling to your fingers. Ow! Ooh! Ouch! Almost time to go home. My one satisfaction around this was that, since I myself like lots of filling in my Pฤ…czki, I gave every one of them an extra goose. There's an old Polish expression which reads best in the original; translated it goes, "making love is like making a Paczki." Think about it. (My personal cure for premature ejaculation was to conjure up an image of Uncle Iggy. "All night long," as the song goes.)

Now my uncle Phil was one to teach a kid the value of a dollar. This slave job of mine paid 75 cents an hour. Probably right for a kid in the year 1958. I worked diligently, and even felt a little guilty taking my meal break. After a while I asked for a raise. My next pay envelope had $11.90 instead of the usual $10.50. This increment was so small I approached Phil asking about my promised raise. His response, "I gave you one, 10 cents an hour." Well I didn't see how I was going to get my butt to Lake Shore Drive in Grosse Pointe at that rate. So I quit. Finally stood up for myself and to uncle Phil. Finger! I'll give you a finger!

(Soon after this parting of ways from the bakery my brother's friend Bob Orlowski graduated from law school and gave up his Saturday job at his Uncle Norb's butcher shop. I landed that spot and in a year was taking home $25 for a 12 hour day. But that's a whole nother story. Onward and upward, however.)

Not long ago I visited Detroit and looked up that old Northtown Bakery on East 7 Mile Road a few blocks west of Van Dyke. Still there, now owned by a Bulgarian gentleman. All the old fixtures were out in front. The Balkan style (I presume) merchandising of the new owner included cheap sneakers arranged in the glass cabinet — where they used to display cakes — soda pops, and a small assortment of what we shall leave described as "sundries." And an indescribable third world dinginess throughout. In back it was like a time capsule. Not much changed from when I walked out with my 85 cent an hour pay envelope. And that familiar dense greasy, buttery aroma of countless baked goods; the odor crammed over the years into every pore in the walls, floor, and ceiling.

I took one look around and exclaimed, "UNCLE!"

In 2013 we revisited the Nortown Bakery during a stay in Detroit. The same owner, only now very bitter about how the neighborhood had gone to hell. He wouldn't let us in the back for some pictures this time. He seemed to be wary that we would publish the scene of decrepitude in some newspaper. He did say the roof was falling in.

You can't go home again. Alas.





Wednesday, May 25, 2005




HIGH ON NEW YORK

In the Summer of 1963 me and a couple of my college buddies drove to NYC from Detroit, our hometown.

We had the use of a shiny maroon 1963 Chevy Impala convertible with a black interior, buckets seats, white walls (but, of course), and (get this) factory AC.

I took the photograph shown here from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. That's its shadow pointing NE toward the United Nations Building.

I had no inkling at the time that just a few years later I would come to live in New York City and stay there for some 27 years.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

xxx

Doggone It. Dog!

Our neighbor's dog was the worst. Barking all night, and chasing me viciously when I came into the back yard. The animal sure seemed like he would tear me to pieces if there weren't a fence between us.

His owner insisted, however, that all Bruiser wanted to do was play. And, if I gave him a nice treat, he would calm down and be friends.

Well it worked. To a point. Each treat, enthusiastically received, but back to barking and snarling in no time flat.

So I decided to give that dog a bone. A BONE! The treat of a lifetime.

A win-win for both of us.




"Madly In Love" [Lance Kelly]

"When a man or woman is utterly obsessed with another, there is the possibility of becoming madly in love. To love anyone or anything i...