May 27, 2011

Okay, are you ready for your daily dose of whine? It was another horrific day at work. A stress-filled, rush job, nerve-jangling day. I was thinking about going the the Fortress of Papaya, but decided to just go home and have a few beers on my roof overhang outside of my apartment. I don’t go out there much and I really should. Everybody’s always jealous of it when they see it. Thinking about it brought back a memory I have of being out there and I thought I’d write that up tonight and illustrate it with real life pictures. So here goes!

On August 14th, 2003, it was a little after four in the afternoon and I was getting my shit together and getting ready to go into work. It was a  hot summer afternoon and my window unit air conditioner was humming away. I was walking over to turn it off and before I got there it stopped on its own. I tried to turn a lamp on and it didn’t turn on either. The power was off. I was running late for work, so I just walked out and locked my door.

Walking down the stairs, I ran into my neighbor Deloy.

“Hey Deloy, is your power off too?” I asked walking down the creaky stairs.

“Yeah, I think the whole building is out. Are you going to work?” She asked.

“Yeah, I’m running a little late, I’ll see you later,” I said as I headed for the front door.

“Okay, I’m sure the power will be back on when you get home,” She said as I opened the front door.

And now it can finally be revealed. It was Deloy that caused the widespread blackout on August 14th, 2003! When she uttered the words, “Okay, I’m sure the power will be back on when you get home,” she jinxed a large part of this country and Canada. It’s like when you say at work, “It looks like it’s going to be an easy day” and then the proverbial shit hits the old fan. I’m sorry to be the one to finally reveal this Deloy, but I could keep it a secret no longer. It was too much of a burden on my conscience. Look on the bright side though, you’ll probably make the NY Post tomorrow! I can already picture the headline: “DELOY: DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS!”

But anyway, back to the story! So I went out and walked to 6th Avenue. And when I got there, there was tons of people on the street. I looked up and noticed the traffic lights weren’t working.

“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked a sweaty fat man in a brown suit.

“The electricity is out over the whole city,” he told me while sweat ran down his fat face. “My neighbor said she heard on the radio it was another terrorist attack.

“Oh fuck!” I said in response. “Well, listen take care of yourself," I said to him and started walking uptown to work. I didn’t know what else to do.

He wished me good luck as I headed uptown on 6th Avenue in a sea of people with worried-ass faces. My stomach was in knots. I did not want to go through another September 11th. I was walking as fast as I could and soon I was at work. A lot of my co-workers were standing out in the street. I saw my boss Mike and went up to him and asked if he knew what was going on. He explained it was a blackout that was not only in New York but in several other states as well. I was just relieved it wasn’t going to be another September 11th. He told me he heard it could last through the night and that I might as well go home. He also told me some people had no way to get home because of the train situation and might be stuck there all night.

And this is where I have to confess a bit of a selfish moment takes place. I started realizing people might start asking me to spend the night at my place since I live in the city. My apartment is tiny and it could turn into a mess if people were to start asking and it would be hard to turn people down. I told Mike I’d come back if the power came back on and walked right into Sam Wong and his wife, Hilda.

I had worked with Sam for years and he’s a friend of mine. He and Hilda live in Long Island and I knew they had no way to get home, because the trains weren’t running.

“Listen, I hate to ask this,” Sam said and I knew what was coming, “but we have nowhere to go. Can we stay at your place tonight.”

So what was I going to do? I told him they could and then said, “Let’s get the hell out of here, I can’t have twenty fucking people staying at my place. So we walked to my apartment. When we got to the corner of 16th and 6th I looked at the corner deli and my resources kicked in big time and I uttered five very important words: “We gotta get some beer!”

Sam and Hilda don’t drink booze, so they got some water and I bought three six packs of 16 ounce Budweisers. I’m always a firm believer of, it’s better to have more, than not enough! And so we went back to my apartment.

We walked in, put our bags down and it was hotter than a bonfire in hell in there. I instinctively walked over and tried to turn the air conditioner on.

“Unless that thing’s hooked up to a generator, I don’t think you’re going to have much luck with that,” Sam said, being a wise-ass.

“Listen, unless you want to sleep on the street, you better start kissing my ass!” I told him.

“Yeah, you’d like that wouldn’t you?” Sam shot back.

“Aw fuck you,” I said and I grabbed my beer to put it in the freezer.

I don’t defrost my freezer nearly enough...

See? But it worked in my favor that day, I knew it would keep my beer cold through the night. As you can see, I fall into survival of the fittest mode fastly!

So we opened my door that leads to the roof overhang so some air would come in. I walked over to my boombox and said, “I’m going to turn the radio on and see if we can hear some news.” Then I realized I didn’t have any batteries for it.

“We have to go get some batteries,” I said to Sam and Hilda.

“No batteries? Wow, you’re really prepared for an emergency situation here,” Sam said sarcastically.

“Hey fuck you, I’ve got more beer than anybody on this block right now, let’s go, it’ll give us something to do,” I shot back and we headed outside.

We got the batteries and were back in my apartment listening to the radio. I was drinking beer and it was boiling hot in there. We finally decided to go out and just take a walk. Walking around we found a pizza place that had a wood burning oven, so each got a slice and walked to Union Square park and ate it. There were a lot of people out and the mood was almost festive. I think a lot of people were like me and were just relieved it wasn’t some terrorist thing.

It started getting dark and before you knew it, New York looked like this!

Sam, Hilda and I headed back home and it was spooky walking in the pitch black New York night. The only things that were lit up on the streets were Mr. Softee trucks, they work on generators, and they were doing a booming business.

We made it back to my place and with the help of a cigarette lighter I found some candles and a flashlight, we lit them up and sat down, but the heat was stifling.

I’m going to go sit out on the roof,” I said getting up and taking a plastic chair with me to sit on.

Sam said he’d join me and Hilda said she just wanted to lay down. So we opened up my futon, I got her a pillow and Sam and I went outside. We brought a couple candles out and I set the flashlight at us so we wouldn’t be sitting in the pitch black night.

There’s a huge loft across from me and it was lit up with candles and I think a few flashlights. There were two people on the couch and they were making out.

“Looks like we might see some action!” I said to Sam.

“This is better than TV, hey look, channel 2,” Sam said pointing to another window lit up with candles. There were people inside and it looked like they were having a party in there.

I got up and got a beer and when I walked back out on to the roof, I looked over and saw a small window that was lit up and there was a woman standing in front of a mirror, messing around with her hair. She had light brown hair down to her shoulders, she was attractive, probably mid-twenties and she had on a pink halter top.

“Hey asshole,” I said to Sam, “check out channel 3!”

“Whoa!” Sam said eyeing the woman who was still posing in front of her mirror. “She’s pretty hot!”

“No shit,” I fired back. “She must have a portable light in there, it’s all lit up. She’s got a halter top on, if she takes that thing off we’ll see her tits!”

“Oh, shit!” Sam said kind of loudly.

It’s sad, but true, that two guys our age could be reduced to the mentality of a twelve-year-old boy looking at his first Playboy, at the thought of seeing some strange woman’s breasts. But what are you going to do?

When Sam said, “Oh, shit,” she looked out the window in our direction and immediately ran out of the room after she saw us leering at her. Seconds later she came back with a towel and covered the window up.

Sam eventually went to bed and I moved on to vodka, but that’s a whole different story and one too long to tell now.

The next day, Sam and Hilda left and went to Penn Station. The power was still off and I went out to get the chair off of the roof. I looked over at the window and the towel was down and you could see in again. I walked over and was staring at it and before I knew it, the woman was back in there and saw me staring at the window. She ran out of the room and there’s been a shade on the window ever since.

I still wish I could’ve seen her tits.

Further reading: CBS News, CNN, and the NY Times.

You might also like: Sam, Hilda and Marty.

Three Other Blackouts
1977 Backout
1965 Blackout
Blackout of Gretely

When the night has come,
And the land is dark,
And the moon is the only light we'll see.

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Bonus Photo by Jason Kuffer!

Last week I went to the 11th Annual Joey Ramone Birthday Bash and ran into my friend Jason Kuffer there. Jason snapped a photo of me taking a picture and here it is.
To see more of Jason’s photos from the show click here: Jason Kuffer’s Photos From the Joey Ramone Birthday Bash. And here’s some backstage and after-party shots he snapped: More Jason Kuffer Photos. Great work, Jason, thanks for sending in the photo and links!