By this time, of course, besides being turned off by having to room with a sexist like Barry, whose 1970's political views and values did not reflect my own 1970's revolutionary left, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist non-Zionist and male feminist political views and values, I also had had enough of living again in Queens County.
Prior to the 1970's, I had grown up in Queens, lived in the Midwest and lived in Manhattan and Staten Island; and in the 1970's I had lived in the Bronx and the Midwest again, before finally returning to Queens County.
My childhood memories of growing up in the Douglaston and Little Neck area of Queens within the Beech Hills-Deepdale developments of low-cost, co-op garden apartments, during the 1950's era of U.S. white working-class affluence, were memories of a Queens in which I still felt on the same cultural wavelength as were most of my childhood friends, childhood classmates and childhood elders. But now in the 1970's, as an adult in my 20's who had become politically radicalized and alienated from culturally straight white suburban middle-class/affluent working-class values, I no longer felt I was on the same wavelength as the other adults in their 20's who still lived in Queens in the 1970's.
Between the 1950's and the 1970's, both Queens and I had changed; and by the 1970's none of the people I had grown up with in Queens seemed to ever appear in my daily or weekend life scenes in the 1970's; and there also seemed to be little likelihood that living any longer in Queens in the 1970's would enable me to easily find any new scene of people with whom I would feel some philosophical affinity, shared life aspirations or emotional closeness to.
So, naturally, when I heard from my sister, who was now living in Brooklyn, that there was a vacant apartment in Brooklyn that I could rent by myself for just $100 a month, my revisit to Queens ended. And to the more urbanized borough of Brooklyn/Kings County I moved my guitar, my cheap portable typewriter and the duffel bag that contained all my clothes, as a new year in the 1970's began.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (79)
Although Barry had mentioned having had "a chick" while in college that he had split up with eventually, it wasn't until near the end of the time I roomed with him in the Jamaica basement apartment that he brought home a "chick" who spent a night there with him; apparently someone Barry had also previously dated during his college days.
She was about the same height as Barry, had long, straight black hair, wore jeans and had a face and figure that most men in the 1970's would have considered physically attractive. Yet despite her somewhat hip-looking surface appearance, she didn't seem that hip intellectually or counter-cultural in her value-structure.
To interest her initially in going out on a date with him again, Barry had to agree to find a blind date for her friend, another woman in her early 20's who, unlike Barry's womanfriend, didn't wear jeans and would not have been considered physically attractive by either most culturally straight men or most hip, counter-culture-oriented men in the 1970's. So that's why Barry pushed me into "helping him out" by agreeing to be the "blind date" that the "chick" he was trying to "score" with was requesting that he also provide to go out with them. And, as a favor to Barry, I got into his van with him one night when he wasn't working at the Queens College student union building, because of the Christmas season school break, and he drove us both to the Queens apartment of the parents of my blind date, to pick up both Barry's date and my blind date.
Once we got there, the parents of my blind date examined Barry and me and reminded us to bring their daughter home before midnight. I no longer recall where we went immediately afterwards with Barry's date and my blind date after we left the parents' apartment; probably to some restaurant for dinner. But I do remember that both my blind date and I quickly concluded after talking with each other in the back seat of Barry's van that we were neither physically attracted to each other or had any common interests.
She seemed to be interested in the 1970's in just finding a straight, conventional, religiously conservative Jewish middle-class professional man--perhaps an accountant, lawyer or medical doctor--who wanted to get married, have children and make a lot of money--which, I, obviously, wasn't. And, in turn, I didn't feel that she was on the same wavelength as me philosophically or intellectually enough for me to want to date her again, even if her surface physical appearance had, in fact, resembled that of Barry's date more.
Eventually, Barry drove us all back to our basement apartment in Jamaica, where he spent abut a half-hour in his bedroom making out with his date, while my blind date and I awkwardly attempted to make conversation in the living room, before Barry and I drove both his date and my blind date back to each of their parents' apartments, in which they each still lived.
But the next night, Barry was able to go on another date with his date, without being required to drag me along as a blind date for his date's friend, like on the previous night. And after his second date with her, Barry brought her home to the basement apartment and apparently "scored," since she was now willing to spend the whole night sleeping and making love with him in his bedroom.
The following morning, however, Barry's new "chick" and sexual conquest was first crying and then screaming at Barry for awhile, before Barry was able to temporarily quiet her down and then drive her back home to her parents' apartment.
Apparently Barry had been able to "score" with his new "chick" the previous night because she had assumed that he had agreed that they were now "a couple" and that he would start looking, with her, for a fancier apartment in Queens in which they would now live together.
But once they awoke the next morning, Barry apparently denied that he had ever promised to live with her in a fancier apartment or solely sleep with her; and his new "chick" and sexual conquest, predictably, felt disappointed, betrayed and sexually exploited. Hence, the tears and the screaming. And also, predictably, Barry then decided he would have to "go to his bull-pen again" and try to find another "chick" he knew from his college days, in order to make another "score"/sexual conquest, rather than have to deal with another scene with the "chick" who had been screaming at him.
She was about the same height as Barry, had long, straight black hair, wore jeans and had a face and figure that most men in the 1970's would have considered physically attractive. Yet despite her somewhat hip-looking surface appearance, she didn't seem that hip intellectually or counter-cultural in her value-structure.
To interest her initially in going out on a date with him again, Barry had to agree to find a blind date for her friend, another woman in her early 20's who, unlike Barry's womanfriend, didn't wear jeans and would not have been considered physically attractive by either most culturally straight men or most hip, counter-culture-oriented men in the 1970's. So that's why Barry pushed me into "helping him out" by agreeing to be the "blind date" that the "chick" he was trying to "score" with was requesting that he also provide to go out with them. And, as a favor to Barry, I got into his van with him one night when he wasn't working at the Queens College student union building, because of the Christmas season school break, and he drove us both to the Queens apartment of the parents of my blind date, to pick up both Barry's date and my blind date.
Once we got there, the parents of my blind date examined Barry and me and reminded us to bring their daughter home before midnight. I no longer recall where we went immediately afterwards with Barry's date and my blind date after we left the parents' apartment; probably to some restaurant for dinner. But I do remember that both my blind date and I quickly concluded after talking with each other in the back seat of Barry's van that we were neither physically attracted to each other or had any common interests.
She seemed to be interested in the 1970's in just finding a straight, conventional, religiously conservative Jewish middle-class professional man--perhaps an accountant, lawyer or medical doctor--who wanted to get married, have children and make a lot of money--which, I, obviously, wasn't. And, in turn, I didn't feel that she was on the same wavelength as me philosophically or intellectually enough for me to want to date her again, even if her surface physical appearance had, in fact, resembled that of Barry's date more.
Eventually, Barry drove us all back to our basement apartment in Jamaica, where he spent abut a half-hour in his bedroom making out with his date, while my blind date and I awkwardly attempted to make conversation in the living room, before Barry and I drove both his date and my blind date back to each of their parents' apartments, in which they each still lived.
But the next night, Barry was able to go on another date with his date, without being required to drag me along as a blind date for his date's friend, like on the previous night. And after his second date with her, Barry brought her home to the basement apartment and apparently "scored," since she was now willing to spend the whole night sleeping and making love with him in his bedroom.
The following morning, however, Barry's new "chick" and sexual conquest was first crying and then screaming at Barry for awhile, before Barry was able to temporarily quiet her down and then drive her back home to her parents' apartment.
Apparently Barry had been able to "score" with his new "chick" the previous night because she had assumed that he had agreed that they were now "a couple" and that he would start looking, with her, for a fancier apartment in Queens in which they would now live together.
But once they awoke the next morning, Barry apparently denied that he had ever promised to live with her in a fancier apartment or solely sleep with her; and his new "chick" and sexual conquest, predictably, felt disappointed, betrayed and sexually exploited. Hence, the tears and the screaming. And also, predictably, Barry then decided he would have to "go to his bull-pen again" and try to find another "chick" he knew from his college days, in order to make another "score"/sexual conquest, rather than have to deal with another scene with the "chick" who had been screaming at him.
Saturday, October 1, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (78)
I can't recall much else I did during the last month in my basement apartment in Jamaica, while waiting to hear whether or not the book publishing firm was going to hire me for the publicity clerk job. What I do recall, though, is on one Friday night going alone to a local community college in Jamaica to hear a student who played acoustic guitar with a harmonica in a harmonica holder perform a 1-hour set; and thinking that the student-musician-performer reminded me of early Dylan, musically and stylistically; but that he did not remind me of early Dylan, lyrically.
I also recall meeting a Chinese-American male friend of Barry; and also going on a blind date that Barry had arranged for me with a woman friend of a former "chick" friend of Barry that Barry was again trying to "score" with, during my last month living with Barry in the Jamaica basement apartment.
Barry had apparently met his Chinese-American male friend--who was also in his 20's, but now married to a Chinese-American woman in her 20's--when they were both undergradate students at Queens College in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Having grown up in Queens in the 1950's and early 1960's like Barry and me (before the post-1980's mass migration of Chinese-Americans from Manhattan's Chinatown and immigrant families from Asia to Queens seemed to dramatically increase the number of Asian-Americans in that borough), Barry's friend seemed as Americanized and assimilated as Barry and I. But the parents of Barry's friend were apparently less completely assimilated and Americanized than my second-generation parents had been; and they were apparently still pressuring Barry's friend to live his life more like they wanted him to live it, rather than how he and his wife wanted to live.
So Barry's Chinese-American friend still seemed to feel some conflict as to what his goals in should be in the 1970's; although, like Barry, by the 1970's he had absolutely no interest in devoting any portion of his life or time in working for a revolutionary transformation of U.S. society, as I still did.
I also recall meeting a Chinese-American male friend of Barry; and also going on a blind date that Barry had arranged for me with a woman friend of a former "chick" friend of Barry that Barry was again trying to "score" with, during my last month living with Barry in the Jamaica basement apartment.
Barry had apparently met his Chinese-American male friend--who was also in his 20's, but now married to a Chinese-American woman in her 20's--when they were both undergradate students at Queens College in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Having grown up in Queens in the 1950's and early 1960's like Barry and me (before the post-1980's mass migration of Chinese-Americans from Manhattan's Chinatown and immigrant families from Asia to Queens seemed to dramatically increase the number of Asian-Americans in that borough), Barry's friend seemed as Americanized and assimilated as Barry and I. But the parents of Barry's friend were apparently less completely assimilated and Americanized than my second-generation parents had been; and they were apparently still pressuring Barry's friend to live his life more like they wanted him to live it, rather than how he and his wife wanted to live.
So Barry's Chinese-American friend still seemed to feel some conflict as to what his goals in should be in the 1970's; although, like Barry, by the 1970's he had absolutely no interest in devoting any portion of his life or time in working for a revolutionary transformation of U.S. society, as I still did.
Friday, September 30, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (77)
Having quit the Manhattan Criminal Court dictaphone-typist job after finally receiving the needed first paycheck after 6 weeks, I was now ineligible to receive unemployment compensation checks. So some of the time during the December that I last lived in the Jamaica basement apartment with Barry in the 1970's was spent looking at Sunday New York Times classified want ads.
Noticing a want ad for a "publicity clerk" job with a book publishing firm in Midtown Manhattan, I telephoned its personnel office to arrange for a job interview. After being interviewed, my impression was that the person who was the publicity department manager was going to hire me, especially because I was the first applicant to be interviewed, in a decade when the first white applicant for a skyscraper office clerical job usually still was the person who would get hired, unless he or she lacked the job qualifications. But because it was the month in which the publicity department manager was apparently busy hanging out at various seasonal office parties and/or schmoozing/meeting with her print media contacts, press agent contacts, bookstore managers and newspaper or magazine book review editors, she took her sweet time about calling me back to let me know that she had hired me and when I might start working as her publicity clerk at the book publishing firm.
But after two or three telephone calls to her by me, which apparently also convinced her that it made sense to hire me as her publicity clerk because I was eager enough about obtaining the job to call her about her decision more than once, I was told to report to for my first day of work in early January of the new year.
Noticing a want ad for a "publicity clerk" job with a book publishing firm in Midtown Manhattan, I telephoned its personnel office to arrange for a job interview. After being interviewed, my impression was that the person who was the publicity department manager was going to hire me, especially because I was the first applicant to be interviewed, in a decade when the first white applicant for a skyscraper office clerical job usually still was the person who would get hired, unless he or she lacked the job qualifications. But because it was the month in which the publicity department manager was apparently busy hanging out at various seasonal office parties and/or schmoozing/meeting with her print media contacts, press agent contacts, bookstore managers and newspaper or magazine book review editors, she took her sweet time about calling me back to let me know that she had hired me and when I might start working as her publicity clerk at the book publishing firm.
But after two or three telephone calls to her by me, which apparently also convinced her that it made sense to hire me as her publicity clerk because I was eager enough about obtaining the job to call her about her decision more than once, I was told to report to for my first day of work in early January of the new year.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (76)
I can't recall much of what I did during lunch hour for the 6 weeks I was caged in the dictaphone-typist pool at the 100 Centre Street Manhattan Criminal Court building. Working in Midtown Manhattan gave you the option of spending part of your lunch hour in more branches of the New York Public Library, in the central New York Public Library or at the Donnell Library. In Foley Square near the Wall Street area of Manhattan, however, there were fewer branches of the New York Public Library that you could spend part of your lunch hour at.
After buying a hot dog from a street vendor for my lunch on most workdays, I may have spent the rest of my lunch hour on only a few occasions walking up to the branch of the New York Public Library that was located in the south west side of Greenwich Village, browsing there for 10 minutes and then walking back to the 100 Centre Street courthouse. But during most lunch hours, I can no longer recall having done anything special when I worked there. Since I didn't start using each lunch hour on 9-to-5 workdays to write my Sundial memoirs of the 1960's manuscript text until the mid-1980's, I likely spent most lunch hours while working in the dictatphone-typist courthouse job just walking around or reading a daily newspaper I might have picked up out of a garbage can, or some paperback book that fit into my jacket pocket or back pocket. One thing I did do differently, though, during the 6 weeks I worked at 100 Centre Street was to take an elevated BMT route from Jamaica into lower Manhattan, rather than just take the E or F train from Jamaica, a number of times.
Before leaving work on the afternoon that I finally was handed, in the courthouse building, my first paycheck after 6 weeks by the dictaphone-typist pool supervisor, the African-American woman co-worker in her 40's, who had been friendly to me and who seemed, like me, to have only taken her job because she needed the money, then kidded me: "Now that you finally got your first paycheck, be sure to come back to work next week." Then we both laughed and wished each other a good weekend.
Of course, as soon as I arrived in my basement apartment in Jamaica on the evening of the day I deposited my first paycheck from the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse as a dictaphone-typist for 6 weeks, I typed up a letter to the elderly fellow who had hired me 6 weeks previously. Then I placed the letter and the photo I.D. that I had been given upon being hired by the personnel office of the courthouse, which showed that, as a courthouse employee, I had a legitimate right to go in and out of judges' offices and court work areas with manila envelopes without being questioned, into a stamped envelope, which I immediately mailed. In my brief letter, I indicated that "in order to begin working" at a "higher-paying position in the private sector," I was "regretfully resigning my position" as a dictaphone-typist in the New York County Supreme Court.
In reality, of course, I had neither a "higher-paying position" nor any regrets about resigning. But, given my moral objections to the role of the police, judges and local court system in 1970's New York City society, I just wanted to get the hell out of there--without giving them any indication that I was somebody whom the judges and D.A.'s, Red Squad and cops would likely label "subversive" if I honestly wrote about my moral and political reasons for quitting.
After buying a hot dog from a street vendor for my lunch on most workdays, I may have spent the rest of my lunch hour on only a few occasions walking up to the branch of the New York Public Library that was located in the south west side of Greenwich Village, browsing there for 10 minutes and then walking back to the 100 Centre Street courthouse. But during most lunch hours, I can no longer recall having done anything special when I worked there. Since I didn't start using each lunch hour on 9-to-5 workdays to write my Sundial memoirs of the 1960's manuscript text until the mid-1980's, I likely spent most lunch hours while working in the dictatphone-typist courthouse job just walking around or reading a daily newspaper I might have picked up out of a garbage can, or some paperback book that fit into my jacket pocket or back pocket. One thing I did do differently, though, during the 6 weeks I worked at 100 Centre Street was to take an elevated BMT route from Jamaica into lower Manhattan, rather than just take the E or F train from Jamaica, a number of times.
Before leaving work on the afternoon that I finally was handed, in the courthouse building, my first paycheck after 6 weeks by the dictaphone-typist pool supervisor, the African-American woman co-worker in her 40's, who had been friendly to me and who seemed, like me, to have only taken her job because she needed the money, then kidded me: "Now that you finally got your first paycheck, be sure to come back to work next week." Then we both laughed and wished each other a good weekend.
Of course, as soon as I arrived in my basement apartment in Jamaica on the evening of the day I deposited my first paycheck from the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse as a dictaphone-typist for 6 weeks, I typed up a letter to the elderly fellow who had hired me 6 weeks previously. Then I placed the letter and the photo I.D. that I had been given upon being hired by the personnel office of the courthouse, which showed that, as a courthouse employee, I had a legitimate right to go in and out of judges' offices and court work areas with manila envelopes without being questioned, into a stamped envelope, which I immediately mailed. In my brief letter, I indicated that "in order to begin working" at a "higher-paying position in the private sector," I was "regretfully resigning my position" as a dictaphone-typist in the New York County Supreme Court.
In reality, of course, I had neither a "higher-paying position" nor any regrets about resigning. But, given my moral objections to the role of the police, judges and local court system in 1970's New York City society, I just wanted to get the hell out of there--without giving them any indication that I was somebody whom the judges and D.A.'s, Red Squad and cops would likely label "subversive" if I honestly wrote about my moral and political reasons for quitting.
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (75)
Given the fact that I felt it was morally wrong and politically unprincipled for me to work in a New York County/Manhattan Criminal Court system that I believed was continuing to act as an instrument of political repression and human rights denial, on behalf of the white corporate power structure of New York City, in the 1970's, I quickly decided to quit the dictaphone-typist job as soon I was handed my first paycheck.
But during the first week of working in the dictaphone-typist pool, I was surprised to learn that, while the other dictaphone-typists were now each receiving their paychecks every two weeks or every month, a newly hired employee of Manhattan's Criminal Court like myself had to wait 6 weeks before he or she was handed a paycheck. So I, thus, couldn't afford to leave this job until 6 weeks were up.
Luckily for me, the unemployment benefit checks that were long overdue for me arrived during the middle of the 6-week period when I was waiting for my first paycheck from the Manhattan Criminal Court/New York County Supreme Court job. And the money from the late unemployment benefit checks enabled me to come up with my half of the monthly rent for the Jamaica basement apartment that I shared with Barry again, only about a week after the rent was due.
Barry had, however, seemed to get a bit anxious when I didn't have my half of the $150 rent at the beginning of the month. So I telephoned a former camp co-counselor whom I had befriended during the Summer of 1970, with whom I had resumed my friendship a number of years later, after bumping into him while transferring from the 74th Street IRT elevated station to the Roosevelt Avenue IND stop in Queens one evening, as we were both coming home form work.
When we got together in the evening following this telephone call, I hinted to him that I was expecting an unemployment benefit check or a paycheck soon, but that I needed a small loan in order to pay my half of of that month's rent to get the anxious Barry, my roommate, off my back. But when my friend--whom I had never asked for any kind of a money loan or favor before--seemed unwilling to help me out with the rent this one time, I realized that he really was just a "fair weather" friend; although I hid my changed feeling about our friendship from him when we said goodbye to each other outside my basement apartment in Jamaica. Queens.
But during the first week of working in the dictaphone-typist pool, I was surprised to learn that, while the other dictaphone-typists were now each receiving their paychecks every two weeks or every month, a newly hired employee of Manhattan's Criminal Court like myself had to wait 6 weeks before he or she was handed a paycheck. So I, thus, couldn't afford to leave this job until 6 weeks were up.
Luckily for me, the unemployment benefit checks that were long overdue for me arrived during the middle of the 6-week period when I was waiting for my first paycheck from the Manhattan Criminal Court/New York County Supreme Court job. And the money from the late unemployment benefit checks enabled me to come up with my half of the monthly rent for the Jamaica basement apartment that I shared with Barry again, only about a week after the rent was due.
Barry had, however, seemed to get a bit anxious when I didn't have my half of the $150 rent at the beginning of the month. So I telephoned a former camp co-counselor whom I had befriended during the Summer of 1970, with whom I had resumed my friendship a number of years later, after bumping into him while transferring from the 74th Street IRT elevated station to the Roosevelt Avenue IND stop in Queens one evening, as we were both coming home form work.
When we got together in the evening following this telephone call, I hinted to him that I was expecting an unemployment benefit check or a paycheck soon, but that I needed a small loan in order to pay my half of of that month's rent to get the anxious Barry, my roommate, off my back. But when my friend--whom I had never asked for any kind of a money loan or favor before--seemed unwilling to help me out with the rent this one time, I realized that he really was just a "fair weather" friend; although I hid my changed feeling about our friendship from him when we said goodbye to each other outside my basement apartment in Jamaica. Queens.
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (74)
The 100 Centre Street and Federal Courthouse judges' offices, to which I delivered the manila envelopes containing sentencing recommendations and pre-trial "release on bail" or "hold" recommendations and reports, were often empty of judges by most afternoons during the workweek and often empty of judges all day on Fridays. Many of the appointed judges at 100 Centre Street and in the Federal Court apparently liked to take Friday off whenever they could, in order to have as many 3-day weekends as their low-volume case load enabled them to have.
And sometimes, when I arrived at the private office of a judge at 100 Centre Street or in the Foley Square federal courthouse to deliver one of the manila envelopes, I would find the judge in his chair sleeping or taking a nap behind his private office desk. In addition, a few times, when I handed the manila envelope containing the probation officer's sentencing or pre-trial "grant bail-deny bail" or "release-don't release" recommendation to a judge, I noticed that the breath of the judge smelled strongly of whisky; and the judge seemed somewhat drunk--apparently from having had too much to drink during the 2-hour lunch breaks that nearly all the judges in the 100 Centre Street and the Federal courthouses seemed to take on the days they showed up for "work."
When delivering a manila envelope one afternoon to one New York County Criminal Court judge, I experienced a surprise: The judge to whom I was now bringing the manila envelope in the 1970's had been one of the prosecuting attorneys in the Panther 21 trial case of the late 1960's.. This case had ended with the acquittal of all the Black Panther Party political activists, who had apparently been framed up on "conspiracy" charges by the NYPD and federal law enforcement agents in the late 1960's.
Yet in the 1970's, this prosecuror-turned judge in Manhattan's Criminal Court was now responsible for handing out sentences and making pre-trial bail or no-bail decisions for arrested African-American defendants--despite his personal history of being involved in violating the democratic rights of the obviously innocent Panther 21 defendants during the 2 years whey were held without bail in pre-trial detention and during their trial.
And sometimes, when I arrived at the private office of a judge at 100 Centre Street or in the Foley Square federal courthouse to deliver one of the manila envelopes, I would find the judge in his chair sleeping or taking a nap behind his private office desk. In addition, a few times, when I handed the manila envelope containing the probation officer's sentencing or pre-trial "grant bail-deny bail" or "release-don't release" recommendation to a judge, I noticed that the breath of the judge smelled strongly of whisky; and the judge seemed somewhat drunk--apparently from having had too much to drink during the 2-hour lunch breaks that nearly all the judges in the 100 Centre Street and the Federal courthouses seemed to take on the days they showed up for "work."
When delivering a manila envelope one afternoon to one New York County Criminal Court judge, I experienced a surprise: The judge to whom I was now bringing the manila envelope in the 1970's had been one of the prosecuting attorneys in the Panther 21 trial case of the late 1960's.. This case had ended with the acquittal of all the Black Panther Party political activists, who had apparently been framed up on "conspiracy" charges by the NYPD and federal law enforcement agents in the late 1960's.
Yet in the 1970's, this prosecuror-turned judge in Manhattan's Criminal Court was now responsible for handing out sentences and making pre-trial bail or no-bail decisions for arrested African-American defendants--despite his personal history of being involved in violating the democratic rights of the obviously innocent Panther 21 defendants during the 2 years whey were held without bail in pre-trial detention and during their trial.
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (73)
It turned out that the "dictaphone-typist" job involved sitting in an office room with other dictaphone-typists, mostly African-American women in their late 30's or early 40's, who were all part of a dictaphone-typist pool, then-supervised by a white Irish-American woman who appeared to be in her 50's. The dictaphone-typists transcribed the dictaphone-tapes of "bail" or "no-bail" recommendations and sentencing recommendations that the then-all-white male probation officers made to various Criminal Court judges.
Most of my workday as part of the dictaphone-typist pool involved listening to the dictaphone tapes while transcribing/typing the words of the probation officer on forms or blank white sheets of paper, like the other dictaphone-typists did. Unlike the other workers in the dictaphone-typist pool, however, part of my job also was to, like an inter-office messenger, deliver by hand the manila envelopes which contained the transcribed probation officers' reports and recommendations to the offices of the various New York Criminal Court judges in both the 100 Centre Street courthouse or nearby federal courthouse building. Because there were apparently not enough offices in the 100 Centre Street courthouse to house the number of judges used by Manhattan's Criminal Court system, some of the court system judges were apparently assigned office space inside the nearby Federal Court building.
I did not mind being assigned the additional work task of delivering the manila envelops by hand to the offices of the various judges, after being accompanied and shown where their offices were during my first week on the job by an African-American woman file clerk, who appeared to about the same age as me; and who seemed glad that the inter-office messenger work she had previously been assigned to do would now be done by me. Unlike the file clerk, I did not feel it was an extra burden to have to do the hand-delivery work, since I felt it gave me a good excuse to decrease, somewhat, the time I was chained to a dictaphone-typist pool office desk, by taking as long a time as I could to do the delivery work; and it also provided me with more work breaks from sitting all day, listening to tapes on a headphone, transcribing text, and typing text that I normally might have had to type, had I not been assigned to also do the messenger work.
I no longer remember much of what the recommendations from the court probation officers that I transcribed were nor much about the file clerk who showed me where the judges' offices were in the courthouses. What I do remember about the file clerk was that the file clerk was the kind of very religious church member who seemed to believe that the main purpose of life on earth was to work during the week, go to church every Sunday, center your non-work life around all the evening and weekend activities that the church you belonged to sponsored, and prepare yourself to be rewarded for your belief in and devotion to Jesus Christ and God during your life, with an eternal after-life in a heavenly paradise after you died; and that your eternal after-life in the heavenly paradise would make up for any of the feelings of enslavement, economic hardship or boredom that you might have had during your daily life on earth, prior to your earthly death. So when the file clerk asked me if I believed in Christ and I indicated that I didn't, she, naturally, seemed to give me a look of pity, because she believed that I would then be ineligible to enjoy an eternal after-life in heaven as she would enjoy, after my earthly death.
All I can remember now about the white middle-class male probation officers was that they rarely spoke to the dictaphone-typists who transcribed their recommendations and reports when they came down to the dictaphone-typing pool room to hand them to the white woman supervisor who, subsequently, assigned one of the dictaphone-typists to do a particular transcription.
By the 21st-century, I imagine the dictaphone-typist pool would likely have been eliminated and the probation officers were probably now likely being required to type-up their own reports and recommendations for the judges on their desk computers or laptop computers, using windows; and all the dictaphone-typist/transcribing jobs that were provided for previous generation of workers at the 100 Centre Street courthouse would likely have vanished by now, I suspect.
Most of my workday as part of the dictaphone-typist pool involved listening to the dictaphone tapes while transcribing/typing the words of the probation officer on forms or blank white sheets of paper, like the other dictaphone-typists did. Unlike the other workers in the dictaphone-typist pool, however, part of my job also was to, like an inter-office messenger, deliver by hand the manila envelopes which contained the transcribed probation officers' reports and recommendations to the offices of the various New York Criminal Court judges in both the 100 Centre Street courthouse or nearby federal courthouse building. Because there were apparently not enough offices in the 100 Centre Street courthouse to house the number of judges used by Manhattan's Criminal Court system, some of the court system judges were apparently assigned office space inside the nearby Federal Court building.
I did not mind being assigned the additional work task of delivering the manila envelops by hand to the offices of the various judges, after being accompanied and shown where their offices were during my first week on the job by an African-American woman file clerk, who appeared to about the same age as me; and who seemed glad that the inter-office messenger work she had previously been assigned to do would now be done by me. Unlike the file clerk, I did not feel it was an extra burden to have to do the hand-delivery work, since I felt it gave me a good excuse to decrease, somewhat, the time I was chained to a dictaphone-typist pool office desk, by taking as long a time as I could to do the delivery work; and it also provided me with more work breaks from sitting all day, listening to tapes on a headphone, transcribing text, and typing text that I normally might have had to type, had I not been assigned to also do the messenger work.
I no longer remember much of what the recommendations from the court probation officers that I transcribed were nor much about the file clerk who showed me where the judges' offices were in the courthouses. What I do remember about the file clerk was that the file clerk was the kind of very religious church member who seemed to believe that the main purpose of life on earth was to work during the week, go to church every Sunday, center your non-work life around all the evening and weekend activities that the church you belonged to sponsored, and prepare yourself to be rewarded for your belief in and devotion to Jesus Christ and God during your life, with an eternal after-life in a heavenly paradise after you died; and that your eternal after-life in the heavenly paradise would make up for any of the feelings of enslavement, economic hardship or boredom that you might have had during your daily life on earth, prior to your earthly death. So when the file clerk asked me if I believed in Christ and I indicated that I didn't, she, naturally, seemed to give me a look of pity, because she believed that I would then be ineligible to enjoy an eternal after-life in heaven as she would enjoy, after my earthly death.
All I can remember now about the white middle-class male probation officers was that they rarely spoke to the dictaphone-typists who transcribed their recommendations and reports when they came down to the dictaphone-typing pool room to hand them to the white woman supervisor who, subsequently, assigned one of the dictaphone-typists to do a particular transcription.
By the 21st-century, I imagine the dictaphone-typist pool would likely have been eliminated and the probation officers were probably now likely being required to type-up their own reports and recommendations for the judges on their desk computers or laptop computers, using windows; and all the dictaphone-typist/transcribing jobs that were provided for previous generation of workers at the 100 Centre Street courthouse would likely have vanished by now, I suspect.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (72)
Had I not been desperately in need of money in order to pay my half of the following month's rent for the basement apartment in Jamaica that I was again sharing with Barry in the Fall, there's no way I would have been willing to be interviewed for a "dictaphone-typist" job within Manhattan's court system. But given my desperate economic situation, I felt compelled to let myself be interviewed.
When I reported to the personnel department in Manhattan's Criminal Court building at 100 Centre Street, the elderly white guy, who appeared to be in his early 60's, seemed so glad to find a white guy who typed 80 wpm for the dictaphone-typist position that needed to be filled at the courthouse that, with a smile, he offered me the job on the spot. And, given the fact that, whatever chance I still had to eventually get mailed an unemployment benefit check by New York State would vanish if I now refused Manhattan's Criminal Court dictaphone typist job, I also felt economically compelled to agree to report for work in the Criminal Court building the following week.
Having demonstrated outside 100 Centre Street in the 1960's during the beginning of the Panther 21 trial, in which a jury eventually found all defendants innocent of the trumped-up "conspiracy" charges on which the New York City cops and the F.B.I. COINTELPRO agents attempted to frame and convict them, I was already somewhat familiar with the 100 Centre Street building. In addition, when I was arrested inside Hamilton Hall in late May of 1968 during the second New York City police invasion of Columbia University's campus (for the purpose of ending the Spring 1968 Columbia Student Revolt against the Columbia administration's policy of institutionally sponsoring Viet Nam war-related Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] weapons research, constructing a racially segregated "Jim Crow" gymnasium on public land in Morningside Park and suspending dissident anti-war and anti-racist students for non-violently demonstrating inside Columbia University's buildings), I had actually spent a night inside one of the crowded holding pens at 100 Centre Street; before being brought into one of its courtrooms and released on probation, pending a trial for the "criminal trespassing" charge that was eventually dropped by New York County's "criminal justice system".
But to actually work inside 100 Centre Street as a "dictaphone-typist" for the court system for even a brief time in the 1970's provided me with a slightly different angle to view the scene there.
When I reported to the personnel department in Manhattan's Criminal Court building at 100 Centre Street, the elderly white guy, who appeared to be in his early 60's, seemed so glad to find a white guy who typed 80 wpm for the dictaphone-typist position that needed to be filled at the courthouse that, with a smile, he offered me the job on the spot. And, given the fact that, whatever chance I still had to eventually get mailed an unemployment benefit check by New York State would vanish if I now refused Manhattan's Criminal Court dictaphone typist job, I also felt economically compelled to agree to report for work in the Criminal Court building the following week.
Having demonstrated outside 100 Centre Street in the 1960's during the beginning of the Panther 21 trial, in which a jury eventually found all defendants innocent of the trumped-up "conspiracy" charges on which the New York City cops and the F.B.I. COINTELPRO agents attempted to frame and convict them, I was already somewhat familiar with the 100 Centre Street building. In addition, when I was arrested inside Hamilton Hall in late May of 1968 during the second New York City police invasion of Columbia University's campus (for the purpose of ending the Spring 1968 Columbia Student Revolt against the Columbia administration's policy of institutionally sponsoring Viet Nam war-related Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] weapons research, constructing a racially segregated "Jim Crow" gymnasium on public land in Morningside Park and suspending dissident anti-war and anti-racist students for non-violently demonstrating inside Columbia University's buildings), I had actually spent a night inside one of the crowded holding pens at 100 Centre Street; before being brought into one of its courtrooms and released on probation, pending a trial for the "criminal trespassing" charge that was eventually dropped by New York County's "criminal justice system".
But to actually work inside 100 Centre Street as a "dictaphone-typist" for the court system for even a brief time in the 1970's provided me with a slightly different angle to view the scene there.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (71)
Given the unemployment office's unintentional (or perhaps intentional) delay in mailing the benefit checks I was entitled to, I was, consequently, forced to go to the New York State Employment Bureau again to try to get placed on some kind of clerical-typist-type job before my hoped-for 6-month period of being on unemployment benefits, which would enable me to devote more time to folk songwriting and activism and romantic love-seeking than I had been able to do in the 1970's during my periods of wage enslavement.
Surprisingly (and perhaps because the New York State bureaucrats felt that if they didn't make more of an effort to place me quickly I might actually end up being able to collect the unemployment benefits from the State that was due me), after I scored 80 wpm on the typing test that I was given, the New York State Employment Bureau actually set-up an appointment for a job interview for an open "dictaphone-typist" position for the following day.
The catch, however, was that the "dictaphone-typist" job opening to which I was required to go to in order to retain my unemployment benefit eligibility, and required to accept if offered in order to retain my eligibility, was with a New York State government agency which I felt functioned as a tool for unjustly incarcerating, in a mass way, the African-American poor, U.S. political dissidents and left-wing anti-war and anti-imperialist activists, poor whites and white working-class people of all races in New York City: The New York County Supreme Court at 100 Centre Street in Downtown Manhattan, near Foley Square.
Surprisingly (and perhaps because the New York State bureaucrats felt that if they didn't make more of an effort to place me quickly I might actually end up being able to collect the unemployment benefits from the State that was due me), after I scored 80 wpm on the typing test that I was given, the New York State Employment Bureau actually set-up an appointment for a job interview for an open "dictaphone-typist" position for the following day.
The catch, however, was that the "dictaphone-typist" job opening to which I was required to go to in order to retain my unemployment benefit eligibility, and required to accept if offered in order to retain my eligibility, was with a New York State government agency which I felt functioned as a tool for unjustly incarcerating, in a mass way, the African-American poor, U.S. political dissidents and left-wing anti-war and anti-imperialist activists, poor whites and white working-class people of all races in New York City: The New York County Supreme Court at 100 Centre Street in Downtown Manhattan, near Foley Square.
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (70)
Before spending some of the Fall in which I lived in the basement apartment in Jamaica hitching around the U.S.A., I had assumed that, upon my return, I would be able to collect unemployment insurance benefits, and use my unemployment benefit check money to pay rent and food costs for the next 26 or 39 weeks, based on my clean lay-off from the Council on International Educational Exchange [C.I.E.E.] seasonal student travel agency clerical job at the end of August.
Unfortunately for me, however, after I applied for unemployment benefits, the Unemployment Insurance Division of New York State that was responsible for mailing out my weekly benefit check apparently took its sweet time about sending me my benefit check. Even over four weeks after applying for unemployment insurance benefits, no unemployment compensation check had been mailed to me.
I did, however, pick up $20 one morning, after reporting to the local unemployment office in Jamaica near Sutphin Blvd., to stand in line before signing for yet another promised but undelivered unemployment benefit check, when, on the way home, a nun called to me after noticing me walking on the sidewalk in front of the church where she worked. Needing a man to carry into the church a pile of boxes that had been dropped off on the sidewalk in front of the church, the nun offered to pay me $20 if I agreed to carry the boxes into the church. Yet after paying my half of the basement apartment's rent for the current month, I no longer had enough money to pay my half of the following month's rent.
Unfortunately for me, however, after I applied for unemployment benefits, the Unemployment Insurance Division of New York State that was responsible for mailing out my weekly benefit check apparently took its sweet time about sending me my benefit check. Even over four weeks after applying for unemployment insurance benefits, no unemployment compensation check had been mailed to me.
I did, however, pick up $20 one morning, after reporting to the local unemployment office in Jamaica near Sutphin Blvd., to stand in line before signing for yet another promised but undelivered unemployment benefit check, when, on the way home, a nun called to me after noticing me walking on the sidewalk in front of the church where she worked. Needing a man to carry into the church a pile of boxes that had been dropped off on the sidewalk in front of the church, the nun offered to pay me $20 if I agreed to carry the boxes into the church. Yet after paying my half of the basement apartment's rent for the current month, I no longer had enough money to pay my half of the following month's rent.
Friday, August 26, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (69)
It was during the Fall that I was living in the basement apartment in Jamaica that I first noted the negative political results at Queens College of the Zionist movement's well-funded post-1970 program to push "Jewish identity" consciousness and "Jewish studies" programs on campus, in which some assimilated U.S. students of Jewish religious background took some courses for college credit.
By the late 1960's, the elderly, rich white folks who funded or controlled the "professional Jews"/Zionist/Jewish nationalist organizations and lobbying groups in the U.S.A. apparently became concerned that too many assimilated U.S. students of Jewish religious background felt more of a political affinity with the African-American Liberation movement in the USA and groups like the Black Panther Party, or anti-imperialist New Left groups like SDS, than they did for Israel, Zionist youth groups in the U.S.A. or on-campus Hillel groups.
The "Jewish identity" and "Jewish Studies" programs the Zionist movement set up in the 1970's on U.S. campuses, it was hoped, would counter the apparent drift of assimilated students of Jewish religious background to the anti-imperialist New Left of the 1970's, in a more successful way than it was countered politically by the Zionist movement in the 1960's.
And by the mid-1970's--once the assimilated U.S. students of Jewish religious background and their womenfriends felt there was no longer any risk of being drafted by the U.S. military for an imperialist war, after U.S. military intervention in Vietnam began winding down, draft calls were reduced and the draft was eventually ended--the "Jewish identity" programs push at places like Queens College did seem to have succeeded, somewhat, in increasing the numbers of students who got involved in pro-Israeli, Zionist student youth groups than had been involved in similar groups in the 1960's, during the Vietnam War Era and the heyday of the New Left and SDS.
Checking out a forum on Middle East issues at Queens College one evening in the Fall, I was surprised, for example, to see that the number of Queens College students who cheered the Israeli government's representative when he defended his government's policy of refusing to negotiate directly with the Palestine Liberation Organization and refusing to withdraw, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, from the territories it had occupied during the June 1967 Middle East War, outnumbered the Queens College students who were critical of Israeli militarism, from an anti-imperialist left point of view.
And when I spent a few minutes, after the forum, explaining why people in the U.S., regardless of religious background, had an internationalist obligation to oppose Israeli militarism and human rights violations and support the right of the Palestinian people to national self-determination on democratic grounds, to a white woman student of Jewish religious background, whom most men would likely have considered physically attractive, she seemed to become enraged at me, while calling me a "self-hater" and "a traitor." For a second, it almost looked like she was going to even test out the effectiveness of her apparently recent martial arts training on me, if I hadn't decided that there was no point in continuing the discussion with her and started to quickly walk away from her.
By the late 1960's, the elderly, rich white folks who funded or controlled the "professional Jews"/Zionist/Jewish nationalist organizations and lobbying groups in the U.S.A. apparently became concerned that too many assimilated U.S. students of Jewish religious background felt more of a political affinity with the African-American Liberation movement in the USA and groups like the Black Panther Party, or anti-imperialist New Left groups like SDS, than they did for Israel, Zionist youth groups in the U.S.A. or on-campus Hillel groups.
The "Jewish identity" and "Jewish Studies" programs the Zionist movement set up in the 1970's on U.S. campuses, it was hoped, would counter the apparent drift of assimilated students of Jewish religious background to the anti-imperialist New Left of the 1970's, in a more successful way than it was countered politically by the Zionist movement in the 1960's.
And by the mid-1970's--once the assimilated U.S. students of Jewish religious background and their womenfriends felt there was no longer any risk of being drafted by the U.S. military for an imperialist war, after U.S. military intervention in Vietnam began winding down, draft calls were reduced and the draft was eventually ended--the "Jewish identity" programs push at places like Queens College did seem to have succeeded, somewhat, in increasing the numbers of students who got involved in pro-Israeli, Zionist student youth groups than had been involved in similar groups in the 1960's, during the Vietnam War Era and the heyday of the New Left and SDS.
Checking out a forum on Middle East issues at Queens College one evening in the Fall, I was surprised, for example, to see that the number of Queens College students who cheered the Israeli government's representative when he defended his government's policy of refusing to negotiate directly with the Palestine Liberation Organization and refusing to withdraw, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, from the territories it had occupied during the June 1967 Middle East War, outnumbered the Queens College students who were critical of Israeli militarism, from an anti-imperialist left point of view.
And when I spent a few minutes, after the forum, explaining why people in the U.S., regardless of religious background, had an internationalist obligation to oppose Israeli militarism and human rights violations and support the right of the Palestinian people to national self-determination on democratic grounds, to a white woman student of Jewish religious background, whom most men would likely have considered physically attractive, she seemed to become enraged at me, while calling me a "self-hater" and "a traitor." For a second, it almost looked like she was going to even test out the effectiveness of her apparently recent martial arts training on me, if I hadn't decided that there was no point in continuing the discussion with her and started to quickly walk away from her.
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (68)
By the time the sun had set on that Fall day, I was beginning to feel the effects of the acid. Consequently, when I got to the Queens College student union building I was flying high as a result of the acid.
Although I was able to find the unmarked back entrance door to the student union building that Barry had mentioned, a Queens College women student with a walkie-talkie, whose work-study job was apparently to patrol the student union building's stairwells, coincidentally, was walking down the stairs in the hallway near the back entrance of the student union building at the exact moment when I made my entrance.
"Let me see your I.D.!," she called out to me immediately after she spotted me while, at the same time, walking towards me quickly in order to block me from going down the stairs to the basement cafe.
Surprised by being spotted so unluckily, despite Barry's promise earlier that day, that there was no unforeseen difficulty in getting into the student union building by the unmarked back entrance, and being so high that I wasn't as quick-thinking as I might otherwise have been, all I could think of doing was to smile sheepishly and whisper to the woman student patrol monitor, "I''m a friend of one of the security guards and he told me I could use this back door to come into the building."
"You say you're a friend of one of the security guards and he said you could use this entrance to sneak in?" the woman student patrol monitor asked in a suspicious voice. "What's your friend's name?"
At that point, however, I suddenly realized that I'd better try to bring myself down quickly from the acid before I got Barry into trouble and possibly cost him the weekend job that he liked so much. And I somehow managed to start retracting my story about "my friend" telling "me I could use this back door to come into the building," by answering "I was just putting you on. So why don't I just leave now, since I don't have a student I.D.? And we can forget the whole thing."
The woman student stairwell patrol monitor, however, was apparently still suspicious and, blocking me from leaving the building through the same door through which I had entered, she said "Why don't you just wait a minute, while I call my supervisor?"
She then spoke a few words through her walkie-talkie and, a few minutes later, an African-American man in his late 20's, who was dressed in a mod way, appeared.
"Now why don't you tell him what you told me about how you got into the building without showing a student I.D.?" the woman student patrol monitor said.
Thinking quickly, I winked at the African-American man and said: "Look, brother. I'm too high to recall how I stumbled into this building. You know what I mean. But now that I know you need a student I.D. to get into the building on Saturday night, I promise I'll never try sneaking in here again."
The African-American supervisor laughed and replied: "Well, we'll let you go now, brother. But if we ever catch you inside here again without a student I.D., we might have to just call the police to take you away."
"Thanks a lot, brother," I said in a grateful tone as the student parole monitor and her supervisor led me to the exit door through which I left the building.
Once outside the Queens College Student Union building I breathed a sigh of relief that I was able to retreat from the building without apparently costing Barry his job. And by the time Barry returned from his security guard job around midnight to the Jamaica basement apartment, I was asleep. The next day, however, Barry asked: "What happened to you? I though I'd be seeing you in the basement cafe last night?"
Laughing, I replied: "I was on acid and it turned out I couldn't find the back entrance door. So I ended up just coming back here early and listening to music until I started to fall asleep.".
Although I was able to find the unmarked back entrance door to the student union building that Barry had mentioned, a Queens College women student with a walkie-talkie, whose work-study job was apparently to patrol the student union building's stairwells, coincidentally, was walking down the stairs in the hallway near the back entrance of the student union building at the exact moment when I made my entrance.
"Let me see your I.D.!," she called out to me immediately after she spotted me while, at the same time, walking towards me quickly in order to block me from going down the stairs to the basement cafe.
Surprised by being spotted so unluckily, despite Barry's promise earlier that day, that there was no unforeseen difficulty in getting into the student union building by the unmarked back entrance, and being so high that I wasn't as quick-thinking as I might otherwise have been, all I could think of doing was to smile sheepishly and whisper to the woman student patrol monitor, "I''m a friend of one of the security guards and he told me I could use this back door to come into the building."
"You say you're a friend of one of the security guards and he said you could use this entrance to sneak in?" the woman student patrol monitor asked in a suspicious voice. "What's your friend's name?"
At that point, however, I suddenly realized that I'd better try to bring myself down quickly from the acid before I got Barry into trouble and possibly cost him the weekend job that he liked so much. And I somehow managed to start retracting my story about "my friend" telling "me I could use this back door to come into the building," by answering "I was just putting you on. So why don't I just leave now, since I don't have a student I.D.? And we can forget the whole thing."
The woman student stairwell patrol monitor, however, was apparently still suspicious and, blocking me from leaving the building through the same door through which I had entered, she said "Why don't you just wait a minute, while I call my supervisor?"
She then spoke a few words through her walkie-talkie and, a few minutes later, an African-American man in his late 20's, who was dressed in a mod way, appeared.
"Now why don't you tell him what you told me about how you got into the building without showing a student I.D.?" the woman student patrol monitor said.
Thinking quickly, I winked at the African-American man and said: "Look, brother. I'm too high to recall how I stumbled into this building. You know what I mean. But now that I know you need a student I.D. to get into the building on Saturday night, I promise I'll never try sneaking in here again."
The African-American supervisor laughed and replied: "Well, we'll let you go now, brother. But if we ever catch you inside here again without a student I.D., we might have to just call the police to take you away."
"Thanks a lot, brother," I said in a grateful tone as the student parole monitor and her supervisor led me to the exit door through which I left the building.
Once outside the Queens College Student Union building I breathed a sigh of relief that I was able to retreat from the building without apparently costing Barry his job. And by the time Barry returned from his security guard job around midnight to the Jamaica basement apartment, I was asleep. The next day, however, Barry asked: "What happened to you? I though I'd be seeing you in the basement cafe last night?"
Laughing, I replied: "I was on acid and it turned out I couldn't find the back entrance door. So I ended up just coming back here early and listening to music until I started to fall asleep.".
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (67)
Since the weather was nice outside, however, I decided to spend that Saturday afternoon outside, enjoying the fresh Fall air and walking around Queens. And near the end of the afternoon, as I walked on the sidewalk along the Long Island Expressway service road, I was approached on the street by a white woman who looked like she was still just a junior or senior in high school.
"Wanna buy a tab of acid for 5 dollars?" she asked me, apparently because I was then long-haired, bearded and looked like a freak.
"Sure," I replied. Then, after I took my wallet out of my pocket and handed her a 5 dollar bill, the white high school woman student gave me a tab of acid in exchange; and then she quickly started to walk ahead in the direction opposite from the direction I was walking.
Apparently she was more interested in finding other freak customers on the streets of Queens to sell her tabs to than wasting anymore of her time finding out what I might be into, besides also being into dropping acid like she was. But, although I was somewhat attracted to her physically and might have been interested in getting to know her better, because she also seemed a little too young at that time for me to consider getting involved with romantically, I wasn't that disappointed when she walked away from me in search of other customers. So I just shrugged and also continued my own walk in the opposite direction for a block or two before swallowing the tab of acid.
Saturday, July 23, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (66)
Barry seemed to enjoy his weekend job as a security guard in the basement cafe in the Queens College student union building. One reason might have been that he felt it was like being at a party with people only a few years younger than him, on the college campus where he had previously graduated from, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night; and, in addition, it seemed to provide him with more of a possibility that he could pick-up and "score" eventually with more younger "chicks" than did his Monday through Friday day job during the week as a delivery truck driver.
And after about a month working as a basement cafe security guard at the Queens College student union building, Barry invited me to check out the scene on one Saturday night.
"Why don't you check out the scene tonight?" Barry suggested.
"How can I check out the scene if I don't have a student I.D.?" I replied. "Without a student I.D., you're not allowed to even enter the Queens College student union building by the security guard in the lobby."
Barry laughed. "Just walk around to the backside of the student union building. There's an unmarked exit door leading into the sub-basement level of a stairwell there, that most people don't know about, which is always left unlocked. Just walk around to the back of the building, open the unlocked door and up the stairwell a half-flight of stairs and you'll be just down the hall from the basement cafe entrance--where I'll pretend to check your wallet and then let you walk by me."
"Well, if it's that easy for me to get into the student union building, I'll check it out sometime tonight," I said.
And after about a month working as a basement cafe security guard at the Queens College student union building, Barry invited me to check out the scene on one Saturday night.
"Why don't you check out the scene tonight?" Barry suggested.
"How can I check out the scene if I don't have a student I.D.?" I replied. "Without a student I.D., you're not allowed to even enter the Queens College student union building by the security guard in the lobby."
Barry laughed. "Just walk around to the backside of the student union building. There's an unmarked exit door leading into the sub-basement level of a stairwell there, that most people don't know about, which is always left unlocked. Just walk around to the back of the building, open the unlocked door and up the stairwell a half-flight of stairs and you'll be just down the hall from the basement cafe entrance--where I'll pretend to check your wallet and then let you walk by me."
"Well, if it's that easy for me to get into the student union building, I'll check it out sometime tonight," I said.
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (65)
After a few days back in the Jamaica basement apartment in the Fall, Barry said to me one evening after he came home from his day job:
"I spoke to the landlord today about fixing up this apartment. You know, repainting it, making it more modern."
"Won't he then raise the rent?" I replied.
"Not if we pay for itself ourselves,he said. So it's O.K. for him if we fix this apartment up and repaint it," Barry said.
"I don't think I really have the money to spend on paying to fix it up," I said.
"That's O.K.. I'll fix up the apartment, repaint the kitchen and my bedroom and pay for it all myself. I just got hired for a second job to work on the weekends. So I'll now have some extra money to pay for fixing up the apartment," said Barry.
I was surprised to hear that Barry, in addition to working again at his old day job as a delivery truck driver during the week, was now willing to give up his weekends off to work at a second job.
"You're actually willing to give up your free time on the weekend in order to work at a second job?" I asked.
"I don't mind. It's a cool job at Queens College on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. All I have to do is make sure that the people who enter the basement cafe to hear the band play in the student union building have Queens College student ID's," Barry answered.
"So you're like a security guard."
"Right, a security guard job."
I, myself, didn't think it was that "cool" a job to get paid for blocking and excluding non-students who didn't have Queens College student ID's from entering the basement cafe of a Queens College student union building that had been constructed with public funds provided by taxpaying parents of non-students, as well as current Queens College students. But the fact that Barry would now not be in the Jamaica basement apartment watching the loud television set programs every Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening, now that he had to be working during those hours as a security guard, meant that I could now enjoy the apartment space alone for more hours on the weekend than previously, during the next few months.
"I spoke to the landlord today about fixing up this apartment. You know, repainting it, making it more modern."
"Won't he then raise the rent?" I replied.
"Not if we pay for itself ourselves,he said. So it's O.K. for him if we fix this apartment up and repaint it," Barry said.
"I don't think I really have the money to spend on paying to fix it up," I said.
"That's O.K.. I'll fix up the apartment, repaint the kitchen and my bedroom and pay for it all myself. I just got hired for a second job to work on the weekends. So I'll now have some extra money to pay for fixing up the apartment," said Barry.
I was surprised to hear that Barry, in addition to working again at his old day job as a delivery truck driver during the week, was now willing to give up his weekends off to work at a second job.
"You're actually willing to give up your free time on the weekend in order to work at a second job?" I asked.
"I don't mind. It's a cool job at Queens College on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. All I have to do is make sure that the people who enter the basement cafe to hear the band play in the student union building have Queens College student ID's," Barry answered.
"So you're like a security guard."
"Right, a security guard job."
I, myself, didn't think it was that "cool" a job to get paid for blocking and excluding non-students who didn't have Queens College student ID's from entering the basement cafe of a Queens College student union building that had been constructed with public funds provided by taxpaying parents of non-students, as well as current Queens College students. But the fact that Barry would now not be in the Jamaica basement apartment watching the loud television set programs every Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening, now that he had to be working during those hours as a security guard, meant that I could now enjoy the apartment space alone for more hours on the weekend than previously, during the next few months.
Friday, June 3, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (64)
While still living alone in the basement apartment in Jamaica, Queens during the 1970's, I was surprised one evening in the Fall to hear a knock on the basement apartment door. And when I opened the door, the former roommate of mine, who had moved from Jamaica, Queens to live in Israel near the end of the previous Spring--Barry--was standing in front of me.
'I'm back from Israel. And I'd like to move back in with you. Unless you've found a new roommate," Barry quickly said, as I motioned for him to sit down on the chair in the kitchen-dinette.
Although I enjoyed living in the basement apartment without a roommate more than I had enjoyed living with a roommate like Barry, who did not share my 1970's political and philosophical views, since the basement apartment had first been rented by Barry, before he later agreed to have me as his roommate the previous winter, I felt morally obligated to agree to let Barry move back into the basement apartment as my roommate--if that's what he now wanted to do. And besides, since I--at that time--expected to be living for the next six months on a weekly unemployment benefit check that paid less than what I had been earning from either my Bulova Parts Department clerk-typist job or my temporary student-travel agency clerk-typist jobs during the previous 9 months, getting a roommate--even one who was as sexist, male chauvinist, non-feminist and pro-Zionist as Barry was in the 1970's--who would be paying half the monthly rent and utilities expenses, now made sense from an economic standpoint for me.
"If it's O.K. with the landlord for you to move back in with me, it's O.K. with me," I quickly replied. And after getting the landlord's approval the next day, Barry handed me the $75 in cash, which represented his half of that month's rent, and moved into the apartment again as my roommate.
Despite being raised by a right-wing Zionist New York City cop, who moved to Israel following his retirement from the NYPD, Barry had apparently decided after, himself, living in Israel for a second extended period in the late Spring and Summer during the 1970's, that, despite his pro-Zionist upbringing and political sympathies, he was too Americanized, himself, to want to spend the rest of his life living in Israel rather than living in New York City.
And once the Israeli government apparently notified Barry that, if he was going to live in Israel and become an Israeli citizen, he would have to then serve some time in the Israeli military, Barry quickly purchased an airline ticket back to the U.S.A.. After all, in Barry's view, one reason he had left the U.S.A. was that, like most of the people he had grown up with in Queens, he was anti-war and opposed to serving in a U.S. military that waged endless war in countries like Vietnam. So it made no sense, he felt, to--despite his pro-Zionist politics--to now suddenly risk his own life, by being compelled to serve in the Israeli military, after having been previously successful in personally avoiding serving in the U.S. military of the country of his birth.
'I'm back from Israel. And I'd like to move back in with you. Unless you've found a new roommate," Barry quickly said, as I motioned for him to sit down on the chair in the kitchen-dinette.
Although I enjoyed living in the basement apartment without a roommate more than I had enjoyed living with a roommate like Barry, who did not share my 1970's political and philosophical views, since the basement apartment had first been rented by Barry, before he later agreed to have me as his roommate the previous winter, I felt morally obligated to agree to let Barry move back into the basement apartment as my roommate--if that's what he now wanted to do. And besides, since I--at that time--expected to be living for the next six months on a weekly unemployment benefit check that paid less than what I had been earning from either my Bulova Parts Department clerk-typist job or my temporary student-travel agency clerk-typist jobs during the previous 9 months, getting a roommate--even one who was as sexist, male chauvinist, non-feminist and pro-Zionist as Barry was in the 1970's--who would be paying half the monthly rent and utilities expenses, now made sense from an economic standpoint for me.
"If it's O.K. with the landlord for you to move back in with me, it's O.K. with me," I quickly replied. And after getting the landlord's approval the next day, Barry handed me the $75 in cash, which represented his half of that month's rent, and moved into the apartment again as my roommate.
Despite being raised by a right-wing Zionist New York City cop, who moved to Israel following his retirement from the NYPD, Barry had apparently decided after, himself, living in Israel for a second extended period in the late Spring and Summer during the 1970's, that, despite his pro-Zionist upbringing and political sympathies, he was too Americanized, himself, to want to spend the rest of his life living in Israel rather than living in New York City.
And once the Israeli government apparently notified Barry that, if he was going to live in Israel and become an Israeli citizen, he would have to then serve some time in the Israeli military, Barry quickly purchased an airline ticket back to the U.S.A.. After all, in Barry's view, one reason he had left the U.S.A. was that, like most of the people he had grown up with in Queens, he was anti-war and opposed to serving in a U.S. military that waged endless war in countries like Vietnam. So it made no sense, he felt, to--despite his pro-Zionist politics--to now suddenly risk his own life, by being compelled to serve in the Israeli military, after having been previously successful in personally avoiding serving in the U.S. military of the country of his birth.
Monday, May 16, 2016
Queens College Revisited: The 1970's (63)
When I was hired by the Council on International Educational Exchange [C.I.E.E.]--while living in the Jamaica, Queens basement apartment--to work as a clerk-typist there during the summer travel season, the hip-seeming, non-authoritarian, white department head in his late 20's, Steve, told me that the seasonal full-time job would only last until the end of August. But during the last week of August, Steve--who had by then recovered from the hepatitis he had contracted earlier in the summer and was now back at work in the C.I.E.E. building office--asked me to come into his private office to speak with him.
After I sat down across from where Steve sat behind his desk, Steve smiled and asked in a friendly tone: "You know I've been pleased with your work. And I was wondering whether you would be interested in continuing to work here for an extra month--or whether you've already made other plans for September? I realize that it was originally agreed that the job would only last until the end of August. But we're still busy now and we could still use you until October, you you haven't already made other plans."
By the end of August, of course, I couldn't wait to make my escape from being bullied by the culturally-straight, authoritarian, white women, who seemed to be in her 30's, that was my immediate supervisor, for whom I typed up the charter flight passenger manifest lists each morning. And once the woman co-worker in her early 20's whom I was attracted to, Connie, was no longer working in the same C.I.E.E. office and conversing across the desk with me during the workday by late August, there was also no longer any potential romantic incentive for me to want to work an extra month on my temporary travel season job at C.I.E.E..
So I quickly replied to Steve: "I did already make other plans for September. So it wouldn't be possible for me to work an extra month here. But I thought you were a good department head to work for, Steve."
Because the original official agreement with Steve was that the job would end at the end of August, I also felt confident, as I left the office on my last day of work, that Steve would not contest my eventual claim for unemployment insurance that I was going to file in late September; following my plan to take a Greyhound bus out from NYC to California in early September, stay a week in Berkeley, take a bus down to LA to visit Disneyland (which I had never visited, despite having longed to visit it when I was a child), and then hitchhike across the continent back home to New York City and Jamaica, Queens in the 1970's.
After I sat down across from where Steve sat behind his desk, Steve smiled and asked in a friendly tone: "You know I've been pleased with your work. And I was wondering whether you would be interested in continuing to work here for an extra month--or whether you've already made other plans for September? I realize that it was originally agreed that the job would only last until the end of August. But we're still busy now and we could still use you until October, you you haven't already made other plans."
By the end of August, of course, I couldn't wait to make my escape from being bullied by the culturally-straight, authoritarian, white women, who seemed to be in her 30's, that was my immediate supervisor, for whom I typed up the charter flight passenger manifest lists each morning. And once the woman co-worker in her early 20's whom I was attracted to, Connie, was no longer working in the same C.I.E.E. office and conversing across the desk with me during the workday by late August, there was also no longer any potential romantic incentive for me to want to work an extra month on my temporary travel season job at C.I.E.E..
So I quickly replied to Steve: "I did already make other plans for September. So it wouldn't be possible for me to work an extra month here. But I thought you were a good department head to work for, Steve."
Because the original official agreement with Steve was that the job would end at the end of August, I also felt confident, as I left the office on my last day of work, that Steve would not contest my eventual claim for unemployment insurance that I was going to file in late September; following my plan to take a Greyhound bus out from NYC to California in early September, stay a week in Berkeley, take a bus down to LA to visit Disneyland (which I had never visited, despite having longed to visit it when I was a child), and then hitchhike across the continent back home to New York City and Jamaica, Queens in the 1970's.
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (62)
I no longer remember much of what I did during the weekday evening hours after working at the Council on International Educational Exchange [C.I.E.E.] by day, once I finished writing the "Generation In Chains" novella in the summer that I lived alone in the basement apartment in Jamaica, Queens. The only two things I can now recall doing that stand out in my memory are meeting a woman friend from the Midwest in Central Park, alone for a few hours, when she was in Manhattan with her family to attend some kind of extended family wedding; and also exchanging letters with a woman who was a member of an academic left group of radical economists.
Neither the visiting womanfriend I met in Central Park nor the academic left woman economist, however, seemed interested in visiting me in my basement apartment in Jamaica. The womanfriend I met in Central Park had to go back to the Manhattan hotel later that evening where she and her parents were staying; and, in addition, had begun to identify herself more as a lesbian than as a bisexual at that period of her life. And the academic left woman economist seemed more interested in preparing herself for some kind of college professorship job teaching Marxist economics to undergraduate students than into developing a closer friendship or relationship with a non-academic left, working-class writer-musician-left activist like me.
Neither the visiting womanfriend I met in Central Park nor the academic left woman economist, however, seemed interested in visiting me in my basement apartment in Jamaica. The womanfriend I met in Central Park had to go back to the Manhattan hotel later that evening where she and her parents were staying; and, in addition, had begun to identify herself more as a lesbian than as a bisexual at that period of her life. And the academic left woman economist seemed more interested in preparing herself for some kind of college professorship job teaching Marxist economics to undergraduate students than into developing a closer friendship or relationship with a non-academic left, working-class writer-musician-left activist like me.
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (61)
After concluding in the 1970's that there was little chance that the hip capitalist corporate folks who acted as U.S. music industry/record company gatekeepers/censors would ever be willing to allow me (or anyone else) to record in their studios any songs whose lyrics reflected the anti-capitalist and revolutionary male feminist politics of the folk songs I had written in my late teens and 20's (or distribute any vinyl records of songs whose lyrics reflected such politics), I decided to try to start writing "the Great American" novel in the 1970's, "Generation In Chains." This "Generation In Chains" novel would, hopefully, reflect the 1970's social reality that my post-World War II baby-boom generation was enslaved by the U.S. capitalist economic and political system of the 1970's.
The main fictional protagonist of "Generation In Chains" was a 1960's white New Left Movement activist-organizer named Daryl who, in the early 1970's, was now being hunted by the F.B.I.. And the fictional character in many ways was modeled after the young Mark Rudd, whom I had known in the 1960's before I was suspended by the Columbia University administration in 1968 for engaging in political protest inside Hamilton Hall, during the second New York City police invasion of Columbia's campus in late May of 1968.
Initially, I was able to diligently work on my novel in my basement apartment in Jamaica each evening after coming home from work at my Council on International Education Exchange [C.I.E.E.] student travel agency clerk-typist job, and on my weekends off, in a disciplined way. And, initially, I did enjoy laying out in a fictionalizing way New Left sub-cultural history of the 1960's and early 1970's at the same time. I felt I was using the "Generation In Chains" plot and theme to expose the totalitarian nature of U.S. society and to stimulate the development of revolutionary anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist mass consciousness, hopefully, among those who would eventually read the novel.
But after about a month of working on writing "the Great American Novel" that would be called "Generation In Chains," I concluded that, for a U.S. worker who was economically enslaved in the 9-to-5 work world on Monday through Friday, spending all your limited free time in the evening after work, in the early morning before going to work on weekdays, and your weekends writing your novel was like being stuck doing homework all the time in high school; or having to write term papers, without getting paid, to obtain credits in college.
To write "the Great American novel," meant that I would have to sacrifice a lot more of my limited free time when not in the 9-to-5 working-class cage than writing protest folk songs required. The lifestyle of a working-class novelist, I concluded, was a much more self-enslaving life-style to get into, under capitalism, than was the lifestyle of a working-class writer-musician-activist, who just wrote protest folk songs and revolutionary feminist love songs, rather than wordy novels that took months to complete in most cases (and often years to find some corporate media conglomerate--or even an upper-middle-class-controlled academic or leftist small publishing firm--that would be willing to publish the novels).
So rather than continuing to spend all my summer evening and summer Saturday and Sundays locking myself inside my Jamaica basement apartment writing a novel when I felt more like being outside, I decided to conclude my "Generation In Chains" literary project by just completing it as a novella; and then I mailed the completed "Generation In Chains" novella manuscript off to some 1970's college student newspaper office (where it probably was quickly dumped in the wastebasket by some white upper-middle-class college student newspaper editor). And during the rest of that summer I was able to now have time to ride on local transit system buses that took you from Jamaica to Far Rockaway Beach or Long Beach and then lay around on the beach on a few hot weekend days, with a can of beer, without feeling any self-induced pressure to continue to work on writing my "Great American" novel.
The main fictional protagonist of "Generation In Chains" was a 1960's white New Left Movement activist-organizer named Daryl who, in the early 1970's, was now being hunted by the F.B.I.. And the fictional character in many ways was modeled after the young Mark Rudd, whom I had known in the 1960's before I was suspended by the Columbia University administration in 1968 for engaging in political protest inside Hamilton Hall, during the second New York City police invasion of Columbia's campus in late May of 1968.
Initially, I was able to diligently work on my novel in my basement apartment in Jamaica each evening after coming home from work at my Council on International Education Exchange [C.I.E.E.] student travel agency clerk-typist job, and on my weekends off, in a disciplined way. And, initially, I did enjoy laying out in a fictionalizing way New Left sub-cultural history of the 1960's and early 1970's at the same time. I felt I was using the "Generation In Chains" plot and theme to expose the totalitarian nature of U.S. society and to stimulate the development of revolutionary anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist mass consciousness, hopefully, among those who would eventually read the novel.
But after about a month of working on writing "the Great American Novel" that would be called "Generation In Chains," I concluded that, for a U.S. worker who was economically enslaved in the 9-to-5 work world on Monday through Friday, spending all your limited free time in the evening after work, in the early morning before going to work on weekdays, and your weekends writing your novel was like being stuck doing homework all the time in high school; or having to write term papers, without getting paid, to obtain credits in college.
To write "the Great American novel," meant that I would have to sacrifice a lot more of my limited free time when not in the 9-to-5 working-class cage than writing protest folk songs required. The lifestyle of a working-class novelist, I concluded, was a much more self-enslaving life-style to get into, under capitalism, than was the lifestyle of a working-class writer-musician-activist, who just wrote protest folk songs and revolutionary feminist love songs, rather than wordy novels that took months to complete in most cases (and often years to find some corporate media conglomerate--or even an upper-middle-class-controlled academic or leftist small publishing firm--that would be willing to publish the novels).
So rather than continuing to spend all my summer evening and summer Saturday and Sundays locking myself inside my Jamaica basement apartment writing a novel when I felt more like being outside, I decided to conclude my "Generation In Chains" literary project by just completing it as a novella; and then I mailed the completed "Generation In Chains" novella manuscript off to some 1970's college student newspaper office (where it probably was quickly dumped in the wastebasket by some white upper-middle-class college student newspaper editor). And during the rest of that summer I was able to now have time to ride on local transit system buses that took you from Jamaica to Far Rockaway Beach or Long Beach and then lay around on the beach on a few hot weekend days, with a can of beer, without feeling any self-induced pressure to continue to work on writing my "Great American" novel.
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