Wakey, wakey! As promised, I'm back to check in and update Flaming Pablum after my first....er..half-week of work at my new gig. I'm sure, by this point, everyone has heard a story or two about tragically foolhardy webloggers who naively posted information about their job/company/office without any semblance of consent beforehand, only to find themselves swiftly reprimanded and, in due course, promptly unemployed as a result. With this in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to strenuously point out that one should certainly not expect to glean absolutely any information regarding the internal operations of the organization that now employs me here on this weblog. Simply put, to divulge any of said information would be wildly unprofessional and, frankly, not just a little stupid. The one bit of information I will pass on, however, is that any/all non-Mac users our there who regularly read this weblog should click themselves on over to the MTV Overdrive site. Thereupon, they will find an impressive library of music videos at their proverbial fingertips, not least certain Flaming Pablum faves by none other than the mighty Cop Shoot Cop (specifically the clips for "Any Day Now" and "Interference") and --- WAIT FOR IT -- my beloved Killing Joke (specifically "Money is Not Our God"). The discovery of same hugely brightened my day (otherwise dimmed by "new kid in school" syndrome).
So while I'm not about to talk about my new job in any detailed capacity, this does not preclude me from talking about Times Square, the particularly tangled neck of the woods wherein I currently make my living. It wasn't a huge leap, geographically speaking, for me to leave the Time/Life Building (affectionately referred to by m'self for many years as "the Death Star") to the offices of my new job right in the veritable crotch, if you will, of Times Square. But the feel of that crotch -- to milk that analogy -- makes for a very different experience. I used to grumble about how the T/L building was too close to Radio City Music Hall and Rockefeller Center, two landmarks which acted like fly-paper to swarms of seasonally-crazed tourists (I've never quite understood why droves of people who live in places with lots of big trees come to a city without a lot of big trees to come line up for hours to stare at one big tree, but whatever). Every December, navigating my way up 6th Avenue from my home downtown became akin to the slow, arduous struggle of the salmon swimming upriver, as I weaved and dodged through hordes of corpulent, slow-moving tourists who'd cluster five-abreast in down-jacketed packs. Let me tell you, that wasn't anything compared to simply trying to walk a simple city block at any time of the year in Times Square.
As I've labouriously pointed out elsewhere on this weblog, I was born here in Manhattan, and those who were tend to be insufferably proud and duly snippy about it (and I, of course, am no exception). As such, I've never entertained a fascination about Times Square. I mean, practically speaking, unless you're particularly fond of oversized advertisements and/or shopping in stores that are readily found in just about every suburban mall across the country, there really isn't a lot to see. I'm pretty sure it was a bit livelier in the 70's and 80's, when the `Sqaure and adjoining 42nd Street (or "the Deuce," as roughnecks of the era might've referred to it) were chock full of every variety of sleaze imaginable, but since the great cleansing and subsequent Disneyfication of the neighborhood circa the reign of Mayor Giulliani (back when people still rightly considered him somewhat of a hard-assed fascist and not the solitary cool customer at the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001), Times Square has lost a great deal of its character. It may still be the "center of it all," but one cannot help feeling that it has lost much of its flavor.
But that hasn't stopped the hordes. I believe I read somewhere recently that this past season found more tourists than ever before invading the city to take part in age-old holiday rituals. I cannot say I've ever fathomed the appeal of spending New Year's Eve in Times Square. Between the cold, the crowds, the clamor and abject lack of places to go to the bathroom (to say nothing of the vigorously enforced laws against drinking), I can't imagine what the draw is. But, y'know, what the hell do I know?
It's only been a little under a week that I've been finding my way in and out of the crazy canyon, but I'm slowly learning how to do it with efficiency (knowing which subway entrance on 42nd street is least frequented is key). I may come to love it as fondly as I still regard the T/L Death Star, but it's going to be a slow climb, I feel. Untill then, the next time your elbow is roughly bumped as you're staring rapturously up at the needlessly elephantine Cup Noodle sign in the heart of Times Square, look lively....that may have been me trying to brush past you.
Times Square in a more innocent age.
....and in a decidedly less innocent age.
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