On The Road Again

The Bay Area is a “cool” environment. I am not using  “cool” in the climatic or cultural sense, but in the sense McLuhan used to describe TV as a “cool” medium. That is, a medium that calms, relaxes and sometimes benumbs the participant. In that sense, the Bay Area is cool.

New York is a “hot”environment. There is the potential for stress at every turn. The most innocent activity always has the potential to devolve into utter disaster. Jerry Seinfeld built an empire on that premise.

Going to a movie in the Bay Area is a simple matter. Going to a movie in New York requires planning, guile, accurate evaluations of potential impediments, and reasonable precaution. If you allow it to, the anxiety of simple life can be daunting in New York.

The newspapers this morning warned of unprecedented traffic ordeals (and if there’s one thing NYC is prolific at it’s traffic ordeals) and a myriad of other potential nightmares.

Nonetheless, armed solely with a battery of psycho-pharmacological assets, your intrepid reporter heads undaunted to New York City today, at a time when “hot” is a hollow understatement.

Among the potential anxieties:

• Will my flight actually fly?

• Will my apartment (on 32 St) be habitable? The landlord claims there is power and water, but the newspapers say otherwise.

• Will my "roommate" make it to NY. He is flying into LaGuardia, which at last report was closed.

• Can I get to Manhattan from JFK? Once again, the newspapers say it is a virtual impossibility with subways out; buses too crowded to pick up passengers; traffic at a virtual standstill.

• I have a car and driver lined up to pick me up, but according to the newspapers you cannot get into Manhattan in a car unless there are 3 passengers. This led to a fantasy this morning in which I surveyed the other passengers on my flight to determine whom I might invite to a rideshare in my limo.

And all this to attend a 50th high school reunion among people who I mostly never knew or never liked. The power of curiosity is apparently highly under-appreciated.

At last count there were probably about 150-200 people planning to attend. My guess is, it’ll be lucky if they draw half that. The constituents are mainly old Jews, and there’s nothing more unacceptable to an old Jew than inconvenience. Twenty minutes of unnecessary traffic is likely to trump 50 years of “I wonder what happened to…” Curiosity may be under-appreciated, but inconvenience is over-arching.

As the day and the week progresses, updates will follow.

Stay tuned.