Barbra enjoys reading the New York Post out loud.
Today, there’s a headline about troubled actor Rip Torn, who under the painful spell of addiction, broke into a bank and was arrested.
Barbara’s recounting his sordid tale, but keeps on calling him “Rip Tom.”
I’m listening, enthralled by this. She turns to me.
“You know, you look exactly like Jack Nicholson,” she says. “Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. With your little smirk there.”
I can attest that I look nothing like Jack Nicholson in anything.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Vanpool: Origins
Today, a new woman is sitting in shotgun. She’s about 40, with bobbed black hair and is fairly cougar-ish.
When we approach Totowa, she laughs.
“Charlie, do you remember that I was the first person on The Vanpool?”
She turns to us.
“I used to wait at the stop in Pine Brook. Every morning for about a month, Charlie would pull up in his van. He’d roll down the window and would offer me a ride to New York.”
“I always shook my head no. I used to tell my husband every night about this. He was really upset and insisted that I called the police.”
“But one morning, I don’t know why, but I decided to get into the van. And that’s how this started.”
Norman, the black guy who wears loose-fitting button-down shirts, laughs.
“That’s how he lured me in, too.”
When we approach Totowa, she laughs.
“Charlie, do you remember that I was the first person on The Vanpool?”
She turns to us.
“I used to wait at the stop in Pine Brook. Every morning for about a month, Charlie would pull up in his van. He’d roll down the window and would offer me a ride to New York.”
“I always shook my head no. I used to tell my husband every night about this. He was really upset and insisted that I called the police.”
“But one morning, I don’t know why, but I decided to get into the van. And that’s how this started.”
Norman, the black guy who wears loose-fitting button-down shirts, laughs.
“That’s how he lured me in, too.”
Monday, June 7, 2010
Vanpool, the TV Series: Righting the Wrongs of the Past
I went to the Knicks game with Dave and Aaron the night before. I tell them about the Vanpool. They can’t believe I would get into a van filled with strangers. But I explain to them that it’s cool inside the van.
The van pulls up. The night before, we bought Lakeland bus tickets in case the van didn’t come. I explain to everyone that we have tickets that we already paid for.
We’re told that we can pay with our tickets, which we do. The three of us receive $1 back.
***
Barbara, who is wearing a leopard print scarf, asserts herself at the van’s power broker.
“Charlie, can you turn the heat up? I’m too cold,” she says.
“Can you turn down the heat? You put it up too high,” she says 45 seconds later.
***
Dave, Aaron and I all agree that there needs to be a TV show about The Vanpool.
The concept:
Anytime the Vanpool goes through the Lincoln Tunnel, it emerges in a different era, where the passengers have been transported back in time to correct the wrongs of the past. If they fail, the Lincoln Tunnel ceases to exist, making the commute from Midtown to Hoboken just that much longer.
EPISODE 1The vanpool emerges in a Hooverville during The Great Depression. Their mission: to help a family sell their newborn child for food. If they do so, that child will grow up to be a backup New York Yankee infielder who will hit a clutch base hit in August of 1988.
EPISODE 2
The vanpool emerges on the day of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. If successful, they will prevent the disaster from happening. This means that no workplace safety rules such as OSHA will ever be enacted, making American labor costs that much cheaper, which allows our manufacturing industries to still compete against China. Also: the second season of The Wire is completely different.
EPISODE 3
The vanpool emerges in the middle of The Stonewall Riots and rescues a homeless trannie from being beaten by the police. From there, the Vanpool denizens convince the transsexual that his “choice” of sexuality is both unnatural and wrong, which helps them save America’s public schools.
But there’s a catch at the end of every episode! No artifacts from our time can be left in the past, or else it will (obviously) destroy the space-time continuum. Barbara’s character, every week, leaves her leopard print scarf or gaudy earrings somewhere, which means the vanpool has to find it before they change history… for the worst!
The van pulls up. The night before, we bought Lakeland bus tickets in case the van didn’t come. I explain to everyone that we have tickets that we already paid for.
We’re told that we can pay with our tickets, which we do. The three of us receive $1 back.
***
Barbara, who is wearing a leopard print scarf, asserts herself at the van’s power broker.
“Charlie, can you turn the heat up? I’m too cold,” she says.
“Can you turn down the heat? You put it up too high,” she says 45 seconds later.
***
Dave, Aaron and I all agree that there needs to be a TV show about The Vanpool.
The concept:
Anytime the Vanpool goes through the Lincoln Tunnel, it emerges in a different era, where the passengers have been transported back in time to correct the wrongs of the past. If they fail, the Lincoln Tunnel ceases to exist, making the commute from Midtown to Hoboken just that much longer.
EPISODE 1The vanpool emerges in a Hooverville during The Great Depression. Their mission: to help a family sell their newborn child for food. If they do so, that child will grow up to be a backup New York Yankee infielder who will hit a clutch base hit in August of 1988.
EPISODE 2
The vanpool emerges on the day of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. If successful, they will prevent the disaster from happening. This means that no workplace safety rules such as OSHA will ever be enacted, making American labor costs that much cheaper, which allows our manufacturing industries to still compete against China. Also: the second season of The Wire is completely different.
EPISODE 3
The vanpool emerges in the middle of The Stonewall Riots and rescues a homeless trannie from being beaten by the police. From there, the Vanpool denizens convince the transsexual that his “choice” of sexuality is both unnatural and wrong, which helps them save America’s public schools.
But there’s a catch at the end of every episode! No artifacts from our time can be left in the past, or else it will (obviously) destroy the space-time continuum. Barbara’s character, every week, leaves her leopard print scarf or gaudy earrings somewhere, which means the vanpool has to find it before they change history… for the worst!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Get in the Van!
I just started work at my new job three days ago, and I’m waiting for the 7:30 Lakeland bus to arrive.
A white Dodge Ram van with tinted windows – straight out of I Know My Name is Steven –pulls up to the stop. I don’t think anything of it. And then the guy riding shotgun rolls down his window.
“Hey man, you want a ride?”
I shake my head no.
“Well, where are you going,” he asks.
“New York,” I say.
“That’s where we’re going. So come on in,” he says.
“Nah, I’m okay.”
“You headed to Port Authority?”
“Yep.”
“Well, that’s where we’re going.”
I look inside the van. There are eight people inside. They all star to beckon me.
“Come on in the van! It’s cool in the van! You’ll love it in the van!”
The guy riding shotgun stares at me directly in the eyes.
“Get in the van,” he says firmly.
And I do.
***
I sit in the very back of the van, next to a 30-ish Hispanic lady. The rest of the passengers comprise a veritable cornucopia of North Jersey diversity.
Everyone’s completely silent.
No one says a word as we drive for three miles, right past the Willowbrook Mall.
I start to wonder about this van I just entered. Am I being kidnapped? Is this some kind of religious thing? Did I just make the biggest mistake in a lifetime of mistakes?
I start to plan my escape route. There are two back doors to the van which look easy enough to open. I have a cell phone with an emergency speed dial. And, being a 32-year-old man, I can probably fight way way out if need be, since most of my fellow passengers are middle-aged women.
I can’t take the quiet anymore.
“Can somebody please tell me what the hell is going on here?”
The lady next to me explains it. Every morning Charlie, the hard-of-hearing 60-ish driver with white muttonchops, trolls (my word, not hers) bus stops along Rt. 46, looking for passengers who, for $5, receive a trip to Midtown Manhattan. This,
fiscally, makes sense – bus tickets are $9 each way.
We then go back to pure silence.
***
Barbara begins the conversation.
She’s about 50, a little under five-feet tall, her hair to her waist, with Nancy Pelosi’s skin-tone. Being a North Jersey native, I recognize her arch-type already:
She’s the overbearing mother of every Jewish girl I dated growing up.
“I have a place in the city, y’know, Right in Gramercy Square. I pay all the bills. The utilities. Everything.” she says to no one in particular. “But my husband, he lives out here in Pine Brook. So this is where I stay.”
“My family, we’ve had the place for yeeeaaars. Right now, my niece is staying there,” she says. “Let me tell you about her. LOVELY girl. She was a top student in high school. She got into any college she wanted to. Lehigh. Lafayette. Brandeis. She ended up going to the University of Maryland and got started in property real estate management.”
She pauses for affirmation, but people aren’t really listening to her.
“So, she decided to try her hand up here in New York. We have really well-to-do friends who live in Chatham. They told her, ‘Hey, have the summer of your life. Come with us to the shore house. Come with us to the country club. Have the best summer of your life. And then, when it’s over, then you start to work.”
“But that’s when the recession happened, and she can’t find a job anywhere,” she says. “I mean, she was waitressing for a while, but it was completely beneath her,”
Everyone looks at her like they want her to die. There are no Goldman Sachs executives on The Vanpool.
“So, I pay the utilities. I pay the cable. I pay all the bills. I mean, what am I supposed to do? It’s my sister’s kid.”
Barbara looks around.
“But I make sure her mom pays for her Blackberry.”
***
Jennifer, the lady sitting next to me, asks me about me.
So I begin to tell her: I just started working in New York City, but I still live in Philadelphia, so a few nights a week I stay with my parents and –
Barbara turns around to me.
“Would you shut up? You talk so loud.”
A few minutes later, I get off the van and walk to work.
A white Dodge Ram van with tinted windows – straight out of I Know My Name is Steven –pulls up to the stop. I don’t think anything of it. And then the guy riding shotgun rolls down his window.
“Hey man, you want a ride?”
I shake my head no.
“Well, where are you going,” he asks.
“New York,” I say.
“That’s where we’re going. So come on in,” he says.
“Nah, I’m okay.”
“You headed to Port Authority?”
“Yep.”
“Well, that’s where we’re going.”
I look inside the van. There are eight people inside. They all star to beckon me.
“Come on in the van! It’s cool in the van! You’ll love it in the van!”
The guy riding shotgun stares at me directly in the eyes.
“Get in the van,” he says firmly.
And I do.
***
I sit in the very back of the van, next to a 30-ish Hispanic lady. The rest of the passengers comprise a veritable cornucopia of North Jersey diversity.
Everyone’s completely silent.
No one says a word as we drive for three miles, right past the Willowbrook Mall.
I start to wonder about this van I just entered. Am I being kidnapped? Is this some kind of religious thing? Did I just make the biggest mistake in a lifetime of mistakes?
I start to plan my escape route. There are two back doors to the van which look easy enough to open. I have a cell phone with an emergency speed dial. And, being a 32-year-old man, I can probably fight way way out if need be, since most of my fellow passengers are middle-aged women.
I can’t take the quiet anymore.
“Can somebody please tell me what the hell is going on here?”
The lady next to me explains it. Every morning Charlie, the hard-of-hearing 60-ish driver with white muttonchops, trolls (my word, not hers) bus stops along Rt. 46, looking for passengers who, for $5, receive a trip to Midtown Manhattan. This,
fiscally, makes sense – bus tickets are $9 each way.
We then go back to pure silence.
***
Barbara begins the conversation.
She’s about 50, a little under five-feet tall, her hair to her waist, with Nancy Pelosi’s skin-tone. Being a North Jersey native, I recognize her arch-type already:
She’s the overbearing mother of every Jewish girl I dated growing up.
“I have a place in the city, y’know, Right in Gramercy Square. I pay all the bills. The utilities. Everything.” she says to no one in particular. “But my husband, he lives out here in Pine Brook. So this is where I stay.”
“My family, we’ve had the place for yeeeaaars. Right now, my niece is staying there,” she says. “Let me tell you about her. LOVELY girl. She was a top student in high school. She got into any college she wanted to. Lehigh. Lafayette. Brandeis. She ended up going to the University of Maryland and got started in property real estate management.”
She pauses for affirmation, but people aren’t really listening to her.
“So, she decided to try her hand up here in New York. We have really well-to-do friends who live in Chatham. They told her, ‘Hey, have the summer of your life. Come with us to the shore house. Come with us to the country club. Have the best summer of your life. And then, when it’s over, then you start to work.”
“But that’s when the recession happened, and she can’t find a job anywhere,” she says. “I mean, she was waitressing for a while, but it was completely beneath her,”
Everyone looks at her like they want her to die. There are no Goldman Sachs executives on The Vanpool.
“So, I pay the utilities. I pay the cable. I pay all the bills. I mean, what am I supposed to do? It’s my sister’s kid.”
Barbara looks around.
“But I make sure her mom pays for her Blackberry.”
***
Jennifer, the lady sitting next to me, asks me about me.
So I begin to tell her: I just started working in New York City, but I still live in Philadelphia, so a few nights a week I stay with my parents and –
Barbara turns around to me.
“Would you shut up? You talk so loud.”
A few minutes later, I get off the van and walk to work.
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