Subway Observations #5

5:46pm, Flushing-bound
Asian male, mid-teens, looking like a page out of my sophomore yearbook. American Eagle polo, khaki cargo shorts, white tennies, gelled spikes with fade. Slip of printer paper neatly sized to fit in the spine of his binder reading SAT in Arial bold. Also, his name is Peter Park.

10:09pm
Always someone reading.

3:44pm
Two feeble women lug in two folding wire carts and prove they've got plenty of strength in them.

8:51pm
White male, mid 30's. Aaliyah tattoo on forearm.

3:56pm
Father, 30's, and son, somewhere in the single digits. Son anxiously giggles with excitement. Father swats at his hands feigning to be too slow, sneaking in brushes to his cheek.

9:50pm
Three women: two French, one American, all early 30's. American woman attempting to be conversation in French. Pretty much just a lot of hand motions and abuse of the word "avec."

9:04am
That clang clang clang is so much louder in the morning.

9:55pm
Two women, early 40's; one sitting, one standing. Seat opens up next to the one sitting, she insists the other sit down, the other woman defiant. The first woman huffs and turns away. Moments later they resume conversation as normal. I assume they're siblings.

11:16am
Girl, 6, on the phone, staring out the window. She shouts "mom I'm looking at the WORLD!"

2:10pm
Man, late 40's, with Meatloaf tour shirt ftw.

12:49am
Seeing how the people sleeping hold their backpacks feels like seeing how they hold their pillows at night. It can get very endearing.

11:45pm
I'm sitting down, cross-legged, one arm clasping the opposite elbow. I look to my left and see a skinny Chinese man, late 50's, with hair parted to the side, sitting exactly like me.

Year Won.

They say it takes a year to settle in the city. By the time I moved into my first apartment in November, I could tell you all the different subway lines in Manhattan, distinguishing between express and local; I could tell you bobbing and weaving methods for effective tourist swimming, and I could tell you that the chicken and rice cart on 53rd & 6th was owned by the same people who ran the one across the street, the one without the half-hour wait. Albeit still a few years away from gaining "local" status, I figured I was ahead of schedule.

Professionally speaking too. Thanks to Jee's help I came to New York with something most actors I know are still scrounging to get--representation. Within half a year, I had gotten callbacks for a national commercial, an off-Broadway play, and a major motion picture. Overall, I had enough solid auditions to blot out a couple disasters.

In the last few months, however, things started to slip. I wasn't getting the same response. I was starting to get more timid. I wasn't working as hard. Except reverse the order. I recently took part in an acting seminar that sobered me to how much more I need to be doing for my career. It's said that 97% of the people who start acting careers leave them within 3 years--and that's just counting union actors. One of my least favorite responses to my vocation of choice is "you're an actor? oh that sounds like so much fun, I wish I could just do that." You don't become an actor out of curiosity or because you love performing, you might audition for the school play for those reasons but you don't become a professional actor for those reasons. It has to be more than pursuing a passion, it's learning how to be your own business and coming to terms with the fact that the product you're selling is you. Nobody just does that.

It's September now, and last Wednesday marked my 1-year anniversary with the city. She's a high-maintenance gal. I'm realizing that whomever "they" are, they're right, I feel like I've finally settled in. I suppose sometimes it isn't until you've gone through a couple highs and lows that you get levelheadedness. That isn't to say this past year hasn't been an exceptionally fruitful and wise decision. There are many sins and weights that still cling closely to me, but I gladly confess that this the most disciplined I've ever been. Some habits true of today that were not true a year ago:

- I set time aside in the morning to stretch, spend time in His word and prayer, sometimes even eat breakfast. œ
- I've a voracious appetite for literature, plays, theology and learning in general.
- I keep up with correspondence (if you shoot me an update, I'll happily reciprocate).
- I check messages and delete old mail.
- I plan out my days.

And a lot more things that I'm a lot more of or do a lot more often. Of course there are always the New York merit badges, like surviving winter, expanded pallet, and the aforementioned city skills, but I don't mean to go on (notice the lack of boast regarding that vow to blog weekly). I've come a good long way, but there are still miles to go before I sleep. This year is starting with a renewed vigor, a restructuring, and a touching up. The endeavor continues as I push toward the things that inspire this journey most: a desire to support a family, and a calling to be a man of God. Now let's git it.

Mad dash.

I hotfoot it out the library in a huff, cascading down those massive steps of the public library, quickly turn a corner, and hop onto a marble divider in hopes of sidestepping the people traffic. I'm not sure whether it's my own tenacious procrastination or just the excitement of the city that causes me to scurry at the speed of the proverbial New York minute. It's most likely the former masking itself as the latter. Suddenly, out in the distance, on the other side of the divider, appears my instant nemesis, a fellow marble-rider. She's strolling atop the slab carefree, delicately swaying to and fro as her hot pink long-sleeves reach for balance. My eyes squint and internally mutter "I don't think so, sister." I shift my focus to her cheery grandma helping her along and ask myself what the heck I'm doing playing chicken with a little girl.

Urban Oasis.

There I lay, impotent in the grass until breaths become louder than streetcars. Days like this come not too often, a light overcast keeping out harsher rays; this is not an afternoon to squander under shelter. The green bed cushions the backs of my knees as I rub together blades of grass between my knuckles. Tension built up from hours locked behind the cash register pass away like chaff in the summer wind. The ever-hospitable Bryant Park is small but mighty, a square lawn bordered by concrete and pastimes delicately grafted into city stresses. A bonafide urban oasis, a fertile ground for calm, a cool drink between nagging thoughts.

My eyes scale up metropolitan towers, far past the trees that protect this place, up to where imagination is untethered. Higher and higher, window after window, to the furthest point of the furthest-reaching building where I spot some visitors: interplanetary diplomats, ambassadors of a galaxy not unlike our own. Their headless eyes peer over the edge, two large squares, and a metal beam for a mouth. Talk about a stiff upper lip. I smile back and nod with discretion as not to alert the other residents of their presence.

Unknotted and awake, I rise refreshed and begin to peruse the premises. Time strolls along with me around the perimeter of the park, observing bookworms in the reading room, dining socialites in the upper terrace, ping pong rivals on the iron tables locked in bitter stalemate. An emcee halts my saunter as peculiarly even-tempered New Yorkers crowd shoulder-to-shoulder in the artists den, and still afar off I catch a garbled announcement followed by uproarious applause. By now the light has gone down in the sky and come up on the stage and surrounding courtyard. Suddenly a larger light floods the plaza, brilliant enough to herald in a seraph. I trace it back to the top of the building I visited earlier and find some old friends. I smile back once more, giving another nod, this time of gratitude.

I don't know who is playing tonight, there are no signs or logos around, but after a moment of thinking I decide that it's fine with me. I may never find them again, but there was a day when people were able to live with that--a time where if you only caught the tail end of a catchy melody on the radio there wasn't much you could do about it but archive the fragment deep in your mind and hope you would serendipitously stumble upon it again. If I consume myself with inculcating lyrics I'll miss everything that's happening right now. So instead of words and phrases I take in my surroundings. Sure, I may not know their name, but I know how their music makes me feel. If all I can take from here are memories, then I'll take with me the way the lead singer's voice soars through the city, the way a man stealthily crawls beneath the scaffolding just to be closer, the way a young daughter notices her hips dancing as if for the first time, and the way faces of awe and thrill stitch together a joyous multitude.

There is art that endures into vintage, and there is art that's a bang. Concerts cannot be recorded, and theater cannot be replayed.

Bright Lights.

I had not sweat so much in a long time, sans one short-lived stint with jogging. In my reality I wasn't capable of sweat, the act was nothing but a secondhand observation of human life. Yet there I sat, onstage, saline bullets cascading down all sides of my head. It wasn't until this night I realized how long it's been since I've been in a play, actually casting my craft into that sea of silhouettes hoping for a love connection. I am so out of shape, even for playing a robot.

I play Walter, an advanced programs system designed to protect my inventor's wife. It's quirky, at times tongue-in-cheek, and I get to play a robot. Thanks Mike, Tony, and Marlo, I've been getting a lot of commendation on my animatronical physicalization. More than those things it's real live theater and these days, like never before, I appreciate the value of real live theater.

The Elephant In The Room, a short play festival, runs July 29-Aug 14, 7:00pm at 13th St. Repertory Company. I also wrote one of the plays. Come and support!
Photographed: Michael Hodgson and Brian Lonsdale in Lee Hall's The Pitmen Painters at the National. Photographer: Tristram Kenton

Subway Observations #4

3:58pm
Lady sleeping next to me, her head falls onto my shoulder. I don't fight it.

2:15pm
Man playing yazz flute.

2:18pm
Guy doesn't hold on and falls down when the train moves. n00b.

5:42pm
Crocs with leather tops...and shoestrings.

11:27am
Girl asleep, Brandy blasting from her headphones. Das ma girl.

2:40pm
Just caught myself acting out a Gabe Bondoc song, but it looks like nobody noticed. Oh wait...no the lady across is staring.

9:47pm
Full car. I mean absolutely full. I grab hold of the top bar and stand at ease. My eyes look downward to notice a nice woman forced to sit directly in front of my crotch. I look at her, apologetically.

10:05pm
Acid wash jeans. Nuff said.

11:39am
I spot a Christmas gift bag with Marsupilami on it. Filled with words of joy to share I follow the hands up to discover the face of an old woman, tired and trying to get some shut-eye. Alright lady, you've evaded my conversation this time...

12:09am
I notice a familiarity in the air that reminds me of that summer in Italy, which I then identify as the smell of European sweat. Just then the guy standing by me with his arm reaching up to grasp the rail above my head speaks with a British accent. There it is.

Well, this is embarrassing...

A month after I declare regular blog posts I haven't procured a single one aside from a four-line poem. I apologize for the inconsistency, as consistency is the theme of the year for me. Let me divulge just a bit on how I've been these days…these very warm days…


I was sufficiently warned about winters here in the city, but to be honest I'm having a harder time with the summer. The digits are like California, but with the humidity and walking it's more like the Philippines. It's hot as a motherland out here. The power button on my air conditioner has been a heckling test of self-control. What makes the season worth it, though, are all the free events going on. The parks really come alive this time of year, with free movie showings, Broadway concerts, Al Pacino in The Merchant of Venice, and just people coming to hang out. Last week, I saw Ozomatli with the girlfriend's brother and the girlfriend's brother's girlfriend at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and just as exciting as the superb music were the people picnicking, throwing the beach ball around, hula hooping, and dancing salsa on blankets. If you get the chance to join in someday, make sure that you don't let the energy buzz dull your frugality, or you may end up spending $14 on bland fair food chicken and disintegrating cornbread.

I recently took on an internship at the 13th St. Repertory Theatre for playwriting. It's a great community of about 15 interns, all working together to produce some good in-house material including the short play I just finished, which will be performed in our upcoming festival. The whole experience has been a bit of a whirlwind, and really where all my writing energies have gone lately. It was on a Monday I heard about their internship program, the next day becoming an intern, and by that Sunday I had written the first draft of my first play. A fellow actor heard that and exclaimed "how on earth were you able to do that?" I told her "I really have no idea, but I guess you don't know what you're capable of until you're given a deadline."

Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines, a writer always needs deadlines. So from now on you'll hear from me every Friday, even if it's just a few words, a tweetsworth if you will. And yes, it'll be more than just talking about how I miss home!