10 November

Return to New York City, cont.

by Jon Katz

  When I was a kid, I used to take the bus from Providence to New York to see movies and visit joke shops and used comic books stores. My haul would keep me busy for months. My parents never knew where I had gone or where I got the comics and fake vomit from.
  I got my first newspaper job at the New York Times, as a copy boy, ferrying the pages of some great writers around when newspapers had great writing. I ate dinner every night at the pizza place at W. 3rd and McDougal, and dinner was the same every night – a slice of Sicilian pizza and a coke. Many weekends I drove or was driven to Martha’s Vineyard where I had a girl friend waiting in Vineyard Haven.
  I saw the steps of the Columbia Law Library run red with the blood of students as they and the police battled over the Vietnam War. I got arrested for trying to help a friend who was fighting with the police, a poor move. I play the drums in a cafe rock band for a few months. I went to midnight shows of movies. I walked through Little Italy every night and watched the mob guys hang outside of “social clubs.” I covered the riots for a student news service and began my writing life. I wrote poems in coffee shops, played chess in Washington Square, drifted through the nights. My parents thought I was in college, but I had been thrown out.
  I thought the world was coming to an end – riots, assassinations, wars. I didn’t know then that every generation things the world is coming to an end. So back to New York. Maria has her own memories, but I can’t tell them for her, and shouldn’t.

10 November

Dogs on Video

by Jon Katz

   Very much enjoyed the visit from Dave Bigler of Bigler Productions Clifton, Park, N.Y. Biger is shooting video testimonials for Mannix Marketing, designers of this website, and I enthusiastically volunteered. The evolution of Bedlamfarm.com has been amazing, and Mannix, of Glens Falls, N.Y. has been wonderful to work with. Dave spent an hour or so talking to me and shooting the dogs on the path and in the yard. He got a good dose of the patented Frieda greeting to strangers.
  Dave told me about the videos he’s working on, and I asked him to do one on each of the dogs. He suggested mixing still photos in with the video, and I agreed. So I’m going to send him some photos and he’ll work up some video of each of the dogs that can be seen on the site, and downloaded free of charge. He’s interesting, as well as gifted. We talked about photography, video, publishing, e-books and the free music controversies. Can’t wait to see the videos, due up in December.
  My dogs, of course, were great hams, preening for the camera. Frieda wasn’t happy to see Dave and she let him know it.

Frieda, telling Dave to go away

10 November

Return to New York City

by Jon Katz

  I have a ton of memories of New York City. I took my daughter to see a dinosaur there. And her first Yankee game. I worked in television in Manhattan and was ferried to and from home in a limousine. I lunched with TV anchors and famous faces.
  And was managing editor of a national magazine. I met an analyst there, and began the exploration of my life, interrupted by life. I loved the theater there. I brought my first novel in a cardboard box to New York, and it was knocked from my hand by a street rat and blew all over Times Square. I lunched at the Algonquin there. Shopped on Madison Avenue.
 I first fell in love in Greenwich Village. I worked for a renegade news service there. I was thrown out of the New School for Social Research there. And saw Bob Dylan playing in a cafe there. And walked the streets of the East Village all night. And got engaged to a young girl who died soon after. And taught college there. And ate pizza with runaway kids on West 3rd St. We were all outcasts together there.
 And watched the sun come up over the Brooklyn Bridge. And covered war protestors and riots there.
  I was always mesmerized by New York. And loved it. And then I fell out of love with New York. And ran away from it. Now I’m going back and am dancing with New York again, the place of my aspirations and imagination. Far from the farm.
And plotted my dog books there. And had lunch with my editors there. It’s time to go back. And see how it feels.

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