Episode One
I have lived in New York City for just over three months. I would love to say that I’ve embraced New York the way I thought I would - or that this city, in all its glory, has embraced me in some significant way. What I’m saying is that I didn’t move to the center of the universe just to join the rat race. I figured that with my track record, my city life would evolve in a random, utterly ridiculous way. Seeing as I was practically the inspiration for Martin Short’s character in Pure Luck, I figured moving to the Large Apple would exponentially increase my knack for absurd coincidence. Yet somehow I found myself falling into the same monotony that had come to define life in my previous zip code. Here I am, in the undisputed best city in the world, surrounded by millions of interesting, engaging, and diverse people, and I feel as if nothing has changed. That is, until I had a brush with greatness, which reminded me why I moved here, and snapped me out of my funk. Ok, it wasn’t so much a brush with “greatness.” More like mediocrity. But still.
This event coincided with my parent’s first trip to the city. Well, at least their first trip with me as a resident. Although they’ve always lived in New England, they love New York and visit often. They consider themselves New Yorkers at heart, even though the mailman considers them permanent Rhode Islanders. But they know the city very well; at one point they felt so tapped-in they subscribed to New York magazine (delivered by said mailman). So it was with great unease that I anticipated their visit. Should I communicate my misgivings? Or should I wear a fur coat, drink Hennesy, take my dad to Scores, and pretend like I own this town? To my delight, the weekend began splendidly. Friday night we ate a late dinner and drank copious amounts of wine. My parents showered me with unexpected praise along the lines of, “We’re so proud that you moved here… you seem more mature… you’re finally a grown up… etc.” Which is always better than hearing things like, “Why do you smell like smoke?”
So on Saturday, family bro-down ’06 continues. I had given my parents tickets to a popular off-Broadway show for Christmas; so beforehand I met up with them at their hotel. We drank some more wine, had some more laughs, and they continued throwing some much-appreciated praise my way. I could feel my doubts melting away. I was thinking, “I am surrounded by loved ones in a city of limitless possibilities and for the love of God it’s sixty degrees in January. What am I so worried about?” But then, almost on cue, my father looked at the tickets – my long-planned Christmas gift as well as the primary motivation for their trip – and matter-of-factly proclaimed, “We’re screwed.” Figuring they had misjudged the time, I said, “Well, we better get going.” Little did I know that what we really needed was a time machine, because my dad gave me a disappointed look and said, “These tickets are for Friday night.”
“I could have sworn I bought them for Saturday,” I stammered, “this must be Ticketmaster’s fault.” My parents weren’t mad, but the look in my mother’s eye was screaming, “Uhhhhh, remember all that nice stuff we were just saying? Yeah, we’d like to take that back.” So I thought, “Screw it, I’m going to the theater and I’m going to get them in.” Which was a positive way to think I guess, as the hugeosity of getting two ticketless people into a popular show on a Saturday night was not lost on me.
We arrived at the theater and I made my parents wait outside, so as not to witness the depths of my groveling. I hadn’t wanted anything that badly since I clucked like a chicken for that delicious Klondike Bar. Pretty much anything – short of sexual man-touching – was in my wheelhouse at this point. To my dismay, there was an older, heavier, biker-looking man selling tickets; think a cross between Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider and the comic book guy from The Simpsons. I told him my sob story: “My parents are visiting from out of town, this was my Christmas gift to them. I told them it was Saturday night, I totally fucked this up, can you please, please let them in??” He explained to me that there was nothing he could do, I’d have to wait ‘til 8:15 and if they weren’t sold out, he could sell me two new tickets, but he wasn’t making any promises. Overall, he was completely unsympathetic to my plight and I was convinced my efforts would be in vain. I decided to wait right next to the counter until showtime, so I could be the first in line in case any tickets were released. This also meant that I had to spend another $150, but at that point I was more than willing.
After a few minutes of the ticket Nazi and I awkwardly ignoring each other, an attractive older woman walked into the theater… And for some reason I recognized her. She walks up to the counter, says, “Two tickets for O’Toole,” and I watch the ticket guy LIGHT up. His personality does a complete 180; he starts smiling and becomes very friendly. He hands the woman her tickets and she asks, “Do I need to sign anything?” The guy gives her a hopeful look and says, “Yes, there is something you can sign…” and he begins rummaging through his backpack. At this point I begin to think, “Jesus-titty-fucking-Christ, what the hell is going on here?” Things start to make sense when he whips out a book for her to sign, and she sweetly says, “Of course.” I am thinking that she must be an author, but I glance at the book’s cover and it is a graphic novel about Superman, written by a guy. At this point, the synapses that inhabit my brain’s useless trivia lobe are working overdrive. Finally it dawns on me, this woman played Superman’s high school girlfriend in Superman III (the one that inexplicably costarred Richard Pryor), and she now plays a young Clark Kent’s mother on the show Smallville.
She signs the book, and goes into the theater. With this information as my ammunition, I walk up to the guy, (who is beaming) and I ask quizzically, “Hey, was that Superman’s girlfriend?” He gushes about how big of a Superman fan he is, how he saw her name on the ticket list and he brought the book just in case, and how he may or may not need a new pair of underwear. We spend the next couple of minutes having a complete Superman bro-sesh, until finally he says, “I’ll tell you what… we don’t usually do this, but I’ll put your parents in one of our private booths.” So not only did I get my very pleasantly surprised parents into the show without spending another dime, they had the best seats in the house. All thanks to Superman’s girlfriend.
What does this say about New York? Everything and nothing. People have run-ins with the famous and semi-famous all the time. Sometimes they are as mundane as seeing an actor pick up dry cleaning, and other times they are spotted on drunken binges. There is nothing special about this. But my off-Broadway encounter encapsulates the reason I moved here: Only in New York could a superhero’s ex-girlfriend simultaneously restore my faith in this city, my parent’s faith in me, and likewise, my faith in myself.
Article Series
This article is part 1 of a 5 part series. Other articles in this series are shown below:
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Saved by Supermans Girlfriend
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Isnt it Quixotic
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Unsolved Mysteries 179th St
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Ehhh....Is This What You Want?
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The Whackout of '06
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