Over the weekend, I took my son up to New York City for the day and we tramped more than 60 blocks between Midtown, Downtown and Central Park, with a gazillion stops in our travels.
This included the original Macy’s in Manhattan, the same site of the annual Thanksgiving Day Parade. Originally built in 1902 and certified a historical landmark in 1978, the nine floor Macy’s is something you’ll never forget as the largest retail store in the United States. I’ve always called this Macy’s location “a city within a city.”
Comprised of 2.5 million square feet total with 1.25 million feet devoted to retail space, Macy’s, like most New York commercial stores, is a multi-tiered adventure. I’m still holding vigil for the long-gone four level Virgin Megastore, always a past mandatory stop anytime I’ve visited New York. This trip with my kid hitting my 14th time.
Macy’s Manhattan, plotted in the neon-cast shadow of Times Square, with its massive block circumvention of 34th and 35th Streets, Broadway and Seventh Avenue, has its own McDonald’s and one of the few remaining Toys ‘R Us outlets. It’s biggest charm, however, is those 20 oak and ash Otis jumbo cleat wooden escalators running through the fifth and ninth floors. It’s irresistible not to imagine a century’s worth of New Yorkers and visitors, taking the same exact mobile pathways.
Yes, they’re modernized and braced to meet inspection code, but the retro rickety resonance remains the same. Macy’s Herald Square is hardly a road lesser traveled, especially if you’ve been to New York enough times to know a public bathroom is a rarer commodity than homegrown horticulture. Yet, those wonderfully giddy wooden escalators are a must-do blast from the past joy ride whenever you hit the Big Apple. My sixth, for the record.
When a railroad dies, it stays dead, reclaimed by its roots. A macabre, fascinating road lesser traveled. Nature prevails. Title credited to my fiancée, TJ Perkins.
I wrote this one during my open mike days nearly 20 years ago already. Not my greatest work, but somewhere between Norman Rockwell and John Mellencamp, not the varied shades of wing did this piece come to me. I got a couple of standing ovations when I read it back then, so, in the Spirit of ’76, the birthday of my country, which has its problems yet still has the capacity to shine brightly, here’s “Americana.”
Americana
Oh, take me there
somewhere on backroad Indiana
cape cods in Massachusetts
or upstate New York
where cornfields sway
to the consoling breeze of democracy
the land where homeboy politicians
dig up their grass roots
where contemplation and imagination
are nurtured in libraries
still made of brick
I’m in search of
Mellencamp’s pink houses for you and me
and Springsteen’s glory days so they don’t pass me by
where pickup trucks
are like pickup games of sandlot ball
all part of the norm
where women adorn themselves
not in ostentatious composition
but the in the veracity of continued existence
where life is thankfully naïve
and blind to the swinging corporate noose
where the day skies are bluer
and there’s no doubt
which Dipper is which
where people think nothing about wearing
foam cheese wedges on their heads
where Frisbees are more entertaining
than Playstations and iPhones
where the young grow up as they should
ultimately lost
to gridirons, baseball diamonds
and ice cream parlors
yes
take me there right now
where I can wave to the tractor brigade
then salute Old Glory
painted down their silos
and flapping high above their stalks of sustenance
We’re hours away from heading out to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and it’s been a hot run of films we’ve seen at the local Cinemark in succession this year: John Wick 4, Evil Dead Rise, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and Spider-Man: Across the Multiverse. This time we’re going as a full pack, and I have a good feeling the final Indy romp will fall in the middle of the best-of list for this beloved franchise. I can still see myself and my parents in complete awe of Raiders of the Lost Ark back when it first came out in 1981. Just an experience amongst many that will live on in my memories as epic.
Last night I pulled up the Eminem semi autobiography 8 Mile, which I haven’t seen in ages and I’m happy still stands the test of time. My son and I were watching a round of Childish Gambino videos on YouTube when I decided to pull up 8 Mile for my rap-addicted kid. He only poked in and out while I watched, but he’d wanted to know if I considered the film in my top 50 films of all-time. “Kid,” I said, “not even close. Do you know how many films I’ve seen in five decades of life? 8 Mile is a really good flick, though, and Eminem (aka “Rabbit”) gets the mother of all lyrical get backs. I recommend you take the time to watch it all the way.” The fact I was up late and wide awake on a Friday night had impressed my kid to the point he’d figured 8 Mile had to be something special that I hadn’t nodded off in the middle of it.
“Well, Dad,” he said after that, “what would be your all-time favorite movies? Top 10, no 25.”
Hence, after telling him to let me sleep on it after I finished 8 Mile at 1:20 a.m., I got to thinking, especially after he and TJ, who know me best, automatically figured on Blade Runner 2049 as my top pick. Aside from the original Star Wars trilogy, there is no movie filmed I haven’t watched more than this masterpiece sequel to a masterpiece of dystopian sci-fi. Both Blade Runner films and their respective ambient synth scores are my therapy, 2049 especially. I watched 2049 a ton of times during a long, difficult stretch for me; it’s in my DNA at this point. Would that I could’ve included BR49 director Denis Villanueve’s first installment of Dune in this list, it’s become an instant classic for me. TJ and I are licking our chops for the second installment of Dune this summer.
Now my list here will have some of the obvious hitters from any respected all-time greats of cinema list. Some you may not know or even just go to yourself, hmmm, interesting choice. I’m missing decades worth of classics and greats, but that doesn’t mean I’ve shunned them or consider them lesser that my listed movies. Those who know me will be shocked not to find any superhero movies on this list, though I am a geek for them as much as comic books. Superman II, Spider-Man 2, Black Panther, V is for Vendetta, The Dark Knight, Batman (1989) and Captain America: Civil War representing my upper echelon in that genre. It just means the list I’ve compiled here is in answer to my son, who wants to know what makes his old man tick and what movies resonated more than others. Some having me dash to the laptop with inspiration to write. So here you go, boyo. It wasn’t easy.
Roads Lesser Traveled 