R-E-S-P-E-C-T...find out what it MEANS!!!

Part of living in New York is riding on the subway. The subways here are great for getting where you need to go efficiently and they are also eco-friendly. I use my subway time to relax, read, write, focus, wind down…at times the ride can be a nice short break from the madness above ground. The majority of the time, my subway ride is a fairly pleasant experience; however, riding the subway is not always enjoyable. Having a lot of people crammed into a small space, you can imagine that occasionally your ride will not be as satisfying as you had hoped. Over the past 12 years, so many things have happened to me on the train, I cannot begin to count them all. Many are rare occurrences like riding home during rush hour and having my butt groped by a fellow passenger, or sitting on an almost empty train mid-day and seeing the nasty-dirty-fat-guy across from me expose himself and begin masturbating, or coming home late on the weekends having some 20-something year old kid throw up everywhere on the train from partying too hard. These are somewhat odd and rare happenings that I can push from memory, but intentional rudeness I have a problem with.

Nothing bothers me more than people who have complete disregard for others. For example, talking loudly across the isle because instead of sitting in the seat next to the friend you’re traveling with, you sit across from them on the other side of the train and proceed to have a full-on conversation so everyone can hear…this is rude. I do not care to know what is going on in your life. I have enough stuff in my own life to deal with. I think the people who do this feel the need to validate the importance of their own lives, telling a story so loudly that everyone there will know some great thing that has happened to them so they can feel cool. Honestly, it just makes me think you are pathetic. Others just have no respect for anyone but themselves, which is apparent by their actions on the train. Some of these actions include nasty stuff, like spitting on the train floor, leaving garbage or newspapers everywhere instead of disposing them in a trash receptacle, clipping or filing your nails on the train, eating sunflower seeds and spitting the shells on the floor, smacking your gum so loudly that everyone around you wants to kill you…and lastly, listening to your music at such an incredible decibel that the entire car can hear every word to the song playing on your IPod.

I LOVE music…just NOT yours!!! And I do think that the IPod is one of the coolest inventions during my lifetime and I love listening to my own IPod on the train. It is a great way to block out the sounds of countless homeless people begging for cash, and all those rude people. Still, I know that I listen to my IPod at a level where I can hear everything, but not so loudly that it bleeds through the headphones for everyone else to hear. Not only does listening to your IPod too loudly cause deafness, it completely annoys everyone around you. No one else wants to hear your music…if we did, we’d be listening to our own! The same rule applies to car stereos.

I live in Washington Heights. It is a primarily Dominican neighborhood with a lot of families. Big hospital, lots of yummy tapas bars, they sell empanadas on the street, mangos and real live chickens…simple. Now, the children in the neighborhood have grown into high schoolers. Not old enough to go to clubs, not wanting to stay at home, these teenagers have nowhere else to go but hanging out on the street. Across the street from my bedroom window, the building has an alcove entry with a number of steps and proves to be a great hangout for these…teenagers. I would absolutely not mind them hanging out there at all – if they were respectful. In the summer these kids hang out, weekday or weekend, until 3, 4, sometimes 5 am blaring music out of their double parked cars so loudly that the thumping bass shakes my bedroom windows three floors up, partying, laughing, screaming, shouting, talking loudly…for hours. I was a teenager once. I used to go out, all carefree, and fun-loving, but in the back of mind, my parents had instilled in me virtues, like being respectful of others. I can’t completely blame these kids for their actions. I must also blame their parents for not caring enough to teach their children these things, for not caring enough to implement curfews, to teach them respect for themselves and others. I was raised differently. So, occasionally, when I need to get up at 9am to go into work the next day, I use tough love to try to send these kids a message by dialing 3-1-1 and asking the police to drop by and “remind” them that there are other people and families living around them that need to sleep. R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what it means. Ahhhh…the sounds of silence!

Fashion Faux Pas

I am not a fashion expert. I did not go to F.I.T., I am not a perfect size 2, and I do not have the incredible influx of cash required to obtain the latest in designer attire; however, there are just a few things I have got to say about today’s fashion.

Anyone who knows me is aware that I do not care for Rap music. I am a singer. I like to have a beautiful melody to sing along with. In fact, I do not classify Rap as “music” at all, because the majority of these rappers have no real musical ability. They “steal” songs from other real musicians, and then add their “lyric talking” above it. All that is required is good timing and rhythm. I also do not care for the use of the “N” word by anyone, including African Americans, because I feel it degrades them as a culture and promotes racism. I do not care to hear curse words slung at me in my music, nor do I “enjoyably” listen to the female degrading, violent, or sexual nature of the lyrics in general. I say all this knowing that I am not a prude and that I do, in fact, use curse words in my vocabulary on a fairly regular basis. I choose subtlety over these things being thrown in my face. This is my personal preference. But there is one thing above all else in particular that this “gangsta” mentality has forced upon me that I just cannot stand, and that is their fashion sense.

I love men. I also appreciate looking at them. And there are certain attributes to a man that I “check out” on a regular basis when one happens to walk by – one thing being his “bootie”. Nonetheless, I prefer to see a man’s ass IN HIS PANTS rather than above them. Leave something to the imagination for crying out loud! First of all, it must be so incredibly uncomfortable walking with your pants halfway down your legs! One day, I imagine these people will come down with the “gansta-pants” infliction, or Rappantalitis, where because they had to walk with their legs so far apart to keep their pants up, their bodies have morphed into bow-legged beings that suffer from some freakish arthritic or musculature pain that cripples them later in life. Secondly, the only other thing besides their legs holding up their pants, is their penis, and why on earth would they want to risk possible injury or deformation to this organ which could deny them experiencing incredible amounts of pleasure in the future? Not to mention the fact that the only thing covering the actual groin area is a thin layer of boxer shorts, incredibly cold in the winter months, causing shrinkage, which makes the pants fall down even more and could in turn lead to frost bite. Also, if they frequently ride the subway and sit in the germ infested seats, the only protection to the anal region from those bacteria is a thin layer of breathable underwear fabric, hardly enough to protect one from the hazards of infection. Why chance it? Not only do you look like an idiot, you risk bodily harm.

On the other hand, women are not immune to this type of poor fashion sense either. These “brainiacs” Britney Spears and Paris Hilton have contributed to our little female preteens turning into slutty looking schoolgirls that pedophiles must be going nuts over. Thankfully, women’s fashion evolves much faster than it does for men, so the low-rise pants craze will be going out of style much sooner than our male counterparts. These low-rise pants only seem to look good on you if you are a preteen, right after you’ve gone through an incredible growth spurt and haven’t hit puberty yet to begin acquiring belly fat or a “muffin-top”. Unfortunately, this style only looks good on supermodels in catalogs. Older women should NOT be wearing these pants. I cannot tell you how many times one of these unsuspecting women has sat at a table in the restaurant, only to have these pants ride halfway down her bum, colorful thong tackily sticking out a good 2 inches above the top of her pants, “plumbers-crack” hanging out for the world to see. This can stop traffic in a bad, whore-y type way. It is not pretty!

One more thing…flip-flops. I’m from Colorado, a clean, nature conscious land of fresh mountain air, with a ton of hippies, or “Granolas” as we call them, that love to live in their Birkenstocks. Here, I think it is perfectly fine to wear flip-flops on a regular basis. I’ve also lived in Florida, and in these warm beach towns where it is spring break all the time and people live in their bathing suits, I also find it perfectly acceptable to wear flip-flops out and about. New York is a different story. In New York, wearing flip-flops grosses me out. New York is an amazing city, but it is filthy. There is a huge amount of people crammed into an incredibly small amount of space. We produce a lot of garbage. Unlike other big cities like Chicago for example, there just seems to be more disgusting mystery crap on our sidewalks. Chicago has back alleyways, so they haul their garbage out behind their buildings and their sidewalks remain fairly clean. New York does not have back alleyways, so all of our garbage is hauled out onto the sidewalks in front of our buildings. All of this disgusting, germ infested, oozy crap is laid out in front of our buildings for us to walk through. Any New Yorker has experienced at different times, in various areas throughout the city, on a hot but humid summer day, the stench that sometimes emanates from our city streets, which comes closest to a combination of rotting garbage, vomit, and urine. Just being able to identify the components of this smell should give one pause when deciding which shoes to wear when walking out into it. Speaking of, the myth that every woman in New York wears fabulous Manolo Blahnik shoes like Sarah Jessica Parker in “Sex And The City” is just that – a myth! No woman can actually wear amazing, gorgeous shoes here. New Yorkers walk everywhere and fabulous shoes not only rip your feet apart, but also wear the heels down to the nub walking down our city streets, plus the amount of grates, potholes and cracks in our sidewalks are extremely dangerous! You wear your sneakers and when you get to your destination, you change. It’s either that, or you hire a car service to drive you everywhere so you don’t actually have to walk at all. Being on your feet all the time, comfortable shoes are very important. And hey - I may not be the best dressed in this town, but I do care about hygiene!

Health Insurance 101

Sometimes I feel I am surrounded by complete morons. Do you ever feel this way, or is it just me? I am an actor and a singer; however, I do not like to tell people this because it has a stigma attached to it - the stigma of being ego-driven, of actors only thinking of themselves and how they can get ahead. I dislike this viewpoint of my profession, even though I can see that a large majority of my associates fall prey to this way of thinking. The job is so competitive that you have to make yourself stand out from the masses - kind of like a politician. Like a politician, we are continuously lobbying for ourselves to get that next job. Like a politician, we talk about ourselves a lot and about what we've accomplished, to get people to like us and think we're great, so we can get that next big job. It's the same type of job. (Real Estate is also the same job, but that's for another blog.) Of course not all actors or politicians are like this. Some actors just do everything for the love of the art. Some politicians do things for the good of the people. If we are smart, we have the latter viewpoint. If we are smart, we realize that life is about so much more than just ourselves. If we are smart, we think of things based on the good of humanity, the good of our world, the benefit for all. Politically, I believe this is the way the majority of New Yorkers think. New York is a melting pot. Just walking down the street, you can see people from all ethnicities, and hear every language spoken. We are a global city. We think internationally. This is good. This is how I believe it should be.

Most actors do not have health insurance. First of all, the majority of us are never employed as an actor long enough to fulfill the required number of weeks during a year that are necessary to qualify for our Actor's Equity Association (the actor's union) medical coverage. Secondly, the majority of us, while we are not working as an actor, have odd jobs which are consistently not high paying and are primarily freelance, and cannot afford to obtain health insurance. I fall into a pocket. The cost of living in New York is high. I must work a certain number of hours and make a certain amount of money to pay my bills. Just to pay my monthly living expenses, I must make more money to survive than the cut off for low-income health insurance, but I do not make enough money to afford to purchase health insurance for myself. Anyone making the maximum monetary cut-off amount to qualify for low income health insurance here in New York would either be homeless, or be illegally inhabiting a small studio apartment with far more than the allotted legal number of residents. I have also been sick for the first time in my adult life this year. More than just a cold sick - sick. I've been regularly going to a low income walk-in health care clinic that is so busy that the staff there simply cannot keep up with everyone, and where it takes me a minimum of two months just to be seen and book an appointment with a doctor. They cannot possibly give quality care. This is why I am passionate about health insurance - because I need it. I need it badly. This is why I am so angry with what I see everyday on tv. I'm angry with the insurance companies for paying people to go to the town hall meetings and stirring things up, because they like stealing all of our money. I'm angry at the republicans, who spread lies and use fear tactics to persuade people not to support something this important for the good of all people in our country. They do not want our President to succeed. This would ruin their chances of being elected again in 2012. I recently read an article in which the journalist wrote of the speech he wished President Obama to say to the American people. Here is an excerpt from this article:

"The real debate is about what kind of country we want to live in. I ask all Americans, whatever your political leanings, whatever your profession, whatever your income, to ask yourself these fundamental questions. Do you want to live in a country where almost 50 million of your fellow Americans are without health insurance? Do you want to live in a country where 20,000 people a year die of preventable or curable illnesses because they don’t have access to adequate health care? Do you want to live in a country where 2 million people a year go bankrupt because of medical costs, where 1.5 million homes are foreclosed because people have run out of money paying for medical care, where if you lose your job you lose your health insurance, a country where you can be denied health insurance because you have a pre-existing medical condition? A country where a sudden illness can destroy your economic future, even if you have a job and health insurance?

If you find those conditions acceptable, then we need do nothing, because that’s the country you live in now. Alone in the industrialized world, America, the wealthiest nation on earth, is the only country which allows these things to happen. Our current system of health care is broken, fatally broken, and when I took the job as President, I made it my first priority to fix it. I do not, I cannot believe, that Americans want the status quo to continue." ~ written by Ed Stein. INDenver Times

The first job I ever had during my high school years was working as a secretary in the radiology department of our local hospital. I answered phones, scheduled appointments, greeted people in the waiting room, did a lot of filing of charts and x-rays, assisted when and wherever necessary. I remember one night in particular. It was a full moon, when people go crazy and emergency rooms are packed much more than usual. A woman from the nursing home down the street was wheeled into the hallway on a gurney. She had fallen and broken her hip. The ER was completely backed up with much more serious injuries due to a big car accident that had taken place, so as a matter of priority those people needed to be attended to first. The old woman was kept waiting in the hallway for over an hour, screaming, calling out to her mother to help her, writhing in pain. No one could come to her aid. It was after hearing her screams of pain for that hour that I made the decision that I could never work in the health care industry. I cannot stand to see people in pain. Now I know that the health care industry must deal with so much more than just helping people. Isn't this a shame? Doctors and nurses get into their fields because they want to help people. The insurance industry contributes to them not being able to do their jobs. People should not have to suffer. They should not have to file mountains of paperwork during these extremely difficult times in their lives. It is up to us to help ease these people's suffering.

So, to these morons who shout that these are the beginnings of us becoming a "socialist" nation, I say - BRING IT ON! Canada has an amazing health care system - maybe we should actually use our brains and borrow a great idea from another nation where things actually work! Didn't everyone see the movie "SICKO"? Let's pool our resources here to fix what is broken. Let's actually use our brains for a change for the good of our country instead of corporate greed! And another thing that boggles my mind is that the greedy republican base is primarily "Christian". I've got a newsflash for these people...Jesus would be a Democrat! Jesus would help the poor, he'd be sympathetic to those who are suffering, he would heal the sick. This entire "Health Care Debate" has NOTHING to do with actual health care - it is just the ugly part of POLITICS. The ego-driven republicans want Obama to fail so they can be re-elected. The ego-driven republicans support big business, so they are doing everything in their power to keep the status quo so these powerful insurance conglomerates and prescription drug companies can continue raping Americans when they need help the most. Seriously, what are we thinking? After the past 8 years of the Bush administration running our country into the ground - what's another billion dollars added to the deficit for the good of our own people, after spending trillions on a failed war overseas? If we're going to spend it, we might as well spend it on the good of our people here at home. We've become so lazy here, fat and lazy, living the "good" life, watching our DVR shows, playing our video games, collecting all of our toys, living in our sheltered, primarily white small towns, that we fail to educate ourselves. We are too busy with OUR lives and OUR stuff that we fail to take into account the needs of others, the needs of all people from all walks of life, no matter their ethnicity or economic status. WE FAIL. We're failing now if we allow this type of politics to continue. Health care is something that you never think about until you need it. And if we don't fix it now, it is just going to get worse. I just hope, for the good of humanity, that we do not allow our failure to succeed.

Bumper to Bumper

Midwestern folk live a fairly sheltered existence. The calm of the suburbs provides a safe haven from witnessing certain things that would shock the normal everyday person, but become the norm for the big city dweller. Manhattan is an island of extremes. On one hand, there are the incredibly wealthy who reside in townhouse mansions and penthouse apartments, and on the other, the homeless and impoverished. Throw in the fact that millions of these people coexist on the same small island, and each day there is bound to be some new shocking twist to see. It was on one of my first bright and sunny summer days in Manhattan that this bit of traumatizing upset entered my world.

No one ever cooks in Manhattan. The kitchens in New York are small, there is no counter space, most refrigerators resemble the dormitory fridge you had in college, and there is just no room to store food. Most people here that do cook, shop for groceries on a daily basis, and this takes time which New Yorkers just don’t have a lot of. This makes take-out an incredible thing. New Yorkers can find virtually any type of cuisine at their immediate disposal. It is usually cheaper than buying groceries and pairs well with our busy lifestyles. Another great addition is the corner deli. A two-minute walk out your door and you’re there. So, naturally, not being a great chef myself, I frequent these places.

After awhile you start seeing the same people in your neighborhood, and right in front of my corner deli, a homeless man had taken up residence. This particular day, while entering the deli to get my favorite sandwich, I saw “Homeless Guy” eyeing the cars parked in front of the deli. He seemed to be thoroughly checking them out and I found it interesting, wondering what he was looking at. I went in to get my sandwich and on my way out, I noticed Homeless Guy standing on top of the car bumpers – one foot on the rear bumper of one car, the other on the front bumper of the car parallel parked directly behind it. (New Yorkers are INCREDIBLE parallel parkers and can wedge their car into places never thought possible by patiently inching back and forth.) Within seconds, Homeless Guy drops his pants, squats down to grab his butt cheeks, pulls one cheek to rest on one bumper, and places other cheek on the one next to it, and proceeds to publicly have a bowel movement in the space between the two bumpers. The car bumpers were holding his cheeks apart so they wouldn’t get as dirty. This was helpful as he had no toilet paper, or a shower. That first episode seeing a half naked homeless man pooping between two cars in the street gave me pause, not only because it was so shocking, but also because I saw first hand, right in my face, how difficult some people’s lives are and how grateful I was for what I had. I also thought that you never know what your car bumper goes through in a day.

Swearing off the likes of you...

I LOVE mexican food, and occassionally, I'll get a HUGE craving for a nice margarita and south of the border fare. Tonight was the night. I just HAD to have some, so I strolled into one of my West Village Mexican restaurants, ordered a Prickly Pear margarita, and went to town! The Cuervo was taking affect, and my senses were becoming heightened, and as I was alone, enjoying the gorgeous sunset & weather at my patio table, I noticed a couple sit down across from me.

The business man was in his 40s, attractive with salt and pepper hair, and the female was an attractive 20-something-year old girl. I thought - Huh! - and went back to eating my chimichanga. I dismissed their presence there, trying to focus on how great my food was, how prickly pear was a delicious addition to a simple drink and perfect for these warm summer evenings, and Ooooo - I love chips & salsa!!! - however, as I was smearing the sour cream and guacamole on my perfect bite, the table across from mine's conversation was becoming unbearably louder. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop at all, but one couldn't help but overhear their exchange.

The male was obviously intelligent, was dressed extremely well, you could tell by looking at him that he had a nice job, and the female obviously worked in the same office. After briefly discussing the days work activities, they started in with normal conversation. The female was like, discussing the topic of like, football. It had to do with like, one of her college teams, I'm sure, because she like, seemed to know a lot about it. And, although she seemed to be like, fairly knowledgable...I started to like, notice just like, how many times in the actual context of her sentences that she was actually like, saying the word LIKE!!! It was literally, like every other word! She was saying LIKE so much that like, I was really like beginning to notice it and like, really get annoyed with like, how many actual times within the same sentence that she like, said the word LIKE. It was killing me!!! As I was thinking how stupid she sounded saying LIKE every two seconds, I noticed that the 40-something year old man - trying to fit in - had been sucked into her form of speech, and began interjecting his own batch of likes into his conversation. If that were not enough, this incredibly drunk table of NYU girls, loudly slurring their speech at the table behind them (those drinks are potent!) started in with like, their own ways of discussing like, how to properly drink alcohol, because like, you shouldn't just milk one glass of wine all night because that's like, a waste of good partying, instead, you should like, slam your beer and stuff because like, then you get the full affects of the alcohol in your system and can really like, enjoy yourself - and besides, you don't want your friends to like, think you're a wuss.

I couldn't believe it - I was being bombarded in a sea of LIKES - and I like, had to wonder just what the fascination was with this word? Is it because we've become so unintelligent over the past few years that we have problems expressing our true thoughts, because the word LIKE doesn't really like, explain or mean anything - it's just like, a filler word!!! Like - UM!!! or Ah....it means nothing! Or have we become desensitized to all forms of correct speech and language usage because our role models are hip-hop-ebonic-spewing rappers, George Bush, & Britney Spears? Or is it because we spend hours soaking in television shows and playing video games instead of using our brains and imagination to read a good book or a newspaper? What is happening to us?

Not only was I aggravated at the LIKE-A-THON happening around me, I kept thinking, why is this seemingly attractive and intelligent 40-something yr old man wasting his time hanging out with such an annoying idiot female as this, when he could actually be dating an attractive 30-something yr old - like me? This is the story of my life - this is my competition in the world of dating. He must really want to bang her. He has got to be seriously hard up because she was not THAT HOT to have to endure the pain of listening to her speak. I just don't understand it, why there are so many intelligent and attractive 30-something SINGLE females, who have great jobs, sexual experience, who make good money, and are longing to be in great relationships with some nice New York guy, and these 30, 40 and 50-something men are instead searching out these 20-something skinny, moronic bimbos. The entire scene upset me so much, that Thank GOD I was finished with my meal, because everyone was making me, LIKE, lose my appetite!

I paid the check and got out of there, breathing a sigh of relief to get away from it all, but as I was walking the two blocks to my apartment I passed a female LIKE-ING on the phone, and a couple of friends abusing the LIKES of the English language in front of my building, so I made the decision then and there - no more using the word LIKE in my vocabulary!

Biker Rage...

Today as I was walking to work, I stopped at an intersection to wait for the light to change. Everything seemed just like an ordinary day until the light changed. An old man proceeded into the intersection, walking towards me, and glancing toward the one-way directional traffic to make sure all cars had stopped so he could safely get across the street. I'm sure it seemed to be a normal day for him too, having walked the same intersection a thousand times before; however, much to his surprise, today was going to be different.

From the opposite direction, a 30-something white male on a bicycle was wizzing, the wrong way, down the one way street. Not paying attention, and not even slowing approaching the intersection, the biker barrelled into the old man, sending him flying to the pavement. The old man was hurled to the side, his head bouncing on the concrete, and he lay there trying to compose himself and get over the shock of what just happened.

I was mortified - I couldn't believe what I had just witnessed, and to make matters worse, the people around him who had just seen the same thing I did, were just standing there, not saying anything, and not getting involved. I ran across the street, I asked the man if he was ok and if I could call anyone for him - an ambulance, the police - he refused. I asked him if he was sure, he said yes, and I continued on my way. I walked into work shaken and angry. How many times have I witnessed bikers not abiding by regular laws of traffic? What makes them think that they are immune to stopping at a red light, taking precautions, using hand signals when turning? Does getting that to-go order for lunch, or messengering that important package take precedence over them having the ability to follow normal traffic guidelines? That poor old man doesn't think so. And when I think about it, since I moved here to Manhattan, I don't think I have seen a single bike rider pay heed to a single red light, or show common courtesy of right of way to pedestrians or motor vehicles alike, and I just have to say, that I hate them all! I want to kill them. I don't think they should be able to wiz through this city terrorizing those of us who do follow simple laws of traffic safety. It's just not right. So until the day comes these bikers are forced to abide by the regular laws of traffic that the rest of us follow, or until they are outlawed to traversing our city streets, I intend to shout vulgarities at any biker I see that doesn't follow directions. Something like, "Way to NOT stop at that RED LIGHT, A-HOLE!" Either that, or just flip them them off on the street - I haven't decided yet - I guess it will later be determined by my mood, the situation, or how many things I am carrying in my hands at the time of each incidence. Until then, I guess I'll just have to pray for the safety of all of us!