Look up...

Looking up is the best. You see so much going on, especially here. In the morning women look out their windows to see what's the haps. A lot of them stamp mud-filled shoes or shake dusty rugs out their windows. You gotta watch out sometimes. 

The thing I like most is laundry. It's so beautiful the way it blows in the wind and you can tell what kind of day someone had or what their favorite color is. Or sometimes, if you're really lucky, you see the largest pair of underpants you've ever seen.  

When I first moved to NYC, a group of my best guy friends advised me not to look up. They were all from Long Island and they gave me a ton of advice seeing how I'd never been there and was moving blind. 

"Say whatever you need with confidence, even if you don't know what you really want." was the first nugget. This was brought up when I thought "How am I going to ask for where I want to go when I've never been there before?" Another piece of advice was "Whatever you do, don't go to the Bronx." The person who told me this scared me so much I wanted to make sure I didn't end up there on my first day. 

The boys had me practice saying where I needed to go for the first taxi I would take into the big city. After my first try, one of them said "No, say it like you mean it and add some anger!" 

Ok... "Yo! Take me to the corner of West 4th and Washington Square Park North. And f*cking step on it!" They liked that and I passed.

"Don't look up at the buildings cause you'll look like a God Damn tourist." they said. "Really? I can't do that?" I asked. "NO!!!" they affirmed.

I had all this info swimming in my head when I landed at LaGuardia airport. Wound up from all the things I couldn't or shouldn't do. Thinking through all of it heading towards the taxi stall, an older man approached me "Do you need a car?" 

"YES!" I said without thinking twice. 

He led me out towards the car and while we were walking through a parking garage, I thought "What the hell am I doing?". We arrived at a beat up, burnt sienna, old school Cadillac limo. 

"Is your car?" I asked. "Yep." he said, starting to grab my bags. "Hold on a sec, uh can I see some ID?" me asking not really knowing what I was looking for other than you can't pass something by me - don't take me to the Bronx. 

"Sure." he said. I took his limo license and business card - Rudy's limo. Not knowing where the hell this was going, I started to shimmy the license to check for a hologram state icon. As I was doing this, he said "You know... New York isn't as bad as everyone says."

With that I smiled and handed him back the stuff and we were off. We drove down through the tunnel and I had no idea what to expect. As we drove I sat up near the partition and listened to his stories. He used to be the manager for jazz drummer Buddy Rich and told me about the time they went on the Tonight Show and met Johnny Carson. 

I was enthralled and as he was chatting we came out of the tunnel and I looked up through the moonroof at the buildings. I was in awe. Walls upon walls of buildings and I got to look at them behind peeling tinted glass. 

It was the best. No matter what, always look up...