Dear Freddy

Dear Freddy,
It was great talking to you on the phone the other day, and I hope you are enjoying your long visit to that small provincial city in the northwest, and have found a nice Catholic Church to attend on Sundays. To be honest I really can’t understand why you would choose to spend 3 months in that boring little city when you have such a great place to live right here in Brooklyn. At first I thought you were trying to get away from Clara, but of course the two of you are divorced so that was not the reason. Then I thought you wanted to get far away from your troubled adult son, but since you are already estranged from him that also would not have made you travel across the country. Then I thought maybe you wanted to get away from me, which I could understand, but it seems like such an extreme thing to do. In any case Christmas was not the same without you, and actually I wound up spending the holidays alone as Peter for a change got sick. Every year I tell him to get the flu shot and every year he tells me to mind my own business and then he promptly gets the flu and this year he had a real bad dose of it. We had quite a storm here last night. The rain was so strong and loud that it woke me and I jumped up to check for leaks, which of course does not happen anymore, since I am no longer living in that horrible roof leaking loft that I lived in for 31 years. The thunder was so loud that my upstairs neighbor, not the crazy one, but the nicer one fell out of bed and had to take herself to the doctor this a.m. Tomorrow me and Peter are going to see the revival of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming. This is the first time we are going to a play together in all the years we know each other, so it is something of an event. Of course if you were here instead of there you too could have seen this production along with many other plays and things that are now on the great white way and off Broadway, but instead you get to see high school performances of Julius Caesar and Damn Yankees. I won’t even mention all the museum shows and other things that you love to do that you are missing. True the city that you are visiting for 3 long months does have a museum, but what do you do after you’ve been to the one museum? Hah. Yesterday I attempted (notice I say attempted) to see Sweeney Todd with the always lovely Johnny Depp, but the shit hole Chelsea Cinema on 23^rd street had no desire to let me see the film. Instead me and the other members of the small audience sat in complete and total darkness (there were no lights on in the auditorium) for 45 minutes waiting patiently for the projectionist to arrive. What is this I thought? Am I in New York City or some small provincial city in the northwest where something like this I’m sure could happen. I finally jumped up and told everyone to light matches and we would have a sing along to the music of the great Sweeney Todd. I was a big hit, and as it happens there was an executive from one of the networks in the audience who came up to me with his flashlight shinning in my face, gave me his card and told me to give him a call next week and that maybe we can work out something for a reality TV series. Isn’t that exciting? I finally had enough of sitting in the dark and walked down the 3 flight of stairs (the escalator was broke) and demanded my money back. I’m still having trouble with the disgusting teenagers that hang out on the corner in front of Sally’s luncheonette which is across the street from my apartment. They hold court there before they go to their cages at the local high school. They don’t live in the neighborhood but travel by subway from other not so great areas of Brooklyn to go to the nice high school that is located a few blocks away from my apartment. They are scary and intimidating especially to the old folks who live around here, and who have to maneuver around them, since they crowd the sidewalk and won’t move to let people pass. I have called the police and the community board so many times that they know me and I have a special liaison there a detective Mantegna. Well why the hell don’t the police do something? These teenagers are loud and vulgar, throw trash all over the place and have started to mark up the walls of buildings with graffiti. I’m surprised that they can even write their names, considering how dumb they are. I particiculary find the Latino girls to be offensive with their tight tight pants and their foul language. How can their parents let them go out like that? Maybe they’re so happy to get rid of them for a few hours that they could care less what they have on as long as they’re gone from their lives for a short time. My landlord has installed cameras on the sides of my building in order to catch any of them marking up his building. I think I mentioned that I caught one black kid the other week spray painting on the building, and he had the nerve to deny he was doing anything, I should have called the cops but didn’t, I mean by the time they came he would have been gone. I don’t have to tell you how horrible they are, since you spent a good many years trying to teach these animals how to read and write. Well enough of them. I got an email from my old friend Larry asking me to please not inform the world in my blog about the time he got arrested for indecent exposure, and I assured him that I would certainly keep this to myself. Did I tell you that I joined a gym in the neighborhood, and I like it so much better than that crap place that I was going to in the City? The gym is in an old neighborhood movie theatre, but of course you would never know this as nothing of the interior is left from its movie theatre days. However the façade still looks like it did when it was a theatre, with its very deco brickwork design and they also kept the original marquee. It’s big and clean and unlike that shit hole I was going to they have a sauna and a steam room, and free towels. They also gave me 4 free trainer sessions, which is very good. The guy helping me is a retired police captain and I think I will discuss the problem with the teenagers with him. I’m waiting for netflix to send me a copy of “The Sundowners” which we attempted to see at Radio City Music Hall during Christmas vacation of 1960. Do you remember that? You, me, Howard & Marco waited on a very long line, and suddenly I was hit with a bad case of stomach sickness and we had to rush to the automat down the street before things got very bad. It was such a cold day too. Then we decided to have lunch there you had the baked beans and I had the macoroni and cheese and afterward we walked over to the newly renovated Loew’s State Theatre where we picked up tickets for Ben-Hur for the following weekend. I really miss those Automats. There was a book written about them a few years ago by the granddaughter of hardart who was one of the founders and I got to know her somewhat when I was volunteering at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and she was co-running the children’s unit there. She was really nice. Well I guess that’s about it for now. Keep well and I hope to hear from you soon.

Ira Joel