REALITY NO SHOW

Many of you may not know this, but in the summer of 2001 I worked at Magnolia Bakery. They had expanded their business to include ice cream which they wholesaled to Citarella and Gourmet Garage and also sold it from an ice cream cart that was parked outside on the corner of West 4th and Bleeker. I worked scooping ice cream at said cart. It was a decent job for a college student, the tips were good, and the clientele was annoying but tolerable as long as they tipped. I endured the same nervous laughter, followed by the inevitable, “I don’t know how you do it, if I worked here I’d be SO fat” day in and day out. I was vegan at the time. On slow rainy afternoons I even had time to hang out and read “Please Kill Me” behind the cart. 

When it was time to close up I had to carry the register and all the scoops inside the bakery. One night while I was carting the register inside a customer came up to the cart. He asked if we were closed and I answered yes. I’d had a long day and the register was closed for the night. Plus I’d already taken the scoops and the water buckets inside. His annoyed voice asked, “Does that mean I can’t get any ice cream?” 

“We’re closed,” I repeated irritably. It was then I looked up and realized that I was talking to Lou Reed. Funny thing, I had just finished reading the part of “Please Kill Me” where he asks someone to shit in his mouth and upon refusal he offered up the option of shitting on a plate instead. 

He was taller than I expected and was walking a chihuahua. It was immediately clear that I recognized him.

“Are you sure I can’t get any ice cream?” He asked smirking, with an emphasis on the “I”. He seemed so sure that he now had the upper hand.

I paused, pondering things for a second. He seemed like such a prick so I responded, “Yes, I’m sure YOU can’t get any ice cream.” 

He made an audible appalled scoffing noise at me, looked incredibly disgusted, and stormed off, chihuahua in tow. I never saw him again.

Hell can be defined in many ways. One way I would define it is waiting outside of a bar on Ludlow Street on a Friday night around midnight waiting for your ride to come pick you up after finishing a shift working the door at a show. While watching people waiting in line to get into Hotel Chantelle across the street your heart lifts when you see a white 15 passenger van round the corner. Your heart then sinks when you realize that it is a Dodge, not a Ford, and therefore not your ride. It sinks even further when it pulls up in front of where you’re standing and all the doors open simultaneously and a camera crew (clearly operating guerrilla style without permits) pours out and rushes to set up a shot with a scrabbly Chinese woman pushing a grocery cart full of empty plastic bottles. It sinks even further when suddenly a rugged and intense, yet simultaneously prissy, well-dressed man with a carefully manicured 1/4” beard growth approaches her, shows her a bill (apparently one of large denomination by her reaction) then starts flipping it around, puts it in his mouth, chews it up, and then pulls it out unharmed and you realize you are witnessing a staged episode of “Street Magic” with David Blaine. A crowd starts gathering and the production crew flashes green laser lights at them to dissuade unwanted interlopers from wandering into the shot. A couple of drunk girls approach, one falls and skins her knee and they get shooed away. Finally your ride arrives but not before you get to witness a few starstruck weekend warriors get their minds blown, eagerly playing the rube to these “magic” tricks. The supposedly random woman who it is now clear was merely playing the disenfranchised immigrant Chinese trash picker, done giving her ESL thumbs ups and gracious bows on camera, hangs out calmly on the side, now off camera carefully fixing her hair. Meanwhile the rest of the Friday night fevered masses of the Lower East Side pour out of cabs and try to schmooze with the long haired bro wearing rolled mustard colored chinos and boat shoes who clearly has some say over the door situation across the street at Hotel Chantelle.