"A wondrous toy"

In a couple of weeks, Greg will be moving from Portland to New York. He found an apartment to share with two others on East 4th between Avenues C & D, on the border of the East Village. It is a couple of blocks from the lower East Side, which was his grandmother’s first home.

I was raised with stories about life on the streets that Greg will soon become familiar with: Eldridge, Orchard, Delancey, Rivington, Houston (pronounced “House-ton” in those parts) and The Bowery. Tin Pan Alley songwriters of my mother’s age wrote scores of pop tunes about the neighborhood, songs about “Second Hand Rose from 2nd Avenue”, and “It’s very fancy / On old Delancey Street you know” ... And tell me what street / Compares with Mott Street in July / Pushcarts gently rolling by”.

In the almost 100 years since my mother’s infancy, the tenements have changed hands and tunes many times, the street smells changing from garlic and paprika to chili peppers and cilantro. I’ve heard that a sort of gentrification has beun to alter the mood again, though it retains its diversity and all that goes with it, good and bad.

Unlike urban sprawls like L.A. which consist of miles of suburban areas linked by freeways, New York City neighborhoods are measured in square blocks, not square miles. They are often pockets of perhaps a block or two square. Walk around the corner from tenements and pushcarts and you may find a street or avenue with awnings and doormen, Mercedes at curbside, poodles on leashes.

If he walks west and south on Houston, he’ll find himself in SoHo, among the lofts that rapidly evolved from warehouses, to artists’ studios to high priced homes.

When Greg walks a few blocks further north and west, he will pass the house where my brother had an apartment in the early 1960's, a 5th floor walkup on E. 11th Street near 3rd Avenue. He later lived in one of those houses with a doorman, East 9th and Broadway, round the corner from the West Village.

Greenwich Village may be the most famous neighborhood in American pop culture. Washington Square, The Mews, Bleeker Street, and MacDougal, where Bob Dylan first sang for quarters in the Café Wha? [Chronicles, Volume 1, Bob Dylan, p. 9.] where he writes that he waited to meet Dave Van Ronk. “Once on a cold winter day near Thompson and 3rd, in a flurry of light snow when the feeble sun was filtering through the haze, I saw him walking toward me in a frosty silence.” [Id., p16.]

In those days, The Beats still thrived. Their self-proclaimed poets along with the new aspirants to pop celebrity, the Folkies, occupied the cafés and clubs during the days, giving way to the hip young comics, who brought in paying customers: Woody Allen, Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, Joan Rivers.

The Minnesota kid Dylan describes noting that Café Bizarre was housed in a building that once served as Aaron Burr’s stable. I hope Greg will explore as Dylan did.

“New York City was cold, muffled and mysterious, the capital of the world. On 7th Avenue I passed the building where Walt Whitman had lived and worked. I paused momentarily imagining him printing away and singing the true song of his soul. I had stood outside of Poe’s house on 3rd Street, too, and had done the same thing, staring mournfully up at the windows. The city was like some uncarved block without any name or shape and it showed no favoritism. Everything was always new, always changing... [¶] The whole city was dangling in front of my nose. I had a vivid idea of where everything was. The future was nothing to worry about. It was awfully close.” [Id., p.103-104.]

So right, Greg.

It Ain't Me, Dude

Over the years, I’ve noticed that there are some songs that are pertinent to my experience as a criminal lawyer. Among the titles that I hummed while slaving in lockups and courthouses were "I Fought The Law (And The Law Won)" by Sonny Curtis and "Please Release Me" by Roger Miller, et. al.

Of course, "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison" was an album that was full of profound observations about the dilemma of our clients. For example: "Cocaine Blues" [by T.J. Arnall (and many others) reads like a confession by one of my clients:

"Early one mornin' while makin' the rounds

I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down

I went right home and I went to bed

I stuck that lovin' 44 beneath my head

Got up next mornin' and I grabbed that gun

took a shot of cocaine and away I run ..."

The last stanza could have been written as a commentary on my performance:

"...Into the courtroom my trial began

where I was handled by twelve honest men

Just before the jury started out

I saw the little judge commence to look about

In about five minutes in walked the man

holding the verdict in his right hand

The verdict read in the first degree

I hollered Lawdy Lawdy have a mercy on me

The judge he smiled as he picked up his pen

99 years in the Folsom pen

99 years underneath that ground

I can't forget the day I shot that bad bitch down..."

Of course, no modern songwriter’s lyrics are more on the nose when it comes to my generation’s experience about almost everything than Dylan and he might well have been watching some of my early pathetic attempts at defending petty criminals when he wrote "The Drifter’s Escape."

"Oh, help me in my weakness," I heard the drifter say,
As they carried him from the courtroom And were taking him away.
"My trip hasn't been a pleasant one And my time it isn't long,
And I still do not know What it was that I've done wrong."
Well, the judge, he cast his robe aside, A tear came to his eye,
"You fail to understand," he said, "Why must you even try?"
Outside, the crowd was stirring, You could hear it from the door.
Inside, the judge was stepping down, While the jury cried for more.
"Oh, stop that cursed jury," Cried the attendant and the nurse,
"The trial was bad enough, But this is ten times worse."
Just then a bolt of lightning Struck the courthouse out of shape,
And while ev'rybody knelt to pray The drifter did escape"

And Dylan summed up my life when he wrote:

"... You say you're lookin' for someone,
Never weak but always strong,
To protect you an' defend you
Whether you are right or wrong,
Someone to open each and every door,
But it ain't me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe..." ["It Ain’t Me, Babe." Bob Dylan]