Worth $1

I think there's probably a guy like this in every city in every country in the world. You know, the oddball you see strolling down the street with a snake draped around his neck?

I came across this pet lover a few weeks ago outside the Coffee Shop in Union Square.



Aaaah, the Coffee Shop, where tourists go to eat Cuban sandwiches, and models go to become waitresses.

Anyway, I snapped a couple of photos of this guy before he noticed me and hit me up for a dollar. Hey, if that's how this dude makes a living, that's cool with me. I was happy to give him the buck. At least he's providing some entertainment for it, more than the garden variety NYC panhandler. And it looked like he could use the single more than me.

For the most part though, I find the panhandlers in NY to be pretty low key. They understand the nature of the transaction. They ask you for some dough, and you either give it or you don't. The business ends there and they understand that the transaction is over.

There are some gambits that I hate, though. Like the guys who hit you up on the subway between stations. Look if I'm walking down the sidewalk and you ask me for a handout, it's easy to just keep walking if I choose to. There's a whole lot of room on the sidewalk. But the subway is different. I'm already making some sizable concessions to my personal space to begin with, locked in that tiny metal box with a couple hundred close, personal friends.

So the doors close and then, the pitch. Someone at the head of the car begins, in a loud voice, to make his case. Sometimes it's entertaining, like the guy who used to ask if anyone could spare $100. His reasoning being that he could do a lot more with $100 than $1, and why not aim high, anyway? I had some respect for that guy because he wasn't gaming anyone. He knew he was begging, I knew he was begging, there were no secrets, no made up sob stories. I used to drop him a buck or two.

After the pitch, the speaker will walk the length of the car, cup in hand. On most lines in midtown, it doesn't take very long to get from one station to the next. Usually it's under a minute. And I'm always sure that this is the time he'll time it wrong, that there's no way he'll finish talking and walk the whole car before the doors open again. Like I'll be able to escape at the next station before he makes it to me. But as always, he's timed it perfectly and reaches me before the doors have opened to vomit out the current human cargo, and swallow up the next batch of meat.

Come to think of it though, these guys would make great ad men. Consider it. They have perfected the art of the elevator speech. I know some highly paid people who could take a lesson or two from their subway brethren.

The other scheme that really irks me is the "I just need $xx.xx to get home" game.

There used to be a girl who sat outside of Grand Central station with a neatly lettered sign that read, "Please help. I need $12 for a train ticket home". The sign was very nice. She'd obviously put a lot of time into making it. Like she was going to be using it for a while.

She was there every day. Could it be taking her this long to collect the twelve dollars? If she didn't yet have the money to get home, where did she go every night? She was always neat and clean, sporting a different outfit every day.

After about a week, I felt like just giving her $12 and ripping up her sign. I mean, after she got the money she wouldn't need the sign anymore, right?

Elsewhere in the city...



I thought this little bit of street art was pretty cool. The paper on the floor says something about Twitter... I didn't get a great look at it.

This reminded me just a little bit of the Black Cherokee. If you've ever driven south on the Harlem River Drive, just before it turns into the FDR Drive, right by where the traffic slows up for the Triboro or RFK or whatever the fuck that bridge is called now, there is a triangular bit of pavement off to the right.



And here, on this little Isosceles island, maybe you've noticed something something unusual. Perhaps a shopping cart turned upside down with a watermelon perched on top. Maybe the detritus of the highway, discarded tires and mufflers and side view mirrors, collected and piled haphazardly yet carefully into a sculpture that defies logic, and sometimes gravity.

If you have noticed these unusual assemblies, you have viewed the art of Otis Houston, the man who calls himself Black Cherokee. Sometimes you will even see Otis himself, sitting or standing, motionless, a part of his own art.



Check out Otis next time you're in the neighborhood.

I don't know what half his art means.

But I know it must mean something.