ER•IN (noun) - A girl of Irish heritage, who grew up in California and now lives the life of an actor in New York City.
CRON•I•CALS (noun) - a term that describes the shenanigans that ensue when Cronican chronicles her adventures.
Sunday, October 2, 2005
Peanuts... Cracker Jacks, Here!
One of the things that I have noticed about New York which is very different than Southern California is the number of people legally and illegally soliciting on the streets. Now, I don’t mean like homeless people who are asking for change, though there is a lot of that too. I am talking about people who set up tables and actively sell brand name knock offs or pirated DVDs & CDs. Not only is that amazing to me, but the age range of the folks is what really surprises me. I mean, people who are in their 60s and 70s, who should be basking the in the joy of retired life, are out on street corners peddling knock off purses, sunglasses and keychains. Or, they are going into restaurants, cafes, or subway cars trying to get you to buy what they are selling. Even further, almost every street corner will have someone standing with a stack of flyers, trying to get you to patronize their establishment. They stand at the entrance to the subway stairwell to catch commuters when they are traveling. And these people are all well into their middle age, if not older (it's hard to tell, and I try not to stare).
This morning while at a Greek diner, a woman in her 50s came in with a yellow plastic bag, and went to the table next to us and pulled out a stack of DVDs which were in plastics sleeves. I could see that they are copies of movies that are currently in the theatres, so they could not possibly be out on DVD yet. The person behind the counter thought that this person wanted a table, so when the DVD lady was approached by the employee, she acted very nervous, immediately putting the DVDs back into her back and fleeing the restaurant. I sat fascinated by this transaction. This type of soliciting is similar to what I have seen in downtown San Diego, except in San Diego, it is someone with a bucket of flowers, and they approach couples and try to force the man to buy a flower for the lady. Many a man has gotten in trouble with his woman when he has said no...
Another thing that fascinates me is the varied ethnicity of the people doing these tasks. This is where you may think I have gone too far in my musings, but I am merely expressing observations and am certainly not casting any type of judgement. Southern CA is fairly homogenized, but it seems that there is a class system with regard to this type of work. The homeless people you see are caucasian or African American. The people selling flowers are Mexican. And the people who are on street corners handing out flyers or spinning advertisement signs are skinny, 16 year old caucasian boys who are impervious to sunburns. That’s it, end of story. But in New York, anything goes! The lady who came into our restaurant today was Asian, and there was a Native American man well into his 70s on the street corner handing out coupons for a fitness club that had just opened up down the road.
I gotta say, I am fascinated.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The Fine Print
a) credit me (with my name, my blog's name, and a link back to my site- displayed at the top of the blog)
b) you don't change anything
c) you don't use it to make money.
To view the license, click here. To learn more about Creative Commons, click here.
Popular Posts
-
I’m grateful to still be here. So grateful. Right now I’m writing from a cushy chair in the lounge of my hotel in Savannah, GA. There ...
-
Facebook Memories alerted me that 10 years ago I published a blog post: "10 Random Facts About Me", and I thought it would be fun ...
-
Shortly after writing my last medical update , things turned topsy turvy for me. Like, within a week, I got very bad news and since then the...
-
One of my "special skills" is that I do graphic design. I am especially proud because it matches the colors on my website and th...
-
It’s been a while since I’ve shared what’s been going on with me medically. I forget as I live with this disease day in and day out that man...
-
(See Part 1 of this series by clicking here) (See Part 2 of this series by clicking here) A book my mother gave me, with our first photo t...
-
Like so many, I was gutted when I found out that actor Chadwick Boseman died from Stage IV colon cancer. As someone who has Stage IV breast ...
-
I'm very excited to announce that my production of DUTCHMAN , by Amiri Baraka produced by my theater company The Seeing Place Theater w...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for commenting- YOU ROCK!