Brooklyn Day One: Yanks Tie it Up

Cream Cheese is Forever.

There is always something to be said for arriving in The Apple after dark, so you can see the astounding amount of lights from the sky. Tonight, as the plane banked over Sheepshead Bay to land at JFK, there was so much ambient light in the sky, produced by the millions of houses and cars on the freeways below, that those lights reflected off the top surface of the banking wing and created a swirling, constantly changing light show. It was an amazing sight for Plotnik who has flown into this city many times but never seen anything like that before.

Flying United into NYC is always far easier and less exhausting than flying Southwest out of Providence, but United costs money and Southwest doesn't, at least when you fly back and forth to LA as much as Plot and Duck do, picking up free tickets in the bargain.

There was only one grumpy stewardess on the plane tonight, the usual number. It's actually kind of nice to know there's at least one person having as bad a time as the passengers in Coach.



Plot sat in Row 15, on the bulkhead right in back of Business Class. He could see the well-mannered stewards bringing goody after goody to the capitalist swine passengers in the swiveling leather easy chairs just in front of him. After awhile he started narrating for his seatmate: "The young servile United toady is carrying a silver tray. On the tray is a towel and on top of the towel are flat, hot, delicious chocolate chip cookies. Will the toady come back to the main cabin? NO-O-O-O-O! It's proletarian peanuts for us! Back to you, Howard!"

Mischief has gotten old and it's harder for him now that he has to go out a door, down an elevator, down six stairs, across a long lobby and out two iron doors to get to the street. Sometimes he makes it through the maze and out to the patch of grass near the street, but sometimes he doesn't. Mischief Walkers now carry paper towels to wipe up any unfortunate leaks, as well as bags for the normal usage.

Today kids on the street are wearing mouse ears and long flouncy princess dresses and carrying magic wands. That's because the Yankees won last night. If they'd lost, the kids might be carrying hatchets.



Whenever the Yankees lose there is collective despair on the streets of the Bronx. The Yankees are the big boys in town here, no matter how good the Mets might do in any given year. The Yankees have been here since they were called the Highlanders at the turn of the 20th Century, so kids today might have heard their great grandfathers talk about the Yankees. Or in Brooklyn, the Dodgers. Or in Manhattan, the Giants. But now the Giants are called the BrainDeads and live in Saint Plotniko and the Dodgers are the Plotzers and play in Stiletto City.

So The Big Apple is All Yankees All the Time right now. The guy who drove the car service town car and picked Plot and Duck up at the airport was wearing a Yankee t-shirt. As Plot exited the plane he said "What happened in the Series tonight?" to no one in particular, and a United clerk and a kid with a cell phone both looked up and said "Yanks t'ree ta one." They were both smiling.

So though it's not easy to be a Yankee fan if you've never been a Yankee fan, and moreso if you've always despised the Yankees, Plot does not despise them right now. He's rooting for them to at least make a good show out of it. The Big Apple could use a break, and Halloween is Saturday night, and we don't need anybody being prematurely pissed off.