Saturday, June 6, 2009

A Stroll by Harlem

by Pedro

The descendants of the African slaves who arrived at the USA between centuries XVI and XIX are a unique group. At present, they almost represent a 10% of the population of this diverse country, but its presence in the great cities, like New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, is greater, as much by numbers as by visibility. Harlem, a predominantly black district located in the North end of Manhattan, appears in few tourist routes, but it is a place worthy to visit. By day. Way with two friendly - one Jew, another target like the snow - to double time. The Jew is put the wind up but it tries to disguise it. Both they transmit the fear not confeso that all the white Americans have to the black. For that reason they are changed to the outskirts, fodder. The scent to chicken fried originating of the stores of soul food - the traditional food of the black of the south - floods apples, something deteriorated by the passage of time. We went to the famous field of basketball of Rucker Park, in street 155 with the boulevard of Frederick Douglas. In summer, according to I have read, some stars of the NBA as Kobe Bryant or Paul Pierce comes to play this track. It counts the legend that in these authentic fields played cracks; jugones of the street thrown to lose. Around street 151, to four apples of the fields, the thing is put ugly. A black escupe Jewish friend and calls “white fag to him.” We happen of the uncle and the short cut between the gray blocks of social house and pillaged a bus that takes direct to the tracks. When we arrived is nobody playing, only four lads smoking, supported in the fence. Hopefully it would have brought a ball, fodder, while I imagine the atmosphere in this track a Sunday anyone of summer.

1 comment:

wagaloo said...

A review of the pizza in Taco Bell Deli

so okay sometimes when i'm walking around the city surrounded by crowds of people and i'm looking up at all the impossible buildings i get kind of dizzy and i start to feel like i'm from the future and that this whole world is some kind of strange simulation that i'm experiencing, that i'm really in like a virtual reality history class in the year 2309 and they sent me back to check out life at the turn of the 21st century.

with that mindset comes a sort of nascent curiosity, as i notice things for the first time -- i see a bus and i'm like "oh, that's how they did mass transit", i see crazy dudes fishing cans out of the garbage and it's like "oh, that's how they got people to recycle back then, ingenious", etc. In fact, the last time i got this feeling i also happened to be hungry, so i went into the nearest store to observe how these strange people ate.

The store, taco bell deli, has one of those great bluntly descriptive names that let's you know exactly what you're dealing with -- the place is literally a third tier deli smooshed together with a taco bell, all in the same room. you have to decide as soon as you go in there wether you are a filthy taco bell person, or a classy new york deli guy. the deep irony is that the quality of the taco bell food is actually much higher than the deli, which is strikingly bad, yet most people have too high of an opinion of themselves to walk to the back of the store where the taco bell is located and end up settling on the crappy deli fare.

but coming from the future i didn't know about any of this so i got some pizza from the deli. now, significantly, there is no mention of pizza in the name TACO BELL DELI, but there it is, gleaming with grease under those lights, the main staple of the deli half of TACO BELL DELI. the pizza is a metaphor for everything wrong with conglomerations like Taco bell deli, and by extension, everything wrong with this strange century i've traveled back to. it is churned out without love or any sense of individuality and left to crust up and curdle in the display case. there are no creative topping choices -- the whole thing is an imitation of the better pizza places in the city, its bad pop art, a cheap alternative to actual pizza, something that is there just to serve to the people who are too proud to order taco bell, something that despite it's hideous taste people will force themselves to eat because they justify it in their minds by going "at least this isn't a grande burrito from that OTHER PLACE in this room". the guy apologizes with his eyes when he serves it to me.

in fact, the corpseskin pizza pops me out of my bubble of imagination -- when you have something that tastes like that in your mouth no fantasy is possible, no wonder games of perception where you imagine you are from the future or anything like that. all you have left is uninspired pizza, sour cheese and the crushing reality that you are sitting in a taco bell deli wasting your life. because of that pizza now i'm stuck here in this century, this miserable place of impersonal food and pride, and i can't get back, i can't get back, oh god i can never go back.

verdict: poor quality pizza, bad decor, go to taco bell