I still remember walking wide-eyed into Record Spectacular as a pre-teen with my mother. She had promised to buy me an album (remember those?) and I wisely chose the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers. Ever tolerant, my Mom ignored the Andy Warhol zipper fly album cover but she did take a good long look around at the bongs, Bambu rolling paper, and black lights…as Emerson, Lake and Palmer blared over the sound system. She was not pleased.

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends…

Rock and roll was a significant feature of my youthful development and spurred me to become a rather precocious concert-goer…having seen bands like Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Queen, the Allman Brothers, the Kinks, the Beach Boys, and Black Sabbath all before I turned 16. I even snuck into the Garden to see the Stones in 1975. They played “Sympathy for the Devil” for the first time since Altamont and Clapton joined them to jam.

Back then, Central Park was the regular site for the Shaefer Music Festival. For a mere buck-fifty, a juvenile rocker like me could behold Bruce Springsteen or Peter Frampton in their formative pre-fame years. In August 1974, New York City did something unimaginable for those of us mired in the Guiliani/Bloomberg/Disney era. The city offered a free concert in Central Park featuring two of the supreme pothead bands of that era: Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airman and The New Riders of the Purple Sage. The drink and drugs were plentiful…and everyone shared. Longhaired girls went topless and a small cloud of cannabis vapor wafted over the proceedings like a soothing fog. My adolescent buddies and I felt like we were knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door. One of my strongest non-sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll memories of that hazy afternoon involves protracted and raucous booing when WNEW-FM personality Allison “The Night Bird” Steele announced that Nelson Rockefeller had been named vice president. I didn’t completely comprehend then…I do now.

As I got older and rock concerts grew more expensive and less personal, I became a tad choosier with my music money. It wasn’t always easy deciding where and when to indulge. The Who at Shea Stadium: that was a mistake. U2 at the Meadowslands: worth the money and commute. They closed with a “40” sing-a-long that continued out into the parking lot and through the covered bridges you traversed to find your car. Another good decision was driving up with James “Q” Parravano to see Van Halen at New Haven. Like good little New Yorkers, we bought the cheapest available seats and proceeded to breeze past the Connecticut security…all the way down to the damn stage. I was a mere three feet from Eddie as he banged out the intro to “Mean Street” wearing that goofy grin of his.

All this rock and roll roaming eventually led me to make my own music. I sang and wrote lyrics for a band that included two members of Astoria royalty: Peter and Paul Vallone. Thanks to their supportive Mom, we practiced in the Vallone basement and cut a 4-track demo, but we never progressed beyond that. We never even named the band yet we did get invited to play a dance…but the deal fizzled. Pete and I differed over some of my lyrics. For obvious reasons, he didn’t like lines such as: “Our fathers show us paths that have proven/but into the past is where they are moving.” But I’m still convinced that at least one of our tunes, “Somewhere in Astoria,” was really something special. Go ahead and ask Pete, Jr. He’ll tell you.

Somewhere in Astoria…it can be found.

It was my ceaseless concert-going that led me to a new music-related avenue: band management. Guitarist John Carpente and I went to see White Lion at L’Amour’s in Brooklyn. The show rocked and we were mightily impressed, but on the way home, John casually mentioned he knew a guitarist who was better than Vito Bratta. I quickly mentioned a singer who could blow Mike Tramp off the stage. In short order, we hooked up Howie (with a voice to rival Freddie Mercury’s) and Anthony (Astoria’s guitar virtuoso)…and Cloak and Dagger was born. No record deals were signed, no giant concerts were played…but, as their manager, I experienced some rock and roll episodes I’d never trade. In the end, for me, watching Cloak and Dagger rock a jam-packed CBGB’s was Woodstock.

My ever-tolerant Mom grew to despise the sound of Mick Jagger’s voice but she did kinda like Cloak and Dagger…enough to differentiate between their version of “I’m the One” and Van Halen’s original. She once dragged my Dad and older sister to one of their gigs in Woodside. When I caught a glimpse of her enduring the ear-drum-threatening metal, I recalled what happened that afternoon after she bought me Sticky Fingers. We had lunch in a sit-down deli (the likes of which has been missing from Steinway St. for 20 years). As we dined, I couldn’t stop taking out my new album to admire it. Finally, Mom cracked.

“I wish you wouldn’t buy Rolling Stones’ albums,” she told me sternly. “All the money goes to drugs, you know.”

Mickey Z. is the author of the forthcoming novel, CPR for Dummies (Raw Dog Screaming Press), and can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.

I look around to check for reactions but I get nothing. Poker faces. One might be excused for thinking the people on the platform did not even hear the announcement (those wearing iPod earphones surely haven’t). We are being asked-check that-we’re being told to not only view desperate humans as law-breakers but also to ignore them. No one flinches.

Let’s rewind back to, say, 1973. If some sci-fi flick injected that exact pre-recorded spiel into a futuristic subway scene, we’d all have chuckled at the representation of such a callous–and highly unlikely–future.

The W Train arrives and we are soon in the tunnel under the East River (which is really an estuary but…) on our way to Queens. That’s when we get our next lesson in freedom in the form of announcement #2: “Passengers are advised that their backpacks and other large containers are subject to random search by the police.”

Again: no response. The words “subject to random” were just enforced upon the weary commuters in this tin can to hell but I’m left to wonder if I imagined it…because the decree doesn’t even warrant a raised eyebrow.

The W Train grinds to a halt and we’re treated to announcement #3: “Due to a sick passenger at Queensboro Plaza, we are being held momentarily. We will proceed as soon as possible. We’re sorry for the delay and we appreciate our patience.”

This broadcast is heard loud and clear. Immediately, everyone on the train sighs, sneers, and makes graphic gestures of rage. One guy not too far away from me yells out, “Fuck!” Extraordinary, huh? This man doesn’t have a single ounce of sympathy for another human being that is sick. All that matters to this misguided miscreant is that he is being inconvenienced.

In no time, the W Train begins to move. We can see the sky as we emerge from tunnel. Almost everyone around me pulls out a cell phone to check messages. Wouldn’t want to miss anything, would we?

__________________________________________________________

Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.

Dom’s wife (I never did get her name) was a different story. While she remained remarkably slim for a woman in her 50s, she was an extremely ugly woman by just about anyone’s standards. I’m no beauty snob and I’m not trying impose societal standards. This woman was just plain unattractive. The pounds of make-up she utilized to disguise this unsightliness only made it worse.

This odd couple always said hello to me but aside from the occasional comment about Dom’s silly truck or his wife’s looks, they remained relatively anonymous in my building and on my block…until one night.

My friends and I were standing around, as usual, when we heard Dom’s wife yelling at him in their bedroom. I paraphrase here but this is pretty damn close to her soliloquy: “I need a man! Make me feel like a woman, Dom! Don’t tell me you can’t! I am a sexual woman and I need man to fulfill my needs! I get all worked up and you can’t deliver! I should go out and find a real man to satisfy me!”

Lots of folks in my building also heard this tirade and, man, it instantly became legend. None of us could look at poor Dom the same way again. He’d shuffle out, stoop-shouldered, to his van and we’d snicker like idiots. We thought we had a right to judge the poor bastard…but things weren’t over for us with Dom’s wife.

Sitting on the stoop one night, I was talking serious sports with Hank and another friend, Chuck, who lived in my building. Dom’s kitchen window was directly to our right, light on, shades almost all the way down. Chuck, never as interested in sports as Hank and I, started to daze out with all our bullshit over RBI, ERA, and stuff like that. When he heard a clanging noise in Dom’s kitchen, Chuck squatted down and peeked in. His eyes grew wide and he called us over.

Dom’s wife was straightening up the kitchen in nothing but a long black t-shirt. It reached just past her navel and her pubic hair was exactly at our eye level. We sniggered like goddamned morons but I couldn’t help but notice her toned legs and firm butt. Dom’s wife kept herself in great shape and I found it very arousing that she walked around half-naked while doing chores. She wasn’t kidding when she told her husband she was a sexual woman.

Inevitably, Dom’s wife heard our juvenile laughing, froze in place, and yelled out for her beleaguered husband. It didn’t sound like: “Dom!” No, the sound dredged up from the depths of her soul sounded more like:

“Nnnnnnnnnnddddddddaaaaaaahhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnnnnn!!!!”

We took off before “nnnDom” showed up (he had forever earned a new nickname among our crew). About an hour later, when I was coming home for the night, her kitchen shade was pulled all the way down but it was too late. I knew a little more about the mysteries that lurked beyond.

This vivacious female who rides the N train with me regularly once appeared intriguing–that is, until I finally heard her speak. And that only happened a few weeks ago, when the subway car was particularly bustling and my fatigued frame conveniently happened to be jammed up against hers and that of one of her gum-chewing friends.

The redhead had always been a bit of puzzle to me. I’d seen her semi-regularly on this train and she seemed to keep to herself. In fact, this was the first time I had ever seen her with a friend. I don’t know, there was just something about her. Let’s just say the redhead carries herself with an air of assurance.

Then, one tragic day, the redhead became The Complainer. Like I said, she was conveniently jammed up against my fatigued frame and this not-displeasing position provided me with the opportunity to hear her spout out a ridiculous story to her cohort. Another myth was shattered instantaneously.

“I couldn’t believe Joey,” she bellowed in a voice that would chagrin Sly Stallone. “He comes home drunk and he knows we have the big bowling match last night.” Oh my. The Redhead speaks like a truck driver, has a husband who gets drunk before dinner, belongs to a bowling league, and discusses her personal life in public. How the mighty have fallen.

From there, she went on to particularize their distasteful dinner, their protracted fight, their monotonous bowling match, and her going off without him to stay at a girlfriend’s house. All of this was spiced with enough fucks, shits, and assholes to supply a George Carlin album or two, and she loudly implied that her sneaking off could have led to spending the night with an interested male friend, but she nobly resisted.

Today, she sits to my left with the same friend as ever: a bubble gum-chewing brunette with teased hair who’s wearing a dress that might–I repeat, might–look good on someone ten pounds lighter. The Redhead-turned-Complainer is whining about how Joey (he’s obviously still in the undoubtedly overcrowded picture) kept interrupting her during some TV show last night. It seems Joey baby wanted to get laid.

The brunette giggles and makes this eloquent public confession, “Tony’s like that, too. Hey, like, I like it, too, ya know, but sometimes, I mean, I’d rather, like, watch TV, you know . . .”

Fortunately, at that moment, it was time for me to switch to the #7 train.

The lights first dimmed on Monday, July 17—smack dab in the middle of a classic NYC heat wave. Over the next few days, as Con Ed dangerously underestimated the number of people affected, my neighborhood of Astoria joined Long Island City, Sunnyside, and Woodside in blackout mode. Veteran New Yorkers know the drill: flashlights, candles, food rotting in the fridge, neighbors sitting on the stoop swapping “where were you when the lights went out?” tales. But this was more than just supply and demand. According to the New York Times, “the electrical network for the area of Queens where 100,000 people endured a lengthy blackout had the most failures of any of the 57 underground networks in New York City for the last two years.” Those failures numbered 71 in 2005 and 60 in 2004. By comparison, Manhattan’s Upper East Side experienced 40 failures last year.

It isn’t hard to imagine Bloomberg reacting with a little more fervor if zip code 10021 lost its juice. Astoria, on the other hand, was left literally and figuratively in the dark. Theories abounded but no one really knew what was going on or when it would end. Fire engine sirens sounded all through the night, darkened traffic lights made every intersection an adventure, and manhole covers popped like champagne corks, but most disturbing were the smoking and burning power lines. This I had never seen. The thick black cables strung from wooden pole to wooden pole smoldered, smoked, and burst into flames as frightened residents looked on. News outlets, lulled by Con Ed’s undercount, focused instead on those without power due to a storm in well-heeled Westchester.

The New York Times also explained that several failures in the network “involved components that were 30 to 60 years old … One cable, which failed six times last year, had a 67-year-old component.” This got me thinking about Astoria’s sudden influx of yuppies. Starbuck’s, one-bedroom apartments going for $1500 a month, yoga classes, a community garden—my humble neighborhood is officially hip. So hip that my wife, Michele, wants me to get a t-shirt made up that reads: “Born in Astoria” so no one mistakes my shaved head as a feeble attempt at modish credentials. But I digress.

Astoria’s gentrification has resulted in the tearing down of houses to be replaced by small apartment buildings. Thus, a slice of real estate that may have once housed an aging widow is now home for a dozen or so of the upwardly mobile…each with two air conditioners, two computers, two televisions, and a microwave oven. It doesn’t require genius to imagine this trend impact a 67-year-old component. But then again, no one has ever mistaken power companies or politicians for Chomsky or Einstein.

Power has, for the most part, been restored in Astoria and the surrounding areas. Small businesses are desperately trying to recoup losses and, as they say, life is returning to “normal.” But if normal means we continue trusting those in power to do the right thing, maybe we need a new normal. If it means overusing electricity (which is generated by the burning of fossil fuels), taking for granted that lights will go on when we hit a switch, or maintaining our awed trust in technology, I’d say “normal” may be the real problem. If the Queens blackout can help us discover a more enlightened perspective, Con Ed and Mayor Bloomberg just may have done us a favor.

It could also alter the history of women’s tennis.

Back when Martina Navratilova was making the leap from very good tennis player to sports legend, fate placed her in a weight room with yours truly. There she was—looking buff—getting ready to do some triceps extensions. (A rather archaic exercise, it involves holding a small dumbbell in one hand and moving the forearm at the elbow joint.) The margin for error is huge, and Martina’s form wasn’t even close to correct.

Being a trainer—and wearing the uniform to prove it—allows someone like me to speak to someone like her without immediately being taken for a stalker. Hence, I walked over to the tennis star and used Generic Correction Line #1: “Can I show you another way to do that?” (This clever approach reduces the chances of a defensive reaction. You haven’t told anyone they’re wrong; you’re just offering an alternative. Yeah, right.)

Martina was gracious and picked up the proper form within seconds. She saved herself from a career-ending injury and women’s tennis has never been the same. For me, it was just another day hanging with the dumbbells.

A regular in the weight room was one Bruce Cutler, the late John Gotti’s lawyer. The barrel chested Cutler was a popular figure in the trendy gym . . . not only for his weight-lifting prowess and dedication, but for his mannerisms and jocular sense of humor. He’d never use a monosyllabic word when a longer, more captivating term could do the job so much better. For example, the gym was crowded and I was spotting a young woman on the bench press which involved me standing behind the bench and against a mirrored wall. Cutler and a training partner wanted to use the bench next. So, instead of asking if we had a lot more sets to do, he queried, “Are you deeply ensconced back there, sir?”

Everyone, and I mean everyone, called him “Counselor” and he would reciprocate by creating an appropriate nickname for all the regulars. Me, I was simply “Mr. Mike,” and he would forever badger me to introduce him to the female members of the gym staff . . . in particular, an African-American female he called “my dark princess.” I would tell him over and over that I wasn’t a pimp, he’d laugh that Cutler laugh, and then get me to spot him while doing heavy squats, all the while telling me how old he was getting.

Anyway, one incident really sums up his style. After setting up a bar on the squat rack and settling his thick frame underneath it to commence lifting, one of the nearby instructors shouted a warning to him that he had put more weight on one side of the bar than the other. Calmly and deliberately, Counselor Cutler stepped back and appraised the situation. After a beat, he announced: “It appears my sense of symmetry is somewhat askew.”

One can imagine the slight contrast in the response when Bruce Cutler was barred by the government from representing Gotti in the trial that eventually led to the Mafia Don’s life sentence. To me, whether or not Cutler had crossed the line from attorney to business associate was arduous to prove and the government had never succeeded in doing so. Instead, having been embarrassed by losing several high-profile cases against Gotti, the government cheated. It’s cut and dry. Cutler was simply too good, so they concocted a story to get rid of him and did not bother with due process.

It’s as fundamental as this: John Gotti deserves the same justice as any other American does. If we can curtail his rights because of who he is, then no one’s rights are safe. Unless, of course, you are a rich white male member of elite society . . . or a Hall of Fame athlete, for that matter.

Speaking of murderers not in prison, what about Gotti’s right hand man, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano? This guy confesses to nineteen murders–names, dates, times, everything–and he¹s walking around free, living off U.S. taxpayer dollars. And what really gets me pissed is that fact that he’s a published author, to boot.

What a system. You tell me, what’s the main difference between Gravano and Jeffrey Dahmer, besides dietary choices? Simple: Gravano had something the government wanted. That’s why he went free and Dahmer got knocked off in prison.

Nineteen corpses. That’s mass murder and the best our law enforcement agencies can do about it is make a deal. They wanted to nail a high-profile mafioso like Gotti so badly that they violated his rights by taking away his chosen counsel and then made a deal with the confessed mass murderer of 19 humans.

The United States vs. John Gotti, huh? How come we didn’t get to vote on how to pursue this case in our name? When was it my chance to have a say on how my tax dollars were depleted? Sure, John Gotti was a major league criminal but, from where I’m sitting, that doesn’t justify employing criminal tactics to convict him.

204 Center attracted a colorful array of characters. I lived within two blocks of “the projects,” so the games were pretty ethnically mixed and often fascinating. There was one Latin guy who never came to play, just to hang with his crew. He showed me the machete he always carried with him in case of trouble. He kept down the leg of his pants and would spend all night walking with a funny limp.

I remember one night—after smoking far too much herb—we got into a half-court game with some guys from the projects. Things were confusing and seemed to be moving slower than usual, but my outside shot was on…and I found myself getting noticed by the older guys. I can still feel the pride I felt when they complimented me.

We haven’t come far from our tribal roots.

Later that night, I walked past some black girls who were sitting on the sidelines. They were all about 18. One smiled at me and said: “What’s happening?”

She was slim and very pretty: a little girl face with a woman’s body and attitude. I did not know how to react to her, so I just smiled and started to make my way across the gym. To my surprise, she called me over for a lesson.

“When someone says ‘what’s happening’ to you, you either say ‘nothing’ or ‘me,’ okay?”

I smiled and said, “Yeah.” A cool 18-year-old black girl had taken the time to school my 14-year-old white ass and I was real pleased with myself.

There was one black guy, a few years older than me, who ruled 204 Center. I recall his name as Mickey Sessums. He didn’t come to the center too often but when he did, we all stopped to watch. Another guy who peaked at a young age, Mickey was far and away the best player in 204 and this notoriety did not escape the girls who came inside to stay warm and meet boys.

Mickey made a move on a white girl in my class. Her name was Annie and she made little or impression on any of us. You didn’t even know Annie was there…she wasn’t particularly attractive in that eighth grade sense. But she stunned us by hanging with Mickey at 204 and eventually becoming his girl. Being 14-year-old provincial dopes, we called her “Annie Black Cock,” but only behind her back. None of us wanted Mickey coming after us for messing with her.

I’ll tell you what: I sure looked at Annie in a different light after that. I suddenly felt like a 14-year-old provincial dope…while she was a sophisticated woman of the world. When I would run into her on Mickey’s arm, he’d nod and she’d just smile at me like I was a silly little boy…which, of course, I was.

During my tenure, the Typical Male Member (sorry again) displayed his Rolex even while lifting weights. His eyes were adept at admiring himself while searching for women simultaneously using the same mirrors. He’d often wear a Walkman with the sound off so that he could hear what the female members (and employees) were saying about him. When he the earphones came off, common topics of conversation were how much he could bench when he was in college, BMW dealers, skiing exploits, and, of course, sexual braggadocio.

The Typical Female Member would spend a half-hour putting on make-up before her workout and wear a g-string leotard with see-through tights to display her buns of steel. Her hair was well coiffed, her nails freshly manicured, and she always wore her jewelry on the gym floor. She was obsessed enough to spend literally hours exercising on aerobic machines to ensure low body fat, but was not practical enough to cut down her partying and drinking. Common topics of conversation: house shares in the Hamptons, which aerobic teacher was doing coke, and, of course, plastic surgeons. Most amusing were the nightly Stairmaster battles. Whenever a woman would attempt to circumnavigate the 15-minutes-during-prime-time-rule, the ensuing catfight would make Vince McMahon drool.

Thanks to its once-ritzy reputation, the Vertical Club attracted its share of stars and this presented me with the honor of witnessing the behavior patterns of media-created celebrities and their pompous disdain for our gym rules. It also gives me the chance to play Michael Musto and offer some blind items:

****Which muscle-bound box office sensation (who was much more famous in the 80s), when faced with a female fan in her forties who insisted on following him around the gym in the hope of feeling his muscles, offered to “work her out”? Yep, with more than a few nudges and winks to the gym staff, he put this woman through a training routine that would floor a horse. All the while, he playfully slapped her butt and told her that she has to “tighten up.” The woman did her best, but soon gave up, panting as our boy told us to “mop her up.” (She wasn’t seen again for several weeks.)

****Name this celebrity: This was another muscle movie star who was also much, much more famous in the 80s. He trained with two bodyguards in tow and defied the rule that restricted members from wearing tank tops; he insisted on watching those famous muscles in the mirror. When informed of his illegal behavior, VC staff members rebuffed by his bodyguards. “Don’t bother him when he’s working out,” they warned. But poetic justice reigned supreme. Using a leg press machine, Mr. Tough Guy put on a little too much poundage and soon found himself trapped under the weight, screaming for his bodyguards to rescue him while the gym staff watched and laughed.

****Which investigative journalist-turned-social climber spent all his time either checking out babes or admiring himself in the mirror? He regularly worked with any one-on-one trainer he could find, but supposedly never paid for this service–a habit that reportedly got him into trouble at a downtown gym some years later (talk about following the money). None of the trainers ever wanted to work with him because he would rarely talk for the entire session unless it was to inquire about a new female member. ****Which pre-Monica scandalite had a distinctive, high-pitched drawl that became a running joke with trainers imitating her? She never stopped whining and no trainer wanted any part of her. This led to many confrontations with employees and, I was told, if she wasn’t regularly taking dictation from a big shareholder in Bally (they used to own the VC), she would’ve have been tossed out. When asked about her job by a female member, our gal sneered, “Honey, I fuck for money, what do you do?” Guess she still can’t type. ****Which local newsman’s inveterate prowling led to the following rumor? (Although I cannot vouch for its veracity.) Mr. Anchor dated an employee for some time while she cheated on him with a macho male trainer. When the woman became pregnant with the trainer’s child, she told the newsman it was his and he paid for the abortion.

****Which face that launched a thousand romance novels was something of a joke to the gym staff with his endless sexual bragging and his chest-revealing outfits? His description of the opposite sex was anything but romantic. He told us ad nauseam, “Women, I spit on them.” He extrapolated: “I fuck them for hours and do not break a sweat. They cannot keep up with me.” To him, the Vertical Club was “like a candy store. I see what I want and I take it.” One member who lived across the street from Mr. Body Beautiful told me that he’d watch him with a telescope as he entertained an endless parade of females who gladly submitted to his Neanderthal charms (and loudly boasted about it afterwards). However, there was one female member out of his reach. In fact, she was homeless.

The many labyrinthine stairways at the Vertical Club served many purposes–a “lounge” area for the underpaid trainers or a secret hideaway for sex, doing drugs, etc. These hideaways also provided a comfortable home for a female Verticalite who had been reduced to offering sexual favors to the porters in return for a roof over her head. The presence of Paula in the bowels of the gym was a well-kept secret among a select few for some time. The VC’s upper echelon of management chose to ignore her presence and the many Spanish-speaking porters who frequented all areas of the facility spoke of her in hushed and knowing tones. That is, until a coat belonging to an aerobics teacher disappeared one night. She asked for help and the staff searched the gym fruitlessly before bringing the matter to the attention of the health club’s vice president. This VC mainstay was notorious for having the demeanor of an attack dog and changing moods at the drop of a Nautilus pin. The aerobics teacher was dismissed after Mr. Vice President forced her to sit through one of his inarticulate tirades, this one about leaving her property unguarded. The matter seemed to be over until the next day when myself and another gym employee were give ourselves a guided tour of the notorious rendezvous spots in the massive spa. Upon opening a well-hidden door that leads to a catwalk above the gym, I was stunned to find a woman sleeping under a blanket. I closed the door and asked my tour partner about this. He happened to be Spanish and he told me of rumors from the porters about “Paula” who lived in the gym and would have sex with them. We headed back to the gym floor to decide what to do about Paula when we suddenly noticed that she had followed us out into the club. I immediately recognized the coat she was wearing as belonging to the aerobics teachers. We had found our thief. Like Starsky and Hutch, we followed Paula onto the elevator and proceeded to question her about the coat. Instinctively, she went on the offensive and grew indignant that anyone would accuse her of such a thing. As this situation became more and more amusing, I backed off and watched as she bought an orange drink from the juice bar and calmly exited the gym. All this was reported to the bosses and was greeted with knowing nods and grins. The story I got was that Paula was a member of the gym who had hit the skids. She lost her job and got evicted from her apartment, so she used her expired Vertical Club membership card to sneak in. To this day, I don’t know whatever happened to her.

At the time, I wrote an article that questioned the strategy of only protesting the Republicans when the Democrats are barely distinguishable. I asked: “Where was the planned-for-months-in-advance outrage in Boston last month? The Hitler mustaches? The warnings about fascism? The cataloging of candidate crimes?” I also pondered the efficacy of “anti-authority types submitting to New York’s demands for polite opposition restricted to a pre-determined venue.” I summed up, calling this the “Michael McMoore era of dissent” and declared I would skip town during the RNC (I did spend two days at my in-laws’ house on Long Island but was back home in Astoria for at least half the convention.).

The result of my stance was a predictable mélange of misinterpretation by design, overreaction, and personal attack. Most interesting was the righteousness. Individuals much younger than I essentially branded me a traitor and scoffed at my absence. My commitment and activist “credentials” were being seriously questioned . . . as it were. Fine. I’ve heard much worse and my skin is NYC-thick.

Yet, although I’m aware how sincere and dedicated many of the demonstrators were, I kept hearing a line from The Clash over and over in my head:

“I believe in this and it’s been tested by research: He who fucks nuns will later join the church”

Even in the face of urgent issues, dissent is a marathon…not a sprint. Activism is not about hating one man or even one party . . . it is holistic.

Twenty-somethings making clever Dick and Bush jokes may cultivate a more nuanced understanding of the “system” but, sadly, many will lose faith and focus . . . many will embrace compromise and denial.

What do my youthful critics know of my choices and sacrifices? Sure, I’m not digging ditches in Myanmar and I have no desire to overstate my meager hardships, but how many of those who paraded through Manhattan for a few hours on a Sunday will stay the course, evolve, and maintain an open mind over the next few decades . . . when, as Tyson warns, they get hit? How many will stick to the plan?

Reality: Carrying a sign when you’re 21 rarely translates to remaining steadfast into your 40s . . . and beyond.