When I used to have a steady job at the law office, I could always travel in style — flying to places, using major airlines and even staying in actual hotels. Those days are long gone.
These days it’s all about taking the Greyhound or the MegaBus or using cheapo airlines that don’t allow luggage, and sleeping on couches. But still. It gets me there. Use it or lose it. Anything to get to New York.
On this trip I’m going to do some new things while I’m there — stay in Harlem, follow the trail of the Harlem Renaissance, relive my youth spent in the second balcony of the Apollo Theater and, hopefully, eat at the Red Rooster.
But I’m also going to do some things that are the same — attend the grand BookExpo America at the Javits Center, eat borsch and rice pudding at B&H Dairy on the Lower East Side and take a bus past the United nations building, giving it the one-finger salute for its role in enabling all those NATO/American/Saudi/Israeli brutal, inhumane and criminal massacres in the Middle East to go on and on and on and on and on. http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/Events/An-Evening-with-Senator-Bernie-Sanders/
At the BookExpo, I’m gonna once again attempt to peddle my four wonderful books to the publishers and attendees there. “Librarians! Listen up!” I’ve just finished re-reading my first book, “Bring your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today’s Middle East” — and it’s as funny and accurate and crucially important today as it was back in 2007. https://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Yes, all of that shite that I wrote about back then is still going on today — and from Afghanistan to Gaza, America is still the biggest problem in the Middle East. And we Americans are still sleeping on couches and pinches pennies to pay for it too.
And New York City is still well worth a trip on the red-eye.
