For the longest time, I wanted to move to upstate New York.
We do go up to pumpkin pick in the fall, but really not upstate, while we travel an hour or so from NYC, upstate is considered further up, and we did that this past weekend.
One of my cousins got married in Hudson County, at a place called the Basilica, so we all headed up to there. Other cousins, my immediate family and everyone trekked up.
I took two planes from Miami. The smaller plane from Washington, DC to Albany was quite cramped. My carry on bag didn’t fit! I had to cram it in.
The best part was the lake house one of my brothers arranged. It was something I had pictured in my head for a long time. And there it was in person.
It was very large, on a lot of acreage, on Lake Sleepy Hollow – not to get confused with the town of Sleepy Hollow, which is south of this place.
My cousins, my family and I enjoyed the area, only it’s quite boring if there are no other people around. While I had always wanted to live up there, I think I need more civilization.
The wedding was beautiful and I met up with relatives who I hadn’t seen since the last wedding a few years ago.
It was a memorable weekend. something I’ll always remember. A few days later, we drove down to the city and I’m in NYC now for a small while.
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It’s the 50th anniversary of Jaws this weekend. 50 years!
It’s one of my favorite movies. I think I’ve seen it over 50 times. I can repeat all the dialogue as they are saying it. NBC had a showing on Friday night, but they screwed up the whole thing by having a commercial every five minutes – totally annoying and not worth it.
You can see Jaws all over the place if you want to, so you don’t have to deal with NBC’s commercialization.
AMC or one of those channels is always showing it, mostly in summer months, but I’ve already seen it twice in the last month or so.
I grew up in Miami, so I was at the beach almost daily. Sometimes for an hour, sometimes for three or five hours. Sometimes with a lot of people, sometimes alone. And I’ve always been in the water – the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, and I’m happy to say in all those years, I have never come across a shark, not that I know of.
I’ve had stingrays, fly over my head, and I’ve had schools of hundreds of small fish swim around my body in shallow water – it’s very ticklish – but never sharks.
The thing about the movie is the town – Martha’s Vineyard, which is the town of Amity, in the movie. I am not so much into the climax secenes, the last part of the movie when they are out in the boat going after the shark. But of course the most famous line come from that, which I used in the cartoon above, “You’re going to need a bigger boat!”
That line was apparently adlibed at the moment by Roy Scheider, police chief, Martin Brody. He had tried using it in other scenes, but this time it was perfect. The line was actually used by the cast and crew throughout the filming of water scenes. The crew boat – the boat that was used for the cameras and film crew was too small and always a problem while shooting.
Every time something didn’t fit or there wasn’t room, an inside joke on the set, or rather out in the water, was, ‘”You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
Roy thought it was funny and would slip it in during takes at various parts of the movie, which of course were not used in the finished cut of the film, but the part where it did fit and was funny and added levity to the scene was just perfect and to this day, it is one of the most famous movie lines.
Another thing that I love, which I have never seen in other movies, is that in almost every scene, you hear the people speaking in the background – when they are on the beach or in town hall or wherever, or even in the kitchen in the house, you hear the background people speaking, along with the dialogue spoken by the main characters up front in the scene. Ever notice that?
I saw the Jaws animatronic used in the movie some years back at a Universal tour in Hollywood. It’s still so popular today. I think it was in the Gilligan’s Island lagoon, of all places.
I love the small town life. New England is one of my favorite places. I always think of moving there or near there for part of the year. Every time I tell someone that, I get, “But the winter! But the cold!” And that comes mostly from Miami people, who bundle up when it hits 70 degrees.
I would like to be up north for three seasons, and down in Miami for winters.
In a week I will be in Hudson New York for a cousin’s wedding. That’s some place I might consider. It’s almost New England, it’s a few miles from three New England states – Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut. At home, I often watch the NBC Connecticut 6 pm news on Roku, and I like it up there. One thing – I had to look up spelling for Massachusetts and Connecticut, so I guess it’s best that I learn how to spell the places before I consider moving there.
I go upstate pumpkin and apple picking every fall, but New York state people will tell you that where I go – Poughkeepsie (had to look that spelling up, too), Sleepy Hollow, etc. are not considered upstate, Upstate is further up the Hudson River, apparently.
So I’ll check out Hudson with my family next week and we may go to the Berkshires in Massachusetts, which I always wanted to see.
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It’s a whole process. I no longer get press passes after 15 years of that, so I have to purchase the tickets now and wait in line, online, like everyone else.
You have to be fan verified, and get a time and date to get on and buy the tickets. Mine was 10 am Sunday morning, the first thing, the first group, but of course if you get online at that very moment, there is a long wait to get your access to the tickets. My wait was 20 minutes, not that bad.
Who are these people that are always there, first in line? In person, you see them in tents, camping outside venues for a week to buy something like an Nintendo Switch or concert tickets.
By the way, NYCC is Oct. 9-12, and the tickets sell out fast.
For so many years, I wrote for the Huffington Post and other publications and I received press passes, which made me feel important, but best of all, I didn’t have to wait in any lines and I had access to everything for all four days.
To be honest, I think I outgrew the whole thing, but since I’m a cartoonist, I feel it’s my duty to go, but it seems that Comic Cons have gone from being comic oriented, to movies, games and tv, which make up the bulk of it all.
One of my cousins works for a company that sells original cartoon art. His company has a booth at the cons and last year when I finally found his booth, he was telling me how the actual comics are all confined to a small area now, almost being forced out of their namesake event. I can’t even find the cartoon syndicates now. I’m not sure they show up anymore.
The best part of course is the cosplay, you know, people dressed up as their favorite tv and movie characters. But I do like to mix and mingle with other cartoonists and organizations. I could have sat and worked the National Cartoonists Society booth, but I declined. I’m not sure why, that way I would have free access and get to meet many of my peers. Maybe next year.
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A Metro-North Hudson Line train along the Hudson River
We’re going to a wedding this summer in upstate New York, one of my favorite places. I say we, because there are a lot of us – my immediate family including all my cousins.
After that, we are all heading back down to NYC. I had booked a train ticket, because I was going to leave before everyone else, but now everyone is headed down to the city on the same day, so I canceled the train ticket and I’ll ride with one of them in their cars.
I sort of regret it because the trains to and from New England, and upstate New York go through incredible vistas.
What’s interesting is that when trains were new in the 1830s and 1840s and beyond, the tracks were built going through towns that were big and small – mostly small towns and some not even existent yet.. So if you take a train trip these days, you pass through and stop at stations that are literally in the center of town. You can get off the train and be in a coffee shop, library, hotel or whatever, in what literally is steps away, in many places.
I’ve taken the train from Boston to NYC often and it’s amazing how you ride through and stop at the center of towns like Providence, RI; Mystic CT; New London, CT and so many more small towns. It’s how it was done in the past.
Upstate New York trains take you right next to the Hudson River, literally feet away. If the tracks were built today, I would guess that waterfront property would be full of houses and buildings, feet from the water. But luckily it’s not that way due to the train’s right of way. It’s a wide open view.
These small towns grew up around the train stations so it makes a lot of sense.
I believe if the trains were platted today, they most likely would be in warehouse districts or unseen places, away from the cities, sort of like airports, where we would have to Uber into town.
But since train tracks are permanent, we get to see the cities and towns that they encouraged to grow over the years. And in the beginning, they were built close to and inside of towns, and where there were no towns, towns were started and grew up.
A train ride is an adventure in itself. It’s about the journey, not the destination.
There’s a tv show I’ve seen called Mighty Trains, where this guy Teddy Wilson takes us on a trip through various countries – from one end to another. It’s enjoyable all because of the scenery and small towns along the way.
Another show I have seen in Railroad Alaska, where we follow two trains which travel from southern Alaska daily – one a passenger train, the other freight. The adventure comes in where the track workers have to clear the tracks of Alaskan elements – landslides, broken tracks, avalanches, etc. All while the railroads are running.
People live along the routes and flag the trains down to catch a ride – there are no stations along the way. It’s quite enjoyable.
If you have the time – train travel is worth the trip; and adventure. There are books here geared to train travel in the U.S. and around the world. Check them out for a new type of adventure.
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I was cleaning out the closet and I came across an old pair of cowboy boots. Cowboy boots! I only wore them once, years ago, and that day I was stopped by the FBI or airport security, not sure who they were.
This was way before 9/11 so flying wasn’t as troublesome as it is today. I was going to a wedding in Cleveland and I had to make one stop on the way – in Atlanta, I was coming from Miami.
I was at the Atlanta airport between flights reading the papers, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, which were two separate newspapers at the time – today they are combined as one. Anyway, I can picture myself sitting with the paper up to my face reading.
Two guys in suits come up to me. I don’t remember the exact words, but they wanted to know what was in my boot! I don’t know if they followed me all the way from Miami or just spotted me in Atlanta, but they saw me reach into my boot a couple of times.
George Costanza and his bulging wallet.
I slowly reached in and took out my wallet! I was carrying my wallet in my boot. Back then I carried a full wallet, sort of like George Costanza’s wallet, and it was more comfortable to not sit on it on the planes.
I explained to them I was going to Cleveland and just holding the wallet there and whatever. They may have felt foolish, but they were being cautious and I understand that.
One of the guys said he wanted to look in my luggage, I guess to throw off their embarrassment. I told him it was on the plane headed to Cleveland with me. And that if they wanted, the could follow me to Cleveland and look at it there.
I remember their final words exactly, “Maybe we will.”
As they walked away, I shrunk back into my seat and went back to reading my newspapers, as all the people in that area of the airport stared at me.
The guys never did meet up with me in Cleveland and that was the end of that story. But that was the one and only time I wore those boots. Not because of the wallet incident, just because they were uncomfortable and I’m not a cowboy.
That was the first and last time I ever took a connecting flight. But I do have a connecting flight coming up in June for another wedding. So let’s see how this trip goes. I’ll let you know.
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This guy was trying to sneak into Rome with a fake passport and he did not have Schengen authority and was banned from all the Schengen countries. There are 29 of them!
If you don’t know, like I didn’t, The Schengen Area encompasses 29 European countries that have officially abolished border controls at their mutual borders. They are sort of treated like states. For instance if you are in Italy, you can easily go to France or Spain or Austria, Germany, Greece, etc. Just as we pass through from Maine to Vermont, to New York.
From Wikipedia: “The common visa policy allows nationals of certain countries to enter the Schengen Area via air, land or sea without a visa for stays of up to 90 days within a 180-day period. Nationals of certain other countries are required to have a visa either upon arrival or in transit.”
This started in 1985 and grew to the current roster and became an official thing in 1995.
I find it interesting, because these days, I often think of moving to Italy and getting my Italian citizenship – and having two – U.S. and Italian.
I was at JFK in NYC once and a TSA agent grabbed my luggage. “Whose luggage is this?” he bellowed. (JFK, NYC, TSA – sounds like code language).
“Mine!” I said, as I raised my hand. I walked over to the luggage.
“Don’t touch it!” he yelled.
“I know, I watch, ‘To Catch A Smuggler!’ I answered.
He laughed and said, “So do I.”
It was a pair of tiny scissors that set of the alarm in the end. It was a funny experience and I tell it often, in fact, I have told it here before.
American Airlines is trying out this new boarding system, to avoid the “gate lice” problem. You’ve seen it. I just saw it yesterday when I was flying – that’s people who rush to the gate to be the first on the plane, whether their group is called or not.
I fly first class a lot only because I use frequent flyer miles by paying for things for my business with credit cards that give me miles. So I am usually in Group 1.
But even if I think I am one of the first on the plane, there is always someone sitting in the aisle seat where I have to ask them to move so I can get to my window seat. Always.
I give them a dirty look, which they probably don’t notice, but I boycott them during the flight by not speaking to them. I find them to be real “gate lice” and “hogs.”
They say people do this to get the best overhead bin space, maybe that’s it, I usually travel with a small bag that fits under the seat, so I don’t feel the need to rush onto the plane for any reason.
Right now, the new American Airlines boarding system is in Albuquerque, NM and Tucson, Arizona. The system works like this – if your group is not called for boarding, a beep will go off – a loud beep, which will alert the gate agent and the rest of the travelers, I would guess, that alerts everyone that you are not supposed to be boarding the plane yet.
So if you are group 7 and trying to get in with group 1, that ain’t gonna work.
I love that. I find these gate lice people obnoxious as hell. They all rush to the gate to stand and block everyone else. I guess they don’t realize the plane isn’t gonna leave without them. But maybe it all comes down to the overhead bin space again. So maybe they have a point. Who knows.
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