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It was a simple question. “Do you want to be interviewed for
Spanish television?” Lefty asked me. He wasn’t aware that I spend my days doing
nothing, waiting for phone calls e-mails letters from agents producers writers
artists. Did I want to leave the home? That was the real question.
Lefty, the Jinx Project’s El Caudillo, passed my contact info on to the Spanish producer. The show was called Nosolomusica (Not Just Music) for Telecinco. Five of them were flying in from Madrid. From this I guessed that they, like me, would be good-looking and that they, unlike me, would hate President Bush. I also suspected that they would want to go on a mission with us. On all three counts I was correct.
"There’s never been anything like this on Spanish television," the producer told me. His name, of course, was Fernando.
Calling agents for missions has recently fallen to me, as Libertine Director of Outreach. Steve Duncan, Director of Research, was quick to agree. Rounding out the tight ship was our new Agent Kari.
Eight people skulking around with a camera and a boom microphone would make us quite conspicuous. This in addition to the heightened security all around New York City: The Republicans are coming. The Republicans are coming.
Then I remembered a suggestion I received a few weeks back. Asbury Park. Tons of deserted buildings, supposedly. I went on-line. There were several sites, the best of which reports that it’s a ghost town, that exploring is safe. We had our crew and we had our destination.
We had our mission.
Marcia, an acquaintance of mine, grew up in Asbury Park. It was the place to be in its day, like Coney Island back then or a recent Atlantic City. The Rolling Stones played the town, and the Beach Boys. Barry Goldwater made a campaign stop in the Convention in 1964. “We never locked our doors,” Marcia gushed. “It was like the stereotypical 1950s you hear about, all the way until the end. All the lights, all the people. You only needed to work during the summer, when the crowds came. You’d make enough money to last you the whole year. I haven’t been back in twenty years,” she confessed. “I couldn’t bear to go. I still see it as it was, in my mind’s eye.”
As banal as it is to point this out, the human mind is an immensely complex instrument. My internal clock is very reliable; when it is time for work I wake up within a minute of the alarm so I need not hear its horrid whine. But part of my mind does not trust the section charged with awakening; I dreamt about oversleeping. Then I woke up two hours early. I showered and got dressed in the official Jinx uniform. Sunglasses, a suit. I packed a flashlight and a camera, and some books to read en route. I printed out directions, as well as the Spanish translation for Libertine Director of Outreach (Director libertino de relaciones vecinales). The Spaniards would ask me why I am a libertine. “Me molan las zorras en apuros,” I would tell them. (Ask someone who speaks Spanish.)
The Spaniards were very happy to see us. They’re spending a week here, trying to give a flavor of New York to their home audience. We were suddenly not dilettantes but unofficial ambassadors. I checked my tie.
Fernando apologized; we needed to make a brief stop at the Chelsea Hotel. There was some unpleasantness. He had wanted to interview the owner, who was annoyed that they were staying elsewhere. Everyone knows that Sid killed Nancy there many years ago, the blood reportedly still staining the floor. But contrary to rumor, the room is still in use. Someone’s apartment. What everyone has forgotten is that the hotel was almost burned down in the ‘67 by the original Paris Hilton, Edie Sedgwick. Edie liked speedballs: a needleful of heroin in one arm and amphetamine in the other. Sometimes straight dope would do, and occasionally the
Poor Little Rich Girl would nod out with a cigarette in hand. The fire
was after Edie had been a member of the Velvet Underground.
The drive through Jersey, over an hour, was uneventful. We passed by a sign that says “Deaf Child Area,” a sign that I as a lover of irony had never heard of. Then we pulled into Asbury Park proper.
There are two types of dead towns that I am familiar with. The first is the great edifices built by ancient Egypt, lavish monuments to the deceased. But Egyptian culture was not based on death per se; rather, it was marked by an obsession with the afterlife, which isn’t the same. What we have so arrogantly dubbed The Book of the Dead they themselves referred to as The Book of Coming Forth by Day, which posits a new life [sic] where the blessed would spend eternity riding in the sun god’s barge and being waited on by slaves. The tombs are colorful, vibrant after literally thousands of years. Pharaohs were buried with their ships, several now uncovered and reassembled worldwide. This was not a macabre culture.
The other is Coney Island, where I lived during my teenage years. No one can deny that Coney is a shadow of a shadow of its former self. The neighborhood once affectionately called Sodom by the Sea has degenerated into a ghetto. Yet the buildings still stand, the rides still run. The same ocean casts salt into the air. If the people are low-rent, there are still many of them around.
There is a third type of town, and this is the type that Asbury Park belongs to. The structures are there and signs still call out to the crowd, there is no one there. No one. It is in a literal sense post-apocalyptic: the end came, and we were left to see the remains of this community.
There was a two-story building covered, like everything in Asbury, in Art Deco stylizations. One could see a brazier above, which might have been lit during special events. The structure was entirely boarded up. There wasn’t even much graffiti. No point, since no one would see the tags.
That Big Sky feeling
Next door was the Casino, a huge empty space where husbands gambled while their wives waited for them back in hotel rooms. Panes of glass were missing.
Gambling on structural integrity
Four mythological sea-horses once guarded the roof. Three remained, one preparing to bolt.
"Tell my mare that I love her."
On the beach were two old people. The thin man and his fat wife reminded me of Jack Sprat and his beloved. They stared at us as if they were feral, unsure of what to make of the humans in their territory. We looked inside some cracks in a building which had housed a carousel. It too was empty.
More doors closed forever.
There were a few laborers about on the beach. The boardwalk, Asbury Park prime-time, had been entirely replaced. It seemed to be lower than it had been.
New and improved.
Near it remained a ramp that went nowhere. I stood under the ramp and spoke about the history of the town. Race riots in the ‘70s. The police didn’t know what to do. They had perhaps only had to concern themselves with speeding tickets before. And then, White Flight. Fernando thanked me. I hoped that my voice would sound sexy dubbed into Spanish.
"...and that's how I became King of the Morlocks."
Asbury has supposedly been on the verge of a comeback for years. The neighboring towns (really, adjacent neighborhoods) were utterly normal. Quality land does not lie fallow for long without some reason. Zoning must be the culprit, I guessed. We saw a billboard announcing the rebuilding of Asbury Park. It had fallen over.
Somehow the sign is now more informative.
Kari and I took a stroll down the length of the boardwalk, about the length of 2 Manhattan avenues. A booth that once sold hot dogs was now labeled The Crack Shack. But there weren’t any drug dealers around, nor any junkies. I couldn’t even find a vial. In the distance was an apartment complex. It was almost complete. Eleven stories of framework were done, and one side of the exterior. Sheet metal banged against the walls in the wind. Loud. You could hear it anywhere in Asbury. Staircases were exposed to the elements, and rust showed on the girders. The building had been clanging in protest for years, its construction abandoned.
It gets more depressing...
At the end of the boardwalk was the Paramount Theater (or Theatre, depending on the sign). We tried the door. Locked. I peeked in and saw a Pepsi machine. As we turned away, a Mexican laborer opened the entrance. We asked if we could go in for a moment. This man who sweats to rebuild Americana managed to explain to us that he doesn’t speak English. Pat Buchanan must have been spinning in his grave.
Now Playing: Nothing
On the way back we passed by a real estate office. Perhaps we could ask the realtor to show us around, I mused, claiming to want to buy a casino. A new low in Urban Exploration. Dared I be responsible for bringing about Jinx’ nadir? No, I decided. I’d driven away one of the Project’s founders. I couldn’t be responsible for Lefty fleeing to Austin as well.
Past the realtor’s was a basement. Kari walked in while I kept a lookout. The cops, with nothing to do, had been circling the strip. “It’s full of pipes, with a big tunnel,” she said. “Duncan would love this.” The Director of Research had a justly acquired reputation for plowing his way through dirty holes. He was not as delicate a man as I. We returned to gather the group. I noticed all the deteriorating parking meters, farcical in their presence. Duncan went into the basement with the film crew.
A man pulled up, suspicious. “What are you guys doing?” he asked.
“We’re filming for a documentary,” I told him.
“You need a permit for that.”
“Come on, man. It’s not a big deal. It’s for Spanish TV. Just a piece of the history of the town.”
“You’re not going into my basement, are you?”
“No,” I lied.
“You need to get a permit,” he repeated.
“Look at me,” I told him. “I’m in a suit. I’m no hooligan. I’m not here to mess things up.”
He drove off and parked his car. I called for the team to evacuate the basement. They scurried out quickly.
Our final destination was an abandoned hotel. Just because you wouldn’t want to live in Asbury Park needn’t imply that you’d want to visit there. There were several piles of clothes in the lightless basement, laid out as if a squatter had evaporated. In one closet we found a stuffed bookbag. Inside was someone’s stash of porn.
The hotel's wallpapers.
Upstairs the plates were in stacks on the kitchen floor, an Antiques Roadshow wet dream.
A dining time capsule.
Past that was a ballroom. The chandeliers were falling down. The mirrors were broken. A wing of the hotel had collapsed.
Way too evocative.
The view down the elevator shaft.
We toured the rooms upstairs. Behind some of the mirrors was newspaper meant to hold them in place. An unexposed sheet from 1925 looked newer than something from today; a cartoon from 1926 had meanwhile turned orange.
Panel 1: Worker-Boss, I'm all upset. My little girl has a sore throat. Boss-It's a joke the way you guys worry about your children. Take things as they come. It's all in the game.
Panel 2: Caller-The baby stepped on a tack. Boss-What?!
There were many women’s shoes on the floor for some reason. An empty box of Saltines, a tine of Ajax. The can of Country Club malt liquor gave me a smile.
Ooh, classy.
Then I saw some writing scratched into the door. I let out a gasp like people make on cartoons, ridiculously melodramatic.
If you find my body tell my family I love them + tell my kids and the Moms I'm sorry. DeCarlo
I'm sorry kids. Morgan, Tamara, DeCarlo Jr., Angel There Moms are Jeanmarie Connors, Diola Perez, Tharesa Dolly. Sorry for Failing. I love u. Sorry Molly O'Keefe. I [heart] u.
It was a suicide note. Adjacent to the room a burst stained the bathtub. Duncan was convinced that it was a hoax. I don’t know.
Your guess is as good as mine.
The cameraman ran out of tape so we went to the van and signed release forms. I asked if I had my translation right. “You do,” Francisco said. “But Libertine Director, it sounds like a joke.” I opened my bag and showed him the book I was reading. 120 Days of Sodom, the Marquis de Sade’s masterwork. We laughed. I called colleagues to get ready for our return to New York; the Spaniards wanted to speak with as many Jinx agents as possible.
Everyone nice and pretty?
It was Lefty and Tibbie, Jinx’ Public Image Media Planner, who joined us for the balance of the interview. We set up on top of the Williamsburg Bridge, but things were too loud. We headed down to the waterside. We needed several takes: boats went by, joggers interrupted the shot. The Spaniards were frustrated by all the sound.
But I wasn’t.
Lefty, the Jinx Project’s El Caudillo, passed my contact info on to the Spanish producer. The show was called Nosolomusica (Not Just Music) for Telecinco. Five of them were flying in from Madrid. From this I guessed that they, like me, would be good-looking and that they, unlike me, would hate President Bush. I also suspected that they would want to go on a mission with us. On all three counts I was correct.
"There’s never been anything like this on Spanish television," the producer told me. His name, of course, was Fernando.
Calling agents for missions has recently fallen to me, as Libertine Director of Outreach. Steve Duncan, Director of Research, was quick to agree. Rounding out the tight ship was our new Agent Kari.
Eight people skulking around with a camera and a boom microphone would make us quite conspicuous. This in addition to the heightened security all around New York City: The Republicans are coming. The Republicans are coming.
Then I remembered a suggestion I received a few weeks back. Asbury Park. Tons of deserted buildings, supposedly. I went on-line. There were several sites, the best of which reports that it’s a ghost town, that exploring is safe. We had our crew and we had our destination.
We had our mission.
Marcia, an acquaintance of mine, grew up in Asbury Park. It was the place to be in its day, like Coney Island back then or a recent Atlantic City. The Rolling Stones played the town, and the Beach Boys. Barry Goldwater made a campaign stop in the Convention in 1964. “We never locked our doors,” Marcia gushed. “It was like the stereotypical 1950s you hear about, all the way until the end. All the lights, all the people. You only needed to work during the summer, when the crowds came. You’d make enough money to last you the whole year. I haven’t been back in twenty years,” she confessed. “I couldn’t bear to go. I still see it as it was, in my mind’s eye.”
As banal as it is to point this out, the human mind is an immensely complex instrument. My internal clock is very reliable; when it is time for work I wake up within a minute of the alarm so I need not hear its horrid whine. But part of my mind does not trust the section charged with awakening; I dreamt about oversleeping. Then I woke up two hours early. I showered and got dressed in the official Jinx uniform. Sunglasses, a suit. I packed a flashlight and a camera, and some books to read en route. I printed out directions, as well as the Spanish translation for Libertine Director of Outreach (Director libertino de relaciones vecinales). The Spaniards would ask me why I am a libertine. “Me molan las zorras en apuros,” I would tell them. (Ask someone who speaks Spanish.)
The Spaniards were very happy to see us. They’re spending a week here, trying to give a flavor of New York to their home audience. We were suddenly not dilettantes but unofficial ambassadors. I checked my tie.
Fernando apologized; we needed to make a brief stop at the Chelsea Hotel. There was some unpleasantness. He had wanted to interview the owner, who was annoyed that they were staying elsewhere. Everyone knows that Sid killed Nancy there many years ago, the blood reportedly still staining the floor. But contrary to rumor, the room is still in use. Someone’s apartment. What everyone has forgotten is that the hotel was almost burned down in the ‘67 by the original Paris Hilton, Edie Sedgwick. Edie liked speedballs: a needleful of heroin in one arm and amphetamine in the other. Sometimes straight dope would do, and occasionally the
Poor Little Rich Girl would nod out with a cigarette in hand. The fire
was after Edie had been a member of the Velvet Underground.The drive through Jersey, over an hour, was uneventful. We passed by a sign that says “Deaf Child Area,” a sign that I as a lover of irony had never heard of. Then we pulled into Asbury Park proper.
There are two types of dead towns that I am familiar with. The first is the great edifices built by ancient Egypt, lavish monuments to the deceased. But Egyptian culture was not based on death per se; rather, it was marked by an obsession with the afterlife, which isn’t the same. What we have so arrogantly dubbed The Book of the Dead they themselves referred to as The Book of Coming Forth by Day, which posits a new life [sic] where the blessed would spend eternity riding in the sun god’s barge and being waited on by slaves. The tombs are colorful, vibrant after literally thousands of years. Pharaohs were buried with their ships, several now uncovered and reassembled worldwide. This was not a macabre culture.
The other is Coney Island, where I lived during my teenage years. No one can deny that Coney is a shadow of a shadow of its former self. The neighborhood once affectionately called Sodom by the Sea has degenerated into a ghetto. Yet the buildings still stand, the rides still run. The same ocean casts salt into the air. If the people are low-rent, there are still many of them around.
There is a third type of town, and this is the type that Asbury Park belongs to. The structures are there and signs still call out to the crowd, there is no one there. No one. It is in a literal sense post-apocalyptic: the end came, and we were left to see the remains of this community.
There was a two-story building covered, like everything in Asbury, in Art Deco stylizations. One could see a brazier above, which might have been lit during special events. The structure was entirely boarded up. There wasn’t even much graffiti. No point, since no one would see the tags.
That Big Sky feeling
Next door was the Casino, a huge empty space where husbands gambled while their wives waited for them back in hotel rooms. Panes of glass were missing.
Gambling on structural integrity
Four mythological sea-horses once guarded the roof. Three remained, one preparing to bolt.
"Tell my mare that I love her."
On the beach were two old people. The thin man and his fat wife reminded me of Jack Sprat and his beloved. They stared at us as if they were feral, unsure of what to make of the humans in their territory. We looked inside some cracks in a building which had housed a carousel. It too was empty.
More doors closed forever.
There were a few laborers about on the beach. The boardwalk, Asbury Park prime-time, had been entirely replaced. It seemed to be lower than it had been.
New and improved.
Near it remained a ramp that went nowhere. I stood under the ramp and spoke about the history of the town. Race riots in the ‘70s. The police didn’t know what to do. They had perhaps only had to concern themselves with speeding tickets before. And then, White Flight. Fernando thanked me. I hoped that my voice would sound sexy dubbed into Spanish.
"...and that's how I became King of the Morlocks."
Asbury has supposedly been on the verge of a comeback for years. The neighboring towns (really, adjacent neighborhoods) were utterly normal. Quality land does not lie fallow for long without some reason. Zoning must be the culprit, I guessed. We saw a billboard announcing the rebuilding of Asbury Park. It had fallen over.
Somehow the sign is now more informative.
Kari and I took a stroll down the length of the boardwalk, about the length of 2 Manhattan avenues. A booth that once sold hot dogs was now labeled The Crack Shack. But there weren’t any drug dealers around, nor any junkies. I couldn’t even find a vial. In the distance was an apartment complex. It was almost complete. Eleven stories of framework were done, and one side of the exterior. Sheet metal banged against the walls in the wind. Loud. You could hear it anywhere in Asbury. Staircases were exposed to the elements, and rust showed on the girders. The building had been clanging in protest for years, its construction abandoned.
It gets more depressing...
At the end of the boardwalk was the Paramount Theater (or Theatre, depending on the sign). We tried the door. Locked. I peeked in and saw a Pepsi machine. As we turned away, a Mexican laborer opened the entrance. We asked if we could go in for a moment. This man who sweats to rebuild Americana managed to explain to us that he doesn’t speak English. Pat Buchanan must have been spinning in his grave.
Now Playing: Nothing
On the way back we passed by a real estate office. Perhaps we could ask the realtor to show us around, I mused, claiming to want to buy a casino. A new low in Urban Exploration. Dared I be responsible for bringing about Jinx’ nadir? No, I decided. I’d driven away one of the Project’s founders. I couldn’t be responsible for Lefty fleeing to Austin as well.
Past the realtor’s was a basement. Kari walked in while I kept a lookout. The cops, with nothing to do, had been circling the strip. “It’s full of pipes, with a big tunnel,” she said. “Duncan would love this.” The Director of Research had a justly acquired reputation for plowing his way through dirty holes. He was not as delicate a man as I. We returned to gather the group. I noticed all the deteriorating parking meters, farcical in their presence. Duncan went into the basement with the film crew.
A man pulled up, suspicious. “What are you guys doing?” he asked.
“We’re filming for a documentary,” I told him.
“You need a permit for that.”
“Come on, man. It’s not a big deal. It’s for Spanish TV. Just a piece of the history of the town.”
“You’re not going into my basement, are you?”
“No,” I lied.
“You need to get a permit,” he repeated.
“Look at me,” I told him. “I’m in a suit. I’m no hooligan. I’m not here to mess things up.”
He drove off and parked his car. I called for the team to evacuate the basement. They scurried out quickly.
Our final destination was an abandoned hotel. Just because you wouldn’t want to live in Asbury Park needn’t imply that you’d want to visit there. There were several piles of clothes in the lightless basement, laid out as if a squatter had evaporated. In one closet we found a stuffed bookbag. Inside was someone’s stash of porn.
The hotel's wallpapers.
Upstairs the plates were in stacks on the kitchen floor, an Antiques Roadshow wet dream.
A dining time capsule.
Past that was a ballroom. The chandeliers were falling down. The mirrors were broken. A wing of the hotel had collapsed.
Way too evocative.
The view down the elevator shaft.
We toured the rooms upstairs. Behind some of the mirrors was newspaper meant to hold them in place. An unexposed sheet from 1925 looked newer than something from today; a cartoon from 1926 had meanwhile turned orange.
Panel 1: Worker-Boss, I'm all upset. My little girl has a sore throat. Boss-It's a joke the way you guys worry about your children. Take things as they come. It's all in the game.
Panel 2: Caller-The baby stepped on a tack. Boss-What?!
There were many women’s shoes on the floor for some reason. An empty box of Saltines, a tine of Ajax. The can of Country Club malt liquor gave me a smile.
Ooh, classy.
Then I saw some writing scratched into the door. I let out a gasp like people make on cartoons, ridiculously melodramatic.
If you find my body tell my family I love them + tell my kids and the Moms I'm sorry. DeCarlo
I'm sorry kids. Morgan, Tamara, DeCarlo Jr., Angel There Moms are Jeanmarie Connors, Diola Perez, Tharesa Dolly. Sorry for Failing. I love u. Sorry Molly O'Keefe. I [heart] u.
It was a suicide note. Adjacent to the room a burst stained the bathtub. Duncan was convinced that it was a hoax. I don’t know.
Your guess is as good as mine.
The cameraman ran out of tape so we went to the van and signed release forms. I asked if I had my translation right. “You do,” Francisco said. “But Libertine Director, it sounds like a joke.” I opened my bag and showed him the book I was reading. 120 Days of Sodom, the Marquis de Sade’s masterwork. We laughed. I called colleagues to get ready for our return to New York; the Spaniards wanted to speak with as many Jinx agents as possible.
Everyone nice and pretty?
It was Lefty and Tibbie, Jinx’ Public Image Media Planner, who joined us for the balance of the interview. We set up on top of the Williamsburg Bridge, but things were too loud. We headed down to the waterside. We needed several takes: boats went by, joggers interrupted the shot. The Spaniards were frustrated by all the sound.
But I wasn’t.