The Only Living Boy In New York

on the grid

I arrived in Manhattan last night, last stop before the next stop. I’ll be here for a week or a month.

I’ll say it again, it’s one shitty town but I like it. Similar nicotine, it’s no good but it’s addictive. And nothing has changed. It’s still disgusting, desperate, overpriced, overcrowded and endlessly noisy. I blew more on parking for a day - in metered curbside spots - than my daily average spend on food, gas, and an RV spot too, but now I have the privilege of saying I slept on the streets of New York. I woke up right where I went to sleep, at 74th and Columbus, to find birds pecking away at party-people puke from the night before - but I slept right through it.

New York, New York - it’s a helluva a town
You know the Bronx is up and Brooklyn’s down
Because they don’t know my name, only know my initials
Building bombs in the attic for elected officials

Beastie Boys (B-Boy Bouillabaisse: Hello Brooklyn)

All the same doormen are at all the same apartments on 42nd Street - and I saw them all. They remember me even if they don’t recognize me because I got thrown out of half those buildings. Except Kenny is gone. He was the head guy at 420 W. 42nd. My age, he passed 2 weeks ago about 2 months after learning he had a brain tumor. Reminder: get it while you can - life is beautiful but never certain.

At my old favorite wash and fold I saw that the thirtysomethibng UC Berkeley grad is still running it with his mom — out of respect. Satisfyingly, he told me he was all up to date on my adventures - because he’s a reader. Hell yeah! Killer! Speaking of that, we made it big y’all: No Rebates is ranked #69 in Substack’s Humor Bestsellers category. Never one to be satisfied - at least it’s a funny number - I thought to myself, “Well, that sucks, I’m funnier than that,” but, unfortunately, there’s really nothing I can do about it. Only subscriptions can make me funnier.

Like quitting dipping for a year then slamming a big lipper, returning spun my head. I had a big old NYC buzz for about 15 minutes, and now it seems like I never left. New York really is different. Here people push their dogs in strollers as if that was normal. I heard a union guy bickering with kids selling hip hop CDs around Times Square -

The fuck outta here wit dat. A CD, bro, you must be kiddin’ me. You gonna sell me the player too?

From having a look, most of the rest of America is not so unique — most of it has been homogenized. Chain stores fill the land: Target, Taco Bell, T-Mobile, Dollar Tree, PetSmart, and Planet Fitness. It is all the same, everywhere: Coke vs. Pepsi, Ford vs. GM… Ralphs, Smith’s, Fred Meyer, Harris Teeter and Food 4 Less - all owned by Kroger. The rest — Safeway, Vons, Lucky’s, Pavilion, and Balducci’s - all owned by Albertsons. Every town has all of them but they are all just different flavors of the same two things. That’s why San Angelo looks like San Jose.

Anything good has been acquired, colonized and mass replicated. Blue Bottle Coffee, now owned by Nestlé, is suddenly everywhere. I’d never heard of Chick-fil-A five years ago but now I’ve seen it in hundreds of towns. The novelty of most anything is gone. There are 22 Khols in every state, on average, and that’s not even that good. Ninety percent of America lives within 10 minutes of Walmart. The median distance from one is 4.2 miles. Two Walmarts would equal the entire market cap of every other holding in the SPDR® S&P® Retail ETF. Amazon is equal to three Walmarts.

There is nowhere to hide. I see these people with rugged Sprinter vans all set to go - get off grid - and I wonder: where? That’s my goal on this next leg - to find somewhere that there isn’t already one, or more likely 25, of the 187,015 THOR recreational vehicles sold every year. Makers of Airstream, CrossRoads, Cruiser RV, Dutchmen, Jayco, Starcraft, and Thor Motor Coach, their product line ranges in price from $80,000 to $750,000.

People have more money and there are more people. Yesterday’s rich are today’s poor, if status is how one counts their wealth. Real per capita income was $13,976 in 1981. Today it is $81,695. Somehow, I’m a little above average but feel a lot better off than that. One could buy my van, and still have the average American’s annual income left over, for what’s tucked inside that itty-bitty little box behind that $997,269 45-foot Entrega motor coach (the contents being a 2024 Range Rover).

The population of the US has grown 50% since I was ten. One cannot just run into the hills on some farmer’s property with a tent, or go to the beach with some sleeping bags, and go unnoticed, as my dad and I used to do. It will have homes now, or one will find others there already doing it, or someone will have already ruined it, requiring posted trespassing signs. Try finding any place where you won’t see other people, even in huge national parks - it’s nearly impossible. Try finding any place without cell signal - in three months, spanning 7,000 miles, I've achieved it 3 times for the sum of 3 hours.

To this point, I’ve played this game: trying to find things that can only be found where they are, and, a few places have somehow rebuffed the onslaught of the ordinary. A few meals and locales were exceptional. Here they are.

BAKERSFIELD, CA - Luigi’s. My friend said this would be the best meal I would have on the trip, and he was right… until I got to Dallas.

LAS VEGAS, NV - the best things about it is leaving it.

BRICE CANYON, UT - makes all other national parks mediocre.

GRAND JUNCTION, CO - Uniquely terrible, cold, desolate, industrial, rusting and crawling with tweakers. I ate the worst Mexican of my life there - twice - at two different places. Other than that, it has nothing good to offer.

BOULDER, CO - of course one can find an abundance of your average $40 burgers with a brioche bun and applewood bacon however it’s the people that are to be enjoyed most. I saw two graying sexagenarian women with boy cuts, wearing organic New Mexico zip up sweaters, who brought their small doggies - labeled “service animals” - inside a coffee shop with well posted signage asking people not to bring their pets. After plopping their dogs at their feet in little beds they brought along for them too, they bemoaned and itemized, probably for the zillionth time, everything they hate about Trump. An unrepentant rule-breaker, “he is ruining everything!” said one before the other quipped, as though all well-to-do white people have a right to tourism in underprivileged nations unfettered by political consequences, “thank God I got to go to the Panama Canal before he ruins that too.” That said, the maple scones at Spruce Confections were amazing.

SPRINGER, NM - Zayra's Café is this little truck stop in the middle of empty Route 25 badlands where one expects to find Linda Lavin and Vic Taybek still operating Mel’s Diner but, that has been, instead, commandeered by Mexican women who produce a Cowboy Burrito that is to die for - so good I almost turned back 30 miles down the road to get another. The place is quirky as hell too - an Americana meets Mexicana museum.

ALBUQUERQUE, NM - Taco Cabana has an egg and chorizo burrito that’s bomb. The town has urban spawn strip malls too but that’s counterbalanced by the kitsch.

WHITE SANDS, NM - not as spectacular as Brice but so unique it’s unforgettable.

ODESSA, TX - Landman - live, IRL.

HOUSTON, TX - Buc-cee’s is a truck-stop turned automotive shopping destination with 128 gas pumps, where they keep the BBQ sauce in a 30,000 gallon corrugated steel water tank, offering a store the size of Walmart, selling the cheapest gas and tobacco products in America, plus aisles full of branded merchandise, beef jerky, brisket sandwiches and tons of impulse control temptations like meat smokers, fishing boats, crawfish boiling pots, and animal feed. Get there before this chain spreads too far and becomes no longer unique.

GALVESTON, TX - Texas-by-the-sea is a must.

OCEAN SPINGS, MS - a cozy, cute downtown without a single chain store that has some upscale options without feeling bourgeois. It’s Carmel-by-the-Sea of Mississippi before Louis Vuitton. The brined pork chop at Maison de Lu is the best thing priced over $30 I’ve had on this trip. Great weather and, obviously, right on the ocean.

MEMPHIS, TN - the gumbo at Blues City Cafe is amazing, and Graceland should be a national park.

NASHVILLE, TN - Nashville Shores Lakeside Resort RV Park during the off season is as gorgeous (and empty) as it is creepy. The still, vacant water park at the edge of the property reminded me of something from the Kiss TV Movie Phantom of the Park (1978).

CHATTANOOGA, TN - the town where Coca-Cola bottling was invented, it’s no longer unique for that, but it retains its roots as a trucking empire. The hub of all things automotive, repairs here are cheap and quality. I got new ball joints, a new master cylinder, new brakes, and new rotors all for $2,000. Don’t worry about the food in Chattanooga, though.

HOLLYWOOD, FL - heaven. South Beach is Las Vegas, and this is blue collar St. Tropez.

HILTON HEAD, SC - best Goodwill in America.

WILMINGTON, NC - an amazing little college town with posh homes on the water and a white sand beaches that go forever filled with tanned students who look good in swimwear that’s otherwise devoid, save for yours truly, of unsightly creepy old men. Best little beach vacation spot in America (NB, Dirty Myrtle is just that compared to this).

LUMBERTON, NC - best onion rings on the planet are at Arnold’s. The whole town - cops, firemen and families - eats there, and for good reason.

And finally…

When asked why he robs banks, famous bank robber Willie Sutton once said “because that’s where there money is.” And, that’s why I started cooking at age 13. The summer of ‘91, four years under my belt, I made a point to get a job at This Old House because they made the best ribs in my town. That was a thing where I come from. Before it became a pied-à-terre bedroom community for Los Angelenos and San Franciscans, San Luis Obispo was a ranching town devoid of vegans and other medium-rich elitists.

On Thursday nights from 6 to 9pm town hosts a farmer’s market and the stores all keep their doors open late. Restaurants wheel out barbecue trailers and serve chicken, beef ribs and cooked sausage on the street.

Thursday night farmer’s market was a weekly carnival in the Eighties. The whole town would go. One was sure to see all their friends, their parents, plus their teachers, plus crosstown rival athletes, and inevitably a few back alley fights. It even gained national attention.

But, at its core, Thursday nights were, basically, a beef rib orgy. The gutters would be littered with chewed ribs after, and the trash cans filled to overflowing. The annual rib cook-off was a big deal, judged by the Chicago Tribune’s food critic in 1987.

So I’ve been cooking ribs for 40 years and let’s just say I thought I was good at them. Same with Thanksgiving. Those were my two things: beef ribs and Thanksgiving.

Years ago, back in NYC, I made friends with this Serbian dude, Zlatko, who weighed about 350 pounds. He’s a real good cook, especially when it comes to stuffed peppers and roasted pork. Well, one Thanksgiving, he came over with a whole spread of turkey, potatoes, gravy, for me and I thought "oh God, no!"

I didn't want to fill my stomach with that. He’s from Serbia and trying to take me on at Thanksgiving. That would be like if I was cooking a better Matzo Ball Soup than a Jewish grandma. I cannot. I tried it and the result was rubber dough balls in chicken-flavored hot water. So, I scooped a tablespoon of my stuffing and just jammed it in his mouth while asking him, "does it need anything?"

Well, in the cruelest way, I watched his heart drop to his knees, as he grabbed his plate and ran home to hide it. And, that’s exactly what happened to me when I tried the beef ribs at Hutchins in Dallas: I got Zlatko-ed. Seriously, when I return to California, I’m going to drive back through Dallas … just to go there again.

That’s the game I have played so far. On the next leg of the journey, the game is looking for the real “off the grid” experience if there is any of it left.