The Barber Wants A Pez

On the train. Since I brought my umbrella and couldn’t find my good sunglasses (in my Camelbak, I realized too late), of course it’s brilliant out. Can’t trust the weather, I guess. Listening to a little worldbeat group I hadn’t heard in a long time (oh, the iPod!), discovered years back on a Cole Porter tribute. Next up? Yma Sumac! No idea what they’re singing, except perhaps “the barber wants a Pez,” a perfectly reasonable request, I believe. If I recall correctly, “The Barber Wants A Pez” was the somewhat less successful followup to the Broadway smash “The Turban Is Not For Sale,” less successful because it was precisely the same musical, seen from the point of view of Giuseppe, the west side barber with a dockside view of the antics of Fleet Week.

That reverie was thoroughiy disturbed by a mom two seats back on the train who had to call home and make sure the kids were up for their field day. Didn’t need the cell phone, they heard her without it.

Now I DO know what they’re singing–“easy girls and fresh food.” Now there’s a happy combination. Yum.

There used to be a place called Yum’s in Syracuse. I think its business plan was to serve huge portions of hot, delicious food to drunken college students in the middle of the night. They had a way-cool mural by a local drunken artist, too. At the time, they were singing my song, but the market for massive omelets at 4 a.m. must not have been what they anticipated, and I don’t think it lasted more than a year. (The space is currently a Starbucks.) But man could they make an omelet.

There were too other food places back then that produced food like nothing else I’ve ever tasted. One was a little Greek
sandwich shop that also catered to the closing-time crowd (closing time in Onondaga County was a seemingly Puritan 2 a.m.). They baked their sandwiches in the pizza oven, producing an incredible flavor. The other was The Taco Lady, a place I avoided for years as my introduction to tacos, at the unlamented Jack in the Box in Schenectady, had put me off Mexican food for some time. I finally reopened my mind, and it turned out The Taco Lady made the most perfect burritos I’ve ever tasted. But she couldn’t take the Syracuse winters and went back to the Southwest. Places like those are virtually lost now because no one cares if all their food comes from the same Sysco can. Every time I visit Montreal I lament how little we settle for in food here in the states. Their grocery stores have better croissants than most of us will ever taste. They care what their food tastes like; all we seem to care about is whether we can supersize it. Jayzus.

Enough ranting! Manhattan calls!

Mr. Johnson has no idea whether his Metrocard works anymore, but could actually call the top lawyer at MTA to find out.