Buffalo '93
The screenplay I've been editing and punching up the past couple of days is based on the year of my life living and working at a residential hotel in the Tenderloin of San Francisco ('94 to '95). As such, I've been reflecting on my past for the sake of the story, and this tremendous, awful heat and humidity here in New York City brought up the memory of the summer of 1993 in Buffalo, NY.
Yes, this was a time when San Francisco was the echo of an idea bouncing someplace in the base of my mind. I was post-college and locked into a McJob. I'd attempted to find employment in my field, but no place in Buffalo wanted an aspiring television reporter or another disc jockey. I had no luck with the city's daily newspaper, either. That's Buffalo, though - the best of luck can go bad on the turn of a wooden nickel. I briefly wrote unpaid freelance for a local arts-oriented weekly, but I found the publisher/editor quite disagreeable. He probably felt likewise about me. I considered him as an obsolete, out-of-touch hippy and he probably regarded me as a cynical Gen-X'er who nourished himself on irony and sarcasm. We were both right. But I do still occasionally include that gig on the resume, if it seems appropriate.
So, where was I? Oh, Buffalo. The summer of '93. And my, what a summer it was. I'd been in a turbulent on-again, off-again relationship with a vacillating young woman through the previous autumn, winter, and early spring, but by summer it was kaput. So summer as a single guy in his early-twenties awaited. I lived on my own (well, with a roommate) in a slightly crooked house near the corner of Grant and Forest (across from Wilson Farms, for those of you who just might know the area). There on the second floor, we had a balcony! On sweltering summer nights I would sit out there with my legs resting up on the wrought-iron railing, a Zima in my hand, and watch the traffic and life of the Buffalo night pass by below.
Wait.
Zima?
Yes, Zima. Why Zima? Because Zima cost $6.50 for two six-packs at the local grocery store. Count 'em - that was twelve bottles of Zima for $6.50 (plus, er, tax and deposit). So, it was a deal too good to pass up.
There I would sit on the balcony, with or without friends, but usually with a Zima. I think it was on one of those intolerably humid nights that I formulated my idea to move to San Francisco. Looking across Buffalo, gazing upward into the sky, where I could just discern pinpoints of stars, I knew I would have to move on soon. I needed someplace to take my life.
The last time I visited Buffalo was in May of 2004 for my friend A.J. and Denise's wedding. Coincidentally, it was exactly ten years since I'd departed the Queen City. I had A.J. drive past the old place. I needed to remember. And there it was, dilapidated, abandoned, and boarded up. I took a few pictures for posterity. I looked up at the balcony, and beyond the windows was where I'd spent almost two years. Fully furnished, a stack of newspapers in the corner. The television atop an old red chair, a Ren & Stimpy poster on the living room wall, the Dali print of The Hallucinogenic Toreador above the inoperative fireplace, my typewriter on the table in the dining room (typewriter? Dining room??), the five-dollar coffee table with one bad leg, the four-cup coffeemaker on the kitchen table, boom-box in the bedroom.
Taking those photos, I still thought of the house and the questionable surrounding neighborhood as mine. My place. My 'hood. We'd had numerous maniacal, debauched parties just down the street at T.'s old place - the infamous purple house on Grant. A part of this still felt like home.
Back then in those days and months of halcyon youth, I was a rebel - a club-hoppin', hard-drinkin', post-collegiate industrial boy paying his dues at a simple nowhere job and making plans to get out of Buffalo for good. It wasn't that I disliked the city, but I was in transition. I needed adventure, I needed the unknown, I wanted to see the country and experience diverse new people and surroundings. I had to find my future. I still have amazing, fond memories of my time in Buffalo - the Icon, the Edge, North Park Theatre (where I saw El Mariachi and Reservoir Dogs), the Towne Restaurant, Mighty Taco, Pano's, Home of the Hits, Record Theatre, the $1.50 second-run cinema on Elmwood, free concerts at Darien Lake, and on and on.
Seeing the old house again, I reflected with bittersweet affection on those long drunken nights that only now seem they must have been too short. If I concentrated, I thought I might see the ghosts of friends, women, and visitors who came and went. Faces, smiles, conversation, dreams, drinks, intimacy. Now ghosts of my past.
I always look forward to my occasional, sporadic visits, but there was no future there for me in Buffalo, and there still isn't. That's why I can only visit now, and cruise the streets and observe the sights of the place I once called home.
Yes, this was a time when San Francisco was the echo of an idea bouncing someplace in the base of my mind. I was post-college and locked into a McJob. I'd attempted to find employment in my field, but no place in Buffalo wanted an aspiring television reporter or another disc jockey. I had no luck with the city's daily newspaper, either. That's Buffalo, though - the best of luck can go bad on the turn of a wooden nickel. I briefly wrote unpaid freelance for a local arts-oriented weekly, but I found the publisher/editor quite disagreeable. He probably felt likewise about me. I considered him as an obsolete, out-of-touch hippy and he probably regarded me as a cynical Gen-X'er who nourished himself on irony and sarcasm. We were both right. But I do still occasionally include that gig on the resume, if it seems appropriate.
So, where was I? Oh, Buffalo. The summer of '93. And my, what a summer it was. I'd been in a turbulent on-again, off-again relationship with a vacillating young woman through the previous autumn, winter, and early spring, but by summer it was kaput. So summer as a single guy in his early-twenties awaited. I lived on my own (well, with a roommate) in a slightly crooked house near the corner of Grant and Forest (across from Wilson Farms, for those of you who just might know the area). There on the second floor, we had a balcony! On sweltering summer nights I would sit out there with my legs resting up on the wrought-iron railing, a Zima in my hand, and watch the traffic and life of the Buffalo night pass by below.
Wait.
Zima?
Yes, Zima. Why Zima? Because Zima cost $6.50 for two six-packs at the local grocery store. Count 'em - that was twelve bottles of Zima for $6.50 (plus, er, tax and deposit). So, it was a deal too good to pass up.
There I would sit on the balcony, with or without friends, but usually with a Zima. I think it was on one of those intolerably humid nights that I formulated my idea to move to San Francisco. Looking across Buffalo, gazing upward into the sky, where I could just discern pinpoints of stars, I knew I would have to move on soon. I needed someplace to take my life.
The last time I visited Buffalo was in May of 2004 for my friend A.J. and Denise's wedding. Coincidentally, it was exactly ten years since I'd departed the Queen City. I had A.J. drive past the old place. I needed to remember. And there it was, dilapidated, abandoned, and boarded up. I took a few pictures for posterity. I looked up at the balcony, and beyond the windows was where I'd spent almost two years. Fully furnished, a stack of newspapers in the corner. The television atop an old red chair, a Ren & Stimpy poster on the living room wall, the Dali print of The Hallucinogenic Toreador above the inoperative fireplace, my typewriter on the table in the dining room (typewriter? Dining room??), the five-dollar coffee table with one bad leg, the four-cup coffeemaker on the kitchen table, boom-box in the bedroom.
Taking those photos, I still thought of the house and the questionable surrounding neighborhood as mine. My place. My 'hood. We'd had numerous maniacal, debauched parties just down the street at T.'s old place - the infamous purple house on Grant. A part of this still felt like home.
Back then in those days and months of halcyon youth, I was a rebel - a club-hoppin', hard-drinkin', post-collegiate industrial boy paying his dues at a simple nowhere job and making plans to get out of Buffalo for good. It wasn't that I disliked the city, but I was in transition. I needed adventure, I needed the unknown, I wanted to see the country and experience diverse new people and surroundings. I had to find my future. I still have amazing, fond memories of my time in Buffalo - the Icon, the Edge, North Park Theatre (where I saw El Mariachi and Reservoir Dogs), the Towne Restaurant, Mighty Taco, Pano's, Home of the Hits, Record Theatre, the $1.50 second-run cinema on Elmwood, free concerts at Darien Lake, and on and on.
Seeing the old house again, I reflected with bittersweet affection on those long drunken nights that only now seem they must have been too short. If I concentrated, I thought I might see the ghosts of friends, women, and visitors who came and went. Faces, smiles, conversation, dreams, drinks, intimacy. Now ghosts of my past.
I always look forward to my occasional, sporadic visits, but there was no future there for me in Buffalo, and there still isn't. That's why I can only visit now, and cruise the streets and observe the sights of the place I once called home.
posted by bentMeridian at 1:13 PM
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