Rossi Rant: Staten Island Ferry and Things

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Friday, October 17

Staten Island Ferry and Things

I'm guessing all you non NYC folks have heard about the terrible
Staten Island Ferry crash..

Sheesh man..I've taken that Ferry ride many a time..for all those not in the know, The SI ferry is NYC's greatest secret that all tourists should know.. Instead of doling out a handful of money to ride on any of the floating tourist traps, you can ride the ferry for free..stand outside...say howdy to the Statue of Liberty.. then just come on back..

I've actually gotten out and GASP, visited Staten Island..
Personally I think they should honor the wish of many a Staten Islander and let them secede from NYC, because honey it's truly a whole different world over there.. Sort of "The Sopranos" meets "The Nanny"...I just did not have enough hair spray to stick around in Staten Island

But i digress as usual..

I was so horrified to see the images of the crash, hear about the 10 dead, 50 some odd people injured, many who lost their limbs..

The fact that it was the elderly or just those who could not run or react fast enough to escape the crash, made it all the more sad..

I imagined myself in that crash..

What would I have done in that split horrible second when I realized we were going to collide full force..?

Would I have run?

Stayed in shock?

Tried to help?

I have no idea...

I'm thinking about the captain of the ferry who ran off and tried to kill himself

Cant say I blame him.. honey he's better off dead than looking at the faces of families of all those killed..

You know darlings I don't know if I ever told you this, but in my former life
I was the head bartender of a party boat ferry called "The Andrew Fletcher" also worked on its sister boat called "The Dewitt Clinton." These party boats
took tourists and wall street yuppies, often 300 at a time on a cruise up and down the east river for about an an hour and a half.

I'd do oh sometimes 4 or 5 of these trips in a day or a night. The wildest were the Friday and Saturday Night rock&roll cruises. I always took the top deck and after everyone was drunk I'd have a nice quiet time to just let the wind take my hair and feel like I WAS QUEEN OF THE WORLD as we steamed back to our dock in the South Street Seaport..

there were things i loved about the job, money was good, being outside, being part of the community of folks who worked on boats in the seaport.. VERY different from the rest of the seas of people...the boat people are like a slice out of another century..a very cool slice...

things i hated were the conservative, christian right wing anti gay, anti-choice, racist attitude of all the guys in the blue suits with the nautical theme ties or yellow ties with black pocadots who owned or managed our boats..

ill tell you one day about how i dragged them off to the nice little human rights
arbitrator after busting them highly on a sexual orientation discrimination claim..
that was Nice honey...but im not sure if im allowed to go there or not so i wont
ill just tell you at the grand ol age of hmm 22, i became the norma ray of south street seaport gays..

i hated the deeply horrific wall street boys who would come on board drink huge oil cans of Fosters Lager
often puke, tip very little and always think they were so cool

honey no one is cool with puke on their tie
and who the hell keeps their ties on for a rock&roll cruise anyway?

but i digress yet again..

my point is
our captains, we had two of em
did two weeks on
two weeks off
when they were on
they worked all day
drank all night
dragged themself behind the wheel
when they were too hung over to walk..
red faced and stinking of Guiness they would take us out
yet again..
dan never crashed
he was seasoned
and hard core
he coulda drank a case of Guiness and then take us for a ride
his fave thing was to drive right towards people hanging out on docks and then turn at the last minute as they screamed..
dan was a rebel with a cause, but he never even scratched the boat
Vergil on the other hand
well he ran the boat a ground after only one bartles and james wine cooler

i never thought about how easily i could have died
there on the top deck
if either captain had hit the dock full force
honey i would have just flown over and landed in pieces..
i dont even want to think about it

i guess this whole Staten Island Ferry horror
got me thinking about how fragile life is
as if all the other things in this world
"911," la cubanas baby sister dieing, the terrorism in Israel,
weren't already getting me thinking about that

i'll just go back to what i've said all along

live today
don't put off anything for a rainy day
sometimes it just never rains

FYI darlings speaking of living life large
this little bimbolina
has got a whole new memoir up on memoirable
and it's all about tattoo love..so click on memoirable
and read "Deep Ink"
then let me know what you think
smoooches

09:56 AM Speak (2)