RUDIMENTS, pt. 329
Making Cars
When you get out of Nancy
Whiskey Pub and roll yourself
down to Puffy's, that's a whole
other story. Or was then; it's been
a while now since I've been there.
Puffy's used to have, displayed in
its front window, an old photograph,
maybe 16x20 inches, framed, and
that photo showed old Hudson
Street, maybe about 1935, when
it was a working-class street, lined
with small shops, lofts, and factories.
All for the kind of guys who used
to work there, and drink at Puffy's.
Across the street was the Western
Union Building made famous by
the writings of Henry Miller, and,
nearby, a Bell Tel place and, across
from Puffy's at the corner exactly,
the grand, old, 1880's building that
was once the headquarters of the
New York Mercantile Exchange.
(In the 1920's and before, someone
in my wife's family line was the
President of that Exchange, go
to find out). That building was
pretty awesome, in that it had
retained all of its original look
and architectural meaning. In the
1980's and 90's it housed one
of those fancy, elitist restaurants
where a baked potato can cost
you thirty dollars. I don't know
what's there now nor the present
state of the building. (Easy enough
to go check, and I will someday,
probably walking right into Puffy's
too, looking for a phone booth).
In the 1990's, somewhere, and
during the period of time I was
still going there, the place had
been used (Puffy's) for the filming
of some movie called 'Cocktail,'
[Tom Cruise]. It had been all
done up, even moreso, for the
film, to present the look and
visual feel of what they wanted;
the wood polished up, the bar
freshened and cleaned, maybe
even re-coated, glass and mirrors
behind it made perfect, all those
bottles of booze and the taps
and spray heads too. It already
had a wonderful checkered-tile
floor, wide windows, a beautiful
rearward area of seating coves
and knotty pine, etc. Perfect stuff
all around, and any advance-team
for scouting movie locations would
have seen that right off.
-
I wish to make a slight detour
here, to cover something perfectly
germane - two things I always
had wished to be. One was an
advance man location-scout, as
just mentioned, for movie sets.
So like when some auteur director,
of any level, Spike Lee to Woody
Allen to Godard or Bunuel, had
an idea, I'd be sent out to scout
locations and places, rooms and
sites, for the movie filming. It
always seemed it would be fun
to scuttle into some old gas station
or tavern or drawing room, and
talk with the owner about the use
of same, with payment, for the
film. Nice job. The other one, as
a job, I always figured could have
been cool, was as an agent for
truckers. A truck driver, say, goes
to Indiana or Mississippi with a
load of bananas, or shoes. The
freight gets delivered. The idea
in the trucking industry is to never
'deadhead' (return home with an
empty load) - so the agent has
contacts everywhere. You as
'driver' would work through (me,
as) the agent who would have
already arranged for your return
trip to carry 70,000 two-penny
nails, crated in barrels, for the
return trip to New Hampshire.
So you make the pick-up and
are able to then come home full.
Cool, right. And really, the only
overhead for the 'agent' would be
a home office desk (at home),
and a telephone (well, nowadays
computer I guess). As agent,
I'd get 2 percent, or something,
for your deal and sign-up.
-
Anyway, movie location scout or
not, I always enjoyed Puffy's for
its, what's now often called, 'ambience.'
Which just means some fake hipster
smartass would enjoy wooing his
babe there (or the other way around,
ladies, yes). It's often used now as
a positive touchstone. Yet, really,
Puffy's had little to do with that.
The people there, staff, owner
and management, (they worked
and did their little accounting and
ordering, etc., from a strange,
cubby-hole sized office/room in
the basement - cramped and
wandering, a hallway leading to
Hell. No real 'stairway,' just
rather a hole at the floor end, all
from probably 1885, through
which you had to drop and watch
your head, walking the warren).
Oddities abounded too. There was
a regular, older (40's) barmaid
there named Nancy (nothing to
do with Nancy Whiskey Pub
up the street). She was tough as
nails, and shrewd. Direct, and
with a definite take-no-shit
attitude. Her main two problems,
aside from, she said, being alone,
were that she drank (to an excess)
and when she drank she got
morose and sulked. Cried. Wished
for death. I'm also sure her
effectiveness-factor as barmaid
went way down too. No one ever
seemed to mind, or pay her that
much mind. But it became, to me
anyway, annoying after a bit. The
other girls were a far happier lot,
all attractive, young, and actually
naive and/or innocent. Which was
strange for New York, I always
thought. The place filled up, at
its own 'filled-up' level, but the
crowd here was totally different
than the one at Nancy Whiskey
Pub. Lots of serious lovers and
relationship people, well-developed
drinkers, and a more proper crowd
by far. Here and there an overdone
dowager too. Lady schoolteachers
out for the night, amazed and
gaggly-eyed at what they'd see.
(Neither of these places were
biker bars either; though I did
give, at Puffy's, the Nancy lady,
after she pleaded, a thirty-minute
ride around town once; on a night
she was there as a drinker, not
working. It was boring as hell).
-
There was a certain period of time,
in the early 1990's, it seemed, when
things were, so to speak, turning
over. I think a lot of it had to do
with the end of the Republican
and Reagan/Bush era, and a more
sensitive blighting into sensitivity
and gentleness. Or, in another way,
a disgusting political correctness
just being introduced societally.
All that was well-represented by
whatever incoming mortar-fire the
Clintons represented. The he and
the she; although I often thought
of it more just as the two she's,
at least until the sex started happening
underneath the desk in the oval
orifice. OOPS! I mean Oval Office.
Let's see : 'One man's butt is another
man's cigar?' No, that doesn't work.
Anyway, Puffy's in the mid-90's
fairly well represented that new
mind-set, and I was able to feel
it just walking in there. Everyone
started having a symbolic diamond,
some signifier they wore to show
they were just at the right spot for
the times. The drinking guys in
Puffy's just always started looking
weak and sensitive, as types. You
wanted to say, 'Look, that's OK Bud
(beer joke?), but take it somewhere
else, OK? So we'd sometimes come
in and just end up sitting by the big
windows, drinking and looking up
at the old buildings. I'd try to begin
filling some guys in on the significance
of old Hudson Street, the buildings,
the way things used to be. But it all
fell flat. It got pretty useless. It was
no longer a good place to be drunk.
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