KALTBLUT-HONK! 03 The Divas

139
THE
QUEEN
NEW YORK
Text by Shel Fuller
Photo by Jonathan Bell www.jonbell.net
I got off the PATH Train at Christopher Street and
ascended the unrealistically windy staircase. On this
street, this street where history was made, I was surprised
to see how ghetto it was. Random shady looking
men, all hip-hopped and covered in bling, waiting on
everything and nothing. Two transvestites verbally battling
it out on the street corner - one crackhead thin,
the other Big Mac fat. A swirling spectrum of skin
color, language, and intelligence. God, I love this city.
It was not my intention to move to New York City.
The idea filled me with dread. So many people packed
together - so much competition. What should I do
here? I was used to being the big fish in a small pond
but now the tables were turned. Here on these wide,
traffic-filled streets, I was invisible. Walking among
ghosts, slowly I became one myself but these ghosts
were not like those that can be found in the tales of
Poe. These entities were alive. Shapeshifters, who continually
reconceptualize themselves on an hourly basis.
During the day, I sat eight hours staring at a computer
monitor in rows of cubicles but at night, I transformed
into a mystical phoenix. Sipping cocktails at an after
work party on the Upper West Side in the evening,
melds into dancing in the mist of shirtless, Chelsea
bottoms at night. A quick jump over to the East Village
to hook up with an overly tattooed freak who just completed
his degree in Theology at NYU. “What do you
want to do with your degree?” “I want to be a priest.”
– No comment. Waking up and realizing that you have
to wear the same underwear again because you didn’t
make it home last night finally returning to your 3 and
a quarter-walled cubicle.
My two best friends and I, in one of our stoned states,
decided to give each other diva names. William would
be La Divina (a reference to Maria Callas). Jason,
would be the Wonder Diva Deluxe (you have to know
him to understand that one) and I, of course, was the
Grand Diva. I even named my former public relations
company, The Grand Diva Group (group meaning me).
Back then, I was probably best known for my fearlessness
and my deranged adventures. Waking up naked
in the apartments of celebrities, late night basement
parties in DUMBO, chatting in secret underground
wine cellar lounges with tragic supermodels. But it
wasn’t me that created all of this supposed glamour.
It was the city. It took me by the scruff of my neck and
lead me through its streets, begging me to explore
which I eagerly did. It was the dimly lit doors at the
end of dark allies that lured me into circumstances
which most people would only dream of.
Sometimes, I look back at those days in wonder. I
think about the serendipitous end events and what
lead up to them. We only think of people as divas but
what surrounds the diva is what inspires a diva to be
one. Of course, I wasn’t really a diva. I was more like
the dust that trailed the comet along with millions and
millions of other specks. Small amounts of plant pollen,
human hairs, and textile fibers compressed into
305 square miles (790 km2) of water-rimmed land.
This city carries the glamour of ages deep within its
tarred sidewalks and hot dog stands. New York is bigger
than America. Sometimes, bigger than the Earth.
What it symbolizes, what it forces you to believe is an
experience that no one will ever take away from you.
This city doesn’t need to be covered in cosmetics or
drowned in jewels. The city doesn’t even demand that.
It wants your love, your curiosity, your respect, and
your admiration. Like a mother, it nourishes you with
or without your consent. New York City is the ultimate
diva of the world.