Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 65

“I grew up pretty well honestly. I didn’t have bad parents, a...

“I grew up pretty well honestly.  I didn’t have bad parents, a little ‘helicoptery’ maybe, but doing the best they could.  I was just a bad kid.  I don’t even remember a lot of my teenage years.  I was always popping pills.  Just a ‘fuck you, parents’ kind of thing.  When I wasn’t alone in my room, I was picking fights with them.  I hurt my mother the most because she cared the most.  Dad cared.  But Mom really cared.  Throwing me out wasn’t easy for her.  But one night I had a really bad Xanax high.  I blacked out.  Messed up the house.  They won’t even tell me exactly what I did, but it must have been violent.  Because the cops came.  The court put an order of protection against me.  The last thing I said to my parents in the courtroom was: ‘I never want to see or hear from you again.’  Then a few months later I called and begged to come home.  But it was too late.  My dad just kept saying: ‘I can’t.’  There were long pauses.  And hesitation.  But he stuck to it.  It’s been eighteen months now.  I got clean.  Mainly because I’ve been living in a shelter on Staten Island, and I just didn’t have the access.  Right now I’m trying to get into a longer term shelter.  Trying to find a job.  NY State has some scholarships that I’m looking at.  Dad’s coming to pick me up in an hour.  They’ve invited me home for Thanksgiving.  I’m scared shitless.  It’s the first time I’ve been home in over a year, and I’m spending three days with them.  I’m just hoping it’s like a normal Thanksgiving,  before I was a shit.”

“There was this interesting piece in The Times a couple weeks...

“There was this interesting piece in The Times a couple weeks ago about people in solitary confinement.  And one of the guys said the worst thing is having all that time to think.  And that’s my problem too. When I’m alone in my apartment, I just start ruminating.  About my finances.  About my medical conditions.   About not taking good enough care of my mom.  But as long as I can find my bar, I’m fine.  It’s just a couple blocks from my house.  And when I open the door, and look in, I see the place is full of people like me: people with health problems, retirees with nothing to do, a lot of us are unkempt, unshaven.  And everyone has a weakness for alcohol.  I get a warm welcome every time I walk in.  It’s the only place I don’t berate myself for being a dirt bag.”

“Nobody would give us a chance. We were in our early twenties....

“Nobody would give us a chance.  We were in our early twenties.  We had two young kids.  We were working, but living check to check.  At the time we were staying in the projects with my mother-in-law, but my kids were growing up, so we needed our own place.  But all the rental brokers wanted to see our bank statements.  And we had no savings.  We didn’t even have accounts.  Then one day I was walking down the avenue, and I saw a super fixing up an empty apartment.  I told him I needed to speak to the landlord directly.  No brokers.  And I guess he liked my vibe, because he gave me the name: Ronald Petrowski.  When I called Mr. Petrowski, I explained everything.  I told him we needed a chance.  He agreed to meet me and my husband at Lenny’s Pizzeria.  He bought us a plain pie and listened to our story.  He’d grown up poor himself, so he knew the struggle.  And he gave us a chance.  We’ve been in that apartment for 35 years now, and I’ve paid him every cent.  We’ve fallen on hard times.  At one point I owed him an entire year of rent.  But he was so gracious.  He never sent us an eviction notice.  Every time he came to collect, he’d sit at our kitchen table, have a cup of coffee, and listen to our situation.  Mr. Petrowski is my hero.  He sold the building a couple years ago, but we still keep in touch.  That man gave me a home to raise my children.”

“The scene was different back then. All the adult clubs were...

“The scene was different back then.  All the adult clubs were mob controlled.  It all flowed up to some guy named Matty The Horse.  Honestly the mob guys never bothered me.  They were cool, and I liked how they dressed.  They wore custom made suits.  And they went to hair stylists, not barbers.  These guys wouldn’t even let you touch their hair when you were fucking them.  Not that I ever fucked them.  Because I never turned tricks.  Well, except for one time.  I took a job from this woman named Madame Blanche.  She controlled all the high dollar prostitutes back then.  She was like the Internet, could get you anything you wanted.  And all the powerful men came to her because she never talked.  She set me up with a department store magnate who wanted a black girl dressed like a maid.  I thought I could do it.  But when I got to his hotel room, he wanted to spank me with a real belt.  So that was it for me.  I was done.  But Madame Blanche set my best friend Vicki up with The President every time he came to New York.  And don’t you dare write his name cause I can’t afford the lawyers. But he’d always spend an hour with her.  He’d send a car to pick her up, bring her to his hotel room, put a Secret Service agent in front of the door, and get this: all he ever did was eat her pussy!”

“My stripper name was Tanqueray. Back in the seventies I was...

“My stripper name was Tanqueray.  Back in the seventies I was the only black girl making white girl money.  I danced in so many mob clubs that I learned Italian.  Black girls weren’t even allowed in some of these places.  Nothing but guidos with their pinky rings and the one long fingernail they used for cocaine.  I even did a full twenty minutes in the place they filmed Saturday Night Fever.  But I made my real money on the road.  Three grand on some trips.  Every time Fort Dix had their pay day, they’d bring me in as a feature and call me ‘Ms. Black Universe’ or some shit like that.  I had this magic trick where I’d put baby bottle tops on my nipples and squirt real milk, then I’d pull a cherry out of my G-string and feed it to the guy in the front row.  But I never used dildos on stage or any shit like that.  Never fucked the booking agents.  Never fucked the clients.  In fact, one night after a show, I caught another dancer sneaking off to the Tate Hotel with our biggest tipper.  Not allowed.  So the next night we put a little itching powder in her G-string.  Boy did she put on a show that night.  Didn’t see her again until ‘The Longest Yard’ with Burt Reynolds.  So I guess she finally fucked the right one.”

“My mom threw me out of the house at seventeen for getting...

“My mom threw me out of the house at seventeen for getting pregnant, then had me arrested when I tried to get my clothes.  Then she fucked the head of parole to try to keep me in jail.  She was some prime pussy back then.  But the warden did some tests on me and found out I was smart, so I got a scholarship to go anywhere in New York.  I chose the Fashion Institute of Technology, which I hated.  But by that time I was already getting work making costumes for the strippers and porn stars in Times Square.  All my friends were gay people, because they never judged me.  All I did was gay bars: drag queen contests, Crisco Disco, I loved the whole scene.  And I couldn’t get enough of the costumes.  My friend Paris used to sit at the bar and sell stolen clothes from Bergdorf and Lord and Taylors, back before they had sensor tags.  So I had the best wardrobe: mink coats, 5 inch heels, stockings with seams up the back.  I looked like a drag queen, honey.  One night a Hasidic rabbi tried to pick me up because he thought I was a tranny.  I had to tell him: ‘Baby, this is real fish!”

“I’ve got major problems. My girlfriend got in my Instagram DMs...

“I’ve got major problems.  My girlfriend got in my Instagram DMs and found a message from a girl in my class.  I tried to tell her it was nothing, but the girl kept sending me messages over and over, saying: ‘Where are you?’, ‘Where are you?’  That’s because I owe her money.  Because I asked her to bring me back some cigarettes from Japan.  But I couldn’t tell my girlfriend that.  Because she thinks I quit smoking two months ago.  But now she thinks I’m cheating.  And she’s pissed.  So I’m hiding over here, having a cigarette.”    
(Hong Kong)

“I’m studying for my PhD. My husband is supporting me, but my...

“I’m studying for my PhD.  My husband is supporting me, but my parents really opposed me being here.  They’re very traditional.  They think I should let my husband work, and I should be staying home with our child.  They just want me to be comfortable.  They’ve managed my entire life so that I would be comfortable.  But I need things to be more difficult.  I need to be uncomfortable so that I can grow.  These last few years I’ve been a traditional mother.  Every day was a routine.  I didn’t feel like I was progressing.  Or innovating.  I felt so lost, but I kept telling myself that my child relied on me.  I told myself that I couldn’t leave his side.  But in reality, I was the one relying on my son.  It’s not that I couldn’t leave his side.  It’s that I wouldn’t know what to do if I did.”
(Hong Kong

“If China gets too near, I’m getting the fuck out. The Chinese...

“If China gets too near, I’m getting the fuck out.  The Chinese government is basically totalitarian at this point.  And a totalitarian government doesn’t see you as a human being.  You’re just a statistic.  Just a number.  And a number doesn’t have to be appeased.  A number doesn’t have feelings or opinions that need to be considered.  It just increases or decreases.  But people aren’t binary.  People have ranges.  People have feelings and opinions.  They like different things, at different times, under different conditions.  So that’s where the censorship comes in.  Censorship narrows the range.  If you can control what people know, you can control what they think.  You can make them more like numbers.  Because numbers are easier to control.”
(Hong Kong)

“We had protests five years ago. The movement lasted 79 days,...

“We had protests five years ago.  The movement lasted 79 days, and it was quite peaceful compared to what’s happening now.  We occupied Central and closed all the roads.  Back then I felt so good.  I was sleeping in a tent on the street.  We’d never had such a large scale political movement in the history of Hong Kong, and I felt like a participant.  I felt so connected to everyone on the street.  We were fighting for a common goal.  It felt like we could change the future.  But eventually some of our leaders were arrested and the movement dispersed.  The next few years were painful for me.  There were no large scale protests.  Nothing.  I felt isolated.  Nobody seemed to care about democracy.  And now all these years later, we’re suddenly having another movement.  But I’ve changed.  I feel old.  I feel like my parents.  Whenever my phone notifies me of breaking news, I get nervous and worried.  I ask myself: ‘Should I go there now?  Immediately?’  But at the same time, I don’t want to be arrested.  It’s not worth the risk.  Because it’s all going to end in misery, anyway.  The path is set.  Our freedoms will narrow.  The government will not change.  The only rational decision is to leave.  But then I ask myself: ‘Am I being rational?  Or am I being a coward?’”
(Hong Kong)