OFF THE LIMOUSINE 19. ... NJ/NYC ... STRIKE ...

OFF THE LIMOUSINE 19

... NJ/NYC ... STRIKE ...

ALL DAYS / STORIES & PHOTOS WERE MADE /
ARE PRESENTED CHRONO / LOGIC / ALLY

A journey, regardless of the method, transport, or distance, is a more or less advanced metamorphosis. Its initiation takes shape over time. It can be immediate, planned, or the result of a series of unforeseen circumstances, visions, thoughts, or incidents. Obviously that we usually discover its partial meaning along the way. Its complete meaning – with time, at the end, or not at all. It depends on blessing, course, some honesty and justice, also in accompanying issues, worldviews, or all other relevant derivatives. It is important to remain vigilant and…screening/absorptive or… absorptive/screening. Especially, as they sayin’ in Polish, as you don’t know the day or the hour… But what if you already know almost everything… Well, once you understand the potential, all that’s left is to prepare the rest, take care of things so as not to burden anyone else. Say goodbye to your old life, perhaps even prepare precious/ness/t for sale, because who knows… maybe won’t come back. It’s just a habit, developed over the years. It’s just… how to say… Just second nature.

Announced by a single photo of a Palestinian child on the internet in the fall of 2023, with a Y-shaped incision in his torso, and launched in early January 2024 by a second photo of beautiful girl, the whole year was ultimately a harbinger of a new life, a change for which, as usual, we had to fight. From the very beginning, this year was marked by this exactly change/promise/image of a new, fulfilled life; it was kinda line of maturation—and, in a way, a repetition of my entire previous life. It was as if I had finally reached the end of the old world, saw the new one, and, crossing the border, have eyes around the head, to see and experience it once again in an intense flash. And these signals came chronologically, of course. First, after Easter, I regained all the things from my entire life that I had lost in May 2024. Later, in a suburban mall where I usually did my shopping, I met a classmate from high school, Ewa Domańska, a very talented mathematician, sad in black, to whom I used one organizing key to quickly recount the last 32 years of my life: the key of tracking/communing/domination of Zionism. A month later, in the same place, I met a journalist and writer, Marta Sawicka, exceptionally and coincidentally from Warsaw, who, after meeting me in 2005, some time later offered me a job in television, a milestone experience. When I told her the story of this announcement that would change my life, she replied that it was like Leon Wiśniewski’s “Loneliness in the Net.” Of course, there were many more events, to name a few symbolic ones. Such is this mysterious, long-awaited adaptation. For this reason, once again.

During my many train journeys to Warsaw, I have talked to many different people. And, of course, it depends on the personality how much and what kind of information you want to share/exchange, etc. In this respect, this trip was unique. I was sitting opposite a woman with a child who, from the moment she sat down, wanted to play a board game. The mother had mistakenly bought checkers for the trip, because the child could not recognize/distinguish them from chess, and after I told what kind of game it was, she said with a smile that “she is excellent at chess.” I laughed because it was both wonderful and daring. The mother also smiled and was perhaps a little embarrassed by her daughter’s accurate courage 😉 The mother, Małgorzata Żuk (Margerita Beetle), turned out to be a wedding photographer, and her daughter Kalina (Viburnum) was a friendly, intelligent gamer, which we began to talk about freely. I told them a few stories about why I was going to this fallen city/country. Margerita said that her two sisters had married Muslims. And I said that I only knew one woman with such a flowerish name, Kalina – Zalewska, with her redaction / final inspection, around my 33rd birthday, I did my first tv independent work/series on Polish Television: a 4-minute “Invitation to TV Theater” and the first one for the play “Góra Góry” (Mountain of the Mountain) about Father Jan Góra (John Mountain), the initiator and leader of religious meetings in Polish Lednica. That situation was kinda weird, because I had limited crew time, and the priest was sitting in the “SteakHouse” on Jerusalem Avenues in Warsaw with a few nice girls at a lavishly set table, feasting continuously. I won’t say that the waiting for the proper context didn’t irritate me, because one spectacle fit the other like a fist to the nose. Whose?

Apart from electronic versions, I always take a few paper books with me because I like their smell and the celebration/ritual, the different influence of the form. This time, apart from essential book on games, Bronisław Maszlanka’s “The Four Faces of Militarism” something about the struggles of Poles throughout history in the US, I took “The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt, whose thesis on the banality of evil I do not entirely agree with, but whose example of disagreement with the Jewish community in the US / elsewhere I consider, in a sense, exemplary. Margerita, considering the growing madness and some kind of hellish slippery slope, also, and perhaps above all, with the entry of so-called ALIENS into the US, advised me to consider the risk of losing these books and perhaps the risk of entry… Well, maybe she’s right. Huh. Anyway, why carry coals to Newcastle? And again, I was reminded of an analogy from a 2006, when I returned to Warsaw, the so-called N’City and rented an apartment above the Polonia Theater (“polonia” means Polish community abroad), not far from the ‘useless’ Cheap Book store on Koszykowa Street (‘kosz’ means trash can or basket). And when I started my internship at the TVP public station, that’s where I bought my first two books: Hannah Arendt’s “Thinking” and “Willing.”

When we got off in Warsaw, Małgorzata said goodbye to me with a hug, as if I were a friend; a little warmth before the concrete can never hurt. When I recently went to Białystok (eng WhiteStream) for a kebab and asked if it was mutton, beef, or chicken, I got this answer: “Sir, if anyone in this city tells you that it’s one of those meats, don’t believe them, it’s all a lie because it’s just pork. Nothing else is worth the price.” We talked for a while about the old days, when established practices should have been widely adopted long ago, but if this is true, it means that something prevents it. In Warsaw, I went to the city center for a great mixed kebab with mutton and beef. I took the subway to Ursynów and ordered a taxi. Driver Jacek said that he was recently in Canada and that both there and in the US, your pension stops working if you don’t have your own place to live. It’s like an accelerating, inevitable self-destruction.

On the plane to Romania, a woman cheesy asked for a window seat, for her daughter, so I sat on the so-called uncomfy extra seat next to a man who immediately started watching a new Polish film with subtitles on his phone with headphones. It was a prequel to a series of three old comedies, probably the best known, most repeated/appreciated in Poland, namely “Sami Swoi” (eng Only Our Folks). This series, and especially the first film, is kinda a phenomenon. It tells the story of post-war antagonism between two families living next to each other in the countryside, separated by a fence, which they approach at crucial moments and take turns arguing, especially about a small piece of land, insulting and reconciling each other, with a clear predominance of constant nightmares. Director Sylwester Chęciński reportedly did not intend to make a comedy at all, but a morality drama. And when he heard the united cinema audience roaring with laughter at the premiere, he allegedly burst into tears. That’s how samtimes it is in Polska (eng Poland), the opposite of what you’d expect. I watched for a while, but when I sense sugarcoating and unleavenedness, this intrusive predictability starts to bore me.

Changing between different airports, surprisingly located very close to each other. At the next airport, was an interesting photo exhibition Human Nature by Romanian authors and objects. Long flight, what to watch, isn’t much to choose from. I’ve seen most of it. A new version of Edward Street’s novel in a comedy about the rich divorce/engagement/wedding of already very wealthy Cuban emigrants, or the not-so-futuristic but dystopian, ruthless and bloody ‘Civil War’ in States, about war reporters, par excellence of shots – and the hunt for president’s the trophy / ‘scalp’ – was the hit. It was like watching Gaza in America. The woman sitting next to me, with suspiciously Scandinavian appearance, decided to watch the second part of ‘Beetlejuice’, but not about Adam and Barbara, but about the return of Beetlejuice’s fiancée/wife to claim what was hers. Later, the woman took out Emmanuel Carrère’s book “Limonov”. The unempathetic elderly Jewish man sitting in front of me was straining the seat terribly, so I moved to the plane’s back and chose the second part of Dune for the end of the flight.

Anka Cisak once was convincing me that Tim Burton, “Beetlejuice” director, and his wife Helena Bonham-Carter live in two separate houses next to each other, as proof of the coexistence of two personalities/characters which do not exactly fit together. And apparently, they cannot live without each other either. But I did not check this story veracity. Samhaw, t’was no need to. Well, all in all, every desert film and self-experience reminds me of “Lawrence of Arabia’s” famous quote: “I like the desert. It’s clean.” Apart from the context of attaching this quote to any meaning/image/territory, it immediately evokes a kind of perversity/ambiguity, kinda mystery meaning. Just before landing, I saw dried up New York from above. Faded green colors, gray and concrete. No rain here for a long time, I guessed. Well, why should there be? After last year’s flood… When we landed, it turned out that the wait for a parking spot was getting longer and longer, causing impatience among the passengers. The cockpit’s constant requests to remain in their seats were consistently ignored by one conspicuous ethnic group – Jews; and, strangely enough… – with completely emotionless expressions on their faces.

DAY1

After a smooth security check and clearance, I sat down in the small departure lounge of the modest terminal and looked at the glass exit doors through the extended handle of my black Samsonite suitcase, the only one standing in front of me so far. I had been to the US once before, to Indiana state in 2008, right after shooting a film about Bob Marley in Jamaica. After being disappointed by gangster-ridden Kingston and the generally overrated supposed paradise, but laid-back musical Jamaica came next. I liked the architecture in Chicago here and there, Thai food, and jazz at the festival. I don’t even want to list the flaws, the practical and aesthetic discomforts, and how much empty schematism and hypocrisy I experienced at the time. Obviously something was wrong with this place, and that’s it.

But the US was not giving up. Later, in 2010, I went to India for the wedding of Cisak’s friend sister; all interesting because of sun and exotic, but unevenly poor. I quickly left the organized group tour for personal/entertainment reasons and mainly traveled around the country on my own, ending up at the wedding in Chennai. Actually, the most interesting encounter and the first experience of this scale was the presence of a billboard of a movie/hero whose face accompanied me wherever I went and, in a way, commented on all the stories along the way, often making me laugh to tears. It was the face of allegedly the richest actor in the world, the idol of India, Shah Rukh Khan, and the film, nomen omen, “I’m Khan.” I mention this because when I watched it after my return, turned out that the film was about the dream/journey of the delayed Khan to the US to meet the president. Yes, yes. Later, I only traveled around Europe, Morocco and Israel. Seventeen years have passed and a lot of exotic water and blood has flowed under the bridge.

I booked a hotel in a sort of Indian neighborhood of New Jersey, got up, and walked over to the stand on the left side of the airport door. A pretty young woman in clothing suggesting Islam belief was selling internet cards. We chatted a while about current prices for communication and transportation. As I slowly approached the door, I realized that with all these experiences and feelings, regardless of my new intentions, I should feel exactly the same as if I were wearing kinda typical immigrant shoes. Anyway, the essential thing is that when I am in a new place, far away on many levels, and I have relatively a lot of time, I like to see everything and walk around. If I give it another chance, let’s say, everything interests me again and… I walked out the door. I activated all my senses and was struck by a disgusting, strange, thick stench in the air.

Some kind of renovation was underway, workers in hard hats were shouting and directing traffic to the airport transport elevator. In the large empty elevator, a father of three sons was childishly instructing them on how to react. Three subway transfers through Jamaica Station and I got out with my suitcase in Manhattan on 33rd Street. The views of New York are well known to those interested. Packaged similarly, they repeatedly evoke the same set of clichés in various media. As I walked the first short distance to change subway lines, I felt above all the smell and the encirclement of the square jungle. Such a specific concentrated mixture of roasted concrete, burnt tires, the dominance of THC marijuana, American detergents, a mix of strong perfumes of people passing by, etc., etc., suffocating as hell, in the heated July afternoon atmosphere, reflecting off the cube structure and the lofty complex of repeating prisms, it additionally caused a feeling of unpleasant incongruity. The desert seemed much more pleasant to me, with its sky and sand dunes.

I crossed the river by subway and got off at Journal Square on the other side of the metropolis, i.e., Jersey, New Jersey. It turned out that, surprisingly, the Polish network on my phone did not support either calls or the Internet, and after asking people for directions and being misled several times, I finally arrived at the hotel in the Indian district. What else but photos can instantly deceive you these days? During many different trips, when booking an inexpensive hotel, it often turned out to be private accommodation or a hotel without service in a larger building, with access via small boxes with coded keys. This one turned out to be a combination of both versions. I asked a pleasant-looking Indian girl, explaining my problem, to call the number provided. She smiled and agreed, and it turned out, of course, that I hadn’t received the codes earlier, because the guy explained in a vague tone that he changes them at a certain time and then informs guests, but I think he just forgot. Many doors, many codes, one key. Finally, he said that “the first door in the hotel after the entrance has the letter ‘I’ for ‘India,’ and the second, mine, has ‘E’ for ‘Eden.” Well. I thanked the nice, pretty girl and went immediately to sleep.

The entire journey, began with a Limousine, followed by a car, train, subway, taxi, plane, bus, another plane, 4xsubway, and finally a walk, lasted 33H. I slept off the journey adequately and got up in the morning. The light in the room wasn’t working. Out into the hallway, after a while I met the only other hotel guests, two Polish immigrants who had come from Boston, Massachusetts, for internship. We chatted brieflow coldly, they left. Hotel alone and not much was working. The water smelled of iron and something else unpleasant. I looked at the food products that had been left, which contained a horrendous amount of killing addictive sugar. Unbelievable self-satisfaction in self-destruction. Zucker fucking berg.

DAY2

I went out to look around. Last day’s smell had dissipated into the wider space, enriched by Indian cuisine and culture in general. Asking in the local store about my favorite coffee, they told me I won’t find what I’m looking for in this neighborhood. Thought it would be good to find out more from a reliable hand. Apart from friends and couchsurfing, the best is to use workaway or workpack sites where people get free week accommodation and/or meals in exchange for a few days of part-time work. They know visitors stories in immigrant spirit and scale, what and where. There was no time to use such a platform, but I found a hotel in southern NJ. Well, personal charm and risky business.

Leaving this neighborhood with my suitcase on wheels and walking into a more deserted area, I felt like half-soulmate tracking by the camera from “Mystery Train.” Of course, it wasn’t Memphis, but the familiar, mostly empty, worn-out streets were similar. Often without a living soul, but always with the smell of marijuana, as if the source of its exhaled origin belonged to a ghost. It feels strange to walk in such large, built-up, littered, deserted spaces. They seem completely unnecessary, and single persons you encounter take on some kind of eschatological, symbolic meaning. It’s hard to escape that. Completely unconsciously, a pattern emerges from the randomly discarded items of varying degrees and sizes that were once needed. Well, maybe too much banana-chocolate butter.

In a radius of one kilometer one black woman with dyed white hair walks across the street. In a huge stadium with flags waving, one latino-like boy playin soccer. After a moment, a little black girl rides by on a children’s bike. In the vast, supposedly green leafy space of the park, in the middle of a large square, a couple standing close together. From time to time, an unstable figure will emerge from around the corner, muttering under his breath. etc., etc., etc. What specifically expected does these mythological associations exactly evoke, huh. Where does it come from and can you safely look back. And all I hear is the strangely rattling air and steady clatter of the suitcase wheels on the variable plate-concrete surface. If I were walking with a backpack, I might not feel this distinction so strongly. The further south, the poorer.

After less than an hour of relatively vigilant walking, you are absolutely convinced that the national sport of the US is renting a place and settling taxes. Before I reached the hotel, apogeum of completely/detailed Rust car suddenly stopped behind me. Never seen one still working like it before. A man got out, took food bag, left it at the door, took a photo and drove off. If such monotony doesn’t kill right away, something definitely must support it.

In the destination neighborhood, the distance between houses was sometimes less than 1 meter. Approaching the hotel with its windows covered, I noticed an Indian girl walking the other side of the sidewalk. We came to the door and I rang the bell. A woman’s voice answered and asked us to introduce ourselves in strict English. We both did so, several times, to the point of absurdity, even spelling out our names, because the woman’s voice kept asking for them, and it turned out that our reservations allegedly didn’t exist. The girl asked to open the door, but to no avail. The woman’s voice kept freezing, asking for our names again and again. Finally, after about 10 minutes, it turned out that the girl’s reservation was there after all, but despite this, we waited another 10 minutes until my reservation was confirmed and the door finally opened.

After leaving my suitcase in the afternoony deserted hotel, and so as not to waste time, I took my camera and headed to the east-south part of New Jersey, to the coast. Finally. Only here could you feel the spirit of immigration and American diversity and… how its culinary culture, broadly defined, so as not to offend particular nationalities or ethnic groups, is devastating. Who cares…