What Seinfeld character would you be?

IT’S inevitable. Once you move to New York, it’s only a matter of time before you turn into a character from Seinfeld. And yes, dear reader, after five months in this city I too have succumbed. So I’d like to introduce myself … the heavy walker. And I’m not particularly happy about it. It all began about six days after I moved into my new apartment. There I was, hanging new curtains and unpacking IKEA plates, when I received a curt letter informing me of one of the building’s by-laws. Apparently, all tenants are required to carpet no less than 80 per cent of their lovely wood floors. After hearing the rustlings of a new tenant upstairs, my downstairs neighbour had swiftly alerted the management company and asked them to query my compliance with this rule. Despite my short tenure in the block, she had already managed to catalogue a list of my noise crimes. Among the intolerable noise she claimed was coming from my television, phone conversations and general day-to-day living, my dear neighbour complained of my “heavy walking”. I was asked to carpet the apartment immediately. So, consider my situation. With no TV, couch or cutlery, buying a carpet wasn’t particularly high on my to-do list. Besides, I had my own gripe. Every morning, somewhere between 4.30 and 5am, I was being awoken by a mysterious sound from my own upstairs neighbour. I assumed the origin was animal, but I had trouble imagining an animal that moved by somersaulting its way across the floor at great speed. So I wrote a reply to management, agreeing that if the rule indeed existed, I’d be happy to comply, but would they be so kind as to write a similar letter to my upstairs neighbour with the mysterious pet. I was careful to also state that I had never engaged in "heavy walking" of any kind, only regular and reasonably-expected walking. I had no response to my letter. There was also no response to my two phone calls. Before long, however, I received another letter. It once again bemoaned my “heavy walking” and asked me to install carpet immediately. I was furious. I wrote back: “I must state my objection at the continued use of the term ‘heavy walking’. Since your first letter I have been very careful to tread as softly as possible and remove my shoes when I enter the apartment. “Your continued use of the term is causing me emotional distress, as it implies and is tantamount to calling me overweight. “I hope that you will address the noise concerns relating to my upstairs neighbor with the same vigor that you have shown in dealing with me”’ I had included the middle paragraph and the reference to “emotional distress” as a scare tactic. In a country so weighed down by frivolous litigation, I was keen to throw my hat in the ring and hint at initiating a lawsuit of my own. My ploy seemed to work. Although the letter garnered no response, the following week I received only a short query, wondering whether there was an “update concerning the carpet installation” and asking me to contact the super to arrange an inspection. So it seems I won the clash, but not the campaign. References to my “heavy walking” were banished, for now. Although, I still have to deal with the unending pleas for carpet and the annoying sensation of being completely ignored. What’s worse, I will henceforth always be known to my amused and Seinfeld-loving family as the “heavy walker”, and perhaps now also, to you.

Las Vegas impersonator

During my first trip to Las Vegas last weekend, I found the remote desert destination to be a lot like Australia’s capital city, Canberra. Why? Because of the remarkable propensity for strangers you meet to invariably end a conversation with the words “good luck”. Of course, this is so in Canberra because usually the stranger is someone you have pulled up beside on the street, and after rolling down your car window, asked for directions. The planned city of Canberra was designed using giant circular road structures, which, unsurprisingly, sees most of its visitors frustratedly driving around in circles, lost. Locals know this all too well, and being such a friendly bunch, it is customary for them to end their long list of “go straight until you reach a small hill”, “take the third exit off the roundabout” and “if you reach Parliament House, you’ve gone to far” with a hearty “good luck!”. For they know, you’ll never make it. Needless to say, in Vegas people wish you luck because they assume at some point during your stay you’ll gamble. After all, isn’t that what Las Vegas is all about? I’ll admit, I wanted to get into the Las Vegas spirit as much as any first-time tourist there. The sad thing was, I couldn’t seem to find it. It’s not that I didn’t know what to expect. Robert De Niro’s character in the 1995 hit movie Casino, Ace Rothstein, had made it clear*. But I guess I was still secretly hoping for a little of the Vegas immortalized on cinema screens in the 1950s and 60s films. A glitzy, sexy Vegas; a slightly dangerous one. That Vegas no longer exists. Today’s Las Vegas attracts international tourists and bucks-party bachelors, sure. But from what I could tell, the vast majority of punters were middle-American families, ticking off another must-see destination on their list. Grand Canyon? Check. Disneyland? Check. Yellowstone National Park? Check. Vegas? Ding, ding ding! Although disappointed by the en masse, pedestrian atmosphere and averse to gambling as I am, this didn’t stop me from taking my brief turn at the roulette table. My visiting Australian friend and I partnered up to apply what she called a “no-lose strategy”. We would bet the minimum ($10) on either black or red and stick to that color. If we won, we would take the winnings and bet the minimum again. If we lost, we’d double our bet, stick to the same color and trust the laws of statistics to help us make our money back. The strategy worked. Little by little, we made our winnings. When we lost, we doubled and tried again. When we lost a second time, we hesitantly doubled that bet, and voila! Our courage was rewarded. Halfway through, we switched from black to red. Our pile of chips continued to grow, slowly. And when we reached about $120, I was done. Watching a young man at our table effortlessly amass a mountain of purple chips, and then unblinkingly lose them, made me realize: if we wanted to win big, we’d have to bet big. But to bet big, I’d have to be willing to lose big, and I wasn’t. Splitting our winnings, I used mine to consider the lavish dinner we’d earlier enjoyed as paid for by the casino. And speaking of all things big, that dinner had featured some of the biggest steaks I have ever seen served in civil society. Giant steak? Check. Could somebody please pass the antacid? *“Today it looks like Disneyland. And while the kids play cardboard pirates, Mommy and Daddy drop the house payments and Junior's college money on the poker slots. In the old days, dealers knew your name, what you drank, what you played. Today, it's like checkin' into an airport.” – Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein, Casino.

New York living 101 – finding a home

IT is practically an ironclad rule, that all those who arrive in New York must overcome a common obstacle – finding an apartment. A large percentage of New Yorkers are not native to these parts. And one of the experiences that binds them to their fellow Gotham dwellers is the harrowing experience of finding a space to call home, in a city where the number of people searching for an apartment far outnumbers the number that are available. But everyone gets through it. Afterwards, they laugh about it, remembering what an awful experience they had. So you can imagine the suspicious looks and veiled jealous glances I received when people learned that I had somehow bypassed this rite of passage. Panicked at the memory of a similar house-hunting experience in London, in the weeks before I moved to New York, I trawled websites and called in every contact I had to try and find a soft place to land. It was a stressful time, but my search bore good fruit, and in the end I found myself the lucky recipient of a third-party favour. A friend of a distant cousin in New Jersey would be in Israel for four months, and I was offered their apartment to sublet. And this was no ordinary apartment. For a fraction of what it should have cost, I was permitted to live in a swish downtown building, complete with a team of doormen and attendants who work around the clock, a laundry, gym and drycleaners in the basement, a library in the luscious lobby and the rumour that a certain former mayor was a resident. The apartment itself was a dusty old studio and not particularly flash, but it was wonderfully sufficient and located right on Washington Square Park, in the heart of Greenwich Village. I learned later that I had been offered this prize by the friend as a way of thanking my cousin, who had been particularly kind to them during a bout of illness. I was on top of the world in those first weeks. I would wake up every morning grinning and step out into my world (Manhattan – I could hardly believe it). I was stupidly happy, all the time. But just as all good things must end, so did my tenure in The Village and it was time to go apartment hunting – that dreaded New York sport. It was every bit as awful as they say. In Australia, punters front up at a handful of estate agents’ offices, procure keys, view apartments, lodge applications and cross their fingers. It’s fairly simple. If there is a fee for listing the apartment, the renter wouldn’t know (or care) about it. It’s taken care of by the landlord (that is, the guy with the most money). In New York, it’s far more complex. Any given apartment can be listed by multiple brokers who compete to show it to potential renters. If their client takes the place, they are on the receiving end of a handsome broker’s fee – 12-15 per cent of the first year’s rent. Sometimes they settle for the equivalent for a month’s rent. To an Australian, this arrangement is preposterous! Why does it happen? Because of that pesky old chestnut, supply and demand. There’s no need for landlords to pay brokers when there are desperate souls lining up around the block to take that patch of Manhattan real estate off their hands. My search for an apartment was typical. After viewing a few dives alone, I pounded the pavement with two separate brokers for seven hours one afternoon. The first broker took me to a couple of places so smelly I wouldn’t leave my dog there, let alone pay top dollar to live in. Then there were the tiny places, the places with no light and the ones where you wonder how many murders have taken place in the building. I saw one place where the entire apartment slanted down at an angle. It was like being in a cartoon. I won’t lie to you – the thought of moving back to Bondi crossed my mind. But just as I was almost ready to quit the game, we found it. Nothing too fancy, but exactly what I needed: a space that inspired me. Not in the best neighbourhood, but not in the worst. It had one big window, an exposed brick wall and a working fireplace. It was small, but my mind’s eye was already calculating where my fictitious furniture would go. And just like that, I had leapt over my first hurdle and properly arrived.