THERE'S A REASON THEY CALL IT A PAPER

I probably shouldn't do this, but I'm going to let you in on a secret about the newspaper game:

Reporters are childish people. And God bless them for that trait, because it's what sustains that sense of wonder the best ones never lose.

I was as childish as anybody in the tabloid playground when I wrote for the New York Post. Like a kid on Christmas Eve, I couldn't sleep when I knew I had a good story appearing in tomorrow's paper.

So instead of waiting for tomorrow, I'd go out just before midnight and wait at Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village for the New York Post delivery truck to arrive.

It was just like they do it in the movies - maybe the only part of the newspaper game that's accurately portrayed in the movies. The truck pulls up, a bundle of papers hits the sidewalk and the vendor cuts the cord with a blade.

You stand ready with the right change, pay the vendor, grab a paper and start ripping through it to find your story. You hope for an odd-numbered page, because even-numbered pages are often missed by the reader. (Didn't know that, did you?)

And there it is, your story, with your name above it in bold-faced print. Something that didn't exist yesterday exists today, and you've got it right there in your hands.

In your hands. Three important words.

Newspaper reporters are getting fired left and right these days in an effort to save money, as publications hurtle toward an all-online destiny. In other words, paperless papers.

Funny idea, firing reporters to save a newspaper. Kind of like getting run over by an ambulance.

The point is, you can do a lot of things with a story in an online publication, but you can't hold it in your hands.

I'm thinking of Mike Pearl's hands. When it came to big trials in Manhattan there was never a better reporter than Pearl, who was a veteran when I was a rookie.

But boy oh boy, he had a rookie's enthusiasm right until the day he retired. Many chilly nights Pearl shivered with me at Sheridan Square, waiting for that first edition to hit the sidewalk.

Pearl was meticulously dressed, dapper and stylish, but there was a funny thing about his hands - they were always ink-smudged from his daily journeys through the Post, the Daily News and the New York Times.

He also got them dirty establishing his legendary "Wall of Shame," featuring his favorite front-page stories. To me, Pearl's wall was as essential a New York landmark as the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.

Could an online reporter create a wall this glorious?

I know, I know - I sound like a typical ink-stained wretch, longing for the good old days. My earliest published stories have turned brown with the years - the old newsprint is literally crumbling at the edges, something online reporters won't have to worry about.

And don't I have a hell of a nerve, complaining about online publications in an online publication?

Hey, nobody has to tell me that things will never again be as they were.

But see, I'm still a newspaperman at heart, even though I left The Post more than twenty years ago. Childish as ever, and proud of it.

TWO-ONE-TWO, I'LL ALWAYS BE TRUE

Manhattan is a lover that never calls the next day. This golden island always gives more than it gets, and if you don't want it, well, look behind you, pal - the line of suitors stretches from river to river.
 
Sorry to get so emotional, but I moved to London three months ago and when you leave Manhattan, it's not just a change of address - it's a break-up.

Forget Tony Bennett singing about San Francisco. New York is the city where you leave your heart.

This torrid love affair started when I moved to Greenwich Village in 1981. Back then you could afford to live in town without being a Wall Street honcho.

I had a basement apartment on Morton Street for $350 a month. My windows were level with the sidewalk, and I became an expert on footwear.

I was so excited to be in the Village, I could barely sleep. I was always out, afraid I might miss something if I went to bed.

Whenever my energy flagged, I drank coffee at Joe Junior's diner and took a walk. Didn't even talk to anybody. Just took a walk, and came home fully charged.

That became my pattern for the decades to follow. Feeling low, or defeated? Can't think of anything to write? Take a walk. Catch a bit of a crazy conversation between two strangers. Absorb the life force from the streets. It always worked.

So I'm excited to return for a quick visit to see my family and walk the city streets. I'm looking for a Moment - something to tell me that Manhattan and I will always be friends, even if we're never together again.

And it's my rotten luck to arrive in the middle of a heat wave.

This is Manhattan at its worst. Soft wads of gum on the sidewalks, garbage simmering in the sun, odors from the corner drains rising straight from the pits of hell.

And everybody seems pissed off.

Was I kidding myself all along about this twelve-by-two mile enchanted island, or am I just getting too old to appreciate it?

I'm walking down Broadway, tired and depressed. It's steamy and sticky, and all I want to do is dive into any store and hug an air conditioner.

Then it happens. The Moment.

A crowd is gathering for Stephen Colbert's Late Show debut. A male-female cop team stands outside the studio, arms folded across their chests. The guy is big and muscular, not a man to be taken lightly.

I look at the name tag of this enforcer of the law and suddenly, my spirits soar.

CROOKS. I swear to God, the cop's name is Crooks. Imagine the abuse he put up with, going through the Police Academy.

I go up to him and point at the name tag. "You get sick of hearing this, I'm sure," I say, "but your name makes my day."

He laughs. We laugh.

And just like that, Manhattan and I are back on track. It's going to be a long-distance relationship, but I think we can make it work.

LOOKING FOR A PIZZA THE ACTION

You miss your family and friends when you leave New York City, and the streets and the buzz and even the grime, but when a certain yearning hits there’s one thing a true New Yorker misses above all else:

John’s Pizza on Bleecker Street.

I’ve brought out-of-towners to John's and they've fallen to their knees upon that first bite - ecstatic over the taste, and mournful over what they'd been missing all their lives.

Maybe it’s the coal oven, or the cheese, or the sauce...I can promise you it isn’t the decor. Dusty framed pictures of celebrities cover the walls, which haven’t tasted paint since the earth cooled.

Nobody cares. Anyone can paint a wall. Pizza like this is a gift from the gods.

A few weeks ago I could stick my head out the kitchen window of my Greenwich Village apartment, look to the left and shout my order for a half-plain, half-meatball pie - that’s how close John’s was. My security blanket.

Now I’m living in a British suburb. It’s a rainy night, and I’m in full mozzarella withdrawl, but John’s doesn’t bother delivering around the block, much less across an ocean.   What I need is a Sicilian sponsor to call and talk me through this crisis, or maybe an A.A. meeting (Anchovies Anonymous.)

What can I do?

Well, not far from where we live is a grocery store that stays open late, and a desperate thought crosses my mind:

Buy a frozen pizza, and hope for the best.

My British wife, a longtime fan of John’s Pizza, isn’t crazy about the idea.

“It’ll be dodgy,” Kim predicts. "Dodgy" is one of those great British words with a variety of negative meanings.  In short, if something "dodgy" is coming your way, dodge it. Especially a frostbitten pizza.  But I'm refusing to give up.

“I think it’s worth a shot, Kim."

“I’ll be having a salad tonight, then.”

Off I go to the shop, full of hope and doubt. There’s a variety of pizzas in the deep freeze, and I use the time-honored “eenie-meenie-miney-moe” method to choose one.

I bring it home and take it out of the cardboard box. Oh boy.  It looks like a forgotten Frisbee that’s blown off the roof after a long, relentless winter.

I turn it in my hands, rap it with my knuckles. The crust is thicker than the soles of my running shoes. Cheese flakes resembling bits of asbestos fall to the floor.

“What do you think?” I ask Kim as she recoils from the Non-John’s pizza.
 
“Don’t let Bailey get it,” she replies.

Translation: Dispose of it in the outdoor garbage pail, where our chocolate labrador retriever can’t dig it out.

Which I do on my way to the nearby Quality Fish and Chips shop, where they serve up the best cod and chips around.

Two orders of that to go, with salt and vinegar on the chips, and our evening is saved.

The lesson is obvious: When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

And when in London, stay away from frozen pizza, and just let the fish and chips fall where they may.

(Next time: A DENTAL DISASTER)

 www.charliecarillo.co