Even if the calendar said it was spring, there was a sniff of winter in the air. It was just a threat of a chill, sort of like when you sense bad news might be coming. The sky, a wide strip between 5th Avenue and the park, was turning white, and the wind was picking up a little, just enough to cause Jamie Shupak to worry that all her best laid plans for her hair were rendered useless.
Jamie was standing on the south east corner of 5th avenue and 86th street. She had been waiting for Tim Tebow for nearly 45 minutes. They had made a plan to visit the Neue Gallerie, as both of them were enormously enamored with Austrian impressionism. But where was he? Jamie checked her phone again -- no texts, no messages.
The phone rang! But it was only Boxing commentator Bert Sugar, asking Jamie her thoughts about Joe Frazier, specifically Smokin' Joe's little-known monograph, published by Colgate University Press in 1981, on the MI5's code-breaking and the Nazi's infamous Enigma machine.
Finally, a small man dressed as Broadway columnist Walter Winchell arrived. He insisted he was Walter Winchell, but Jamie knew better, since she was fully aware that Winchell had died nearly half a century earlier, having outlived his fame. When Jamie questioned the peculiar Gentleman, he insisted he was Winchell, repeating the phrase over and over "Fame has a short shadow."
The faux Winchell handed Jamie a note.
It only had a large question mark on it, along with the phrase "String! Barrels and barrels of string!"
Jamie asked the faux Winchell who had given him this note. He only repeated "Fame has a short shadow" over and over again, but he accompanied this with an elaborate pantomime featuring Balinese shadow puppets. From this pantomime, Jamie was able to decipher that the note was from Tebow, and he was, in fact, waiting for her outside the Whitney Museum.
Jamie tipped the Faux Winchell messenger by giving him ten Canadian dollars and she rushed over to the Whitney, which was only three blocks away.
When she arrived, she found Tim Tebow seated comfortably on one of the museum's low concrete walls. He was speaking to a small group of Ukrainian schoolchildren.
"The song," he said, "clearly states that the first thing you know, Ol' Jed's a millionaire. It completely omits what was no doubt the rather complicated process of tapping the oil mine. Where did the workers live? Did Jed lease the property to the oil company, or sell it outright? If he did lease it, how long was that lease? Did the workers buy their goods from a company store, and if not, were they given a per diem, in addition to their salaries? Was oil found on neighboring properties, and if so, did Jed have a 'favored nations' clause with the oil company? And I have not even begun to address the EPA and OSHA issues involved in this sort of transaction. But I could, believe me, I could. In any event, this deceptively simple theme song gives a rather unfortunate and damaging impression of the process of accumulating income in America."
Tebow then took out his iPad and showed the children a funny film featuring the 1972 Kansas City Chiefs kicking a kangaroo to death.
Spotting Jamie, Tim stood on his hands and then spun on his head. Popping to his feet, he explained that this was a solemn greeting of his own design, based on the martyrdom of St. Peter.
Jamie gave her own unique greeting, which involved imitating the hands of the clock that hung outside the famous Tick-Tock Diner in Clifton, New Jersey. She proudly explained that she had taught actress Emma Watson this self-same greeting, and she had brought it to the four corners of the world, except for the Philippines, where it was easily confused for a local hand-signal that meant "The ice cream contains rat dung, call the authorities at once."
Jamie and Tim soon resolved the confusion about the museum location, and they headed back to the Neue Gallerie.
In Part 2, Jamie and Tim will share their mutual love for Oscar Kokoschka, Jamie will sing a song she composed on the lute called "Les Chansons De Philadelphia Eagles", and the new friends will discuss producing a musical based on the life of Lillian Russell.
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