Times Square
Since I started this job I’ve learned just how much I love New York City. I was there once before years back and it was a fantastic sight to behold, but at the time I wasn’t able to truly appreciate the city. There was so much I hadn’t seen or experienced on that one single trip. This piece is based on my most recent trip that I ended up there on a Saturday night and I didn’t realize how much I missed it.
I brought a bus from Boston into the Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT) and when you come out of the terminal, you are face-to-face across the street from a huge sign for the New York Times on their namesake building. Everything is just larger than life. A block or two away is the actual Times Square, which is freaking huge! It is really a visual rendition of American excessism and materialism at both its best and worst. If I wanted to show any foreigner America and there was only ten minutes to do it, Times Square is where I would do it.
When you are there the first time, it’s overwhelming on every sense. There are people bumping into you, the smell of food, the lights, the sounds of people talking and cars honking, and you can almost taste the air for good or bad. Everything is there at once. After a while, it starts making sense and like fractals, the peal patterns of Times Square start to emerge. It is truly a piece of living four-dimensional art with various focal points from any direction you stand and look. The lights that blinded you at first make way to the symmetry of the area. The streets are almost perfect angles—but not exactly. There’s a feeling of imperfection there as well brought together by the whole. Times Square is the definition of “synergy.” The addition of the people from all walks of life in there squirm like a hand full of flies fermented apple juice, adding the finishing touch to the woven tapestry. New York may just be any other city if it wasn’t for Times Square.
The art is just the start of it though. Beyond that, there is materialism in excess to the point of shear beauty. At one or two in the morning, mall type stores are open everywhere there. There are classy stores and shops in New York. Those are not in Times Square. Times Square is more like Mall of America or an outdoor outlet mall with all the same stores and they are packed because sometimes you just need to buy a pair of Raybans and Sunglass Hut at midnight. Between mall stores and souvenir shops capitalizing on the NYC name, city stays alive.
A lot of people think I am crazy for my love of New York but they don’t see it and that’s fine. They are just wrong. Times Square is America from sea to shining sea and there is a wave of calm that washes over me every time I am there. If I am going to be married to my work, New York has become my mistress.
Thank you for reading this piece from Michael Beebe. For more about Michael, please visit TheMichaelBeebe.com or VagabondingAmerica.com.
Picture a young Michael Beebe, fresh out of La Porte High School in ’93, diving headfirst into the world of hospitality with a busboy gig at the old La Porte Holiday Inn. That hustle led him to an Associate of Science from Purdue-North Central in ’95 and a Bachelor’s in Hospitality Management from Purdue-Calumet in ’97 (those schools are now merged into Purdue-Northwest, by the way). Michael’s early career was a whirlwind—running a 140-room hotel in Indianapolis, where he learned the ins and outs of the industry but realized it wasn’t his true calling. What did spark his passion? Teaching. He found himself thriving in front of students at Ivy Tech Community College and Lake Michigan College, sharing the art and science of hospitality management. Oh, and he also moonlighted at WIMS radio in Michigan City, juggling both on-air and behind-the-scenes roles with his signature high energy.
Politics? That’s been Michael’s sidekick since he was 18, registering to vote with a fire in his belly to make a difference. He threw his hat in the ring for La Porte County Council in 2010, where he got a crash course in the power of social media marketing. Undeterred by not winning, he campaigned for Indiana’s General Assembly in 2012 and took another shot at the County Council in 2014 and 2016. Though he hasn’t clinched a seat yet, Michael’s relentless drive to serve shines through. Lately, he’s been pouring that energy into helping other candidates who champion personal liberty, amplifying their voices with his knack for strategy.
Here’s a twist: Michael once co-owned a tattoo shop, despite having no ink himself. As the business manager and marketing guru, he leaned hard into low-cost, social media-driven campaigns to put the shop on the map. That experience fueled his love for digital marketing, and now he spends his free time crafting websites and boosting businesses online—a true labor of love.
These days, Michael’s living the dream as an independent contracted transporter, crisscrossing the country while getting paid to soak up new places and cultures. When he’s not exploring, he’s parked somewhere scenic, laptop open, building his digital consulting company, Spark Plug Strategies, or penning his thoughts. He even wrote a few books.
Based in La Porte County, Indiana, Michael’s embraced a “decentralized laptop lifestyle,” blending work, travel, and passion projects into a life that’s as dynamic as he is.