Monthly Archives: August 2009

Marquee Moon

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Well here it is, a Saturday night. Remarkably I am feeling no edge, even when I shave. Perhaps it’s time to get a new blade. Or a new strop.

Just got back from a boogie woogie ramble in Manhattan. Went in and did some coconut work for Greg Stevens. It was nice for a while, no one was in and all the lights were off.

I left it that way, giving it a cool atmosphere and not wasting any electricity. Of course about 90 minutes later in comes Abby and about six of his fellow country men and women.

It was odd, when I came into the building I saw two of Abby’s countrymen outside having a smoke. I had met them before and waved as I was going in. The security guard Rick, knows me fairly well and said that those two guys outside (the countrymen) tried to get in, but since no one was there he refused them access, despite their pleading that they had keys.

I told Rick that I sort of knew them and waved when I came in. Since they looked at me with an air of indifference I told Rick that they can stay outside for all I cared.

So they waited 90 minutes until the perpetually late Abby showed up for a guided tour of empty cubicles and overturned garbage cans.

Working on Greg Stevens coconut job was tedious but I was grateful to get some tasty cole slaw coming in.

Walking home I listened to Sly and the Family Stone- Anthology. Incredible stuff even after getting burned with Chaz a few years ago seeing Sly at BB King’s nightclub. Sly was shy and unintelligible. Chaz took me and I still have to make it up to him somehow.

Just listening to I Want to Take You Higher made the hair on my arms stand on end. Well it was either Sly & the Family Stone or the electrified subway grating that I was standing on. I’d like to think it was Sly.

Last night after doing some other coconut work for Greg Stevens I walked across town and saw a play that Bill has been stage managing the past few weeks. Now I had seen quite a few projects that Bill has been involved with, some good, some bad.

Fair to middling.

Last night’s show was 4 one act plays that ranged from OK to very funny. I can’t knock the playwright and director since he’s a friend of Bill’s (Arthur French III- not ‘friend of Bill’s’ like in AA) and there really isn’t any need to.

The first act took place in a locker room, after a professional basketball player’s last game. The team manager, the player and his girlfriend. The player’s wife and kids were off stage. It was OK.

The second act took place that beautiful morning in September 2001. Office workers in limbo at 9:15 AM. Some are dead, one is still alive, but basically they’re in limbo. Sort of an existential Twilight Zone which got some nervous giggles from the audience members behind me.

Then came the third act, a two actor piece about 2 former drug buddies, she has HIV and he doesn’t. They were old friends since they were teenagers who became junkies. That was very good and touching.

The fourth and final act was the silliest of all. Set in some near future, maybe 15 minutes from now, a guy is having problems with his robot girlfriend, her replacement robot and the supervisor robot woman who almost became his latest hook up or plug in.

I went out with Bill and the cast for some snacks and a pint. Nice people all of them and if tomorrow wasn’t the last performance I would recommend going to see it.

That’s it for me on this end. How are things holding up on your end?

The Pressure Of Life (Takes the Weight Off the Body)

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OK, back to the present day. The past few weeks have been quite stressful for me. Job loss, staying home climbing the walls, planes and helicopters crashing nearby.

Plus my people skills have been non-existent. Going to the supermarket would leave me enraged. Crossing the street was a matter of life or death with me tempting fate.

Not that I was trying to get hit by a car, but rather looking for trouble as a pedestrian yelling at and sometimes smacking the trunk of a car as it rolled through a stop sign.

The sort of thing that occasionally winds up with someone getting shot and since I do not own a gun, the person who might get shot would be me.

I discussed this with Casey Chasm who is fleeing Hoboken with the missus at the end of the month since Hoboken is so bleedin’ expensive. He’s been unemployed longer than I’ve been and went through similar feelings.

He recommended a prescription for Xanax. I’ve used Xanax back in the day, usually from Susan Sled’s pillbox hat. Didn’t do much for me 19 years ago, but it was for recreational purposes then, and foolishly so.

Now I had an actual reason.

Casey suggested seeing his doctor and since the doctor I used a few years ago has quite a flaky schedule I called up Casey’s MD and got an appointment for the same day.

So following Casey’s well timed advice I went and had an EKG, and some lung capacity tests and they were fine. Of course the discussion about quitting cigarettes came up and it will be discussed further once I get my blood work done next week.

I do like the doctor though, and his staff were very nice as well. So after picking up the prescription, I took one. The recommended dosage was 2 a day, but 1 was enough. Plus it was late afternoon. Within about 20 minutes, things started to get warm, edginess fading.

Ran into the funniest girl alive, Meghan and her daughter Ruby. All very pleasant, even more pleasant than usual. And I still had a sense of humor. Walked around with Meghan and Ruby, saw Jim at the Guitar Bar where Jim was putting stuff in the car for the Guitar Bar Summer Camp show at the Frozen Monkey Cafe.

Jim & Ruby drove up there, Meghan and I walked up. I was feeling generally pretty good and Meghan was feeling pretty much the same way.

I decided not to stay to watch the kids playing whatever it is they were going to play. A few weeks ago all I needed to hear was the opening notes to Sweet Child of Mine by Guns & Roses to get me out of there.

I opted to go to the supermarket to see if my murderous rage was suppressed enough. On the way there I talked on the phone to my sister in law Elaine since my new doctor asked me for info on my brother Frank’s stroke in 2007.

Got the info and headed into the store which was crowded and staffed with the usual belligerent people. This time it didn’t bother me. It didn’t bother me either when on the express line someone ahead of me had 20 items instead of the limit of 15.

Had a light supper when I came home, a few hours later, a walk around Hoboken once again with Julio. And that was pleasant, none of the weight of the world on my shoulders.

I know that weight is still there but not crushing me like it’s been lately.

I could have used a Xanax the other night when I went to the Yankee game with Bill. That didn’t go as well as I had hoped.

I was pretty much miserable and Bill had a feeling that was going to happen. Overall that was a bad night. Sitting in the bleachers with no back support, my neck was stiff and I was wearing an older pair of glasses that I thought looked better but with a weaker prescription, I couldn’t focus on much at all.

Bill enjoyed himself despite me. And it made for an uncomfortable ride home.

I can be quite an asshole sometimes. Hopefully now I’ll have a better grip on that.

Today I’m going into Greg Stevens office to do some coconut work, then heading across town to see the play that Bill has been stage managing the past few weeks.

I think this weekend or early next week, I’ll have a return trip to Lodi, a family friend passed away this morning. Back to the social milieu of wakes and funerals.

Bill & his friend Kirk

Bill & his friend Kirk