This that and the third
I sit at my desk after eating two slices of pizza which were average at best. I am listening to the Gun Club specifically the three songs that I have by the Gun Club. I have never seen Jeffrey Lee Pierce and Gun Club played Maxwell’s back in the day.
A week or so ago an old friend of my brother Brian and mine who I’ve written about before asked if I was with him when the Gun Club played the club called Folk City. I told him I had not and he basically accused me of being forgetful or lying. I don’t recall which he suggested or accused me of but neither was applicable.
I think I’ve written about Mike and I taking photographs at Cole Street on Saturday and sent him a text saying that we should meet at Cole Street at 2:00 p.m. He thought he was coming over on Friday night and then ride through my crib to get there but that was not going to happen. I don’t want him sleeping over so soon after saying goodbye like that, and there’s no point in it anyway he can sit and look at his phone in his crib.
He doesn’t bring anything to the table anyway. When there was a physicality happening there was always that chance and now that doesn’t happen so there’s no chance. I begged off saying I was going to meet a mutual friend at a cigar shop in midtown which I had done a few months ago and plus Bill would be driving so nobody will be around to let him in and show him the couch
I’m pretty sure he’s disappointed and I’m pretty sure I’m okay with it since I’ve been disappointed numerous times with him and his lack of communication with regards to showing up like things were planned in the past. Is it revenge? perhaps. But it’s looking after number one
meaning me.
We have not discussed whether or not this Saturday afternoon photo shoot will still go on in any event I will be fine if it does happen or if it does not.
I am disappointed that my usual bike ride to Liberty State Park will not be going on on Sunday due to the fact that there’s an upper class horse event going on which is a bit of a drag. Most of my usual spots and routes have been altered or blocked off so as much as I find it boring I will be heading towards the North Bergen I believe on Sunday.
Oh these first world problems
Bill is driving some senior citizens from Long Island up to Sleepy Hollow for some reason or other and Bill is supposed to be the tour guide and also the driver. What does Bill know about Sleepy Hollow.? I suppose we’ll find out if it’s more than the headless horseman and I suppose he’ll find out and I know they’ll find out.
1234 am I right? That’s all I got for now. When I’m outside smoking my cigar, I’ll have more to add.
Mike is enamored with his new Paramore. Promises are made to send him a TV. Mike was going to buy himself a TV, and I said, instead of buying herself a TV since you’re getting one for free perhaps you should buy a laptop like I had told him a few weeks ago that I’ve seen them on Amazon refurbished laptops for less than $100 which would do him better in his life and his career with a laptop.
We shall see. Next week is when they’re supposed to finally meet, and I almost mentioned that I hoped his parole officer doesn’t call, but I didn’t say anything, and I hope it doesn’t happen, but with the parole officer’s record…
The Google Gemini rewrite as a David Sedaris essay
My desk is the command center of my disillusionment. From here, I can survey the wreckage of my daily life, fueled by the average-at-best remnants of what was supposed to be a satisfying lunch. Two slices. Neither had any redeeming qualities, which is perhaps the cruelest form of mediocrity. You can’t even hate it properly. It just is.
I sat there, picking at a rogue flake of oregano, while my record player served up the familiar, jangling desolation of the Gun Club. Three songs. That’s all I have. I listen to them religiously, one after the other, a meager, musical rosary for a time I was never a part of.
The thing is, I missed the chance. Jeffrey Lee Pierce and his band played Maxwell’s back in the day, a fact that haunts me in the way that all missed opportunities do. It’s a pointless, self-inflicted wound. A few weeks ago, a friend of my brother Brian’s and mine—a person whose name, for the purposes of this story, is irrelevant, since our relationship consists entirely of him forgetting things and me remembering them—called to ask if I’d been with him at a club called Folk City when the Gun Club played there.“I was not,” I said, with the simple dignity of a man who knows what he was not.
He responded with a huff. “You’re either lying or you’re a complete idiot.” Or something along those lines. I can’t recall which specific insult he chose, but I do remember that neither of them was applicable. I am a master of many things, but forgetting the significant events of my own life is not one of them.
This same friend, who I’ve been telling for months that he doesn’t bring anything to the table, and who once proposed a photoshoot with another friend named Mike, texted me again last week. He wanted to confirm our plans for a Saturday afternoon meet-up on Cole Street. I reminded him that I had said 2:00 PM.
He, in his mind, had invented an entire pre-party where he would sleep over at my place the night before and then ride over to Cole Street in the morning. An absurd plan, given the fact that our farewells are always a long, arduous process, and that there is no need for him to sleep over at my house just to look at his phone. He has a phone and a bed at his own house.
I told him I was already meeting a mutual friend at a cigar shop in midtown—a plausible-sounding, albeit slightly embellished, excuse—and mentioned that my other friend, Bill, would be driving, and that Bill wouldn’t have a key to my place to let him in. I could almost hear the wind go out of his sails through the phone. It was a petty, satisfying moment.
A form of emotional payback. It’s hard to call it revenge when it’s so small and pathetic, but I’ve been disappointed by this person so many times, with his lack of communication and his flaky promises, that it felt like looking after number one. Me.He hasn’t responded about the photoshoot since. I’m okay with that. In fact, I’m quite certain I’m okay with it.
My own disappointment, however, is a more constant companion. My usual Sunday bike ride to Liberty State Park has been canceled because some upper-class horse event is taking place, a fact that speaks volumes about my station in life. My usual routes have all been blocked off. So instead of a peaceful ride along the water, I will be heading toward North Bergen on Sunday.
Oh, these first-world problems. They’re so deliciously trivial, aren’t they?
Then there’s Bill, the human GPS for senior citizens from Long Island. He’s been tasked with driving them up to Sleepy Hollow and serving as a tour guide. Bill knows one thing about Sleepy Hollow: the headless horseman. That’s it. It’s a bit like me being a tour guide for a pizza oven. I suppose he’ll have to wing it. I suppose they’ll all find out just how much he knows.
What I’ve learned in all this is that 1234 A.M. is a terrible time to make plans. I’ll have more to add later, when I’m outside, smoking a cigar. Meanwhile, my friend Mike has become enamored with a new “Paramore,” whatever that means. He told me that his “Paramore” was going to send him a TV.
He was going to buy one for himself, so I told him that since he was getting a free one, he should probably buy a laptop instead. I told him I’d seen a refurbished one for less than a hundred dollars on Amazon. A laptop, I said, would do so much more for his life and his career than a television.
He looked at me with the blank, empty gaze of a man who would rather watch something than create something. We shall see. They’re supposed to finally meet next week, a moment I hope isn’t interrupted by a call from his parole officer, but I know better than to get my hopes up. His parole officer has a record.
and a rewrite as a Nora Ephron essay by GG
There are certain days that feel like they’re a tiny movie, a series of short scenes with their own soundtrack. This particular Friday began with The Smiths, which, as everyone knows, is a very specific brand of nostalgia—a black-and-white reel of a life you’ve lived, a friend you’ve lost, and a record store on a street that no longer exists in your memory quite the way it was. The song, “Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This One Before,” felt like a wink from the universe, because really, a person’s life is just a series of things they’ve heard before, whether it’s the chorus to a song or a difficult person.
My week was the first proper five-day slog since August, and my birthday last Friday had been, to put it politely, a bust. My main problem was Mike. Now, Mike is a Gemini, which is Bill’s favorite way of explaining the unpredictable nature of his character. One day he’s a perfectly lovely human being, and the next, he’s a spoiled little tyrant who can talk your ear off without ever listening to a single word you say. Bill and Mike, of course, are both very into this kind of thing, which is a testament to the fact that people will find any reason to explain each other.
The day was a series of choices, each one hanging in the air with the weight of an epoch. Do I go to the cigar lounge, or do I go home? I’d already done the laundry, which is a very particular kind of Friday night victory, and it felt like a tiny act of pre-emptive optimism. At 9:13 a.m., I was going. At 9:15 a.m., who knew? It was a decision that changed with the wind, a text message to Von, and then another one back from him. There’s a special kind of contentment in just staying home, a perfect, quiet peace, but Von is a good man, and he has those lips that just look… well, they look kissable, don’t they? Not that I’ve kissed them, but you see them and you think, “Oh, those are good lips.”
So I walked. And let me tell you, there’s a difference between a walk and a pilgrimage. This was a pilgrimage. From 14th Street to Union Square, past places that were once something else, a magazine store that’s now a bank, a theater where I saw movies forty years ago—*Star 80* and *Radio Days*, but not on a double-bill, thank God. My feet felt like lead, each step a small protest. And just when I was deep in the reverie of my past, Mike called. Lost. Again. He’d gone to some mall and now he was trying to navigate Jersey City, a task that would challenge an army general. You see? The unpredictable Gemini twin, appearing right on cue.
The evening at the cigar lounge was lovely, in its own quiet way. I was, as usual, crazy early. I sat with a Padrón 7000 and watched sports on a TV I didn’t care about, a very classic American male pastime. Shane, with his white beard and leather vest, showed up, followed by Brent. We told stories, mostly me, about the music business in the nineties and what it’s like to work at a “fruit stand” now. When Von arrived, the air just felt different. We talked and laughed, and I drank water while they drank whatever they were drinking. I had to leave too soon, a small, sad feeling in my gut. You always want more time with the good ones.
I walked a total of fourteen miles that day, and my body knew it. My sleep was a mess, which is a terrible price to pay for a good time. I couldn’t fall asleep for hours, my toes aching. My friend Jimmy Chile told me it was a magnesium deficiency, which is a perfect little piece of casual life advice, the kind you get from a person who’s seen it all. I bought some magnesium.
The next day was Saturday, and the dreaded meeting with Mike had, blessedly, evaporated. We rescheduled, but even that felt like a quiet relief. He’s meeting the “love of his life” next weekend, a phrase that always makes me smile, because isn’t that just the perfect thing for a Mike to say?
I was home, finally. And it was September 20th. Twenty-five years to the day since I met Bill at a “Men in Suits and Ties” Yahoo group party on Ann Street. He was on the road, but I was home, safe and sound. All was well. A day that started with music and uncertainty ended with a comfortable silence, a long, long walk, and a quarter-century of knowing a good man. You see? It’s not about finding the love of your life; it’s about knowing, without a doubt, that you’ve already found a piece of it.