I must stop living in the past. I was reminded and left forlorn, thinking of the first time I ever heard the word ‘ersatz’ said aloud. It was at a fashion show for Alphonso Portillo, a local designer who was having his designs shown at Lady Jane’s, a former bar at 14th and Hudson. One of the dresses Alphonso designed had a flap in the front which prompted Andrew Feldman to point out the ersatz penis. Must have been around 1984 or so. Lady Jane’s is gone, Andrew Feldman married and moved to the West Coast and Alphonso Portillo died a few years later.

I remember dancing to West End Girls by the Pet Shop Boys at an end of tax season party across from Lincoln Center when I worked for Friedman Alpren and Green in 1986. I danced to West End Girls and Kiss by Prince. Oh how I thought I was on top of my game. I worked in the file room at 1700 Broadway, lived in a railroad apartment at 201 Madison Street where I was the only white guy in the neighborhood for a few years. When my parents would send me mail, they’d send it to McSwells since they new I could be found there more often than not.

The guy who ran the file room at 1700 Broadway was Tyree Thomas, a nice guy, affable. He made me and a few other file room employees to promise to get together on New Years Eve in 1999 to celebrate with him. We all pledged but eventually went our separate ways and the plan to get together at the new millennium fell by the wayside. I left Friedman Alpren and Green after a supposed slight and got a job being the assistant manager at San Loco, a fast food Mexican joint on Second Avenue off of St. Marks Place. 1987.

Steve Fallon, a friend of the owners Darrel and Craig Nelson, and also a friend of mine whispered in my ear that it was not that good a choice to be a glorified cashier on Second Avenue. I soon agreed when I noticed that things were getting a bit crazy in the East Village and it was too much for me. I ran into a friend of mine, Errol Stewart who was playing guitar for Fetchin’ Bones who told me he had a good gig working freelance for Rupert Murdoch for $10.00 an hour.

I got myself hired and soon found myself surrounded by people like Harpy, Pedro, Excer, Ann Boyles and Catherine Cloud as well as Ulysses Sankitts and his brother, Tony. We didn’t do much of anything except smoke cigarettes and listen to music and do drugs and get wired while looking at brochures and trying to pick the oh so best picture to be turned into a slide for inclusion into a database which was a little bit ahead of it’s time. The Hotel Database.

That job ended a couple of years later and I’m still friends with Harpy, Pedro and Excer. Ann Boyles went back to Georgia, Catherine Cloud to who knows where, Tony Sankitts passed away and Ulysses still doing nefarious things in Queens Village I think.

Some times memories help, sometimes they weigh you down. Sometimes I walk around and think there are too many memories here. Maybe I should move to somewhere where I have no memories. But where?

And where’s Juan?

Strange dreams, strange day. Juan came over last night. Today he heads back to college. Bill, Juan and I hung out and watched ‘The Illusionist’ followed by the news and then Saturday Night Live which was pretty funny. It was all good and relatively subdued. Some jazziness informed the evening so that was nice. Juan left around 1:00 and I soon went to bed. While I slept I had a dream where I inhaled a word, and I think it was ‘reformation’ and it went up my nostril. In real time it was then followed by an allergy attack, causing me to scramble, looking for tissues.

That was annoying. And also with all the water and juices I’ve been drinking, I wore out quite a groove on the cold tiled floor from the bedroom to the bathroom and back again. It was odd. Why that word, ‘Reformation’? It could be because while surfing though the Wikipedia seas, I came upon the Wannsee Conference, and one of the participants was a Martin Luther. The Wannssee Conference was when the plans for the final solution were agreed upon. So there’s the link. Martin Luther + Reformation = Allergy attack. It all makes sense now.

Got an email from president Naomi:
Thinking about you and hope you are feeling better today and maybe even well tomorrow. We definitely missed you at the front desk end of week.

Once again, thank you for the effort on Thursday of coming into work, but please rest assured that should you need to call in sick again, please do so…we will take you at your word and will not need to see you as proof.

All the best and hope to see you on Monday.

That was nice and left me feeling ok. I responded,
Hi Naomi,
I am feeling a lot better, sleeping a lot. The past few days saw my temperature all over the place, but it seems to be normal now. I called and left a Voice mail on Friday morning on yr phone, but no one seemed to have gotten it. Wally called and told me next time to leave a voice mail on his phone. Sorry about that. Obviously I wasn’t in the right frame of mind.
I know better now and will stay home if I’m sick.
I fully expect to be in the office tomorrow. Thanks for thinking about me.
I hope you are well.

I was sincere, I think. Fresh start tomorrow. Having just written that I felt better about the whole ting. I was sick and suffering from the guilt that I used to have when I would lie to get away from McMann and Tate by feigning sickness, or as the Brits called it, being ‘unwell’. Pointless.

So I’ve been basically cooped up in this apartment since Thursday morning, excepting small runs to the store for bagels and whatnot. Back into the rat race tomorrow. Perhaps the illness was a final purging of the toxins from the Wolffmen.

Been surfing the iPod in my mind, looking at various top hits of the past, back to 1964 and trying to figure out when and where I heard the first song I ever heard. Interesting for me, tedious for you.