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I’ll Never Smile Again

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No three day weekend here. For some it was President’s Day weekend and today being a Monday made for a federal holiday. Oh how I remember those 3 day weekends. It isn’t easy trying to avoid looking at the past but sometimes it pops up and I have to wonder where did I go wrong?

Well its official, Putnam Lovell is no more, they’ve been sold off by Jeffries, the company that snapped up a few former employees and friends, especially dear Brenda, such a sweetie and a dedicated worker. She sent me an email and I called her a few days later and left a voice mail but I haven’t heard from her since.

Also thought about Wolff Olins. How I despised that place and now I look back and think it wasn’t so bad. I’m sure things might be different if I did not find the memo describing my job as needing 2 people to do it. They knew it and had no problem running me into the ground.

I was so cut off from most everyone that I had no real connection to anyone. And the ones I was connected to had left soon after I did.

Yesterday I worked at the cigar shack and the Bradley was in good form. He didn’t pick up the fact that I quoted him almost word for word before I left on Saturday, asking him if he was mad at me, as if that would be the reason that he wasn’t talking to me.

Yesterday he talked and was relatively amusing. Today I woke up to find that it had snowed overnight. That didn’t make me very happy, in fact I said ‘Fuck’. It would have been nice to be off today but that’s not how it works. I got out of bed and released some water and then decided to go back to bed with the TV on, so I would drift off too far.

Then I got out of bed a little before 9:00, one less thing I had to do was done. Made coffee, poured cereal and showered. I was dressed and out on the street after 10:00, walking up to the bus stop to catch the 10:30 bus. It did not arrive.

I called Bill and he checked the schedule, everything should have been running on time. I used the ‘My Bus’ program on my cellphone and that told me there would be a bus at 10:50. At 11:00 I headed to the Path train.

The train was crowded with other bus riders, all unhappy from having to go to work on a federal holiday as well as having to stand for the ride into the city. That’s one of the main reasons I don’t take the Path train. I like to sit as I commute.

I could have caught the B or D train when I was finally in the city but opted for the N or the R train. I’m more comfortable with those trains, even though that drops me off about 2 blocks from the cigar shack, where the B or D train would drop me off right outside the shack.

I called Bill once I was headed to the shack and he couldn’t understand why I would take the N or the R. I was frustrated, he was confused and it started to get heated. It cooled off considerably once I called him back a few minutes later.

Overall I was a half hour late, me ‘Mister I Hate Being Late’. The day went well, the Bradley was OK to work with, actually funny again. Of course that could all change tomorrow, which isn’t here yet.

I did meet Larry Gatlin today. He’s a country singer from the Gatlin Brothers and I also met Jane Wenner, former wife of Jann Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stone. Both of them were quite nice.

It wasn’t so bad a day.




I Would Be In Love (Anyway)

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A day off that’s been very mellow and hopefully promises to continue that way. I’m writing earlier than usual since tonight I am going to see Bill in Ankhst, a play that he’s been rehearsing for a while.

It’s been a beautiful day, sunny and very close to 70 degrees. I’ve been out and about and was going to take a nap but felt I should write this since I don’t plan on writing later on.

I had forgotten that one of the reasons this blog exists was because I thought about doing something like what the late Spalding Gray used to do. I would have a reservoir of information about myself that I could likely cherry pick stories and anecdotes if I ever had the nerve or the venue to do such a thing, such a performance.

My sister sent me a review from SF Gate of the latest Steven Soderbergh film, about Spalding Gray called “And Everything Is Going Fine”. That got me to look on YouTube to see what clips of Spalding might be available and there were quite a few, mostly of things that I already own on DVD, like Swimming to Cambodia, Monster in a Box, and Gray’s Anatomy.

I was fortunate to have seen Spalding Gray perform at various places in Manhattan back in the day. I saw a few of his shows at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in Lincoln Center, the Performing Garage and PS 122.

I had seen advertisements all over the place for Swimming to Cambodia when it was being done at Lincoln Center and it got my curiosity going enough that I think I went by myself the first time. I was obviously taken by the whole experience that I told several friends as well as siblings about it and some of them joined me in excursions or saw him on their own.

I also saw a few readings and attended a premiere of Monster in a Box. I never spoke to Spalding Gray but our eyes met a few times when I saw him, and perhaps a kinship was recognized.

I was very bothered when I heard he was missing and tried to help, leaving a message on his wife’s answering machine saying that perhaps he was in Northern California. Hey, I was only trying to help.

I was greatly saddened when I heard that he took his own life, allegedly jumping off the Staten Island ferry after seeing Tim Burton’s Big Fish. And to this day I’ve never seen Big Fish, because I always associate it with Spalding’s demise.

The same thing with The Catcher in the Rye. Never read it and since it was noted that John Lennon’s assassin was reading it after the foul deed, I will forever associate it with that, and not the literary classic I’ve heard it to be.

I am interested in seeing Steven Soderbergh’s film. I think it might have come and gone in Manhattan already. There is a play going on in Manhattan where someone on stage interviews 10 random people from the audience.

That’s something that Spalding used to do, but by the time I came around he was doing straight performance pieces, no interviews. Bill and I saw Spalding a few months before he died. In late 2003 Bill got tickets to see a new piece at PS 122.

I had read earlier that week an article in Esquire I think, that Spalding hasn’t been well lately, because of a car accident in Ireland a few years earlier where he was seriously injured. Despite reading the article I wasn’t prepared to see Spalding in the condition he was in.

There was no spark there and it was sad. He was dispassionate, none of the ranting and raving, arms flailing. He was sub-subdued. It was almost painful to watch. As we were leaving I explained to Bill and a woman sitting next to us what I had read in the article which seemed to be quite true after what we had just seen.

From what I heard the performance did improve as the run continued, and I regret not going back to see it again. Perhaps someday I will have the gumption to actually do some readings from these entries, maybe cobble together something that would resemble coherence and wit.

Someday, just not today.