Ray IS a Persuasive Dude

When the buzzer rings, I leave Ray up in his apartment and run downstairs to open up the heavy double doors to let Gerry the bass player in.

Gerry's bushy, black beard is beaded with moisture from the snow falling in giant flakes from the slate gray sky, and our greeting is a wet one as I clap him on the shoulder and water sprays everywhere.

As he follows me up the stairs, we discuss the new song (which, I explain, sounds like a Cure b-side from the Faith-  or maybe Seventeen Seconds-, era) but my mind is elsewhere, mulling over a question: Why did I automatically run downstairs to open the door at somebody else's apartment?

Am I so obsequious that I simply do someone else's bidding without being asked?

Dressing Up and Annoying the Neighbors

"I think it's time to bring this out," Ray says as he disappears into his coat closet, emerging with a mod-ish looking jacket patterned in two different sizes of black and white houndstooth, black leather patches on the shoulders and elbows, oversize shiny-metal-zippered pockets, and a wide shiny black vinyl belt that cinches the middle. He puts it on, along with a scarf on his head that, together with the jacket, makes him look like a cross between a Latino Little Steven and Austin Powers, or in other words: awesome.

As we continue to play through the night, the noise rises around us, until finally Ray's guitar howls distorted joy into the void over a dance beat that would have made New Order proud circa 1985, Gerry hammers a bass line into the ground, and I grind out a support system of power chords to help launch the whole thing into orbit.

We finish and begin packing up, listening to the playback, enjoying the sounds that we couldn't hear at the time of their creation: blissed-out, buzzed, pleased with ourselves, happy.

1/6/11 this story is missing some crucial element, but I can't remember what it is.

Ray tends to be rather florid in his descriptions of the altered states of consciousness he enters when he plays guitar, but today he is uncharacteristically succinct. "Well, I can't say I was exactly a witness to what happened," he says, after a particularly "out" performance of one of our songs that we are tearing apart and putting back together.

Later, he comments that he didn't feel like he did as well on a different song, and asks if we had any hints for him.

"Well," says Gerry, "I can't say I was exactly a witness...."

1/5/11 A Little Not Music

Elaine Stritch is KILLING this show. Going up on lines, mugging, back phrasing so hard she might as well be on a 5 minute delay (when she remembers the lyrics) and then making up lyrics wholesale when she doesn't recall them, forcing the actors around her to improvise around crucial plot points to make up for the fact that she has no idea what comes next - it was brutal, and every time she got up on stage, I had to cover my eyes.

We walk out into the bright lit night of Broadway, Katie in a long, elegant mink coat she inherited from her Grandma, me in my long jacket from Italy, looking quite the couple as we swim up stream through Times Square to the subway, fuming at producers who would put an obviously unwell old women up on the stage and expect her to do eight a week.

Katie is livid: "If I had paid full price for those tickets, I would have been PISSED."

1/4/10 cold to warm

I walk out of Ray's room to retrieve my sweater, our evening's output blaring over the speakers while we pack up our gear for the night, and find Liz standing in the kitchen. She looks displeased to see me, though not just me, necessarily, just anyone, but she manages a wan smile and a hello, and even an impersonal hug. I leave unsettled by her chilly reception, trying not to take it personally.

Back in Brooklyn, Tame Impala comes on the headphones: "Everyday/back and forth/what's it for?/Desire be, desire go"; I realize it's got nothing to do with me, I say a silent little wish for her happiness, and continue upstairs to my home.

1/3/11 Ascension Day

Yesterday's fog lifts, and after a day at my job, I feel more like myself than I have in several days. I like the routine, having somewhere to go and useful work to do there.

The sun is setting as I come up from my train in Brooklyn, and as I walk down Seventh Avenue, listening to Talk Talk, wrapped in a warm coat, on my way home, I relax back into my skin. The sky darkens, the lights come up along my street as we dodge the snow drifts, my chest relaxes like someone's snipped the rubber bands that were holding me in - I'm back.

1/2/11 You ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

I walk through the aisles of Duane Reade (soon to be Walgreens or Rite Aid or some conglomerate or other) searching for 1) facial cleanser, 2) airborne, 3) something sweet to make me feel better about this ridiculous sinus infection when I recognize a tune over the speakers. They are playing Summertime Clothes by Animal Collective on the PA in a drugstore in the dead of the winter, with the snow of last week's blizzard laying like a filthy corpse on the street.

The sheer effrontery of it, the bizzare non-sequitur-ness of this beautiful music singing of summer joys while I contemplate suicide next to the toiletries, is the topper on the day.

I have no plans, the new year is waiting to jump out at me while I try to figure out why I'm on the planet, and the flourescent lights are killing me slowly, which is to say, I'll get back to you when I'm feeling less sorry for myself.

12/10/10 Sometimes I get carried away

"No, but really, it's like, every single artist worth anything has a connection to spirituality, whether they mean it in a religious sense or not," I say, gesturing drunkenly and toweling off.

From behind the shower curtain, she says, "Well, OK, like who?"

Now I'm really getting warmed up, and begin ticking them off on my fingers: "Well, Prince, obviously, and Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Jim Morrison...."

She shuts off the water, and sighs in exasperation, "I can't even talk to you when you're like this."

12/7/10 armored

Two hoodies, one over the other, and then a baseball cap, all covered by a leather jacket with intricate stitching. In his hand is a cell phone, from which streams the sputtering clicks, pips, and shouts of mp3's of hip-hop, surrounding him with a haze of aggression. The entire train hears his music, and even I can hear him through my headphones, and feel the irritation of the rest of the car beaming their bad vibes at him.

Obviously he feels it too, and he fishes into his pockets and pulls out headphones which he proceeds to untangle, plug in, and fit into his ears, but then he begins chanting along with his music - putting up his wall of phony rage to keep the judgement away.

12/6/10 The band is passive aggressive. We are not.

The dude standing in front of my five foot three inch wife moves back and forth to the music. He knows he's in front of her (we've made it abundantly clear that he is blocking her view of the band), there is no place for her to move to, and every half-assed dance move he busts blocks her view further, and frustrates both of us even more.

Neko Case apparently couldn't be bothered to do her hair for the show tonight, or even put on an outfit that wasn't sweats, and she launches into a rather pathetic diatribe midway through the set about the horrible things that life has foisted upon her in the months since her 40th birthday, a diatribe that A.C. tries to defuse mostly through a sort of low key snarky-ness.

I tap the guy standing in front of Katie on the shoulder, hoping to get him to move before Katie, or I, or both of us, do something rash, saying, "Hey, man, could you please move a little off to the right so she can see?"

12/2/10 Angry God is Angry (and possibly made up)

He gets on the subway, middle of the car, a tall man, close shaven head gleaming under the flourescent lights. He begins preaching in a hectoring, strident voice that penetrates even through my headphones, his every word a bullet.

"I'm here to talk to you about the gifts of the father, who gave his son, his only son, to make you turn from your sin," he says, in clipped, bitter tones.

At that very moment, the song in my headphones changes, and Bjork begins to sweetly sing a lullaby reminding me of another way, another vision, another God.

11/12/10 Close Enough

A few days of yoga every day and my mood begins to lift, and I feel myself waking up from the weird limbo I've been in.

Reading a review of the new Cee-Lo Green in L Magazine on the B train coming in this morning, I come across the following line: "It might be interesting in theory to hear his take on a different era in pop/R&B, but the neon glaze and MJ basslines of "Bright Lights Bigger City" somehow don't add up to an 80s-worship homerun."

At that exact moment, I catch the strains of a Michael Jackson song leaking out from a nearby woman's headphones. I laugh and smile at the coincidence until I listen for a few more minutes to realize it's "Upside Down" by Diana Ross.

11-5-10 Happy drums

After a particularly good rehearsal from which I leave buzzing lightly and newly optimistic about our prospects, Ray and I ride the subways downtown from his place in Harlem. At one stop, two drummers heave into the car, hoisting conga drums and foldable chairs behind them, which they set up in the pseudo-vestibule before beginning their patter.

"Keep the energy up and full of love," says the one in the skullcap with the star of David dangling down onto his forehead while the other adjusts his drums and smiles widely, "because it comes back down to you amplified."

They beat their drums in a groove reminiscent of "Oye Como Va" and I give them a dollar as they leave.

11-2-10 Acting out (staying in)

When I get home, she's sprawled, half in, half out of the papasan with the Wii remote in her lap. The screen is blank except for the tell-tale cauldron floating in the corner, telling me that she's been playing Lego Harry Potter most of the night.

I know she was upset that I had rehearsal tonight, and when I left she was a little depressed, but she's still depressed, and I'm not sure what to do.

I kiss her on the forehead as she looks up at me with that slightly dazed look that comes from too much gaming, and I say, "Hey baby, how was your night?"

11/12/09 - Really, it's tougher on the people around me than on me

I sit down on the floor. The song isn't right - it isn't right, and I'm not sure how to fix it, which makes it even more of a drag. I lay my guitar aside and and try to explain to Ray why, making more and more of a hash of it, and getting more upset and despairing until finally I realize the problem: I'm hungry.

The despair vanishes, and I put my guitar away, since I've killed the vibe, but at least I know why I feel crazy.

7/27/09 - at best

Deadlines begin to, if not exactly loom, then at least to stand nearby and look menacing. I spend a futile evening playing with African guitar tunings whose simple alterations to standard serve only to prove that I need to play more if I'm going to pull off this massive project in September.

Later that night, I lie in bed complaining to Katie until I catch myself and apologize, saying, "I guess I'm not really at my best right now, am I?"

She tousles my hair and smiles, replying, "I'm tired of seeing you at your best."

6/23/09 - Am I using my time well?

"Superjail," I tell Katie as we talk on the phone, "seems like it'll be bad mojo, but really, it's pretty benign." I say this while the remains of the two beers I drank in quick succession during dinner finish rattling their way around my bloodstream. The cat lifts her ass as I pet her, and for once she simply allows me to stroke her fur, rather than yelling at me about whatever it is a cat thinks is important enough to yell about.

Earlier in the day, I played my guitar and sang a version of the song Bobby McGee for a play reading, before having to go back to work, where I thought about my upcoming 38th birthday, and what I've accomplished with my life so far.

6/16/09 - Danke, Dirty Projectors

Tried (not very hard) to find the new Dirty Projectors album, Bitte Orca on a torrent, but finally gave up and just bought the damn thing on iTunes (only the second album I've ever purchased on iTunes, the first being Earl Greyhound's Soft Targets). The whole world seemed to provide a review of this strange, atonal, dissonantly beautiful music as I listened to it on my walk to the train this morning.

A small dog taking a shit finished up as I was walking by and trotted over to say hello to me, with a beatific smile on his little doggie face.

As I neared the station, a man walking a full pack of dogs paused to let a man pet them, while one of the dogs looked up into the sky, grinning, wagging his entire back-end.

5/24/09 - Memento Divino

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine rises above us, massive and elaborate, every inch of the facade covered with visions of the apocalypse and a multitude of saints. Where other cathedrals may soar and yearn to the divine, this one seems to want to pull the divine down into it with it's sheer gravity, as though a sizable enough gravity-well was all that was needed to bring down the Godhead to our plane.

We wander through the incredible space, past pillars thick as redwoods and probably taller, past dozens of side chapels, each with their own light (this one multicolored and lush, that one all washed out in white and gold), when suddenly the chorus begins to practice for the evensong service. Kevin and I pause to listen for a while as they start and stop through various songs, their voices rising and swelling until the entire space is filled with sound, and Kevin says, "I think I like this better; when they stop you only get little bursts of divinity, and anything more would be too much."

6-25-08 I happen to prefer pop.

A thick, short black guy in a white t-shirt and a black do-rag bops along the tunnel between the shuttle and the 4/5 train, headphones buried deep in his ears. He raps along with parts of the music playing in his head: “motherfucker! Shit… and I… cut ‘em out…. Ready ta….”

This is us. We bop along locked off in our own little world, regurgitating the tapes we’ve chosen as they play over and over in our heads, barely recognizing each other, barely even aware we’re repeating the words we heard, feeling safe, thinking we’re free.