Won't you take me to Funkytown

Say it might have been a fiddle or it could have been the wind
But there seems to be a beat now I can feel it my feet now
Listen here it comes again!

—Grateful Dead

New York continues to overwhelm and excite. I've managed to work a few hours each day this week and never has working seemed so restful. Doug asked me if I was still going out every night; the answer is yes, and every day. The Charlie Hunter show at The Jazz Standard turned out to be one of the best performances I've seen of his. The best has to still be at McCabe's in Los Angeles two years ago, but this one came close. He played with another guitarist which I've never seen him do, Doug Wamble. Wamble has an amazing singing voice and worked through a range of originals and covers from Sun House to Jimi Hendrix.

What a great show! But I wasn't done; that same night, I went out to meet some people I met at the Queen's Beer Garden in Greenwich Village at a fancy Italian wine bar. We had a lovely white and I caught the Local 2 at 1 AM back to Brooklyn. So, there you go. I heart NY.

On Thursday, I took myself out to lunch at a new (for me) vegan restaurant: The V Spot in Park Slope. I've enjoyed eating vegan food in New York since it's fundamentally different from vegan in California. I can only compare it to something like Italian food in your town and that in Rome. At The V Spot I enjoyed the $14 soy bacon cheese burger. It was so unusual and tasty, but I don't know about $14.

Speaking of the $14 veggie burger, NY you might have heard is rather expensive and going out like I've been doing has certainly emptied my wallet at an alarming rate. Yet another good reason to keep working while I'm here.

Thursday night was another night of pickup Ultimate in Prospect Park. It was humid out with a 100% chance of sweat, and I enjoyed the match but also had my least positive experience thus far here. There was one guy on the opposite team who was just an asshole. If you play ultimate (or do anything) long enough, you encounter plenty, but this incident was curious. First the guy refused to play with darks/lights. If you play ultimate, you know what I mean and how stupid that is, but when I called him on it, he just blew me off. No big deal. Later when he was mouthing off at someone else, I turned to the random guy next to me and say, "Is that dude mentally ill?"

This persons reply was, "Are you from New York?"

"No."

"He is."

And the way that exchange went really turned me off. Why was that important or interesting? Why take pride in identifying an asshole as a New Yorker? Why not just call an asshole, an asshole and be done with it?

But moving on, yesterday I was planning on going to yet another free music concert with Paula but she went home early from work and is sick. As I was trying to figure out a back up plan, Kim Kleinman, from Boulder, called me from LaGuardia. She is in New York with her mother and we were planning on doing brunch on Sunday but, as it turned out, her mother's flight in was cancelled and Kim was stranded. Thus, Kim came here to Fort Greene and the two of us took the train into Manhattan at Debbie's invitation to see this very interesting, very artistic, experimental dance performance beneath the Hudson River Parkway on the 70th Street basketball courts. It was really very fascinating, despite standing out there in the increasing heat and humidity (it would rain overnight), and ultimately I found it beautiful and enjoyable! I had not seen a dance performance since college I believe and these two performers were really remarkable. I forgot to ask Debbie if the performance was choreographed or improvised, but my guess was a bit of both.

So now, with Kim reunited with her mother, I've gone on a long run, eaten lunch, and I'm watching the tour. I'll probably need a nap before going back to Prospect Park for more free music in the form of an African museke festival.

The music never stops.