Month

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain.

—Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty, Blade Runner

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? It’s significant because they so rarely do. I took a risk in my last entry of giving a taste of things to come, but in this instance, all came to pass as I described.

I did go to Manhattan to walk the High Line Park. This old elevated train track was slated for demolition until some genius undertook the exceptional design task which created the elevated park. Wild and manicured greenery sprout out from the old iron work. Stone and wood paths allow walkers, joggers, and even sunbathers to enjoy what is really an enormous art project in Chelsea.

I did meet Jeff Brecher, an old Wash U friend, after that down at the South Street Seaport. Jeff was in full-on lawyer mode, in a dark suit, and we enjoyed catching up over a few beers. Unfortunately I left my sunglasses there and had to return the next day, but that only lead to further adventure: read on!

But yet that day, Thursday, was not complete. Returning to Brooklyn, I engaged in my first of back to back Celebrate Brooklyn concerts. Burning Spear has been performing together for forty years, but Winston Rodney shows no sign of giving up. He might be moving a little slower, coming to the stage a little later, and leaving a little earlier, but his golden-toned, pleading voice remains perfectly sharp and wonderful. Prospect Park was the most crowded I had seen it yet, and no one went home disappointed.

On Friday, I made my way back to South Street Seaport to get my sunglasses. It’s remarkable that they were still there – in the restaurant’s lost and found box. Paula joined me for the trip into downtown and lunch. We ate at a very curious restaurant called Little Lad's Basket. It was a vegetarian buffet in a bank basement which served homestyle eats for $5 a plate. I wish I could say the food was better, but the bad wallpaper and supporting ambiance only added to the weirdness, and nowhere can you find a lunch that… stable… for that cheap in downtown Manhattan.

We continued our excursion with a tour of Wall Street, Bowling Green, and Battery Park, and built up enough of a thirst to drink at a table on the cobbles of Stone Street. Returning to Brooklyn, Paula showed me the Park Slope Co Op – a cooperative grocery which is run by its members, literally, with each shopping patron required to staff the store a few hours every month. And then the rains began.

It was still raining when I biked to Brian Wyatt’s apartment also in Park Slope. Brian is another Wash U friend. He and his wife, Brooke, and their two daughters gave me a tour of their really cool apartment while we waited out the storm. Finally, at 9 PM, Brian and I walked into Prospect Park for another free concert. The band was Soulive. They are a ten-year old funk/jazz outfit which has been among my favorites for about that long. Everything was wet, the greatly reduced crowd all stood. But if the air was cool and damp, Soulive and their guests (including guitarist John Scofield) brought the heat. It was an amazing show. The incredible twenty minute encore was a medley of cover songs – this after an entire evening of intricate, driving funky originals: first, Curtis Mayfield’s Move On Up; then, Steve Wonder, Jesus Children of America; and finally morphing into Sly & The Family Stone’s If You Want Me To Stay. Incredible!

Saturday saw me back in the drier Park, running the circuit, and doing work up until the time I met with Debbie and her posse – that being her twin sister, college friend, cousin, and cousin’s friend – the last two having a holiday from their home in Mexico. All four were speaking rapid Spanish when I showed up on the scene, but that only slowed it down a little. I was actually surprised with how much I could understand. Luckily they understood my English perfectly. We would drink beer, walk through Fort Greene Park, have a lovely tapas dinner, and sit serenely in Marc’s garden patio with two bottles of wine before the mosquitoes drove us indoors. I said adios to the ladies late in the evening when they left to go dancing.

The rains retuned on Sunday, soaking the people running up and down De Kalb avenue as I watched them from inside Red Bamboo. It was my fifth meal at Red Bamboo in under a month but I justified it as such: First, it’s delicious, vegan, and two blocks away; and second, the previous four meals had consisted for one dinner, and three lunches, two of those being takeaway, and now I was having breakfast. I had been craving vegan pancakes for several weeks, but for some reason I optioned the Belgian waffle. The deluge ceased just in time for pickup ultimate in Prospect Park. Really, it only made the muddy game all that much more fun.

A perfectly sunny day greeted all New Yorkers on Monday, but it was starting to get warmer by the hour. I was fairly moist with sweat by the time I biked to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where I got a haircut. The tiny barbershop was a shrine to everything rockabilly, and the owner played his part well. Originally from Portland, he talked to me about his evil troll of a landlord and dirty, garbage throwing neighbors with the incisive affront of a true New Yorker. I tipped him well.

Michelle lives in Greenpoint and met me for coffee. She had just learned that she landed the job she had hoped to get -- working as a small funds coordinator for one of the larger Off-Broadway theaters. After congratulating her, I rode into Williamsburg to see what all this hipster stuff is all about. The answer: not much. It really seemed not the least bit special to me. Maybe I’m too used to hipsters in L.A. Yet, the trip to Williamsburg did provide me with the opportunity to eat at Foodswings: a scrumptious vegan fast-food joint. I had the lunch special grilled ham and cheese sandwich, soda, and fries. I’m pretty sure the fries were made from real potatoes, but everything else was totally artificial, unhealthy, and oh so tasty.

Monday evening, Bela Fleck was playing a free concert in Central Park. This represents a point of departure from my perfect plan execution. I arrived late to Central Park and was not able to get in to see the show. Instead I wandered the park, alone, taking photos, and working my way down to 57th and 5th when I returned to Brooklyn. It’s funny; after so much going exactly right, I was disappointed with myself that I couldn’t see Bela. It would have been the first real concert of his I had seen; the only other time I’ve heard him play was at an in-store at Amoebae in Hollywood!

Tuesday morning I cleaned Marc’s apartment, and in the afternoon went to have coffee with my third Wash U friend of the day. Jen Presant is a successful painter now who also lives and works in Brooklyn. She recently won an artists grant and will be living, for free, for two months next spring on the Caribbean island of St. Barts. So you can see she’s doing all right for herself. I had not seen her since graduation in 1993 and it was great to catch up.

That evening, I had an adventure that was a long time coming: The Staten Island Ferry. I’ve been trying to make it there on a nice evening all month and I finally did. It’s free; I did not know that. The journey takes about twenty minutes and passes very close to the Statue of Liberty. I joined lots of tourists taking pictures as the sunset. Riding across the New York Harbor is quite an experience, surrounded by the metropolis, the bustling of world sea commerce, and I marveled that this was many, many people’s daily commute. Arriving in Staten Island, I waited until nightfall for my return journey in a dive bar with Pabst. The journey back to Manhattan was spectacular as well, seeing the sky scrapers all lit up was a marvel of human enterprise and beautiful in its own right.

From there, I headed uptown, for more beers with my fourth Wash U friend of the week, Steve Mirsky. I joined Steve, his brother Joe, and friend Howie for 2-for-1 pints at one bar (across from Elaine’s where a crew was filming something or other) and down 2nd Avenue to enjoy liters of German Bier at a true beer garden. Steve regaled us with stories of the year at the Fed which has been much more interesting than he or anyone had ever expected or really hoped.

Today is Wednesday. My month is complete. It has been the tale of two cities: the best of times; the worst of times. Both are New York; both run their reels simultaneously in my brain. The best one exists out there exalting in boundless possibility and ceaseless activity that could go on like this indefinitely. It casts new roles for new players in a genre unknown. The worst runs in a loop within my head and heart, confused and broken. As the auteur behind both, I’m doing my best to develop the former, the good picture. It has a better soundtrack.