Wave Your Hands Up in the Air

One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the sky
—George Gershwin, Summertime

Gerswhin wrote Summertime from this town, but it's clearly a dream-inspired longing for another place and mood: Summertime in New York, the living is hard, just the way we like it.

The weekend's hard living began Friday night when I met up with Rob McCarthy for "just a quick drink" at a dive bar (right next to the coffee shop I am in now). In California, bar time is 2 AM, which usually means you get kicked out of a bar well before then. New York is a different animal; in the battle of me versus bar, Alibi won. At around 3 AM, with the bartender possibly more polluted than I was, I threw in the towel. Rob's wife Amanda was in rare form and our little trio grew throughout the evening.

As a result, Saturday started very slowly. When I finally labored outside it was the afternoon and I moseyed to the Brooklyn Flea. On Saturday, this well-known flea market is n Ft. Greene; on Sundays it's at DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). Since I had recently broken my Bangkok special $3 sunglasses, I was hoping to replace them, but the Flea is mostly furniture, women's vintage dresses, and food. I did not get any sunglasses such, but I did have a nice stroll and ran into neighborhood patrician, Debbie, and her friend who were looking at various dresses and sampling the hipster Italian ices. The sun beat down on us with the power of Greyskull there on the blacktop, and the lemon-basil ice was pretty refreshing.

It was cooler in Queens and a perfect afternoon for a very New York summer experience: P.S. 1. A former brick school building, P.S. 1 is now a contemporary art museum which hosts a House Music Dance Party every Saturday afternoon of the summer. Hundreds of young New Yorkers fill the playground-courtyard as the deep bass and beats reflect off the hard, parallel brick walls. No, it wasn't the best music environment nor music (Sunday would be better, read on), but it was an incredible scene. The art was also really cool. I was there with Rob and Amanda and, as Amanda said, it's not pretty art. I particularly enjoyed, for selfish reasons, the large wall of portraits of famous vegetarians. In the center was Albert Einstein captioned with his quote:

Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.

Sunday then came rolling in like an Express train when you simple step out of one car, step across the platform, and board your new conveyance. After a run through Prospect Park, humid and hot, I rode Marc's bike to meet Paula for another afternoon's bike ride. This time she took me through lower Brooklyn, first to the Gowanus Canal and then on to the piers at Red Hook.

The Gowanus destination was another electronica dance extravaganza. Outside along the canal, this weekly party between rundown buildings had much better music than P.S. 1. Dance floors were set up amongst small trees and spotty patches of grass. A taco tent proffered comestibles and two bars poured rather tasty Yardgaritas: a custom mix of tequila, lime, and sangria. Tasty and deadly.

After an hour there, Paula and I rode down to Red Hook, but we'd come back before the evening ended. Red Hook, along the water, was really interesting too. There's a place famous for Key Lime Pies on a Stick (covered in chocolate nonetheless). The Key Limonade I had was also very refreshing. We walked along the warehouse art galleries and gardens and industrial ruins before a rain shower forced us into an amazingly large grocery store. Touring the strange grocery store was actually pretty fun and we would make it back to Gowanus between cloudbursts. That evening featured a celestial light show as thunder crashed and lightening flashed throughout the night sky.

Today it continues to rain off and on and maybe the living is easier. I haven't spoken to a soul all day (except to order this Chai) and I wonder where and what the people I love are doing with their Mondays. I hope it's equally relaxing.

I recall the final scene from Dazed and Confused: Mitch, after the best night of his young life, finally lies down on his own bed; puts on his enormous headphones; and smiles. The sweet emotion of soaring guitar, Free Ride, carry him away. I am far from my own bed, and my headphones are absolutely tiny. Yet I smile, knowing that although far from free, the ride has been pretty damn fun.

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.