I remember Jeff Buckley once describing the end of a long solo gig as being similar to an athlete at the end of a gruelling game of (what these Americans call) football. Something about how the exhaustion motivates totally unique and inspired maneuvers, twists and turns and how only at the end of a long stint on stage did he feel his best isolated moments of musical expression and genius occur.
I don't know about this.
Why romanticize being tired?
Right now, I'm beat. It's been a long day. I've worked hard and I'm all spent up. Simple, natural, wholly uninspired and very unspectacular. There's no heightened level of consciousness. In fact, if anything, I'm simmering in a heightened state of sarcasm. Yes, i know what you're thinking: " Is that really possible?? You, more sarcastic??"
Well it is - deal with it.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Here Comes Old Age
'Never missed the East Coast till i moved to the West. Never saw the moonlight, till it shone off your breast'
Tom Waits, 'San Diego Serenade'
Bar Veloce is a "European-Styled Fast Bar" (their words, not mine) with a couple of locations Downtown. A thin strip of a room, the SoHo location almost feels like a crack caught between two buildings. I've always felt that the closer the distance between the walls, the easier it is to trap in a vibe. Last night, not even a matchbox could have held any vibe. There was just four us filling up the vestibule -the two women at the end of the bar, both with a descending level of unattractiveness bordering on plain ghastly and my workmate (The Ukrainian) and I. I was contemplating further extending my night and was planning to use the one drink at the 'Fast Bar' as an almost dress rehearsal or physical test to see if my exhaustion would fade.
It did not.
Bar Veloce is a "European-Styled Fast Bar" (their words, not mine) with a couple of locations Downtown. A thin strip of a room, the SoHo location almost feels like a crack caught between two buildings. I've always felt that the closer the distance between the walls, the easier it is to trap in a vibe. Last night, not even a matchbox could have held any vibe. There was just four us filling up the vestibule -the two women at the end of the bar, both with a descending level of unattractiveness bordering on plain ghastly and my workmate (The Ukrainian) and I. I was contemplating further extending my night and was planning to use the one drink at the 'Fast Bar' as an almost dress rehearsal or physical test to see if my exhaustion would fade.
It did not.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Introduction
In Tennessee Williams' epic tribute to failed expectations and mendacity 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof', the protagonist, Brick Pollitt, delivers one of the crispest summations of better times passed;
"..people like to do what they used to do, even after they've stopped being able to do it"
In many ways, this blog is about me fulfilling the very opposite sentiment. I've never run a blog, i've never kept a journal, and save for the odd, abstract Facebook Status Update, i've never published my various trivial emotional movements to the wider world. However, this blog does feel like something i'd like to do, even though i've never been able to do it before.
A couple of days ago, the Washington Square Fountain reopened after nearly 18 months and $16 million worth of works. It seems that the enormous fountain didn't seem to exactly align with the mini Arc de Triomphe at the end of the Square. So they shut the whole park down and moved the 100 year old fountain a grand total of a couple feet!!
I think this is the perfect metaphor for my time here.... I hope it doesn't take either one and a half years or millions of dollars to re-align myself, but i do believe i've only gotta do about a meter's worth of work.