I saw Cat Power about 6 or 7 years ago perform here in Miami at the old I/O Lounge (now The Vagabond). She (Chan Marshall) performed maybe 2 or 3 complete songs during her hour and a half long on-stage breakdown. It was a bizarre thing to witness. My friends and I were big Cat Power fans and we’d heard some vague rumors about Marshall being a bit shy and awkward during performances, but we quickly realized those rumors were fairly downplayed. She started off alright, but quickly got distracted when she realized/decided that her guitar was out of tune. She asked for help from audience members and a couple of guys went up to help her out. It probably ate up about 30 minutes, the lot of them standing around trying to perfectly tune her guitar strings. Eventually I think she switched over to the piano and had a similar fit about that. She finally began to play again toward the end of her set, when the club actually began playing music over her to stop her from going on. It was pretty unfortunate since it seemed she had finally gotten into her zone. Still, the few songs she did perform to completion were fantastic. I would pay money to see her again.
“He War,” off the You Are Free album, was a tune I used to listen to over and over my senior year of high school. I don’t ever listen to enough Cat Power these days.
I was driving eastbound on Killian Drive this morning, the rising sun’s rays forcing me to squint as I sped past slow drivers and yellow lights, when I noticed this song blasting from my radio’s speakers. I’ve heard Matthew Dear‘s Black City album in its entirety before, but almost always, I end up finding myself only listening to selecttracks and basically ignoring the rest. (What can I say? I’m sometimes a creature of habit.) This was one of those tracks I somehow missed. Maybe it sounded too much like the rest of the album to really cause it to stand out for me. Maybe I was just crazy up until now. Whatever the case, this song is all about swaying back and forth, hips and arms and wrists and knees and head, following the path of the music. When you let it take over, it’s impossible not to realize what an incredibly fun song this is.
And FYI, for you local Miamians reading this, if you’re a fan of the song (and/or a fan of Matthew Dear), he’s got two upcoming gigs in town! The first is for the Viva Music Party (during WMC), on March 23rd at the Shelbourne. The second show will be over at the Electric Pickleon April 20th (giggle), so watch out for those tickets!
In related music news… two other shows you might not want to miss are Broadcast at Bardot on March 17th (St. Patrick’s Day!) and Four Tet, also at Bardot, on March 23rd (coincidentally the same night as Matthew Dear’s Viva show).
I’ll be posting more show announcements soon as WMC approaches!
Last year, I challenged myself to write one haiku a day on Twitter in honor of the O, Miami Festival. For those who missed out, O, Miami was a celebration of poetry throughout Miami-Dade county. P. Scott Cunningham and all others who worked so diligently on the festival brought some fantastic poets from all across the country to come and read and participate in events. There were various open mics, poem drops (bits of poetry on paper dropped from helicopters in public spaces), even poetry recited via megaphone in a Ferrari. In short, it was inspiring to know how many people enjoyed poetry and how many more were finally being exposed to it, myself included.
I’d never been much a poet. I’m still not much of a poet. But it doesn’t mean I don’t love it as a creative outlet. During one of my many “change of majors” moments in college, I seriously considered becoming a Creative Writing major with a concentration in poetry. But it didn’t happen and here I am at 4am again wondering about the possibilities to be found in poetry.
So instead of over-analyzing all of this to death, I began to write some poems today. Truth be told, they weren’t anything i’d want to brag about. 2 simple poems, non-rhyming, crude. Still, this is the creative proses. I get that.
So here’s my attempt to get back into the poetic swing of things.
1. Haiku of the Day – Round 2. I tweet more than is probably healthy. I get that this makes me a geek and/or any other potentially negative label in the eyes of some, but I happen to enjoy it. As such, I know that doing my haikus on there makes it much more likely that i’ll stick to the project than on any other medium. If you haven’t already begin following me on Twitter, feel free to do so @PrisKillingly. Maybe i’ll even write you a haiku if you request it!
2. A presentation of my favorite pieces of the month on March 1st. Aside from the haikus (which i’ll have to also keep in a separate word doc so it doesn’t get sucked in to oblivion), i’ll be writing more in my notebooks, revising a little bit each time. My biggest issues have to do with being able to edit and revise my work without killing the essence of the original point. 5 poems doesn’t sound like much, but to write 5 really fantastic poems takes time, i’d imagine. Unless of course you’re just that lucky. Regardless, in order to keep myself legitimate on this project, i’m going to need to really be on the ball about this. I’ll attempt to make a few updates here and there with some works in progress in the meantime.
I’m really looking forward to challenging myself again. I spent the first month of the year in a bit of limbo, trying to decide what to do with myself without actually doing much (good times aside, of course). I want to shift my focus back to my work now that we’re in February. I have plans for a few other projects, but would rather not overwhelm either of us.
For now, here’s a poem by Allen Ginsberg to get the creative juices flowing…
Those Two
That tree said
I don’t like that white car under me,
it smells gasoline
That other tree next to it said
O you’re always complaining
you’re a neurotic
you can see by the way you’re bent over.
If the first week of 2012 is any indication of what is to come this year, it may very well be the end of the world.
Alright, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but these first few days have been admittedly too much fun (if such a thing exists). It’s been deliciously cold out (cold for Miami, that is), so it’s been difficult not to be out and about. There were about 3 days in a row where my main mission was to find a good place with coffee and pie, a la Twin Peaks (holy crap someone get me this shirt!!). In between these days have been hang outs revolving around playing pool and watching movies. My pool game has sadly not gotten any better in the past few days, but I have to say it’s definitely improved in general over the past few months. As for the movies, we saw Young Adult a few nights ago (I’m still trying to write out my disappointment about this film in a separate post) and this past Sunday, I took my dad to watch the latest Mission Impossible film for his birthday. Maybe it’s because I didn’t exactly have high hopes for it, but MI4 wound up being exactly what it was supposed to be: mind-numbingly entertaining. Plus, you can’t go wrong with Simon Pegg, and hell, Jeremy Renner isn’t exactly hard on the eyes. See for yourself:
On top of all of this, there have been nature walks in parks (and almost getting pegged by the Frisbee golfers), my first time feeding my baby nieces (messy, to say the least), bonfires and barbecues in backyards (not to mention unpasteurized Gouda), drinks with the ladyfriends (at Fox’s, Mr. Moe’s, Sunset Tavern, Sandbar, and Titanic’s – all places I should be piecing together some reviews for soon), and the rediscovering of good music.
In particular, I’ve been indulging myself in a lot of Radiohead (the Com Lag and Airbag/How Am I Driving? EPs to be specific) and David Bowie (namely: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars). Getting lost in music again is inspiring me to bring back the old podcast, maybe even if it’s just mini-mixes for now. Will be trying to get something going for that in the near future.
Quite possibly the best night so far of 2012 though involved a trip to that Miami holiday staple: Santa’s Enchanted Forest.
Santa’s is the annual winter-themed carnival that graces Tropical Park from November to January. Like most Miamians, I’ve been visiting the Enchanted Forest since I was a little kid – I’ve even got the Polaroids to prove it. Of course, back then it was much smaller and a lot less expensive. Nowadays, the roughly $27 entry fee gets you admittance into the park where you can indulge your inner child while walking past Christmas-y dioramas, watching acrobats and clowns and the occasional fire-breathing act, stuffing your face on elephant ears and other fried goodies, and riding everything from rollercoasters to ferris wheels to the infamous Himalaya (“Let me hear your screaaaaaam!” is a popular phrase you’re sure to hear if you happen upon this particular ride). While this was a place I used to absolutely love coming to as a kid, it was sometime around early adolescence that I decided I was “too cool” to keep going to such a “childish” establishment. Luckily, the older I get, the less I care about ever looking goofy or silly, so my friends and I revived this old tradition last year and have since come to enjoy it as one of our new winter traditions. This time around, we over-indulged in cotton candy and nachos, enjoyed defying gravity on numerous rides, and even made friends with some enterprising, traveling caricature artists. And of course, there are more details about all this, but for that you’ll have to wait til I jot ‘em down in the book (wink, wink). Suffice to say that sleep has been lost, memories have been made, and plenty of cafe con leches have been drunk in between. So is the good life.
On a side note, I’ve got my first part-time gig going for the year and quite hopefully more work to come. If all goes well, I may be returning to the store to reward myself with this dress:
I’ve spent far too much time wearing the same tired old things. 2012 requires drastic wardrobe overhaul!
For now, it’s time to continue with the writing goals and see where the rest of the year takes me.
How was your first week of 2012?
If it hasn’t been spectacular just yet, start adding a little magic to your life. Take an alternate route home sometime. Talk to the stranger next to you. Do something completely unlike you. You might be surprised at how much these little details can alter the course of your day, your week, your year.
a winter day in miami that involved all of the following:
walking through trails branching off to faux crime scenes
taped off with beer bottles and condoms, and rusted tin cans
and plastic bags, now emptied of their important contents;
the good times that have been that have since been forgotten
plus it involved the desire to discover new lands
my friend and I, walking sticks in hand,
seeking answers from within canopies of tropical trees
and from the ingestion of temperate remedies;
meanwhile, the palm fronds enjoying the brisk air under blue sky
and then working up an appetite
for a nice piece of new york style cheesecake,
strawberry sauce and whipped cream;
and she got the hot chocolate and I
bought a coffee with 3x the sugar
and half and half
and it felt good to enjoy the weather for once
New Orleans.The Big Easy. The City that Care Forgot. Immediately upon arriving here, you pretty much begin to understand why this place has the nicknames that it does. New Orleans is quite literally unlike any other city I’ve ever been to. It’s been over 2.5 months into my travels, and it seems appropriate that this is where they would end (at least temporarily). People talk about New York being the city that never sleeps, but I can assure you that it is just as easy to never sleep in this town. 24 hour bars and a lack of open container laws, jazz music and hustling performers on the streets, obnoxious tourists attempting to re-enact Mardi Gras on a nightly basis, thousands of folks just trying to get by, and still not a day goes by that I haven’t heard someone bring up Katrina. I’m trying to find my place here, but I know it’s going to be a bit of a challenge. The people certainly don’t move as fast as NYC, but they certainly take care of their own in the same way. Since arriving, i’ve stayed with 3 different CouchSurfing hosts, all pretty fantastic people, each with their own stories about how they got here. The people, on the whole, are genuinely nice, which is, well, nice in itself. Strangers start up conversation, and not just because they’re drunk at the bar. This is certainly not Miami. On the whole, people are more than willing to point you in the right direction of whatever you might need. And there’s a small town feel because it is inherently a small town. The city proper, which is where i’m staying, only has a bit over 300k individuals. It’s no wonder i’ve already started running into people and recognizing people, and i’ve been just shy of a week! It’s bizarre, i’ll say that.
In the past few weeks, I’ve been to 7 different cities and slept on more beds and surfaces than I care to count. I’m not sure if I’ll actually be able to sustain myself here in New Orleans, but I’ve begun to hunt for jobs and hope that something pops up. Money is of course an issue, but hopefully won’t be for much longer. This is definitely a hustling city. Jobs are hard as hell to come by, especially the kind that i’m used to, in cushy offices. Service industry seems the best route to go, or so they tell me, so i’m basically putting my eggs in as many different baskets as I can. Everyone says I should at least stay for Halloween, and fingers crossed i’ll at least achieve that. But honestly, I really wouldn’t mind sticking it out here for at least a few months, maybe through next year or even past that. There’s something so alluring about this place. It has a different energy than anywhere else I’ve been. I’m an agnostic on the whole, but it’s like there’s magic in the air. Maybe it’s all the voodoo shops and the random pagan folks I’ve met and the enchantment of the above ground cemeteries. The night air just feels different. And every day i’m here, even if it’s a bit rough hunting down employment, I fall in love with something new. The houses, the architecture. The street cars, especially at night. The music, which i’ve only yet begun to hear. The whole concept of the Second Line. Like I said, there’s just an energy here that can’t be replicated anywhere else. Some people say this is the most unique city in America, and while I haven’t seen all of America yet, I’d say they were right in my eyes. There are plenty of amazing places in this country. I’ve been surprised at the things I’ve found on my journey thus far, changing my own misconceptions about what places were “supposed” to be like, allowing myself to get lost in foreign towns and then found again. If I was in love with travel before, I am basically feeling obsessed with it now. This is definitely going to be a lifestyle to maintain for the rest of my life. But for now, I’m courting New Orleans, or she is courting me. We dance a little and flirt a lot and man, does she like to buy me drinks. And even if I end up having to go back home and reassess for just a little while until things pick up, I can definitely see myself coming back.
But for now, as the French say, laissez les bon temps rouler!
It was goddamn hot when I woke up and the hangover just wasn’t helping.
“What happened last night?”
I knew I must have taken a detour before getting back to Brooklyn. I scrolled through the pictures in my camera. Abstract images of Times Square. Blurry cabs and swirls of neon and nearly getting hit by cabs and busses. Times Square is one of those amazing places you have to see at least once, but never really have to return to after. The enormity of the buildings and the chaotic rabble of tourists and Manhattanite yuppies can be a bit of a culture shock for those who’ve never experienced it. I know I couldn’t stop looking up when my 18 year old eyes first walked out of the Times Square subway stop. I had a similar reaction the first time I saw mountains (being from Florida, land of flat lands and more flat lands, I’m very easily impressed by even the slightest bump in the road, so you can imagine!)
But on my… what is this.. 6th? 7th time to New York? I’ve somehow always wound up in Times Square for at least a little while and while I appreciate the buildings and the warmth of those neon lights on a cold night (if you’re ever without a coat in NYC in Winter, I suggest standing underneath the lights of the McDonalds on 42nd Street as i’ve done in previous visits. Guaranteed heater!), I’m no longer awe-struck when I get in the thick of it. Add to that the barrage of street vendors trying to hock everything from knock off purses and NYC “artwork” to used bottles of perfume and “Tickets to Tonight’s Comedy Show (It’s Gonna Be A Great One!)” and you quickly begin to realize why the majority of New Yorkers steer clear of this area unless they have a reason. Overwhelming and unnecessary, especially when NY has so much more to offer in just about every other corner!
Another good reason to stop in Times Square, however, is if you’re already intoxicated and don’t want to go home juuuust yet. And so, a detour. A detour, alright. I’d spent a few hours in the company of one, Tyler Edwards. Tyler was a boy I’d met my last night in Philadelphia the previous year, a night that would prove to practically cause me to get kicked out of the house I was staying in, and it would’ve totally been my fault (but that’s a story for another day). He was tall and handsome and doing fairly well for himself – a young professional with a gym membership and a heavy interest in social media, though he himself doesn’t use it all that much (something I have yet to understand). I would be staying with him soon enough though, but you know, sometimes it’s late and you’ve had a few and you just can’t really wait.
Back in my stuffy Bushwick basement, I reached around the floor for my metal water bottle, unscrewed the top and drank the last bit of room temperature water. Where the fuck is the ibuprofen? I could hear CJ’s roommate upstairs, clacking away at her computer, on a work-related phone call, but still blasting some sort of indie Brooklynite music (possibly this?).
And then there it was again. Another wave of unrelenting heat. That suffocating heat. The only word I can think of that properly describes it is a Spanish word: desesperante. WordReference.com describes it as exasperating or distressing, but I feel like it’s not quite either of those.
For those who are unaware, Rockaway Beach is quite a hike from Bushwick:
See? The L to the A to the S.. and then, a walk either North or South to the beach (alright, so the quality of the image sucks. I never said I was a graphic designer). After over an hour of train time, I grabbed a quick grilled cheese from the Last Stop Shop and headed towards the boardwalk. It dawned on me then that I hadn’t actually brought a towel, so I tried haggling the asian man selling beach towels on the street. Obviously my haggling skills aren’t so great because he wouldn’t budge. I wound up settling on this tiny, pink hand towel for $1.25 which I suspect may have already been used. But it was fine. I could smell the ocean. Rock-rock-rockaway time!
Being from Miami, my visiting friends constantly remark about how beautiful our beaches are. This is something I know I take for granted. Walking on to the sand of Rockaway Beach, I really knew it. Bits of styrofoam cup here and bottle cap there and itty bitty bits of plastic and decomposing paper, a mine field of debris in need of much recycling (which does happen on occasion back home, but certainly not to this extent). Still, the beach was alive with dozens of locals sprawled out on bellies and backs; girlfriends in pale sundresses reapplying sunblock; portly guys with farmers tans looking self conscious without their shirts on; squealing 4-year olds running after each other without any particular reason; guys with gel in their hair, tossing a football around; a pair of older ladies sitting in their beach chairs looking on. I sat by a group of Muslim girls drying off but still fully dressed from head to toe. Even from the sand, you could see it was chock full of seaweed. Except you couldn’t really see in to the water, since it was kind of a dark grey color with dark green hues. Yup. Definitely not Miami. But then, wasn’t the point to get the hell out of there for a while anyway? I dove in.
Let me just say, there are few things that are better for a hangover than jumping into a large body of cold water. It basically shocks you back into sobriety whether you like it or not (although this feeling doesn’t necessarily last once you walk out of the ocean. For that, I recommend Gatorade, preferably the orange flavor). When the afternoon began coming to a close, I did my best to dry off and change clothes and walked to the opposite end of the main road to a small 9-11 memorial park. It never occurred to me how many memorials there would be around the city, not just in Manhattan. Some boys were throwing rocks in the water. I watched the sun set (did I mention this would be a recurring theme in my trip? Probably.) and took the train back in to the main land.
Getting closer to Brooklyn, I called up my friend Ezra to meet me for a drink. He’d moved to the city just a few months ago and was still exploring, so we wandered around for a bit and wound up at Greenlight Bookstore and sat in (well, stood) on an open mic. Good poetry, great crowd, and this was the first of many moments on this trip that I would realize just how badly I need to get over my public speaking phobias (this should go under my next Things I’ve Learned On This Trip post).
Moving on… After a series of failed attempts at finding a bar that would take plastic, we settled on Canal Bar. It was $1 Cream Ale night, so I don’t have to go into specifics about what happened next. Our bartender, Jeremy (?) was the hipster with a heart of gold (skinny jeans and a flannel, easy on the eyes, but also genuinely friendly, warm smile and all – or maybe it was the beer keeping me warm… Damn.) We joined some of the regulars for a bit on the back patio, but the conversation got a little uncomfortable when this bald lummox of a man started getting a little too personal questioning Ezra about his Jewish heritage and debating the rights and wrongs of the state of affairs in the Middle East (or I might have just been drunk and heard wrong… I should add the “Drunk Disclaimer” to a good portion of my stories I think. Either way, he was dropping borderline racist sounding jokes here and there and I couldn’t be sure how much truth was behind them.) Suffice to say, we left a little after that – besides, we’d already had at least a $15 tab between the two of us with those $1 beers, and the occasional shot of Whiskey. Speaking of which, I had my first taste of Bushmill’s Black Bush while at this bad and I approve! Let’s hear it for discovering yet another bottle you don’t mind drinking from!
Oh! It’s also (very) worth mentioning (more worth mentioning than the bald lummox and possibly more worth mentioning than the Bushmill’s) that I had some of the BEST Mexican food I’ve had on my trip so far while at this bar. No, it wasn’t bar food and this was actually before i’d imbibed more than one can of Genesee Cream Ale, so I think it’s a pretty legitimate claim. The great thing about Canal Bar is that they have an absurd amount of local restaurant menus to get food delivered from. We opted for Oaxaca where Ezra got a few tacos and I happily devoured some enchiladas*. The other great thing about Canal Bar is they’ve got free popcorn, which we happily noshed on once our Mexi-goodness was all gone. All in all, a lovely night! I’m pretty sure I got rained on again on the way home, but the buzz of the beer and of the day were good enough to keep me toasty.
New York is like that. Some days and nights go without a hitch, but more often than not, they’re either remarkable or devastating. I’ve had my fair share of amazing NYC moments, which is what’s always kept me coming back to her, what’s always made me want to move there. This trip to NY was different though, rougher than before, for sure. It’s not that she was a total bitch, although there were moments. But something was just different. I keep wondering if maybe it’s just me, growing up, being an adult in the city rather than a starry eyed girl of 18 or 21, with notions of excitement and romance keeping me heavily intoxicated. Either way, more on the “remarkable” and “devastating” nights coming up. Much sooner than you realize!
Note: It’s become apparent to me that there was something I completely forgot to mention about my 2nd day in NY – my visit to Ground Zero. I don’t know if that’s a very telling statement about how much 9-11 directly affected me. I don’t want to pretend that it completely changed my life, nor that it had no effect on me. Either way, I’ll considering saving that for a separate post.
* = It’s probably also worth mentioning that because I am a vegetarian, I can only ever comment on how good the vegetarian options are at any given restaurant.
So I’m sitting in this quaint, little wooden house in Athens, Ohio, amongst a mess of dirty laundry and even filthier bed sheets that could tell you tales that I probably can’t even imagine myself and I’m thinking that I should write about my recent experience in New York City while it’s still relatively fresh in my mind before it escapes me as so many memories tend to do the older I get. The point of this whole trip was to not only travel, but more importantly, to write. To write about it, to write about the people, to write how I felt, to write what I knew, to write what I learned, to just fucking write. Now is just as good a time as any to begin chronicling my misadventures in hobo-land.
There needs to be an appropriate soundtrack, I tell myself as I sit down to write this, so I YouTube some Ratatat. “Loud Pipes” is playing and I can hear the fan in the corner blowing air across the room on the lowest setting possible, just good enough to keep it from getting stuffy but not so loud that I can’t hear myself think.
A splash of pavement from Williamsburg, a tiny sunset in the Financial District, steamed dumplings the size of a watermelon, and all those bridges connecting, keeping a city afloat and connected to the rest of the world – all random flashes in my mind of the places etched into my mind, forming one big picture of New York City to me, the visitor, the outsider from Miami.
There are all these songs and stories and movies written about the city that it makes you wonder why anyone would live anywhere else. But maybe it’s because of all the hype that so many people choose not to end up there (I know that was my experience when I was in Pittsburgh). I, myself, constantly struggle on the fence of desiring Native status and simply wanting to accept my place as the occasional drop-in guest. I went to New York this time around without any real expectation, which was probably for the best since there was really nothing to find. In the end, all I left with was a heavily depleted bank account and a sense of confusion about who exactly took my money in the first place, like a broke(n down) amnesiac.
My flight picked me up out of Ft. Lauderdale, about an hour north of Miami for the non-South Floridians, and flew me over to Queens – LaGuardia Airport, paid courtesy of JetBlue (my favorite airline, despite the fact that they turned down my application for a position as a flight attendant).
“I’m really doing it,” I thought to myself as the giant rubber tired crashed onto the pavement. I grabbed my heavy, Adidas backpack that I bought about a day or so before skipping town to live life on the road for a while, and made my way to the bus stop right outside. The bus was packed and I stood there waiting for a seat but ending up getting off the bus before one ever became available. One of many analogies for the city, I guess. I huffed it to a train, then another bus, and finally found Jefferson Street, where my buddy CJ lives. CJ was a kid I knew way back in high school, someone I didn’t entirely get along with because he seemed way too uptight for my teen taste (I was too busy being an asshole, yelling back at Mrs. Brown and getting in trouble for the fuck of it. Mrs. Brown taught English and in retrospect, she was pretty damn nice to me and I was just a stupid kid, but that’s young angst for you). All I could remember about CJ was that he was a good student, spoke with a unique sort of accent, and sold Argentinian alfajores (a type of sweet) at the end of class. I myself was also fairly entrepreneurial, and I had my mother bake brownies that I sold at about .50 a pop. It really pissed some of my teachers off.
It’s funny how life works out though, and after 10th grade, I never saw or heard from CJ again. That is, until the advent of Facebook, where he somehow found and friended me. After reading about his job at a local Broward newspaper and all his penguin-related joke statuses, I started thinking CJ had actually grown to be a pretty awesome guy. Then, last year, as I was visiting NYC after a failed relationship and a number of other unpleasant events, CJ asked if I wanted to meet up. And meet up we did, at a gay bar near Christopher Street. It was pretty fantastic because I always had my suspicions but seeing as CJ had been involved with the far-right clubs in high school (Republican and Christian groups), I was never 100% sure what was up with his orientation. These days, he’s much more open and relaxed and it was really grand to meet up with him and get to know him under new circumstances. That night, CJ told me to look him up the next time I was in town. And so, a few weeks before leaving Miami, I sent him a quick Facebook message asking if he’d let me stay with him a few nights and if he’d like to hang out some more, to which he very cordially replied: yes.
CJ lives on Jefferson Street near the L, in a multi-bedroom apartment he shares with about 3 other roommates (I can’t remember if I met them all or not?) Walking into the hallway of his complex, you’re greeted with the delicious, familiar scent of nice-quality herb, the kind I wasn’t fortunate enough to partake in as it was never offered and the only offer extended was that I buy $40 of more worth, which was way beyond my budget. Nostrils flared, I let the smell sink deep into my lungs as I entered the apartment. I think it’s safe to say that the majority of places i’ve crashed at since then have all had the same lived-in, dirty dishes, lack of feather duster, tell-tale art on the walls kind of feel that this joint had. These apartments all have this quality of desire to them, a combination of grunge and grit left behind by the over-booked lives of 20-somethings. They’d make great anthropological studies: notice the caked on cheese left on the plates, the gum and cigarette wrappers and beer bottle tops strewn about, hurried messages scribbled on napkins, half eaten sandwiches barely wrapped in the fridge, a compost heap or recycling bin because even though they’re busy, they still kinda care about the planet, an instrument that’s played on drunken nights by the musical talent of the house, well-worn shoes that have traipsed the city one hundred nights and then some, a fancy bike that cost more than everyone’s rent combined leaning against a wall with chipped paint, some books written by dead authors and dead poets about how to survive stacked tightly in a shelf to show that someone is well read, and maybe a refrigerator magnet from each of their home towns holding up a local chinese food menu. Beautiful.
The main thing I noticed, and what I hadn’t exactly prepared for, was that New York City would be hot. And not just hot, but really fucking sweltering hot. I’m from Miami, i’ve grown up under the sun. But i’ve always had air conditioning available. And when that wasn’t, due to some major natural disaster or power outage, there was always something else, like a battery operated fan. Never had I experienced the stagnant heat of a NYC basement in the summertime. I hate to sound ungrateful, and to be honest, I am not and would gladly sleep there again no question, but now I would go in with a much more prepared state of mind. CJ led me down the metal steps from his apartment’s kitchen to the shared basement space that divided his bedroom from his roommate’s room. Right in the middle was a big, grown, fuzzy couch with a wool blanket at one end and a pillow at the other.
“I hope you don’t mind, we don’t have a fan or anything. This is the couch though! Let me know if you’re not comfortable though!” CJ said to me, so kindly to the girl he really didn’t know much about at all except she was kind of a pain in the ass when she was 15 and probably was still somewhat of a pain over a decade later. I plopped my stuff down by the edge of the couch.
“This is perfect!” I smiled, and it was, because I wasn’t paying one red cent for it, and sleeping there meant I could be in New York City, the holy land of dreamers who imagine their own towns to be much too small for their big ideas. There were no expectations, only gratitude to have a small space to call my own, even if only temporarily, in a city of 8 million other confused individuals just trying to get by. It felt good. It felt really good. I sat down on the couch, opened my bag, and got acquainted with my first free home on the road.
(Check back for continuations throughout the week. For now, enjoy the music.)
I saw Cat Power about 6 or 7 years ago perform here in Miami at the old I/O Lounge (now The Vagabond). She (Chan Marshall) performed maybe 2 or 3 complete songs during her hour and a half long on-stage breakdown. It was a bizarre thing to witness. My friends and I were big Cat Power fans and we’d heard some vague rumors about Marshall being a bit shy and awkward during performances, but we quickly realized those rumors were fairly downplayed. She started off alright, but quickly got distracted when she realized/decided that her guitar was out of tune. She asked for help from audience members and a couple of guys went up to help her out. It probably ate up about 30 minutes, the lot of them standing around trying to perfectly tune her guitar strings. Eventually I think she switched over to the piano and had a similar fit about that. She finally began to play again toward the end of her set, when the club actually began playing music over her to stop her from going on. It was pretty unfortunate since it seemed she had finally gotten into her zone. Still, the few songs she did perform to completion were fantastic. I would pay money to see her again.
