It was a humorless ride on a well-packed limited bus.  Most of us were office and retail drones, jealously husbanding whatever strength we had left for the home stretch, cautiously entrusting each other to make it an easy ride for us all.  Among us were a scattered handful of tourists - tall slim eurotypes, well-dressed with good skin and clear, cynical eyes.  A pair of them took the floor in front of my in-facing bench, holding gracefully to a single steel pole and exchanging silently voluminous glances back and forth that made me feel crass and underdressed. 

I was reading a fat paperback and, optimistically, had omitted to insert the ‘buds to my iPod, in view of the apparent discretion of the ridership.  It was a nice change to immerse myself in the white noise of the bus engines instead of stuffing my ears with syncopated plastic plugs.  Of course, it was not to last.

At Kearny there boarded a ragged man.  He was tall and his belly swelled out dramatically above teetering legs and below a narrow chest and shoulders; a silvery van dyke spilled down from his grizzled chin over a ratty red sweatshirt, the beard seemingly as much spittle and food as hair.  In the side pocket of his crusty cargo pants he’d secreted a plastic bottle that had once held soda but clearly, by the fumes that emanated from his every pore, now contained some low form of spiritous liquors.  But his eyes were bright and cheerful and he came on board as if he were arriving at a frathouse reunion.  To say the least, he did not fit in - and the least was the least that he said. 

Swaying dangerously, he waded through the other standees, causing the elegant tourists in front of me to raise their eyebrows judgmentally.  The shabby man didn’t go much further, stopping just a few feet past us on the other side of the long bus’ articulation, which was itself equipped with a pair of seats to either side.  On those seats, opposite me and to my left, were sitting a young man and woman with stolid business-ready grimness etched deep on their features, clad incongruously in athletic garb: fresh sweatshirts and running shorts cut high on the thigh, their faces now gone from dour preoccupation to horrified revulsion.  I hadn’t barely noticed them before, but the shabby man who now teetered beside them trained his bleary focus on them directly.  “Heh - how ya doin’?” he cheerfully inquired, but received no response.  “Ay com’ on, we’re all in this together, right?  Right? He wouldn’t take “no answer “ for an answer.  Each word he spoke filled the air with boozy vapors.  The woman in the running shorts locked her grimace even more firmly in place, her eyes glowering with disdain and aggravation, even as the shabby man kept tossing off conversational gambits.  “Y’r goin’ runnin’?”

The man in the running shorts then did something remarkable: he turned in his seat to the lush standing behind him and answered the question.  I couldn’t hear the answer but it was clearly just what the shabby man had wanted to hear.  “Tha’s righ’? Fantastic! Fantastik! Tha’s great!! You know, I usta run track!  High school champ!” with this he gestured with knowing dismissivness to his ruined physique, his filth-stiffined clothes, his general uncleanliness.  “Hah!,” he laughed crudely, looking around the bus for confirmation.  Finding none, he roared it again to the ceiling, “Hah!!”

By now I was fishing in my coat for the iPod again, unwrapping the ‘buds and readying myself to put a layer of sound between him and me.  The sophisticates before me watched this operation with bemused approval.  “Good zhoice,” the female half of them said, with a tacit, knowing nod from her confrere.  All three of us glanced down to the voluble drunk.  “I’d thought to leave them out this time,” I superfluously explained, “but it doesn’t seem such a great idea now.” The gym-short woman, beset by stench and blather, and further antagonized by her friend’s inaudible conversational goading of the drunkard short me a glance of icy rage.  She couldn’t see anything to do but to ride it out for the time being.  She wanted out, but she didn’t know exactly how to get there. 

We were pulling up to the Powell Street stop, just three down from where he’d boarded, when the drunk snapped to attention.  “Powell Street?  Tha’s me!  I gotta get out!  Aw, I won’t have time to get to th’ door...” The bus was just creaking to a halt, the doors weren’t open yet - but there were a lot of people blocking the way.  “Sure you can,” both the shorts-wearers assured him, a desparate hope barely masked in their voices.  “Yeah?,” the sot looked fore and then aft, assessing his options. His past athletic prowess again aroused, he was rising on spindly legs to the challenge. “I won’ be able to make it back there,” he assessed frankly, looking back.  “Try that one,” the shorts-wearers urged in an excess of helpfulness, pointing up the aisle in coincidental synchronization. 

“Yeah, right,” said the driunk decisively; “G’by now have a good’en” - and with that he locked his wavering gaze on his destination and started pushing forward, bellowing “Comin’ Out!” to encourage those in his path to clear him some room as if they needed any encouragement.  The frenchies in front of me wore a shared expression of relief and disgust as he made his odiferous, boisterous way past us. 

He reached the doorwell as the doors began to slide shut on him, but he reclaimed some of his erstwhile athleticism in a diving reach to stop them.  Repulsed as if by anti-magnetism, the otherwise apathetic commuters in his way leaped aside to give him access to the exit. 

Laughing, roaring, tumbling, he blustered his way down the stairwell and out to a stretch of sidewalk lined with pricey boutiques and galleries and a five-star hotel.  I glanced up to the french couple for a fraternal exchange of smirks; but they were having none of it, staring pointedly at their cuticles.  The couple in the trackshorts were already spatting in the aftermath of their disparate responses to the wino.  I didn’t need to put on the iPod anymore.  People were going to leave each other alone from here on out. 

A burst of hilarious laughter drew my attenion from those restful thoughts to the milling crowds outside.  One man was its source - the newly-exited slob, who stood monumental at the busy bus stop, the foot traffic ignoring him as best they could.  His arms were raised triumphantly overhead and his pants had fallen down; they lay in a heap at his ankles and his exhausted jersey barely covered the uppermost portion of a pair of wrinkled, overworn old black boxers that hung to mid-calf.  He hooted his mirth to the impassive faces of the bus riders seated just a few feet from him on the other side of the impenetrable protection of a window.  “Come on!,” he enjoined them. “Laugh!!  It’s funny, isn’t it?!!”

And it was. So I, alone of all around me, did.  Not only that, but it felt good, too. 

The man accused of driving with a .23 blood alcohol content and ramming another vehicle because he thought, erroneously, it was being driven by his dad: He’s Litt. 

The woman gearing up for litigation over having been exposed to inappropriately sexual materials at an Urban Outfitter’s store: She’s a MILF. 

This post brought to you by People Fated By Their Names: “I blame society, sure, but mostly I blame geneology.”

I arrived late friday night and just got to the goddamn hotel, right smack in the center of center city, which is a fairly, um, central location.  I awoke at leisure and breakfasted - stupidly and expensively - at the hotel, and then wandered the streets for a few hours just refamilarizing myself with the city, which was a lot of fun and very relaxing.  Among my stops was City Hall, a magnificent beaux-arts chateau, where I took several crappy out of focus photos of gorgeous architectural details and this cool shot of the outside of an abandoned (I think) subway entrance:

I also found this obscure message set somehow into the very pavement of the very streets down the road a ways:

... so, you make sure you do that, okay?  (I took plenty more photos too, and visited the old Wanamaker’s for an organ recital too, but I won’t bother you with all that.  We have places to go, man!)

That afternoon I got back to the Reading Terminal Market, which is a nice old food-boutique sort of reminiscent of the Farmer’s Market in LA, but indoors and with better architecture.  Outside the market, I encountered this easy rider:

I also bought a disappointing cheesesteak, but I knew I’d do better later on in the trip so I didn’t let it bring me down.  Finally it was time to nap, lave my filthy self, and get ready for T-Con.  The festivities were being held out in the Northern Liberties district, a decent but do-able walk from my hotel.  The stroll took me east through chinatown and the historic district, and then north through a great neighborhood, a fairly vacant industrial area, and back into a happenin’ zone that hadn’t even existed back when I were a lad.  Here’s some shots from that journey:

Pungently reminiscent for me - a genuine steam grate, which was steamy and great:

In the window of the Trocadero Club (I think that was what it was, anyway): Dirty Barbies!

Melted into the pavement out near the river, evidence that Erich Von Daanken was right - Freemasons Rule the World:

A pylon of the Ben Franklin Bridge, apparently last painted by Ben himself, while on a serious madiera bender:

Past the bridge, in the creepy industrial emptiness zone (CIEZ), this mural leaped out at me and gave me hope, and the jimjams:

I knew I was getting close when I found this directive scrawled on a security door, pointing me in the correct direction:

At the edge of the N.L. neighborhood, several of these cheerful handbills urged me to guard my purity, or something:

And thus at last I found myself at the startlingly hospitable North Lounge and Lanes or something like that, a clean and pleasant land full of enormous balls and $3.50 pints of PA’s own Yuengling Lager.  The hostesses were gracious and gorgeous and the company - honestly, in a post this snarky I can’t even describe it.  Bloggers are nice folk, present company excepted, and the 50 or so of us who made it to T-Con ‘08 restored my faith in humanity - and I hadn’t even realized I lost it.  I’m not going to troll through all your names, but if I spoke with you for more than 30 seconds, I would have your baby.  Or your sandwich.  Probably your sandwich, but regardless, you guys rock.

T-Conners, en situ:

the place was pretty dark so this was a long exposure, which has the benefit of actually depicting things as they appeared to me - vague and ethereal.  Please note the ghost of Jen, from Run Jen Run (hit up my blogroll if you want to find her) - the primary event organizer and a truly great humanitarian.  Jen, thanks!

The lanes themselves:

it was pretty cool to see people bowling in Tron.  ‘Nuff said.  Or at any rate, I’m unable to say more.  There’s some kind of nondisclosure thing. 

The next morning I sure as hell was not going to the hotel buffet again so I wandered around for about 90 minutes looking for a decent breakfast - the one I’d wanted in Reading Market was closed (those damned amish and their sundays!).  After covering a few miles of cityscape looking for something to eat, I wound up just returning to Reading for a ginormous glass of carrot juice.  Actually, that really hit the spot. 

I had to change hotels after two nights (a priceline exclusive!) and found myself down at the gritty foot of Penn’s Landing, just off the Delaware River.  After checking in I arranged to meet Billmo, with whom I’d lived for two years in college, at a deli near his house down in West Philly on the other side of campus.  On my way to the train that would hie me thence, I found these charming fellows out selling barstools:

This was also along the way, on lower north 2nd - a colonial horse trough, with which I’ve taken certain hue and saturation liberties.  Hey, give me liberties or give me Yuengling, or, preferably, both, as our founders valiantly slurred into their inkwells…

A surprisingly quick train ride and I was back on campus, where I wasn’t too impressed with the bookstore or its offerings but did rather like the gate that has been cast for the new Addams Fine Arts building - here’s a detail:

The rest of campus was more interesting to me than to you, probably, so I’ll spare you the exhaustive photocoverage.  However, quicker than I’d anticipated I got out to 43rd and Locust, where I rejoined my past at Koch’s deli. 

While waiting for Bill to arrive I loitered outside the small commercial strip, where I nabbed this shot of one of Philly’s “lifers in tile” mural-memorials:

Koch’s: that place is truly the best.  No chairs, but plenty of samples constantly being passed around on sheets of wax paper, the highest quality deli meats, and the best, most substantial sandwiches I’ve ever had.  A lovely young woman had the misfortune of being tapped by the manager to serve as cold-cut distributrix ("Hey Blondie!  Where are ya?  Hot ham, get over here and pass it around, beautiful!” - eventually she went outside to call her mom just to avoid the abuse).  I got brisket with onions and pepperjack on a kaiser roll, with pickles and real deli soda,

which I enjoyed mightily on Bill (and wife Mande)’s lovely back porch.  I also got a t-shirt, which I discovered was too small right after lunch; I went back to exchange it and got three more meat samples, a cheese sample, and some pickles for the road.  I tell ya - Koch’s is the place!

Bill and Mande and I went then from Koch’s to the foot of Chestnut Street, for Belgian beers at Eulogy (which was great, especially the third pitcher of Gulden Draak - a beer I loved even before I was already buzzed on other very good beers) and a stroll along the waterfront to look at war ships from the last century or two.  Finally we re-boarded the conveyance and went back up to No.Libs for supper at Standard Tap, a real pubbly pub with big steaks and tasty beers on tap, even if the staff was unable, when asked directly, to tell us where the beers came from.  By now it was getting late and B&M dropped me at my hotel, where I crashed profoundly and motionlessly till the dawn. 

Upon arising I breakfasted enormously on the free buffet (yay free breakfast buffet!) and took the hotel courtesy van back to my old hotel where I caught a train to the airport.  I wound up traveling 11 hours that day, which was palliated by the following factors: I had free drink tickets out the wazoo and damn well used’em; I shaved 2-1/2 hours off my connection in Chicago by getting bumped to a sooner flight; and my flight attendant from Chicago to Oakland was probably the nicest, most professional, most attentive, and prettiest by which I’ve ever had the pleasure of being serviced.  I got home before dark and was able to help put Z to bed. 

Today was a decent “day back at work” sort of day, with baked goods and cognizable accomplishments.  And now it’s late so I declare this vacation recapped, but in summary: TequilaCon ‘08: excellent.  Philadelphia in general: awesome and getting steadily better.  Old college friends: ever close to my heart.  Koch’s deli: as good as it ever was, and that’s saying a lot.  New Bloggy friends: come on guys, you know what you mean to me.  I love you, guys.  Don’t make me cry on my own damn blog. 

The end. 

Partly, it was because it was a physical thing you’d made yourself, a companion that had been with you through the great times that made the mix special, an inextricable association of specific perfect moments with that particular plastic case, that handwriting on that label.... the musical aspects became confounded with the historical aspects, all of it somehow investing the cassette itself with an actual personality. The mix tape was, in a sense, as much about the tape as it was about the mix.

In 1991 I celebrated Thanksgiving for the first time with a close group friends whose weddings I’ve witnessed, children I’ve cradled, lives I’ve shared ever since.  It was an extravagantly gluttonous affair, a great, raucous, soul-satisfying feast.  We started having these Thanksgivings together every year, starting in 1991.  Funksgiving ‘91.

That was the mix I produced as an honorary soundtrack to what I knew would be a momentous event.  I really worked hard on it and it came out great - all the segues and builds combining seamlessly into 90 perfect minutes of auditory entertainment for the best dinner party of the year.  I gave a copy to our hosts and listened to my own copy for years thereafter, annually adding a new edition each Thanksgiving day, all painstakingly executed, each a proud achievement in its own right: Heal This Chicken ‘92, Gallinaceous Boogie ‘93, Funky Drumstick ‘94, Chipotle Salsa, Hot Yams, Savory....

Ten years on: the medium of ferric oxide had grown moribund, almost irrelevant.  I would hand someone a tape and they’d no longer be set up to play it.  Though I’d craft new tapes as a gift from my heart, they were increasingly seen as something quaint and pitiful.  With Oven Ready 2001, the series staggered to a halt.

Now I’ve got more music than I’ve ever had before, freed from analog fetters and the clunky inconvenience of physical objectification.  My iPod holds more of a library than I’d possibly have been able to manage on LPs and cassettes, and I can slap together mixes in moments, adjusting song orders and sound levels with the click of a mouse instead of painstaking cue-ups and re-recordings.  The process is now so simple that I no longer save the effort for Thanksgiving, and make new mixes all year long.  The Thanksgiving mix is now just my current “on the go” playlist, celebratorily renamed.

I’d built some great new playlists, too, both holiday-oriented and more general, but when I moved my e-library to a new external drive I accidentally ruined them all.  Dozens of cleverly named, hard-driving mixes were suddenly rendered empty and null.  I didn’t even mind much - they were too easily built to merit mourning.  As I deleted from my hard drive the titles that now referred to vacant shells, I thought back to some of those dusty old cassettes I still keep archived in a shopping bag in my closet, persevering, unplayed, in spite of the technoglitches that negated newer, less storied, playlists.  The music is still great, though by now a little dated… I can’t quite put my finger on it but it seems that, in the midst of musical plenty the likes of which I could never have imagined ten years ago, something has been lost.  I know where it is, but I don’t think I’ll ever really get it back. 

Jimi’s question hung pregnant in the humid air; Jimi swayed a little as if re-hearing it over and again in his head. Robert wasn’t sure he wanted to answer it. His comeback question seemed an appropriate rejoinder under the circumstances: “Whazzat, a guitar or what?” For truly, Robert had never seen such a thing before. It reminded him of a guitar, since it had six strings and a fretted neck, but after that the resemeblance evaporated - creamy as milk, slim and solid as a plank of wood, shiny and forked like frozen flames glistening in the night’s blackness. Jimi lowered his gaze to the instrument dangling from his hand and raised it to his groin, leaned back his head, wrapped his right hand around the neck and began to flail. The sound of the steel strings was quiet and jangly but Robert could make it out clearly enough.  Notes and chords raced after each other, changes chasing changes, a rapidity of picking from long sinister fingers unlike any he’d every seen or even imagined before. The riff lasted only a minute or two but comprised an aggessive, inventive musicianship that left Robert literally openmouthed.

Jimi let the axe back down again, rocking his head forward to upright; his eyes seemed focused intently on something that wasn’t there. “You gotta show me how to do that,” Robert whispered. “I ain’t ever seen that before.”

Jimi grinned with a grin that almost went all the way around his head and sat down next to Robert on the old tree stump. “You got any licks to show me first, brother?” Robert had actually forgotten about his own guitar resting in the road beside him. He hoisted it, brushed off some dust, settled it high on his hip like a nursing mother her babe. The fingers of his left hand caressed the neck as his right hand located itself over the sound hole. His eyes slid shut and his foot began to beat a soft 4:4 in the dirt. Pickless, his long thumbnail caught the F string and nailed it with a wicked snap; with his left hand he trapped the twang and sent it wailing back. A bucket of notes followed in jangled pursuit of each other like hornets turned out of their nest. Jimi’s eyes couldn’t open wide enough, it was as if he was listening with every sensory organ he possessed including his skin. Hee was silent and motionless as Robert laid down his groove - a jam that started nowhere, ended nowhere, but went everywhere in the interim. It was like nothing he’d ever heard, the skeletal essence of everything he’d ever wanted music to be - clean, strong, fast and passionate. As the last note faded into the dark, Jimi felt as if a dear friend was taking leave of them. All he said in response was “Damn,” and that he said quietly.

For a moment or two they just sat together, looking at each other’s guitar and each other’s hands, fingertips pink and igneous, knuckles blacker than the sky above them.

Robert broke the silence: “So what kind of guitar is that, anyways?”

Jimi laid it out on his lap, long fingers invoking an aura over and around it. “Fender stratty, and I string it backwards.”

“It looks loud. Why is it so quiet?”

“Man, it’s electric. I need an amp to make it wail.”

“‘Lectric?”

“Yeah man.  Like Clapton, man.” Robert’s eyes were guarded but respectful, as well as uncomprehending. Jimi pursued the point: “Clapton? The Beatles? You don’t know any of those white dudes?”

Robert smirked a little, gestured gently to the night. “Man, this is Mississippi. If white folk knew what kinda music I play, they’d pro’lly string me up on morals.” A flicker of humorless laughter shuttled between them.
“Well, whateva’ cousin, you here an’ I’m here so let’s groove it on up a little,” Jimi offered.  “I want to watch whre you go with this. You know ‘Cross Roads’?”

Robert lowered his brow and gave Jimi a hard look. “I can learn it if you can play it,” he challenged. Jimi’s eyes hardened for a moment and then both broke out laughing. Jimi asked wordlessly for Robert’s guitar and tweaked the tuning, returned it to him, and slipped into the lead.  Robert leaned forward to grasp the music with his eyes in the noctilucence. Two stanzas, a riff, and then a lead change; Robert now knew where he was going and played the line with his own burning brand. Both men focused the entirety of their energies on showing something worth seeing and seeing everyting that was being shown. It wsan’t a duel, it was a competitive duet. The lead kept shifting back and forth - the riffs sliding from one player to the other as they sometimes wrestled for the front spot, sometimes handed it over willingly, and sometimes played hot potato with it as if both were so contened with learning from the other that neither wanted to teach. Robert’s lines rang crisply while Jimi’s were muffled by his lack of an amp, but as far as they were conerned, both men were picking on a single mutant dual-necked object, the sounds that each of them produced and the patterns of their fingers clear as the aapproaching dawn.

Dew began to form on the strings, which lost their tuning more and more rapidly. The hot night was fugueing into a clammy morning. The men were tired, and both let the music that had grown up between them slide gradually into a silence. Nearby a cricket greeted the day as they found their feet and rose in place.

“Robert,” Robert said, extending a tired hand. “You play aroun’ heah or somethin’?”

“Jimi,” Jimi answered. “I play everythere, man. I’mplaying right now, what you just showed me.”

“The devil you say.”

“The devil I be.” With this, Jimi let go of Roberts hand and started walking backwards uup the road. “See you in ya dreams, brotha.’ He turned to face the road before him with Robert’s smile nearly blinding his mind’s eye. Shaking his heads with a chuckle, Robert began on his own treck down the dirt track back to the roadhouse he’d left the night before, a lifetime prior.

*****

Jimi stumbled back to the studio and lay down on the hood of his car, eyes closed against the sunlight and to hold in the images of Robert’s picking. After a few minutes an engineer poked his head out and, seeing him, exclamed his relief. “Damn Jimi, where you been? We’ve been looking everywhere for ya!”

Jimi kept hs eyes closed, internalizing what he’d witnessed.  “I been down to the crossroads, Lester,” he said quietly, “and I don’t think I’m ever comin’ back.”

*****

Robert reached his destination at about the same time, just as the sun poured glaringly down on his tired eyes.  The shack looked even shabbier in the unflinching sunlight. The place was deserted, save two or three men left to sleep off their own drunk. His old Model A was sitting dusty and alone under a tree, and he went and joined it, lonesomer yet, to catch some sleep. He had a gig to get to that evening, he knew, and he was pretty sure it was going to be a good one. He’d learned a few new tricks the night before. Hell, he’d learned a whole new way to play guitar. He didn’t know who the devil it had been, but somebody schooled him and things were going to sound different from then on. 

Leaving tomorrow for TequilaCon and fun in the Philly sun.  Got any recommendations the itinerant and hung-over sightseer?  I’m mostly thinking about visiting campus, hitting some delis, and gazing at the architecture of Frank Furness.  However shall I otherwise occupy myself?  Limit your answer to one bluebook; show your work. 

He’d sung enough songs and smelled enough sweat for the night.  Grabbing his hat and his guitar, he pushed his way out the back door.  A few partygoers had congregaed there but they didn’t slow him down - though a few tried with come-on queries and jaw-thrusting challenges.  “Back off, back off,” he barked at them all, seeking the refuge of the night’s anonymity.  “Y’all don’ wan’ nothin’ from me, I’y burn right through ya - don’ tempt the devil ‘less ya ready fo’ hell!” Though his curse produced a few giggles from the women and some mutters from the men, they left him be.

As he walked, the clean air, rich with the scents of the earth, filled his senses and cleared his mind.  Still warm in the sweltering night, a clarity arose within him, an energizing cleanliness.  All was still and dark, yet he felt static crackling just beneath everything.  Things felt portentious.

A few minutes of wide-striding lopes through the moonless night put him at the crossing of a rough country road and a crude dirt track.  Once the spot had been shaded by a large tree; he sat down on its stump, pushed his hat back on his head, wiped the sweat from his brow, and sat for a moment, absorbing the quiet through his skin.  When the laughter and footsteps came up from behind him, they seemed to have arrived out of thin air. 

******

Jimi’s hand ached, but it was way down over there, at the end of an arm that seemed impossibly long.  His skin was hot; he lapped the sweat from his upper lip with a snake of a tongue.  There were people; he knew some of them, had flashes of recognition of others.  Chicks lay like cushions on the flowing paisley carpets and some dude had a joint and an eyedropper.  He reached for the dropper with that aching hand but had difficulty navigating the distance back to his eyes, so a chick rose up and helped him get two drops per pupil.  He mumbled a thanks that sounded like a cat trapped in a piano and managed to snag the j; three deep drags and the colors kicked in. 

Details congealed: he’d been recording some tracks, after a show, not sure where - not Seattle, or New York, or London, or any of those cold damp city places - this was a hot damp place in the country, and it felt like it was getting hotter by the second.  He discovered himself standing, his axe in his hand.  His head rotated and he sensed the atmosphere in the studio closing in on him.  “I gotta get some air,” his voice said, and though the sound echoed in his ears no one seemed to have heard him.  The door was before him; miles away, a hand he’d once owned turned a burnished, grinning knob.

Fresh air bathed his face.  He realized it was almost as hot outside as it had been in the studio, but the blackness of the night was tranquil and soothing, and a whisper of a breeze eased his burning head.  The strat in his hand hung almost to the ground; he observed dispassionately that a shorter man would be dragging it along the rough road down which he found himself ambling.  He pulled off his bandanna and shook out his afro.  Fresh air, real colors, the absence of sound, the billowing of his wide lapels and flared trousers and extravagant hair… He felt refreshed, but something more as well - a pregnant potential, as if he were at some kind of precipice, the edge of a cliff or a diving board, and everything around him was calling on him to jump into something new.  A crack opened in the earth before him and he leapt it, both feet landing in twin puffs of dust.  He was looking at them and laughing when a voice came from outside his head to interrupt his reverie: “Who the hell are you, boy?  And what the hell is that? 

*****

A wiry man sat on a stump, beads of sweat rolling down his dark skin and beams of power shooting from his fingertips and eyes.  He wore a suit the way a fieldhand wears dungarees and his broadbrimmed hat sat well back on his head, forming a black halo that made the whites of his eyes gleam all the more preternaturally.  An expression of wry disbelief was on his face and a battleworn acoustic axe waited at the ready by his strong right hand.  “Can you hear me, boy?  Are you for real?”

Jimi smiled big and nodded.  “I’m a voodoo chile,” Jimi replied, “runnin’ wild on a country mile.  What’s your story, man?”

Robert was relieved and smiled back; he’d honestly not been quite sure that this lanky devil in the crazy outfit was really for real.  There was something about this guy that seemed unusual, besides the bizarre hair and the strange clothes.  Robert had been mouthing off lately about doing some summoning - mostly to give the mamas a thrill and get a little sugar off’em.  This guy, though, seemed summoned, and now that he was there, Robert wasn’t sure what to do about it. 

Part II later this week.  as if you can’t tell what happens. 

First night, first seder: we went down to Shariar and Helena’s lovely Palo Alto condo for a solid ceremonial fix.  Highlights included one total newbie (always a big plus), a very active and engaged reading of the hagadah with some damn fine questions and comments at along, a symbolic “pesach” consisting of a small ewe-shaped magnet (heaven forfend it be mistook for the real thing), both traditional (yum) and nouveaux (yeaum) charoset, the best damn chicken soup with matzo balls I’ve ever made, both standard gefilte fish and awesome tuna poke (sashimi chunks in sauce), double tzimmes, a spectacular sephardic spinach omlette thing, and this brisket, man, you would not believe how good it was - and we wrapped up with a flourless milk chocolate cake and a flourless dark chocolate cake, with Kel’s famous lemon bars for a little zest.  (re-reading this, I realize I left out the 12-hour-roasted eggs, that I, a non-hard-egg-eater, found totally irresistable.) The kids failed to find the aphikomen (I put a time limit on it) so we all split the surprisingly delicious grand prize of chocolate covered matzo, and they all got fun light-up animal keyrings that seemed to placate them.  We were there till after 10, and felt the glow for many days thereafter.

(note: nouveaux charoset contains fuji apples, pecans, wanluts, pistachios, dried cherries, sultanas, honey, cinnamon, salt, black pepper, and garnacha red wine.  traditional style was apples, cinnamon, and some left-around zinfandel.  They both rocked.)

Kick it forward a few days - I get an email from Mitch, who’s hosting seder #2 - he’s looking for matzo.  As you may not have known, there was a serious shortage of the bread of affliction all around the bay area and we couldn’t scrape up a scrap of the damn stuff.  At the last minute, basically, his mom airlifts (via fedex) a five-pack to him, and we meet for lunch so he can lend me a box wherewith I have been making my favorite matzobrie breakfasts (mixing in cinnamon and jelly with the egg and soaking it in honey, what a deadly way to start a morning...) So I’m feeling pretty good about the passover scene in general. 

Then we get to Mitch and Catharine’s seder this saturday just past (day 8, the official final night).  We hit the “ghetto farmhouse” where they make their fabulous crib and start socializing with a cubic buttload of awesome folk - we wind up being a crowd of about 23, I think.  The house seems a bit under-prepared for the ceremonies, though, and I’m surprised… till Mitch orders us all outside where, by their carriage house (yes dude they have a carriage house, this place totally rocks) (they even have a “safe room” but it isn’t particularly secure, it just actually has a huge old safe in it!) by their carriage house, as I was saying before so rudely parenthetically interrupting myself, where they’ve set up a gorgeous al fresco table for us in the warmth of the evening.  We read Mitch’s hagadah with vigor and enthusiasm, because it’s funny and interesting, and we enjoy a meal which Mitch cooked all by himself for all of us, consisting of:

* Duck soup with duck confit matzo balls (the meat minced and mixed into the dough for the balls)
* Morrocan matzo brei with peas, topped with house-made harissa
* “Franks and beans” - house-made seafood sausage with cannilini beans, marinated pickled veg and watercress
* Intermezzo: house-made campari granita
* Braised short ribs (to die for) with sweet potato and horseradish mash and greens
* Chocolate cheesecake (house made, of course) with whipped gorgonzola dulce creme fraische sauce

Wines included: Gattinara Traviglini Giancarlo 2002 (a powerhouse), Arbois Pinot Noir 2004, Marea cinque-terre 2005 (a white that totally stood up to the intense reds surrounding it), Artesia 04 Cab Sauv (Napa), and a really noteworthy Paolo Bea Montefalco Rosso Riserva 2000 (and let’s not forget the plentiful house-made seltzer!).  Little Olivia found the aphikomen and got a grab bag of prizes, and the other kids got good consolation gifts; we tore ourselves away at 11 pm but could have stayed there laughing and drinking and talking - mostly about the exodus, of course, we’re very focused on the essentials - all night long. 

So now you’ve been updated till your gills are ready to burst, I suppose.  I’ll try to follow up with some sort of short story-ish thing.  I thank you for your time, and congratulate you all on a well-deserved redemption.  Moses out. 

Wait a cotton-pickin’ minute
ten pound sack with twelve pounds in it
but a man of rare accomplishment can fit a little more -
Find his digits, call his pager
wake him from an all-night rager
yes the man you want is Daniel-san, for Daniel’s 44.
He can see you crawl and cower
from his awesome perch of power
and his trophybelt’s a-dangle with the prizes he has took;
Gird your loins and say your prayers
city keys from all the mayors
get your king into the castle or he’ll play you for a rook.
With a grip of tensioned steel
squeeze the juice and smoke the peel
don’t exceed the standard dosage or you’ll surely pay the price -
Buildings shiver when he passes
melts the lenses from your glasses
fills your heart with questing hunger and your veins with boiling ice.
He’s the sober blade of justice
makes you understand what lust is
you’d be wise to leave him leeway or he’ll mow you to the ground;
Trials for your tribulation
he’s a walking celebration
of the everloving victory of fury over sound.
Half-piano, quad-eleven
he’s a little slice of heaven
he can give you what you’re wanting if you know how to implore;
Meet your favorite kind of trouble
rising raging from the rubble
forging forth to force the fortresses, for Daniel’s 44!

So go out and party on my behalf already.  I have a planet to save.  If you’re lucky, it’s yours!

* okay I posted this a day early.  sue me.  I freakin’ dare ya.

JL: Tonight we have the extraordinary opportunity to meet a presence that is too large to be constrained by the small screen of television.  Though he has only had the opportunity to offer us one role, it is a role which has become iconic.  It would be unimaginable for this production to exist without him, for anyone else to take over for him, or even for us to face the challenges of our own lives without invoking his presence.  Theatrical history is replete with antiheroes, from Burbage’s Shylock to Shreck’s Nosferatu and Peter Lorre’s touching portrayal of the unspeakable Hans Beckett in M, all the way through De Niro in Taxi Driver and Pacino in Scarface… the shackled power broker, the personification of evil, the object of execration is rightly seen as a “juicy” role, but also recognized as one fraught with challenges and risks for any actor.  For tonight’s guest to have taken such restrained and feeling possession of such a role so early in his career, clearly obliges us to invite him to share a few words with us.  From Disney’s Little Einsteins, I am very proud to introduce our guest: Big Jet.  Thank you for joining us, Big Jet.

BJ: De nada.

JL: You are the first in your family to take up acting, are you not?

BJ: I’m a cartoon.  In fact, not only am I a cartoon, I’m an animation of a machine, animated by machines.  So I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. 

JL: Tell me about the audition for Little Einsteins. 

BJ: It was disconcerting, really.  They had me come in, rev way up, tip my wings a few times, and then hide behind a cloud that was in the shape of a harpsichord.  It was surreal.

JL: Did they have a harpsichord-shaped cloud for you to use?

BJ: No, I had to use a ukulele in a pillowcase.

JL: Ouch.

BJ: Hey, that’s why they call it acting.  I acted the hell out of that uke. 

JL: What’s the schedule?  How does Big Jet “do” Big Jet?

BJ: We film three days a week; the rest of the time the graphics team is doing that crazy stuff with the musical roller coasters and armies of Russian nesting dolls and that kind of thing.  So, three days, and I’m only in like three or four episodes per season - but when I’m there, I’m totally there all day long.  Then, the rest of the time, you know, I have free for, like, other pursuits.

JL: Pursuits?

BJ: Yeah, c’mon, I’m an F-16 Falcon.  I can pick up some freelance shit every so often when Leo doesn’t need me. 

JL: Freelance?

BJ: Look, I’m not here to talk geopolitics, I shot that wad on the Ollie North show.  I’m here to talk about acting.

JL: Tell me about being an F-16 Falcon on a children’s television program.  Your work is very gentle.  Is it hard to hold back? 

BJ: You know, it can be.  I can’t crank up to a full 27,000 pounds of thrust, I can’t get anywhere near my rated Mach 2 top speed… I don’t go faster than that gumball of a rocket ship that the kids fly around in , even when it turns itself into a train - the slowest goddamn train in the history of trains… and then I even have to make it look like I’m having trouble keeping up with them.  That’s hard as hell.  That’s like, isometric exercises or something.  Of course, no guns.  My standard armament is an M-61A1 20mm multibarrel cannon with 500 rounds; six air-to-air missiles, conventional air-to-air and air-to-surface munitions and electronic countermeasure pods.  All that stuff’s off the table when it comes to working with little Leo.

JL: Tell me about working with Leo.

BJ: Oh, there’s nothing to tell.

JL: That’s not how I hear it.

BJ: Yeah well whatever, it’s his show.

JL: You’re being very diplomatic. 

BJ: What, you want me to break down in tears like June did on Oprah?  That’s not me, man.  That’s not Big Jet.  Her folks pushed her real hard; she never felt like she could speak her mind, and there Oprah was, all warm and comforting… I felt bad for her, really.  At first, anyway.  Those “private dancer” videos were obviously a cry for help. 

JL: And you think that had something to do with Leo?

BJ: Everything comes back to Leo.  It’s his show. He sets the mission.  He’s got that wand, you know -

JL: Baton.

BJ: Whatever, he’s not afraid to use it and I like getting paid so that’s all I’m saying about it. 

JL: The grabby gloves. Tell me about them.

BJ: Oh yeah, they were sort of my idea.  I had just joined the cast and I was feeling my way into the work, you know, just sort of maneuvering around the set with my gunbays and missile stations all naked and empty, and here comes Leo riding up on his Segway and he says something smart about how I’m unarmed, like how he’s had his kitty declawed, so I say, like, “Remember, a cat without claws is that much more likely to bite you,” and he says, “Don’t be silly, dipshit, you haven’t got a mouth,” and as much as it pissed me off I had to admit he was right, and then that night I was playing some racquetball, I remember that, and it occurred to me, I could have them give me giant iron fists, and that way I could, you know, punch that little bastard’s face into osso bucco, or whatever, but they wound up not going for that part of it.  I’m only allowed to use them to pilfer tureens of soup or to switch crucial turn signals, stuff like that.  But the gloves are still cool.

JL: Tell me about Quincy.  Did he come out first to the cast members before the story broke?

BJ: First, no, he didn’t give us some kind of “this is me” speech.  And he did not “come out.” Leo made him gay.

JL: Really?  How?

BJ: Dude, I’m an animated jetfighter on a children’s program.  Why would you think I know how any of this shit works?

JL: Good point. I think that brings us to the Pivot questionnaire portion of our interview.  What is your favorite word?

BJ: Mission.

JL: What is your least favorite word? 

BJ: Retrothrust.  So inhibiting.

JL: What turns you on, creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?

BJ: Clear weather.

JL: What turns you off, creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?

BJ: Pilots who rely on autopilot for everything.  And snotty flight traffic controllers. 

JL: What sound or noise do you love?

BJ: The Star Wars theme.  The one they play for Vader.  That’s cool.

JL: What sound or noise do you hate?

BJ: Packing tape.  Pulling it off the roll, it sort of screams?  It’s just creepy.  I hate it.

JL: What is your favorite curse word?

BJ: Ramjet.  But I usually just rev my engines really loud and bust some eardrums when I’m pissed off.  Very gratifying. 

JL: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

BJ: Pastry chef.  I think that would really be fun. 

JL: What profession would you not like to do?

BJ: Consierge, or mid-air refueller. 

JL: If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates? 

BJ: That Wonder Woman’s invisible plane has been waiting for me.  Sort of a fantasy of mine, really.  With the cockpit hatch wide open. 

JL: Big Jet, thanks for being with us this evening.  I’d throw this open now for questions from our audience, but Dan is just making this up so there’s no one else there.  Goodnight. 

(note: the old next door, not the present next door.)

Our first San Francisco apartment was a classic jazz-age 1-BR in a nice-enough part of town.  Our building was on the corner; turn uphill and it was all mansions and manicured parks, turn down and you’d find a wide sloppy avenue of tourist restaurants and innumerable sketchmeisters.  Our place, though, was sweet and petite, with original multipane windows and built-ins right down to a sawdust-stuffed icebox.  We didn’t have any extra space, and we used everything we were renting, except, I guess, for the fire escape.

The FE hung outside our bedroom window, and it wasn’t purely ours - the apple-cheeked granny next door shared it with us.  We didn’t have much truck with her; occasional smiles and nods in the hallway were the extent of our face-to-face relationship.  But after about a year there, she started sharing a little more with us - indirectly, but vociferously; disturbingly, and thusly:

It was late at night; we’d long since crashed out in our cozy bed.  Traffic had faded to a gentle lapping of white noise, and our world was at peace.  Then a sound, new and thick, floated into our consciousness - a voice, almost human, wracked with anguish.  We bestirred ourselves, creeping with reluctant disbelief back to consciousness, trying to distinguish this haunted howling from the reality of our dreams.  But soon enough the dreams were forever banished and we both lay still and nervous as the moaning and keening built. 

A woman - old, sad, and drunk.  The sound of her despair filled our little bedroom.  From the alley downstairs?  The building facing ours?  No, the sound was conductive, it was in our walls and surrounded us as the weeping sea embraces drowning men.  It was applegranny next door, and she was pissed.

Inarticulate at first, words and themes soon resolved for our edification.  Time has further obscured the already-garbled jumble of imprecation she uttered that night, curses and calumnies we tried to sleep through, then to ignore, then to excuse as the ranting of a lost soul wrestling with demons, but it was not possible.  She was right next door, just the other side of the wall from us, our rooms even linked by a common fire escape that gave her a proximity amounting to immediacy.... and in the midst of her abjection, it was I that she cursed. 

“Mwargh… fukin jew assho… kike bastards… g’dam christkillas… hate you… ooaugh evil scumjew....” It was hard to understand her but impossible not to hear, and in the hearing, to listen and try to divine the germ of her words.  The verbs we could make out were violent; the adjectives, cruel; the nouns referred insultingly to my five-thousand-year-old family - vile words rendered darker and more putrescent than I’d ever heard them by her drunken vituperation.  I lay still under my familiar old comforter with my wife and my cats, my eyes wide open, the gorge rising in my throat and my heart turning to burning stone within me. 

After ten minutes or so the tirade petered out and silence again returned to the room - but sleep evaded me.  The next night we retired with misgivings, wondering whether what we’d heard was an anomaly.  Turns out, it wasn’t.  It wasn’t every night she went harpy on us, but it was a couple-three times a week, each time the same hateful bile, sometimes with an accompaniment of thumping and crashing that made our floor shiver beneath us.  I began to dread the bed.

We’d still sometimes see her in the hallway.  She remained diminutive, puckered, sweet as an apple pie on a windowsill… but well we knew by then that those apples were sour and wormy, and the sill could come crashing violently down at any moment with a shattering blow.  She’d give a little wave and say hi; we’d say hi back.  What else could we do?

Turns out, there was something we could do - after several weeks of enduring her hateful ravings, we told our landlord that we were being constructively evicted.  We couldn’t sleep in our own bedroom; we were filled with loathing and anxiety every time we walked off the elevator to our home.  He argued with us but I’d done enough homework to move him to a negotiating posture.  We settled for a full return of our deposit without penalty for breaking our lease. 

It was about this time that Heidi moved to SF and found us a roomy, airy, non-bigot-ridden flat on the west side.  We’re there still, and loving it.  Maybe I should thank that kindly-faced jew-hating dypsomaniacal shrew for moving us on to the next phase of life, but actually, I’m still having a little trouble feeling the love.