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Sunday, April 10, 2005

Hassel between the gutter and the tassles

Tonight Traci and I walked from West 3rd and MacDougal south into Soho, across Little Italy and Chinatown, returning home through the Lower East Side. Spring in New York...being in a new place..... the blood pumps. We have come to New York to be lucky (luckier?) We've come to do something. To begin. It amazes me to think of how much we have been willing to risk so that we may go for a kind of life that pleases and finally get some shit straight. It amazes me that we are willing to be lucky. Stuff is happening, but slowly. We've managed to pay our bills for the second month in a row, but we have about a week of food money right now. I feel anxiety all the time and wait for the ball to drop, but we are eating well, have a drink everyday, and thanks to the kindness of friends have books and some weed to last a while. I am worried, but I don't stay paralyzed in this state. I keep moving, dotting "i"s and crossing "t" s. It is my only saving grace. Being scared for your life is a special kind of motivator.

This town is everything people say - a constant struggle just to stay here. But it's also everything else they say - a place like no other which will, in your darkest moment, give a little nudge to keep you moving. Case in point:

Yesterday Traci and I walked into 10-64 CoffeeShop in Long Island City. When I ordered my drink the Barista said I looked familiar. I said it was probably my Mossy Oak cap. (Mike, you left it in the upstairs bathroom at Dad's - now it's mine.) But then she asked if I was "Rizzo". By time we left, I had a free latte, and had been asked to play drums in the barista's burlesque show that she is putting together. The barista offered Traci free drinks and bagels and pasteries too, but she had just eaten.

Traci called it Serendipity, referencing the pulp books she'd bought me for my birthday and how I had always said I wanted to play a burlesque show. I was all the more pleased that she was pleased and we both agreed it didn't matter if it ever happened - it was just some good Ju Ju to keep us pushing through.

1 comment:

Ray (drawing by Michael Arthur) said...

Is your nickname for Ms. Dawn "Ju Ju"? I did not know that.

Other Ju Ju trivia - it is the title of a GREAT Wayne Shorter album. I'd send it to you if I had it here, but'n I don't.

Wurd.