2001-05-27

i woke up and chilled with my cat at the studio for a bit. After she fell asleep, and i had satisfied myself with a little bit of work done, i decided to put my wig on and head out onto the street. i wore a nice big shaggy black haired wig that comes right out of some wacky shaggy style new york magazine, and makes me look like im oh so unconcerned with the world.

so i was walking around from Union square down into the lower east side. its a place that always makes me kind of nostalgiac for the now moment. that is, im in a story book somewhere, or a poem by ginsberg or burroughs. so i'm walking, and i've already had a nice sandwich from the great deli in queens that plays nothing but a merengue!party 24 hours a day, like many of the delis in new york. and sure enough, i'm getting all these crazy looks for the wig, like the one on the escalator in K-mart, or the one on the subway from the people sitting across from me. they were all pretty much the same.

but this one girl at the street market at the park on 14th street, turned and faced me, yelling " half-price,Everything!" and then focused on me: "is that a wig?" i affirmed her query, and she goes "Fabulous!" it was nice to see that this girl, an out of towner, a real live to god Farmer, appreciated my wig. so we had a small chat. i bought some homemade pear iced tea.

i forgot that i had a v8 in my jacket pocket, but then i guess that's what happens when your all slacker and focused on chilling, like this wig was making me do. forced to play the role of the relaxed dude, i actually (gasp) relaxed and walked around aimlessly.

"oh, but david", i hear some of you saying, "you always write about how you are floating around here to there, aimless as can be" ... "what's the difference now?", well, this may be,

but i can assure you, the wig definately altered my attitude. made me real relax instead of fake relax.

so then i stumbled into this place called ABC NO RIO, which is a punk place. and i've always meant to go check it out. its really pretty neat, and unembellished. but i didn't stay very long. just enough to see one band end a set, and run into some punk couple making out in the back 'patio'. i left, secretly fearful that the punks would pull off my wig, and laugh at me. and why wouldn't they?

well, anyway, after my brush with east coast hard core, i moved on over to the tonic. a nice little cove that has had some pretty good shows, that i've been lucky to stumble upon.

tonight was no exception. the main act was this rock/punk band that was fronted by this old woman, she looked to be about 50 or 60. she was dressed in black jacket, white shirt, jeans. she playes guitar and sang in this wonderfully shrill, no holds back voice. it was emotional and expansive. it was like what kids in bands try to get at, she was doing perfectly. she had cornered this essence that was supposedly the domain of young people. She rocked, basically. singing songs about going out to shop with her friends on payday. or working for a living, and how that's just what life is.

and i thought to myself, well, only in new york could i find a show like this... (hmmmph, not bing elitist here...)

so i talked to the drummer, and he told me to search her nameMoe Tucker on the internet, and it turns out that low and behold, she was the drummer for the velvet underground.

i wouldn't be surprized if lou reed and/or good friends half-japanese weren't there in the audience!

damn, i left early in order to call kelli so she wouldn't have to wait until midnite to talk to me. and i left right when the big open jam was starting... aw well. its cool.