Massage and friends from the road

When Link and I returned to the hosteleria after the horseback riding trip I immediately scheduled a massage for my hands and feet (which were still sore and crampy from crawling around mountain tops the day before) and my legs. I decided to throw in a facial since I had been exposed to a lot of sun in the past few days. Link went first while I trolled the book exchange in the hostel and left behind the book I had just finished in exchange for a novel called “Stonehenge.”

When Link was finished, I met the girl at the spa, which was a tastefully spare building just down the path from the restaurant, overlooking a hill. First the massage. She had music playing…the kind that all the massuses must be issued with their liscense: the meandering wooden flute music. I much preferred silence so she turned it off. While I laid there I meditated as she relaxed the knotted muscles in my body. I counted my breaths and thought of very little as I experienced the sensation of skilled hands working my body.

After dinner and a glass of white wine Link and I met our horse riding guide, Mauricio at the bar for a game of pingpong. We also met a 22 yo traveler from Scottland named Grant who was traveling south america until his money ran out. The four of us had a lot of fun playing pool, pingpong and then finally chess on a 10 foot board built out of stone on the ground. Grant was the type of person that if I had met in New York I would want to be friends with. But we all knew would would never see each other after that night, and maybe that´s why we were all so relaxed with no agenda other than enjoying the night, the beer, the games and each other´s company.

On Caramelo´s back

The day after we completed the Mandango Loop, we scheduled a four hour horseback riding trip. The guide, Mauricio came for us in a pickup truck and drove us 2 km into town where a boy had three horses ready for us. My horse was the youngest, only 3 ½ years old, and his name was Caramelo. We began at a walk, taking quickly to the paths outside of town. I’ve been on horseback probably 15 times in my life, but I’m not a very good rider. Soon we were trotting and finally galloping. I kept my one hand on the saddle horn to keep balance, an amataur move to be sure, but other than that, I felt pretty good.

We traveled paths in the foot hills around town, taking breaks occasionally for the horses to rest and drink. It was a nice ride, and the views by any standards were wonderful, although having hiked up on the mountain ridges the day before, I now knew what a really amazing view could be. Our guide was a 25 year old wrangler and 7 time bull riding champion. He was very pleasant and I was able to practice my Spanish with him. Mostly Link and Mauricio spoke though.

Although I was third inline, we all switched positions, at times riding abreast and a couple times where I was the trail leader. As the youngest horse, Caramelo was very energetic, and would have no problems breaking into a trot or gallop. Any fear of falling off the horse was completely eradicated by the ridgeline hike yesterday. I just enjoyed the ride…until I didn’t.

It happened after about 2 ½ hours of riding. I began to quickly feel uncomfortable, then sore, then really sore. The constant bouncing up and down of the trotting was hurting my back and my legs. The ride ended an hour later, after only 3 ½ hours. I was happy to get off Caramelo, even though we had paid for a full 4 hours.

After eating a meal at the little town square, we ran into Mauricio again who had already showered and changed from our ride. We set up a tentative meeting at the bar at our hostel for later that night.

The Mandango Loop

Since I’ve arrived in the Andes Mountains here in Ecuador, I’ve been enthralled by the dramatic slopes, peaks and ridges that appear everywhere. The scope and scale of these features is not well described unless you’ve actually witnessed it. Most towns up here are in valleys with the mountains towering above and all around the town or city. Vilcabamba is no different. Link and I choose a German run Hosteleria a couple kilometers out of town which our guide book gave good notices. This particular "backpacker resort" boasted a restaurant with sweeping views, a bar, a spa, a spring-fed pool, WiFi (a rarety, although becoming more common) and most importantly an entire set of trails they designed for the guests to hike the mountains, ranging from 3 hours to 3 days.

The hike we choose was called the Mandango Loop and promised 5 hours of sweeping views of the mountains, a ridgeline hike and finally a decent along a mountain streambed. The description warned the prospective hiker that it is easy to die while hiking the Andes. It also said that you may not want to do this hike if you were afraid of heights. Well, I do have this fear, but it is not disabling and the innkeeper suggested that there was only a very short distance along the ridgeline in which I would really feel exposed. “How short,?” I asked. “Oh, from here to that chair over there,” he points 15 feet away. OK, I think, let’s do it!

We walked along the road about 15 minutes to the trailhead where we were told people might try to stop us as the entrance was on private property, but that we should just ignore them by smiling a wide Gringo smile and saying, “Gracias, gracias!” and just walk past them. We found the entrance, no problem and luckily there was no one to stop us. We immediately begin ascending a gentle slope among trees. I noticed a brown bull that perfectly blended into the backround. He was lying down and we carefully walked around him.

The slope gradually increased and soon we were ascending towards the foot of the nearest mountain. Predictably, the angle of ascent continued to increase until we were climbing up a more or less vertical wall at points. Then we found ourselves on a narrow path that was essentially a ledge that wound up the edge mountain. At points the ledge was only 18 inches wide, or even partially damaged. The drop off from this ledge was almost vertical and would be certain death with any misstep. This would be the theme for the rest of the hike. At points where the ledge was damaged, Link, who was leading, and had no apparent fear of falling to his immediate death, would reach back for me, so that I could use his arm to steady myself as I hopped over the damaged ledge. At one point, while we were doing one of these manouvers, Link lost his balance and because I had grabbed on to some stubborn vegetation with my other hand, I was able to pull him back to his center of gravity. We continued winding up the path/ledge sometimes having to climb vertically, until we reached the first milestone, which was a white crucifix planted on the first mountain top.

The view from this place was exactly the type of view that I had traveled 3,000 miles to see. There were dramatic mountains and green slopes that seemed to go on endlessly. Perhaps I could see 30 or 40 miles. I was high, and it was good. The next marker was a second cross that we could see on a distant mountain top, much higher than the one we were currently standing on. To traval to it, we had to walk along the ridgeline and then climb up to it.


[This photo was taken from the first cross, looking to the second cross which is located on the highest peak in the center of this picture]

The walk along this ridgeline is probably one of the most spectacular hikes on the planet. Walking along the ridge, the mountain fell away from you on both sides by such a steep degree that to go off the path would again be certain death. Much of this ridge was perhaps 3 feet wide, but at times it got as narrow as perhaps 18 inches. To add another thrill, it was windy, which freaked me out. Much of the path I was either crouching or downright crawling along. When the path would widen to 3 or 4 feet I could walk upright. These were times that were the most powerful for me. I could feel the deep fear, but being at that place, so isolated from anything, with such commanding views of the most dramatic spires and valleys for so many miles, … {at this point, I am at a loss as to how to articulate the feelings I experienced. I hate the use of superlatives, as they are so overused and therefore diluted, and yet my mind and my spirit was full of these superlatives as I stood on top of the world. Saying I was one with the planet, or that I was supremely connected sounds like a hackneyed attempt at some new-age bullshit. I refuse. I know that when I stood there, finally managing to get completely upright on that windy ridgeline the fear in the pit of my stomach transformed into something I suspect was as close to enlightenment as I may ever achieve in this body. At that moment there was only that present moment, and how that moment was Present! I was Present.}

We continued to walk/crawl/stoop/climb up along the exposed ridgeline until we finally reached the second peak, which was decorated with another cross, this one brown. After taking some pictures, we continued along the ridgeline. Not too far along, the ridgeline dropped about 12 feet, and we had to descend down a rocky spine, exposed on all sides except the immediate rocky spine we were descending. (Understand that even at the bottom of this decent we were still on the top of a mountain ridge.) After we successfully navigated this, we looked back and named it Angel’s Spine, because Link felt that he was so close to being able to fly like an angel (I wanted to name it The Spine of Lucifer!).

As I continued to navigate this ridgeline, I slowly became more confident and was able to walk upright more and more. I continued to be present with my fear, but also present with my walking and many times I treated it like the walking meditation that I do in New York. One foot in front of the other, feel the ground, feel the wind, hear the wind, breath, feel your breath enter your body, feel your breath leave your body. In this way, I wasn’t focused on the steep slopes on either side of me.

Soon enough the ridgeline became a mountain slope that became gentler as we began our descent. All in all, we were up on that ridge for about 2 hours. Maybe if I did this hike 4 more times, I could completely cure my fear of heights. But, there is no time. On to the next great adventure.

The Drive to Cuenca

Getting ready to leave Guamote I was afraid that we may have to ride in the back of a crowded pickup truck, but we got lucky. Upon walking out to the Pan-American Highway (this is the one road that connects the mountains of Ecuador, North to South and goes down into Peru) there was a tour bus going our way. The bus was only half full and so we were able to stretch out. There was a small Quitua boy of about 11 or 12 who was traveling alone. He was covered in dirt and grime, and no doubt had any parents to take care of him. Even though Ecuador is a poor country, this was the first abandoned child I had seen. He left the bus after about 45 minutes beside a small village. I wondered who or what he had in that place.

The bus took us South to Chunchi, a quant mountain town surrounded on all sides by the towering Andes. We grabbed a cheap meal (they are all cheap meals) by the bus stop and waited for a bus to take us further south to Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador. Finally a pickup truck came by and the driver was shouting out “Cuenca! Cuenca!” so we got in to the two seats in the back of the cab. Another passenger piled into the passengers seat and a fourth guy hoped into the bed of the truck.

The truck driver took off like a bat out of hell. He was extremely aggressive and very stupid. Up in the mountains all the roads are windy. Luckily this road was very well paved, but he would take the inside curves with his wheels riding on the very edge of the paved road. He would take the outside curves in the opposing traffic lane. He was driving too fast and whenever he came up on traffic in front of him, he would tailgate them, weaving back and forth into opposing traffic until he found a way to pass. I looked behind me out the window to the poor guy in the truck bed. He was sitting on the edge of the truck, holding on for dear life. We smiled at each other. He got out after 25 minutes. The other passenger left 10 minutes after that and it was just the three of us. Link and I were terrified that we would get in an accident and go flying off a mountain, and finally after a particularly harrowing swerving exercise the guy did to avoid some potholes, I yelled at him in Spanish, but Link had to translate, which was kind of funny. After that, the driver seemed to tone down his erratic driving, and we made it without further incident to Cuenca.

The Market in Guamote

Thurday is market day in Guamote and it is the largest market in all of Ecuador. People come from all over the country to buy and sell anything and everything. Items on display included kitchen ware, fabrics, clothes, hats, tools, padlocks, cell phones, chickens, wheat, vegetables, rice, eggs, cows, pigs, sheep and of course many restaurants and food stands. Every street in Guamote was lined with vendors and buyers. The majority of the attendees were the Quechua, where farmers came to sell their goods to retailers, distributors, other farms and restauranteurs.

L and I found ourselves in a large dustbowl where people were selling their sheep and pigs. They were leashed up and you just walked among them and asked the person holding the rope how much the animal cost. Then if you agreed to pay say $25 for a small pig or $50 for a medium sheep, you handed over the cash and they handed you the leash. Sometimes the animals didn’t want to be separated from their family and would squeal as they were dragged away, their legs locked, and the buyer might have to hit their backside with a switch or actually lift up their butt and push them down the street in this way.

the Quechua people

We then made the long journey from the little village of Salinas, back through Guarandas, to the city of Riobamba to catch a small van going to the small village of Guamote where we spent the night in an eco-lodge run by Belgians. We stayed in a dorm room with 10 beds, but there was only one other person in the dorm besides us. I stayed up chatting with the young Belgian innkeeper. We talked about the economy, people and traveling.

He described the indigenous people (Quechua) as very shy and hard to get to know, but also as friendly. He told me that after 8 months working with them, he only just felt as though he could joke with them. My experience with these people is that they mind their own business and never hold your gaze, but if you smile at them, they smile back. They seem to be very sweet people with a strong sense of family and of community. Perhaps they are shy because they descended from the very proud Incans, but have been beaten down so much by the white men over the last 5 centuries that they have forgotten who they are and are afraid of anyone outside of their own. I don’t know.

Salinas

The next morning after a hearty breakfast we took a cab to the village of Salina, about 30 km to the north. Salina is a cooperative that manufactures everything from Cheese, chocolate, textiles, salami, wool, essential oils, packaged medicial herbs, and probably 10 other things I can’t recall now that are sold both in and out of Ecuador. It was a very clean town set in an idyllic mountain setting, and everyone seemed to be happy and friendly. We took a tour of many of these factories and then hiked a mountain path and got lots of pictures and found the cement cross that overlooked the town from a nearby mountain. L climbed to the top of this 15 foot monument. It was scary because if he fell, not only would he fall off the cross, but he would probably fall off the mountain as well. But he survived and when we went back down the mountain, we realized everyone in the town square probably saw his escapade. Before we left we had trout served in a café on the square by a lovely woman. It was like getting fed by your mama. Near the end of the meal, her 14 year old daughter arrived back from school and mama grabbed her by the shoulders, gave her a quick tight hug, put her back at arms length and made the sign of the cross on her forehead and shoulders and then embraced her once again. The expression on the woman’s face made it clear that this young girl mattered more than anything else in her world. It was beautiful to watch.

Guaranda and dinner with a hole in my mouth

We have been moving a lot the past two days. After leaving Ambato we took a bus to the town of Guaranda. My handy guidebook, which L and I have been affectionately calling “Pepe”, a name we assigned the Quechua Indian that is pictured on the cover, told us to sit on the left side of the bus for views of the volcano Zimborazo. The views were, in fact, quite spectacular and we got several pictures with our iPhones on the way. We uploaded some of these pictures to Facebook through a rare wifi signal that we got from our hotel in Guaranda. Even though Guaranda is the provincial seat, it is small (20,000 people) and quaint. I saw no other westerners. My dentist told me I was not allowed to eat rice, meat, milk or coffee for 24 hours after removing my tooth, So we found a cool café that served me a nice salad of lettuce, tomato and mushrooms. Still hungry, we went to the restaurant in our hotel where the very kind woman listened to my dietary restrictions then cooked up a meal of pasta, tomato, mushroom, and pepper with a side of boiled potatos. Perfect.

Dental work South American style

About 5 years ago I found a dentist in New York who gave me 6 crowns on my top front teeth. I was so impressed with his work that I recommended him to L (my best friend and current travel companion) who was also looking to get some crowns. As much as I liked his work, his prices have gone higher over the past several years, and he now charges almost $350 for an exam and a deep cleaning. So 2 years ago, when I had traveled to Ecuador last, I got my teeth examined, cleaned and one filling for $65, and was determined to do it again this trip.

This morning after swiftly vacating our lousy hotel in Ambato, L and I wondered around town, looking for breakfast, and most importantly, cafe con leche to start the day. After a $3 breakfast of perfectly cooked eggs, fresh passion fruit juice, a ham and cheese melt, and a fresh fruit salad, we started walking towards the bus station when I saw a sign for a dentist office. We rang the bell, and got buzzed in to an upstairs office where we were told the dentist had time to see me. I was pleased to see that he specialized in orthodontics.

He poked around my mouth with a hi-res camera which was attatched to a flat-screen monitor mounted next to the chair so that both of us could see it. He noted the cosmetic work I had had done by my fancy Park Avenue dentist, specifically the 6 crowns on my top front teeth. He showed me on the monitor exactly how the work was flawed, and strongly suggested that I get myself another dentist. After seeing it on the monitor I couldn't help but agree.

He also showed me an advanced cavity in my upper left wisdom tooth that was too large to fix. He recommended pulling the tooth, since it couldn't be repaired and was bound to cause me great pain in the very near future. I reluctantly agreed after seeing the gaping hole that used to be the side of my rear molar. He began by injecting novacane into my gums. Having been through this process before I knew how painful these shots would be, but suprisingly, they weren't that bad. After I was comfortably numb he began to remove the tooth. I have never had the pleasure before, but it felt as though my bone was going to separate from my face before the tooth separated from the bone. I was honestly scared. And it's a violent process, with your cheek being pulled back far enough to expose the tooth and the dentist using all the strength of an large adult male to separate your tooth from your head. I was seriously questioning why I had chosen to go to a dentist in a developing country, even though by this point I was beginning to think he was better than my NY dentist. I had thoughts of my face being ripped apart and needing reconstructive bone surgery or perhaps the tooth flying out of my mouth as his plyers ripped through my cheek.

At one point I stopped him and asked him if there was any chance that the separation of my tooth from my mouth could fracture my bone. He gently laughed at my ignorance, but in a way that made me believe that I was in competent hands. I finally surrendered and allowed what will be to be.

L, who was watching the entire process said he used a tool that looked like a chisel to separate the bone from the roots, wedging it between the tooth and the bone, and rocking it and forth to loosen it. Then he would use plyers to pull at the tooth, and then go back to the chisel tool, then back to the plyers, until finally, even with my mouth completely numb, I felt a profound movent of the roots finally letting go as he dragged the tooth out of the bone. It felt SOOOO wrong! But it was done, and the dentist was pleased with his work. (As I type this, it is now 10 hours later, and aside from the gaping hole in my gum, I feel no pain.)

After I was done, L decided he would get an exam and a cleaning, even though he had just had one only 6 weeks ago by our NY Dentist. Almost immediately the Ecuadorian dentist identified the same flaws in L's implants as he had in mine. He also found 3 cavities that apparantly the NY guy didn't catch only 6 weeks prior! He filled the cavities and we paid him for all of his work. I was charged $60 for my exam, cleaning and tooth pulling and L was charged $90 for his exam and 3 fillings. I'm guessing this is about 10% of what we would have paid for this work in NY. And I do believe that the Ecuadorian had exactly the same quality equipment and perhaps better education and skills than our fancy Park Avenue dentist.

Quito

Photo: Santo Domingo Church and Plaza Bolivar, as viewed from my breakfast table in Hotel restaurant.

Two nights ago my best friend and I hopped on a plane from New York to Quito Ecuador, by way of Bogata, Columbia. We will be in Ecuador for 11 days. It was a 1am flight and I was unable to sleep. We arrived in Bogata where we spent 3 hours in the aeropuerto drinking cafe con leche (sort of like cafe au lait) waiting for our connection. Thankfully our travel karma was good and all the planes were on time. Upon landing in Quito we found a cell phone shop, and spent $40 on a handset and charged it up with $20. We will sell the handset to someone arriving at the airport as we leave. I always like to do this when I´m overseas so that I can have a local number to call from for hotel reservations, travel arrangements, etc. We have one of the many backpacker guide books, and we were able to find a nice hotel for about $50 in the Historic area of the Old Town. I was here 3 years ago, and it is a comfortable and very historic city and I was glad to return.

After a 90 minute nap in the hotel we went out in search of food. We found this restaurant that was located on the huge wrap-around balcony of an old palace, and we ate like kings. My favorite part of the meal was a deep purple drink called Colada Morado. It is a traditional drink, only served for one week at this time of the year for some unexplained reason. It´s has a fruity taste, but is also spicy with hints of clove and cinnamin, and there are small pinaple chunks floating in the thick, sauce-like concoction. The smell reminded me of a fine mulberry candle.

We then took a taxi across town and found the backpacker area, where there are many travel agents, hostels and laudry shops. There are always cool restaurants and bars in the areas that cater towards younger travelers, and we found the busiest restaurant/bar and sat out on the patio drinking whiskey and eating dessert. After a couple of hours we left to return to our hotel back across town since I hadn´t had much sleep in the past 36 hours and had a little bit of a headache.

We woke up refreshed at 8:30 and ate breakfast at the restaurant in our hotel which overlooks a beautiful old stone plaza with a church and a monastary. There were book sellers in the plaza and the occassional Fransican monk with their brown hooded robes and white rope sashes. We are leaving town today by bus, to travel south along the spine of the Ecuadorian Andes. We did some of this 3 years ago and came back to complete the journey.

Ragtime

A couple nights ago I saw the musical Ragtime. It was revived from 12 years ago and is still in previews. I hadn't even known it was coming back until a few days ago. Apparently the year it opened was the same year Lion King opened and of course Lion King took all the Tonys that year. Ragtime was a brilliant show, and its revival is true to the original. I was lucky to get the best seats in the entire house (7th row, center orch). Not sure how that happened, but I was thrilled. Right before the curtain went up, the actor, Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon) sat down in the seat directly in front of me.

As the curtain went up, the entire cast of about 35 people was already onstage and the theater broke out into thunderous applause. I'm sure that many of the audience were friends of the cast and of the show, but many had seen the show 12 years ago and were so happy to see it again. At any rate, the energy from the audience was the best that any cast could ever want, and the show seemed to float on top of that love. Not a cue was missed, everyone gave great performances and everyone had a real voice, something that seems more and more rare in broadway musicals these days. It was a great piece that was executed flawlessly. You laughed, you cried, you cheered and when it was over you gave an immediate and enthusiastic standing ovation. It was indeed a memorable Broadway experience. I highly recommend this show. The last time I felt this strongly about a great show was when i saw Wicked 5 or 6 years ago.

Ghosts from the past

I saw an advertisement for a show that I recognized as the show a friend of mine had written 25 years ago. I haven't seen this friend in a couple of decades, and so I bought tickets hoping that he might be at the performance. The performance was wonderful. I had the demo tapes from 25 years ago, and I was familiar with the music. Of course they had reworked it, but the skeleton was the same, and as the music and the show washed over me, I was brought back to my college days. I had loved this music back then and I had associated it with my friendship with this guy, who was instrumental in my life in a way that he wasn't even aware. We had met as counselors in a childrens sleep-over camp that was geared towards musicals. One night when I was stuck doing bunk duty and all the other counselors were going out drinking, he gave me the tapes and libretto for Sweeney Todd and told me it would change my life. It did. After that summer, I spent a weekend with him at Eastman School of Music, where he studied. His dream was to be a composer of pop music in LA. I returned to my engineering studies after that weekend knowing beyond all doubt that I was supposed to be a professional musician. It took me 10 years after that to actually get around to it, but I finally did.

After the show was over, I was able to locate my friend. He didn't recognize me at first. Once we did the reintroductions, I told him how instrumental he was in my life, especially the weekend I visited him at Eastman. I told him that I now made my living performing, and that my love of Broadway had initiated from the night that he had given me Sweeney Todd to listen to. It was so great to talk to him. He told me he did make it to LA but that he no longer does music. He has been working as an Engineer!

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Roommate 2.0

You may remember a previous post where I got a part time roommate to help me defray expenses in the midtown apartment. Well, after 2 months he left. He claimed it was a money thing. It was upsetting because I was really seeking someone for a long term situation. But C'est La Vie.

I put another ad on Craigslist and quickly got 6 or 7 pretty solid interested parties. I met with 4 of them and was just about to make a decision when I get yet another person emailing me about the apartment. In her first email she tells me that she is a porn star based on the West Coast. She goes on about how responsible and quiet she is, and that she is under contract with one of the major Hollywood studios (not porn) for a TV show. She tells me that she will arrive in NYC the following Weds with all her professional references, a copy of the TV contract, her bank statements, landlord references, cash in hand, etc. etc. etc. She is interested in a part-time long term commitment. I immediately think, well she's a vapid, big-breasted, straight porn star; I will hate her! But, the business part of my mind says, well, not so fast. She's coming at me correctly, let's see where this takes us.

I called her, and we had a really good conversation, good enough, in fact, for me to delay my decision until she came to town on Weds and we could meet. She went on to tell me that she was my age (somewhere between 35 and death), the mother of two, and she has a friend that she likes to visit a couple of times a month here in NY. The more we talked, the more I was drawn to her. Although she had the porn star voice, and she giggled like a girl, she was not at all vapid. In fact she has a pretty solid sense of business and some amazing life experience that she shared with me with no apologies. As one who appreciates directness and hates all things fake, I was under her spell. After the phone call she texted me that she was going to stalk me via text until our meeting Weds, which she did, but not in an obnoxious way.

By the time she arrived, I had pretty much made up my mind that she would be my next roommate. My biggest concern was that she not cause a scandal arriving in my conservative east-side lobby with her big porn titties and skin-tight jeans telling the doorman she was here to see me. When she arrived, there was some protest going on and the streets were all blocked off, so I had to fetch her from the corner to get her past the cops and their barricades. She was tastefully dressed and we recognized each other immediately. We went up to my apartment and had the nicest evening, drinking wine and eating sushi, which she insisted upon paying for. My only last concern, since she was in the adult entertainment industry, was that she not entertain tricks in the apartment. (A week prior I actually had an inquiry about my apartment by a couple of professional girls that wanted to "entertain friends that make living in New York more manageable!") After a very long and honest conversation, I was convinced that escorting is not part of her business model. By the end of the night we were best friends and I invited her to share my apartment and she agreed. The following day she came with the cash, signed the papers and began her 4 day stay. I had to leave for the Midwest the next morning but when I got back to the apartment on Sunday, the fridge was stocked, the apartment was immaculate, there were scented candles and new linens on the bed. She flew out before I got back, but after about 9 days in CA, filming her show she'll be back in NY for 6 nights. I can't wait...we'll have a blast.

My second Hash

Yesterday (Sat) afternoon I went to my second "Hash", which is a sort of team sport/race where everyone (about a hundred of us) runs through the streets and follows clues of chalk marked arrows. Sometimes the clues are misleading and you have to go back to a certain marking and find the correct lead. There is a lot of shouting and silliness, and people are staring at us wondering what in God's name we are doing frantically running in one direction, then another as a very loose group. The runs are designed to last about 4 miles or so, and at the end if you follow the course correctly, you end up at a bar where everyone drinks and sings silly drinking songs while making playful fun of each other.

What made yesterday's run special was that it was the Annual Red Dress Run, so all the participants (half men and half women) had to wear a red dress. My friend and I found a really cheap clothing store way uptown and got two identical red nylon numbers that were probably just glorified nighties. Cost: $8.95 each. So there we were with 100 other hashers, running through the crowded streets of Soho (right by the Zendo where I meditate, coincidentally), Washington Square, The East Village, the West Village, Union Square and back down through Soho again. It was a beautiful sunny day of about 72 degrees and the tourists and shoppers were out in full force. It was so much fun to see their faces as all of these men and women in red dresses and running sneakers ran by. Some would ask what we were running for and we'd shout out things like "It's the Red Dress Run!" (as though that would explain everything) or "for Menopause Awareness Month" or "for Breast Cancer" or my favorite, "for Beer!" Some people would get excited and start hooting and hollering. Some would just laugh. Most reacted with a combination of bewilderment and amusement, with the tourists leaning towards the former and the natives, the latter. At one point we were running down crowded Broadway and we realized that we had missed a clue so we all turned around and ran right back through the same crowd we had just assaulted 3 minutes prior. As we ran past a sidewalk cafe I held my hand out, red nylon sleeve waving in the wind, and I high-fived several of the diners. It was complete lunacy.

Brilliant!

What is he doing to this turtle? Riding it?

It's about fun, dammit!

I'm in the mid-west this weekend, working once again with 2 partners that I've never met before. I always look forward to this aspect of my work, as I have met some really cool people this way. The three of us are staying in a small band apartment with only 2 bedrooms, so the last one to arrive is stuck with the futon in the common area. It sucks, and it's an inadequate arrangement, but what can you do.

My one partner who arrived last is 30-something, and has been playing the gig for a long time. I think he was irritated about having to sleep on the futon, while my other partner and I got private bedrooms with proper beds. He was standoffish to me from the first introduction, and it only got worse.

On stage he demonstrated technically solid piano skills. I also found him to be just as standoffish to me on stage as he was offstage. When I would finish a song, he never once, made any reference to what I had just done, and he never once introduced me to the crowd as is standard stagecraft. He was only slightly more animated with my other partner. He appeared as though he had been in the gig much too long and was utterly dissatisfied. He rarely got up off his piano bench to support either of his partners with hand-clapping or riling up the crowd, preferring to do these things from the comfort of his seat, with an decidedly unenthusiasic bent. At one point after I missed a rather simple chord change, he shook his head back and forth in disgust sitting opposite me on-stage. I have yet to see a genuine smile or for that matter an authentic connection with his on-stage partner of the moment. It was almost as though there were two shows happening on stage, his and that of his partner and rarely did the two intersect.

I found out from my other partner, who has a strange history with this guy, that he was a serious cokehead (I didn't witness this), and that he's always been a miserable human being. I certainly sensed his unhappiness. I know that he was unhappy about the sleeping arrangements, but it ran deeper than that. He has not put together 5 complete sentences for me since we met 2 days ago. Had he not been so cold to me before we ever got onstage, I might have thought it a case an inflated sense of self. Certainly he has much more experience than me, and his piano skills reflect this. I know that there are guys in this gig that feel put-upon when they have to play with lesser experienced players, and perhaps that's part of it. But his bitterness seems to run deep, and for this, I am not taking his coldness personally. I think that what he completely misses is that equally as important (or as many would argue, more important) as keyboarding skills, is an on-stage presence that involves charisma, positive energy, a sense of humor, a skillful reparté with your partner and...FUN!! Ya have to be able to have fun!!! If you are so wrapped up in how much better you are then both your partners...um...you're not having much fun, and the audience picks up on it. You can throw out all the stock jokes and funny one-liners, but if you look bored or put-upon when you say them, you're second rate, and worse than that you are wasting the time of everyone in the club.

It miserable people like this that can't summon up an ounce of visible human kindness, that are the cold-prickly thorns in the side of this gig. The flip side of this is that my other partner is a really cool person and we've made a nice connection that will last well beyond this gig. So, all in all, this weekend was a wash.

Musician humor

I pissed her off good

There was some customer drama in our show last night. There was a request slip on my piano with $25 attached asking for me to call down Jenny who was celebrating her bachelorette party. Over the microphone I asked for Jenny to come to the stage where I began to roast her. After 3 minutes into it, one of her friends whispered in my ear that her name was not Jenny, it was Ashley. I quickly realized that Ashley was another bachelorette roast request that I also had on my piano and was only accompanied by $7. Now you must realize that part of format of the show with every partner I have ever worked for is that we do the calldowns with the most money first. This is part of the education process with all of our audiences that encourages them to tip higher. And seven dollar Ashley had clearly cut the line, so to speak, usurping Jenny’s rightful place. So over the microphone I say, “Well if this is Ashley, then where is Jenny?” Ashley is looking pissed now, but I said to her, no, it’s ok, I want you to stay onstage too. She must not have heard me, because she came over to my piano and grabbed my mic and angrily yells something about not being able to get called down unless you tip the piano players a lot of money. I tried to calm Ashley down, and as Jenny came to the stage, I told her to go over to my partner’s piano, and I asked Ashley to sit with me. I then set up a roast for the two of them, where me and my partner would trade rude knock-knock jokes at the girls’ expense. But only 30 seconds into it, Ashley gets up off the piano bench, grabs her request slip with her $7, and her and her 6 friends march out of the bar, indignant. She was pissed that she had to share the stage during “her” calldown, except that it wasn’t her calldown at all. It was Jenny’s call down, and when I asked for “Jenny”, Ashley came to the stage. So of course, I had to go through all of this with the entertainment director who was one of my partners that night, but not onstage at that moment. He had seen it all and absolved me of any wrongdoing, which was good, since he could have chosen to be a prick about it.

When I went back into the employee break room, there was a big drama happening because one of the waitresses' wallet was stolen out of her purse she had stored in the break room. She was out $300, and the management was taking it pretty serious. They eventually found the wallet but the money was missing. The cops were called, and from what I could gather, they actually did pin down who did it. Turns out the culprit (who had worked for the club for 6 month) had a couple prior arrests for petty theft.

Connections

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated you. Life as a traveling minstrel continues to treat me well. Last weekend I had off and enjoyed a relaxed schedule knowing I didn’t have to deal with airports and carry-ons. I spent lots of time with the people important to me, and always seemed to make time to travel uptown and visit my piano every day. I finished up two critical and arduous projects: the memorization of both Bohemian Rhapsody and Paradise by the Dashboard Lights. This weekend I traveled out to the Chi-town area where I played for 2 nights. As I type this, I am flying over Lake Michigan, headed back to New York.

GOOD: I was inexplicably upgraded to business class, which I was pleasantly surprised and happy about, until...

BAD: the young woman who was to be my seat-mate arrived with her little 2 year-old bundle of joy. The baby is a very active child and expresses himself very loudly. But as the plane took off,

GOOD: the child feel asleep. It seems that the Lord givith and the Lord taketh away, and givith yet again. I’ll update if anything changes during the time it takes me to finish this entry.

The last time I worked in this city, I went onto the community section of Craigslist and posted an ad to see if I could find anyone that wanted to show me the city, or just hang out and socialize. It worked out famously. I met a 44 year old married guy whose wife was working out of town, and he had nothing to do for the weekend. He called me as he pulled up to my hotel and I came down and hopped into his BMW convertible and he drove me to this street festival where we walked and talked and sat and drank and ate the afternoon away in comfortable conversation. So this weekend when I arrived, I texted him to see if he was around, and sure enough his wife was out of town, and he had the entire weekend free. We met for a seafood dinner a couple hours before I started my show next door. The following day (yesterday) he picked me up at 2, and we drove out to the Wisconson state fair. What a great time that was. We watched pigs being judged; we saw every kind of prize sheep, rabbit, pig and heifer in the state; we ate cheese, creampuffs, pork chops on a stick, ice-cream smothered with fresh local cherries; we listened to some great bands and just had a great day. I love the fact that I am able to make such a great connection with a total stranger in a strange city.

Well, the little bundle of still sleeping. VERY GOOD!

Like a bad dream

So I'm doing this gig last night, across from a veteran of almost 20 years, someone who I respect and who can get me lots of work in the future. They've paid a lot of money to fly me here to perform for 2 days and have put me up in a downtown hotel. It's near the beginning of the night when the entire room is still paying 100% attention to the show. My partner throws over a request for Billy Joel's "Only the Good Die Young," a song I know well and have performed hundreds of times. I play the right hand introduction perfectly, but instead of landing on an F as the ultimate chord of the intro, I land on a C, which puts me in an entirely different key. So I start singing the verse, but my chords are not matching up to what I'm singing. Not even close. So after about 3 or 4 lines, I had to stop cold, and sit and figure out what's wrong. After about 15 or 20 inexorably long seconds, I still haven't figured it out so I decide to start the intro all over again, in the hopes that I will figure it out as I go along. There is sweat pouring off of my forehead and into my eyes. My face is buried in the piano yet I can feel my partner across the stage from me, wanting to be helpful but not knowing how, and of course the audience just watching to see how this will play out. Somehow my hands land on the correct chords this time and I'm off and running, and then do the song absolutely perfectly.

The rest of the night went great and I'm sure that little moment was forgotten about by everyone except me. You can never ever get complacent with this gig. I have about 200 songs that I consider memorized, and even though I have been performing every weekend, I still must (and do) practice all of these songs on my off days to keep them fresh in my memory, and yet still, some aren't there when I need them.

More apartment drama

Well after 3 weeks, my new roommate has decided to end our arrangement. Something about his partner's mother getting into a car wreck, and his partner needing to buy her a new car, so he can't afford 2 rent payments...blah, blah, blah. It really pisses me off because he knew that I was looking for a longterm commitment and before I met him I had already turned down several offers for short-term rental of my apartment. But, he gave me 30 days notice as he is required, so what can I say. Somehow I knew this situation was too good to be true. At least I haven't moved the piano back. So now I'm putting the apartment back on the rental market, and also searching for another part-time roommate. A major drain of time.

This weekend I'm back in the midwest, near Chicago, working two nights. I realized my September calender is not yet booked, so I sent out a couple of emails today, trolling for work. In other random news, I'm toying with the idea of taking a couple of weeks of in Dec and going to the Philippines.

About 13 days ago I got some kind of virus, and last weekend I dealt with some major intestinal problems while working in KS. I don't think the virus has actually completely left my body, even though I'm feeling much better.

One last note. You don't arrest someone in their own home just because they are indignant and raise their voice. I don't care how right the cop may have been up to that point, but once he determined that Gates was the owner of the home, he should have respectfully removed himself, no matter how angry Gates was. I don't believe it was a race thing. I think it was an ego thing. This is why I really detest most cops. So many things turn into pissing contests, and if their ego is threatened, they use the power of their office to make themselves feel better or more powerful, with total disregard for what is best for society at that moment. By their very actions, they create many of the problems that we pay them to solve. And they do it in a way that, at first glance seems correct (sort of like passive-agressives), but underneath is a seething cauldron of arrogance and complete lack of respect for the very society they swore to serve. They should take lessons from flight attendants. These folks know how to handle difficult people without anyone getting arrested.

workin'

This past weekend I worked in the Chicago area with guys I've never met before. Both shows went really well, and I came away with a couple things. First, a continuing sense of satisfaction at seeing something that I've worked so hard at, really come together. Second, and probably more important, was a more specific sense of some of the weaknesses of my show. Both of these things have inspired me to continue my work in refining my act.

I returned to New York, and spent a couple days in bed with a mild fever and some rapid trips to the bathroom. I swear it's all this flying I do, being couped up in that recycled air with 100 other bodies, carriers of God knows what.

Today I fly back down to Kansas City, where I'll be working for the next three nights. Current songs I'm learning: Walk the Dinasaur (1987 song used as a staff-dance-along showtime, and also featured in the new Ice Age movie), Bennie and the Jets (crazy difficult synchopation), Fat Bottomed Girls (a Freddie Mercury anthem to pedophilia and fat chicks--check the lyrics yourself), and Hallelujah (a Steven Lynch song about big titties).

kicked out

Everything is going smoothly. I have a paying roommate in the midtown apartment who seems to be pretty easy to get along with, although we haven't stayed in the apartment together yet. The plan is that I won't be there when he is, and vice versa. Meanwhile, I've cut the telephone service and the cable service to the apartment, and renegotiated the internet, cutting my monthly expenses by about$85. If I want to watch a TV show, I can do it from my computer, online, and the roommate says that he doesn't watch TV.

I'm trying to work out my travel to and from the job I have this weekend near Chicago. I had put off buying the ticket and now it's much more than it was when I negotiated my travel expenses. The problem is the flight back on Sunday. So I've booked the flight out to the job and will wait until midnight Wednesday when all the airlines release more seats to try and book a flight back. Another option would be to stay and explore Chicago for a couple days, but of course that would cost even more, but I could justify it as a vacation rather than a business expense.

Yesterday I was way uptown in the apartment that still houses my piano when I got "kicked out" by my roommate at 12 noon because due to an incoming hookup he had. I decided to go to the gym, which I haven't been in over 4 weeks, since I got really sick with a cold. After a good 90 min workout, I was told I still couldn't return, so I walked over to Inwood Hill Park and meandered down through upper Manhattan into Fort Tyron Park, finally landing back at the apartment at 5:00pm. It was a glorious day, perhaps 78 degrees, sunny and breezy. I was happy to be outside all day, but of course I got no practicing done whatsoever. 10 min after I returned we were both invited to an outdoor concert down in Central Park. Then we ended up in a beer garden on the upper east side, and finally I arrived in my (piano-less) midtown apartment at 9:30pm. A good New York day!

Billy Jean

Michael Jackson is dead. Well, officially now. He has been absent from the human race for quite some time. Now he's dead, and for the last two nights I have been getting requests for every Michael Jackson song he ever recorded. I'm working in a large bar in Missouri with a couple of other guys. It seems that I am the only one that knows any Michael Jackson and the only song I know is Billy Jean. So at the beginning of last night when the bar owner came up to us and told us he wanted us to play a Michael Jackson song every hour on the hour I knew the night would be interesting. There's an electric bass on stage and one of my partners can play it well. The first hour when it came time to do the song I began playing it as a soulful ballad, and it actually works. After one verse and a chorus out of tempo the bass kicked in and my other partner was at the drum set, and I have to say we rocked the hell out of that little song about 5 times last night. I really should learn another M. Jackson song this week though. I'm thinking ABC or Rock With You. The NY Times is doing a survey of peoples' favorite M.J. songs (not including the Jackson 5 stuff) and so far the top songs are: 1. Billy Jean, 2. Rock With You, 3. Man in the Mirror, and 4. Beat It

iPhone arbitrage

Last week during my show I was jumped down from standing on top of a piano my iPhone popped out of my breast pocket and the glass touch-screen broke. So now I have to figure out a way to replace the screen since it is not covered by warranty. But during my research I discovered that once again there exists an arbitrage opportunity with the new model iPhone 3GS going on sale. Since you must activate service when buying a new iPhone, people who want to “jailbreak” the phone to use on unapproved networks are buying up the (used) older models privately for more than I will have to spend to purchase the new model. So once I replace the touch-screen, I will sell the old 3G model on Craigslist for $300, and spend $200 for the new 3GS model.

Update: After a visit to the Apple store and a long phone call involving supervisors, I got Apple to agree to replace the phone because of a problem I'm having with a sticky home button.

New Roomate

Yesterday I got a roommate, which has resolved my east side apartment difficulties. He is a 27yo hottie that is working through his Doctorate at Princeton University. He looks like Justin Timberlake. He wants to spend a few days a week here in NYC, so our arrangement will be a 50/50 share. So I will get to live in my own apartment, which I love, and when I’m traveling he will live there. Occasionally we will overlap which is fine, since he seems very relaxed and fun to be with. Super intelligent goes without saying. Anyway, this relieves a lot of financial pressure on me to be constantly working and I will have plenty of time to be traveling. I am also throwing my current roommate/best friend/ex-lover a couple hundred a month so that I can lay my head there a few days a month just to make the math work out. I’m really happy to get the apartment situation resolved. And, no, I have no intention or desire to sleep with Justin Timberlake.

In other news, I got more work from my video from a club out in Wisconsin. I will be going out there 3 weekends this summer. It sounds like a fun gig and they will be putting me up in the Hyatt, which will be Grand!

Wasps

After the show, I wasn’t able to fall asleep until 5am, but I slept through until 1pm. I woke up, feeling rested even though my the cold had expanded into my sinuses. I took my second dose of Prednisone and the antibiotic and laid in bed watching CNBC. I saw the news about Ahmedinijad loosing the Iranian presidential election by a huge margin, and then claiming that he won. What an ass. I wish he would just go quietly into that good night, but I guess that’s wishful thinking…after all Cheney hasn’t.

I spent the better part of the day resting until I noticed a big long ugly black wasp flying around my tiny bedchamber. I hate wasps. And they scare the shit out of me. So I ran out of my room and one of my partners asked what’s wrong. I told him and he volunteered to slay the evil beast. So into the room he went armed with a rolled up newspaper, while I crept in, (bravely) behind him. Within a couple of minutes he had beaten the wasp to shit and I was again safe to power lounge in bed all day. This lasted about 5 minutes, when I noticed a second wasp buzzing around, no doubt searching for my tender flesh to bury it’s deadly poison inside, or perhaps to lay it’s eggs to gestate in my epidermis. I fly out of the room and call the club owner and tell her the story. She explains that there is wasp spray in the closet, I told her, there is a larger problem besides the single wasp. It’s clear to me that there must be a nest outside the (2nd story) window. She said since it was 5:00 on a Fri she would not be able to get an exterminator, and I said, well, I will not be able to sleep in that bedroom wondering if I will be stung. She sighed the Big Sigh that only club owners that are being put upon by a needy piano players sigh (you know the one) and told me she would call the landlord. The landlord arrived within the hour with a can of wasp-nest remover. He went into my room and we couldn’t find the second wasp and figured he must have found his way back outside. He then borrowed a neighbor’s ladder and climbed up onto the roof outside my window where there was indeed a nest that he proceeded to exterminate.

The landlord left and I wandered back into my tiny bedroom, safe at last…until I see the second wasp has not, in fact found it’s way out. It was there all the time. I again bravely and speedily exit the room and get my partner with his rolled up newspaper to once again slay the nasty beast.

I am such a pussy.

What to do, what to do?

This weekend I’m working in a small college town in the Midwest, right in the tornado belt. I was very excited to get this job, because the booking agent is in a position to get me more work. Perhaps a lot more work. So it was important for me to do well.

Two days before I flew out I began getting cold symptoms in my chest. The next day the cold moved up into my upper chest. That following night I got no sleep, and finally got up out of bed and got ready for my flight. I was in a full-fledged cold. I checked out my voice, and it was working but fragile. I decided to continue with my trip. By the time I arrived at my destination and was safely installed in the bandhouse, the cold had moved up yet again into my throat. As I lay on my bed, all I could do was worry that I was going to loose my voice during the show. Since we were only doing a three-way, that would mean that my other 2 partners would have to finish the weekend without me, and they would be onstage the entire 6 hour night with no breaks, which is a really really bad thing to ask of anyone. In addition, I would probably never get work from this agent, and I would also sour my connections here and word would get around that I had screwed up this gig. So this big drama is playing out in my head, and adrenalin is coursing through my body as I envision this big embarrassing scenario with a colossal on-stage fuckup at a crucial moment, followed by me slinking away from this town in shame.

I finally decided to let everyone involved know what was up. I spoke to my partners, and I called the agent. I told them that I would work tonight, but that there might be a possibility that I would loose my voice for real and have to bail. Everyone was very understanding, especially the agent, and that lifted all the worry that was weighing on me.

Earlier in the afternoon I had started taking prednisone (steroid, anti-inflamitory) and some pretty strong antibiotics on me that I always travel with. By showtime, I felt much better, and although still fragile, I was pretty sure I would make it through the night alright.

The show went well, surprisingly well. It was a long night, but it went by fast, I had fun and I knew that I had pulled my weight and would be standing to fight another day. I also got to play drums which has been my guilty pleasure of late, since I am entirely self-taught over the past couple months using Playstation’s Rockband.

It's a small world

This evening after I went to the gym wandered around the village near NYU past all of these cool bars with live music and live comedy. So I found myself in a free comedy show, drinking $4 Corona's in a basement somewhere, where several 3rd rate comics tried out their new jokes. It was fun, and cheap, and since I had never gone to a comedy show alone, it was a new experience. The MC was asking everyone where they were from, and I had to be a smart ass. When he asked me, I told him I live on the streets. The room was silent as he paused for a couple beats, and then said, "So, how did that joke work out for you?"

I return home to find my roommate's email program open on the computer that we share. Now it's not my habit to go routing through anyone's personal email, but he had told me 4 hours prior that he was going out to meet someone he met on Craigslist for a "hookup". Since he was not yet home, I texted him asking if he was ok. He didn't respond. After 10 min I decided to poke around in his email and get more info about this hookup. I immediately see the requisite 20 back and forth emails replete with descriptions detailing who's going to do what to whom, and for how long, and with what, etc., etc., etc. There's an address and a phone number, so I felt better that at least I could tell the police where to find the body. I further noticed (um...no, I looked for) the email that sealed the deal; you know the one...it's got the paperclip, indicating that there is an attachment. In the interest of the forensic investigative work I was doing for the safety and well-being of my roommate, I clicked on the attachment to find myself staring at the picture of...another piano bar musician! My roommate was screwing one of my colleagues and he didn't even know it! I texted my roommate again, and said, tell B. that E. R. says hi! He came home about 30 minutes later and we had a good laugh about it.

uneventful

I don't have much to tell you. I've been leading a rather boring life these past weeks. During the week I practice and go to the gym during the days, and have just been chillin' out in the evenings. I've been working some weekends up in New England, and that's about it. I had a chance to do Dueling Pianos on a cruise, but that has fallen through. I'm booked pretty much every weekend up until the middle of July and I still don't know what the hell I'm going to do with my apartment. That's it. That's all the news fit to print.

Clarification

As a writer, even of a humble blog such as this, I believe that I am responsible for not misleading my readers. Journalistic integrity and all that. Not that I don't occasionally bend the truth if it suits a good story. I do. But not much that the original truth is unrecognizable or completely bent out of shape. So one of my readers felt that I was misleading on a previous entry (click here) and I think it's important to clarify.

I never meant to imply that my friend who is in prison uses sex to score drugs, or for that matter, even uses drugs (Haldol) illicitly. Furthermore, when I wrote that entry I didn't believe (and still don't believe) that he ever did those things personally. When I wrote that entry I was trying to colorfully illustrate the contrasts between my life as a freeman, and the things he routinely lives with as a prisoner. I can understand how it could be interpreted that he was the one doing these things and for that I apologize.

Medical Scare

Following up on a previous entry, my close friend was sent by ambulance to the hospital by her cardiologist for a possible heart problem, and they discovered a tumor in her lung the size of a cell phone (comparable in size to one of those flip phones the cell companies give you for free to lock you into a 2 year contract, as opposed to, say, a Blackberry or an iPhone). It seems that golf balls are SO 1990's. My friend was told she probably had cancer. They kept her in for a week while they mapped the tumor, and performed every possible test, scan and biopsy, giving her the million dollar work over. At the end of the first week they did another lung scan, and found that the tumor had dissappeared! Apparently they had begun to treat her with antibiotics somewhere after the first 4 days on the slim possibility that it was pneumonia. And miracle of miracles, that's exactly what it was! This is indeed good news, although it should be noted that she has top-notch medical coverage, and the hospital and the doctors probably made their fiscal quarter with her case alone, even though all she ever needed was some good antibiotics, had they diagnosed her properly when she first came in. Of course they are saying that, given how she presented initially, they were correct in not suspecting anything other than cancer. But then, what would you expect them to say?

I'm skeptical. I think it was inferior diagnostic skills of the admitting physician. But no one will ever investigate it. The medical industry will take their pound of flesh where they can get it. The insurance company will pay, and we will all suffer as the insurance industry raises their rates and decreases their coverage for the rest of us in order to balance their books.

Oh, and as far as the heart problem that caused her to be sent to the hospital in the first place, after several EKG's and a cardiac cath operation, well...it seems her heart is just fine.

Sick

So yesterday I woke up with a scratchy throat, stuffed up sinuses, a headache and the energy of an overcooked noodle. I did nothing except for about 15 minutes of half-hearted practicing before giving up. I spent most of the day in bed, sort of sleeping, sort of not. Around 7pm I began watching Grey's Anatomy and didn't stop until the wee hours. 6 episodes, 2 hot showers, 4 Tylenols, twenysevenhundredthousand vitamin C's, 3 netti pots and 1 Atavan later I went to sleep for the night.

This morning I woke up feeling better but still stuffed up. I spent about a half hour in a hot shower with the netti pot before I finally unclogged my nose and could breath like a human being again. I am still not well, but today I have much more energy than yesterday and was able to get four solid practice hours in preparation for this weekend's shows.

If I'm wrong what do I loose?

I had a conversation with a "born-again" Christian last night. He rattled off one of the worn out Christian mantras I've heard before, which goes something like this: "If you are wrong (as a non-believer), you burn in hell for eternity, but if I am wrong (believing in Christ) I loose nothing."

I think that is an extremely arrogant approach. I told him, suppose the experience of God exists only in the present, as I believe. Suppose the past and the future are completely irrevelvant and even more, distracting from this God that exists in this moment. If you live your entire life with a religion that asks you to focus on a God that walked the earth long ago to save you from yourself, and also to focus on the future, of how you are among the chosen people who will be saved when God comes again, are you really ever in the present moment? Furthermore, if your religion is evangelical in nature, doesn't that take the focus away from yourself and put it on others? If you believe as I do that God can be found with inward focus, then you won't find God.

So, if you are wrong, what have you lost?

You've lost God.

Hell on stage

On Friday I was at the gym, working the lower leg machine when my phone rang. It was a call from the club in New England that I worked at 3 weeks ago. The Entertainment Director, Bill said he had a mix up in the schedule and asked if I come up and work the following night. I agreed, and 24 hours later I was onstage with 2 players I knew, and one I that I never met until he came up on stage opposite me.

It was a decent crowd, and we were all putting on a good show. After an hour I was relieved and stepped down for an hour. After a Chicken Caesar and a Corona, I was back up onstage when I noticed that my piano was playing wrong notes. The pianos, as with most dueling piano shows are actually digital stage pianos that sit inside a wooden shell built to appear like a grand piano. Not only was it playing some wrong notes, but the notes that were wrong, were also inordinately loud, which made the instrument impossible to play. The only person that could correct this was Bill who was, at that moment, on the piano opposite me, playing a rousing rendition of Sweet Caroline. I wrote a note to him on the back of a request slip telling him the problem. Then when he finished, I began doing an accapella version of Queen's We Will Rock You, getting the audience to stomp their feet and clap their hands while Bill went over to my piano and tried to fix it. He realized quickly that it needed to be replaced, so he brought another digital piano out of the office and we installed it into the wooden shell while one of our other partners came up and played on Bill's piano.

Once that was done, I again sat back at my piano and began playing Dancing Queen when in the middle of my song, this second digital piano completely cut out. I powered it off and back on again (think ctl+alt+del), while still singing, and the piano worked...for 30 seconds, before it cut off completely again. Bill came back over as my partner took over the show, and we installed yet a third keyboard into my piano shell. This one worked, but this was a much cheaper instrument and the keys were not weighted and the piano sound was not very realistic. As I began playing on this junky keyboard, the wooden finger guard (the clapboard) for the piano shell fell down from vertical to about a 45 degree angle, hanging over my fingers. I pushed it up and it immediately fell back down. I guess as we had a different sized keyboard inside the shell, the mechanics were different and the clapboard was no longer supported vertically. I was afraid it would fall on my hands, breaking my fingers, but I found out later that it was designed only to close halfway. Finally my hour set was over, and I practically ran to the bar.

Trouble

One of my closest friends is in trouble. She went to the cardiologist for some tests, and I guess her EKG was irregular and she had had some heaviness in her chest and this was enough to the doc to send her speeding in the back of an ambulance to the local hospital. Once there they did more tests, including a cardiac catherization and a CT scan. Although they found no blockages in the heart when they did the cath, they did find what they think is a cancerous tumor in the lungs when they did the CT scan. So although the immediate danger seems to have passed, she is very scared, and stuck in this hospital until Monday when they can biopsy the tumor and get more clarity. It took me a day to recall that several years ago I agreed to be her medical proxy, which means if she were ever to become unable to speak for herself, I would be the one to make the medical decisions.

Susan Boyle...really??

Here's the link to the video in question:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il5TBgD9kHI

This video has gone viral. It's of a 47 year old frumpy homebody that is auditioning for Britain's Got Talent. I've had no less than 4 friends post this video on their Facebook pages. So in the beginning everyone is kind of secretly laughing at her, rolling their proverbial eyes as she says she wants a career like Eileen Paige. Then she sings. And you see all the judges mouths drop open. The crowd goes crazy wild, especially on the high note (which, by the way, is completely unremarkable in this alto song). Everybody on two continents begins posting this video on their Facebook and Myspace pages. Why?

Her singing is good. It's solid. It is not great, and it is not inspired. There are thousands of singers in NYC and London that can sing as well or better than Susan. So why does this video go viral? I think because first of all, the public doesn't really know what good singing can be. But more than that, I think that it's people's expectations that deceive them and make her performance seem better than it is. On the surface, Ms. Boyle is as frumpy as they come, with frizzy hair, a double chin, overgrown eyebrows and bags under her eyes. She is wonderfully naive and hopelessly optimistic as she confidently answers Simon's question of why her singing career hasn't worked out so far, by quipping "I haven't been given the chance before," as the camera pans through an audience that is alternately rolling their eyes and giggling behind their hands.

When she begins to sing, it's obvious to everyone that they have underestimated the disheveled Ms. Boyle. She can actually sing. But here's the problem. Everyone mistakes their amazement at this beautiful voice coming out of this bland, boring housewife with brilliance. It frustrates me how the music-listening public can be so easily fooled. If you, like some of my friends, have espoused her magnificence on your Facebook page, I invite you to take another listen, this time, don't look at the video. Then listen to ANY recorded version of I Dreamed a Dream from any production of Les Mis, and compare and contrast.

And while I'm at it, if you are one of those people that cheer and applaud at high-notes or notes held for a long time regardless of their beauty of tone, would you please just knock it off! Instead, cheer at the end of a song you were moved in a meaningful way by the artist's intelligent treatment of the music. Cheer after the brilliant use of nuance. Cheer if you were moved by the sheer beauty of a note. Stop fucking cheering just because they hit a note loud and high. That's not art, that's trickery, and sadly, sometimes it's not even good trickery that can so easily get an enthusiastic response from today's audiences.

A strange afternoon

About 8 months ago, the guy who was training me in Dueling Pianos asked me to call another potential trainee in Texas who had approached him about learning the gig. His name was John, and from our first conversation it was obvious that we had a good chemistry. John was in his fifties and hadn’t played professionally since the late 80’s but wanted to get back to doing music fulltime. He was particularly intrigued by the dueling piano format, and wanted to know what he needed to know and do to get into it. I wrote up a songlist of about 70 core songs that he should know, and we spoke for many hours about the gig. Over the months, we maintained contact via telephone and developed a nice friendship. When I scheduled my trip to Texas, I suggested we get together for some facetime.

We agreed to meet at his place on Sunday at 1:30pm. I arrived and he offered me a beer, which I declined. He suggested taking a walk on a nearby nature trail, which sounded fun. As we walked, he told me he had suffered a stroke several years ago that had left him paralyzed. Now he was fully recovered and had gotten his first music gig in 20 years, as a pianist on a major cruise line. He was very excited about this 6 month contract that would begin shortly, and felt that this was his big chance to get back into music, and redeem his life. Apparently back in the day he had been quite a hell raiser on the cruise ships and had made a reputation for himself. He stopped to piss 4 times during our hour-long walk.

When we returned to the house, he popped a beer and uncorked a red wine and took a swig from the bottle. We went to the piano, and we both showed off for each other while his very classy 50-something lady roommate enthusiastically watched on. As the afternoon wore on, John got steadily drunk on beer and wine. The three of us went out to dinner and watched a 9 piece salsa band. I had my second beer of the day and John began ordering double vodka and OJ. He turned to me and said, Eddie, tonight I’m gonna get hosed!” After an hour and 3 fish tacos later, John was so drunk that he could bearly sit up. He was eating like an animal and barking at the help. I was getting ready to make my exit when he said that he wanted to leave as he now felt sick. I left them in the parking lot and made a quick retreat to my car.

The next morning John called to ask if he had said anything to piss his roommate off, because she wasn't telling him exactly what he did, but she was upset and had written him a letter. I told him that I suspected the problem wasn’t so much what he had said, as the fact that he got blind drunk for no apparent reason. He said he hoped it wouldn’t ruin our friendship, and I told him that I didn’t know. He called me two days later and apologized again, saying he hoped that whatever he said or did in the elevator, please disregard, because it wasn't him. I explained to him again, that he really was apologizing for the wrong thing. "John, put the focus squarely on the issue, which is not precisely what you may have said or done, but the fact that you took a perfectly nice social occassion and went on a solo mission to get shit-faced and as a result ruined everyone's night." I'm pretty sure he wasn't really ready to hear what I was saying.

Prison, part 3

After my initial awkwardness, I found myself drawn in to the conversation with my inmate. I had messages of support from Snow’s family that I delivered and a promise of a story involving Stevie Nicks from his favorite Aunt. We spoke of prison beaurocracy and how he was almost not allowed to see me because of it. We rehashed his trip to New York 5 years ago, and Snow remembered much more of it than I did. He asked me about a friend we both know, and I asked him about his life in prison. He spoke of his case, and the details that he never dared write down in a letter to me. He told me of his man, a straight guy (read: gay for the stay) that Snow has been with since he first arrived in Prison 3 years ago. Aside from his brother and myself, the only other visitor that Snow has ever had was the mother of this man that Snow calls Starboy. In his letters, he had written about his lover and told me that Starboy is the one thing that makes his life bearable. Somehow they managed to get assigned to the same cell, and they mostly keep to themselves.

Starboy had been put in the safe-keeping unit when he left a gang. My friend Snow, on the other hand, was put in safekeeping for other reasons. When he had first arrived in prison, he was put in general population, and the leader of the Aryan brothers approached him and asked him if he was gay. He said yes, and this gang leader told him that even though he was gay, they would protect him, but just don’t ever get with a black or latin guy. I can only guess that they chose to protect him because he has very white, European features. But there were many people that wanted to “get” with my friend, including the blacks, and this gang leader must have thwarted them and it turned violent a few times. So, they told Snow that he had to be permanently transferred to safe-keeping which is where he immediately met Starboy.

He told me of some of the more sordid happenings of prison life, and since we both assumed we were being recorded or listened to, when he reached a particularly sensitive part of the story he would stop vocalizing and exaggerate his lip movements so I could follow. He asked me about my life and my career, and I told him stories about myself. And so we continued for almost 3 and a half hours until visiting hours were over at 5. As we said our goodbyes I pressed my palm up to the glass, something I felt was much too intimate and at the same time much to cliché. But I did it anyway, and he returned the gesture with an accompanying tear or two. He thanked me for coming and we both walked our separate ways, him into hell, and me into the sunlight. The journey back to my car that had taken almost 2 hours coming in, took about 5 minutes going out.

Prison, part 2 (Snow)

His voice (let’s call him “Snow”) was softer and airier than I remembered it to be, almost as if he was trying to soothe a crying baby (or a nervous mark). It initially spooked me. I have been cautious with Snow since we began writing each other, as I am sure that many prisoners will take advantage of the friendships of their pen pals. But it was the fact that I knew him before he was ever in trouble that caused me to reach out initially. I know him to be a very creative, very sensitive guy that absolutely would be completely out of place in a state penitentiary. It’s that person that I am reaching out to.

I have no doubts at all that after 3 years of prison Snow is capable of manipulating and conniving to get what he wants. I also believe that he is feeling me out to see how much help I could be for him now, or down the road. I am not stupid. But that being said, I believe that the Snow that I knew before is deserving of some kindness in a world where I’m sure he sees so very little. I also know that he does have needs that only a person on the outside can help with, and because he feels so helpless where he is, it is only natural for him to ask for further help from someone who has already been kind to him. When he speaks of hardships that he lives with on a daily basis, it is true that there is a sometimes undeniable subtext that is an unspoken but very specific request. I think I’m OK with that. And if I were in his shoes, I think I’d reach out in similar ways.

Sign seen from a highway in Austin

"MY KARMA RAN OVER MY DOGMA"

Car Doors

Today I drove my brother and his 2 children to a Texas eatery. As we all piled out of the car, the two boys, 6 and 8, walked away from the car with their doors wide open. I was suprised that they weren't better trained, until my brother explained that they didn't really know how to close car doors since their minivan automatically closes its doors without them having to do anything.

Prison, part 1

I've been in Texas the past 5 days visiting friends and family. It's funny but if there was a single state in the union I would think I would least like it would be Texas, and yet this is the third time I've been here and I always enjoy myself and want to extend my stay.

One of the things I was able to do was visit my friend in prison. As I mentioned in a previous post, there were many bureaucratic roadblocks, some of which I wasn't aware of until my friend told me during our visit. The morning of my visit I woke up in Dallas and after mapping out my route, I drove about 2 and a half hours, much of it in cow country. I was very careful not to exceed the speed limit, as I had horrible visions of how some back country cop would love to torture an Obama-loving Yankee from New York. The last hour of the drive the sun finally came out and the land was surprisingly green, with lightly rolling hills and lush trees. I arrived at the prison at 12:00 and had to queue up behind 3 other cars. As I got to the front of this first line, I was asked to pop the trunk, the hood, and open the glove compartment and console. I was then allowed to drive in to the parking lot. I left everything in my car, including my phone, my belt, my wallet, my paper money, walking in with only my car keys, my drivers licence and the clothes on my back. After a second queue of about 10 minutes, I had to empty my empty pockets and was thoroughly patted down (OK, not that thoroughly, you pigs!) before I was allowed to enter a metal detector. Then I was directed to another line, where I waited for 20 minutes as everyone approached a female guard who checked our names on a list, and asked us 20 questions. Once she approved my visit, I exited this first little building through a fenced in holding that only opened up to the front yard of the main prison after the door behind me shut. Once I was allowed out of the holding cell, I walked unescorted up a long and wide concrete path with beautifully landscaped shrubs and bushes on either side of me, and into the main prison receiving building. This time, there was a 40 min queue to get to yet another desk with yet another woman asking the same 20 questions. When she was done with me, she handed me a computer printout with my information, I left my ID with her and she pointed me to the visiting area. Another 2 door holding cell system. When I entered, I was in the midst of picnic tables filled with "offenders" and their loved ones. Because I was not family, I was not allowed a "contact visit" with my offender...er, friend. After looking around bewildered for about 30 seconds, one of the family members pointed me to a guard sitting at a desk who took my printout and told me to wait by window 6B while they retrieved the prisoner. I sat in front of a thick clear glass window for over 45 minutes, waiting for my friend to be shown down.

Every guard and prison employee I had contact with were extremely courteous and pleasant. I'm sure that's in stark contrast to the side of these same employees that the um, residents experience. While I waited, I tried to meditate, counting each breath in and out, but the sheer weight of being in such a sad and unfortunate place continuously played on my mind. I was acutely aware that my friend probably knew I was here waiting for him, and yet he had to wait until they brought him down to the other side of a bulletproof window. I was aware of the gang members, rapists, murderers and other misfits that occupied the same room as me, chatting happily with their family, hugging, and smiling for the pictures that the guard was taking with his Polaroid.

I was nervous to see my friend in such a setting. The last time we had seen each other was 5 years ago in New York, when he and another friend came to see me perform at a small piano lounge in the West Village. The three of us had one of those magical New York nights that visitors remember for a lifetime, and New Yorkers forget 2 days later. I didn't know him that well then, but through the course of our letters these past 6 months, I have come to know him much better. But other than pictures, I had forgotten what he looked like, or at least had thought I did.

Because I was traveling from out of state, I had obtained permission for a 4 hour visit. I wasn’t sure how the hell we were going to spend four hours talking through a phone and a bullet proof pane, but as they offered this extended visit, I took it, figuring I can always leave at anytime. Finally, he walked through the door into the prisoner side of the window. My first thought was that he had lost weight, and his face was more chiseled than I recalled. It took him from a cute boy to a handsome, well, boy still. He is 30 but looks much younger. He flashed me a wide smile and immediately enthused about me coming to visit. I felt very uncomfortable. I was unable to look him in the eye. He kept asking me how I was, how I’ve been. Well, um...it’s been a good day. I drove around in the beautiful back woods of this gorgeous country of ours. I listened to music from the fancy stereo in the fancy rental car. I called 4 friends from my iPhone (the 3G model, not the first generation) and chatted about nothing in particular. Last night I played on my favorite grand piano and was wined and dined in Dallas by adoring friends. This morning I hugged both of my nephews and my brother who insisted I call them when I was safely to my destination…no make that when I was safely away from my destination, truth be told. No one told me what to eat or when to shit. No one maced me with pepper spray or fucked me up the ass using hair grease just so that I could cop a couple of Haldols to crush up and put in my nose to dull the constant pain of a 99 year sentence. How the hell have you been, old buddy?

Post Script: Please read the following clarification: Click here

Some guy's Dueling Piano demo

Eddie Lawrence, Dueling Pianos from Eddie Lawrence on Vimeo.

Fun with ears, and hope.

Yesterday I flew out to this Dueling gig I do from time to time. I arrived at the airport at 1:30 after a short flight from La Guardia, and the club owner come out to pick me up and drop me off at my hotel. It's a very nice business hotel and I always enjoy staying here. I didn't have to work until 8, so I basically hung out in the room, on the phone, surfing the Internet and spending 2 hours in the bathroom, taking care of those pesky once-a-month ablutions such as plucking hair out of unseemly places on your ear (not to be confused with the "seemly" places for hair on your ear). Actually that's not completely accurate. This might have been a once a month occurrence 5 years ago. Now it's more or less a twice-a-week follicular affair. I wonder what the biological imperative is for ear hair. Is there an ear-hair gene that stays dormant for 30 years, just waiting for some special hormonal signal that says, "Grow, baby, grow!"? Perhaps as we get older, and our circulation becomes worse, our body protects it's um ears with coarse black hair.

While in the middle of my aural pluckage, the entertainment director from the club I did last weekend in New England called with 5 more dates and gave me a very nice referral to another club. I also got an interesting text from yet another ED that makes me believe that there will be even more work in the very near future. I'll know more in the next couple of days.

Meanwhile, there may be some good news for my prison pen pal. After I mailed him recounting the problems I had getting my name on his visitor list, he put a request in for clarification, because he knew that he had not modified it, and therefore should be able to ad my name immediately. The clarification came back saying that yes, in fact it was a clerical error. So when I received this information from him, I called the prison back and was told that he needs to resubmit my name for his visitor's list. I told them that he probably didn't realize this and asked if he could be notified of this requirement quickly, as I will be flying down the following week. I was connected to the chaplain's office, and the chaplain promised me he would take care of it. That was Monday. Well before I left for my current gig on Friday, I called again and I still am not on the visitor list. And the records people have no request from the inmate. So I asked to be connected to the chaplain's office again, where I was told that the chaplain I had spoken to on Monday was out sick all week. So I asked the other chaplain to take care of this, and she promised me she would. I will call again on Monday. What a rigmarole!