I spent yesterday first as an IT savior and then seeing Emerald Rae and Jess Clinton. That was followed by a re-enactment of the Odyssey on the New York City subway. This should be a full-blown epic trilogy but I’m going to attempt to put this in one blog post or die in the attempt. If you are reading this I didn’t die. If you aren’t reading this I did. In which case this is a wasted effort. I better get down to business.
Jane flew back to New York last night and will be spending a week here before driving back to Oregon with her car and cats. My friend Susan will be accompanying her on the drive. Why the hell aren’t the cats driving? That’s cats for you, they always expect things to be done for them. #parasites
I wanted to make sure that the apartment would be in livable condition for Jane so I went and checked it out last week; I discovered that the lights in the living room weren’t working, the TV was disconnected and the Wi-Fi was out. I went back on Sunday and got the Wi-Fi to work; I discovered that the circuit breaker to upstairs and tripped and could not be reset. That meant the router had no juice. I fixed this by running a long extension cord down the stairs to an outlet in the living room. The router then worked but there was no internet. I hooked up the TV but there was no signal. I thought that there might be a problem with the service so I called Verizon. They told me that I had to be there to check on things so I went back yesterday.
Verizon was great. They said they’d call at 3 and that’s when they called; I then spent the afternoon with the rep figuring out the problem and fixing them. Like so many places Jane’s apartment’s IT is like an archeological dig with new layers of infrastructure built over old ones. That made it difficult to figure out what was from the current FIOS, and the previous Direct TV and phone services. There were wires and boxes everywhere .That’s how I missed the all-important FIOS box. It was sitting behind one of the unused FAX machines. When I ran the electricity form the outlet downstairs I missed plugging it in to the working power. I’m not sure how many trips up and down the stairs this took me but I finally got it working. Then it was on to the phone. I forgot to tell you, unbeknownst to me the phone also wasn’t working. Why? It worked off the same FIOS box. Once the phone was working at the FIOS tech support could call me on it that increased the number of ways she could help me. It’s not my account and I had the wrong account number. I’m glad she could help me at all
Now for hooking up the TV. There were two coax cables coming from behind the furniture, I didn’t know which was FIOS and which was from Direct TV. Only one was long enough to reach he TV. On Sunday the real estate agent who was responsible for disconnecting everything, she wasn’t supposed to do that, came over and helped. She connected the only wire long enough to reach to the FIOS box at the TV set. It didn’t give the time which means it wasn’t connected. Yesterday with the help of the FIOS support person I discovered she had connected it to the wrong port. The right one was conveniently labeled “FIOS input.” It was hidden behind things. I had to clear out the shelf it was on to fully access everything. After that, it still didn’t work. I was he wrong cable the other cable was way too short to reach. I disconnected the box from the TV and brought it over to the cable and found it was the right one. Now the only problem was finding the extensions so I could bring it to the TV. I found a female to female extension but I needed one male end. Going through the detritus from when things were taken apart I finally found the male to male section. I put those together and it was long enough to reach the TV. It took just another 20 minutes after that tor everything to be up and running. The box had to DL many updates. When it was all over guess what I said to the FIOS support person; if you know me, you should guess this. Right! I asked her to marry me. Once again I was turned down.
I had many hours till I had to leave for Brooklyn, a long trip from my apartment, and a longer one from City Island Still I didn’t want to make the hour to two-hour trip back to the apartment so I crashed at City Island. I turned on the TV, watched Phineas & Ferb, saw an episode I never saw, took a nap, and then watched most of Goodfellas. Then I headed south to Brooklyn.
I left myself enough time to eat at Crif Dogs, one of my favorite restaurants. As you might guess they don’t serve dog food but hot dogs. They are not broiled, boiled, or grilled, but smoked. I had one of their specialties; a hot dog, wrapped in bacon, spread with peanut butter, then topped with potato chips. Half of you are now nauseated and the other half salivating. It is amazingly good. I had it with a giant order of tater tots, it was the small. I am afraid to see what the large order looks like. It was a very satisfying dinner.
The Brooklyn Crif Dogs is just a nine-minute walk from Pete’s, and I headed over there after eating. I talked to Dan as I walked. He lives in the area and was hoping he could join me. He couldn’t. I had forgotten that I had already invited him and he told me that
When I got to Pete’s I saw somebody wave at me from inside. I couldn’t see who it was but figured it was Emerald. I was right. She introduced me to Jess. I’m amused at how I remember Jess’s name. I think of Jess Klein. The amusing part is that I have a mental block with Ms. Klein’s name and always want to call her Erin. As she’s not Irish but Jewish, as her last name would suggest, I had no idea why my mind always does that. I just figured it out. In the early 90s she did a tour with Erin McKeown, Beth Amstel, and Rose Polenzani, called Voices on the Verge. Even though I knew both Erin and Jess before then somehow years later Erin’s name attached itself to Jess. What makes it even stranger is that it happened after I became friends with Jess. So when I try to think of Jess Clinton’s name I picture Jess Klein, come up with Erin, think, no that’s not it but it has the same number as letters as Erin, and Jess finally finds its way to the front of my brain. The Clinton comes free with Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea. It would be much more me if it came with DeWitt.
I had never heard of Emerald until she asked to play the Budgiedome. My usual response when somebody asks me to play the Budgiedome is to say, “Nooo! I’m deciding which of my friends can’t play, I don’t know you at all, please go away.” I don’t say any of those things out loud. I did a little checking on her background and mutual friends, listened to her music, and was impressed enough to give her a tentative yes. I couldn’t be sure till I saw her live, which I did at New Bedford she was as good live as on record; I saw her fiddle, and now I’m a believer.
She became an instant favorite and one with an easy tag, she simultaneously plays fiddle and sings better than anyone I’ve encountered. She compares the task to strangling two cats while riding a unicycle. I am now unhappy with that tag as it makes her sound like a novelty act. It’s like a dancing dog, you don’t worry about how well the dog dances. Jess plays, sings, and writes beyond well; she has the magic. Last night it struck me that her singing and writing reminds me of 1970s Brit folk rock, Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Pentangle, and the others. She said those are not direct influences though she loves them, it’s that are all built on a foundation of traditional folk. Unbeknownst to me Emerald had been playing traditional music for 20 years. I didn’t think she was even old enough to have been doing anything for 20 years. I love the getting to know you stage of a friendship. She’s knew to me but in ways we can talk like old friends and even on our first meeting Erin Jess and I are speaking like old friends. I have to find time to finish the #metoo discussion we started before the show. It was one of the most productive I’ve had.
Emerald is now one of my causes. If you’re one of my presenter or DJ friends I’m going to bug you to present or play her. I was going to say to do it because I can be so annoying that you’ll be doing yourself a favor by pre-emptively giving her a shot, but that’s unfair to Emerald. The truth is you should book and or play her because your listeners will thank you. She has enough depth to keep the snobs, like me, happy and enough fun to keep the people that just want to be entertained happy.
The show started late and I wasn’t planning on staying for Erin’s Jess’s set. Emerald convinced me to stay for one song. Instead I stayed for half her set; Jess was that good. Before the show she reminded me by looks and speaking style, with Rachael Ries. That made it very easy for me to like her. When she stared singing at first I couldn’t remember who her singing and songwriting reminded me of, then the obvious hit me, Joni Mitchell. One I figured it out she felt safe to admit that Joni is her biggest influence. When she got started she went so far as to play each song in a different tuning. Joni has a guitar tech and multiple guitars, it’s easier for her. Jess figured that out. On most of her songs she plays an electric guitar but on the one where she accompanied Emerald and the songs she played after I left she plays a gorgeous Gretsch 12-string baritone guitar. When she was considering buying it all her other friends said, “why do you need that?’ Emerald said, “You have to buy it.” I’m on Emerald’s side.
Now for he epic trip home I left at 11:00. I walked over to the Lorimer station on the L train. There was a sign at the entrance saying there was no overnight service. Did this count as overnight? There were many people waiting on the platform so I thought it was fine. Then I saw there were no trains listed on he arrival time sign. I checked my phone apps, the MTA and Google Maps. They both had no trains arriving. I talked about it with other people and they all said that the train was coming even though every indication was that it wasn’t. The sign said the last train to Manhattan was at 11:30 but it’s a generic sign, not based on the station. It can’t leave every station at 11:30. The people I spoke to had already been on the platform waiting for a long time, longer than the time between trains. I showed them what my phone showed. They couldn’t be convinced. One guy had an app showing that there was a train coming. I pointed out that nobody said there were no trains coming, service in the other direction was running. The point it that it wouldn’t be going to Manhattan. I couldn’t convince anybody and I decided to leave them to their own devices. Google and the MTA app said I should take the G train to the E so that’s what I did. The G and L stations are connected by an underground passage. I got to the G and found some subway employees who confirmed that I was right. There were no trains to Manhattan. God forbid they say that at the station. After I brought it up they sent a crew to the Manhattan bound platform to tell the people there and put up signs. I was very good and did not go back and tell the people I argued with, “I told you so.”
When I got there the arrival sign said the train was 8-minutes away. Six minutes later it still said the train was 8-minutes away. I checked the Google maps app, it said the train was 2-minutes way. Google was right.
The trip isn’t too bad, it’s not that man stops to Court Square where I changed to the E which would take me to the D. Of course it meant another 8-minute wait. I got on the E and became involved reading an article in the Science Times. I noticed where I was as the doors closed at 7th Avenue, where I had to change trains. Then I had to take it too more stops to 42nd street where I could change to an uptown A which I could take to the D. That involved waiting for more trains. Once again Google Maps, the MTA App, and the signs in the station disagreed as to when the train was coming. Once again Google was right. Then there was one more long wait for a train at 125th street. I finally got home at 1:25 AM. If all the trains had been running normally and I hadn’t been an idiot and missed my stop I’d have been home more than an hour earlier.
After this I was up most of the night with unserious but irritating health issues. Irritating is exactly the right word, it involved itching This led to me sleeping away all of the morning and not getting moving until 1:30 in he afternoon. That’s why I’m writing so late.
Oh great, I’ve written 2440 words so far. This is a novel. There’s so much to digest here that I better summarize the acts so you can put this all together.
- Act I
- I am a hero of IT and get Jane’s phone, TV, and internet working.
- Act II
- Eat at Crif Dogs and inspire you to do the same (or barf).
- Act III
- Scene I – give background on Emerald and Jess
Scene II -discuss their music
- Act IV
- The convoluted trip home. L (to nowhere) – G – E – A – D
- Epilogue
- This summary
Wise Madness 