I do not understand my sleep needs. Yesterday I slept to noon and felt tired when I awoke. Today I was up before eight and felt wide awake. I started writing before the WFUV Question of the Day; that always counts as a victory.
Perhaps the problem yesterday was that there was no heat or hot water. To make things worse it was hot in my room when I went to bed so I opened a window. I like it to be cold when I sleep. Maybe I was going into suspended animation.
The main event yesterday was Sharon Goldman’s birthday concert. How important was this? This conversation demonstrates it.
Kevin: What are you doing tonight?
Me; I’m going to Sharon Goldman’s birthday party. What were you going to suggest? Rip my heart out.
Kevin: Ms. Giddens at Symphony Space.
Rhiannon Giddens is tied with Richard Thompson as my favorite performer. I would make the same choice every time but I am writing with my heart ripped out.
I got involved editing the photos from John Platt’s On Your Radar and left later than I wanted to. I didn’t leave time for dinner which is unfortunate as it was an 8:30 show. My anxiety didn’t make things easier. The day before I went shopping and when I paid and was asked if I wanted cash back I said, “no.” That meant I had to get cash before the show. I hadn’t bought my ticket. Good thing there’s a TD bank on Second Ave right by the subway. It’s two long blocks from Rockwood where the show was. When I went to withdraw the money I mispunched my PIN; that’s a huge anxiety trigger for me. Don’t try to understand someone else’s anxiety. I understand this one there are many triggers I don’t. Normally I would gather myself, meditate, and take deep breaths to bring my pulse down. I couldn’t do that as I had to walk quickly to make the show on time and that meant I needed my heart beating fast. Plan B was observing the anxiety from the outside and paying close attention to my heart rate. I was feeling better but I was still a bit breathless till I got to Rockwood and found that they weren’t even letting us in and I got to talk to my friends. I knew this would be a gathering of the tribe. I was line right behind Aviv and, and, how can I not remember this? Oh right, I’m an idiot. When they let us in I sat with Allison and Joe, it’s been an unusually long time since I’ve seen them. For the first time in years they didn’t attend NERFA. The room was filled with friends; Sharon is deep in my social circle.
This was a big round number birthday for Sharon and she treated the concert as a career retrospective. Some of the songs were from before I knew her. When she got to the 2010 song, Short Brown Hair to me always The Grilled Cheese Song I said, “This is where I boarded the boat.. Just now I realized the expression is boarded the train. Whatever it is, it’s the point in her career that I met Sharon and knew immediately that she would be my friend.
Let’s see if I can remember her entire band. I should have taken pictures as a visual aid. Now I’m looking at my mental image; Paul Silverman on piano and harmonium, Stephen Murphy on guitar and mandolin, Craig Akin on bass, and Eric Puente on drums. On backing vocals she had; Carolann Solebello, Elisa Peimer, Amy Soucy, and Lara Herscovitch. You know when someone is in your social circle when you are friends with her entire band independently. I have to be honest, it’s not true. There was one more singer on one song that I didn’t know; I think her name is Sloane. How is that allowed?
I love Sharon with a band, she goes from gentle folkie to folk rock goddess. Doing the show in chronological order shows how Sharon has progressed as a songwriter; her latest, Kol Isha is my clear favorite but I call it, The Lilith Album. It’s the title of one of the songs, my favorite. It’s the opposite of my original favorite, The Grilled Cheese Song, that is a gentle tale of an insecure girl. Lilith is a bold tale of a bold woman, the Yin and Yang of Sharon.
I thought we were going out after the show but instead we just hung out at Rockwood. There was no band playing in the back room so we could talk. One of the people, I expected but didn’t see before the show was Katherine. During the show I heard her trademark enthusiastic “Yeah” which I can always hear above the crowd. When we headed upstairs she was sitting exactly where I sonically located her. Once upstairs I hung out with Paul, Joe, Lara, Jay, Catherine, Jon, and Allison. When the crowd thinned out and I was just about to do the same I ended up talking to Katherine, you can hear the K and not confuse her with Catherine, right? The reason I didn’t see her before the show was that there was a fire on her train. She didn’t die. I asked. She said she did and she was a ghost but I don’t believe her. I should trust my friends more. Even after dying in the train she decided to take the train home and we walked to the F train together. She offered me a pretzel. When I devoured it I realized how hungry I was, remember I hadn’t eaten. I have to switch trains anyway so I got off at West 4th sand went to Joe’s Pizza. One of my friends, I forgot which, I’m guessing Mya, said it was the archetypal New York slice. I didn’t remember it as something special so I tried it again. It excellent, reminiscent of the Joe’s Pizza in my neighborhood when I was a kid, and in that way it is perhaps archetypal but not special. I’ll take Rosario’s which is very much atypical, but great. I miss Famous Ray’s the real one that the others all copied. That was the platonic ideal of New York pizza.
My plan for today is staying home and editing NERFA photos and videos. I’ve been bad about that. Tomorrow’s a long day, first I go up to Harrison for therapy then I cross the Hudson to Newark to see Bri’s photography show. I’m back to New Jersey the next day for the Hudson West Fest volunteer party in Jersey City. Can I survive that much New Jersey? Will I become a ghost like Katherine? We’ll have to wait and see.
Wise Madness 