Dateline the teacher’s lounge. My new plan is to sit here with earbuds to shut out the world while I write. I don’t particularly like it. A weird thing is that I can’t work at a desk. My shoulder and arm are much better but I still need to have my elbow supported while I type so I work in an armchair with the computer on my lap. There’s a reason it’s called a laptop.
I’m transforming back into my old self, going out every night and blogging every day. Last night’s show was John Platt’s On Your Radar. The show starts at 7 and I finish teaching at 1:35 though I can’t leave school until 4:00. I don’t have time to go home in between so there’s lots of time to kill. Yesterday I was brilliant. First I blogged. Then I was left alone in the lounge so I lay down on the couch, listened to a podcast, and best of all slept! This wasn’t a little catnap. I suspect I slept over an hour. It was almost five when I woke up and after five when I left the building. I headed into the City and continued indulging myself. I ate at Katz’s Deli for the first time in years and years. The prices have gone up but I didn’t let that stop me from eating but it did stop me from ordering fries. The speciality of the house was enough, what they call pastrami on rye. Calling what they serve pastrami is like calling Ferrari basic transportation. It is transcendental. It’s so much better than anywhere else I’ve had it. It’s amazingly tender and the taste is exquisite. Maybe I can eat there once every few months.
I had a special side dish. While I was taking my seat I saw David standing right next to me. This was his first time there. They have a unique ordering system that I explained and he joined me. Talking to David is even better than fries. I’m in my happy place remembering dinner.
We then walked the block to Rockwood. We were not the first ones there. John and Fred beat us. They opened the door early so Fred and David could go downstairs when I did. I get to go in early. David joined us at our table. We were then joined by a slew of other friends, Jeff, Carol, and Briana, Ellen, Phyllis & Dan, and Jamie. I have a terrible feeling that I’m missing someone. That’s the problem with naming names, there’s the danger of leaving someone out.
The artists were Joe Holt, Holt Mackenzie Shivers, and Joseph Alton Miller. After blogging about OYR for well over 10 years I will finally acknowledge my conflict of interests. I promote the shows so how can I fairly review them? I can’t. Instead I’ll give you just the facts ma’am.
Joseph, not Joe, opened the show. We discovered when he was telling us about himself that we needed to question his sanity. He moved from Upstate New York, to New Jersey. What kind of person wakes up one morning and says, “I want to live in New Jersey. He interviewed prisoners in Elmira Prison and lives near Ithaca. I asked him if he knows Joe Crookston. Mr Crookston, they are all Joes, worked with teens in Juvenile in. He doesn’t, they should know each other.
Mackenzie is a singer/songwriter that primarily plays piano. She recently took up guitar and played one song on it. She is also pregnant and expecting to give birth in three weeks. I was rooting for her water to break during the show. Think of the publicity. Think of the video I could shoot! No such luck. If Mackenzie reads this she’ll probably block my email with a note saying “Lunatic!”
Joe Holt talks funny, he’s from England but now lives in New York, Our Fair City. He plays guitar and was accompanied by a pianist that looked so familiar. I checked her out on Facebook, we have no friends in common. I’m having false memories.
I love to stay and schmooze but nowadays I want to get home early so I can sleep. I checked the MTA app as the show ended and told Fred that our train is 7 minutes away so we should motor. We did. We made it on time. We got to the right spot on the platform for Fred’s transfer to the A, C, or E. Then the info said that the train coming in two minutes wasn’t stopping. It never came at all. They made an announcement that was totally unintelligible. Nobody on the platform moved. We waited for the next train that was supposed to come in 12 minutes. We checked the app and it said no delays on the F train. Then they made another announcement and it sounded like we should take the downtown train to Jay Street in Brooklyn and head back on the A or C. I said, screw that, let’s just walk to Broadway-Lafayette and catch the D. That’s about a five minute walk. Just as we were to leave I checked the app again and found that somebody had pulled the Emergency Break on the F at Jay Street and they were waiting for that to be cleared. So we went to Broadway-Lafayette and I made my way home more than a half an hour later than I should have.
Tonight I’m going back to Rockwood for a WFUV Marquee member show with Rachael and Vilrey. I’ll take another nap before I leave. Now to post this and fall asleep.
Wise Madness 