Skip to main content

Days fly by, and 2004 keeps spinning.

Summer of 2004 continues apace. Proving once again to be a time where nearly everyone has the ground shifting beneath them. And the two ways to deal with that are to try to hold on, or to just jump ahead and see where you land. And jumping is the only logical choice for most of us.

(Another good example, to add to the names I've called out before: My friend Jeanette just moved to New York from Charlottesville. She may or may not have a place to live by now, and is most likely in search of employment. One more persom taking a leap into the unknown, and seeing what happens next.)

As predicted, this is a year of change. There's no telling what's gonna happen from day to day, but we get along. If you can't see what's coming next, you can't worry unduly. Especially when you realize that making a choice and going with it isn't really a big deal. There's no mistakes you can make here that are irrefundable. If you need to try something else later, then you've ruled out one possibility, and you know a little more than you did before. There's an insane comfort that comes in that.

Looking around, there's plenty of evidence we're doing alright. It's like the twins of unexpected and inevitable are on speaking terms again, and have been sure to check their schedules against each other.

I've said before, this isn't all easy. But if it was, it wouldn't mean anything. We have a season to own. A city to remake. And a lot of fun to have along the way.

We're young. This is 2004. We have New York to ourselves. And it's summertime.


-PAR

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Farewell, Matthew S. Farrell

Matthew Farrell. Self-created raconteur, impresario, dandy, sponsor of the arts, cheerleader of creativity, perpetual inspiration. Our dear ice cream server Grace once jokingly referred to him as “the winner, and only contestant, of Charlottesville’s Oscar Wilde Lookalike Contest”, and y’know, she was pretty spot-on. Matt (I was told at various times to call him Matt, Matthew, or “just Farrell”, so to this day, I call him all those things) had his own style that was clearly modeled on his platonic ideal of a perfect gentleman. And this gentleman dressed like a Fitzgerald character, talked like a continental aristocrat who summered in some undefined New England coastal village, and walked like Groucho Marx. He smoked unfiltereds, often two at once, just for kicks, which he would hold when gesticulating excitedly as he greeted dear friends or total strangers. Pretentious? Yeah, a bit. Sincere? Always. Distinctive? Absolutely. At some point, I think I recall him saying someth...

DJ setlist, Pianos, February 3rd, 2010.

Here's the set from last Wednesday's gig... Another week, another fun throwdown at Pianos . This one was a bit mellower than previous weeks, and I was once again kinda pushing to see what I could get away with. Trying to mix my familiar tunes in different ways, incorporate different material, and only reaching for the standby songs/segues when I got myself into a jam and needed a second to breathe. The Rulers- Wrong 'Em Boyo Lafayette Afro-Rock Band- Hihache King Curtis- Sing A Simple Song Cymande- The Message Gang Starr- DJ Premier In Deep Concentration Marlena Shaw- California Soul Blackalicious- Deception CSC Funk Band- Bad Banana Bread The Meters- Chug-Chug-Chug-A-Lug The Soul Lifters- Hot, Funky And Sweaty Trinidad Tripoli Steel Band- Cissy Strut 6ix- I'm Just Like You Rudy Robinson & The Hungry Five- Get It Together (pts 1 & 2) Charles Wright- You Gotta Know Whatcha Doin' The Jackson 5- How Funky Is Your Chicken James Brown- Funky Drummer The Mighty...

On David (DC, Dave) Berman.

David Berman has left the stage, made his exit, delivered his final observations on the state of existence.   I feel like it’s dumb to be tearing up at the thought of a Berman-less world, so I guess I’m dumb, and I guess I don’t really mind. I can't claim I knew him very well, but I thought of him as a friend. You know, the sort of friendships that form when you're both part of an amorphous social circle of weirdos in a small town at a certain point in time? Like that. Actually, exactly that. Everyone ends up at the same places, and it’s all a sea of get-togethers where everyone ends up in the kitchen, and a tiny club and a sushi bar and a Thai restaurant and a coffee shop and a bunch of patios in the summertime. You see different combinations of the same people, and there’s always beer and whiskey, and every wall is decked out with Steve Keene paintings, no matter which house or shop or cafĂ© you’re sitting in. Now, a couple decades removed, defining specifics is onerous, an...