Fly like an eagle. . . .

no alarm sounds good at 5am. where the hell are we? lansing, kansas.
yikes.

thankfully, we can count on each other to move things along.

"are you getting up."

"I snoozed it for 5 minutes."

"somebody has to go first."

"yeah. I'm _fine_ to go first. I'm just snoozing it for a second."

" we have to get out of here by 5:30..."

okay, fine, I'm going in.

***

we make it out by 5:30am or thereabouts and drive through the
ghost-town-like kansas and missouri back roads. made it onto the plane
(minus charidy), although I did get tested for explosives and had my bags
searched (they looked at my little audio connectors like they were from two
centuries into the future).

flight #1 was on southwest and I staked out my last row spot, in hopes that
I'd get a row to myself for onbaord sleeping. alas, I ended up squeezed in
with the other plane-full of sardines and slept in the fully upright and
locked position.

I add here that everyone hates me 'cause I can sleep anywhere at any time on
demand. this comes in really handy on the road and in late night studio
situations.

flight #2 was a little better as I traded with mike (who hates the back row)
and I ended up with the only empty row. sleep come free me! sweet.

***

we disembark in NYC and, as always, it like you see the whole array of new
yorkers in condensed form in the first 5 minutes. we saw: a buddhist monk,
a 15 person extended asian family, NYC cops, a taxi driver who pissed his
pants, a mafia muscle guy driving a limo, a posse of young urban males in
full 'and one' Bball attire, a transvestite, and a girl with green hair.
welcome to new york.

***

we take a cab into the city to meet our friend and host, ben wagner outside
his office at MTV (I think he was afraid to have us seen by anyone at work).
on our way across the street from the cab, carrying all our gear, mike
dropped the box of cds in the middle of braodway in times square, but deftly
kicked it all the way across the street to jason. yeah! as we pulled up to
mtv, I set my keybaord soft case on one end because I was so tired of
holding it, which in retrospect was a really bad idea since I discovered I
had set it in phlegm on the sidewalk. bad enough until you consider that
it's SOMEONE ELSE'S PHLEGM. kill me now. wiped it off and away we went to
ben's place. welcome to new york part II.

***

at ben's we carry all our stuff up the 5 flights of stairs (welcome to new
york part III) and settle in to figure out how we're going to spend our
first night in NYC.

we settle on a couple of shows, starting with a free 'celebrate the new
canal park' celebration, which is an outdoor show with film, dance, and a
set by legendary new yorker lou reed.

so, we went downtown and saw lou reed.

actually, we did see him, but he was just tuning his guitars off-stage.
what we did see was a film with no audio. kind of hard to follow, so we
walked a few blocks to get a slice of new york pizza (which is all that it's
cracked up to be), walked back in time for a bit of native american drum
circle. who doesn't love that?

along with the drumming and chanting, there was an african dancer, and in
the middle of all this, out comes a poet.

I'm all about poets, they're cool and all, but this one took the cake. she
interspersed banal descriptions of the park flowers with unexpectedly
shocking fake native american chanting and hair-raising shrieks.

for example:

"let us enjoy the green grass and fresh air of the city
hulayayayayayayayayayho mamamamamamamamama and the night brings beauty
together with the sounds of music and
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYEAH we enjoy the silence
and beauty and move to the drums..." et cetera.

then she 'danced' a bit with the drum circle. um, yeah.

this was followed by more lou reed tuning, the launch of two paper hot air
balloon sculptures, a self-serving jazz shop owner who we decided was not
pretentious but, rather, _pompous_. and by that time we decided to move on
to another show.

but we _saw_ lou reed.

heading across town I started to speak in italian to a couple who appeared
to be lost; mike thought I was faking it so he hailed a cab and that nice
older couple is probably still lost.

we made it to see a band that mike decided should have had tour shirts which
read:


not quite ready to tour yet

they were nice, though.

lowlight: the 2 for drinks tasted like battery acid (I had it once, it's
not as bad!)

highlight: walking in the room and realizing that I had been there 15 years
ago with a girl I haven't seen since. yeah!

***

on the way out of the club, we met up with mike's friend jimmy. he took us
up through alphabet city, where we dropped in on a crazy and great show by
aldo perez at the living room. when I say he's crazy, I mean, I think he's
truly crazy. hard to explain the show but there were toy megaphones,
classical guitars, hip-hop M.C.-ing, a trumpet player, bad jokes ("I once
had sex with a model... the glue got _everywhere_!"), a classic rock
medley, a song about insomnia, and a plethora of weird facial expressions.
quite an evening. welcome to new york, part IV. it's getting old hat, now.