Sometimes you have to go back to where you came from to understand where you’re going.
Nathaniel Greene’s house
Factory Run off
Winter Boat
Clown Sundae from Newport Creamery. Can still order at 25 yrs of age.
Made it to the ocean.
i caught a morning bus out of Port Authority on St. Patricks Day. Crowds decked out in green swarmed into the city as I boarded to leave.
My horoscope in the paper read: “Breakdowns lead to breakthroughs.”
I took a deep breath. Sometimes you have to go back to where you came from to understand where you’re going.
Thanks Jenny! You have a whole mat class added to your online account!
My Fortune Told by One Mysterious Cookie:
The saltwater
sprinkled on my skin
as it crashed upon the rocks,
the sun bounced
off my smile
as I climbed
desperately collecting
seashells,
little swirls
marking years
of memories
in the sea,
now I look back
and reflect
on how life has washed
into me.
Last night LCD Soundsystem played their last show EVER. As a quintessential New York band I fell in love with them when I first moved to this grand city. I’ve seen them play three times and seen James Murphy DJ countless more and when you see LCD live it’s always like its New Year’s Eve.
I went to see them play on Wednesday at one of their four finale shows at Terminal Five. And I noticed this show was a little different than the other times I’ve seen them. They were giving everything on stage and leaving their sweat and music to live on with their fans. I’m not goinna lie realizing this could be the last time I see them (until they decide to reunite in 3-4 years) I got a little choked up. It’s definitely the end of an era and for me it was a little bit of losing my youth.
So, as a tribute my top five LCD songs.
5. Dance yourself clean
“Break me into bigger pieces
So some of me is home with you”
4. All I Want
“Wait for the day you come home from the lonely part
And look for the girl who has put up with all of your shit
You never have needed anyone for so long”
3. Tribulations
“Everybody makes mistakes,
But I feel alright when I come undone
You’re not not making me wait,
But it seems alright as long as something’s happening”
2. New York I love you but you’re bringing me down
“New York, I Love You
But you’re bringing me down”
“But you’re still the one pool
Where I’d happily drown”
1. All my friends
“And if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up
and I still don’t wanna stagger home.
Then it’s the memory of our betters
that are keeping us on our feet.
You spent the first five years trying to get with the plan,
and the next five years trying to be with your friends again.”
“There’s still time, for you,
to change your mind or whatever else you do.
There’s still time.” MMJ
Last night I thought about when we met
The vodka we drank from a bottle
And the way you kissed my neck
Except now I hate you
And memories won’t change that.
Cold lips on my bare skin,
Hot crack
Burning in a pipe.
If only I could forget
I wouldn’t be so worried about getting outta here.
Lighting flashing in the dark sky
On a sultry summer night in the city.
The heat is steaming out of the subway grates
forming as sweatbeads
On pedestrians.
Down on Bowery the bums are
Making their cardboard beds
While uptown in the village
Young women slip on silk dresses
And let their weaves out
As they prepare for the hunt.
The drum beats in Union Square,
They saunter into dark clubs
Where they move their hips as they lend themselves
To the music
Sweat drips down their thighs
And form puddles on the floor.
Men slink and slither
Finding themselves wrapped around their perfect bodies
Fruity drinks and vodka shots
Help cool the brow
And spread open the legs.
With a swift hand
A cab is hailed
And Manhattan is left behind
As they retreat to a Brooklyn loft.
Lighting lights up the sky
And thunder crashes
A howl echoes in the streets
As desire is fulfilled
Rain pours down
Cooling the city.
It was the summer of 1979 and I was enjoying the warmest day of the summer on Coney Island. I’d spent all week running to every audition on Broadway and my feet were still bleeding from my red high heels. I needed a break even if it was only for a day. My floppy sun hat was protecting my pale skin but also limiting my view. Then, I heard his voice.
“Ice cream! Get your ice cream!” A pudgy boy swept past me to run to buy his sweet snack. I smiled and turned around to watch. I guess it was his eyes that I first noticed. He had the deepest blue eyes that seemed to immediately invade my soul. He was working as a vender that summer to make some extra pennies. My bright yellow sundress must have stood out to him on that hot summer day because he walked right up to me an offered me a free cone. “But why?” I asked and he smiled coyly “You’re making summer beautiful.” I couldn’t help but giggle at his corny line.
The bright sun dipped below the ocean and the lights of Astroland took over the island. We rode the Ferris wheel over and over again. His voice was a perfect pitch and his stories hit every note just right. He told me about how he ran away from his alcoholic father to be an artist, how he paints the world to understand it, and how he feels alone in a city of millions. My long strawberry blond hair blew in the summer breeze as we went around and around. He carefully pushed it away from my face and ran his fingers through it.
In the next weeks we met in cafes where our kisses would mix with the sweet taste of our café au laits. We kissed on dimly lit streets, restaurant booths, and subway trains. Those kisses from him were perfection. He brought me to his loft in Soho, which was really just a workshop with a mattress. He laid me down with such tender care that I couldn’t help but fall weak to his advances. The first time we made love was the first time I ever felt anything. I hit notes I’d only dreamt of before. The days seem so long when you’re young and in love.
In the middle of the night he would wake up in beads of sweat and breathing hard. I even saw a tear on his face one night but he quickly wiped it away and I never saw him cry again. He’d run so far away from his past but it was haunting his dreams and he could only seem to paint pictures from his broken home. When he painted his blue eyes would become inflamed with passion. He always asked to paint me. He said my long hair and slim curves would lend well to a canvas. In my modesty I always said no, however his paint always seemed to get all over me anyway. Green, blue, and black acrylic sprinkled on my milky skin.
When we moved to the Village, I filled our home with lilacs and cherry blossoms to sweeten the smell of his turpentine. I tried to bring yellows and baby blues into his dark life. I was always the silk that wrapped around his coarse edges. When he came home frustrated by the struggles of the city I would stroke his head and sing him a lullaby. I wanted to erase his childhood and give him a new one. He finally got the chance to replace his father when my belly grew into the size of a beach ball.
Salvador was born in a snowstorm. He was swept up in the white wind and carried to us with a blistering cold. His pale skin brought out his father’s blue eyes. After his birth I could only speak in song and his father could only speak in color. Salvador was the perfect blend of music and art.
We were on the brink of forever and yet carefree through all our struggles. Our passions didn’t always pay the bills. Only one night we were tested. He came home drunk and I slapped him and told him he was just like his father. He pushed me up against the wall and gave me a chance to take it back but I didn’t. He let me go and we never spoke of it again. Salvador was our only hope during those times. We would just watch him discover the world, crawling, then walking, then running. His hands became his eyes as they got into everything.
When we finally took Salvador to Coney Island it looked different. Graffiti covered the walls next to Nathan’s Hotdogs. Time had taken its toll and I couldn’t help but feel sad. I stood on the beach trying to remember. Then, a wind swept through my hair and I turned around. I met his deep blue eyes and all of a sudden it was once again the summer of ’79.
1. Have a drink on the roof at the Bohemian Hotel
2. Go to Tybee Island Beach, run into the ocean and then jump the waves for an hour or until you drink too much salt water.
3. Grab a beer to go and walk the Historic District, try to hit every square.
4. Climb to the top of the Tybee Island Lighthouse. Bliss is at the very top.
5. Go to the first bar you see with 2$ Jaegar shots. Do a couple then go on a ghost tour, trip and assume it was a ghost.
6. Get homemade ice cream from a candy store on River Street, find a peaceful spot and watch the ferries chug by.
7. Go to Fiddler’s, order the steamed seafood platter, start cracking and don’t stop till you ate the whole thing.
8. Go to AJ’s on Tybee Island for dinner. Sit on the deck and watch dolphins jump in the marsh until sunset.
***EXTRA CREDIT: If you’re driving get lost on the back roads of Georgia, open the windows and blast Creedence Clearwater Revival.
The boats bobbed back and forth in the harbor. The sun was coming up over the water and hitting the snowcapped mountains to the north. It was like any other morning as the fishermen stopped into Joe’s diner to get their morning cup of coffee. But when copies of the Daily Sentinel hit the street corners suddenly the events of the previous night began to take hold again.
Sitka, Alaska is a quiet town where I’ve always known my neighbor and my neighbor has always known me. I’ve raised three boys here. My job as local sheriff consists mostly of scolding underage drinkers and signing off on traffic violations. I was always more of a father figure than a law enforcer. But on the night of March 25th I was nothing more than a man stripped down to my bare understandings of humanity.
When the call came in that there was a stabbing down the street we thought it was an early April fools joke but the blood on the street said otherwise. When we pulled up to the small white house Alice Abbott threw her chopped up body against the police car. She used to bake muffins for the local high school basketball fundraisers and now her entrails were scattered on the pavement outside the home she lived in for fifty years. The chaos of the scene made it almost unmemorable the following morning. The flashing police lights, the screams, the running, the sharp blade of the knife; time seemed to be moving so fast and with every beat of my heart a new horrific image entered my cerebellum.
He emerged from the house before we forced entry. He was chasing his final victim, his grandmother, into the yard. He carried the knife confidently and barely stopped when we shouted at him and pointed our guns to his chest. He methodically brought the knife to his own neck so we would loosen the grip on our guns. His shirt and jeans were covered in blood, and his shaved head accentuated his youth. When I looked into his sad disturbed eyes I remembered three nights before that same look when he sat across from me in the precinct.
I was called in for a domestic violence situation, which normally means a redneck drank too much and his wife was trying to kick him out. But I was surprised when Jason Abbott, a schoolmate of my sons, was dragged into the station. So, I put on my father hat and asked him what happened. He looked at me and said, “She bought a red table cloth and I saw the orange hair dye in the bathroom. I know what she’s trying to do…” “And what exactly is that, son?” “Don’t you see? Those are evil colors. She’s testing me.” I sighed, “A lot of kids feel that way about their parents, but that gives you no right to hit her, you hear me boy?” Jason barely nodded his head. I left him to speak to his mother and recommended she get him some counseling and she agreed as long as she could take him home. As they left the station together he turned back and looked at me with desperation.
It was that same look of desperation that he now wore in front of me as he held the knife to his neck. My deputy approached him from behind and stunned him. I watched as Jason’s expression changed from desperation to cringing with pain. The knife fell from his hand and the crime was over. We cuffed him and broke down the door. The true horror of the crime began to unfold with every step we took into that godforsaken house. John Abbott sat in his recliner as if he was watching his nightly rerun of McGuiver, the knife wounds were so deep they went through the back of the chair mixing stuffing with his blood. Upstairs, Elizabeth Abbott was getting ready for bed in the bathroom when she was taken by surprise by the blade of Jason’s knife. Her fiancé was waiting for her to come to bed when he too met his end. The smell of death crawled into my hair and I nearly lost my breath as my stomach came up into my throat.
As I pick up the Daily Sentinel and review the account of the events I was witnessed to the night before I find a quote from Jason’s mother, who was lucky enough to be working at the Tavern the night of the murders. She told the paper that she forgave her son for the killings and that her parents would have also. She says simply “They would forgive and forget. And that’s how our family was.” I look down at Main Street as the town begins to wake up. I wonder if we will ever be able to forget and if I could ever forgive myself. I climb in the car and head home, I have to take the boys to school today and it’s already past 6:30.
I’m getting off the train
considering the scent of rain in the air
till without a thought I’m back on the train again
headed toward your place.
There’s not much to be said
when a text is sent
a proposal is accepted
and I’m climbing into your bed again.
Sometimes things are complicated
and sometimes they’re not.
