If my goal was to alienate everyone so as not to be bothered with them, I am successful. I've killed a most popular blog (I see that people are still Googling its name quite often), undone relationships with most of the models I've worked with, and returned so few emails that nobody bothers much any longer. My server cries, "You don't got mail." That's right. I have a hillbilly server.
After work today, I had some time free as I didn't have to go to the gym. I didn't know what to do. Literally, I've forgotten what it was I used to spend time doing. I didn't know where to go nor what there was to want. So I shopped for groceries and came home to eat grocery store sushi and drink good wine on my deck in the incredibly cool air and the last light of the day.
My friend C.C. told me today that the light was freaking him out. It is surreal, he said, and he can't get used to it. He is right. It is true. The thin cold and cloudless air and the southern light this time of year is without a doubt like an acid trip. You look at things and see what you have never seen before. Colors are supersaturated and have shifted somehow. There is nothing between you and the thing upon which you gaze. It is important to accept this and not panic. The light is like a fourth dimension now.
So in deference to C.C.'s observation, I sat out and drank and ate and tripped a little in the sunlight until I was truly cold inside and out, until the involuntary shivering began. It is odd weather here, so cold so late. I am enjoying it though I realize it is the result of global warming, that the refrigerator door has been left open and the freezer is defrosting. Goodbye polar bears, hello more oil.
I just read an article about a study scientists have completed on the effects of walking in nature away from traffic. It is nice that they can prove what we already know. Brain waves change in a good way. Kids do better on tests after a short walk in a green space. Cortisol levels drop. Old people get randy. I made the last part up. They didn't say that, but you know it is true, too.
I will continue to walk, walking to create, walking to calm, walking to Paradise in the surreal southern spring.
Last night, I watched "The Last Days of Disco" again. It reminded me of Q and his crowd. This is what gave birth to all of them. Oh. . . this might piss him off, but. . . . .
Here's a song from the movie, "The Oogum Boogum Song." It will give your morning a boost. When I was a kid, my friend thought the last lines of the song were "look out the bull's ass, look out the bull's ass, look out the bull's ass. . . ." I could never figure out what was really sung until last night. I had to read the lyrics. I like my friend's version better now.
ReplyDeleteYou have the same satellite service I do I think. I've watched it twice in the last month. I don't think I really like that movie.
I remember waiting in line at Danceteria and the Limelight to "Get In." Not disco though -- more punk and new wave.
And also doing many illicit things in various dark corners of that city and driving home at sunrise with Manhattan in our rearview mirror. Often we were heading right to the beach where we calmed ourselves from the pumping up drugs with pills I had stolen from the pharmacy I worked.
Vitamin V we called them. Sucked down with a large Dunkin Donuts coffee they afforded us long sleeping hours in the sun.
Only to get home later and get ready to do it again. Wed., (Thursday day of Rest) Friday & Saturday. Truly amazing we survived.
I sat in the sun yesterday for 20 minutes in the front yard while waiting for an appointment. It was the first 20 minutes in a row blast of sun we've had since late January. People on Cape are angry and ornery or depressed and miserable because of the gray pall we have been living under. I think the sun will have that same tripping effect on us once it arrives here for more than a day. I need to go away in winter next year. At least for a week of sun.
I tried to watch "On the Road " last night. The guy who plays Jack also played Ian Curtis in the movie Control. And he was super in that movie but I fell asleep. I don't think it is too good. I shall endeavor to finish it though.
Okay. I remain. Here in the ashes of all your killing and alienating.
Disco was a big part of what became house music, it does not account for the whole of it. It does not anger me though, in any way. I have never harbored the distaste of disco that you do. For me, it is like any other music, there are great examples of it and then there is the other.
ReplyDeleteThere are, of course, those who will always doubt the truth of ecstasy.
ReplyDeleteL, It doesn't take twice not to like a movie. You like it fine. I was in NYC in 1978 with a beautiful girlfriend. We were walking the street and came to a club that had a line around the block. We walked up just to see. I was standing there when the fellow at the door (just like in the movies!) yelled to me, "You can't come in." "Why?" "No shorts." It was summer and we had been walking all day, but I had bought a pair of cool genie looking drawstring pants on the street, so I reached into the bag and pulled them over my shorts and said, "How's this." He hesitated a minute and looked at my girl. "Alright, come on," and he motioned us through the crowd. People were yelling. "C'mon Andy, you know me. Why're you letting them in?" "Fuck you," I said, "I never wanted to go inside in the first place," and I laughed and walked away. It was true. I wasn't the type. "Why do you always have to be an asshole," my girl said? "What? You wanted to go inside?" That's the way it is for me, from hero to asshole in 4.5 seconds.
ReplyDeleteQ, I meant the movie reminded me of it all. You have been replaced by HBOs "Girls." Everyone is always replaced by something. "Cycle of Life." Ho!
it's embarrassing to think that we actually chased those bouncer boys and considered it a score to get one - to be guaranteed immediate entry and hang out near the bands/dj and all those secret back rooms of those cavernous places.
ReplyDeletemine was named Donny. he was a god but really - quite dumb. or at least i think -- back then the music was so loud i'm not sure any of us heard much of what was really being said. but oh were we beautiful. such outfits.