OMG ...

 

I saw a guy in my neighborhood this evening who I thought died about ten years ago. Back then, he appeared to be on his last pinky toe.He was frailer than frail then and its astonishing that he's kept on in his terrible condition for all these years. I wonder if he thinks its an unimaginable blessing or a curse. 

Today a friend sent me a piece writing I shared with her in 2020.

It was New Years Eve 1989.  I was dating jazz pianist Kirk, who once was the musical director for HAIR on Broadway and performed his “Sonata for Piano and Dog” at Carnegie Hall and on Letterman.  We met late night in a crowded bar. I liked his soft, deep voice, his slow growing smile and mindful way.  I told him I loved the lyric from his former gig - “they’ll be gaga at the go go when they see me in my toga …”  He responded “yeah, it’s a tasty quatrain.”  That did it for me.  I wanted to hang out with a guy who said smart, amusing things like that. 

I lived in the West Village, a floor below my best friend Michael who had labored with AIDS for several years and would shortly spend dragging months in St. Vincents - from before Memorial Day until after summers end.  They’d kill you now before they’d keep you in a hospital for that long.  But months before, on NewYears Eve day - I bought a small tin of caviar and a few other things I wouldn’t ordinarily buy and planned to ring things in with my bestie and our close, crazy neighbor Miss Baby.  That afternoon Kirk called and said, lets go over to Tom O’Horgans loft where he hosted legendary New Years parties.  I told him I had to pass because I had plans with my pals at home.  He said invite them, too.  I said I’d make the offer but I doubted Michael would be up to it.  I doubted wrong.  Hours later, we wrapped ourselves up good and snug taxied in a snowstorm over to lower Broadway.      

The walls were covered with Tom’s collection of rare musical instruments from around the world.   Mister Rogers once filmed in his loft.  Digeradoos, sousaphones, sitars, dulcimers, pan flutes, kalimbas - hundreds of wood and brass wildly shaped curiosities hung on his stretching walls in order of their history.  Everyone chose one and joined the ever expanding orchestra of mostly newcomer musicians greedy for jubilation.  There was a spacious  alcove of gongs recessed in the walls - including the one used in Jesus Christ Superstar.   

It was the kind of party you saw in wide screen Panavision when you were a kid - the kind that made you itchy to grow up and high tail it to the city where there was wild abandon to be had and surprising times to be made.  And the best part - we rang in the New Year oblivious as to when the ball at the crossroads of the world dropped.  We were too busy sharing drinks and joints and luck and laughter, reveling in our hypnotic harmonic feast.  I was with my still alive old friend, a new boyfriend and folks of distinction as beguiling as the things we played.  We took a cup of kindness yet - and couldn’t ask for more.