The past week or so

On Halloween I was asked to cover a show in Montclair NJ. My friend Laura has a store there that I haven't been to yet so I decided to do both.... At 10AM I met her at her place and we drove out through the Holland tunnel and into the depths of New Jersey. When I was a boy I would try and hold my breath when we went into a tunnel. I would imagine that a hole opened up, water would rush in and I had to hold my breath all the way otherwise I would drown. I never could make it the whole way and I always changed the rules allowing myself to take multiple breaths until we cleared the tunnel. I still do it. It's a big secret but I really do.

When I leave the city and go places where nature is abundant I find myself in awe . The magnitude of it and all it's perfection. Something as simple as a tree can have me spellbound. So tall and mighty but they can't move unless the wind blows and they start to sway, big heavy limbs lumbering back and forth. I think they have feelings and emotions just as we do. I think everything in nature does actually. Every year a scientist releases a study on the intellectual curiosity of a giraffe or a chimpanzee. If they can reason why not have feelings? I've seen countless shows where an animal carries it's dead baby around for a week. It's doing that because it's so distraught with grief it just can't let go. We are all part of the same thing, all us living and breathing things. The unexplainable ever present feeling that we get , that feeling that I am part of something, where for a moment everything makes sense even though there is no actually confirmation of anything tangible, you just know all is well, all is meant as it should be. Doesn't it seem possible that they are no different than us?

Work was finished at 12 and I called a car service to drive me back to New York. The dispatcher said the car would be there in 10 minutes. The driver shows up 45 minutes later. I wasn't very happy. The driver tells me his name is Mike and said he was going to take Route 3 as it was faster. I grunted and sat in silence. . We start to drive and he starts to talk. He told me he moved to New Jersey when he was 2 from northern Italy. His family settled in Montclair and when he was 7 both his parents died within 9 months of each other. The neighbors, a black family took him in and raised him. They were the only family he knew his entire life. I asked him who he was voting for. Without missing a beat he said Obama. He also said it had nothing to do with growing up with black people. He is so sick and tired of the Republicans and how they screwed up the country that he will never vote for a Republican. He had 2 children and both died from heroin overdoses and like me he is alone with no immediate family. Near the beginning and the end of his life he lost 2 family members. Two parents and two children. I can't imagine what that must have been like as a 7 year old or as a grown man. He has heart problems and said he is on borrowed time now but he's glad he's still around, wanted to make it through the election to see a black President be sworn in, drive his taxi and talk to strangers. I want to say he reminds me of my father but he doesn't. I also want to say that I was tired and didn't feel like talking to him after a long day but I didn't mind. Mike just kept going on and on and I can't remember what else we talked about. I just wanted to get home.

We arrived in the city 1:30 or so and I forgot about Halloween. The traffic was horrible because every street corner was full of people in costume, drunk and doing I don't know what. It took 20 minutes to get across town and I became so frustrated I asked Mike to drop me on 4th Avenue and 8th Street by the cube. Every street someone was doubled over vomiting from a night of fun. When I got to 7th Street an old man was in front of the Ukranian church with a hose washing the sidewalk I presume of all the urine and vomit. I can't remember when it began but 20 or so years ago the Halloween parade was a small event, small compared to today's standards. It was actually fun to see everyone marching up 6th Avenue in costume. As with everything else once the masses get wind of something than everyone is involved. That's not necessarily a bad thing but usually when that happens other forces become involved and something that began as a fun thing to do becomes something to make money off of and thereby loses it's soul. I guess this being a big city people need stuff to do and I'm not trying to sound like a party pooper but most people I know tend to stay far away from the parade. Another event losing it's edge. I wonder if this is why Lady Bunny stopped doing Wigstock. The first few years when it was in Tompkins Square park it was great but it became this big event and it lost it's vibe. It ended and Lady deserves credit for killing it.....