A Storm in July.

It was a humid 100 today and then it poured. The ominous dark weight of the entire sky collapsed and the heavens came rolling out in droves of wind and war.  Chaos. 

Empty concrete streets lay helpless as they drowned in rivers of insanity. The marbled hail crashing through the foggy currents breaking their heavy-handed flows as they rolls past crowded drains.  The steady pour beat down on the earth as wind swept waves of rain stumbled down avenues, leaving their mess and never looking back. Bowling ball claps of thunder, strobe like lightning, everybody stopped.

The office windows stretching to a clouded infinity filled with spectators. I could see their silent silhouettes whispering their pities to one another.  They saw our shaken souls standing soaked under the dry side of a awning waiting for the waterfall to loose its liquid legs.  We were trapped.

But not trapped in the damp cloak of sorrow or worry, but surrounded by the surprised faces of misplaces strangers, humbled by the power of the world New Yorkers often ignore.  We stood four deep under that awing, each with a different destination and but the same wet story.  We laughed, we smiled we shared a front row seat to the only show in town.

The rain came so fast it didn’t even sound like rain.  Instead white noise fell over the endless grey sidewalks. In that moment the world changed channel, flipped frequencies and I found a breath of peace. I found a comfortable feeling of serenity as my heels hugged that dry bodegas wall. The cold cotton of my shirt clung to my spine and I felt freed.  Somewhere out there lost in this madness someone is falling in love.  Someone like me is hiding under an awning like this and he’s met the girl of his dreams.

The squalls of the season were lined with fate.  I could taste it on my tongue.  There are a million corners in this empty city, a million dry places, but they found one and they found each other.  And even in the relentless dark of the storm they found light.  They found the heat of a beating heart outpacing the song of the beating rain. 

They were out there staring into each other’s certain eyes, their minds as clear as the far side of the sky.  The storm roared in applause and poured with praise. 

Fate falls like summer hail, magically swift and beautifully unexpected.  Today the clouds brought more than rain.

Montana

When I go west I feel smaller. Out there they got big skies, big mountains and breezes all in different colors and tones. It’s humbling to be wrapped in arms that big. It seriously takes you into its heart, shakes your hand and lets you rest. Big breathes. A autumn’s cold makes my nose struggle to take it all in. I pull through the middle of my face and feel the pine roll down my lungs. Tastes like mint. But even in this land of big there aren’t big buildings. It’s a different size of people, more figuratively than literally. You see these personalities take up entire valleys. Their laughs can be heard for miles before they are forgotten in the emptiness of open roads and big bright stars. It’s a rich dark blue at night and the clouds look like silver ribbons playing with the big snow topped ridges. They dance; and they dance in boots. Their songs smell of whiskey. They’re happy to meet you and they mean it. It’s just quiet out there. You can literally hear what a deaf man hears. Borrowed ears make for borrowed feelings that somehow feel real. I could drift to sleep to that sound in the middle of a crowded subway. I’d put it on iTunes and charge a dollar and a half. Call it big lullabies. I know all the words to that song. I’ll sing it to you when we meet again.

Optimism

Optimism is a dying art
They kill hope with a cloak of cool
Afraid of vulnerability
they drown in a glass half full of cynicism.
Romance lives!
Possibility walks all over this fucking city.
Its on every corner, waiting for every light,
impatiently ignored,
it dims like the stars in the morning.
Burning invisibly but indisputably.

Smart Shoes

Growing old means growing out of old shoes.
They live humble lives from their tissue-lined wombs to the darkness of memory
Their duties die young.
And in their wake, fresh generations bring new styles. New comforts.
I spied the future on a wooden shelf.
A lace less brother close at hand bid me no mind.
Simple brown body on simple rubber wings.
It knew my soul before it felt the curves of my foot.
We danced in different sizes, styles and colors.
We two stepped to reflections, swing danced to sales pitches, and settled on jazz.
I wore them out.
The ride home was paid in skin and scabs.
New shoes are not easily trained.
Buying them doesn’t make them yours.
Trust is earned.
Every good pair knows that.

Union Station

After work I get into the subway station hoping to catch a quick N train back.
It rarely comes first on 23rd street.
The R comes in waves of two or three, beating my boat by mile.
But I take it when I can because I know a man who plays an instrument one station down.
Union station.
He stays true to his love and plays almost every night.
He and his musical keys sit in perfect rhythm undisturbed by the commotion of commuters. Sometimes it’s under the stairs. Sometimes it’s out in the open. No matter what, he’s dead centered. His smile shines white behind his happy dark face. His sticks dance cool across the platform, singing his song, hummin’ if he has to.
He plays what looks like a xylophone but sounds like a beach.
It’s a breeze that your skin can’t feel. It doesn’t slide up your leg. It doesn’t swim under your shirt. It’s in your ears and its in your head.
My feet can’t help that they tap. It’s instinct.
I sit in NYC’s underground cocktail of people and passenger trains with sand between my ears and a tune on my toes.
My N still stays away.
I stare relentlessly uptown watching for lights listening for rumbles. I can tell when it’s the Q by the way the shadows run from the tiles at the far end of the tunnel. They scurry in flashes and hide in anticipation. It’s loud as hell.
My Caribbean getaway drowns in the rivers pouring from the cars. They fill walk ways, dance the yellow lines, dodge the hidden grandmas all while making sure not to fall off the pace of their plans. The tide subsides. The cars refill. The platform looks bare.
Washed of commuters, sending old ones on their way.
I’m reminded of music as my ears taste rum.
Vibrations, feelings, movements. Vibrations.
The next train skates down in the dark. Shifting the shingles of light that sleep on the dirty brick walls. The sparkles of red and glimmers of gold that tumble down the tube plant a seed of hope. Its an N and I know it before it makes the turn.

It explodes into view with a humid wind and a chorus of chaos. The proud red N glows overhead as it whizzes by. Iron wheels clap against the iron rails and soon the beast stops with a sigh. Its cool air conditioned car invites me into its pale walls and grey blue seats. I sit platform side because I know the Manhattan bridge offers views that never dim or fade. The doosr ding closed and for a moment I can still hear the muffled sound of music echoing from my friend.
We start our Brooklyn roll and I bid farewell to union station.

Jazz spreads

I couldn’t tell you the first time I heard jazz music, but I could tell you the first time it climbed into my heart and found a home. It was one of those deep and clear nights that begs you to roll down your windows and soak in the moon. My father and I had just finished a meal at some restaurant in some town in northern California and we were on our way back to some place we were calling home. It was bright out, and the vines of passing vineyards were outlined in ribbons of silver and covered with the layers of night. Coltrane. A Love Supreme. A night I will never forget.

Nothing happened on that ride. I didn’t get a life lesson from my often verbose father. I didn’t have a destiny altering epiphany, and I didn’t figure out my fate. I just got a feeling, a twinge in my toes and a snap in my fingers. We hardly said anything to each other. Trane’s deep tenor sax did all the talking and we did all the listening. My eyes stayed locked to the sky and I marveled at how even though we were driving highway speeds, the stars didn’t move an inch. They stayed focused and so did I.

After that night I grilled my father. I asked him questions, sought advice and begged to borrow records. He told me as much as he could, but my father is more of a classical man. He finds his peace in the notes of Bach, Beethoven and Bartok. I didn’t care for the classics, I was curious about jazz. The most loosely interpreted art of the 19th and 20th century. I wanted to know about Louie, Miles and Monk. I wanted to retrace the steps of blues and find the outlines of bebop. I wanted to know about the harsh brass, the mellow moods and confusing melodies. I wanted to know how it was so confusing, where it became so strange and why it all felt so right. I wanted know it, because I wouldn’t be able to live.

To me jazz really started with Parker. Sure Louis Armstrong was the single most influential man, and what he did for the genre is indisputably groundbreaking. But Parker launched bop. Goosed up on drugs, bass-lines and a sax he gave birth the coolest man in music. Miles Davis. And Miles gave birth to my personal favorite, John Coltrane. Bop is encompassed in these three men for three very different reasons and for the better part of the 1950’s and 60’s their sound waves were rivaling those of Elvis, Fleetwood Mac and The Beatles. They were titans, and they still are today.

I have a deep respect for legends the never make sense. Who the hell can tell you what Birth of Cool is all about? Who understands Parkers Mood? And So What? The absence of a definition is what is so intriguing. What’s more is that the music offers a unique opportunity to each of its players. There is not set way to perform and there is no standard of execution. Jazz is a feeling and feelings are what make individuals. The poet Patrick Rosal once said “the beauty of jazz is that each player is a part of the whole while being a part from the whole.”

But beyond the greats and the eras, the music has deep personal ties. It is the only thing on earth that can sincerely relax me to my core. It is the only thing worth listening to on a rainy New York afternoon. It has pulled me to the smoky underground of the Village Vanguard and enticed me to stand motionless in the subway stations while street hustlers play their saxes. It has reminded me of whiskey, women and a world without worries and allowed me to drift into the currents of daydream. It is loud, it is calm, it is harsh it is smooth. It is crazy, it is sensible, it is sophisticated and rebellious. It is drug infused, high class, and low brow. It is serene, rambunctious, and beautiful. Jazz means many things to many people, but it will be forever linked to the moonlit nights of Napa California and my wise old father behind the wheel.

A rant on Ladies

Women are like songs.

You find them.
You love them.
You hate them.
But you never forget the good ones.
Because you remember all their words by heart.