Purchase, NY

Coupe le tour.

Its been a hell of a ride, and I’m feeling too much of the tension between nostalgia and relief to really offer any kind of retrospective.

I love New York. I’m not moving, but I spent more time there this last calendar year than anywhere else, and it was nothing but aggressively, relentlessly good to me. It no longer intimidates me, but it still scares me – in how it restructures your brain, in how nobody notices the sound sculpture in Times Square (the perfect metaphor). It’s a relief to be back in the desert, where there is space, and breeze.

What’s to say about Purchase? Same old city with a different name… They laughed at some things, they didn’t at others. There were establishments for food and for liquor, there was landscape, there were buildings, we got on and off the bus, in and out of a hotel room?

We said goodbyes, we drove in to the city, we said goodbyes again… It was all surreal. I don’t know. Six intimate months together, and then poof – what do you say? There is both too much and nothing left. Similarly, I don’t have any way of wrapping up my writings on the subject.

As with everything, it just ends:
learn every room long enough to make it to the door -
then you hear it click shut behind you.

(Never) Going Home

Side One
1. Tour – Henry Rollins (excerpt)
2. I Wanna Be Sedated – Social D
3. This Is My Life – Firewater
4. Tiny Idyll – Jolie Holland
5. Truth Is – Brother Ali
6. You – Atmosphere
7. Fuck and Run – Liz Phair
8. Whole Wide World – Wreckless Eric
9. Get It While You Can – Janis Joplin
10. Dilate – Ani D
11. I Wanna Die – Jolie Holland
12. No Future (Road Song) – Wingnut Dishwashers Union
13. A Brief Yet Triumphant Intermission – Against Me!

Side Two
14. Three Legged Dog – Firewater
15. Going To Georgia – Atom and his Package
16. Burn Your Life Down – Tegan and Sara
17. Falling Without Knowing – Tilly and the Wall
18. Trading in Your Friends – Liar’s Handshake
19. Ramblin’ Man – Hank Williams
20. The Last Harmonica Blues – The Seatbelts
21. Wayfaring Stranger – Johnny Cash
22. Tired of Being Alone – Al Green
23. Sax Rohmer #1 – The Mountain Goats
24. Weird to Be Back – Firewater
25. Keep the Car Running – Arcade Fire

South Orange, NJ

Previously, my only experience with NJ was rather pleasant. Taking the train from Penn Station out to a friend’s house, where she lives with rabbits. The rabbits eat everything below two feet, and are adorable. My friend Namir is from Jersey. I like Namir. Seems like a great place. The automatic disgust from any New Yorker at the mention of the home of the Boss seemed a little unnecessary.

I understand, now.

Popping my head out of our hotel for about ten minutes was enough education: a Ruby Tuesday’s, a derelict diner, a giant mall, several identical hotels in a row, and storage containers. Storage containers of various kinds and sizes. Storage containers in motion, or in stillness, in a variety of depressing colors. Storage containers and the machinery to deal with them, as far as the eye dare wander.

So I holed up all day in the hotel. I’ve learned a lot about the fine art of turning a hotel room into a personal gym: chair for the dips, dresser for the situps, chair again for the incline pushups, space between the beds for streching and leg lifts, etc. In my personal gym, I spent all day hammering out a mix for the cast and crew, eating crackers with honey butter and cheese. Some true playlist discipline, after the old manner of the mixtape.

The show was in a theatre sharing a lobby with a movie theater. Wild idea. My rabbit-toting friend came out to the show, and after some pizza, she drove me home in her tiny red sportscar, on the lap of her boyfriend. A turnpike, an industrial megaplex, one hopelessly overmatched gps system and nine hundred missed exits later, his legs were numb and my neck was an elbow, but we got there.

Next up, Purchase, NY. Final stop.

Ogdensburg, NY

Company Manager, before arriving: The hotel is in the middle of Nowhere, guys. I’m sorry. There were just no better options.

We arrive to perfectly suitable hotel rooms, look out the window, and discover that we are the proud temporary owners of a gigantic lawn, sprawling lazily down to some water. On the other is Canada. We have a private dock, and the weather is sunny, lightly breezy, at about 78˚. With nothing to do for about a million hours, suddenly we all feel as if we are in a marketing brochure for The Acting Company: Take a protracted road trip all across America with your 30 closest friends, soaking up the best that this great nation has to offer!

We even got a chance to hang out with some of the crew, all of whom I have come to dearly appreciate, and all of whom I almost never get to see outside the theatre, or with the lights on. There was much carousing, though the fire-pit went sadly unused. Firewood more difficult to come by than we had hoped.

We played a high school, which was fine at night. In the morning (9:30!) we played for high school students, which was a riot. The Italians do not say “Break a leg.” They say “Boca lupo”, to which one responds “Creppe lupo!” Translated: “Into the mouth of the wolf.” “I kill the wolf!” We killed the wolf. They quit cat-calling and they sat down, stopped texting, and they even maybe liked it. I daresay we may even be getting a handle on The Spy.

Next up, South Orange, NJ