The East Coast Trip, July 18 to August 4, 2003:
Excerpts and Extrapolations from the Road

Sunday, July 20, 2003
On the #7 Subway, Queens to Manhattan

Having a blast so far--can’t belive how unhumid it is. I’m psyched that I’m getting good weather...I dread this sweaty coast in the Summer. Flew into JFK in the middle of a lightening storm, though--fucking scary; so much turbulance, people applauded the pilot when we landed. Having a great time catching up with everyone. Staying with old pals, Brenda & Eddie, in the East Village. Brenda’s one of my way-back Jewish youth group friends--we’ve known each other since we were fourteen, fifteen. She’s lived in New York since she finished college, so we only rarely get to see each other. And I love hub, Eddie, he’s a kick in the pants. A real New Yorker--never leaves the island, save summer trips to Nantucket.

Last night crashed with my friend, Kate, way out in Flushing, in Queens. Kate and I used to fool around off and on when we’d find ourselves on the same coast, but haven’t in about four years, not since about a year before Natasha and I got serious. I’m feeling a bit anxious about Nat meeting Kate--I hope they get along. Natasha has always had a slight distrust of my dynamic with Kate, because she thinks my communication and boundaries with her were not exemplary, back in the day. Kate and I have a very good vibe now, not at all flirty, and no weirdness between us. I’m sure that will be apparent when Nat comes back up to New York with me after the wedding in DC.

Kate and I hung out all day together yesterday--went to the Siren Music Festival on Coney Island (see this entry for the background.) Caught some great acts. Our favorite, by far, was Radio 4.

I’d say they have a Clash-slash-Gang of Four-meets-Tom Tom Club sound, spirited pub-punk with bongos and synthy flourishes. It looks like they’re gonna take off; they’d just gotten back from a summer tour in Europe opening for Radiohead and Foo Fighters. Kate and I were up close to the stage, standing behind this older guy, maybe in his sixties. We’d both noticed him, since the wave of his grey hair glinted in the sea of shaved heads and "Punky Color." He turned around at one point and told us he is the proud father of the lead singer, Anthony Roman, and started telling us all about the band, their touring, their record release dates, everything. He was precious! I told him to tell his kid to Stay Off the Drugs, man! He laughed, and said his Anthony doesn’t do that, only drinks beer sometimes, but that another member of the band had some problems with the drugs. He had too much decorum to tell us which band member, though, so unfortunately we couldn’t call the tabloids with the scoop!

Next stop is Penn Station--I’m taking a short overnight trip upstate to hang out with my Aunt and Unc,’ Rhoda & Mel, my mom’s sister and the hub. I’m gonna stay with them tonight at their place, in a little town between Kingston and Woodstock. More later.

Monday, July 21, 2003
Amtrak, on return to Manhattan from upstate
Had just a lovely time with Rhoda and Mel--they insisted on keeping me fed and lickered up for the trouble I took getting up there. So sweet!

Their place is frickin’ gorgeous. A three bedroom house of stone masonry, a free-standing four-car garage for storage and parking, and Rhoda’s art studio is twice the size of the house!

One of Aunt Rhoda’s sculptures.

The property is on an acre of land with sunflowers, gardens, walnut and chestnut trees, and plenty of room for Rhoda’s huge, aluminum beam sculptures to adorn the grass. The edge of the property bumps right up against the foot of the Catskills, into an amazingly lush forest. Unbe-fucking-lievable--they bought this place a year ago for two hundred grand. You can’t even buy a studio apartment in Manhattan for that! Sweet jeezus!

Tuesday, July 22, 2003
On the Amtrak train, NYC to Washington, DC
The pace of the trip has been lovely--lots of activity, but not hectic or stressful at all. I think it’ll pick up a bit, now that I’m embarking on Phase Two: Marty & Elvira’s wedding in DC. Tonight I’m crashing in Arlington, Virginia, with my old pal, Kiki, another way-back Jewish youth group friend--but Kiki I haven’t spent time with in many years--very excited to catch up with her. Tomorrow, I check into the hotel and actually get to stay in one place for three whole nights--couch surfing is gettin' old. As of tomorrow, it’s Wedding Wedding Wedding--bridal luncheons, brunches, meeting the families, the rehearsal dinner...since when did weddings become week-long events? And why the fuck do all my straight friends want me in theirs?

Met up with my other aunt last night for dinner, my Aunt Melba, my dad’s sister. Melba lives in Brooklyn, and she remains my strongest connection to my dad’s side of the family, my dad being dead and all, which is tangential to the chronicle of my vacation, but always relevant in some way. I was two years old when he died, and I have no conscious memory of him, so it’s a big priority for me to keep in contact with my aunt. She and I get together and talk and talk like it hasn’t been three years since we last saw each other (which it had) and the subject of my dad invariably will come up. This time, she told me something she knew wasn’t really appropriate, but she said it anyway. She said, while meaning no disrespect to my sisters, that she thought that if Dad were alive, he’d be the proudest of me. It was a comment that had the power instantly to wet my cheeks, but it’s also one of those things, you know? None of us really knows what a dead person would think if they were alive, and I know very strongly that if he were around, he’d be proud of my sisters and me in equal and (very) different ways. I happen to think both my sisters are fucking amazing, and I’m sure he would think the same. But neither was there a shred of puffery in Melba’s comment. She felt, utterly, while we were catching up over dinner in the Village, that if her brother were alive today, he’d be the proudest of his youngest daughter.

When Natasha is with me later next week, Aunt Melba is gonna take us up to the Bronx to visit with my Grandma, who is 93-ish and living in a nursing home. I’m sad to say it, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be my last visit with her. I'm glad Nat will be able to meet Melba and Grandma, though.

• • •

Passing by junkyards on the border between Jersey and Philidelphia--piles for miles of rusty old machine parts, crushed sheets of metal, beams and boards, garbage and hopefully not carnage from the World Trade Center. (This is what comes to mind when I see junkyards outside New York.) Trenton to Philly was a quick leg of the train ride, maybe twenty minutes or a half hour--everything is so close together on the East Coast. The scenery became suddenly more charming as we entered Pennsylvania, passing through lush greenery and river beds, and corridors of brick buildings and stone archways. In just another twenty minutes, we’ll pass through Wilmington, on our way to Baltimore and Washington.

• • •

I talked to Nat last night, called her from Brenda & Eddie’s to say good night. She bumped into that guy she has a crush on at a pizza place. She said she was a total dork when she approached him and asked for his phone number, which I must admit relieved my anxiety about it a little. I haven’t been bothered by the whole thing too much, actually--having this time to write on the train is the first time I’ve thought about it since talking to her last night. A part of me is actually really glad for her that she ran into him again and got his digits--it’s exciting. The whole fact that she has a crush on somebody really mellows me out about the nonmonogamy question--I feel like we’ll work it out as we go along. There are definitely fears that come up, like the big one, "What if she leaves me for him?" but I know, at a very deep level, that another person is not gonna break us up. If we ever do break up, it’s gonna be our own internal dynamics that do it, not some outside easy excuse like having a hot affair with someone. Anyway, Nat’s crush guy is a remote enough connection that I don’t feel imminent doom about it; I’m just gonna wait 'n' see and enjoy my holiday. I miss her, though--excited to see her when she flies in on Thursday.

Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Dining at Mr. Smith’s Restaurant & Bar, Tyson’s Corner, Virginia
The wedding families are having dinner together tonight, so I have an evening free to myself. I needed to get some errands done, including buying myself a new suitcase ‘cause the handle on my old one finally busted. I also was looking for a blouse to go with my wedding outfit, so I landed in a strip mall with a Marshall’s--found m’self a new suitcase, and tried on a bunch of shirts to no avail...I’ll have to go with the basic black backup I brought. Tyson’s Corner, Virginia is Strip Mall Heaven, man, with row upon row of convenient fare waiting to suck up my tourist dollar. In this same strip mall, I’ve found my new favorite haunt, Mr. Smith’s of Georgetown (the Tyson’s Corner location, one of two in the small chain. Yes, the other location is Georgetown. You are clever.)

This is definitely the place we’re taking Marty tonight to get him soused. It’s a great little local restaurant with a big rectangular "Cheers"-like bar at the center of the action. It’s all dark wood, dart boards, classic-rock-about-it. Right now, The Eagles, Steve Miller, and some 90’s hard rock band are in rotation on the CD player. My waiter is this young guy, not old enough to drink, by his own admission, who is totally on top of everything, except that he couldn’t describe for me what type of beer "Mr. Smith’s House" was. I’m like, "Well is it a stout or porter, or is it light, like a pilsner, or amber, or what?" He said he really couldn’t tell me. I said, "How does it look compared to a Guinness?--Is it as dark as that?" He said, "No, it’s lighter, but not light like Bud or something." I said, "What the hell," so I tried it, and it was great--amber ale, just like I like. Perfection. I’ll finish dinner here, then I’ll go back to the hotel to wait for the groom’s party to arrive at my room for some Wild Strip Mall Bachelor Party Action! Whoo-hoo!

Wednesday, July 30, 2003
On the Amtrak train, NYC to Boston
Haven’t been able to write for a week--since the wedding and Natasha’s arrival, it’s been a flurry. The wedding and all the related activities were beautiful--had a blast meeting Elvira's family and friends, all of whom are really smart, warm folks. I knew Marty's sister, Abby, already--she lives in San Francisco, too, and we run into each other all the time. She's fucking great. I got to meet Marty's mom, brother, and sister-in-law for the first time, which was cool--after knowing Marty for about five years, meeting the fam makes things start to click, you know--all the insanity and humanity he's been reacting to all his life. His brother, Jared, is a total right wing, pro-lifer dude, but Marty made him swear he'd put a lid on it during the week of the wedding, so it was a totally smooth interaction with him, and I, in fact, found him to be a big ol' sweetheart in any case.

The bachelor party rocked in a "so what, we're partying at the local strip mall" kinda way. The groom's side of the wedding party was fairly unconventional, in that Abby and I are women, and rounding out the posse were Marty's brother and Brendan, Marty's brother-in-law-to-be (Elvira's sister's husband, who, incidentally, is a pretty hot guy.) We strolled into Mr. Smith's, and the young waiter from earlier welcomed me back; he was shooting darts after his shift. We got a round of drinks, but I could tell none of them were too impressed with the Mr. Smith's ambiance, at least not at first. When the rock 'n' roll started up, and the drinks began to work, we were all shooting the shit very nicely, Brendan and I in a parry of barbs that straight guys and dykes sometimes get into. You know, checking each other out like dogs sniffing each other's butts. We got on famously. By the second round of drinks, I began to exact...my plan to serenade Marty on kazoo. I got Diego, the excellent bartender, to lower the music and announce me, and then I stood up and said that I was here with my buddy, Marty, who was about to be married. Everyone cheered. A guy across the bar piped up, "Don't do it, man!" We all laughed. I said to everyone, "Well, since I'm kind of broke, I can't buy a round for the bar, but I am going to serenade Marty on kazoo!"

Marty and company were cracking up. There were a couple guffaws from the peanut gallery in the back of the bar. I announced that I'd be playing John Denver's "You Fill Up My Senses" to more grumbling and some laughs that onlookers thought to be at my expense. Marty informed me that the proper name of the song is "Annie's Song," to which I conceded.

As I brought the kazoo to my lips, some tantilizing drama occurred: two women broke out into a full-on brawl at the entrance to the bar, screaming and kicking each other! I was standing there with my kazoo, ready to play, when Diego the bartender had to jump the bar to go break up the fight. The guy on the other side of the bar motioned to the chicks fighting and said to Marty, "There's your girl, heh!" We all chuckled nervously. Diego escorted the ladies out of the bar, then I commenced, and the rest of the evening continued to devolve into a gorgeous, drunken torpor. We tipped Diego handsomely for his service, and later in the weekend, after a third trip to Mr. Smith's (and being greeted by name) I asked Diego for a little souvenir, and he gladly handed me an Official Mr. Smith's Lowball Glass.

The wedding itself was gorgeous, it was held in an amazing botanical garden, and there was a killer jazz band. Had a great old time getting to know all of Marty & Elvira's DC-area friends. Despite my inner wedding-cynic, it was a tremendous honor to be part of the wedding, representin' Marty's side. It's entirely clear that the families are extatic about the match.

Natasha met up with me the night before the wedding, we did the wedding stuff, then we took a long, sweaty, uncomfortable bus ride from DC to New York. It only cost $20.00, but I wouldn't recommend it at all. It was six hours of sitting in traffic in a barely air-conditioned bus, being forced to watch the Jet Li movie, The One, on the on-bus viewing system. This flick has our hero fighting other versions of himself in multiple dimensions.

As Nat quipped, "You've heard of 'straight-to-video?'--this movie's straight-to-bus!" We had a good laugh about that. Of course, both of us are fairly ignorant of the relative box office success of such action flicks--all I know is that the movie was large on kicks and small on plot, and anyway, it was too miserable on that bus to pay much attention.

We had a great time in New York, mostly hung out with friends, and did the trip up to the Bronx to visit my Grandma. Aunt Melba knows I'm queer, but in my several visits to New York in my adult life, I've never bothered to come out in an elaborate way to Grandma--we were never very close, and she's been extremely frail in the last several years, anyway. She kept trying to figure Natasha out, though--saying more than once during the visit that we "looked like sisters." At the end of the visit, she told Nat that she was a "very nice girl" and that she was "very good-looking, too." I think it was her way of letting us know she accepted Natasha, regardless of whether she actually "gets it." And let's face it, no one wants their 93 year-old grandmother to entirely comprehend it, anyway.

Our visits with friends in New York were really great, too. Natasha finally got to spend some good time with Brenda, which was great--we did a lot of eating and drinking and carrying on. The visit with Kate went pretty well, too--it's obvious that Nat and Kate will never be best friends, and that's fine. I think we both feel less weird about the dynamic now that they've met though, and it's a big relief, I must say.

We also stayed in Williamsburg with a dear friend of Natasha's, Roxie, and her boyfriend, Ricky. Those cats are fun. We had a very chill time with them in Brooklyn, just hanging out in their neighborhood--took a walk down to the East River and looked at Manhattan on the other side.

It's great to get a vantage point on a place you're visiting, you know?--walking around in discrete little circles in the same neighborhoods doesn't give you much perspective on how it all fits together. That view from the river, and the warm breeze blowing up on us from the water was one of my favorite moments on the trip.

Must also at least briefly mention the excellent Modernist exhibit we saw at the Guggenheim, "From Picasso to Pollock"

Natasha was tremendously excited to see the museum, mostly because she'd seen so many photos of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building. When we climbed to the top and started to work our way down, viewing the exhibit, she got a touch of the vertigo, though, and couldn't look down over the edge of each level as we descended. Poor Natasha!

I very much enjoyed seeing paintings by Rothko and Miro, and also an amusing set of watercolors by Kandinsky that looked like they could've been illustrations in childrens' books. The following two were the paintings from the show that really stayed with me, though:

The Smokers - Fernand Léger, France, 1912.

I love the cubist depiction of the two figures and the billows of smoke. This piece is much more abstract than a lot of his other work, but it's still accessible - much of his later work had a pre-pop art sensibility, people drawn with thick cartoonish black outlines.

Pictorial Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions, Called Red Square - Kazimir Malevich, Russia, 1915.

Malevich started a movement he called "Suprematism" which was meant to evoke, on viewing, a culturally universal experience with the art, by removing any kind of representationalism. Thus, you can paint a red square, in the middle of a field you've painted white, and call it "Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions..." Malevich's work is one of the reasons, today, we can look at a spoon and say, of course, "There is no spoon." We have the power to create, and name, our reality. It's both profound and damned amusing.

Sunday, August 3, 2003
The Grand Coffee House, Union Square, Somerville, Mass
Today is the last full day of our vacation. We leave from Logan Airport tomorrow morning. Been enjoying our time in Boston--it's just now starting to become really humid and nasty--about time to get back to California and my own bed. Damn, I miss my pillows. You always get funky pillows when you stay with people, you know--hard foam ones, or the arm rests from the couch, or your own sweatshirt balled up under your head. I miss my squishy down pillows, pillows that are so old, the feathers are pulverized into a mash and you need two pillowcases on them or they'll leak. Mmm....But I digress.

In Boston, we first stayed with my good pal, Irene, in Jamaica Plain. Irene is a shit-talkin' Jersey loudmouthed Buddhist activist soccer-playin' wild-child. She's one of the most special people I've ever met, and I never use the word special. She's also one of Natasha's favorite of my friends. We had a chill night hanging out with her--ate a gorgeous meal at a Thai-Cambodian restaurant on the main drag in JP. We had a celebrity sighting there, Catie Curtis--a local diva of the Boston folk scene. She's growing her hair out these days, it looks like, but I recognized her. She was seated in a group of people in the back room of the restaurant, and I caught a look at her as we were being escorted out to the back patio. I told Irene, and she nonchalantly sauntered back in and then back out to the patio again, and confirmed that it was Catie Curtis. We did a "high five" over the table, but the dweebiness ended there--no autograph hounding for us--even dweebs give it a rest sometimes.

Irene got us up early the next day, and dragged Nat and I for a walk along Boston's Freedom Trail. It's not something either of us would have chosen to do on our own, but we're both glad we did it--it was a good way to get a feel for the town, and see some of the historic sites. We ended up in the North End by late afternoon, and then Natasha caught the T to Somerville to go hang out with her brother and sister-in-law for the evening. Irene and I ate some good Italian food, then went back to her place to relax for a bit.

Later on, we went to a dyke night at a local bar and had a drink. The scene at the bar was mellow but lively, lots of good beats to dance to. The dykes in JP seemed a bit more chill than SF dykes--they had the uniform (jeans, studded belts, boots, spikey hair, et al) but were somehow not as style-conscious as the girls are in SF. Their outfits weren't as "put together"--I can't really explain it more than that, the vibe was just more relaxed. You walk into a dyke bar in San Francisco (the only dyke bar) and if you aren't a skinny white "boi" with a so-called "trucker" hat on, you get nothing but icey stares.

Anyway, I can never get enough of hanging out with Irene, and unfortunately for me, she was off to a retreat the next day, so she dropped me off at Henry and Meg's, then went on her way to be with the Enlightenment seekers. She loves it when I make fun of her spirituality--and only because I fundamentally respect it.

Nat's brother, Henry, and his wife, Meg, moved to Boston from London about a year ago. If I've never mentioned it before, Natasha's family is from South Africa, and she and her brothers and parents are scattered all over the globe, so it's always a wonderful treat to spend time with any of them. This coming February, as a side note, her whole immediate family, and all the siblings' spouses/partners (including me) will be convening in Puerto Vallarta for Nat's dad's 60th birthday. Very exciting, as the family hasn't been together in one place, all of them, in about eight years. I'm sure I'll write about that trip when the time comes.

Anyway, we enjoyed ourselves immensely hanging out with Henry and Meg. Henry and I got on like guys, in a way, geeking out about work things and rock 'n' roll and Grand Theft Auto, which I'd never played but became addicted to on our stay

(funnily enough, a pacifist like me can get intense joy out of ripping off peoples' cars and running them over, again and again. For days after playing the game, I sustained fantasies of walking in front of cars, stopping them, throwing the drivers out and taking off, just like that. Thankfully, I know how to differentiate between fantasy and reality. So far.)

Last night was one of the big highlights of the trip: we saw an amazing show at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge--The So and So's and Andy Stochansky. I had dragged Nat, Henry, and Meg to this show with only a very vague lead to go on: about a year and a half ago, Irene had sent me a videotape of a live show that had been performed at the Somerville Theater in Boston; Irene and her brother had ushered for free tickets, and she knew I'd find it fucking hilarious. It was a self-ordained "schlock opera," entitled Miss Folk America.

Written by local folkie, Faith Soloway (the mastermind behind "The Real Live Brady Bunch" stage shows of the early 90's) and starring many of Boston's contemporary folk heroes, including Catie Curtis (pictured here, third from right) and Meghan Toohey (in bandana,) it was a folk show making merciless fun of folk.

Anyway, When Irene and I were hanging out sometime during this trip, we picked up the entertainment section and saw that Meghan Toohey's band, the So and So's, was opening up for Andy Stochansky that Saturday night. Both of us were familiar with Andy, too, 'cause he used to drum for Ani Difranco, back in the days before she played with a full band; in fact, Andy was her drummer the first two times I'd ever seen Ani live, around '92, but I digress, as usual. Unfortunately, Irene, who was as excited to check out this show as I was, was off to her hippy love retreat and wouldn't be able to come, but I managed to get Nat, Henry, and Meg in the door, to some collective chagrin.

Turned out, we all loved The So and So's. They put on an amazing live show, full of energy, with sounds similar to Garbage, The Pretenders, and more than a hint of good ol' garage rock, but I have to say, their style is unique--they can do both the melodic trance and rock it the fuck out. Meghan fronts the band, writes all the songs, and fucking kicks ass on the guitar.

(Shown here with her former band. Sorry to insert a dated picture, but my god, she's hot in this one!--I was creaming my jeans through the whole show, and I have a hunch, so was Natasha. She kept turning to me throughout the show, saying she really wants her hair to be just like Meghan Toohey's.)

Andy Stochansky's band was great, but I have to say, I was so bowled over by the So and So's that Andy's band kind of blended into the scenery. To be fair, they were very good musically, and Andy's voice is derivative of Bono and that guy from Coldplay--and if your voice is gonna be derivative, it might as well be derivative of a great singer like Bono, right? Anyway, the band sounded very standard-issue indie rock boy band to me, especially in my Meghan Toohey-afterglow.

During Andy's set, the other guitarist from the So and So's, Jay Barclay, sat down next to me to watch the show (the Lizard Lounge is a very small venue, very comfy and friendly.) I leaned over to him and thanked him for sacrificing a Springsteen show to play for us (Meghan had informed the audience that Jay had blown off free center stage seats for that night. Poor guy!) I also told him that their set was excellent, and that they had a lot of potential--more than Andy's band, I thought, even though they were just the openers. Jay was very gracious--he made it a point to tell me that Andy was really It, and that he was schooling them. Jay's a very sweet guy, I got a very good energy reading from him. Anyway, look for the So and So's debut full-length, due out in October. I'm waiting, bated.

I have to say, it's been a fucking excellent vacation. I can't believe I've gotta go home...but the Boston humidity is finally settling in on my bones, and I'm reminded of the sunny-but-cool weather awaiting me 3,000 miles west.

Hope everyone's having a great summer!

Bree

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