Digital Miracles, Long-Ass Parties, Malcolm X & My Friend Billy J's New Band

Call it a miracle. Call it what you will. But my mp-3 player has resurrected itself. For like the month or so it was dormant, I would play with it for 5 or 10 minutes every day trying to get it going. Then Monday it came on, all the music saved. Turns out it was the play button, so I can switch it on but can’t turn it off without loosening the battery. And it still takes like 100 tries sometimes before the button engages and the sweet sight of a blue screen. But that’s okay. The motherfucker works and I feel not only reconnected, but I’m calling it a good omen. Got a problem with that? Hey, I’m trying to tap into my inner optimist and I can't afford a life coach.

Two catering gigs this week, first one worked 6 hours, last night 8 and a half. That’s a long-ass party, and I worked my ass off. Well, not all of it. After all, I'm sitting as I write this. But I walked out with a check for the two nights of close to 300 large, plus a 15 buck tip. That was my fifth gig in the last month or so, and guess what? Last night was the first night I can say I felt part of the crew. So I paid off the rent in full, paid off the cell phone bill. Now we start working on the landline, con ed, next month’s rent, haircut…little things like that. I feel a yard sale coming. Soon.

I knew there was always gonna be a price for being a true existentialist, never planning ahead, living in the moment, ignoring potential consequences for my behavior, remaining willfully impractical into middle age, etc. Now, to quote the immortal Malcolm X, the mo’fuckin’ chickens be comin’ home intendin’ to roost. Now what roost means, this city boy can’t precisely say. But it’s probably a bad thing. And when you consider that Malcolm X, who once lived in a part of Queens not all that far from where I sit writing this, was referring to the JFK assassination when he uttered that phrase, well, that’s profound. He was closer to the mark than all the conspiracy scoffers, who in their way are much more unstable than We Who Know More Than One Shooter Was Involved. Read a fucking book on the subject before you shoot down my every point. The people who that applies to will know who I’m talking about. Nuff said.

My friend Billy J's band Rezidu is playing in Brooklyn, April 8. It's the best band he's been in, and he's been in many and I've seen them all play live at least once. The CD they put out was very listenable. And that's not damning them with faint praise. Or even feint praise. Now, his last band, Blake, was a much punkier band & had a very, very hot blonde chick as their lead singer, and thus their little 4-song EP is more to my taste. But this band live is a much stronger unit, lack of eye candy notwithstanding. The gig is at someplace called The Hook in Red Hook. It's a Saturday night.