drop acid (not bombs)

This past weekend I visited NYC. I went to film a commercial my friend's company was producing (which is a whole different story), and happened to find myself, the night before the shoot, in a little dingy bar on the Lower East Side. Johnson's, which is at the corner of Rivington and Essex Streets, has $2 cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, $6 mixed cocktail drinks and other cheap goodness a young twenty-something can appreciate.

Something else they can appreciate? The incredible amount of graffiti on the bathroom wall there. I couldn't resist taking some photos on my cell phone camera.

The bathroom wall in question:

A close-up of some graffiti, titled 'orchestrate reality':

and my favorite, 'drop acid (not bombs)':

I can verify that both of the bathrooms in the joint were packed with similar types of messages.

My eyes were exhausted trying to keep up with the scrawl on the walls.

Yet another reason to love New York City ... bathroom walls inked with 'drop acid (not bombs)'.

Pure gold!

making music

My grandmother died on Sunday. Very sad news, especially since I had to call up my mom and tell her own mother had just passed away. Not a fun phone call to make.

However, out of the sadness has come incredible joy.

It started with a recording I made for my grandmother's funeral. Since I can't attend due to financial reasons, the family decided it would be nice if I could record several of her favorite hymns to play at the funeral. I happily did so, and recorded some classic gems like 'Amazing Grace' and 'Jesus Loves Me.' (All songs a half-Jewish girl can relate to ... ha. Not quite. But I still love them!) The recording process was relaxed and easy, since it was done in my friend's recording studio in town.

After recording the hymns, that same friend and I decided it would be fun to 'lay down' a few tracks of our own. Just for fun. Nothing for the funeral, or even meant to be heard by anyone but us. We spent about two hours recording ourselves using the Reason program -- so. Much. Fun.

My instrument had two microphones on it, and sounded surprisingly nice. Fed through Reason, my normally sweet sounding instrument sounded demonic, loud, in charge. I felt like a rock guitarist. A loud, bombastic rock guitarist. It was so cool. With a few clicks of a computer mouse, my instrument went from demonic to angelic, and then from angelic to celestial. It was out of this world.

My friend and I experimented with all sorts of free improv, and I became addicted to counting in 5. 5 and 7, to be exact. We were purposely trying to stay in odd meters for my benefit, because of the way they sound on my instrument.

This same friend just got offered a record, all studio and musical expenses paid, so he is going to take it to the potential producer of his upcoming record to see what happens. He thinks some of the material is workable into an ultimate final track.

Fun, fun.

I had another uplifting musical experience this past Friday night. I performed with my musical duo partner at a local restaurant, and we ended up with quite a crowd. People were listening, applauding, shouting our names, hooting and hollering -- it was great. Some local friends came to enjoy the music, which was super nice of them and a great show of support. It's always difficult in situations where you perform at a restaurant or bar, because you want enough people to come that you get invited back again. When friends come as a show of support, it not only helps the musician, it makes the bar or cafe owner think that more people are showing up to spend money at their establishment.

Based on our gig at the little eatery, my duo partner and I have been invited to do some more gigs around town. It's a refreshing change from New York City, where I never did much gigging. (Of course, I was so busy with school all the time I never bothered trying to book any, but that's a whole different story.)

Anyway, my friend Q showed up to lay down some electric bass. His brother is a drummer and has worked for all sorts of top musicians and bands, including David Bowie and Weather Report. Q has some serious funky chops, so that was a lot of fun to hear him play. A beat boxing flute player also joined our group at one point, to the audience's surprise and seeming pleasure.

Over all, it was one of the nicer gigs I've had in a while. Everyone was so receptive to the music. It was what I refer to as a 'warm' gig -- everyone was warm and friendly and, better yet, eager to listen.

Anyway. I have more to blog about, but I'm getting ready to go back in to the recording studio tonight to play some more. In addition, I'm going on a short road trip to Nova Scotia. I leave next week. Shortly after that it's off to the beach with friends, and then I'm planning a big trip sometime in late August/early September. (I can't reveal anything until it's final, though!) Traveling! I love it.

I'm just so happy that out of something so terribly sad as my grandmother dying, I've been given a blessing. Making music is such a joy, and it's even better when you make it with friends you love and work well with.

hats

There are lots of hats.

Everywhere.

Akubras, berets, boaters and bowlers. Buckets, cloches, cowboy, fedoras, and panamas. Hats for rainy days. Caps for balding men. Formal head attire for wedding party members. Every and any kind of hat.

There are also lots of boxes. Brown, black and beige boxes. Big and small boxes. Boxes to the ceiling, behind shelves and on shelves. Boxes stacked on top of each other. Piled high, piled sideways, piled right side up and collecting dust. Boxes of hats, and hats in boxes.

Everywhere.

The man who runs the place is old. Very old. He's eighty-nine, to be exact. I don't catch his name, but he looks like some one's grandfather. (In fact, he probably is.) He's short, wears a long sleeved shirt and sweater vest, long corduroy pants and, fittingly enough, a hat on his scantily haired head. There's a hearing aid in one of his ears, but he still has a hard time catching the phrases and words that people tell him.

He likes to talk, though. Not being able to hear well doesn't seem to stop him from wanting to speak. He talks and talks and tries to listen a little and then talks some more. About hats. About being a military veteran. About his wife and growing up and living in the same town his entire life. About running a hat shop. About hats again. And so on.

Deitz's Hat Shop has been a Scranton, PA staple for any number of years. The exact span of time has slipped my memory, but trust when I say it's been longer than I've been alive.

The old man has been running the shop for a large part of this time span.

Business used to be good, but current times aren't so hat friendly. This, at least, is according to the old man who runs Deitz's. To begin with, hats have gotten more expensive. It used to be you could get a nice rabbit fur hat for a decent price, but now a similar type of hat would run you around $150. Which is too much money, according to the old man. No one wants to spend that much money on a hat.

Another problem is how hats are sold to suppliers. Store owners have to buy them in groups of a dozen. Since there isn't a large turn over rate for hats, most of the dozen hats ordered will just sit around for years, collecting dust. You simply can't buy one hat at a time. You have to buy the whole lot of 'em. In a place like Scranton, that makes hat buying rather difficult for store owners.

Which explains all the boxes in Deitz's. And all the hats.

Boxes and boxes and boxes of hats and hats and hats.

Everywhere.

The fun part is trying on the hats. There are many sitting out on racks, waiting to be scooped up and bought. I try on a few types of hats, parading around the shop like I own the place. My friends are doing the same thing, fingering hat brims and then delicately placing their choices on their heads. Hats aren't the type of thing you just slam down on your cranium. They deserve a little respect.

We stalk around the shop -- we are the only customers, after all -- and make conversation with the old man and muse at the prices of what we're wearing on our heads. I put on a cloche, exactly the style my grandmother wore in the 1920's, and examine myself in a mirror. How very last century.

(But I like it!)

I try on a cowboy hat and look ridiculous.

A beret goes on next, and I pretend to talk with a French accent. No one thinks it's funny except for me. I make a joke about Brie and French bread and then immediately feel like an idiot and take off the hat.

Funny how hats can bring out different sides of one's personality. Even the geeky parts.

We eventually left the store without buying anything. The old man said he was happy to let us try on the hats and it was fine not to buy anything. He said he gets bored in there anyway, and it was nice to liven things up with some kids.

I have a feeling I'll be back, though. Hat shops aren't a common site these days. Anyway, I could really use an akabura. Or a boater. Or a fedora.

You never know.