Dropping a
computer off at Bruce's
studio: it's an
incongruous piece of
debris among all the
colors of his
canvases and bits'n'pieces - the
lite brite many-
breasted lamp, the toothy
horse and the bride. Bruce and Jerry are smoking
cigars. I've known Jerry for about 20 years now and i always forget that he drives
trucks for a living. Not that it makes a difference. The air is thick with cigar smoke, and they keep offering us
meat. That's the phrase of the evening:
Hey, want some meat? There's a
grotesque-looking piece of
kielbasa in some water in a
frying pan on the stove. I sit in the
death chair (the one Jerry's father died in) and flip through a book - a history of
photographic nudes. Not just
Edweard Muybridge, either, but real weird crazy
porno stuff. From the
1800's. What great pictures. It turns out the
modem had been
scavenged from the computer we brought so it's no good to Bruce. Ah well. Before we go, he shows us some of the old
men's magazines he's found. On the back cover of
Monseiur from
1957, the photo caption reads,
I'm just a crazy, mixed-up kid
Who doesn't know her ego from her id
Nor right from wrong, unless I'm caught!
That gives a Jung girl Freud for thought.
When i get home i run right back out the door, and wolf a slice of
pizza on the way.
Cubanismo! is playing at
Pearl Street, and it is unlike things i would typically go to see. Abdiel is there and teaches me to say
wepa and
ay dios mio! Ay dios mio, this band is together. It's
supernatural. Hippies are dancing like
hippies always dance, but there were people there that could actually
latin dance, and that makes all the difference. I somehow cannot allow myself to
dance. I guess it's because i sense that Abdiel would dance closer to me, and i wouldn't stop him. And i don't need more
complication. Plus there's that
whole coworkers thing. But also, i am just
self-conscious in
public. The timing in this band is
phenomenal! There's a small crowd up there acting as a unit. The
upright bass is
electric and has almost no body. At one point the light changes and it looks like a stalk of
celery, being
plucked. One woman in the crowd is shaped like
slimer from the
ghostbusters and has on a
tight top and
miniskirt; her hair is
magenta and she's very distracting. When i can see her. Abdiel translates
lyrics for me: the music is
complicated but the lyrics are
simple. The air is smoky, smoky, my throat feels full of smoke.
Their encore is an afro-cuban jazz rendition of Bob Marley's Get Up, Stand Up. It's hard to grasp that this can exist, yet they are playing it.