She Fell in Love with the Drummer

Before I get started I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to Gloria, Lexi, and all of the other women who had to share the Shields bar last night with me and my two brothers.

And I’d also like to thank all of you for recognizing that I am indeed the sensitive one.

Chinatown

I went into the city with my brother Scott. He went to work and I wandered around Chinatown, looking for gods. I was surprised at how few of them there were. I expected more, somehow.

I like walking in cities, taking streets at random, looking for the soft places.

Chinatown is crowded, shops and fish markets and restaurants. My hands are shaking and I realize I need to eat soon, but most of the places are too packed to edge into. I finally find an Irish pub on the outskirts which turns out to be completely fake. It’s a bistro with Guinness an no pub food in sight but by the time I realize this, it’s too late.

So I sit in the alleyway patio and eat my foccacia sandwich and try to ignore the table of marketing dorks having a meeting next to me. They’re all well fed and full of jargon, so completely Californian that one of them has brought a golden retriever with them (even their dogs are blonde).

At one point, the dog raises its head and growls. It’s suddenly chilly on the patio and the pigeons scatter as the Devil passes by, all black suit and long silver hair. I do not see his face. After he’s gone, the temperature slowly warms up again and the dog goes back to sleep.

I finish my meal and leave, heading back to Chinatown.

Warfield

Last night my brothers and I went back into the city to see Elvis Costello and Steve Nieve. Getting in the car to head to the train station, Scott puts The Beastie Boys on the radio and after a moment Jim says “Um, can we listen to some music or something?”

The train is crowded and at one point an old man wanders the aisles saying “Poetry, poems, poetry..?” He has a sheaf of paper in his hands and a slightly disappointed befuddlement that no one wants to buy what he’s selling.

My brother Scott leans over to me and says “That is so you in twenty years.”

“I’m already there.”

I’m disappointed that the poet didn’t ask me. I would have bought a poem, maybe traded one for one of mine. I’d like to see what a car full of people do when confronted with my recitation of ‘Baba Yaga’.

“You know, I would have bought one of his poems if he’d asked me.”

Jim says, “I would have said “Go fuck yourself, poet boy.””

Country Darkness

Elvis Costello wears a black suit with silver shoes, his feet sparkle like shattered mirrors and he’s absolutely excellent.

“I think I preferred him when he was angry.”

“I prefer him divorced and in love with a younger woman.”

Halfway through ‘God’s Comic’ he decides to take a walk around Dick Cheney and “his Texan puppet” and Jim gets so angry that he walks out and does not come back. In his defense, he left because he felt that Elvis was bagging on the military (he wasn’t) and Jim’s fairly patriotic (understatement).

It’s Jim’s loss, because the second half of the show is outstanding. He misses four or five new songs, a ukulele, Elvis’ take on the Oscars (“Fucking hobbits…”), and a beautiful closing ‘At the Dark End of the Street’.

I’ll choose the music over the politics every time.

In Lexi’s Hands

Afterwards, we wander up the street and stop off in an Irish pub for a drink. One drink leads to another and we spend way too much time and money in Shields, talking about sex way too much and making lots of new friends.

“You ever have a threesome?”

“Sure.”

“Two men or two women?”

It was that kind of conversation and I wish to God I had tape recorded it so I could transcribe the whole thing here . . . But it’s probably for the best.

It’s wonderful to be in a bar, half-Irish and good looking, with my two brothers, all of us very cool in our own way.

If you’re ever in the neighborhood, I recommend Shields. It’s a good place, not too crowded and not too big. And you know the bartender’s good when she pours a shot of Bushmills for herself when you offer to buy her a drink.

But be careful. If you stay too late, you’ll miss your train. And it’s a seventy dollar cab ride out of the city. Ahem.

Jim and I fall asleep in back of the cab and leave Scott to entertain the Pakistani driver all the way home. We get back to the train station, stumble into his Jag (he’s an Old Rich Bastard, my brother, but one of the best) and I fall asleep again.

At one point I wake up and Scott is singing along with ‘Intergalactic’ and I suddenly get very sad, thinking about how old the three of us are getting…