Get your motor running
Because of the blissful city Sunday weather I had Breeders songs and Lou Reed songs in my head. I sat with Beamish at the Greek diner for a long time and we talked and talked over coffee while he reorganized the pretty pink Sweet 'n' Lows and we watched hot tuffy Park Slope girls walking by.
The second half of the day was like a whole new one that started with a motorcycle ride with my new special friend Baker. I hadn’t gone for a bike ride in four years but hadn’t forgotten that there’s nothing like it. Except maybe the feeling that you get when you're ice skating on a frozen lake and I kept wanting to yell "wheeeeeee!" when we really got going. (Actually I did, but kind of under my breath and beneath the helmet.)
Ended up at Coney Island and I felt like a tourist but in a good way. Grabbed beers and sat on the beach where a gleeful little girl ran past me with her friends towards the icy water screaming, "pull your pants up!" and a fat bald guy in blue trunks unknowingly flashed me his business. When the sun started to go down we walked through the drunken crowds keeping the Puerto Rican Day Parade parties going between the rows of packed amusement park rides spinning to hip-hop soundtracks.
At sundown we were on a new research mission. We bombed through the city and I now had the breeders in my head and that hot vibrating machine between my legs was starting to start me up. I’d long ago heard about a bar on the Bowery called Remote Lounge, a lounge boasting booths with monitors in each one for the voyeur and the performer in all of us. I wanted to finally find out what this place was all about and my biker friend was game.
Upon arrival, we surveyed the unfortunately well lit venue and the monitor tables that looked like video games and said, "This is stupid." But we set helmets down, raised our glasses and settled in, and by the end of the night we were like Ritalin kids in a candy store.
We got free drinks from the bartender for staying at that place longer than any of the other patrons, including the porn star Houston and her date and the hippie who seemed to be masquerading as some sort of Tranny Jester in vinyl platform boots and a pink bodysuit with feathers coming out of his butt. (I have no idea.)
I’d had more than enough to drink and so I only vaguely remember the rest of the night the way one recalls a dream. Cloudy visions of snippets of events and conversations. I remember that my clothes spent the night on the roof of The Baker's apartment and something about being upside down with my head over the side of the bed, maybe almost touching the floor, but not fully realizing it until he reached out a long arm to pull me up, just before we both passed out.
No. There are no pictures of that part.
"Victory’s blue and bruisin' voice/I’m leaking pure white noise.../Mercy here gets meaner overnight/It’s jersey sheer It's outta sight.../Misery’s fun I'm kissing everyone/I gotta hold my tongue" -The Breeders
