The Story of Therapy Dog Tails 421
Where Everyone Gets a Dose of Puppy Love
CHRONOLOGY 52: TAPCO / ATR 10
Sun., Sep. 8, 2013
5:21 p.m.
No reply.
I was up all night last night trying to get home from a night out with Ron Link and 2 of his teachers. There was a jam session in a cellar at the corner of 78th & Columbus - 2 guitars, bass, drums, organ for the first set and a female singer (Laura) who seemed to be hitting it off with the lead guitarist and band leader (who was said to be the music director for the Broadway show “Motown”). I took the 8:53 and was at Penn Station by 9:30 and at W. 72nd by 9:45, where I actually walked by the old office on W. 71st and saw that Kevin Smith is still doing dentistry out of there. I walked past the Cottage and considered stopping since I wasn’t due at the jam cellar until 11:00 but went on and found myself at Ocean on Columbus between 78th and 79th and right across from the back of the Natural History Museum. There I got a fantastic grilled chicken Caesar salad and a root beer while I waited for Ron to show up, which he did at about 10:30.
The jam session was virtually next door on the corner of 78th and down some steps - a bar with a back room for music. We were met there by perhaps the only TAPCO teacher older than me - by one year - a teacher by the name of Bud. He said that there was a surprise in store and that turned out to be the person of the best looking girl in the school and maybe in the DOE, a very pretty special ed. and dance teacher by the name of Gabriela (about 26 or so). That was a pleasant surprise and made the evening more enjoyable both by her presence and because she seemed to be a very interesting person who liked talking about metaphysical topics and who seemed to be fairly religious.
The 4 of us caught an excellent pick-up band. The lead guitarist was said to be in charge of the music for the “Motown” Broadway show. He was good. Another guy played acoustic and sang lead along with a slim, foxy girl named Laura. Then there was bass, drums and an organist (1st set only) and they played almost all classic rock and played it very well. They played until 2:30, by which time it was too late for me to get back to NJ. I don’t think I’ve spent a night in NYC since that strange one with Lisa Ray about 4 years ago.
I hung out with Ron until about 2:45 a.m. talking mostly about education. He seems very passionate about making this school work and putting it over on the DOE while still doing the arts the way he wants them done. Then since I had the time, I simply walked Broadway all the way down - past many old haunts like the former home of Tower Records at the corner of 66th St. across from Lincoln Center / Juilliard, 59th and Columbus Circle which holds many memories from 2004-07, the Jam at 47th and 7th Ave., Times Square, on down to Macy’s and over to Penn Station. Regret is a very hard thing to live with.
I got to Penn Station at 3:45 and had to wait for the 5:14 train. I got back here and slept from about 6 to 9 so I’m pretty tired now. I figure I’ll fall asleep early and have no trouble getting up at 5 in the morning for the first real day of the new teaching job.
Tues., Sept. 10
7:15 p.m. G. #4.
No reply.
I’m really only signing in to keep track of the beer drinking. I can’t really drink beer when I’ve got to get up at 5 in the morning but I was depressed coming home today and that is going to be the “norm” for the foreseeable future. I’d had a yen to watch “Unfaithful” but didn’t find it at Target last weekend so I headed tonight for Barnes & Noble. There I found it along with about 6 or 8 other movie “classics” that were going for half price along with a “day to day” book on the JFK administration’s 1000 days. This is the 50th anniversary so I picked it up for only 10 bucks - a big, beautiful book. I need books to read on the train and can’t find the Peppermint Lounge book but I’ve got two baseball books that I bought in Ohio.
In any case, I had planned to pick up my favorite dinner - having had my other one, the spaghetti & meatball dinner from Pizza Town here on Wood Ave. last night. So I headed for Barnes & Noble and called up Dim Sum 2 in Cranford as I was coming out. That gave me the idea of waiting those 15 minutes for the Chinese food at the Cranford Hotel, one of my favorite joints except for that last “conversation” with L ... Z during the hurricane when she made it clear that she was the only one who existed in the universe and no one else. That’s now the last time I talked to that evil bitch and promises to remain so.
The Guinnesses are only 5 bucks at the Cranford Hotel so I ran through 3 of them while waiting for the food and now here I am drinking #4. I won’t drink more than one or 2 more as I do my coffee routine because of the work. I stayed until 6 last night but was out at 4 today. I don’t mind spending the time there too much since it takes my mind off the personal depression. I become a ‘teacher” and that is what I was hoping would happen. The kids are very similar at this new place, TAPCO, and it will take a lot of time and work but maybe that’s what I need. Or maybe I’ll come to regret this decision as I’ve regretted the last 32 years of my life. That seems a more likely scenario. At least I can say in my suicide note that I gave it a shot.
I ran into Don Cerrone at TAPCO yesterday. Ron had said that he might bring him over. Everyone at JLHS is looking for a way out. This is news that I’ll eventually share with Carol. But for now I’m just trying to survive this new routine and teaching schedule. I don’t know if I will or not but for tonight I’ve got one or 2 more Guinnesses to get me through, Cranford Chinese - I ate nothing up in the Bronx these last 2 days - and “Unfaithful”, which I did find.
P.S. I saw nothing of either L ... Z or her son yesterday, my first day on the new job. She woke up up in the middle of the night when she came through the living room for something. I talked briefly to Geoff the night before. He told me that the band had rehearsed down here - there is still equipment down here - while I was gone so that they could “record” upstairs. He said this as though I might be able to take it with equanimity. I just walked into the kitchen and ignored the little song he had started to play on the guitar. I hope that stays with him somehow.
7:29 p.m. G. #5.
Alcoholism seems like a fairly positive choice to me now. If you want to survive.
7:51 p.m.
That’s it. Five is the limit so that I can go through whatever I have to go through tomorrow and that is how it feels - as though I’m undergoing even after all these years (12 teaching, 20 married) some sort of punishment. I deserve it.
8:24 p.m. Chinese food. “Unfaithul.”
I see why I desperately wanted to watch this movie and why I’m watching it now. You fuck up once, and your life is fucked for good. That’s why. That’s what happened to me. I fucked up once in 1981 and my life was fucked forever. But the worst part of it is this. It’s inevitable that you will fuck up. There is nothing you can do about it. In this movie they make it appear as if she is making choices. She is not. When she lets that first empty cab go by, that’s just fate toying with her. When she tries to hang up when she calls him back, that’s not really a choice. There is nothing she can do.
Fate toys with us all.
Note: A year or so later when it became clear that I was leaving teaching and the New York area for good, that Motown Review Broadway show ended up on my bucket list. No doubt I made mention of it in the journal when I did see it; if so I’ll eventually come to that, life permitting. I don’t remember which songs were in it or even which Motown artists were represented - other than Michael Jackson, who was the finale of the show at least as I remember it now because they had an excellent impersonator. But I thought I’d include a Motown record as the finale here, one that might not have been heard as often as most. Jr. Walker’s first three records were released on the Harvey label in Detroit. They were saxophone instrumentals and at their best, moody and soulful. The first of these, Twist Lackawanna, attempted to cash in on the ongoing twist craze in 1962, a craze that made the Chubby Checker record that had started it all in 1960 number one for the second time. Twist Lackawanna didn’t chart. Neither did the second of these Harvey releases, Cleo’s Mood, but it certainly should have. It’s Jr. Walker at his moodiest. With the first note you’re on your fourth shot, sober or not.
AUDIO INSERTED: Jr. Walker & the All-Stars, Cleo’s Mood
(Once again I insert this track without permission and will take it down upon request.)
IMAGES INSERTED: Record Labels
Three years later Shotgun had shown Jr. Walker (and Berry Gordy) that his hoarse shout was, indeed, good enough to be recorded and good enough to place high in the pop charts, higher in the r&b charts. Jr. proved to be a blues shouter on par with Wynonie Harris and Big Joe Turner but he had an even more unique saxophone style and so Cleo was back as the instrumental B side of the vocal Shake and Fingertip, which reached #29 on the pop chart, #7 on the r&b chart. Cleo’s Back equalled that on the r&b chart and reached a very respectable #43 on the pop chart but even more astounding was that on the basis of this chart performance, Motown brought back the original Cleo’s Mood, released it under their own Soul subsidiary and this time it reached #14 on the Billboard r&b chart and #50 pop, in my opinion still not as high as it deserved.
AUDIO INSERTED: Jr. Walker & the All-Stars, Cleo’s Back
(Once again I insert this track without permission and will take it down upon request.)
IMAGES INSERTED: Record Labels / Promo Material