The Story of Therapy Dog Tails 570
Where Everyone Gets a Dose of Puppy Love
BACKGROUND 250: JLHS Part Two 23
Sun., Oct. 7, 2007
… Michael followed me down to the parking garage and jumped on my back at one point and then picked me up. He is clearly a kid who missed out on his childhood and had no relationship with his father. So he acts like a little kid with me. I accept that, of course, because it is good for him. He’s way too big to be jumping on my back, however, and then he wanted to drive the car and he showed me his driver’s license. I didn’t go for that and so then he wanted to ride in the trunk and actually made an effort to get into the trunk once the car came down the elevator at the parking garage. But I made him get into the passenger’s seat and we made our way back uptown to the Bowery Poetry Club.
The traffic was still bad. This place is right around the corner from Planned Parenthood, the place where we took Antoinette that time and I assume that was well documented. We haven’t seen her since that baby shower a couple of years ago in the project on Webster behind Taft. I don’t know what happened to her. But I was reminded of that when we had to go around the block in order to come out on the right hand side of the street on 3rd Ave. I think CBGB’s was right there, too, but that place closed down a few months ago and then the original owner, who had moved to Texas, I think, died a few weeks ago. I’d walked by there many times but had never gone inside.
We finally came around and got the stuff into the car as described just above there. I made sure that Geoff put the amp in the middle of the back seat because I knew that Kristy was not going to be inclined to sit next to Michael. Michael is an oddball. Everyone knows this and accepts him as he is but that doesn’t mean anyone wants to have any more to do with him than absolutely necessary. I’m the exception in this sense and that is the reason he can’t stay away from me. I might be the first one ever to treat him as though he were completely normal. That has got to be a good feeling for him.
Luz headed for the subway. Geoff sat in the passenger’s seat; Kristy was behind him and Michael behind me and the amp was between them. I mean, they couldn’t even see each other really. I had to go down in order to come up and the choices were the East Side Highway or 1st Ave. By now it was a bit after nine o’clock so I figured that the traffic on 1st Ave. wouldn’t be too bad, especially once I got uptown a bit and that, I knew, ran right into the Willis Ave. Bridge. Luz and I used to ride into the Bronx every once in a while on a Saturday night after working the east side office. We’d do it just to cruise around and drink a little beer or maybe to go up to Ann and Tony’s up there on Arthur Ave. So I’ve been well aware of the Willis Ave. bridge for a long time. Before that, of course, it was the way back and forth between Manhattan and the Michelangelo project where Luz’s family has always been.
It turned out that Michael lived right there in the first project across the bridge just above 135th St. or whatever street that is there. There is a parking lot that I turned into so that we could get as close to the entrance to his building as possible - there must be at least half a dozen buildings in the complex and it didn’t look as bad as I assume that it is but that area is changing fast right now. I’m sure it’s better now than it was in the 80’s, which might be when Michael’s family went into that place. It’s very possible that Michael is a crack baby and that his problems all stem from whatever his parents were doing at that time that caused them to end up there. I think is mother is still around but not there. I think he lives there with his father.
Geoff had been playing the White Stripes - Icky Thump. He had just picked that up a week or so before this and Kristy seemed to like it. We’ve listened to that quite a bit over the past few weeks and I like it a lot even though I consider the song writing to be fairly rudimentary. He writes a lot of songs that are just four chord circles in the form of We Can Never Know. What he does well is arrange them for dramatic effect and guitar tone. He is a great guitarist and average singer, a great arranger and mediocre song writer - better at lyrics than at music. There are some very catchy lines. I like the line, “I guess you’ve got to have a problem if you want to invent a contraption.” The song about making the effect the cause and about how people blame you for what they do describes Luz very well. Some of the best songs sound like Led Zeppelin, who are getting back together this fall with Bonham’s son drumming.
Anyway, Kristy didn’t immediately know where she was in relation to her house when we pulled out of that parking lot. So I just headed up toward 149th St. - you know, friend, the place where I’ve spent time off and on for the last 25 years now and, in fact, the shopping area I’d just walked through on the day before school began in August. I was looking for a few shirts, Bronx shirts. By the time we got there, Kristy knew where she was and directed us straight up 3rd Ave. and around Crotona Park and into an area that I’m not familiar with. Luz had asked where she lives and had gotten the idea that it was toward Southern Blvd. near Tia Maria Barrios and maybe it is. I know how to get to Tia Maria’s house if I’m going up Southern Blvd. but we didn’t get over that far, We might have been close to it but I don’t know exactly where we were. The block, however, was a nice one with brick townhouses and cars parked behind low fences and gates just inside the sidewalk. It looked like Queens actually and I was glad to see that Kristy lived in a place like that. I imagine that they all live in tenements or projects and most probably do but Kristy’s father has a business of some kind and makes money. I remember her telling me back in 9th grade that he had a nice house in Florida with a swimming pool and that she got to spend some time there. I guess that is true. I think she lives here with her mother. Maybe by now Geoff knows more about this than I do.
Geoff walked her to the door carrying the equipment but didn’t see her mother, who (Kristy said) was upstairs in bed, and that was that. I found my way back to 3rd Ave. and went back down the way we’d come up except that I did get onto the highway after crossing the Willis Ave. Bridge. By now it was after ten o’clock, probably almost eleven, but Geoff and I were hungry so we decided to cruise back through Chinatown on our way to the Holland and this is what we did. We found a place on Mott, bought the food and brought it home. So we had dinner at about 11:30 and I was in bed by midnight or so and feeling pretty good because I’d drunk nothing. I was fine the next day in school and saw all of the kids. Everyone made it home okay and everyone made it into school the next day. These kids stay out and up as late as they want to for the most part.
So, good friend, there is the story of our latest gig, the big show, the Threads “Live on the Bowery.” It’s more than two weeks in the past already but still fresh in my mind and I’ve listened to the CD a few times since then. I like listening and think it sounds good. The sound guy came down with it as we were clearing amps off the stage and said it cost $15. I had asked beforehand. I gave him $20 and told him to keep it and he seemed happy with that so maybe that’s more than most do. I know that it’s a lot of struggling musician types that go through there, people for whom $15 is a significant amount and they may not be able to afford an extra five bucks. That seemed to be the case, judging by his reaction, though five bucks didn’t seem like much of a tip to me.
The sound is decent and Kristy is working on the video using it but she also has the sound from the cameras. I don’t know what she has in mind for it as a project. I’d like, of course, a document of the entire show but I don’t know if that is what she is doing. There is only about 25 minutes of actual music but she ought to be making a documentary that lasts no more than 10 or 15 minutes, I think. But then I don’t know what she has in mind. I know that she was really enjoying herself and felt like she was at some sort of Woodstock, which she knows. Geoff just suggested that she come out here and video us as we record the next set of songs and I like that idea, of course. I’ve been pushing for something like that and Michael Acosta seems to have gotten something down during the summer but we still have not been able to remove that tape from that camera. The battery ran down and he doesn’t have a charger for it so I’ve got the camera here now and will take it somewhere to get the tape out and see what’s there. But Kristy will do a relatively professional job of it so that is a better option. Maybe she will do one project for school and another for us that is more complete. I’d even like to see some interview footage of us mixed into it. We’ll see what we can get her to do.
I also found out that Michael did film us with his own little camera doing From Now On, after which he gave up. But he showed me a bit of that on the camera this week and that was when he discovered that there is no sound to go along with it. The external mike he used was either turned off or not working. But that doesn’t matter because I gave him a copy of the CD. It’s actually possible that we could get a three camera video of that one song, which is probably the song that came out the best of the six. At the very least I’m trying to get Michael to do his own editing of his video. Then we would have two different versions of From Now On ….
Note: Kristy never came through with any video of the show at all. The audio did survive, however. From Now On, the opening song, can be found in chapter 566. The final two sings, Nothing That You Do and Love Canal are in chapter 567.