i'm sitting here in mary's apartment looking out the window thinking about what i should be doing since i am in nyc.... i can't really think of anything. i am too lazy to go to a museum or spend money in soho. i'd have to take my bag with my computer, etc as i wouldn't want to trek back here before heading to madison square garden for the pearl jam gig tonight. i don't even know why i'd have to take my computer tho, come to think of it. i don't really do much on this job but make sure that the band is getting on and off stage on time and submitting their guest list. but i know as soon as i leave my shit at home something will come up and i will look like an asshole, unprepared to do my job.
so i'm here, which is not a complaint, it's quite comfortable here. mary is in SF and i have the place to myself. i'm jamming feetwood mac, rumours and thinking about LA. hopper posted another blog about my apt that got me homesick all over again. other people enjoying my apartment is a nice feeling. she's fomenting an exodus of girls from the midwest to east la. that's fine with me. more opportunity for true straight talk. it's a nice counterpoint to the beating around the bush, hang loose free-wheelin conversation style of the west coast.
i'm also thinking about the big pj show last night at MSG. first you should know that in most arenas, the floor is below the street level. but since penn station sits below MSG, the floor is up 4 levels from the street. i didn't really think about this until about 3 songs into pj's show last night and i thought that nyc was experiencing an earthquake. just like in tokyo 5 months ago, the concrete floor was moving up and down. you could see the couch moving. i moved out into the corridor leading to the stage and it got progressively more intense. enough so that i really, honestly felt sea sick. all i could picture in my head were the rebars in the concrete below and how this was actually happening without a giant sinkhole forming once the band played the opening licks of even flow. we were talking about how surreal it is to walk out on the floor of these arena shows. it's totally controlled chaos. you can easily move from one side of this pretty big structure to the other through a crowd of 18000 people because everyone is obeying the lines on the floor marking their sections. but as you walk by there are dudes pumping fists and screaming but it kind of looks like that one scene in superman 3 (or is it 2) where those dudes that had been exiled from krypton were floating through space in their prison made of like apiece of glass or something? it's just their screaming faces.... it feels like that, except last night it was drunk new yorkers (?). which begs another question... where do these people come from??? i mean not to diss too hard on pearl jam (who by the way have some pretty alright faster jams) but let's be honest... it's not like they are the bastion of coolness. and i guess there is still part of me, inexplicably, that is the same as the 18 year old me that showed up in nyc and was surprised to see people wearing button down shirts and dockers. my naive idea of it then was all downtown '81 , ramone's punk rock and photos of straight edge matinee's at cb's circa 1988. so, when 40,000 ny'ers show up for a pearl jam show my knee jerk reaction is "really?" what the fuck. but really, as we all know this place can be just as uncool as lexington, ky. but anyways... these people would have been psyched if the building collapsed in on them as ed ved was singing "i'm still alive".
i made my way back to the holding pen of union stage hands. the ones who's contract states the stage must be dark from 6 pm - 7 pm and by dark they mean you can NOT even go on it to grab a roll of tape or put a bottle of water down. oh nyc and the unions. you make it tough to be pro labor. so many guys working and yet everything was so behind schedule yesterday. pj actually paid the union the extra fee so that the stage would not go dark and the pharmacists could get a 15 minute sound check. larry's giant case of guitars did not actually make it on the stage until 4 pm. normally they are up there by 1 pm or so. but still, there were tons of dudes milling around smoking cigs and talking in funny accents. they were nice at least. just not gonna do more than they have to unless it means giving me the hard sell on an embroidered Local 1 windbreaker.
i think when i get bored today i am gonna show them this, just to test their funny bone.
I give....what does SF mean, Manhattan-wise. Looked it up and came up with Square Foot and Style Forum...couldn't find a district with the intials SF. So PJ has lost its credibility now that it can draw crowds???
Posted by: Gloria | June 26, 2008 at 06:02 AM
Never mind...I just re-read this and realized Mary is currently in SF...her apt. isn't in SF. My bad.
Posted by: Gloria | June 26, 2008 at 06:05 AM
mom. Even you should know that PJ never had any credibility. as a mattaer of fact they probably have more now then ever.
Posted by: ds | June 26, 2008 at 06:55 AM