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The Sights and The
Sounds
Wake up to the sounds of Johnny Cash singing The Beast In Me on your
Zumbidor. Get up and drink a quart
of water because you know you don’t drink enough of it. Check The Weather Channel. Jump into your gas station attendant
clothing, grab your headphones and go to the gym. You don’t want to go but you know that if you don’t do it
now, you won’t do it at all. As
you leave your apartment, greet the children across the hall with their mother,
the super who’s mopping the halls and stairwells and the grandma in the window
of the ground floor apartment --- in Spanish, of course. Make a right and head
for Riverside Drive. Pass a
crackhead or two and be sure to say “Buenas.” You know they will. They’re
always so polite to you.
It’s about a 10 minute walk to the gym inside Riverbank
State Park. It’s sunny and it
feels like San Francisco outside.
You don’t like that chilly breeze.
Something has to get you going.
You crank The Circle Jerks, Fugazi, The Sex Pistols/God Save The Queen,
The Buzzcocks/What Do I Get? And then you remember that Rancid is coming to
CBGB’s soon, that Reverend Horton Heat is coming even sooner than that. You love those bands. You must get tickets.
You get to the gym.
You’re listening to Manu Chao.
It’s relatively empty. Lots
of older Latino men, a few black girls here and there. The Dominican guy at the front who
monitors the room touches his heart and points at you and then he sticks
out his tongue at you and makes a
face. You do the exact same thing to
him. He loves it. You love it too
and you don’t know why.
You make it through your weightlifting routine with Manu
Negra and then you pull out Fatboy Slim to get you through an intense 30
minutes on that treadmill. When
you’re done, you’re dripping with sweat.
On your way out, shove your Dominican monitor buddy off of his chair as
he’s talking to someone else. He
almost falls off and shakes his fist at you, pretending to be mad.
The Replacements/A Little Mascara gets you out the building
and up the street because you like it so much, you play it three times. Chris Whitley/Automatic Love is
what gets you into your apartment. With any luck, it’s only around 9am.
You don’t eat anything until after 12 noon. You pop early
Everything But The Girl into your jambox, and jump in the shower. You exfoliate with your favorite scrub
cream, that sudsy stuff from Aveda. Of course the phone rings several times
while you’re in there. Good thing
you put the cordless on the toilet.
Once you’re out and smelling “fresher than thou”, you jump
on the internet and do business---returning e-mails, synching your Palm, making
phone calls, confirming audition appointments and “go-sees” and checking in
with your manager. You call
your parents. They’re not
home. Your manager has sides for
you: two movies, a musical and an industrial. All of that Everything But The Girl reminds you of when you
scooped ice cream for a living in Austin back in the day, so you play
XTC/Skylarking for old time’s sake.
You make yourself a protein shake to go and head up Riverside Drive by
bus to your manager’s place. You
forgot to charge your cellphone.
You plug it in as you head out the door. As you leave, you are listening to Derek and the
Dominoes/Layla, the deluxe reissue.
You have three auditions this afternoon. Mentally you are packing your rolling zipfront suitcase
while you are on the bus. While
you’re out, you run errands. You
listen to the soundtrack of I am Sam and wonder why Paul Westerberg can’t get
it together. You’re genuinely
surprised at how much you love Rufus Wainwright’s voice. Enough Beatles. You start start thinking about Rancid
again, so you switch to The Cramps/You Got Good Taste. Some hip-looking black guy stops you at
the bank and asks you what you’re listening to, because “it looks like you’re
really enjoying it.” You think
about making something up, but you don’t.
When you tell him, he makes a weird face. You don’t give him a chance to ask why, so he leaves you
alone. A word floats above his
head as he walks away: YUTZ.
When you get back, you warm up your voice, sip green tea,
run lines and make more phone calls, pack your bag, pack your purse, put on a
slight amount of make-up, dress up and get out. While you’re running around, you’re listening to Soundgarden,
Rage Against The Machine, AC/DC to keep yourself going. You don’t get back until around
7pm. When you do, you’re
absolutely ravenous. Your cool
neighbors Paul & Chad made lasagna and bring some over for you. You toss yourself a salad, throw the
lasagna in the oven and listen to Charlie Christian’s box set while you read
the paper and answer/make phone calls.
Here are your options: Do
you a. go to some open bar industry party, filled with bony models, chatty
stylists/promoters and people who call themselves actors; b. go to see a cool
band all the way in the lower east side, virtually a million miles from where
you are now; c. eat dinner in your underwear and bunny slippers with your feet
up and then take a nice long hot bath?
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