Before Enlightenment, Chop Wood, Carry Water:
After Enlightenment, Chop Wood, Carry Water

Firstly, allow me to apologize to my long-suffering proponents, and to Dean, David, and Sarah, for ceasing to show up in e-print last month. You will soon see why this was so, and get ready for a double dose: you're about to take a dip in a self-indulgent swerve, and learn what it's like to be me for one month. It all started somewhere around the dread Tenth of last month, when I realized that things were almost too hectic to process and convey. So, I figured I'd wait, and in a true Zen style, I'd give some attention to each day I spent in April (other than just 4/8). I decided to live the month as if it were my very last, scribbling down the barest of details on my calendar from day to day, to reassemble it later, for my enjoyment, and hopefully yours.

Secondly, before I begin, allow me to address the pressing question, "Why do you think anyone should care about this?" Straight off, I don't. But I'm aiming to live a life of art, like it *were* an art, and more specifically, upholding a brand of "life improv" that I've unfurled in this column for damn near two years. This crazy, across-the-planet insanity is nothing more than life poetry...I recall this now, quietly ensconced in the Wetlands eco-office, the strains of some hip-hop word mastery, flowin' from above.

Not much to do now but pour yourself a nice one, sit back, and swim in these Size Nine and a Half shoes...for this is my life, and it keeps getting weirder.

Saturday, April 1st, 2000: The Machine @ Wetlands.

"The Lunatic Is on the grass..."

...was not all we heard from The Fool this day.

The second of a two-night farewell stand by the Upstate, NY, Pink Floyd tribute band, I didn't work that night, but I did hang around looking ethereal. Jake Szufnarowski, my friend and intrepid talent buyer of the club, asked me if I wanted to come out and dance to some trashy rock 'n' roll. Thrilled to do so, we prepared to depart, but not before a random conversation ensued with some completely unknown (yet benevolent-enough-lookin') guy at Wetlands. He sprinkled a handful of some kind of magical substance into my hand, and suggested I eat it.

Myself and Jakey Trash Rock soon clambered into a cab and shot out to Chelsea. Entering through a real green door, we shook our rumps to the ground at the semi-infamous punk party, The Green Door, along with Jake's roommate, Mike (aka DJ Stitch) who was also in residence. Punk rock, cheap beer, rock sweat and tight leather soon gave way to a bizarre swimming giddiness inside my eyes, and soon, I was right back where I began.

Tie-dyes and the slow, mournful head-banging of legions of soon-to-be-bummed Machine-heads consumed me incalculably, as we made our way back to the sold-out Wetlands, to catch the last portion of the band's final set. We whooped and wailed to a stellar "Run Like Hell," exchanging unhinged grins..."Mmm, almost like the Biscuits," Jake and I mused sadly, mutually.

Later, the band broke down, and soon the stage was empty. Like Tarot Card Number Zero, The Fool gambles and gambols, off the cliff of rules and reason, into the zones of 1's and 2's, the nothing from which all comes.

Sunday, April 2nd, 2000.

I slept in. Heavily. (It gets better than this, really: keep reading.)

Monday, April 3rd, 2000: Immortal, Krisun and Satyricon @ Weltands.

Death Metal is still alive, and so are Angel Corpse (ironically).

Three stronghold favorites of the black death gloom sludge hoarse-voiced wailing community, played Wetlands this dark, chilly eve. Sometimes known as "Death Metal," this music and its aficionados are notoriously bleak, even bleaker than their erstwhile "Goth" counterparts, who at least self-contentedly and narcisistically adore their own melancholy, rather than drift magnetically towards constant visualizations of death, blood, pestilence, and carnage...always. For fun, and for profit.

Speaking of which, I worked that night. I wore my hair down, so I could headbang and look legit, if I had to. I wore a maroon shirt, not because I thought it mimicked the blood of a slaughtered virgin sacrifice, but because it was clean, and warm. I used to really like Death Metal, as a churlish, alienated Long Island teenager. I had a crush on a guy named Greg, the bassist for a local Death Metal band called Cold Steel. He, in 1991, gave me my first bass guitar lesson, but I learned next to nothing, losing myself completely in the curves of his long, satiny metal-hair. Almost 10 years my senior at the time, I consoled myself with the dulcet tones of Napalm Death, after he left my bedroom to hang with my big brother, and others of their friends.

That night, one of the bands, Angel Corpse, got in a car accident. To my knowledge, they didn't die. All things being equal, myself and other Wetlands door-staff joshed gaily about the morbid ramifications of such a thing as a band called Angel Corpse getting in an accident, on the way to the big Death Metal show.

Tuesday, April 4th, 2000: Pork Tornado and The Ex-Husbands @ Wetlands.

When I shook Jon Fishman's hand, it was like sticking my hand through clear glass, and into a cosmos-sized aquarium. Bathed in a strange, semi-electric tingle, I realized that sometimes it seems like particular people really are weird, and special. Erica Lynn Gruenberg by my side, we ran hastily out of the backstage room, as her good buddy Fish kicked us out, to conduct an interview (with the journalistic type in dark-rimmed specs and a North Face windbreaker, hovering anxiously nearby). Later, she'd sit in with Pork Tornado, Fishman's extremely bizarre side-band, on the band's rendition of the disco staple, "Jungle Boogie," and chided me for completely ignoring the interviewer in the process of meeting one of my heroes. What can I say? Journalists give me the creeps.

That night, as I wasn't working, I drank a lot. Sometimes, this happens. The Ex-Husbands, an incredibly on-point and liver-endangering country rock trio from New York (and everywhere else), played the Wetlands lounge that night. It was the birthday of my perennial pal, Nile (singly responsible for introducing me to not only Phish, but reviving my interest in, of all things, Judas Priest). As I drank, and sent e-mails to folks with Erica, exchanged quickly drunkening glances with Jake, and awaited Pork Tornado (whom I'd never seen), Nile walked into the lounge with his neighborhood friend, Adam, who happens to be a full 6'7" tall, and an employee for the same brokerage firm that bilked Trey Anastasio and Phish out of millions of dollars in personal funds. Peering up at Adam as he shrugged ("It wasn't my fault!" he blurted), I felt drunk with dichotomy. Soon, Pork Tornado took the stage, and I thought...what the hell's going on? Postmodernism defined, Pork Tornado stole my mind.

Wednesday, April 5th, 2000: Original P @ Wetlands.

Something about ex-members of Parliament Funkadelic makes them travel in large groups. The Wetlands stage riser suffered near collapse this night, as there were almost 15 old-school funksters, clad mostly in purple satin and other sequined finery, hopping all over the stage for a night full o' funk. My funk extended to a beer or two, after I crept out of the booth after another door shift watching many faces go by.

Thursday, April 6th, 2000: Dash Rip Rock, The Ex-Husbands, and Steakhouse @ Wetlands.

You may be asking by this point, why do I spend so much time at Wetlands?

I work there, and hence, it's free to get in. Also, it's a magical place, where sometimes, elixirs flow from the dayglow corridor walls, and the ancient faces of rock 'n' roll inform me on the intricacies of life, out from layers of concert posters and permanent marker graffiti.

This night, I had the added pleasure of seeing one of Wetlands' own, Scott Long (manager and general roustabout), play and sing in his alt.country band, Steakhouse. But the night soon descended into further liver damage, as The Ex-Husbands, back from their whirlwind, three-night tour of Manhattan, returned to a triumphant main-stage stint at the 'Glands. I perspired, I raged, I slobbered and was refuted, I peered into the darkness inside a few bottles and the vessel of myself. Tongues wagged and tales wrote themselves, on this night, as with any other. The drummer of the high-octane punkabilly group, Dash Rip Rock, definitely seared parts of my occipital lobe. I became further acquainted with my living room floor, and that quaint, charming section of the bathroom, near-ish the toilet. These things and more, hard as it is to believe, cause us to learn, and to grow.

Friday, April 7th, 2000: Maui Project Rehearsal @ Montana Studios, NYC.

About a month prior to 4/7/00, I'd taken a ride Uptown with Marc Brownstein, Jake and The Disco Biscuits' lighting engineer, Matt Iarrobino. We were off to Jake's house to run an errand, and there, as I stood idly in the living room, I boredly sang Guns 'n' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" as the two dudes conducted business. Brownstein wheeled around, and pressed, "What's that yer singing?!" in his characteristically buoyant and gravely tone.

"Uhhhh, Guns 'n' Roses?" I answered.

"Jeez, that's some register! I didn't know you could sing that high!" he wondered.

Jake grinned, totally responsible for G'n'R being on the hi-fi in the first place. Already noticeably relishing his making of history, he watched on as I turned a lighter shade of dark, and Brownstein offered me a singing position with his new musical experiment, The Maui Project.

Weeks later, I wandered around the bleak and puzzling far reaches of the West Side of Manhattan, trying to find a certain Montana Studios, where Brownstein'd left a message for me to be on this particular evening. The event? Maui Project Rehearsal. Perplexed, I finally found the building, and took the elevator to the point where the doors opened, revealing an assortment of Friends and other lunatics.

Jamie Shields of the NEW DEAL, the perennial Jake, and one Maxwell Dawson (of "B'GOCK!" and Disco Biscuits PLAN C fame, in all the way from Portland, OR) lounged on couches in a gold-record-strewn living room sort of place. Montana Studios. I thought of Frank Zappa, and how music is the best. I wondered, like I do frequently, how I'd gotten there, and what was happening. I gave greetings to my unlikely pals, and we served ourselves Budweisers out of a vending machine with a blank button specially designed for such use.

In the studio itself, the whip cracked benevolently. A masterfully self-possessed and crisply efficient Brownstein led the players through their first full-band rehearsal (including the far-off Canadian keyboardist). But then, Marc said it was my turn. I ambled up on the riser, with Dave Hoffman, Jamie, Marc, Paul Herron (the young, afro-headed Bisco-kid on the bongos, what a guy), Uncle Sammy's Max Delaney, and DJ Stitch (there's Mike again). I took hold of the mic as Jake, my buddy and Biscuits taper/music lover supreme, "Tom C." Levine, Brown's beau, Debbie, and a few others, watched on from a cozy yet distant-seeming dimness. About twenty minutes later, trembling and sweating slightly, I crept off the riser and towards the same friends (including our own Antonio J. Oliveira, who'd just come in from Boston), who smiled at me radiantly, and congratulated me. I felt, for the first time in a while, that despite whatever, I was in the midst of family, and oh my goodness, was my voice was ever finally being heard! I watched the rest of the rehearsal in awe and honor of my new friend, who had managed to pull together some grand magic from a bit of loss.

Saturday, April 8th, 2000: MAUI DAY - The Maui Project @ Wetlands.

"Never had a home like this
And the prophet said
'Be careful what you wish'
Never had to think twice
Always knew my home was in Paradise"

(from Marc Brownstein's "The Maui Project")

A few minutes after the stroke of Midnight, I began capering about the studio yelling, "Where's the birthday boy!? Where's the birthday boy!?"

Like clockwork, a flushed and absolutely brilliantly boyish Brownstein came leaping around the corner, chanting maniacally, "MAUI DAY! MAUI DAY! MAUI DAY!" Not for nothing, Brownstein planned his initial stage outing, post-The Disco Biscuits, on a day that could only bring good fortune and cheer: his 27th birthday. Some might say that's a little too easy, but THE MAUI PROJECT was, is, and will forever be about celebration, and re-birth. And so it was.

About fifteen hours later, Max, Tony and I strolled in the gorgeous 70-degree breezes, towards the Wetlands, Hawaiian shirts and festive garb fully-donned. We spotted more familiar-seeming, Hawaiian shirt-clad folks milling around a sport-utility vehicle, and moved in for a closer look. Brownstein and Jon Lesser, the joyously deadpan sound man for The Disco Biscuits (and that night, the Maui Project) held up Hawaiian shirts on hangers, comparing and contrasting, and generally discussing.

Since we'd seen him not hours ago, we re-greeted Brown casually, and again wished happy birthday, commenting on the idyllic weather conditions. According to Brownstein, though, all was not Paradise on the road home the previous night: he nearly got hit on the head with a flying Mercedes Benz, as a car thief drove recklessly, shredding a guard rail, and tossing the car through the air, narrowly missing the jolly birthday boy's car by inches. We all stared on in disbelief, and Brownstein's deep blue eyes twinkled, with a kind of unafraid, Buddhistic omniscience.

The song I would sing that night was the Beastie Boy's "Gratitude," from their 1992 release, "Check Your Head." It's a song whose lyrics I'd always admired, and which seemed altogether too apt to describe not only Brownstein's near brush with destiny, but also the past few months of his life entirely:

Gratitude (Beastie Boys/Cushman)

Good Times Gone, And You Missed Them
What's Gone Wrong In Your System?
Things They Bounce, Like A Spalding
What'd You Think? Did You Miss Your Calling?
It's So Free, This Kind Of Feeling
It's Like Life - It's So Appealing
When You've Got So Much To Say,
It's Called Gratitude, And That's Right.

Good Times Gone, But You Feed It
Hate's Grown Strong...You Feel You Need It
Just One Thing: Do You Know You?
What You Think That The World Owes You?
What's Gonna Set You Free?
Look Inside And You'll See
When You've Got So Much To Say,
It's Called Gratitude, And That's Right.

People cheered. I danced onstage after I was done. I didn't know what else to do, as the Jack screamed through me, and I was suffused with new life. Brownstein had introduced me as "resident punk rock hero," a title I could never have pinned on myself. What followed seemed only fitting to such an idyllic day...two remaining members of The Disco Biscuits (Jon Gutwillig, guitar; and Aron Magner, keys) took the stage from the audience, to play through a tune and a few jams with their old friend. Surrounded by yet more extended family, who did everything from stare agape to embrace tearfully, I watched from the crowd and thought, "If there were any time for a Mercedes to hit me on the head...this would really be it." And I'll bet Marc Brownstein must've been thinking something at least similar.

Sunday, April 9th, 2000

I was dropped home by Brownstein, whom I was altogether too glad to act in roadie capacity for, when all the Maui Projecters had crept off into an unbelievably horrid, snowy new day. We puffed, and relaxed a bit, and I went home, and slept very peacefully.

Monday, April 10, 2000: moe. @ "L" CD release party, Wetlands.

From new Happy Hour Heroes to old friends indeed, I moseyed into Wetlands for a bit of moe., which I hadn't in a while. In stellar form, the band unleashed a second-set rendition of their own rock opera, "Timmy" (based around the tune "Timmy Tucker"). The sequence hadn't been performed since 2/18/95, when my lust for moe. was boiling into its infancy. Time passes, and I watched fondly as scions of my past re-emerged in the future, to confound me with the passage of time. I'd seen them first on that stage, and no one could have told me that I myself would have such an honor. Brownstein himself peeked in for a moment, and like a colorful fish, darted, and was soon gone from the DJ booth. Rich and full in tone and arrangement, moe.'s three sets sailed by my eyes like a huge, rugged schooner, outlining the silhouette of a sea of me, in the darkness of 161 Hudson Street, like the first time I'd seen them, nearly six years ago.

Tuesday, April 11th, 2000: The Deadbeats @ Wetlands.

I worked. I have to eat, too.

Wednesday, April 12, 2000: Kool Keith + MC Paul Barman @ Wetlands.

Old Skool hip hop night went over like charms on this night, leaving the New School a little wobbly.

I met the quixotic, provocative, post-collegiate Jewish NYC rapper, MC Paul Barman, backstage later in the night. It was a rough scene for MC PB: few demos sold, and a stoic audience which damn near booed him from the stage, as he pranced and pontificated over delectable baroque beats and abstract rhythms, his mic cord wrapped around and squeezing his forearm like a Jewish phylactery. He and his friends Andrew and Corrine seemed to like me, as I flopped, unhindered by pride or ego, through the testosterone-stinky air of the post-hip-hop show. I glanced bemusedly at Kool Keith's lanky Caucasian DJ, Cutmaster Kurt, as he sat quietly and unassumingly, recognizable as "The DJ" only by the similitude of his shirt to the guy who was recently onstage behind the 1 and 2's (Cutmaster Kurt wears a lurid, flashy Mexican wrestling mask over his face during shows).

Shaking Kurt's hand, I thought about the divisions, the gulfs that waver between crowd and audience, the distance that separates us, secrets kept and mysteries everlasting, the black and blue of bruises, and the redness of blood. Even later, Old Skool took it's final stand that night...the elusive and mystical-seeming fixture of rebel hip-hop, Professor X, chatted me up and asked about "my instrument." I stared into his large, exotic jade pendant, flustered for a moment. Fascinated, I thought, "My instrument is exhausted," and I soon went home to my empty abode, once again.

Thursday, April 13, 2000: Medeski, Martin and Wood @ Angel Orensanz Foundation, NYC.

Today's moral: pretending to be a journalist has it's privileges.

I called old Brownstein the previous Tuesday, and asked if he wanted my extra ticket to the Medeski, Martin & Wood show. Lucky me...I ended up with a really awesome "Girl's Night Out" instead. Brownstein's hilarious, intelligent and fun-loving gal-pal, Deb, also wanted to see one of the five nights of MMW's acoustic stand in NYC at the dark, gothic Angel Orensanz Foundation, a sprawling, renovated Lower East Side synagogue now used as a concert hall. Brownstein quickly relinquished the ticket for his woman's benefit.

The afternoon of, the pair picked me up from my apartment, and we cruised through a pastel-hued and perfect post-rush-hour evening. Again, like shaking Fishman's hand, I realized how some people have the capacity to spontaneously manifest joy and light in the spaces around them, no matter how vast. The three of us rode through Brooklyn, horsing around and being semi-illegitimate. "I break...you drive!" Deb insisted, as Brown drove altogether too slowly through Prospect Park, otherwise preoccupied. He drove, she rode gun, and I sat sprawled in the backseat, almost too placid, calm and content for my own good.

Over the slate blue matrix of the Manhattan Bridge we rode, my favorite architectuaral jumble of the Lower Manhattan skyline being bored through by intensely bright planks of setting sunlight. I looked at those buildings, sentinels of wealth, and at the scrappy couple gleefully hurtling through space before me, towards the unknown of life, at least, surely in love. I basked accordingly.

Soon, though, Brownstein left for a night with pals, and Deb and I were unleashed into what I hoped wouldn't be awkward silence. Thankfully, we're both too zany for that, and spent a wonderful evening watching MMW get down on some serious all-acoustic, jazz-heavy improvising, which occasionally veered into stations of appropriately avant-jazz meanderings, plinks, plonks and squonks. Later on, I utilized my after-party pass to glean two free wooden nickels, the Sub-Tonic equivalent of drink tickets, at the CD release party up the street.

Oddly bedecked, Sub-Tonic is the basement of TONIC, the smolderingly mellow avant garde jazz club on Norfolk Street. There, Deb and I drank, laughed, talked turkey, and eventually ended up hiding out altogether in a huge wine vat which doubled as a hidey-nook for those ultra-hip conversations. We also ran into Dave Fitzhugh, one of the guitarists from YOLK, who joined us in the mix for a bit of tomfoolery. Chris Wood and John Medeski could be seen frittering about the party, the former peering particularly into the wine vat, with eagle eyes and finely hollowed cheekbones, to see just what the hell was going on in there.

Friday, April 14th, 2000.

Once again, in preparation for a weekend I knew would be almost harder than hardcore, I slept. A lot.

Saturday, April 15th, 2000: The Disco Biscuits @ Recher Theater, Baltimore, MD.

I awoke that Saturday morning with tour plans all laid out. Nothing like waking up on a weekend, and staring into the barrel of a day on the asphalt, huffing exhaust fumes and behaving, for all intents and purposes, like a total fool with a bunch of your friends.

But first, some good-natured hard labor. My longtime tour pal and now well-respected scene denizen, Evan Leon, just moved into his first apartment away from his homeland, the magical and mellifluous suburb of Northport, Long Island (home of such other such specimens as Jesse Jarnow). So, I made my way out to Forest Hills, Queens, past the sprawl of the fields in the Tennis Center there (where Jesse and I had met the aforementioned Max Dawson almost three years prior, at the 1997 Further Festival), and up the misty backroads to Evan's apartment building. There, I encountered Evan's mom, Colleen Stern (his girlfriend, fellow Bisco-addict, and a Towson University student), and Evan himself, looking damp and moving-day frazzled. But, with a little elbow grease and slowly increasing flocks of assistance, any move runs smoothly. Evan, myself, a newly arrived Jake and Bill Stites (another Northporter) were on board, and soon, we were in the car and headed South.

This was to be The Disco Biscuits' second outing as a shape-shifted threesome, and I was pretty excited. Last Fall's Recher show went down in history as an improvisational monster, with songs devouring and recreating each other in fiery denouements and crescendos. This time around, the band showed definition and poise in elaborating on the concept of Bisco Threesome, with keys-man, Aron Magner, deepening the definition of "manual dexterity," holding down both melody and low-end, in a true Medeski style. That night's version of the Biscuits song, "Helicopters" (with Philadelphia's up and coming young electronic music guru, Mauricio Zuniga, on various e-beats) quite literally had me dancing faster and harder than I did in my high school club days (this was just a little *after* the brief forays into Death Metal).

I marveled at the time line in my mind, as I mashed it up to new tunes, like drummer Sam Altman's "Floes"...how did I get from Limelight, to "Lovelight" (a Dead tune moe. used to be fond of covering), to floodlights, the kind which swirl and search, looking out below from up above? I'm still not too sure.

Sunday, April 16th, 2000: More MMW @ Angel Orensanz Foundation.

The next day, after an almost unmanageably large group of people crashed at Colleen's Towson U. suite, a whole crew of us ("Table for 16?!") went down to the local Denny's restaurant, to play out the classic scene of "tour feeding." We were almost thrown out for near-repugnant behavior, myself mostly responsible, being the one who hit Jakey Wetlands squarely in the forearm with a nice, gloppy spitball, from clear across the room. It doesn't get to happen often: Wetlands is usually too dark for that sort of thing.

My pal Bryan Gilstein from the DiscussBiscuits mailing list, had offered me yet another MMW ticket earlier in the week. Thinking it to be a rather nice bracket, a Disco Biscuits sandwich (if you will), I took him up on the offer, and we drove back to NYC with another lister, Cheryl Gower (resident Bisco Canuck). Traffic being a bitch, we missed set one, but crept high into the balcony for a God's eye view of the strings inside Medeski's grand piano. Sauntering, clicking, clacking, squeaking, banging and shuffling, the three walked off the stage while playing their instruments, Medeski puffing into a mouth-organ, Martin assaulting a cheeky little metal bowl with a stick, and Wood hauling wood, slappin' and thumpin' his double-bass with cool confidence. As they disappeared into the wings, the music fading with them, I thought about how lucky I am to love anything as much as I do live music.

Monday, April 17th, 2000.

Free like the wind, we sleep with angels.

Tuesday, April 18th, 2000: Liquid Dead @ Wetlands.

Broke like the Liberty Bell, we toil 'cos we have to.

Wednesday, April 19th, 2000: Passover Seder @ Erica Lynn's in Tarrytown, NY.

Yeah, I'm not Jewish. But I like the concept of religion. I actually prefer the concept of spirituality, which seems less dependent on rule-making and breaking. However, either of them lay down some bricks for change, a little foundation upon which we can build our lives towards some semblance of meaning, happiness, and equality.

On the phone one day, I suggested that Erica, a little "shagged and fagged and fashed out" (in the words of Alex of Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange"), have her own Passover seder. Since I'm not Jewish, but intensely into Judaism for some reason, it would be my first opportunity to sample Jewish ritual. Elated, she agreed: "seder" means "order," and maybe a little re-organizing couldn't help.

I showed up around 9:30PM, and the table was beautifully set. A few of Erica's buddies from SUNY Purchase were there, all women. Our all-girl seder got rolling with the hilariously abstract oratory of our hostess, who fussed over matzot and read from her stolen Haggadah (the ritual manual for Passover) like the best Y2Jewess.

When it came time to explain the Prophet Elijah (for whom we wait at Passover, as he is the symbol of the coming time of Peace), we noticed a Hawaiian shirt draped over the La-Z-Boy which had been prepared for the Prophet. The Seder swerved into less-than-pious and semi-illegal zones, and the Hawaiian shirt symbolized that yea, verily, Marc Brownstein is to us as the Prophet was to the Israelites: some sign of moving on, and passing over, heavy like that shankbone, and blue as the sky.

Thursday, April 20th, 2000: The Cannibis Cup All-Star Band @ Wetlands.

While I think it's unfortunate that the shootings at Columbine High School occurred on the Date Previously Known As Smoke-It-Up Day, I don't think that 4/20 should ever come to symbolize something terrible. I mean, there are so many meanings to 420 by now, I can't hardly count them all. But it's only a number. Really.

Anyway, again, I worked. Down in the coat check, it's easier to hear the music, but still pretty hard to see what's up. Much later, as I searched the main stage floor for ground-score (call it boredom), I met a cool guy named Fred. He and I chatted about politics backstage with the reggae-revolutionary, Rocker T. By the crack of dawn, I got a quick ride home, and was grateful to sleep like a rock, as the sun began to climb into the sky.

Friday, April 21st, 2000: What should've been The Disco Biscuits @ Middle East, Boston, MA, ended up being My Buddy Greg's House Party, Kensington Brooklyn.

Sometimes things just don't work out. "Nothing before its time," my father always says. I didn't have the best intentions of attending the two Biscuits shows that weekend; one was at the sort of unappealing venue, the Middle East in Boston, and the second was supposed to be an outdoor festival at Keene College in New Hampshire. Things got off on the wrong foot, and never got right.

Oh, who am I kidding? Because life is often cruel, intractable, stubborn, sheer, problematic, worrisome, and vague, I stared out the window a while, and crept back into bed. Later, I spent the evening with the group of friends who know nothing of driving five hours to see shows, talking tech about Mitsuis and Maxells, and reveling in the bland, exhilarating insanity of tour travel. These are the intellectuals, computer programmers, comic artists, and dramatist-poets, the ones who publish books and craft careers. They speak of Marxism, publish novels, interpret film; they roll cigarettes, puffing tough and delicately through life, and I love them dearly.

Saturday, April 22nd, 2000: Uncle Sammy @ Wetlands.

The next morning, I was bummed to hear that my friend Bill Stites played his turn with The Disco Biscuits, performing two songs with the band, onstage in Boston. For that I was deeply sad. Resigned, I muddled through the day with strains of regret. Fred told me this day that he'd spent a long day reading my past Jambands.com columns. This wigged me out a little, but I was flattered. He brought me an exotic plant, for which I was grateful. It cheered me up, and is growing in a symbolic nod to life's perpetual continuation.

Later that night, Uncle Sammy, fresh from an opening set for The Disco Biscuits the night before in their native Boston, hit the Wetlands main stage. It's hard to explain Uncle Sammy's charm. Is it their relaxed, youthful glow? Is it their wholesome, full-on open-season jam-capacity? Is it songwriting that borders on the mystical, but tends more towards the wizardly gnome than the amulet-swinging New Age guru? It's all these things and more, bassist Brian O'Connell's mirrored instrument and Max's eyes rolling around aimlessly entranced, Beau Sasser's casual and self-assured ivory mashing, and drummer Tom Arey's supersolid deadpan beat-banging. For all I'd missed in lands far away, I had never felt more glad to be home.

Sunday, April 23rd, 2000: Phil and Friends @ Beacon Theater.

Another in a string of last-nights of long-stands, I caught this final installment of the week-long marathon of shows that ex-Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh had been mounting in NYC. Not a lifelong Dead-freak, I decided to take the show into myself as an experiment in breaking boundaries of perception. As the lights dimmed, I found myself dissolving like a cube of sugar on a giant, moist tongue, swirls of sound and the elemental energy of a roomful of hungry fans soaking up each ray of color, each deep bass articulation, each ruffle of skirt of each dancing, sweating mama nearby. Greeted even by familiar faces in the lobby, we delve with feelings of safety into the heat of ritual, the passage of time, love for our habits and songs and fellow humans, the barometric pressure of cities on soft bodies, and the sound of trees shaking dulled by car horns...all these things came clear this night, all in the space of a few hours of square sweetness.

Monday, April 25th, 2000: German Cars vs. American Homes @ "Seize the Night," EL FLAMINGO, NYC.

"What the hell is this?" you're asking. After a million lines of almost drug-induced-seeming hazy reminiscences, what am I subjecting you to now, and will you have to sit through five more days? Luckily, no. In this story, the month last 26 days, and this is the second to last one.

On this night, I revisited recent history, joining members of my old band, the ska-funk-punk-Merseybeat-disco-classical combo, German Cars vs. American homes. "Seize the Night" (emblazoned in a hilarious "Young Ones" kind of way in orange neon over a mirrored stage) was an uncanny evening of too much booze, just enough boogie, and fear of falling anvils. For any struggling bands out there, Japanese TV is the way to go: the GCvAH boys got hooked up with a gig which offers not only exposure on Nippon television, but $600 cash, catch-free, even if you lose the competition against the other bands (or the Double Dutch crew!). Also, there was a smokin' girl DJ, free admission and an open bar! Nothing like giving props to your roots. Bottoms up!

(and finally)

Tuesday, April 26th, 2000: Tiberius and Rock 'n' Aroke @ Wetlands.

I chose to end my month-long traversal on this day, because quite literally, of all the days I've reviewed, this one is probably most emblematic of what life will be like, and what I like it to be.

During the day, I had a job interview in a peaceful West Side psychotherapist's office. I just got a call yesterday: they want me to be their web designer. I like to live wild, but to be helpful, and break through the illusions. Not a bad step right here.

Later in the evening, I moseyed along to Wetlands, where, again, I'd nest in the booth, staring idly into my future as it awaited my return home. From outside, I heard perennial favorites, Tiberius, doing an all-originals set, which would later transform into Jake's daring creation, Rock 'n' Aroke, a Wetlands karaoke set. Although the initial results were mildly questionable, with some work, I think Rock 'n' Aroke could be a big winner in the future. Rodney, Wetlands stoic, yet consummately rockin', late-night maintenance technician, tore a swath of fire through the Hendrix classic, "Hey Joe." I cheered brazenly and hastily through the front door, one foot holding the portal open, and one eye guarding the bank.

Within a few hours, I was out of the cage, and proceeded to party on with the Wetlands regulars, and good old Jake, who, at 2:00 AM, still jogged and puttered around the club from pillar to post, tending to the workings of his beloved sonic temple. We minced over the lyrics to Guns 'n' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine," listened to more admirable yet laughable karaoke outings, then sidled easily next door with a bunch of Weltanders for a post-nightcap at The North River Bar, right next door. One day ends, another begins, and so on into beginning-less time. Like the eight ball in the corner pocket, it ends the game, but with a few coins dropped like too much luck from the sky, the spheres rearrange themselves yet again.

Incidentally, the calendar with which I marked my days is a souvenir from Aliyan's Middle Eastern Cuisine, where I spent my Last Supper of the 20th century, having a falaffel with Bill Stites himself, before going in to see The Disco Biscuits' last show with Marc Brownstein. Who between us could imagine, after that amazing conflagration of sound in Philadelphia's Theater of the Living Arts, that we would both end up living out our dreams with one of our favorite bands? Before I go, if I may, let me remind you that the boxes on calendars are still left mostly empty for a reason.

In the box for that 26th day of April on my calendar, the last recorded day on my long journey of the mind, I jotted a few words about life:

"Worked, partied, pool sharked...won the right game, and snuggled with the cosmos."

And if that ain't livin', then I'm really not sure what is.