Jess was magic. First of all, I need to provide you with details before I tell you about my first impression of her. She was white real white probably not naturally blonde but certainly fair and freckled and fine and so skinny but healthy appetite skinny not an eating disorder waiting to happen. She was born to rock and roll she walked with a flow that you knew immediately she was holding a guitar onstage and bending over in a male like strut pose of course Yana hated that I described her this way and considered it sexist and said that ‘we are not girly bands’ but we can get to the iconography later.

Jess was that type of self created and recreated contemporary woman who re invented herself every day. Not once in all the times I sat there staring at her undressing her imagining my finger running across the tattoos on the shoulders not once did she look the same. She had had every conceivable underwear item worn as over wear and parts of her body unclothed haphazardly even in the dead of winter and yet she was not sexy in that burlesque way – her vibe was a mama – she offered you comfort as though she was my big fat BUBBE – just so kind and so much unconditional love.

It got very physical with Jess very quickly even though it was not at all sexual. To hug her was a near death experience as she squeezed in tight and wanted you to sense just how well worked out and skinny yet muscular she was. She was showing off…she sought perfection and she got it. As she walked back and forth up the bar, my own bobbing mesmerized eyes would intersect with those of every other man. You felt for sure – a hunch – that she was so used to this that it had been true since she was very little. That she probably had had trouble keeping a boyfriend because she just wanted attention all the time.

Now my first impression of her came about in the way we met and how much my ego was massaged. This was not her intention but that was less relevant than the way in which I envisioned her. It was meeting Ian her boss and the alleged proprietor of Sky Town that led to this. The place itself was totally reminiscent of a Western Saloon and it seemed like a conscious move. Style was everything in Hipsterville and hence, the choice of Wyoming woods but perhaps it was simply the way everyone stopped to watch you walk in as you came through the centrally located front door.

“New in town?’’ is what you expected. It was an early Sunday evening, probably four pm something but already getting depressingly dark – being early February the cold and dead of winter. I had some time to kill before going over to The Barn for one of Lucas and Angie’s dinner parties. You see clearly the Pavlovian pattern of my behavior. So I have been meaning to check out Skytown for some time…I had seen a few women in there just quickly glancing who completely came out of a fantasy comic book. Of course, when I walked in there were just a few gents at the bar – it was too early for a crowd.

This probably enhanced the Saloon scenario. Consequently, my vision switched into Black and White. I heard a tack piano playing – a very white man with some indistinctive facial hair made heavy eye contact. “What can I get you man?’’ “What kind of beer do you have on tap?’’ “Beer…” he said…

“Wait a minute!’’ “Who are you man?’’ “Excuse me…” I always responded excuse me, I had learned that as a waiter – it almost always ended any tension and potential violence with strangers: no matter how annoyed a guest was at the restaurant, when they ranted, you just would pause and say: “excuse me’’

“Excuse me!’’ Ian as I would later find out repeated what I said a couple of times then repeated:

“Who are you man?’’ “What do you mean?’’ ‘’What do I mean…” this was turning into Bad Mamet fast so I started thinking about the guys in the kitchen on my right. “You are somebody man! I know you”

“What do you mean…my name is Howie, that’s all’’ “No no…a guy like you…just walking in here asking for a drink?! You are checking this place out. You are snooping around…you have a business nearby?”

Now it was really the saloon scenario. In my mind’s eye, every guy in the place knew this Ian and they leaned forward waiting for me to make a move. They had their hands on their smartphones ready just as though they were clutching their holsters. If this isn’t visual enough for you, put this book down!

“Yeah…” I said and paused, being sure to pick my phone up and stare at it for a few counts just to show the boys that I was not reacting. “I am checking you out…so what?!’’ “You’re that music guy, right?”

I wanted to say something very Walter Brennan here. You know like “Maybe I am and maybe I ain’t”

I had to figure out how to get the word ‘reckon’ in on this guy…like ‘” I reckon you might say I’m in the music business, but folks I came up with round here, we much prefer you call it ‘entertainment.’

But I just smiled and did not say anything so that the ears of the surrounding participants came closer.

“You like whiskey?” Ian asked. Now we were really in a saloon man, I can’t make this shit up!

“Sure…” I muttered quietly so that I did not seem hungry for a drink. Ian turned around and pulled up a bottle of some unknown quantity of the type of low quality American Whiskey that hipsters had brought back from the dead like Jesus with Lazarus in a cave I mean this is shit that should have been left to die by the side of Interstate 95 tossed from a racing Camaro but no, it was hip it was like PBR it was ‘shooting’ now or ‘sipping’ the Midwesterners and the near Southerners had integrated their culture into Brooklyn this was blasphemy as far as I was concerned I guess I have to do a whole appendix about drinking protocols along with childhood memory references later but I know you dear reader are only sitting through this to get to Jessica’s grand entrance and Oh my God was this grand. After all, Alexis the first had set a new bar for arousal and it certainly seemed unstoppable until the very next night when Samantha the Second beat it hands down and we are soon going to hear about Lisa and all that so…

“It’s on me!’’ He pulled up a shot glass and poured a shot. I took it down real fast knowing he would follow with another. “I get this free from my MOM it is pretty shitty stuff. Excuse me…”

Suddenly, the door blew open and the wind blew in. It was what you would appropriately call ‘new bies’

 

Girls who had just moved into the neighborhood or maybe they were just subletting that is test marketing they looked a bit more sophisticated then bridge and tunnel types but still so wet behind the ears metaphorically virgins for lack of a better word not that we were going to drop everything and test them you dig? “you like whiskey?’’ Ian asked them…the aforementioned all male crew lowered their pistols and stared at their barely covered butts that is their behinds…with the sneakers even designed to pump up that particular volume…yes, technology had come a long way from Marie Antoinette.

“Sure” they sounded as cute as they looked of course…they were perpetually giggling these type of girls.

Sure, they were over twenty one but they might as well have been twelve as far as survival skills. Ian poured them both shots and as he asked for the precise sum, he winked at me – to shut the fuck up!

“Top shelf stuff…from my mother’s still!’’ he had visualized a Tennessee thing while I was still somewhere out in Kansas, probably near Tombstone. Maybe not that far off…he shifted back to me while the rest of the crowd started queuing up to make the young ladies’ acquaintances in a right respectful manner.

“What’s your name man?” “Howie…I’m Howie!’’ “So you opening that club across the street right?”

“yes, that’s pretty much it…’’ “well…then you need to meet Jess!’’

“JESS?” I said…”Yeah, Jess…”

He turned towards the front though no one in particular was there now, the young newbies had had a small semi circle of the boys formed around them. All looked quite elated from the corner of my eye.

“JESS!!! GET OVER HERE!’’

The room appeared to fill with smoke – not smoke like in the Western Movie set, smoke like dry ice smoke at the finest Pryo Arena Rock Concert! Smoke like on the cover of Kiss’ Greatest Hits…smoke used for a quick costume change so the talent does not have to leave the stage. I bet Taylor Swift is using this now but I really don’t want to know. I rather sit through Demi Lovato at sixteen opening for the Jonas Brothers at Hershey Park Stadium then be in a room with Taylor Swift. Actually, I’ll take Paramore over any other girl singer in the business right now, glad they’re on a comeback tour when I am writing this, you dear reader may have to ask your parents about these acts by the time this book gets published cause I will have joined Walter Brennan by then. SO back to the movie big mouth, the room is smoking – safe cool smoke – no inhaling please – the smoke clears – we crawl forward following the floor, the two newbies, the semi circle of boys, they are joined at the sneakers all tilting towards the door…the shoes are heels lace ups with the front of the foot naked, there’s multi colored polish on the toes nothing matches we pan up slowly following some very narrow ankles, stop momentarily but not long enough for the viewer to see the stop to catch the Barbara Stanwyck ankle bracelet is it thrift shop move up that leg…oh my god…two legs…past the knees up these thighs…skinny but firm muscled dripping with sweat straight out of Olivia Newton John when is the skirt going to come whoops there it is is it transparent am I imagining the legs continue does this woman even have a waist is she all legs?

“Hi…I’m Jess!’’ I have been mesmerized way too long…I do not have a hard on I am gagging with a strange freeze up much like when you pass a huge mountain in Switzerland on the train. This happened to me seeing Mount Fuji in Japan as well I think it is called being mesmerized or mesmerizized but I have been hit the two shitty whiskey shots just kicked in I feel really warm there is something resembling plaid a Scottish Tartan it is so ironic it is like a large table napkin thrown over her chest with a safety pin she has no breasts to speak of she is truly flat that makes her that much more of a complete sex object her shoulders are even more narrow than the chest where you realize how flat she is she has a neck so long you immediately see yourself staring at it adjacent to it with one arm on her shoulder then the tattoos hit then you think ‘okay, Madonna yeah so…’ but no this bitch is rock and roll she has been onstage she has been backstage you are getting this all and she is fucking nine feet away across the room the music has stopped everyone else has disappeared except Ian’s eyes are floating above the room like the Chesire Cat in Alice he has a shit eating grin…she draws closer, I quickly thrust the shot glass up to obtain the tiny paper napkin to wipe the drool off my cheek I feel embarrassed she knows this she doesn’t care this happens to her three times a day she advances with no fear she knows all this.

In the western Saloon she has a long petticoat on, her long hair is all done up above her head, she has two devices in to give the appearances of a bosom but she keeps her tobacco and money in them. She will be holding the petticoat up with both hands as she walks to keep the sawdust off the bottom and so that I can glimpse the ankle bracelet both realities just juxtaposed now, Ian with the vest on still smiling the badge of a lawman just outside the double doors the piano still tinkling over the James Brown.

“I’m Jessica” she reaches her hand out and grabs mine throwing the napkin back down to the bar. She smiles and I see her eyes follow and map the remaining drool trail. She winks. She is completely aware of her power and it seems to mean nothing to her. She clearly is in love with herself but it has not necessarily benefited her in her life. She is flowing over the brim with love with good vibes but not at all lustful. “What’s your name?” I really cannot respond yet. “WOW, you are so cool looking, I love your Chucks!’’ She is already leaning down the way I observed her from the sneakers up she looks at my legs she looks at my butt she smiles as though she just touched my butt but her hands remain on her dress except in the present she has no dress so she is touching herself except she can’t do that what is she doing I can’t see anymore her smile has taken over my mind completely I have lost all control.

“Howie…I’m Howie…” I say. I am nervous like a child. Should I say my last name? Lights seem to flash.

“Howie?’’ she inquires…”HOWIE?!?’’

“Yes, Howie…” I put this in just for the trailer by the way.

“you’re not Howie, are you?’’

“what do you mean?’’

This is not helping me get back to the ground now but it continues:

“you’re not like the HOWIE…are you…?”

“well…”

“Oh my God!” At that moment she thrusts herself at me for the first time, this will occur every time I see her from now on except one very hot day where she is too sweaty to do so.

She has quite a grip. She seems to insist on throbbing so I get a chance to size her up. This is the closest to a real Barbie doll I have come in half a century. I don’t know what to make of this only that time is temporarily standing still. In the Western, guns are once again being drawn. Here…message alerts.

“You’re Howie…oh I’m sorry…I’m Yana’s BFF! She is always talking about you. I can’t believe I am meeting you. You are so fucking cool. I am fucking crazy about you.’’

Well…the lights return to normal, the camera pulls back and reality re appears however incrementally.

Ian is smiling and chatting up the two newbies with another shot. Looks like the hug got them off too.

“what do you want to drink?’’ Jess asks.

For a moment I stop to reflect. I want to remember her shoulders, her lower back, how tight she felt just for a minute. I want to imagine that Ian is not her boyfriend, that she is going to grab my hand with a lit cigarette in her mouth and turn into Ann Margaret and we’ll start dancing and then we’ll go into one of those doors that are there that lead to the storage basement or somewhere where there is a drum set and we’ll start making out and then she’ll lean on the tom toms and pull her rag up and show how she has no butt whatsoever and then she’ll pick up a guitar and turn and say ‘nice to meet you!’

“BEER!’’

“Beer?” she asks

All the time it took for me to imagine being in love with Jess she is already behind the bar pouring the tap into a Storage Jar…that is the hipster beer glass…the kind of thing your BUBBE put Jam into. How did she get there so fast…did we go to the basement and I just blacked out?

She brings the beer on yet another cheap napkin and leans in. Now, you can see her blue eyes. You can see all the layers of blonde – everything you did in your life was correct at this moment. You never did anyone any harm because you just met Jessica and she loves you she is going to give you more beer.

“Listen, this guy is not my boyfriend okay?”

“I just like work here…I’m in a band! I know you play!”

Jess and I became buds and not a three day period went by that I wasn’t either in Skytown stalking Jess or across the road at The Market chatting up Lisa. Crashing on the couch, sipping the pestilent bourbon smoking up a storm with someone else’s pot. Life was good since I was not involved with anyone yet.

 Next Chapter

So there was yet another event at The Market Hotel. This time was different. This was a ‘deal’ a high priced rental: some big British Radio show was going to be hosting a rave and it was to be broadcast live over an internet feed. This was something called ‘streaming’ back in the day. Live feed. All good.

Of course, the word was out that the tenants at the Market had to comply with all of these conditions. They had been given detailed instructions to stay in their rooms. To confine their movements to leave only to use the facilities. If they were good they might get a few of the special promotion drinks brought in at some point. Quite like children contained upstairs during certain holidays or when Mom and Dad ‘had company’ and restrictions were applied ‘for their own good.’ “Now remember boys and girls, if you are good, you can come down for a few minutes for ice cream.” “No Doris, we’ll send the maid with some ice cream up to their rooms later, if we don’t hear any tumult.’’ Is this coming directly out of my childhood? Well, not really. My own Mom and Dad rarely ‘had company.’ I could take a whole page here to go through that and the use of the specific term, ‘company.’ But for now, let’s just say that the Market was having company tonight and the residents were excited cause there was a small AV hole in the wall of the residential area that they could peek through and see the party from – like voyeurs.

Lisa was one thing, she is worthy of several chapters but alas, she will just come up for now. The atmosphere there requires huge bodies of adjectives to say the least often orgiastic. Yana was another story entirely, the character earth mother straight long black hair Jewess so much like the girls in High School little hippie chicks that I adored from close up. She played it out to the point of waif like behavior walking up Jefferson Street to feed a whole gang of feral felines that occupied an abandoned building just a block north of the Market. She talked to them and even reached out and held them. It was lovely she barely had funds to feed herself but she could go and take care of her ‘babies’ each and every day. There were a couple of others living in and out of the Market, Candy was drop dead skinny especially when she had her bass guitar on, she looked like Jane Fonda in Klute only if Jane had been on crank!

Lisa had the cherubic face. Yana maybe was the darkside. Becky was the mama of the place, the fine blond with the legs I must have told you about them already. All these ladies made me pulse but after awhile, I could leave them all behind. For a few weeks, it was only Lisa day and night. But she had a boyfriend and she let me sleep she liked me but not that way. Yes, that one night of the party the one I was coming over to at this juncture I got carried away and got a hand on her. But nothing came of it.

I had made a mistake that was so obvious it involved time zones. I scheduled the meeting with Yana for six pm. I figured I would get there way prior to the party, then by the time we finished our business, I could get high and go to the party. I did not know that the affair was rather private that is exclusive well excuse me and I did not fathom that we were on London time. As always, since I was early, I decided to stop in at Sky Town for a quick one so that I would not arrive early and so that I could cut the edge.

Next Chapter

This is the short condensed just add water version. Reality beats fiction anytime schmuck!

where you left off (previously on the life of ‘Howie’)

It was on January 9th…my little rave up as the DIY Sensei in the village voice that was a Wednesday

the next night was January 10th…(fade in…a dark street on the South Side of Williamsburg…)

i am walking over to (the business partner) Sid B’s other club at 285 Kent (S 3rd) to see a show that apparently has been over promoted…NYU kids are out of school and so are all the college students in fact…Sid has turned the club over to (soldier) Rick who is a great guy but somehow maybe Sidney doesn’t trust him – a Tweet just went out that nine hundred people are lined up outside the club and the doors are still closed, Sid is stuck at home with a sick eighteen month old boy and a ‘partner’ who needs some downtime on her own…i am thinking ‘ah, the kid just left…a new year, i had fifteen minutes of fame yesterday…i am going to chill and just enjoy a show…’ just as i approach, there is a line i have never seen this before and Sid calls telling me ‘i am working’ even though this has never happened before…i get in and see that Rick has the staff and everything under control…he is quite warm and friendly in a sincere way in contrast to Sidney’s tough get down to business edginess:

say, where’s your kid?  I heard she was coming down tonight…this is the kind of show she would enjoy!

Oh no, she just went back to college you know California man…

Oh…so where’s that Girlfriend of yours…the one you brought to Sid’s kid’s first birthday party?

You mean, G?  Oh…we sort of broke up…I mean we are still friends but she wants to play house!
I need some space man…I am finally on my own…I just went to chill out, enjoy the show…I’m a bachelor now dude!

Well…who knows Howie…you may get lucky tonight…

He places his large firm hand on my shoulder and I feel an odd psychic type tingle
(JESUS!!! NO…something is going to happen tonight!)

I find the Fanelli’s old man chair and sit down…I am facing the door and can make eye contact or at least perform a super security once over on everyone as they go through the wrist band ID check point…since the show is free…the fire capacity problem is a big problem plus the whole place is beyond the law … full cash bar…no license, no nothing

I start watching as the line comes in…all young, all innocent…NYU for sure…they have been there a long time…they all immediately line up for the two not so nicely cleaned with bleach bathrooms…i text Sid that Rick is doing swell and that the crowd is cool…no guns, no hidden bottles, young and totally cute. I am the only person there over 28 or so…

not stoned…one beer sipping slow…i notice a woman who works there…she is like a dream…the archetypal urban outfitters girl…she keeps staring back at me and smiling…i feel like I know her…I also know that that is my just being horny but I am getting stimulated beyond anything appropriate…then I realize she is Kelly, my old friend Coleen ‘s daughter who is barely twenty when Taylor the son of one my best friends walks in the front door and says hello to her out loud…they kiss and I go give Taylor a hard time about none of that shit in this club…i hate to bounce you out…for a second they are both scared even though Taylor is six six…they realize who I am and I greet Kelly realizing she is Coleen to me!

What a relief…i sit back down and relax…the crowd swells… then…i see this young lady come in…she has an ‘artsy glow’ … i notice her compulsive behavior immediately and completely relate…she has a heavy winter coat on (it is fucking freezing out in Brooklyn now duh!) but this long dress is sticking out of the back…it is sweeping the floor…it looks like a fucking peacock no joke…i try not to stick with her but i am totally gone…even though there is no figure to see due to this big lumpy down fiber black winter coat…she takes the coat off and this big winter Ruskie style fur hat and proceeds to stuff them into a knapsack…then looks around nervously to stash the back pack somewhere where no one will find it and she can dance without a coat on…i kind of chuckle until i realize that the dress while very elegant (Marie Antoinette?) in the lower part is excessively S and M on the top…there is no top in fact just a series of black strips…like some serious bondage thing…i swallow hard and look away.

Back in the chair i am fighting to avoid getting mesmerized again…the Kelly thing was enough for one night…I empty my mind knowing that this woman may not be much older than Kelly…what was i thinking…my life may be a movie but not a fucking Brian DePalma one…so…I stare at the continuing entering customers and chill…

There is one weird leather day bed next to where i am sitting and three wild NYU type dudes sit down and start slapping each other…they leave a space on their right side knowing i will tolerate physical proximity..yes as the old guy in the room with a salt pepper mustache, I intend to scare them into respect/submission and it usually works…

Suddenly this young thing with the leather straps and thin bony shoulders is sitting awkwardly on the sliver remaining next to my left knee like a person leaning out trying to squeeze their butt between two big Americans on a Kawasaki number one train racing uptown…I glance for one second and think, no, she did not sit here cause of me…just a seat!

The heavy breathing begins…i become hypnotized but am fighting it…i make no contact and in fact look the other way! around five to ten minutes elapse…I manage to notice very lovely blue blue eyes…

White really white skin…abruptly she gets up and walks away…I am so relieved…in a few seconds my breathing pattern returns to normal…ah, relax Howie!

Five minutes later i realize the spot she occupied is still vacant…suddenly as if i saw it a second before it happened like when you are about to get punched…she appears with two seltzer bottles, one in each hand and is staring at me…i start to try to talk but she is rehearsed…”do you like this stuff…cause i found these on the L train…would you like to share it?”

I love Seltzer..I reply…how did you know…before I have finished now she is back on the same seat and is rapidly asking me question after question…’i could tell you were very smart…i need to meet smart people…’ within a few minutes she has progressed to repeatedly asking if I am in fact divorced…if i ever remarried…no girlfriend…why not?

‘You sound like you are planning to ask me out…what the fuck?’ I show a bit of quiet anger and sarcasm and smile  as she replies: ‘yes…give me your phone number now…i want your email!’
anyway…enough of this story…i have told it to so many people so many times. They said, Write It Down!

And so I did: I proceeded to ‘date’ Alexis for lack of a better word. I took her to Starbucks and marveled at her muscular back she again was wearing one of those bondage outfits. She exuded sexuality without any effort and it drove me crazy. I took her to a dinner in Chinatown and we talked about Brian Wilson. Then I took her to The Trophy Bar and we began to get a wee bit physical. She told me we would never have sex and I agreed with her. However, with each passing date, she moved from a hug to a kiss on the cheek to a kiss on the lips till finally when she crashed a party on a very snowy night and I brought her into the host’s bedroom to put her coat away, she told me she had decided that we would have sex.

“And listen dude,” she talked in a self parody rock and roll style that only made me that much more horny for her. “When we have sex, you better be fucking good okay?!”

“I don’t respond well to pressure…” I told her as we started to make out. I honestly could not believe this was happening to me. I could not get her out of my mind and I could not stop staring wildly at every twenty one year old woman I saw for the next six months. I was dangling outside the confines of my jeans day after day. I felt as though somewhere someone had answered some prayers, however late.

Howie Seligman I think about it (and have taken to writing lately lol) I bought skinny jeans a few years ago on a whim, I tried them on and they were too tight it was ridic so I shoved them in the closet – then I got ‘picked up’ by a scandalously younger woman who asked me out – so I went to meet her outside where she worked and it was right after a snowstorm – she was so excited to see me she literally leaped on me to hug me – she was relatively light but the force and the boots in the snow led me to wobble while I was holding her up – I fell in the snow and ripped my jeans it was quite romantic – we both laughed – the next day I pulled the skinny jeans out and they fit and i have been wearing them since – something intangible went on – they are really great for the type of dancing I do (TOO!) sorry for the long story – all of this is in my book btw well, really I guess you like already know that now wtf!

Next Chapter

Sometimes I will just start to cry. I remember this Red Coffee mug that my daughter got me for my birthday and I see it sitting across the desk at my office. The handle broke off last summer when she was asleep one morning so I snuck it out to my office so she wouldn’t see it. It is from some hipster coffee place called, “Grumpy Coffee,” no doubt I’ll take some young thing there one day soon by coincidence. As I start crying upon entry, she’ll say something like “…Oh my…you’re so sensitive…that’s so HOT!”

I remember going all the way up Nassau in Greenpoint to some factory warehouse to pick up her super cute pencil case that she ordered herself for her birthday. I cried as soon as I saw the damned thing. When I took a photo and texted it to her, she wanted to know if the people at the store were nice. I miss the kid now that she is off to college but of course, that major change is what facilitated most of what takes place in this damned book. However, this story happened while she was still a senior:

This on line magazine that I had been working with (how I met Samantha) held a one year anniversary party at a very posh East Village bar on Second Avenue so this must have been October, 2011. At this point, I was still quite nearsighted and had just started to drink again so I had a very low tolerance. And of course, this was an open bar event so I got started pretty quickly. I was looking forward to seeing Sam, I had heard her she would be coming but as it turned out, I did not get to see her that night.

The bar had these pseudo private rooms in the back, you stepped up onto a raised platform and could close the curtain. I parked in one with Helen Shapiro, one of the Board members on the magazine she had attended my school when Sam was there and she had quite a sexy persona despite her innocent look. She introduced me to a very good looking young man, her age, who was so obviously an ‘effected’ fag. We sat next to each other and managed to flirt a wee bit, then Hannah another friend joined us.

The conversation soon descended to a discussion of porn though as I recall it had started around the New York Post where the young man had been an art director. He explained that watching dogs shit really got him off. Helen explained that she was a feminist and while she dominated men in real life her fantasies often involved the traditional bondage stuff. I took the cue and stood up and looked at her as though I was simply going to seduce her at the table and she started to appear to be getting real wet.

Objectively, our little booth was heating up but I was not feeling anything, just really teasing, getting drunk and nervously wondering if and when I might see Sam. Even a thirty second visit and a quick kiss would be enough to make my night. Several women came and went and I was still gagging with Helen and the fag and did not notice the latest entrant. I suppose that Helen introduced me to her but I did not get her name and I did not really notice her one way or the other at the time. Then she said:

“I know you!’’ and I was like, “uhh…???” “No, I know you…you are that dancer right?” “well…”

“You are the greatest dancer I have ever seen!” Dear reader, you have to understand that only now after the Rosenthal affair I am able to objectively look back on this event and see the premonitions!

“Really…thanks…but…” “I was with my comedy class and we saw your performance at the college!”

Well, I took a look across the table and there was a really cherubic face. Lovely, red cheeks, innocent at the first glance, straight brown hair and a smile that pushed those cheekbones upward to the point of pain. The wooden tables were high and I really was not aware of her body or her scale. Obviously, I was a junkie for the adoration and that was all that mattered. We started talking rapidly and pretty quickly, Hannah and Helena and all the others left the booth so that soon we were alone and still chatting.

I slid over so that I was on the same side as her and then without thinking about it as I would now and without any hesitation, I put my hand on her thigh. I suddenly felt really hot and I was completely attracted to her. This was the first time I was this close to a woman in years other than Sam. We stopped talked and started staring into each other’s eyes. What followed almost sounds like it is in fact straight out of High School though this may have come after another conversation that I will describe:

“What are you thinking right now?” she asked. “I am thinking that I would really like to kiss you!’’

“Well, so why don’t you then?” I lunged at her and put my tongue in her mouth and we made out for a half a minute maybe less. I was only beginning to begin to feel again. I was more just freaked out!

“That was nice…” she said. “Why don’t you try it again…but this time, don’t stick your tongue out!”

What a fine reply. To tell me it was good…so I moved back at her, slowly, only using the lips.

“See how much better that felt…you have to leave something to the imagination…don’t just jump in!”

She was most certainly right. I put my arm around her and felt myself pulse. She was certainly not my type but she seemed to like me and the night was still relatively young. Then came the second part:

“God, I would really love to smoke some weed right now!” “I have some weed…” I replied.

“You do?” “Yes…but you know, we can’t smoke here.” “Well…” she smiled and those fine bones caught fire again, “your place or mine?” “Well…” jeez, this was a first. I visualized my then pied a terre in Queens with just the one futon and absolutely nothing else. “I live in (like) Queens!” “Umm…I live in Brooklyn,” she said. “Let’s go to my place! And let me make it clear…we can fool around and stuff!!”   Well, I was certainly glad she got that out of the way. I went on with various disclaimers like we don’t have to fuck as long as we can just fool around and she gave me a big kiss at that point then I said:

“Well, I have just one question…” “Yeah…what’s that?” “Well…I am a wee bit older than you so…”

“I know…I thought about that…I have been thinking about older men for awhile…I have a limit so…how old are you anyway?” I told her and she laughed. “That’s fine, as long as you are not sixty five okay?!” She grabbed one more vodka – it was just after eleven since she had to pay for that one.

Nothing like this had happened to me in years. I had been boxed in the suburbs pretending to portray a proper husband and being a really good Papa to that daughter who bought me the Red Cup. I was very excited like a little kid visiting Coney Island. It seemed like the first time at the start of every summer.

Soon we were in a taxi and she was giving the guy directions. We started to talk about all the people we knew like Helen and Aaron, the publisher of the magazine and of course, Sam came up. She told me that she really did not know Sam and that when she had met her, she found her to be quite snobby. I agreed that Sam could come off quite snobby but I told her outright that I was completely heads over heels about Sam ‘as a friend’ and that she was never snobby with me. She gave me another kiss.

We crossed the Manhattan Bridge and soon pulled up in what seemed like familiar territory, just past the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I suppose you can call it Fort Greene. We staggered past a doorman and she warned me to keep quiet since her roommate might be asleep. I thought of my ex wife and my daughter asleep in the suburbs not wondering where Papa was. We tiptoed into her room and she turned the light on. There on the wall, was a beautiful black Stratocaster. God was being very kind.

She went into the bathroom and I sat on her bed and started to cry. I cried for joy. If nothing else, this had already happened. I had gone home with someone. It had been years!!! At that moment, I really believed this was simply the start of a whole new life. I had no idea that this was actually an exception to the rule that was about to follow. I also had no idea what her name was. I probably had heard it once but I was a bit drunk and music was playing. She came out of the bathroom and I looked at her.

She was so so lovely. She had this wide hip bone, it was the single largest part of her body. I got my hands all over it, it was simply splendid. We started to make out on her bed and we started to tongue. She certainly was ready to seriously fool around. She had great energy and she had this lovely face these fair eyes she was so different from all these women I had known and she was so funny and so playful and she played the guitar, too. She started to laugh and then we kissed some more…just swell!

Then she asked about the weed. So I rolled one up and just before lighting it, I warned it that it was very strong stuff. She took a puff and coughed and I did the same. This went on for a few minutes. Then I put it out and she smiled again. “My god…I am so high!” Ideal conditions for serious sex, I thought. But it only took a few minutes more for the situation to just set in. “My god…I am so tired…shit, I am really sorry Howie…I am just going to pass out…I really feel bad…but I had too much to drink…oh, God!”

She hit the pillow and passed out. I lay down and cuddled next to her. I thought I have never been this happy in my life. I saw our college’s alumni magazine and pulled it over to get her name: Sarah Leigh. I guess that was not a name I was used to. And Leigh was not a middle name, it was Sarah Leigh like Betty Lou or Mary Ann. I started to cry again. She was in a deep sleep and she had this deep smile, her bones all cheeked up like a doll like an angel and I was just so happy to be laying down next to her

Sheer motherfucking BLISS!!!

 Next Chapter

Yeah, that’s it Mister Bernstein…straight outta Citizen Fucking Kane, why not?! That damned Rosebud, that’s the lost bag, that’s the talisman the dream remembered the theme I am dancing around here. The snow globe my keys the photograph of Bette Goldwert that my mother was holding in her stash. Yeah, so what is he thinking…I buy this book because I hear it is a Henry Miller thing a dive into the dark underworld of the illegal clubs of one Brooklyn neighborhood in flux a work in progress a first person troops on the ground approach, I want to read all about the young ladies, the way they walk and the way they talk and the way they dress and what it is they like to drink and how they like to take it.

So start me off with Sidney Bernstein why don’t you? Well, okay let’s call him Sid B so you can all feel who I am really talking about here. And I’ll make it quick, cause this story is really all about Alexis right? She’s been warming up in the bullpen cause she is going to make one hell of an entrance. And oh yes, this book is all about Jane Rosenthal and she is a seriously trained Hollywood actress so like when she like walks into a room, well, you just know that she has just walked into the room I mean Stage Presence is putting it gingerly and yes, you see I am a sucker for that and for sure maybe I just enjoy writing down women’s names, women’s names in lists, succession and certainly women who carry men’s names oh:

Sam I love Sam I thought I was in love with Sam sure Samantha there were four that passed through in this story one was just such a doll, the second still is a singer and I mean she has talent you know the third is Keller I actually have her appear here and then that friend of Ariel who is so cute and so collegiate and then of course, there is another Alexis not my Alexis the black Alexis the dyke who was pouring me a bourbon at Skytown and making me think of the seventies and making me think I could convert her if only for a few minutes her skin tone her pierced nostril her deep male voice oh my god! None of this would have happened had I not had the pleasure of being introduced to one Sid B.

It was the first Sam, the drop dead pixie freckled Sam that introduced me to AnhTu who introduced me to Thu Tran who introduced me to Sid. Sid needed a business partner and an authoritative figure to help him settle down. He was already established in July 2011 as the “Bill Graham of Williamsburg.” He was a music promoter known for throwing a live show in a location where no one ever considered hosting a rock concert, for example, a Chinese Banquet Hall, an abandoned parking lot filled with rusted parts, a friend’s apartment with a PA system out on the fire escape. Bernstein had a reputation for not respecting the law and he somehow divinely managed to stay one step ahead of the local police.

We were introduced in an abandoned cinderblock ground floor across from the Domino Sugar Factory. He was busy fixing it up to become an illegal music venue but this place was kind of temporary, it was that stunning corner in Bushwick that he had made the grand plans for. When I shook his hand, I got this strange glow it was a combination of déjà vu and a cold premonition of excitement to follow. This feeling would come up again and again during the two and a half years that follow in this book. I had always been afraid of my own pleasure and how far my thoughts would push me into exhilaration. The moment I shook Sid’s firm hand, I knew that great adventures were going to follow.

What immediately impressed me the most about Sid was his street level knowledge of New York City as I vainly stated in my opening remarks, I am an extremely opinionated native New Yorker and while you are reading this the tourist population of this town is escalating exponentially. A borderline must be drawn between those who are natives and know New York and those newcomers who are fronting. Sid was from somewhere else, Portland maybe, Seattle, the birth of grunge was his style ticket what with a flannel shirt in any weather and scrappy about to become carpenter pants looking tan jeans. But when he gave me a walking tour of the neighborhood he fucking knew every street and every building.

He was attempting to do a background check on me an Escobar style job interview he liked to keep you waiting wondering which side of the avenue he would roll up from on his ten speed. We met on the corner of Myrtle and Broadway and he ushered me up what I would like to call the Double Indemnity stair case of a trapezoidal shaped second floor loft known as The Market Hotel. The place was a dive almost too perfect as if a fag art director team had been hired to make it look grungy, so many couches everywhere old clothes on the floor additional flannel shirts but the sure fire closer was the numerous drum sets authentic Fender amplifiers and beaten up old Stratocasters that started getting me excited.

The room stirred up the same feelings as that initial handshake: I knew at that moment that I was going to commit myself in any way possible to become involved with this location to make it my business to get up on the rat dung infested stage and rock my skinny ass off. I had no idea at that time that a gang of people were living there people who I would soon come to know intimately. I had no idea that I would invest a substantial portion of my figurative life savings in this venture that at the time of this publication is still not completely finished and certainly not yet operating as a legitimate club. I figured okay this looks like my scene circa 1980 Lower East Side, I can most certainly live with this shit for sure!

Sid had a small army of lieutenants who showed up. You could sense how much they feared him with the kind of respect that I had witnessed among gangsters. We all chatted and then we walked outside onto Myrtle and up a few blocks to a brand new hipster coffee shop that had just opened. Sid explained that this place had opened as a direct result of the crowd he had brought in when The Market Hotel was still in operation. The place seemed completely dead as he introduced me to the owners. Just wait a few months, he predicted with the confidence he often exuded that bordered closely with sheer arrogance. I guarantee you that this is going to be the place, I mean the place. Wait and see.

The owners were putting a new sign up, it would be known as Little Skips. We talked at length about how much attention the press put on his Williamsburg venue already and how much The Market was so popular before police had shut it down in a now infamous raid one night in 2010. Suddenly, it started to rain violently and the unfinished ceiling at the coffee shop began to leak. The lieutenants went into Battle Station mode and quickly prepared to attend to the potential flood problems at the various venues under their watch. I was left high and for just a brief moment dry before venturing out into the now dark puddles of Myrtle. The neighborhood seemed strange, unknown, new different.

I had no idea at that moment, that I would be spending most of my time in 2013 on those streets…

 Next Chapter

In the beginning…

Was Brooklyn.   Call me Howie…if this book was a Rap Album it would be called ‘Straight Outta Flatbush!’ But this is a series of stories so it is not straight out of anything at all really, other than my fat head. I actually have a big head physically (as well) so that finding a hat can be difficult at times.

But I found a red baseball cap at the last Army/Navy store left on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint. The gypsy woman told me I needed a red hat after my eye surgery. Yeah, if this was a blues album by a blues band it would be titled ‘The Gypsy Woman Told Me’ – what kind of eye surgery?

Preamble: I was born with very extreme myopia. I cheated on the eye exam when I was in Kindergarten at PS 269 on Nostrand Avenue. By the middle of first grade, I was known as Professor due to my unusually thick glasses. These would define my character for many years to come.

An entire other book could be written called ‘Myopic and Happy’ or perhaps an Electronica compilation album about what happens to you after you have been up all night at a Rave called “Morning Myopia’’ you can just hear Joni Mitchell singing the title song now “…wish I was in Paris on this Brooklyn morn.”

On and on streams of talk I have always been a talker, I have always known that the hypertalkative condition was part of being so severely nearsighted. So when I got this ‘life changing’ surgery where my myopia was removed, would I start to quiet down. Not quite, too late in life (mid fifties) and all of that.

But boy things changed. And people said, this is amazing Howie, you should write a book so what the fuck this is that book. (Cue music) Of course, seeing is believing and what did I see, I saw women. There were women and more women and of course there were girls too but it was always really women.

Black women, white women, so many yellow women this part was just thrown in for the film montage you know lots of quick cuts of women walking down the streets of Midtown Manhattan lots of covers of Vogue Magazine and fashion shoots. Let’s take this out in the edit who needs this shit?

This is a series of site specific short stories about women. Each chapter is titled and dedicated to that woman. However, this is not any kind of erotic novel the women are simply a vehicle to represent a time period and the relationship between that time period and all other time periods through memory.

The whole exercise is to focus on memory. Something that is a mystery. We use visualization to memorize to remember recall. What do you recall? Let me see…so I get the new eyesight and suddenly my memories have been wiped. They have been subtly but seriously altered. What can I do?

Try to recreate the past that is gone anyway? No, work real hard real fast to create an entirely new set of memories. The present is going to be exciting immediately because, Eureka, I can see. I never saw butts like this before. Never saw a bar like this before. Never liked blue eyes until a few weeks ago.

Yeah sure the red hat but it was shades of blue: Why? Well, the painter friends and the fucking colorist queens tell me that blue has the widest range of emotions and the widest range of shades really the same thing said twice right? But the scientists, what do they say about the leading color blue?

Well, have you dear reader even seen an actual cataract? It is a thick yellow film like a filter on an SLR Camera Lens like a hangnail that you sever off with a good set of clippers and that pathetic yellow is the specific block to the wide array of blues that are out there in this world to be seen to be loved.

So here I am, fifty seven fucking years old. Red baseball hat. Blue jeans. I do not have the skinny jeans yet, that is going to come up in the Alexis story. And the blue scarf that I lose and find again a bunch of times in the Lisa period. And then the plaid red thing that Jess is wearing. These objects of pure lust.

And what of this place Flatbush this place of myth and of amplified reputations and tall tales. Flatbush today is a black hood more or less with the reputation for producing great graffiti artists but it also did manage to turn out Streisand and Konigsberg and Wallach you probably don’t know what I’m saying.

So let’s start out with the prequel then the women I met while I still had glasses on who I thought were fucking going to blow my head off and merely turned out to be friends who I could talk to when I met the next set of women after the eye change the sea change the endless after image.

This story has a beginning but it has no end. As I write this, new sequels are taking place. When I started it, I had the usual mixed mania grandiose designs, a two record set, a concept album with liner notes the whole nine but this particular book is simply a single with a strong B side, that’s it no more.

For those of you not familiar with Brooklyn, I advise you to get a good map and look out of Bushwick.   The entire story centers around the intersection of Myrtle and Broadway but we’ll go west a bit to Kent and east northeast up to Wyckoff but ultimately there is a five block radius that can be mapped.

The incidents are all true and the names have not been changed, every one pretty much has read their chapter and given me their permission. The men have been modified to protect the innocent and the professional reputations but those of you ‘on the scene’ will know exactly who I am talking about.

A few incongruous portions have been included that may seem out of sequence and this is true, given the recording project analogy these are outtakes, pieces that will be used again remixed and included on a later release. People featured may be tempted to jump ahead to their own appearance, so go ahead.

Make my day! Another disclaimer is that the use of certain terminology, for example, the word ‘bitch’ is truly done in jest and in humor and with great amounts of serious affection. If you could see what I see, none of these women are dogs they are all splendid they have brought light into my life and much love!

Those of you who are acquainted with me are already excessively familiar with my voice and my style. The rest of you will probably receive this book from an opinion leader who knows where it is coming from and where it is going. If you take it too seriously, you will miss the point: Joie de vivre SVP!

 Next Chapter