Time Slips

Thu, Oct 13th, 2016

Listening to Kevin Barry narrating his novel ‘Beatlebone’ on the D train. On the day that Bob Dylan won the nobel prize for literature. Kevin is not on the train. Far as I know. He is in my headphones.

It’s a good book.

“Time slips”. The Times they are a changing. And repeating. And fluid. Here and gone at the same time. If a man travels on a D train at 1.5 miles an hour in the general direction of his lunchtime concert will he get there in time to have a coffee and a breath and a piss before he sings? Known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

A Limerick man. A story about a Liverpudlian. The Liverpudlian. In Mayo. Trying to get to his island. It’s a very good book.

I am interrupted by ¾ of a barbershop quartet. Headphones off. Dollar out. Handshakes and smiles. We’re in the same boat. Today’s boat is a train. I 100% believe in Karma when it comes to tipping good buskers. I who was fed and watered by the late nights on Marlboro street belting out the 10 songs I knew that anyone else might have known too. 59th Columbus cirlce. Upstairs, above ground, people protesting Trump. I heard as much on the radio this morning. Groping politicians and Russian hackers. If this year was a film it would be a shit one. But Bob Dylan wins the nobel prize for literature? Good man Bob.

I walked in the park as the sun burned the mist off the morning. A dog walker talking to his dogs. Or himself. Or both. “Welcome to the bench of punishment. Welcome to the bench of punishment. Welcome to the bench of punishment.”
The beautiful heart healthy people zoom by, swoosh, all lycra and bicycle spokes. Who am I to resent their energy. A woman barks at another woman’s toilet brush puppy.

Scream therapy. Time slips. Ghosts. It’s a very, very good book.

 

And here in the real world, groping billionaires running for president, Russian hackers, plane crashes, train crashes and Bob Dylan wins the nobel prize for literature.

Truth and Fiction and time slipping and which is which again?
Back on the D train after a lunchtime gig with Len Monachello at Lehman College. Len played,bass, drums and sang. Simultaneously. I can’t do  that.