MKP-Hearts-NYC

(Sorry for the absenteeism...I'm sort of boycotting internet at home until conditions improve...I wrote a lovely essay on embedding the city into my iTunes playlists, and my usually docile computer conspired with the shady wireless to opt out of doing my bidding)

It's been a good couple of weeks -- rehearsals are all going well, baseball's starting up (I have the calendar tacked up by my desk, with all the games I already have tickets to highlighted, games I intend to go to bordered, and games I can't go to because I have a theatre engagement crossed off. I haven't decided what to do with the 4 remaining games), New York is getting beautifully springy, work is good (if overwhelming, stressful and exhausting), and life is pretty much dandy.

The subways, naturally, have been teeming with bizarre human life...I had a really nice experience on Monday, actually... a cute guy with nerd glasses got on and we glanced at eachother..and did the eye-flirting thing from 14th street until I had to get off in midtown. I had butterflies shivering all the way down in my toes. It's easy to forget, when the only non-office-related interaction I have with potential dating partners in the wild is...awkward or creepy or involves some sort of lewd public act, that chemistry still exists.

Last night I swung in to the Malcom corner store (across the street from my old corner bodega), and as I was teasing my friend behind the counter about the lame seltzer water selection (mandarin orange or plain? They call these options?) when another employee turned in my direction -- it was my friend from Corner Store The First! He asked about my mom and brother (um, he says hi, guys), and mentioned he'd seen me around 125th but I was moving too fast to say hello. It was pretty hilarious.

I think I officially live here; the Slice of Harlem guy knows my favorite slice (pepperoni and sausage), my Chinese guy was actually surprised when I ordered something different last Saturday (I walked up there after going to the gym and opted for shrimp and snow peas instead of my usual...assortment... and his response was "Really? Is everything ok?"), and now my water guys know that stocking lime and black cherry is crucial to my emotional equilibrium. There are also numerous grocery store employees who can attest to my healthier eating habits as well...but I never feel the need to justify my cereal and orange juice purchases, so I make friends with them less often.

In hopes of securing a band reunion tour when I go home this weekend, I'm beginning the cycle of healing, VH1-style.

See, once there was a band. They called themselves Jude Happ and they dominated the Guitar Hero airwaves with four-star performance after three-star performance, usually following their less-four-starr-y performances with killer encores and generally being awesome.

Then one of the band members moved away. Both members of this groundbreaking ensemble worked with other people, found new instruments.... and began making band meeting jokes.

The first one began simply:
"Hey, guys, bandmeeting. No, not you."

The second one has become rather epic, assuming ginormous and we may say hurtful proportions and consisting mostly of lashing out over perceived abandonment issues, shredding across the pages of Facebook in blow after blow. To elicit your sympathy and compassion, I recount it below:

Miranda: Um, sorry, but we're already in a band meeting... you weren't invited? Huh.

Gigantor: Well that's weird that you're in a band meeting already, as all of the people who are IN the band are just now going to the band meeting. I guess if you're not coming, you must not be in the band. I guess. Shame. Really.

Miranda: I wish you'd stop pulling me out of these band meetings just to natter at me. We're designing our new logo and I really can't take any more interruptions from non-band members.

Gigantor: Well, neither can I take time out of my band meetings to listen to your logo ideas for your nonexistant band. I have a tour to plan, you know, and we don't need people who aren't band members, i.e. you, cluttering up our bus.

Miranda: This....this is awkward... I'm typing this from Milwaukee, where we're just starting the midwestern leg of our cross-country tour. All our favorite venue managers from the northeast said to say hello to you. We, uh, told them you were out on a heroin binge....

Gigantor: Jeez...we should have coordinated more when you were still in the band. See, I already told all of our venue owneres that you were out /selling/ heroin, and I know that they believe me. I'd call you, but this New York rooftop where we're holding an impromptu and fantastically memorable concert has really bad reception. Alright, I have to go. We finished our setlist a few minutes ago, but the screaming crowd below was willing to wait for the drummer to run to the bus to get more music.

Miranda: Man, you think of that one time we let you jam with us as a band? /Our/ drummer graciously volunteered to bail you out of your desperate rooftop gig, so he's actually driving /our/ bus back over here with the rest of /our/ music. Good luck with your acoustic encore..

Gigantor: Wait...You thought I was jamming with you guys that one time? I hate to break it to you, but I was just helping out for a set because the bar owner said he'd kick you out if someone with talent didn't start playing.

...sometime later...

News-flash! Thanks for getting the drummer out of there, that helped me a lot. I've been meaning to kick him out of my band for a few weeks because of his gross incompetence, but I couldn't work up the heart. Also, a few minutes after he left, the police showed up and arrested him for drug possession and also impounded your bus. A real shame, that. Maybe you can use my band's bus in the off season. Anyhoo, the accoustic encore was such a sucess that our joint record label dropped your contract in order to extend my band to a three-year, five-record deal. Well, I hope you can achieve similar success in the new genre of accoustic rock I just started.

Miranda: Man, where to start.... First off, that bar owner heard about your bout of manic depression and staged an intervention in the hopes of keeping you from the edge, and we volunteered to let you play with us. Also, I don't know where you heard our bus got "impounded." Your bassist left his drugs on our bus, and when the police found out who our drummer was, they gave us an escort back to the Plaza Hotel where we set up for our strictly a-list gig. Also, management called -- your single was doing so atrociously on the rock charts they decided to offstream it into the acoustic genre, and since it'll take 3 years for it to earn back the advance they gave you, they boosted us up to the mainstream chart so as not to clutter up their regular band list. Listen, I'd love to stay and explain the nuances of the music industry to you, but we've got a photo shoot for our next album cover.

....We're thinking of having the whole band (and the back up ensemble, and boy are our singers cute this year) breaking your records in half while symbolically burning your album covers to indicate what we think of your desperate "new direction." Then we have a series of rehearsals to get ready to host the next Rock Hall of Fame initiation ceremony -- they've never had a band host the same year they're getting inducted /and/ going triple platinum, but what I can I say, we break the mold.

Gigantor: So, check it out- that single you were talking about that didn't do so well in America, but it did wonders in Europe! I'm writing this from my exclusive Swedish hotel where we're doing our latest show before we head into south France, and also this a totally legitimate gig with a real record label that isn't going to randomly drop our contract for your band at the last minute. And Ted the actual drummer won the lottery, so we paid off our advance and bought a yacht that doesn't have drugs on it and wasn't procured/built/crewed by any incompetent/crooked/mafia people types at all.

I think seeing as we've reached our respective pinnacles (me) and deep, deep valleys of shadow and death (him), it's time to renew the bond that has been rent asunder by ambition and the insistence on always having the last word.

I mean, my band, the real band, has officially won all the awards. Gigantor's motley assemblage has been exiled to Sweden, and their "drummer" Ted is only moments away from explosion, which will surely sink their hijacked rowboat (which in Swedish, is "yacht"..but only in Swedish.), and you can bet their last duct-taped amp cable they never paid taxes on those lotto winnings...

Let the healing begin.