THE GLACIAL CARNIVAL
Another piece of this book appeared in the on-line journal CAVEAT LECTOR (Caveat-lector.org). The only time something of mine has so appeared. THE GLACIAL CARNIVAL is composed of sentences rooted in rescued relics from that time of the late Seventies in NYC when living in Room 801 in the Earle Hotel over-looking Washington Square....
-Hugo was saying: too much concern for everybody if you ask me.
---And you didn’t even come from out of town so you can take it in stride when you’re in the WHITE MARK DELI on Sixth Avenue… and have asked the guy for change after you got a quart of ale and this next customer comes up to the counter with a can of dog food saying, hey, can you open this for me? The guy behind the counter asks, do you need a spoon? Nah, I can get it out with my fingers.
-Hugo has been here before. He is stunned to still be alive, I think. All his best friends are dead or married and he only thought of the former. What can you say to a guy who’s married?
I go over to Hugo's apartment near the river. Across the street from from his window is a truck park. Guys fuck each other between the trucks or suck each other off. I could charge admission… a guy gives a guy a hand job and hands him a handful of cum… what does he tell the guy?
-Hugo gave up on girls and boys a long time ago. It’s nice and boring here. I want or I don’t want. That’s about all there is. People are always asking, how’s it going, how are you, how, how, how…
-I go back to the hotel. The only thing I miss…
-Was there ever a time when I didn’t miss something or other?
-Pride is a bird’s meal.
-Hugo says he knew a woman who liked to get a guy from the Bowery when guys were sleeping on the street… don’t ask me how she did it.
-Get a guy on the Bowery and brought him Uptown and does things to him and then tells him to get lost with a twenty dollar bill.
-Hugo says, he is much too busy. He didn’t have the time to kill himself. To kill yourself you got to be able to find yourself.
-But Hugo was at one time not alone: he is remembering her tongue discovering his armpits, the place behind the knees, the spot behind his balls and she would comment on how his little toe is curled up into a miniature fist.
-But she left. They always eventually do.
-Like him, I often sleep with my clothes on… saves time in the morning--- for what you ask? It’s only habit.
-At least no refrigerator in the room…the waking and falling asleep to the sounds of a refrigerator… to be found dying and the last sounds you will be hearing: the refrigerator…
-The smallness of my room is appealing as there is no empty spaces to dream of…
-But room enough for a Pat and Mike joke… they had been great drinking buddies and then one of them goes and dies and it could be either one or the other and you throw in the cows, the wife, the house and the children and one of them is looking at the other boxed up and ready to go: looks good since he stopped drinking.
REMEMBER, here is a young man living in a hotel room, once upon a time, as the hotel where he lived once upon a time no longer has such tenants, they have guests who come because of its location, because they want a small hotel, they want a hotel that reminds them of small hotels they have stayed in Europe, once upon a time, and even Europeans come to the hotel as they want something that is familiar, though these people are surprised that the light bulbs actually allow you to read while resting in bed.
-He is listening,: I gotta find a lady to eat my grapes, being said in The 55--- a hole two steps down from Christopher Street--- with a bursting liver, once you’ve decided nothing matters that would be paradise, a version of it, I guess someone else is saying: broken glass, tears.
-My corpse should be viewed face to the pillow.
-Obsession versus observation.
-Is it tonight to The Ramrod or The Toilet?
-Jason Holliday was saying, fucking a girl in the ass is like milking a cow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-ehssx01b0
-I’ve been fucking you for ten years and now you want to go down to get a license so we don’t have to keep on with the fucking: what do you call it?
-He had died of a heart attack on the operating table--- they thought it was a heart attack but it was his spleen that got him in the end.
-Shut your mouth a little while I… what I’m saying…
6 comments:
I lived in Jersey during the mid-nineties. I could see Manhattan if I stood on the roof of my parent's house. I took the train over there often. I was just out of the Navy, living with the folks, and going to college. I'm a film nut, so I went to the city to see good movies. I love plays. I did that too.
I even went to an audition. My audition was at the Triad theater. The play was some whodunit. They had me read several things, and I think they liked me. A producer at the table was making eyes at me. Her name was Louise. One of my lines was an "aside." When I spoke the play's line, I was supposed to turn towards the seats. When I turned, I looked right at her and winked. I added the wink on my own. I wasn't supposed to wink.
She was one of these masculine-looking women but totally hot. Afterward, I fantasized about doing threesomes with her and another chick. I didn't get the part.
I have more New York stories. I'll be back later.
I love Tom's essays here. His writing is unique, kind of a cross between James Joyce and Dostoyevsky. He's an American/1970s version of those two. I love the 70s. That's my decade.
Another New York story. Back in the day, I perused the cocaine scene on occasion. My brother bought it in Harlem, among other places, but Harlem had the best stuff. The dealer lived in what could only be described as an abandoned warehouse. I had to wait in the car, and I was always pretty nervous. My brother told me not to worry. I never understood how someone lived in a building like that. We usually got an 8-ball to share. It was always a good feeling to see him come out of there with a big smile on his face. He's dead now. Died from ALS.
One night, after the warehouse stop, we cruised down to Bill's Place, which was only a few blocks away. John McGlaughlin was playing there.
Okay, enough exposition, I'll cut to climax. During a break, I struck up a conversation with McGlaughlin at the bar. I told him he was great and could I buy him a beer. He held up a full beer and showed it to me. We both laughed. He may have been high, too, I don't know.
Now, when I'm high on coke, I can be a pretty enchanting son-of-bitch (as you can probably tell). I convinced John McGlaughlin to let me try out his guitar. We went on stage, and he let me play his Gibson Byrdland (with headphones.) I played John McGlaughlin's Gibson guitar!
I wanted to show him a lick I'd come up with, so I told him to put on the headphones. He did. I played my lick. He looked at me, raised his right eyebrow, and shook his head. I don't know if that meant he liked it or not.
Just then, the drummer came back on stage and gave me a weird look, so I thanked John and jumped down onto the floor. I made my way back to our table, and my brother was hitting on two black chicks. They all claimed they didn't see me on stage with John, but it's a true story.
Here is another true story about Pop in NYC.
I originally put this on John Simon's (RIP) blog, "Uncensored." I used to like to hang out on Uncensored with some other guys. I'd love to get all the old guys to move here (Thomas' blog). ABC of Reading has a similar vibe that I enjoy. I told everyone to. Here is the link if anyone wants to check it out. (I'm Pop Leibel and Uncle Kirky)
http://uncensoredsimon.blogspot.com/2019/
I love the theater. I even enjoy the local stuff around where I live now. My son is in his high school plays.
Here is a true story about an experience I had at the theater. It was 25 years ago, so the details are fuzzy, but I remember the essential parts. A group of us went to see "Death and the Maiden" in the early 90s. At one of the intermissions, I went outside to smoke a cigarette. Most of the hackers went to a specific area to light up. I don't like crowds (never have), so I walked a ways away around the end of the building and went down an alley. I lit my fag. I've always wanted to use the word "fag" to describe a cigarette, so now I have. I quit twelve years ago, but back then, I smoked Marlboro Lights.
I was standing alone next to a door that was a side door into the theater. About halfway through my cig, the door opened, and one of the actors came out onto the steps. She was in costume/makeup and asked me if it was okay to smoke there with me. I said, sure.
She asked me for a light, and we started talking about the city and how much we both loved it. I was high as a kite (weed and beer) and didn't even realize for a while that I was talking to Glenn Close. She was super friendly, and we talked for about five minutes. I told her about my band, and she said she might try to make it to a show. I might have imagined it, but I think she was even flirting with me. Somebody opened the door and said her name. She smiled and waved goodbye to me. I was on my second cigarette, and I asked her if she might want one more. She said she'd better not. I told her she was doing a terrific job in the play (she was), and she said thank you.
I went back in, and the play started up again. Glenn Close was no longer herself. She was utterly the character. There was no trace of the woman to whom I'd just been talking.
Reading Pop Leibel...and his mentioning John Simon...who now remembers him?.... I met him a couple of times...I had read his movie review in National Review...and my former mother-in-law when was a student at Radcliffe College worked as a waitress in one of the Harvard halls..and had to deal with Simon who was not very pleasant...treating her and others as if they were slaves.... but I like JS on just how awful and ugly a number of actresses were..he was a good book reviewer when it came to translated books when he knew the languages.... but I also have the sense that my own sentences are monologues into the surrounding silences
I'm drunk now. But I'll be back. I don't think I can formulate a proper response at the moment.
My first inclination is to give you a hug. I'd love to give your head a nuggie, you sweet son-of-a-bitch.
I don't know Simon. I only like the way he writes. I think you are probably correct. He was, more than likely, an asshole. Everybody says he was. Maybe he had high standards. I don't know. Here's lookin' at you kid.
You're not writing "monologues into the surrounding silences." I'm here every day checking things out, and so are lots of others. This site gets a good amount of traffic. Most readers won't post comments, though. Too lazy.
I'm delighted when a new post appears. Write your ass off and get it on here. Do some poetry. I've found, when a writer gets stuck, they should turn to poetry.
John Simon liked poetry, and anyone who enjoys poetry can't be all bad. One of his favorites was Philip Larkin.
High Windows
When I see a couple of kids
And guess he’s fucking her and she’s
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise
Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives—
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide
To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That’ll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark
About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately
Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
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