[248] Screed City

[248]

04/29/2023 Saturday. Stacked Tables. Room 532. Four Seasons Hotel. Washington, DC.

Finally the big time! Screeding from the hotel room while Professor Curly attends the White House Correspondence Dinner! I mean, the best good slap in the face was, I went outside after Riva and PC left the hotel bar after we had a quick drink and I saw them in their stretched SUV and I went up to wave to them, but they didn't see me and the driver must have thought I was a autograph hound or something so he sped off like I was going to accost them and when I was walking back into the hotel I stepped on an alive bird. A live bird! Maybe I am dreaming and when I wake up and type in: dream meaning about getting ditched at a hotel turnaround and stepping on a live bird. And Aunt Flo, [the good one] will be like: Money challenges ahead, but the live bird suggests resilience and positive personal relationships are growing.

[Insert Invitation Photo]

I don't know. I suppose it's funny. The hotel is nice. A little much. But we ordered room service for breakfast and that was a trip. Steak and eggs, rare and over easy, white bread, pancakes, two eggs over medium, bacon, and two carafes of coffee. Want to guess the bill? PC gets a per diem from HBO, so it's was covered, but, $180. The food was fantastic, at least, and they wheeled a table in for us to eat off, with linens and silverware. But it hurts my sensibilities. Looking out the window and seeing a Lamborghini parked down there, and then you walk a block from the hotel and there is a tent city. And then, sure, rich part of town, Georgetown campus blocks away, yeah, it sucks, and those things are systematic, but c'mon! The nation's Capital? The beacon on the hill. The lode star. It makes you a little sick to your stomach. Not the food, the food was great!

[Insert Room Photo]

Last night we went to the UTA Agency party. Which, thanks to the metric system I could calculate that there was exactly one kilo of cocaine there. One gram per person, one thousand people, that equals one kilo. I don't know if there were a thousand people there, but there were quite a few. The champagne flowing like wine, the wine flowing like beer. Don Lemon was there, Jerry O'Connell, and then for a brief very exciting moment the Secret Service showed up. Who is it? Who could it be? What politician shows up to a talent agency party? And voila! Who is that guy? I recognize him. Is that Chuck Schumer? No, he has those glasses on his nose. Who the hell is it? And drum roll, please! Second Husband Doug! Which did not answer any questions, but it was greatly anti-climatic. I guess his niece is a model, so maybe that has something to do with why he showed up.

[Insert Party Photo]

The train ride coming down was kind of funny too. HBO took forever to tell PC what train she was on, so when I finally could buy tickets her train was sold out. Which was for the best. Because Professor Curly had a first class ticket, apparently, and I got seated next to a dude that watched TicToc on his phone with the sound on, and was the only one on the entire train that decided to use the curtains. An etiquette faux paus that even I wouldn't have made. No, dude, you don't shut the fucking curtains because the is making it hard to see your phone. Or if you do, you ask first. And the thing is, I got there first, so I could have taken the window seat, but I have such airplane ptsd, that the aisle seat is a must. But trains are different. And had me and PC been on the same train, she in the back, deep throating warm nuts and drinking wine, getting served a tasty lunch, and me in the cattle class, sitting next to this jack-ass, I might have gotten off in Philly and hitchhiked back to the City.

Today was fun though. We went to the White House and the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. We passed a hot dog vendor, and I almost bought a hot dog, but because of what happened with the Broadway premiere, I choked, and kept walking. It was game day, and I didn't want to create another incident. But in the end, I very much regretted the decision. I don't think I will ever know what a DC street dog tastes like. I suppose we may be back at some point, maybe, but it was a missed opportunity.

[Insert White House Photo]

I had to get a hair cut for this trip. I needed one, pretty bad. Things had gotten out of hand, but I don't know if I would have gotten one if it wasn't for this trip. But I got one. From this guy from Georgia, the country, in Ridgewood, Queens. He was great. I called and made and appointment and he told me I could just come in, so I don't know, I did some stuff for a while and then went in. When I got there there was a bald, middle-aged man pushing a bike out of the place, I held the door for him, and by bald, I mean, completely shaved head, with baldness, so I couldn't glean any information about quality from his haircut, but he seemed happy at least. The place smelled like freshly smoked cigarettes. A real blast from the past, but I was optimistic. He told me to have a seat, my timing was spot on, he asked me how short I wanted it, I showed him a picture of that Australian actor that is one of the brothers that do Hollywood things, whose name I am blanking on, but he took on short glimpse of the photo on my phone and nodded. There was no study, no inspection. He wrapped me in an American flag and just went to town. Like no holds barred, kind of thing. It was fantastic, his hubris and confidence and delivery. He chopped it all off. And then started shaving like a maniac. I learned he was the son of a barber, the nephew of barbers, that he had been in Brooklyn for 13 years and played the saxophone and got his start barbering in Hell's Kitchen, I think, or Murray Hill, charged me 25 big ones, an extra five dollars because I had, "Long hair," I tipped him ten dollars and he shook my hand, I walked out of the place looking like a corn fed line backer that played for the Oklahoma Cornhuskers. Not Chris Helmsworth, who was the guy I had the picture of. Earlier today, when we were on the Mall, there was a MAGA Doucher that nodded at me because he thought I was one of his brethren. But the thing will grow back, and I will probably go back to the guy. It was nice to feel clean for once. Even if it makes me look like a White supremist.

[Insert Barber Photos]

After that I went home and hung out for a while, did some editing, and then met up with Jess B at this cool book store I didn't even know was just two blocks away from the apartment. They said they would take my books on consignment, which is great. That kind of thing is always great. Well, not true, when it comes to Greenlight Books, they can suck it because they are liars, who don't actually support local artists, they just want you to advertise for them and get people into their stores by pretending to support local artists, and sure, I get it, they have a business to run, but either do it, or don't do it, taking books from local talent just to get them to get their friends to shop in their store, is not supporting local talent, that is an MLM, Multi-Level Marketing. Aka, Meta-Scam. You do all the work for us, and we take all the money. But me and Jess B had some good times. Talked about writing and publishing and living as a modern working-class artists. About Percolator [Italics] which he is currently editing, performing and just for funzies, talked a little trash about PSNY and Professor Curly's rise to fame and how [Redacted] might not be the artist they seem to be heralded as. My take, not Jess's. But it was nice to get out and just have some words with a like-minded writer about the current state of things. Spoiler alert, it kind of stinks. Or not. It is the best of times AND the worst of times.

I don't know. What do you do about stuff? Stand around in a $1,000 dollar a night hotel room screeding about how odd things can be? I feel like I should be watching this event that PC is at just to have a sense of it all, but aside from wanting to see her in the background, I don't have very much interest in the thing. And the producer she went to the event felt bad that I couldn't go, but what good would me going do? I bring nothing to the table, literally, aside from sweet, sweet eye candy. This is work for those two. Even if it is getting dressed up real nice and watching Dark Brandon do stand-up. Only good things can come of it. It is a turning point, a thing fantastic, but it does feel weird to not be invited to the middle-school party all over again. Not because I care to be there, I came down to DC because me and PC have spent such little time together over the last however many months, and to just be in the same room together is a wonderful thing. I mean, the bonin' alone. But there is a party happening, and I am not invited to it. And it is a very much, there is a thing over there that doesn't really matter, and had I not been aware of it it would never cross my mind, kind of vibe happening. I'm not jealous I am not there, it is more like I am confused that things can happen where I am not allowed to go to. Like last night, that party, I am sure there are tons of people who wished they could have been there, why? Reasons, I guess, maybe it was an opportunity to meet somebody and pitch something in-between lines of coke in the one bathroom they have for a million people, but it wasn't special. All of this stuff isn't special. It's all work. Just a different kind of work than what I am used to.

And it's funny because my work has been drying up. Not that it doesn't exist, it is all logistics, and once again my BMI job next week got canceled because we couldn't get a full crew to go back to Rochester to work half-price at that toxic job site. Which, I just got offered a job working the Governor's Ball in NYC in June, and I don't know what to do about it. It is a day-rate job, but something like $400 a day, which is kind of okay, but I am sure it is at least 12-14 hours a day. I need money, I should take the job, but if I take it and the good work comes in and I can't take it because I am already booked, I will be pretty pissed-off if I am working 14 hours a day at less than half pay and turning down eight hour work for full pay. Because summer is peak prevailing jobs, but it is also mercurial. But my point, the biggest point I am making, is that it never adds up to anything. Whatever choice I make is zugzwang. It all leads to lousy outcomes. But because I need money, because I spend money buying train tickets to DC, or airplane tickets to Berlin or Wyoming or Seattle, and it is all worth it. I mean, It's Pegleg's birthday today! Happy Birthday, MOM! I don't regret these things, it's just you only have so many hours to devote to any day, any week, so choices get made and if you choose wrong, things can backfire. And I had figured it out with the Brewery, I really had, I was living the dream, but their ambitions versus my security have changed things. And now it has become a game of, crap work then, versus crap work there and then. And then you make all the plans for travel and buy tickets with money you haven't made yet and the work falls out and you have to factor in dental appointments and trips back home, and gas bills from the winter and rent is due again, suddenly you are right back where you have always been, and things cost money, as my mom would say, but you can't do the things because they cost money because in order to get the money to do the things you can't do the things because you have to work when you are supposed to be doing the things. It's a mobius strip of impossible options.

Whatever. I don't want to end this thing on a downer, but it is making me philosophical. How to have fun when you are stressed about the future? You can't live in the moment, because every decision you make has far reaching consequences. A week of Brewery work is equal to two and a half weeks of BMI work is equal to six days of 14 hour hell work at the Governor's Ball. Which would be fine if it was just one week you do this, then next week you do that, and then the next week you do the other thing. But instead it is; Choose one. If you choose wrong, you're fucked.

I mean, if you find yourself walking out of the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, DC, don't try and knock on any car windows, you'll spook the drivers, and when you are walking back inside, look out, so you don't step on any live birds.

[Insert Sister Golden Hair]