[290] Screed City

[290]

06/25/2024 Tuesday. Tiny table on top of other tiny table. Room 506. Marriott Bonvoy, Saratoga Springs, New York.

I am starting to feel like Gobos Uncle Travelling Matt when I stand around writing these things. Busy busy busy, as Kenny used to say. Saratoga Springs. This morning I was in Ridgewood, Brooklyn/Queens. Sunday I was in Narrowsburg, New York. Saturday I travelled from Vermont to Narrowsburg, New York. Tomorrow we are going to Salem, Massachutsets. After work Thursday I will drive up to Troy, New York and then on Friday after work I will drive back to the City. What the hell? Also, ps, Travelling Matt is from Fraggle Rock in case that reference was too oblique for you. Hes the character who left the Rock to explore the world and he would send a postcard home every week telling the other Fraggles about his adventures, specifically his nephew, Gobo. Did you know that Jim Henson died from blood poisoning? Interesting fact, he died because he was too busy to go to the hospital. He was in negotiations with Disney or something and it killed him. Two things, if you are too busy to go the hospital when something is obviously wrong, you are an idiot, second, go to the fucking hospital. I dont know how many of these stories I have heard or read when some idiot knew something was dire and urgent and instead of getting help they were like, Oh, well, maybe I just need to drink some water. Roebling, Phillip K Dick, Chris McCandless. I mean, the pattern is that they are all straight White, malignant narcissists, but still, it is pretty decent advice. And also, if you have to go the emergency room and you dont have insurance, dont pay that bill. There is no moral obligation to pay that bill. Hide your assets and make them come and try and get the money and when they succeed, declare bankruptcy. Dont fight them in court, dont get a lawyer, just declare bankruptcy and start over.

Now, where was I? Oh, I was driving back to Brooklyn from Narrowsburg on Sunday. Me and the Publisher had headed over there to do a book festival. I was heading to the City the next day and she was heading back to Vermont that evening so we took different cars. Also, she needed to be there by 10a and I didnt need to be there until 12:30p. Which was better for me, and sucked for her, but I had to get up at 5a to be there on time, so neither of us won, really, not that suffering is competition, but you know, I am a Buddhist, and all life is suffering, therefore, whoever suffers the hardest wins. However bad your day is, I guarantee my day is one thousand times worse. And then I transcend. Sucks to be you.

I needed to get there around noon because I was doing a reading and I was scheduled to go on first. The Publisher needed to get there around ten because she was boothing and needed to represent. Because we were both in Vermont, which is somehow Americas most far away state, we both had to suffer a five hour drive. I mean, I took the back roads so it took me five and half hours and she took the front roads, so it took her four and half hours, but still, thats splitting butt hairs in the grand scheme of things.

I dont know, it was a great book fair. Festival? I dont even know what you would call it. It was connected to this other arts festival and this was the first year that book booths were part of it. Because of that it was kind of a wild scene. The event took place in a gymnasium. Something akin to a public school auditorium, but a little different. There was a stage, but there were also bleachers. It was a very odd space. And the people the showed up were more curious than they were book nerds. Everyone was very sincere and were open to things that most of the jerks that go to these things arent. I dont think we sold a ton of books, but I think the people that bought them are actually going to read them.

The reading was funny. They shut the entire book fair down to do it. I even got in trouble because I wasnt sitting where I was supposed to sit. The emcee chastised me on microphone. The microphone being set up in the middle of the C shaped booths surrounding it. I was supposed to read first, but I didnt. Some teenagers read some poetry first. Then this very pretentious fool read something in a way that I cant even remember what it was about. Then this guy who wrote and illustrated a Christmas book about Halloween read. Then I went on. My plan was to read Reduction Boys again. Or it had been. Because I still want to make a performance art piece about it. With it. But the audience was wrong. Well, the audience was normal. And that five minutes of reading is quite lewd, if not actually pornographic, so instead I read from Cooking Cockroach and really socked it to 'em. Emily was there and she even told me so. Not that I believe her. I did okay. It was nice to read in front of an audience of exactly almost nobody you know. I cant remember the last time that happened. Maybe never. Well, in Norway a couple times. But that was like twelve years ago. After I read this fucking lady got on stage and killed it. She was reading poetry even. And the poems were great. But the kicker, the real kicker, she was older, and had to sit down as she read, which, that wasnt the kicker, but I am just trying to, you know, paint a picture or whatever, the kicker was that the last poem she did she sang instead of reading. I was truly startled. It was something else! Bring back Ginsberg, man!

The Publisher ditched after the boothing was over and I drove to Lucys house to meet up with Emily and Hunter where we had a cordial and then heading back into town to party down, but the partying down didnt really happen so we drove back and had a couple more cordials and played some Scrabble where I tore those punks a couple new assholes, word-wise. Soon we were sawing logs and then morning came and we went our separate ways. The shame and smell of defeat trailing them back to Brooklyn. The glorious smell of victory and triumph, like a new popes smoke, blowing out the tail pipe of Junior Mint.

Well, it wasnt the tail pipe that was smoking. Naturally I took the back roads back to Queens. Driving through Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It was kind of a wild route. There are quite a few hills out in the Delaware Gap boonies. Boonys? Steep curvy hills. I was taken slightly aback. But then when I hit the densely populated areas I ditched the local roads and changed the map settings to haul ass mode.

When I got to RFK bridge things started smelling like 9/11 all over again. I truly thought something bad had happened in the City. I kept my eyes peeled for smoke. Anything to explain the smell. At this point I had been in stop and go traffic for almost an hour so there was no indication that something was wrong with Junior Mint, but something was wrong with Junior Mint. I didnt know it though. I kept driving. Driving. Driving. Turning and getting off of this exit and that one, stopping at stoplights and such. I was about eight minutes from home when I realized something was terribly wrong. So guess what I did? I went to the fucking hospital. Just joking, there is no hospital for cars. Just a doctor. But I did think something was seriously wrong. I pulled over. I popped the hood and had a look-see. Nothing hot or smoking. I was confused, was it just me? Was I imagining things, et cetera? Junior Mint was, in fact, acting weird now. Sluggish, logy. And it seemed like the car was about to catch fire. But where? How? I got back in and was about to drive away when I noticed a whisper of smoke coming from the left side. I got out again and touched the wheel. It was so hot that my finger blistered immediately.

END PART ONE of this epic tale. Im going to go meet Jayboo in the lobby. Maybe I will finish it tomorrow. Or someother day this week? Well see.

[insert book fair photo and if can, the sung poem]