Lady, wake up, I'm going to flag down a Yellow Cab to take you the rest of the way.
So began the beginning of the chaos of getting out of NYC on 10/11.
I was moved from cab #1 to cab #2 amid a throng of cars meandering out to JFK on a Boulevard as all biways were still lifes. The car service ordered by Dorota was late, then not really ever coming. So the cab.
In cab #2 I sat next to the driver while in the back seat were two well-dressed and handsome businessmen, one French and one Brit but living in Paris. I was third to be dropped off, a mistake by cabbie #2 as I was to be, at Brit requested, dropped to not miss my 515.
So I missed the 515, The flight's closed, said the JetBlue guy with the wandering eye. His legs wandered off with my passport to inquire if I could get onto the flight, which hadn't left.
I snapped as loud as the doors of a JetBlue plane shutting hard, Nancyless, for him to hand over my passport. I snapped even louder as he put me on standby for the next and last flight in 1.5 hours. I asked where I was on the list of waiters and he said he couldn't tell me that priviledged info. And why not, I asked, eyes shooting flames into his wandering and non-wandering eyes. OK, you're #5.
Off I ran to the ground transportation centre to reserve the last car Budget had.
Then 4 hours of jams, bad rain. Then highway action, good ol' 87. Then another hour waiting.
Two naps, one snack, one pee, one mission later and I was in The Middling City at 530, at the airport dropping the rental, getting into my awaiting car and then awaiting bed for a brief snooze before shooting freelance gigs and rock shows.
The Mooney Suzuki. Tall boys in black spending much of their set time in the midst of their fans, lost in a sea of smiling heads and still playing guitars. I was standing on the edge of the stage shooting into the crowd. I had gone backstage, grabbed some Marty-made snacks en route, and skittled over the stage like a cockroach for the vantage point. There must have been 400+ people in Mohawk Place, a place that can comfortably hold 100.
Chameleons were also grand that night.
Today, in a few hours, I'm off to a New Orleans-style jazz funeral for Tim Switala, a great multi-media guy who was married to one of my former editors at UB Office of News Services.
A sunny day for a funeral.
A march of sadness.
And memories now of the jazz funeral I shot in thee N.O. for Ernie K. Doe -- raucous and equally sunny.
Love.