PARIS FRANCE (part 14)

Susan bikes from her apartment on west 95th street to my apartment on West 42nd. It's a straight shot down the west-side bike path. She makes it in twenty minutes.

Susan wheels her bike into my apartment and I smell that city sweat, that smell of biking the streets of New York in the fetid Spring heat. I forgot that smell. On the first hot day of Spring, the city (in an instant) becomes reborn.

"You're here!"

Susan is here to chaperone me to the recording studio. I tell her she can be my PA or AD. She'll need to listen hard, and get me coffee, pronto.

"Should I wear my bike helmet in the cab?" she asks.

"What for?

"For solidarity. We'll match."

________________________


I smell New York summer on the cab ride to the studio.

"This is the kind of day," I tell Susan - the hot wind circling through the open windows, "where you might get lost in the park, or in some neighborhood different from your own, you wander around and get sweaty, and end up drinking cold beers on a stoop or in someone's breezy apartment."

I'm waxing nostalgic for the weather I'm presently experiencing, like I'm a pasty ghost visiting mortal earth for a few paltry hours.

"THIS weather could he hard for me," I tell her. "This weather could be my end."

________________

The recording studio is on West 30th Street.












The building lobby is shabby Art deco. I love the lobby.










We get on the elevator with a middle aged black man.
The man watches me struggle my way onto the elevator. When the doors close, he glances over at me and leans in, like an officer addressing a private.

"How you doing, It's a good day to be alive,"

I nod quietly. (awkward)

He stays on me.

"You should be happy, we're just lucky to be alive," he adds.

Nod. (okay)

"Appreciate the now," he continues.

Nod. (got it)

And then he goes for it.

"I know how you feel, I lost my whole family!"

(I swallow excess saliva).

He gets off on the sixth floor and Susan turns to me and says "F-ck you! You lost your whole family? Well, F-ck you!"

This is hilarious.
________________________

Our sound engineer, Tim, leads us to a tired, wood paneled studio. There are guitars on the wall, a couple of couches, worn- out wall to wall carpeting. It's very 70s, like their might be a purple bong tucked in a corner.

(Recording studios were a sign for me for that the city was changing. About ten years ago, all the studios got fancy makeovers (like the rest of the city). They became the equivalent of stainless steel and mid-century modern. Some old studios still have obsolete massive control consoles that were used for the old analog system. Engineers simply plop a laptop on top of the old control panel, like they're putting an electric keyboard on top a massive church organ).

___________________

We listen to my tape.
Hearing my recent younger self sing out so hopefully and not have a clue of what's in store for him is pretty poignant (at the very least).

We clean up five songs. It takes two hours.
At certain points, Susan and I look like we're about to bust out in tears.
_________________________

Finally some rap artists knock on the studio door so we have to finish up.

"I wish I was a rap artist."

"Me too," says Susan.

I ask Tim about his accent.
I'm positive he's from upstate New York.
His accent is flat and normal, but sometimes a foreign vowel sound pops through.

"Tim, you're from upstate New York, aren't you?"

"Nope... actually, you'll never guess. Try to guess."

Susan guesses Massachusetts. I guess Western Pennsylvania.

"Nope."

Then Tim does the voacal equivalent of that thing they do in "Mission Impossible" movies when they reach down under their chin and pull off a rubbery mask revealing their real and fantastically different face underneath.

Tim drops his flat American accent and speaks in a shaggy English accent.

"I'm from Bristol England, actooool-lay. I use an American accent for business purposes."

We look at Tim like he just performed a mind-blowing magic trick.
We're delighted.

___________________________

On the street outside, I stop to take random pictures and Susan is unrealistically patient with me.

"You're only allowing me to waste your time because I have ALS."

"It's true."

"Everyone likes me more now that I have ALS. I'm totally popular now that I have a fatal disease."

I pose Susan and take her picture.










We sit in the new park outside my building and eat chicken salad from the nearby deli. The chicken salad is soupy. We decide to call it chicken ice cream.

We talk about Susan's brother Pete, who just passed away.

"Do you think you know where Pete is?"

"I'm not sure, I don't think he's in the city. He wasn't a big fan of New York.
He really was a nature guy, The last thing we talked about was compost."

"Was he talking to you about his ashes?"

"No, he was instructing me on the proper ways to compost. I'm trying to do a little composting in my apartment. That's what our last words were about, composting."

Susan has to leave. It's getting dark, so we tape a flashlight to her handle bars.

When she gets home, she texts,

"I'm sweaty. And I'm havin' a beer!"
__________________________


Here's a song from one of my last coaching sessions. I was working toward a cabaret.

I worked with my coach, Phil, on the upper west-side near Susan's apartment on 95th Street. Phil works out of his apartment. He lives in a building called "The Paris Apartments." I love that. There is nothing particularly Parisian about these apartments. Some developer in the 1930's probably thought it would attract more renters if he named the building after Paris, France.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTM7zXr6eaQ

BUYING ORGANIC ISN'T SO FOOLISH AFTER ALL

New Alarm Bells About Chemicals and Cancer
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: May 5, 2010

The President’s Cancer Panel is the Mount Everest of the medical mainstream, so it is astonishing to learn that it is poised to join ranks with the organic food movement and declare: chemicals threaten our bodies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/opinion/06kristof.html?hp

Home Haircut

Home Haircut
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Home Haircut

Home Haircut
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Home Haircut

Home Haircut
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Home Haircut

Home Haircut
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

Home Haircut

Home Haircut
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

ROOMMATES (part 13)

Aroo has changed (or my perception of him has). Because he's near death, he seems nobler, wiser. I forget how he annoys me.

My friend Mattie refers to me as the father of Aroo but I tell her, it's not like that.

"Our relationship is kind of adversarial, actually... we're more like roommates except I cover all the expenses and have to wait on him."

Sometimes when I have a friend over (say my neighbor Jackie) and we're sitting at the computer, Aroo will decide he wants in on the action and walk (back and forth) over the keyboard. I wine (the way children wine to their mothers, "A-ROO-oo," to which my friend will probably say, "it's okay, let him stay," to which I reply, "NO! It's not alright, he always does this. Whatever. Play with Aroo if you want."

The cat craves attention. He looks to people for sustenance. This is the opposite of me.

But now that Aroo is all weak and feeble, I feel teary eyed around him.

I'm leaving in an hour to go to a recording studio to digitalize some cassette tapes of my last voice lessons. But before I go I need to do a little exercise.

I sit on my theracyle and as I get it going, the cat comes over to sit in my lap. This is unusual. He's been sleeping in the closet facing the wall for the last couple of days. I stop cycling and let him nest. I slowly pat him.

It occurs to me (and I mean it's just crazy) that just a little over two years ago, we were both perfectly healthy and now we're fighting for our lives. (I cry a little for the both of us).

Aroo can only sit in my lap so long because it hurts. He moves to the bed and lies down as near to the edge as possible, so we are still quite close. (I wonder if Aroo is trying to say goodbye).

PROJECTING (PART 12)

Aroo, the cat, is flat.
He's aware, he's observing, you can sense he wants to play but that he's too nauseous (and he's not sure why).

He blinks at my mother and me cautiously.

We (humans) babble around him senselessly -(like in the Pixar cartoons where adults are feckless and inane but the main characters, the toy cowboy, the race-car or rat, are insightful and grounded.

Perhaps we made the cat worse by forcing pills down his throat.
Maybe the cat understands this.

I call my sister.
"If the cat's not drinking or eating you'll have to put him down" she says.
(Today, Aroo can't even look at water. He gags).

So after coffee, I text Jackie to come over and say hello to the cat, but what I really mean is goodbye.

Jackie texts back, "in a while." I can tell she's reluctant to come over and when she does come over, she says,

"I can't do this! I've lost too many people. I'm 73 years old" (here she slips, normally she only admits to 70) "I've lost fathers, ex-husbands, brothers to Alsheimer's!- cats, you name it. I'm done feeling. It's OVAH!"

This cracks me up.

"Charlie, you're laughing but I mean it. It's OVAH. I'm done. I can't take this anymore!"

My mother jumps in to placate Jackie.

(It's strange having my mother and Jackie in the same room, at the same time - not unlike having Bette Davis and Joan Crawford over for lunch. You'd think they're competing luminescence would snuff the other one out, but my mother and Jackie get along well. Jackie's comic rants crack my mother up.

So, my mother tries to calm Jackie with a wacky scheme to save the cat by giving him a baby enema.

"The cat looked oddly at peace when the Oriental veterinarian used the rectal thermometer on him. He liked it. I'm going to go to CVS and get a baby enema kit. Aroo needs a baby enema."

"Do you think you could do that Nancy?" Jackie brightens, finding nothing unusual with my mother's suggestion

I sit on the couch wan and powerless.

PATTI ON NEW YORK

Musician and author Patti Smith had some sound advice for fledgling artists thinking of moving to New York: don't.

According to Vanishing New York, in a discussion with writer Jonathan Lethem at Cooper Union on Saturday, Smith was asked if it was possible for young artists to come to the city and find the path to stardom that she did.

In response, Smith told the crowd, "New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling. But there are other cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City has been taken away from you. So my advice is: Find a new city."

HERE IS A BLOG ABOUT NEW YORK DISAPPEARING

http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2010/05/find-new-city.html

WEST 30th

PARADE (part 11)

The cat looks better in the morning.

My mother and I smile and stare at the cat as we sip our coffee.

We make plans.
My mother leaves tomorrow and we need to finish up my taxes.
(For the last two years, I've failed to do my taxes). 

But I've got to get out of the apartment. I haven't left it in days.

I list the possibilities: Central Park, the MOMA, Battery or Bryant Park.

She picks Bryant Park, but then she goes back to the taxes. 

"Daylight mother" I tell her. "We don't want to miss the daylight."

Finally I use passive aggression, a family tradition.

"I'm going alone, will you get my coat and bag for me?"

"Let me get my bag," she says.

__________________________

We sit by a stone banister overlooking the bright green lawn.

The park is packed (like a state fair).

Everyone looks great, monied and fashionable.

Swanky business types.

Self conscious men who know they're dressed too well.

There is one well dressed man directly in front of us, his head near his knees.

He holds a cup of ice water in each hand.

A tour guide leads a group of bird watcher's.
The guide stops in front of me and points to a bird beneath me in the dusty brush.

_________________

My mother calls someone on her cellphone.

"Everyone is drunk and no one seems to care" she tells someone.

"Just ONE person" I interrupt, "and I'd guess he's hung-over not drunk." 

"Charlie says he hungover, that he's not drunk."

I spot the film-maker Michael Moore.

"Mom, there's Michael Moore!"

"Oh! Charlie says there's Michael Moore. Oh, there he is! in an orange baseball cap!

Michael Moore floats by disheveled and heavy. Tourists grab for their digital cameras.

In fact, everyone is taking pictures, myself included.

What will humanity do with all these digital images, I wonder (faintly)?

How will the trillions of jpegs be sorted, dated, and rated in significance? 

My mother circles the park but I stay put.

I listen to two young men talking at a nearby table.

I assume they're boyfriends,
but as I listen, I hear the bigger one telling the skinnier one that... 

"G-d's will is not always so clear." 

(and)

"Here are some simple ways to help the congregation" 

(and)

"As much as I think I know you, I feel like you're holding back, you're not presenting yourself, your TRUE self.  You want to seem gregarious and outgoing, but I'm not buying it, that's not really who you are. I'm not sure if YOU know who you really are."

The skinnier one looks away and nods. His placid expression hiding tricky feelings.

_________________

Mom is back. She tells me half the women are wearing very high heels, and the other half are wearing flats. She says she used to be an expert at wearing heels.

"I could run. Dance. I could HOP in high heels. But then I went to a party at the Bickley's."

(The Bickley Estate in New Canaan. The Bickley Estate is owned by Harry Connick Junior now).

"Someone was loading my drinks and I fell in a hole. So after that, I never let anyone load my drinks and I never wore high heels."
______

The park restores me. It's time to meet Susan. Susan's brother died today (of cancer) and she wants to be with friends.

"Did you talk to Susan? Should we go out to dinner? I'll pay!" Mom says.

We can't get a cab so we take a pedicab home.

The pedicab driver bikes down on 42nd street with gusto and strength. He sweats.
We zip down the bus lane, past commuters, past tourists, past police horses and shiny limousines.

I feel exposed and giddy.
I'm in a parade.

At Times Square, we barely make a light.

"I thought that we'd all end up in the Metropolitan section of the Times. All three of us squashed!" My mother says. But I'm wearing my bike helmet (I wear it everywhere) and so (I quickly realize)  I would be the sole survivor.

I consider taking it off.

We bike through the nadir of Time Square, through the neon razzmatazz.

Two blocks from home, Mom has the pedicab stop at a liquor store. She needs her nightly thimble of Grey Goose and she's out. I go the rest of the way by myself.

AROO (not so well)

CAMP FIRE (# 10)

My mother and I stay in my apartment the next day and clean out the front closet. I give orders and my mother complies.  I'm quite dictatorial. (I forget this side of me). My mother has the same domineering quality but I realize (now) it's even more pronounced in me.

I'm often impatient with her.

"MOTHER! Please don't pet the cat! I'M WAITING HERE. Hello? LET'S GO.  Shall we FOCUS?"

____________________

After we're done cleaning out the closet, Mattie and Susan come over to make dinner.
My mother tells Mattie and Susan that I've been heartless and cruel. I boss her around, savagely.

I want to defend myself, but she's right.  I have. And it's clear to me (now) I might have a problem.

__________________________

Susan prepares fish and artichokes for dinner. The artichokes are delicious. I dip the artichoke leaves in organic Mayonnaise. The slow process of eating the artichokes gives us time to ruminate and then leisurely converse.

We eat near the cat.

The cat's demise has become the campfire around which we gather.

We talk about Susan's brother, Pete.

Pete is (suddenly) dying of cancer and is going, soon. Susan is flying out to West Virginia this weekend to say goodbye. Pete is only 59. He was a health nut. He went to Yale. He once lived in a commune. He has two kids.

"Is your brother hot?" I ask inanely.

"Oh my G-d, YES. Or he was. I think I had crushes on ALL my brothers."

We talk about the cat. The cat lies docile and seemingly doped up in the recliner. The cat, even in ill health, enjoys being near the action, taking in the sounds of conversation. He sneaks a weak glimpse ofus through furry hooded eyes. We stare back at the cat.

"Look Charlie! He's licking his paw!"

"Oh my gosh, I think he's going to use his scratch pad!"

We revere the cat. We praise the cat. We're ancient Egyptians preparing Aroo for mummification.