A friend from home

10/24

Friends from home. My old friend Diana arrives with her friend Paul and Pat Arnow, free lance journalist and photographer. (http://arnow.org/)  I give them all the full archi-socio-cutural tour of West-Park. Tell all the stories. Pat taking photographs the whole time.

My friend Diana is a journalist with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who covers neighborhoods wit her own blog. (http://blogs.post-gazette.com/news/city-walkabout ) Although Diana and I had pretty much the same circle in Tulsa, she arrived as I was leaving and our paths didn’t cross until Pittsburgh. A random mention of a favorite Tulsa Vietnamese restaurant in her column caught my eye. A lunch and many conversations led to a friendship. And at a low point in my life, she helped me to rediscover some important parts of myself.

During a newspaper strike she had created a ‘zine  called the Recession Supper Digest (http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19930213&id=eIRIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=x24DAAAAIBAJ&pg=1740,4530613) as a creative outlet for first out of work journalists and then writing and cooking friends of hers around the world. Each issue was an adventure. And before I knew it I was writing a regular column.  The writing helped keep me alive and get through a rough time. Reminded  me I could never go without writing again.

Diana also played in a zydeco band that went by the Pittsburgh clever name of Mon Gumbo. I also needed to get back to my music and in Christmas ’94 some of her Mon mates a former Eddie and the Otters member or two and my favorite lounge singer minister turned out two nights of  seriously fun seasonal music with slide guitars, rubboards and all. Mainly I’ve always appreciated her appreciation of neighborhoods and the people who make them.

So I wanted Diana and her friends to meet the inimical RL. After a lunch at the Gate, we returned to the church and went to RL’s studio where he introduced them to the world of Dusty Withers, famous side kick and the wonder mule, Mr. Blithers. All of course initiated into the fan club with a CD and a Dusty badge. (http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/rl-haney/album/the-lost-episodes-and-dusty-tales/track/the-adventures-of-dusty-withers-famous-sidekick-episode-one)

I gift my friends with Angelo’s angelitos. I wish they could have been here for Amanda’s ice cream truck and Indian Summer Tour. Or a Friday night open mic. But as I watch them leave, I’m thinking how important it is to always give thanks for the people in our lies who remind us of who we’re supposed to be. 

The Indian Summer Tour comes to town

10/23

The Indian Summer Tour is here

I look up and there’s Amanda. First time I’ve seen her in seven months. And Amelia, now eight years old. And Jen, the performance painter I’ve never met before. They’ve finally arrived here after traveling over 3000 miles from Portland, Oregon to New York City. Stopping along the way to sing, play, paint.  And sell ice cream.

Amelia is shy at first. It’s been awhile. But she begins to open up. I get Angelo’s angelitos for each of them.

We go out to look at her ice cream truck. With its pop up stage. Then we walk down to what Amanda calls the Blue Pub for lunch and conversation. There’s an hour on the parking meter. Then we drive down and park in front of the Gate. RL and Joe come out. Amanda and Jen decide to do  an impromptu mini-concert right on Amsterdam. They put up the stage and climb on top of the truck. A crowd starts to gather. They sing their Ice Cream Ladies song.  And then another, then finish with Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire. And we’re singing along in our own rough harmonies.

Then it’s up to 87^th to stop in front of Rachel’s. I go in and help her walk out. She’s amazed to see the ice cream truck. And Amanda. Traffic is coming. We’ve only got a few moments. Amanda has to leave for Woodstock. And I walk Rachel back inside and stop for conversation.  They’ll be back.

Amanda and Rachel

                                                                    * * * *

Rudolfo comes in. His sad look is gone. Cuba has given him a visa and a ticket home. Come November he’ll be heading back to Cuba for the first time in 30 years. I keep trying to imagine what it must have been like at the consulate when he walked in. Let me get this straight. You’ve been here 30 years and you want to go back to Cuba?

He’s on his way home.

                                                                   * * * *

10/26

Saturday. And they’re back. The little chapel is set up with Amanda’s unique touch. She has asked Cara to sit for a portrait. Cara is very moved. Amanda does a full set. And Jen paints Cara. And Amelia does her own painting. And joins Amanda for a few songs with an uncanny sense of harmony and style. Still, she is only eight.

The chapel is filled with many old friends. Singers. Players. Friends. Marsha has come. When Amanda has finished her set, Cara’s portrait is almost finished. RL takes on his role as host and we take turns performing. Jeremy plays some then plays for me while I sing. Later I sing So Lonesome….with Pat and then Amanda joins me on my Well Song. 

Bob, Amanda, RL

At the night’s conclusion, the whole stage is filled with an all star line up to sing RL’s closer Stay Awhile, which Amanda had played earlier on her uke. As the crowd gathers, RL says Look how many people are coming up here to correct her version…And as we crowd around the mikes and add our raucous harmonies arms around each other, for the first time in a long time, I am feeling happy. This is where the tour should end. (Although there is still a set tomorrow night at the legendary Bitter End and the Amanda will join Neil Howard for a couple.)  Everything that is going on here goes back to Amanda helping me see that this closed up water ruined church could live again.  And it is. Always on edge.  But very much alive. (see the very first blog entry http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/search?q=on+the+steps)

Cara and Jen

Grand finale

Jen, Amanda and Amelia pick up Cara and head north on Amsterdam  on their way to a girls’ slumber party.

                                                               * * * *

10/29

We sang one last time last night at 78 Below.  Another gathering of friends. And today is completely consumed by planning and reports to keep things alive with Presbytery. Amanda would like me to go with her to Rachel’s but I can’t break away. So she goes up to visit RL in his studio. And then there’s only time for a quick hug and I watch her down the steps (she’s the one that told me sweep the steps, every day…reclaim your church… ) and heading for a cab to the airport. Too soon. Too soon. 

I ain't afraid a no ghosts

10/31

My jack'o'lantern

Halloween. Been seeing people in costumes for about a week now. But today it gets serious. 

Three people come in looking to start a day care center. The preaching man in the pork pie hat is out talking to the building again and Marty is back to not talking to anyone at all.

RL

RL comes in with his costume, but is it really a costume? All in black, wearing  a duster like a long rider and his reservation police badge and a gun in a holster at his side. He demonstrates his quick draw spins his pistol and back into the holster. Relieved to find out it was a prop gun from a western movie he was once in.  What follows is a good yarn about a relationship with Mel Torme went south when RL revealed his preference for Remingtons and Torme replied, I’m a Colt man. 

Our neighbor Jen arrives with six large bags of candy. Soon neighbors Susan and Lisa (from Friends of West-Park) arrive. Together we will stand outside the church and pass out treats to passing trick ors.  I love the passing parade of people, children from the neighborhood. Parents. I take the smaller pumpkin and carve the most simple of jack’o’lantern faces. Just had to. Wouldn’t feel like Halloween unless I did. 

Jen and a very scary Green Monster  and a Raggedy Ann

My helpers are also passing out treats to adults passing by and people getting off the bus. The smiles we get back are well worth it. In a couple of hours, the candy is  mostly all gone. I take what’s left over and leave it for the flamenco students.

I’m pondering how the church attempted to take over the Celtic holiday of samhain and tame it, turn it into part of a religious event honoring saints and souls, making the night before All Hallows’ Evening, ergo Halloween. But somehow those like Christmas and Easter and every other attempt to colonize and eradicate the true old time religion, those pagan roots are strong and always show through. The merriment we see around us is the fun in putting on, taking the freedom to be something /someone else while simultaneously poking fun at what we fear. Laughing in it’s face. I ain’t afraid a no ghosts….

Trick or treaters

Lisa and Susan

Churches who try to make it an evil event or turn it into something else unwittingly only honor the darkness and grant it power.  Our ancestors knew…facing it and laughing is the only way to take away its power.

Time to walk with my longrider friend to the Gate and see what kind of collection of spirits are there.

Dead eye

For awhile

10/22

I stand on the steps  with A. It’s a cool October  morning. And I’m missing fall back home in southwestern  Pennsylvania. The taste of  air crisp as a bite into a fall apple. The smell of cinnamon  and nutmeg in outdoor cider pots over fire. The last ears of fresh corn before winter at  roadside stands. We enjoy a moment together before  A heads off for work.

Before the day is over, there are more and more messages from A. Increasingly incoherent.

As Jamie and I are waiting to meet mayoral candidate Bill DiBlasio, seemingly an actual progressive candidate, concerned about people on the margins, I get the worst call yet.  A is in a park somewhere. With homies, A says. Missing keys. And shoes. I determine that the park is across the street from A’s apartment. I tell A to forget the keys. Just go home. Just go home.

I feel a deep sadness coming over me. All that work yesterday…..  Yes, it works. But I hear the in my head the two words at the end of Leonard Cohen’s Tonight Will Be Fine that always hit you like a punch to the stomach:  …….for awhile.

Yes it works. For awhile.