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The Trip To See Gary
05/22/2002 - 4:56 p.m.
Being away really knocked me for a loop, update-wise, but I'm back, and getting caught up. Here's the story of last Wednesday......
After defeating the WorkMonster by turning into Redgantor, my giant robot alter ego, I had to go meet the girlf so we could drive down to New York. As always in such situations, plans kept changing and morphing as the day went on. The original plan was - I was gonna drive down to New York WITH the girlf, and my pals JD and his amour propre Zera were going to drive down on their own. Then, the four of us were going to go to the show, me and girlf would stay in a hotel, JD and Z were gonna stay at her brothers, then JD and Z and I were gonna drive back to Boston, and Miss Girlf was gonna stay in New York and hang out with her cuz, Cousina.
As with all plans, this had to change. Miss Girlf had to go back to work Thursday afternoon for a big meeting, so we had to hang with Cousina that night, who also ended up coming to the show. I'll reserve judgment on Cousina for a later date. She seemed a bit on the nerved out side, but essentially okee dokee.
Now, due to some goofiness on the part of yours truly, we didn't get on the road till almost 4 pm. This was bad, as it meant we could end up hitting some bad bad traffic on the way into Manhattan. Bad Red. We hit the road in the girlf's autovoiture, with ole Red driving, and had a lovely chat for the first hour and a half. What�d we talk about? Got me, but it was lovely. We stopped at a truck stop to power up on snacks, and were amazed at the selection of white trash tchotchkes - cast-resin storybook clocks, handmade rattan motorcycles, kaysets of trucker song collections, and of course the requisite reclining-naked-ladies-back-to-back metallic plastic appliqu�s. It took a mighty effort of will for me not to spend every cent I was carrying on such items - somehow, I managed to persevere.
Then, corn nuts, twisty cheddar ranch Fritos, and water and iced tea n hand, we were back to the car, where the girlf took over the driving duties and I, for reasons that will probably always remain a mystery, began channeling a feller known only as "The Old Coot," who had plenty to say about how things were "Way Back When," when they didn't have anything we have today, because it hadn't been invented yet. The Old Coot struck Miss G's funnybone real heavy, and at one point she was laughing so hard that I feared for our safety, what with her saying "I can�t see - my eyes are too teary from laughing." Luckily, at around this time the old Coot ran out of steam and went back to his spiritual plain, and the girlf was able to get herself under control.
We rolled on into Manhattan without much trouble, thank Elvis, and found our hotel real easy-like. Now here's a funny oddity - the hotel we ended up in was not only in Cousina's neighborhood, it was right next door to her place. Weird. Weirdity number two about said hotel - it doesn�t take credit cards. That's right. They take your credit card number to reserve the room, but they want cash, traveler�s checks, or a money order to pay for the room. As we didn�t know that, we hadn't cashed up, and we were feeling rather peeved, when the desk clerk said, "Hey, if they didn�t tell you, I'll just run it on your card anyway." Weirdity number 3 - they don�t take credit cards, but they have a credit card reader and can take credit cards. Huh?
Now, I have to admit, I thought that 60 bucks a night was a pretty great deal for a place in midtown (???? - I dunno - 100th and Broadway - I THINK that's Midtown) Manhattan, but I just figured the girlf had used some elven magic and gotten a super great deal. Turns out that no, it wasn't elven magic, this was the standard room rate for a place that pretty clearly had been a welfare hotel until recently. We went up to our room, and, well, it was on the decrepit side. It had clearly been a pretty nice apartment building, sometime around the 1920s. Then, it had obviously degenerated into a warren of horror, from which it was trying to struggle back into the light of day. Weird twisty dark corridors leading past room after room of who-knows-what bleak gloom, we finally arrived at our little corner of Memphis.
Even before entering the room, we know we�re in for a real treat, because the peephole has been broken out, and is covered over with a couple of pieces of electrical tape. Cool. Second, we can barely make the lock work, and when we finally get inside, the room is, well, I guess you�d call it �interestingly decorated.� They�ve clearly made an attempt to fix it up � the walls are an unusually non-institutional purple, and there�s a �nice� bedspread, but the room would be dwarfed by most walk-in closets. There�s also a tv, a mini-fridge, and a desk. No chair. Just a desk. Cousina has come up to the room with us, and she�s horrified. She offers to sleep on the floor so we can have her bed, and then to pay for another hotel for us, but we�re fine. It�s not exactly Memphis, but it is kinda like a visit to a slum theme park.
Out we go to Cousina�s apartment, for a quick peek at her most recent weavings, then we head off to the club to see if we need to worry about getting in, or can get tickets. We take a cab, cuz it�s a long way to Saint Mark�s Place, and the cabbie is listening to a cassette of �Into The Woods,� which is one of them there newfangled musicals you�re always reading about, and Elvis, it was irritating! Blather blather blather in that high-pitched �musical� voice that even perfectly good actors like Kevin Kline can�t seem to avoid, shrieking high-pitched female vocals, �witty� lyrics, gad I am so glad I don�t do musical theatre anymore.
Anyway, we arrive at the place, the 9:30 show is just entering, the guy says come back at 11, and we go off to find food. We have an easy time deciding which restaurant to go to, but a terrible time deciding which of the two to go to. As I don�t care, I find the inability to come to a conclusion most peeving. Finally, we decide to go to �that one,� and off we go. Ya know how people say that New Yorkers can be kinda surly and rude, especially wait staff? Well, it was certainly true last Wednesday night. Ok, check that � it wasn�t that the service was surly or rude, as it was non-existent. It was so bad, what with items not brought, things other than those ordered delivered, and the inability to get any attention from the waitress, that I broke my long-standing rule and left no tip. We left EGGZAKTLEE the amount of the check. That�ll show her.
Finally, we�re back at the club, a line is forming, and we are 10th in it! Hurrah! The girlf and Cousina decide to go to the bookstore � I think they wanted some alone time. Just as well. I wait and wait in line. People around me are all excited about the show. I�m pretty keyed up myself! Gary Wilson! Yowsa!
Girlf and Cousina come back, and here come JD and Zera and her brother, Milton. Now it�s a party. We wait a while longer, the folks from the early show come out, and then we go in. Joe�s Pub is quite nicely decorated. Dark, so it�s hard to see, but it�s nice. It�s not a rock club. actually, it�s a restaurant. That has rock shows. Huh. With a two-drink minimum. On top of the $20 to get in. In New York, two drinks costs a haufen of money. Between me, Miss G, and Cousina, we easily dropped $120 in that joint. Probably more. I hope Gary got some of it. Yowch.
And I don�t want to say that they bootleg their booze, but I have never had that bad a headache from two relatively small drinks of Tanqueray before. Never.
While awaiting the appearance of the god-man, I examine the stage. It�s tiny, and it appears that there are 8 band members. I see drums, a bass rig, geetar. and amp, a keyboard station, another keyboard station � hmm, two keyboard players??? � and the obvious lead singer microphone. That adds up to six. There are two other members of the band, though, and they are already onstage. They are � two female mannequins. This makes all the sense in the world, if you know the album.
Finally, the already-dim lights dim some more, and the band appears. Out comes � the drummer. The bassist. One of the keyboardists. The guitarist. And the other keyboardist. The first 4 are young fellas, perhaps a band that have been tapped by the master to be his temporary back up band. The last fellow is in his late 40s, it appears, the right age to actually be Gary himself, and looks suspiciously like Tony Clifton. This, I assume, is Gary hisself, and I conclude that he will be moving between the keyboard and the front of the stage, and that there are only 5 band members. The band starts into a highly swinging version of �You Were Too Good To Be True,� an instrumental, and it kicks. Hard.
The song comes to a close, the band begins �Cindy,� and suddenly he is there, Gary, after fooling us all into thinking that Tony Clifton was him, he appears, and the show begins.
What can I say?
The band was great, Gary�s voice was in fine form, and this was surely one of the ginchiest shows I have ever seen. Well-paced, moving from strength to strength, with only one unrecognized number (probably from his single or 4 song ep that were released around the time of the album), the show was a 40-minute look into the mind of a madman. Or genius. Or both?
The man. The genius.
After the show, Miss G, Cousina, and I hopped a cab back to 100th, C went home, and G and I set our cell phones to �alarm� mode so we could get up at the unMemphisly hour of 7 to drive back to town so Miss G could be at her super-important finance meeting where she rocked the house and made big points with the boss and such.
Gary and his muse share an intimate moment.
Then I ran around doing last minute errands so that I could be ready for the next leg of my week, which was flying down to North Carolina for D-man�s wedding. More on that later. This entry seems plenty long enough already.
Ok, one more.
She's real.
Music to reminisce by:
Gary Wilson - "6.4 - Make Out" (You think You Really Know Me)
"6.4 equals make out!
I wouldn't kid you now.
6.4 equals make out!
Why don't you come a little closer?
Ha!
6.4 equals make out!
How old you say you were?
Sixteen!"
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