Unicycle Loves You • Piano’s, NYC
Pennsylvania rolled past our windows in lingering autumn colors.
It seems winter had performance anxiety this year.
Hues of smoked reds, burnt citrus, and faint purples.
Construction orange also found its way onto the pallet as well, extending our appreciation of Appalachian splendor.
New Jersey had natural beauty, too, but everyone ignores it, so nevermind.
I wasn’t in the mood for New York.
Exhausted and starving by the time we found a spot on the Lower East Side, we settled for a slice of mediocre pizza recommended by misguided yelpers.
Justin Beiber’s new disco single yelled at us.
All I wanted to do was poop and nap.
In that order.
But I couldn’t while mired in New York’s aloof, impatient circle jerk of urban arrogance.
How was this The Greatest City In The World?
Let’s just agree that “best” sometimes just means “different”.
But of course we never will agree.
I found it too exhausting to even sleep.
So I hid in the van on Ludlow and made it my apartment.
Wrote about my “it’s complicated” relationship with this town.
And about gave myself a circus headache with my lower GI’s pressing demands.
Piano’s is a douchebag bar with a stage in its rear.
It pisses disco and farts empty but deadly coke chatter.
Everyone’s greasy and slimy, which makes squeezing through cliques easier.
The soundman looked like Body Count and declared a moratorium on all drum kits expect one.
He used words like “impossible” and “no”.
MY HI-HAT! BITCH!!
Every band used a drum kit scrawled with the unfortunate moniker The Phuss.
They were the first of five bands.
We were the last.
The disco was suffocating.
Piano’s shat me out onto the streets.
It was a Saturday night in New York.
Ludlow teemed with boozie floozies in bunny-ears.
I walked to Delancey and followed the silly graffiti up the Williamsburg Bridge.
It was still loud but the air was discoless, and only pissy in spots.
High above the East River felt good.
It started sprinkling.
New York wanted to be a cupcake for a minute.
I changed into my show shorts on stage.
Someone said they thought they were watching an SNL sketch.
But they used the word skit.
The shared drum hardware was absolute shit.
The cymbal stand legs were inverted.
The hi-hat stand had the shakes.
I prematurely knocked over my tiny New York cups of water.
Jim’s guitar flew.
I kicked my monitor when it overloaded me with bass.
Jim screamed.
I screamed.
Nicole’s family waved from the audience.
Nicole waved back.
Jim’s guitar strings kept loosening.
He bought them at a donut shop.
“I’m not really an asshole!” he insisted.
I waved my DON’T TREAD ON ME drumstick flag.
Jim’s guitar got a boot in the ass at the end of the show.
He also flipped it the ole bird.
Punishment for going mute at the crescendo.
The Body Count guy immediately segued into disco.
An orange guy confronted Jim about his flare up.
“Why’d you flip off the crowd at the end?”
We learned one of the local bands received $75 compared to our paltry $30.
Jim yelled down Ludlow about it.
Twitter also heard about it.
I met his parents, who were very polite and paid me some lovely compliments about my drumbings.
Then a car almost ran them over.
A van parked behind us had a cat living in it.
Instagram.
People were still wearing bunny ears.
The night refused to end.
It never did.
