Spent some time at the Fireside Coffee Lodge yesterday, which kind of has the feel of a hostel. Actually with the fireplace and all the stout hairy men it kind of feels like “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” except that Goldilocks is nowhere in sight, and the three bears are fixated on their laptop computers. I’m waiting for a call back from Kevin Reedy and still brainstorming questions for “Daddy Donner” about How To Be A Gay Porn Star. I put the Sluts and Squares performers in touch with Pat, who will hopefully line them up for the Hat Party, and in so doing I’ve realized that I’m pretty good at this connecting-people thing, juggling different people I know in my mind and thinking “you would work good with so-and-so,” and I’m thinking that may be a career path I should pursue, a way to make money while I devote my free time to various creative endeavors of my own. Meghan said she read a book recently by a guy who talks about different personality types and the “connector” type, which I guess I am, is not something everyone has, it’s a talent.
Prior to getting caffeinated at the Fireside I dropped off the final version of What I Really Want Is at Minuteman (man I hate the #72 bus, the one that runs along 82nd Ave: always crowded, always the most depressing collection of people imaginable), so I will soon have 50 copies hot off the presses to give away and sell. I’d like to give away half at my going away gathering and sell the rest for $5 each, that way I may just make back printing costs. I got off the #4 bus on Division and 35th and walking south to Powell I passed a house that had an upside-down mannequin embedded in the yard with her legs pointing straight up to heaven – photo above. Texted Melanie to say they were playing Grey Gardens free at Pix Patisserie – I happened to be walking very near her old house (still her house, but no one’s living there right now, weirdly).
Posted my list of things to sell and give away on Craigslist and within minutes had several people inquiring especially about the Super 8 camera, which I realize now I should’ve sold instead of given away, I just figured they’re so old people can’t really use them any more, but the kids who ended up picking it up (along with the desk and lamp) said they saw one go for $50 just the other day. Oh well, I got it free, I pass it on free and share the wealth. They seemed like nice kids who’ll put it to good use. It is so nice to get rid of stuff. Only the office chair left now, and then the “for sale” stuff, which of course is going to be harder to unload. Scott is taking my bike pump for $30. I left Fireside at 4pm to meet Kirk at the Berlin Inn for happy hour – we had the whole place to ourselves. Kirk pointed to this club called Blue Dragonfly that we could see from our window and asked if I’d ever been in there, and the waitress coming by told us about the one time she went there and had a really bad time, and they cut her off even though she wasn’t drunk, because she was dancing like a hippie – I guess it’s a reggae/dance hall/hiphop joint, but they don’t like hippies. I picked up a bottle of gluhwein from Edelweiss on the way out (I’m taking a little break from sobriety...but no more heavy drinking.) After Berlin we stopped by Biddy’s for a pint and Kirk took more of his glass-enhanced photos of me. At home I got stuff ready for the guys who were coming to pick it up, and now a lot of nice space is opening up in my room. Lucy, of course, is getting nervous.
I sketched my future plans for both Kirk and Scott: Maui for six months, then San Francisco, then maybe I’ll dip down into South America for awhile, polish up my Spanish, maybe visit the rain forest where Terence McKenna and his brother had the experiences detailed in True Hallucinations, then stop by New York for awhile, visit some people I know there, then across the pond to England, where I’ll investigate Bloomsbury and Hogarth House and other haunts of Virginia Woolf (ending of course at the River Ouse), then over to Spain where I will do the Camino de Santiago pilgrimmage and NOT die, then nip up to Germany for some of the world’s best beer straight from the source – find the Schwelmer brewery – luxuriate in the artistic decadence of Berlin for awhile – then to Italy, which everyone says “changes you,” by which point I will have shacked up with Ben Whishaw, and we’ll travel together, and finally when I’m pretty old and the artistic mission is fully accomplished, Ben and I will settle down in Africa – Botswana or Kenya, not sure exactly where yet – to observe and live among hippos in their natural habitat. Yeah. It’s all pretty much planned out.
