How often do you see people walking around playing guitar? I mean… not while you’re walking around and they’re sitting down, but when they have a guitar strapped on and they’re walking down the sidewalk across the street from you while singing. I usually sing on my way back home from the office, and i draw odd looks most of the time (i don’t really endeavor to sing under my breath…), so today i was coming back from a rehearsal with Gina (for our show in the Quad on the 3rd) and i decided to play a few songs. I had gotten through “Punk” and into the outro of “Under My Skin” when i was flagged down and invited into my favourite pizza place by the chef, who asked me to play a few songs. I obliged by ripping into a bouncy version of “Under My Skin” in an attempt to hold the attention of the various patrons (which really was just two sisters with one’s child, the cook and his mother, and two young boys splitting a pizza) and at the end they clapped. I’ve been clapped at dutifully, or patronizingly, but instead they kept clapping after i smiled and thanked them and reset my capo for the next song and started.
Thirty minutes and four songs later i left the pizza place having promised to return with my new CD next week and having been invited to play at a restaurant downtown on Monday. I got several odd looks as i entered the more residential neighborhood while playing “Crashing,” but just as many people smiled and nodded as i passed them with a strum. I think i’ve found a new way to spend Saturday afternoons…
memories
Um, so, i’m in negotiations to play the Benefit for the Philadelphia Dyke March. Yes, the Benefit for the Philadelphia Dyke March – it’s honestly been referred to that several times during my discussion with its organizers. After some amount of intra-office discussion with my supervisor, we decided that in the office i’ll be referring to the event as the “Lesbian Fundraising Gala.” Maybe i can convince her to refer to it as the “Lesbo Ball” on casual Fridays?
In tangentally related office news, the ceiling above our administrative secretary partially collasped early this morning, and facilities has yet to do anything about it. It’s a drop ceiling (mostly because the old ceiling is too damned high to effectively light a room), and the hypothesis currently floating around the office is that one of the vertical supports gave way, cause the ceiling to sag downward where it’s no longer held up. Our secretary escaped to an empty office down the hall, but her fish has been relocated to the relative safety of my desk. He is a beta fish, and he does not look very happy, but that’s sort of the novelty of beta fishes anyhow.
Fridays here are odd.
And, finally, Tiffany (yes, Tiffany) will be playing a free Drexel show on Monday at noon between 32nd and 33rd streets under Market street. I’ll be there on my lunch break pretending that i’m reliving the 80’s as someone old enough to appreciate their irony rather than as a six year old who really enjoys watching She-Ra. Feel free to join me.
Do you remember when you were very little and didn’t know how things worked? I mean… forget for a second about the clichés like “Why is the sky blue” and “Where do babies come from” and think about something more practical instead. I remember that i used to think you paid for every single time you picked up the phone, and every number you dialed was tracked – just like cell phones are now. Once in second grade i had to call one of my friends four or five times because the number was busy, and later that day i sheepishly apologized to my mother, saying “I’m really sorry mom, but you’re gonna see Leahla’s number a bunch on the bill cause i had to keep dialing it, but i’m really sorry ‘cuz i had to call her.” Once my mom was done with her little chuckle she was happy to explain to me that i could call my classmates as much as i wanted to and not worry about the bill. Sometimes i remember funny little things like that, and i always get the notion i should write them down in case they never come back to me again.
Wow… that’s a week i won’t soon forget. New romantic interests, bitter ex-girlfriends, new Ani DiFranco albums, stress at work, and slowly but surely becoming famous.
The oddest thing happened to me wednesday night. There was a knock on my door, and i immediately was ready to scream “Jesus, Matt, how the hell did you manage to lose your keys?” but when i looked out the peephole i saw something that was definitely more girl-shaped than Matt (Josh chimes in: Dude, I’m more girl-shaped than Matt.) Sorry, anyway… I opened the door and there was a girl there. I asked timidly “Am i being loud?”, and in response i was handed a wine cooler, and the girl doing the handing said “I just wanted to tell you that i love listening to you through my ceiling and i wanted to give you something, so here.” I sorta just stood there dumbfounded for a second, opening and closing my mouth, and then said “Wow… um… thank you.” We chatted for a very strange minute or two during which i found out she lives directly beneath me, and then she left. I put the bottle down on my stereo and started working on my new song again, but the bottle was staring me down. It felt weird sitting there.
Bottle in hand i went downstairs and rapped on her door, and she opened it with a sorta bemused look on her face and i said “I don’t really take liquor from strangers, but i’ll come down and play you some songs this weekend and drink it then.” We wound up talking for an hour, during which time i learned that i’m “famous.” My next door neighbor apparently turns off his teevee at night to listen to me play, her entire family knows who i am from her commenting on me while on the phone, and her boyfriend was totally ecstatic to hear me bleeding down through the walls one day when he woke up. “I’m sorta like a teevee character, huh?” “Well, I didn’t want you to think i wanted to hook up with you or anything, but i just had to come up and give you something or say something. So, both”
We sat on her floor with her door wide open for a while and figured out that the weird italian looking guy in spandex from her dorm was actually Joey, and she even knows Selina from working in the language department, and i wound up promising to communicate through notes slipped under her door, and that i’d show up with my guitar over the weekend.
And to think i thought she was going to complain about me being loud.