At a Starbucks on Bleecker Street. The B key is gone but the connector/sensor whatever it’s called is intact. So I can type words with  But it’s a little off. Benn walking all day, well most of the day. About 8 miles according to the iffy GPS tracker. I intended to get subway video today to accompany a new audio/video project with my piano music and payphone sounds. I did get some video but not as much as I expected. Was thinking I had to fill 8+ minutes but I realized I could just extend what I have via slow-motion, which actually works for the content, so maybe I already have enough. The video sounds cool, so far. It’s audio of a noisy subway station recorded through a payphone and amplified some, accompanied by a dreary, kind of funereal piano improvisation. I’m starting to appreciate the value of the repeat. Actually it was never lost on me but the more I utilize that age-old technique the more obvious it becomes that you can get a lot of mileage out of a little bit of material. Seems like cheating but it’s a staple of virtually every genre o f music

.Talking to those interviewers Monday made me realize a lot of things. Among  them is the fact I have a lot of  thoughts, experiences, opinions, etc. that I have never articulated or never shared. We all do, of course.

 I just called in what I hope will be the most perfectly positioned payphone musician call in. It was near Christopher Street, where a jazz trumpeter was playing practically right in front of the phone.

My project of recording subway buskers in this way may have just taken a huge hit. All 7 of the payphones at Grand Central, in the area where the musicians perform, were not working on Wednesday. That could well indicate that PTS has given up on these phones, as they tend to be pretty good about maintaining their stable of payphones located in subway stations, theaters, concert venues, and elsewhere. 7 phones in the location was always too many, I’m hoping they will  at least save 1 or 2. 

I am actually pretty darn tired from this long walk. Astoria to Bleecker Street is not a record for me but on virtually no food and even less liquid I’m feeling kinda shot. I reflected on my memories of 61st Street in Manhattan, as I passed across that storied (to me) stretch of consummate wealth. White people, their cheeks ruddy with that glow of consummate wealth (liking that expression, will use it ad nauseum), walked their own dogs, A townhouse a few doors down from the one I used as a mailing address in the early 1990s is up for sale. I should buy it, but I’d rather wait for the one I chose all those years ago. I used it as an address when a radio interviewer in New Zealand asked if I wanted a cassette copy of the interview after it aired. I said yes, even though I had no interest in hearing it, so I used the street address of a house which combined a record-breaking time I had in a grade school track and field event with the opus number of a Chopin piece I played in high school. It was a piece no one else played and on that account it was always a special number to me. I later relented and contacted the interviewer, giving him my 181 address instead. The cassette was delivered but it remains in a closet, the envelope never even opened.

This is a nice Starbucks, though. Low-to-the-ground seats, solid wood tables, a lot of whiny college kids, and an older guy I honestly thought was David Crosby, from Crosby, Stills, & Nash. Definitely a resemblance but not the same guy. Aha, I realize now what was so nice about this Starbucks: no music. They just turned on the music. I generally find Starbucks music to be in good taste but I was not missing it just now.