Matthew Gallaway

Thursday Jazz

After crossing the street today -- another perfect January day, cold but not too cold, with zero clouds -- I paused at the corner market, distracted by the sight of a wayward mango.
It look perfectly 'normal' from the outside, even happy, and I wondered if like many people this exterior masked a more troubled soul; after all, why would it want to flee from the rest of its people, all of whom lived happily in the bins out front?
Quickly fatigued by this somewhat reckless metaphor, I amused myself by watching the 'progress' on the condominium development across the street. Today someone had taken the time to carefully place the plastic construction barriers in alternating colors, which represents a big step forward!
This entertainment also proved rather fleeting, so I tried to enjoy the reflection of the sun against the buildings as I walked to the subway.
Waiting for the train, I succumbed to the melancholy induced by 'rom-com' ads with hundreds of thousands of perfectly teethed Hollywood celebrities, all showcasing a different 'emotion' through their incredible acting skills. (This could be a great movie: I'm admittedly 'judging a book by its cover.')
Walking to work, I admired an exhaust pipe on top of a building but for some reason neglected to photograph it, a decision I regretted when I spotted the above steam pipe. I was struck by the idea (and not for the first time) that there are cities built on top of cities in Manhattan, and I was walking past the exhaust from an underground building (possibly even a luxury condo, given that I was on 35th and 5th). I almost expected to see people emerging from the manholes.
I arrived at work, where time passed. Then it was time to leave and I took a picture of the setting sun, behind the Empire State Building.
As I walked back to the subway, I regretted that I didn't have $35-$75k to blow on a new bedroom set.
Above me the moon was rising white next to the matching Empire State. (Actually I took this pic yesterday, but forgot to post; the weather was really no different today, though.)
As I waited for the train, I enjoyed a jazz band, even though I'm generally not very knowledgeable or passionate about jazz. In this case, though, I was impressed that the band, in addition to sounding very polished and 'profesh,' featured a 'lady rhythm section' with two men (like the women, one white and one black) on guitar and trumpet, respectively. Three cheers, I thought without any irony or sarcasm, for ethnic and gender diversity! I might have stayed even longer, but a nearly empty D-train arrived and I got on board, found a seat and said goodnight.

Wednesday Leaves

On the train this morning, I was struck by the beauty of a passage in 'The Guermantes Way' -- which admittedly has some verrrry slow sections -- in which Proust describes the death of his grandmother. 'At the foot of the bed,' he writes, 'convulsed by every gasp of the dying woman, not weeping but at moments drowned in tears, my mother stood with the heedless devotion of leaves lashed by the rain and torn back by the wind.'
I wish I could say it inspired me to do great things today, but the truth is that I went to work, just like I almost always do; I like to think that the impact of art is not always immediate, but is rather a type of accretion on which we may one day stand to gain a better view of the world around us.
At lunch I went outside, where -- on my way to the gym -- I occupied myself trying to think of a clever way to tweet the idea that, except for the winter weather, it felt very much like a summer day. (I ultimately failed in this endeavor.)
Crossing Madison Avenue, I was almost run over by 50,000 taxi cabs.
On my way back from the gym, I admired a statue of an eagle, one of a pair that reside on Park Avenue.
Back at work, time passed. I took a break at one point to visit my tumblr, where I was somewhat dismayed to find that someone had posted a rather snide response to one of my 'lolcat pix.' Rather than 'rise above' and ignore it, I succumbed to the temptation to 'reblog,' adding an equally snide and infantile response. Any satisfaction I felt about making this gesture quickly evolved into a deeper sense of melancholy and regret; I probably would have just deleted the blog post, but alas, it was too late and others -- such is the internet! -- had already reblogged, adding their own comments (both snide and earnest). Going forward, I resolved not to let such things get the better of me, and instead to simply 'unfollow' those who appear not to appreciate my brand of tumblring/writing/insight/stupidity/etc/etc.
On the way out of work, I decided to take a 'Gratuitous Picture of Yourself Wednesday,' or GPOYW. I remembered how in the 1990s, jackets like this were harder to come by, and I had a few 'vintage' ones that I found on tour, and how my old bandmate Jennifer used to encourage me to wear 'monochromatic' outfits not too different than the one I had on today. Of course, what once may have seemed unusual now seems very 'run of the mill' (thanks to a decade or more of heavy khaki advertising by ___, ____, ____, and ___), so it was more the memory than the actual effect that brought me any pleasure.
What did bring me pleasure was a perfect commute home; I caught the D-train at 34th and managed to get a seat, on which I slept soundly between 59th and 125th, waking up just in time to catch the C-local to Washington Heights. At the house I was also pleased to see an arrangement of tulips that someone had placed in the living room.
Nor could I pretend to be anything but exhilarated by the arrival of a bulb catalog, filled with an array of dahlias, which Stephen and I have already decided is going to be one of our 'star plants' this year. With so many beautiful varieties, I could hardly imagine how we would be able to choose!
Outside, the bridge resembled a glowing necklace of pearls. In a few months, I thought, I would arrive home in time to see the sunset, this after stopping in at the garden to check on our new flowers, which with any luck will be reaching up for the sky.

Tuesday: Partly Cloudy with Light Hassles

The forecast for today was cloudy with a chance of hassles after the long weekend, which was a prediction that turned out to be fairly accurate.
I went to work, where time passed in the usual fashion, until I received an e-mail from one of our tenants complaining about 1) flickering lights and 2) no cold water in the washing machine, which is bad for colors? I felt fairly certain this this was one of the few instances in recorded history where a tenant has complained about a lack of cold water.
Nevertheless I went to the apartment, and as it turned out, the genius who installed the washing machine (to whom I paid close to $___ along with a pretty nice tip) had connected the hot and cold water lines to the wrong valves. But hey, at least I experienced the subsequent joy of diagnosis and an easy fix, which is so rare for most of life's problems. As for the flickering lights, though, that remains a mystery I will have to chalk up to a) ghosts, or b) ConEdison doing some work somewhere in the nabe. (Let's hope the house is not sucked into a 'hellmouth' in the near future, knock on wood.)
I got home not too much later than usual and said hello to Dante and Zephyr.
And then Elektra, who reminded me that I had work to do on my book (which is why these posts might be a little 'light' for the next ___ weeks.)

In the Weeds: Plants for Work!

My new 'In the Weeds' on The Awl is an interview with my plant-loving friend Jessica and her plants at work. We also did a photo shoot on Madison Avenue, which: fun!

Sunday Skates Away

Today, although the weather in fact remained 'milder' (as per Proust), it was raining and dismal, so that none of us had any desire to leave the apartment. Because tomorrow's a holiday, we didn't!
I also had plenty of editing work to do on my book, but rather than dive into that, I spent some time thinking about figure skating, mostly because Johnny Weir was slated to perform his long program today in his bid to make the U.S. National team for the winter Olympics. I remembered how much I used to love all the winter sports growing up, hockey most obviously but also figure skating, skiing and speed skating. I did a little research on Dorothy Hamill and learned that her famous haircut was the work of a Manhattan hairstylist named Suga who according to the New York Times died of 'cancer' in 1990 at the age of 47. (Of course, it's possible that Suga did actually die of cancer, but let's face it, all signs point to a different diagnosis.) It was both strange and not strange to think that only twenty years ago, people were so ashamed of having AIDS that they would rather be labeled with cancer.
More happily, I remembered how my mother 'rocked a Dorothy Hamill' wedge haircut well into the 1980s, as this picture from 1984 demonstrates. (I of course was rocking a hockey-player mullet, which was another sign of the times.)
Feeling sleepy, we all took naps this afternoon.
We woke up and drank lemonade and ate hard pretzels. Stephen and I played some Wii (so far we are loving ping-pong and 'sword fight' the best) which is actually a pretty good workout! I felt glad that tomorrow, though Monday, was a day off.

Down by the River

This morning the clouds were thick but intermittent over the bridge, so that it was difficult to tell whether the day would end up being clear or cloudy. (This message has been brought to you by the weather.)
With Dante's help, I immediately set about revising my novel.
I went for a walk in the afternoon.
On my way to the river, I passed one of the many staircases in Washington Heights that were destroyed as part of the highway construction, and now are walled off or lead nowhere, which is not to say they don't possess a certain beauty.
The naked trees offered glimpses of the bridge that would not be available during much of the year.
On the largely abandoned path, I said hello to a ruined lamppost.
I walked under the bridge and admired a glacier that had formed during the past month but was now melting. As I did this, I had the Bruce Springsteen song 'The River' going through my head, which was not the worst of all possible fates.
I remembered how my old band had even covered the song, with the hope to be included in an indie-rock compilation that was ultimately never released (probably for the best, I can now admit).
Still, I was not disappointed as I began to walk home to find the song replaced by Neil Young's 'Down by the River.'
The city hovered in the distance.
On Riverside Drive, the sun streamed through the trees.
Another day was reaching an end.

Birds of Friday

This morning I woke up to a sky that was lighter and more 'heavenly' than we've seen in the past few weeks.
As she does every morning, Elektra went to the window to watch the birds.
I was repulsed by the thick clouds of oily exhaust the spewed forth and drifted over the rooftops, but as with so many problems beyond my control, I've mostly resigned myself to living with this unfortunate (and illegal) condition; there are only so many times you can call the authorities before you learn that there's nothing they intend to do about it. I often hear people talk about life in the ghetto with a certain disdain, as if to say: 'why don't the people who live there do something to improve their situation?' Living in Washington Heights -- which to be fair is several steps removed from many other urban slums I have seen, but which nevertheless shares some characteristics with them in terms of poverty and neglect -- has taught me how the prospect of improvement can often be nothing more than a cruel charade and that -- if one is to maintain some semblance of sanity -- it's necessary to 'give up' on the fight for conditions such as clean air or water, or nighttime silence that others might tend to take for granted, having never experienced life without.
So we scrape by as best as we can under the circumstances, and with any luck achieve a certain nobility of character that prevents us from becoming blinded by bitterness and despair, even as we yearn for escape.
I photograph the same buildings almost every day because it serves to remind me about what is beautiful about where I live.
And also what is humorous.
After work, I photographed the subway tracks at 34th Street, where an open book could be seen among piles of soggy newsprint and other debris.
Back in Washington Heights, I went to the basement to pick up a package from the super. As I waited for him, I took a picture of the birds he keeps under a large florescent light, and wondered if they knew enough to be unhappy for having never seen the sun.

Thursday (4SB)

This morning I woke up and took a picture of the bridge, where three birds were flying away.
I walked to the subway and noted how warm the sun felt in comparison to the past few weeks.
At lunch I walked around the block a few times. The Empire State Building gleamed in the perfectly blue sky.
I admired what I felt certain was the longest spiral staircase in the world in the form of a fire escape.
I stared for a while at an empty lot and tried to imagine what was there before it was demolished, and what was there before that (and what will come next).
The city, it seems, is filled with passageways that lead nowhere and everywhere at once; it is a series of labyrinths stacked one on top of the other, all of them constantly mutating and changing. This is the part of the city that fascinates me most, the part that exists outside of any maps, the part that seems to arise from our imagination (or sometimes, our nightmares).
I passed a mannequin with an oddly small head. I wondered what life must look like through her eyes, and where she has lived (and where she will go).
I took a picture of myself in the fractured glass as the city flowed ambivalently past.
I ran into my friend J_____, who modeled her faux-raccoon coat, which she was wearing over a leopard-print dress. We agreed that a walk at lunch was sometimes the best part of the day, a means to clear your head from the pressure of the recent past and the impending future, which looms with untenable deadlines and promises.
After work, I met with my editor, who delivered her final edit of my novel to me. The book, she said, is scheduled to publish in September, and the wheels of production and marketing have already been set into motion. It felt strange to think that something about which I have dreamed for so long might be coming true, that words which have been swimming around in my head for years and in some cases decades are actually going to be available in the form of a book, that magical bundle of paper and ink that perhaps more than anything else has taken me to the places I admire most, which is to say removed me from the cruelty and tedium of so much of the present.
I arrived home to find an e-mail message from a friend, not someone I've ever met in 'real life,' but someone with whom I've shared a correspondence thanks to a mutual interest in writing; she told me that her house had burned to the ground while she and her husband were at work and that her three dogs had been killed in the fire. What could I say except to express my sorrow and incomprehension of the amount of pain life can deliver? I remembered the three birds I had seen this morning and for a second felt sure they represented the souls of those who are loved, en route to a better place.

The Saturnine Tour Diaries Project: 1995

November 10/Panama City: The  highway (231) to Panama City is littered with tourist stands and the carcasses of gas stations. Somehow, though, the land is not as scarred here, the pines seem more at home. We called Matt Moore from Panama City and got directions to his house. He lives in a neighborhood called The Cove, which is filled with a mix of old, freestanding wood houses and some newer, uglier ranch-style ones. When we arrived the odor from the paper mill was fairly strong everywhere. It's always kind of strange to see someone with whom you've only ever talked on the phone -- Matt Moore was heavyset, goatee, probably 26 years old -- for some reason I thought he was going to look more like Jimmy Buffett. He's actually the business editor for the paper (Panama City News Herald), but they let him write music reviews. Overall, he seems kind of lonely in Panama City. Every person we met who had even an ounce of urban attitude seemed to detest most of the people who live here. Matt Moore called it the Redneck Riviera. After we ate dinner (Jim was walking around with a palm-tree frond over his face to avoid the paper-mill smell), we watched X-files and then drove to the club. We got this show at the last minute when our show in Tallahassee fell through, and the guy who booked it told me we had to play for 3 hours. So I said, 'ok, whatever.' At first the guy told me to show up around 5 or 6, and then he told Matt Moore that the show was starting around 7:30pm. We got there around 9:20 and as it turned out didn't start playing until 10:45, which was fine, time-wise. The club was actually a Mexican restaurant called Mescalito's with a stage called the Velvet Underground. When we got there, there were a lot of big guys with really bad haircuts walking around. The soundman was English and he promptly lectured us about stage volume. I've learned to just smile and agree with any soundman and then do whatever the hell I want. Playing was a little tense at first, there were definitely a few hostile elements around. People clapped, though, and there were clearly a few who were into it. We played about 45 minutes and then took a break. I spent some time talking to a group of Marines who promised to come to Pensacola. They were strange -- so aggressive, even when they were being friendly. One of them was from West Virginia, and made me write down a contact at Snowshoe. During the first two songs of the second set, a couple of guys were standing in front of Jennifer and one of them shook her hand between songs. We sold about 3 discs, and incredibly got paid $100 from Shane's mother, who apparently liked us, because Shane never showed up.
November 11/Gainesville (Before): The skies were heavy and overcast when we got up this morning. Jennifer started obsessing about the weather when she turned on the TV and saw tornado warnings and it started to rain. Jim went to get the oil changed on the van, while Mike and I went running. We ran right along the bay, through the neighborhood of stately mansions and gnarled, twisted trees. By the time we got back, showered and left, it was 12:00 and we (mostly Jim and I) made the decision to drive to the beach, although it was in the opposite direction, and even though Jennifer and Mike were nervous about being late for soundcheck at 6:00pm. We ended up driving right along the shore through the touristy area because we cut over too early from the highway, but we got to see some fairly extensive hurricane damage -- collapsed houses, mountains of debris piled up and rotting along the side of the road. The water was very rough from the storm earlier in the day, and the grayness and destruction was fairly depressing. Fortunately Jim and I were both fairly determined to swim in the ocean, and we finally saw the sign for Seaside. We took the road to the end and ran into the public beach, which seemed to fare much better in the hurricane because most of the houses are set back from the dunes. The beaches were pure white sand and the water was rough. November 11/Gainesville (After): Arrived at 7:30 in Gainesville -- no one cared that we were late -- no soundcheck, we weren't playing until 11:30. Jennifer and Mike went and bought salads while Jim and I waited for our free pizza. The club, called The Covered Dish, was very nice and had a very respectable roster of bands playing. Unfortunately (we later found out), the entire campus had left for the weekend because of Veteran's Day (long weekend), so it wasn't as crowded as it should have been for a Saturday night. There were a bunch of college kids (around 10) who actually came to see us, or in one case (incredible!) read about us in INK. We knew they all were there to see us because they left after a few songs of Baby Fat. Baby Fat were nice, and they have a new drummer, but I wasn't too impressed by their playing. They are sort of girlish punk rock, but they can't really play well enough to pull it off. Tuscadero is leaps and bounds ahead of them. [(According to Baby Fat) Missy from Tuscadero was sitting around with some Elektra rep at a club like the Mercury Lounge when Jenny T___ walked by there was this awkward moment of silence until Missy turned to the Elektra rep and said: 'She's such a bitch! Let's get out of here!'] Baby Fat just signed a 6-record deal with some retired Sony executive named Walter who has started a little label, the name of which escapes me. I can't imagine why a band would sign such a deal with such a little label. We stayed with this guy named Brian who played in the first band. There was some confusion at the end of the night because Mike had talked to Brian who told him that he had 3 couches and a pull-out, and Jennifer had talked to the violin player, who also offered 3 couches and a pull-out, so we sort of assumed it was the same place. Actually, when we drove to his place, we asked him where in Gainesville his bandmates lived and he said: 'Well, kind of over there somewhere, actually no, well, I'm not really sure.' As Mike said, it's incredible how many people we play with who seem to be brain-damaged. Brian lived with his brother who had green hair and showed up with his friend at 3:00am to watch the end of Hellraiser. The apartment looked just like an old motel that someone had built and forgotten about in the swamps of Florida. Nov 13/Murfreesboro, TN: We found the club with no problem and met Bingham Barnes, who is an amazing guy. He set up the show for us with his band and another band from New York called Smack Dab. Once again, it was funny to meet Bingham after talking to him on the phone. After hearing his tape and Mike Watt bass lines, I figured he would be sort of jocky southern rocker like Polvo. Actually he was a short chubby guy with brown hair and sort of furrowed expression that makes him look vaguely concerned at all times. The people in Smack Dab were from a completely different planet, and Jennifer instantly fell in love with them. Linda, the singer, is a 30-something woman who was wearing stretch velour pants and a pink sparkle turtleneck with a strap/buckle that stretched across her chest. The drummer J.Z. looked like a perpetual 8th grader, short and pudgy, shaggy hair, and a sort of blank yet devious face. Jeff the bass player was a classic indie-rock nerd, thick glasses, snow hat, gas station jacket. After we played, Jeff was walking around taking pictures -- he took a picture of Bingham singing from about six inches from his face, then he took a picture of me and Mike, and then he took a picture of himself right in front of the stage where the band was playing, which was about the funniest thing I had seen in a week. November 14/Pensacola: Met the Wrens at Sluggoes in Pensacola. Jennifer knew the singer Kevin from the Jersey Shore, but we had never been able to see them. We ate dinner at this soul food place across the tracks -- it was called H and O and everyone in the place was black except for us. The food was hit and miss -- very salty and/or sweet, fairly processed -- the best things were the shrimp, mashed potatoes and -- best of all -- the complimentary corn bread. Pensacola was fairly dead which was not surprising for a Tuesday night, but a handful of scenesters came out for the show and the Wrens seemed to enjoy it. The Wrens are on Grass Records and they just finished their second record, which is coming out in January. Grass just got bought by some guy who is trying to transform it into a major-label type of operation I guess. Kevin was talking to me after and he was like: 'I got your record and I'll definitely end up giving it to ____ who runs the label and maybe he'll sign you." I said: "Great!" but I was thinking that I should take your record and maybe you can get signed to Dirt. Actually I don't see any benefit to being on Grass versus Dirt -- it's not like either label is a powerhouse, and we seem to have the same problems as the Wrens. They have been trying to get a booking agent for three years. They gave some convicted felon $800 up front after he told them he could book them a tour, and then he disappeared. Lucia also said she would book them for a tour and she ended up getting them like 4 or 5 terrible shows in two weeks. (They hate her.) We ended up staying with this guy who was another 20-something brain-damaged slacker living in a big cheap house with a bunch of other people. When we got to the house, there were these two guys hanging out and smoking in the living room, so we waited around and hung out for a while. Then the phone rang and it was this girl from the bar who wanted to come hang out, but fortunately one of the guys told her were were all going to bed so she didn't come over. Then one guy went home but the other guy stayed up talking to Jim, even though Jim was stretched out in his sleeping bag on the couch. Finally Jim said: 'Man, I'm really beat, got to get some sleep.' So the guy, whose name was Don, said: 'Yeah man, I know what you mean,' but then he was like: 'hey can I buy your record?' Mike went out to the van and got him one, so it was probably worth it. Finally Don went to bed and we turned out the lights. The only sound was the stereo booming upstairs and the film 'Dazed and Confused' coming out of some girl's bedroom on the first floor. Just as we were drifting off, the phone rang again and it was this girl calling for this guy upstairs. Apparently he was trying to break up with her and she kept calling, and he was screaming: 'Rhea, what are you doing to me? STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!!!' and then the phone would ring again. Then I looked up and there was another guy walking around in the living room, where we were sleeping, with a candle in his hands.

Tuesday Fades Away

This morning the sky was striated in pastels of pink, orange and blue.
I left for work and walked to the subway as parents took their children to school. This is one of my favorite times of the day in Washington Heights, before the drug dealers and 'corner huggers' have managed to get out of bed.
I took another shot because I feared the first might be too dark.
In the subway, I pondered the advertisement for a new play with little enthusiasm. Ever since I heard an interview with David Mamet on NPR, I've felt a vague desire to throw up every time I see his name, this an involuntary reaction to the excessive degree of 'macho bullshit' in which he likes to revel. I'm not saying these things shouldn't be explored, but it can be disturbing when you get the sense that a writer really takes this kind of ethos to heart, so that you have no choice but to conclude that, like so many of his characters, he too is a macho asshole.
Still, I felt I would prefer to watch David Mamet for 1000 days straight rather than suffer through the 'rom-com' advertised on the adjacent panel. Are there really any couples that look like this IRL and would you want to be friends with them? Hollywood says yes, apparently! (I should note that I know absolutely nothing about this movie besides the above-pictured poster and it's entirely possible that it's the greatest exploration of male/female relationships since Godard's 'Masculin/Feminin'?)
I arrived at work, where time passed until it was time to leave.
On the way to the subway, I decided to take a picture of the Empire State Building as I waited for the light to change at Fifth Avenue. After crossing the street, I noticed that one of my eyes was blurry and even rubbed it a few times before realizing that I had managed to knock out one of the lenses. 'Fuck,' I thought, certain that finding it on a crowded sidewalk at night was pretty much a lost cause. But then a woman about twenty yards behind me yelled out: 'Hey -- did you lose a lens?' and miraculously it had fallen on top of a heating grate where it precariously rested but had not fallen through. After thanking her profusely, I managed to retrieve the lens and resumed my walk to the subway. (I put my glasses away because wearing only one lens gave me an instant headache.)
But if my faith in humanity had been restored en route to the subway, it was quickly eroded in the subway car, where a person next to whom I was obligated to stand due to the rush-hour traffic felt the need to ingest a candy bar only inches from my face; worse, he chewed with his mouth open, so I had no choice but to inhale his smelly candy-bar breath on the entire journey from 59th Street to 125th Street, which is probably the longest stretch between stops on the entire MTA. Needless to say, this prevented me from focusing on Proust, which annoyed me all the more.
To calm myself, I tried to remember the beauty of the setting sun that I had enjoyed only minutes earlier.