My Day, Micro Assessment

 

 

It will start poorly with a trip to the dentist for a new bridge.

 

It will end well presuming my dentist is competent, as I will be having dinner with writers James Wolcott and Lance Mannion.  

 

In between—hasty arrangements of the quotidian with a numb mouth. 

 

In situ, as we’re venerating the late Lou Reed, the following passage from Wolcott’s memoir “Lucking Out” (in which he describes seeing Reed for the first time at CBGB) is instructive:

 

“disgruntlement being the little parasol he carried wherever he went. The first time I saw Lou at CBGB’s he parked himself at a table in the back; at the table directly in front of him were a couple of rock chicks who were acting a trifle feisty. One of them, the more lubricated of the duo, began clapping along to whatever song was being played with the floppy enthusiasm of the temporarily uncoordinated. It was mildly annoying but also amusing, as so many things are in life, but Lou was not amused, his public amusement expressed mostly by a smile on a tight leash, easily mistaken for a sneer. “You’re clapping off the beat,” he told the girl, who paid him no never-mind, too far gone into the woolly interior to register a reprimand, even one from one of the founders of our country. “Clap on the beat, cunt,” Lou said, as she persisted in clapping as if trying to kill a fly in midair. Curiously, “cunt” didn’t come across as an offensive slur when Lou said it; it had the flat tone of an impersonal insult, just another nail he happened to be hammering. And CBGB’s wasn’t[…]”

 

Excerpt From: James Wolcott. “Lucking Out.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/XA4lz.l

 

 

Me? I tend to think of situations like this from a disability perspective. What if that woman wasn’t clueless or beat-less, but had MS or autism? 

 

I like Lou Reed. But I’m not confused about his generalized and shriveled super-ego. I feel the same about John Lennon. Smug, short tempered, puffed like a blow fish—the signs you’ve been behind a microphone too long…

 

Off now for cathected mouthy tortures…

 

Have a nice day, or don’t but please, choose your rock star carefully…