Letter

I see the poster when I order my coffee. It’s for their tenth anniversary block party. Bands, DJs, art vendors, and a bouncy house for the kids. I see John outside unloading tents and other materials. He looks harried. Says he’s never prepared for these parties. I ask whether there’s room for one more vendor.

I’ve been coming to Jackalope since I moved to Bridgeport in 2015. Its carnivalesque color scheme, collection of kitsch monsters and tiki decorations, and the friendly, talkative staff make it a coffeeshop like no other I know. It’s a little like spending time in Peewee’s Playhouse sometimes. It’s tough to feel maudlin and misunderstood looking at half of the Creature from the Black Lagoon’s scaled torso coming out of a brightly painted wall.

Saturday morning I roll my suitcase of books down the 31st, the folding table strapped to my back. I turn south on Halsted, the left into the cul-de-sac. The DJ booth is set up and a few vendors are putting out their wares. I ask Jan where she wants me and she says pick anywhere. I choose just right of the coffeeshop door so I can use their wifi. The block fills up quick. Soon there’s music pumping from the PA and I line out the door for coffee and sandwiches and pastries that remains till I pack up to leave at 6pm.

The young woman set up next to me sells prints of mushrooms. She tells me about spending a couple May to October seasons working at a hunting lodge for the ultra rich. Accessible only by sea plane, she says she felt like a prisoner. But she made enough money not to work the rest of the year. Now she’s given in and gotten a “real” job. Something in hospitals, monituring patients after spine operations. The mushroom pictures are a hobby that her boyfriend is encouraging her to turn into a career. He’s sick of her giving him art. Says she should be making money off it.

I joke she could recite my book spiel by heart after having to involuntarily endure it. 

This collects thirty years of sketching musicians and the memories connected to those drawings.

This is about my twelve years as a cabdriver.

This one’s bar stories. Set in two Chicago bars. Just barely fictional. Had to change names to protect the guilty.

I feel like a hack repeating these lines but what else is there to do. My job sitting behind this table is a literal sales job. I do a lot better than I expected. Especially considering I didn’t even know I’d be here three days ago.

The party’s scheduled to run till nine but I’m spent by six. I roll my suitcase back up Halsted just as Phat Kiss is about to start their set in full makeup and costume.

To run a coffeeshop ten years is a real accomplishment. It’s at least as much community-building as business. Judging by the happy crowds who kept coming all day, Jan and John are a complete success. A little before leaving I run into Jan in the back filling a bucket with ice. I ask whether this is the busiest block party they’ve ever had. She says she’ll have to check. She knows they gave away three-hundred-fifty hotdogs and people bitched  there weren’t more.

—Listen to my talk with Azita then, Wednesday, with painter James Jankowiak. Also: Mallory and I talk Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation.

—A play review and a movie review.

—Add this and that framed collage to the shop.

I wake up and I’m fifty-two years old. Is there any significance to this? The only things I can think of in connection to the number is the card prank and the 1986 Frankenheimer flick with Roy Scheider and Ann-Margaret. Neither resonates much.

When I bartended and someone tried to get a free drink for their birthday I’d tell them to bring their mother and I’d buy her one. Do any of us deserve special attention on the day we were born? We did nothing that day except not die. I used to not want to acknowledge the day at all. Now I’m more reflective about it. Probably because there are fewer to come than I’ve already had.

I don’t mean to be a grim or a downer. Just noticing the time pass. It’s as it should be. I don’t want to overstay my welcome.

Bienestar Pharmacy texted me happy birthday like they do every year even though I’ve never filled my prescriptions there. They just care, I guess.

Tonight I’m going to Tufano’s for some Italian food, then to the Bottle to see Earth and Iceage. I’m looking forward to it. What else can you ask for than to have something to look forward to?

When I worked at Bite Café twenty-two years ago the Empty Bottle was like a second living room. I had drinks there after every brunch shift I worked and wandered in any night I was interested in the band that was on. I remember staying for only ten minutes of a White Stripes set. Why was that guy trying to sing like Robert Plant? I didn’t get it. They were one of the biggest touring bands in America within a year. Nobody would ever hire me as a talent scout.

But I saw so many shows I loved there. Even before the Bite gig I’d go to the Bottle regularly. It was just down the street. I even wanted to work there for a time before I met the owner and knew it would never happen. Still, the place has been a mainstay of my life for twenty-five years. If you look through the sketches in Music to My Eyes a healthy chunk of them were done at the Bottle.

Last week I went there two nights in a row. Tuesday my friend Adam was the opener and put me on the list. I hung out with him at the merch table, then watched him do his talking songs to a half-listening crowd. The show was sold out but they weren’t here to see Adam. I’d tried listening to the headliner’s record a few times but it didn’t take. So I left before they came on.

Wednesday I stayed most of the night. I liked all three bands. Each mixed rock, jazz, cumbia, electronica, and lots of styles I don’t have names for.

It’s been years since I’ve known any of the bartenders or doorstaff but I’ve known the soundman over twenty years. I painted his portrait for some album art long ago. He kept waving hello every time he passed me on his circuit between the stage and the sound booth.

I’ve made my peace with being the old guy at the show. When I come to the Bottle the median age is usually decades less than my own but I don’t care. I’m only here for the music.

I turn fifty-two in a couple days and I’ll be marking it back at the Bottle.

—Listen to my talk with Max Samarov, then tune in Wednesday for another with Azita.

—I wrote about a busker’s memoir, recommended some books related to my new one, and made an annotated playlist for the same.

—Bad review; so-so review.