Gigantic.35

Three Memories

Warren Street 70s

The house I grew up in was built in 1906. It had been modified somewhat over time, but the essence of the original house remained. The 50s electric fridge was where the icebox had been. The coal furnace had been converted to oil but you could still open the loading door and see the flames inside.

Maybe we were the third family to live there. The previous woman had run her seamstress business out of the house. My bedroom had been the fitting room. The seamstress had installed an enormous, ornate mirror that had likely once been over a fireplace in a mansion, that’s how big it was. The frame was gilded and at the top was a woman’s face looking down over the room.

My first night sleeping in the room in 1972, the woman seemed to be watching me and freaked me out, but over time I got used to her, and the mirror became actually useful. Even before I got my first guitar, I would crank my alarm clock radio and stand in front of the giant mirror playing the tennis racket I bought at Caldor, pretending to be a rock star.

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Broadway 70s

My parents had both been into musicals long before they’d met in 1960. They saw a lot of Broadway shows together over the years, and on a couple occasions brought my sister and me.

I can’t remember if we stayed at my grandparents’ apartment in Queens and took the subway, or if we drove straight down from Kingston and parked the car somewhere in midtown. Either way, being out at night in Manhattan in the mid 70s felt both exciting and wonderfully risky.

On the night we went to see The Magic Show at the Cort Theatre, Doug Henning must’ve been sick, there was an understudy. I don’t actually remember the show in the slightest, but I clearly remember waiting in the alleyway afterwards.

As the understudy came out the side door, he seemed pleased if mystified that we wanted his autograph, even though he wasn’t Doug Henning.

He had a friend waiting for him on a motor scooter. After he handed me back my signed program, he hopped onto the back of the scooter, helmet-less. I watched as he disappeared magnificently into the vast and mysterious Manhattan night and thought to myself:

I want to do exactly that.

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Manhattan 95

That night we’d be opening up for Luna at the Westbeth Theater on the west side of Manhattan. That morning, I was at my Mom and Pat’s house in Kingston, getting ready for the show.

Mom and Pat had moved to Linderman Avenue in 1986. It was only a block away from Warren Street, but it was a much bigger house, kind of a dream house, really. They’d brought the giant Baroque mirror from my boyhood bedroom with them and had Mr. McCloskey anchor it to the wall at the top of the stairs.

My performance clothes weren’t much different than my street clothes, but I showered, shaved, slicked back my hair. Standing in front of the giant mirror to make sure I looked okay before heading out, I lost myself for a split second and imagined I was a rock star.

Then, I froze, smiled at myself. Holy shit. This was the same mirror. And I actually was a rock star.

The mirror was already full of ghosts. Maybe my boyhood self was still in there, preserved in elemental silver. I thought about this, my life telescoping between past and present in the backseat of a car heading down the Taconic, country gradually giving way to city.

We loaded into the Westbeth for what would be the first of many shows opening for Luna. It was a buzzy show, hipster New York came out in force.

A lot of my friends came. Afterwards we planned to go to a West Village bar to celebrate.

Leaving the theater, I smiled and said a brief hello to a few people who were waiting on the sidewalk hoping to meet the bands.

As my friends and I disappeared magnificently into the vast and mysterious Manhattan night I thought, holy shit. This happened too.

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